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Virtual Server performance testing
by Mark Rogers 15 Apr '11

15 Apr '11

Can anyone recommend a simple tool for benchmarking a virtual server? Everyone quotes equivalent CPU figures (eg one one server I have the equivalent of 1x0.35GHz Xeon cores) but I'd like a tool that would give me a quick benchmark that I can run on several virtual servers to make comparisons between them. I don't really care if or how the results compare with "real" CPU's, I just want to know if server A is better or worse than server B, and ideally by how much ("twice as good", etc). I don't want to hammer the virtual server or run tests for hours or days. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 15 Apr '11

15 Apr '11

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back next week, Monday 18th April, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. I went along to one of the recent developer meet-ups over in The Dove and can report back on who I met and what it was like. Peter T will be on hand to make a humbling apology on why, as deputy, he failed to send out the email reminder last month, whilst I was in Cuba (probably because I forgot to remind him before I went). Plus I've been messing with C++ recently and am beginning to learn just how dangerous it really is. Hope to see some of there! Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Virtualbox RDP
by Mark Rogers 13 Apr '11

13 Apr '11

Does anyone here use RDP access to a VirtualBox host? I have a couple of VBox 4.0.x installs, one on a Windows host, one on an Ubuntu host. Both are configured to allow RDP access on port 5000. Neither actually allow it but I'm not getting any useful errors to tell me what might be wrong. Eg changing the RDP client (mstsc or rdesktop) to a different port without changing the server port (thus guaranteeing a failed connection) gives me the exact same symptoms as giving the correct port details. Googling all I find is lots of instructions on what to do (and it isn't hard to configure), with very few people seemingly having any problems once they've set it up, so I don't understand why I'm having problems on multiple machines. (I've tried a few times before without success too, and I've never once had it work, so I'm sure I'm the problem!) In the past I've just worked around it but I now need to set up a headless virtual machine so I'm going to be a bit stuck if I can't get it to work. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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ssh problem, why can't I public-key authenticate to one particular login?
by Chris G 12 Apr '11

12 Apr '11

I want to be able to become www-data on my desktop machine so I can edit HTML files etc. directly without problems. So I have tried to set up a passwordless ssh login to www-data but I can't get it to work. Doing identical things to another login works perfectly. Before using ssh-copy-id :- chris$ ssh -l zelma chris zelma@chris's password: zelma@chris:~$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$ ssh -l www-data chris www-data@chris's password: www-data@chris$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$ Use ssh-copy-id to set up both logins:- chris$ ssh-copy-id zelma@chris zelma@chris's password: Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'zelma@chris'", and check in: .ssh/authorized_keys to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting. chris$ ssh-copy-id www-data@chris www-data@chris's password: Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'www-data@chris'", and check in: .ssh/authorized_keys to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting. chris$ It works to 'zelma' but not to 'www-data' :- chris$ ssh 'zelma@chris' zelma@chris:~$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$ ssh 'www-data@chris' www-data@chris's password: www-data@chris$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$ So there's something different about www-data but what is it? There's nothing special in the sshd_config file and I've completely removed both zelma's and www-data's ~/.ssh directories before starting the above. Any ideas/suggestions anyone? -- Chris Green

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Blogging software that can be 'filtered' - any ideas?
by Chris G 12 Apr '11

12 Apr '11

I think I'm looking for some blog software (more to use for keeping tabs on my thoughts and as an aide memoire than for inviting comments) but I'd really like to be able to 'filter' the blog. I.e. I'd like to be able to tag entries in the blog with tags such as 'boat', 'motorbike', etc. and then have the ability to view the blog as a 'boat' blog or a 'motorbike' blog showing only the boat or motorbike tagged pages. One approach of course is simply to have separate blogs for each but it's also possible there will be overlapping tags and it would also be useful to see the whole blog at times. Any ideas if there's anything out there that can do this? If one could actually set the 'current tag' for a session that would be ideal. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thurday 14th April
by Viperfang 11 Apr '11

11 Apr '11

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 14th April at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on OFTC (irc.oftc.net) List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Cheap netbooks
by mick 05 Apr '11

05 Apr '11

Guys I know that some people on this list have expressed interest in cheap netbooks in the past. I have just noticed that Morgan computers are shipping refurbished HP Mini 110s (intel atom CPU, 1Gig ram, 250Gig hdd) for a very reasonable £175.00 inc VAT. OK, they have windows 7 installed, but that is fixable. (They also have the Acer netbook with windows 7 for £194.00 which they offer to "upgrade to Ubuntu 10.10" for ten quid!) Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Mini-itx case
by David Reynolds 04 Apr '11

04 Apr '11

Anyone have any interest in a Cubid 2699R mini-itx case? -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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Strange mount problem, now fixed but I don't understand why
by Chris G 01 Apr '11

01 Apr '11

I have a 750Mb external hard disk that I use for temporary backups, moving stuff from system to system, etc. I has both eSata and USB interfaces. Yesterday I tried to use it to copy some files off my linux based WD NAS. I couldn't mount it:- root@backup# mount -n -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /usbdisk mount: Mounting /dev/sdc1 on /usbdisk failed: Invalid argument (adding/removing the -n or -t options made no difference) Running fdisk on the drive showed the following:- Disk /dev/sdc: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 91201 732572001 83 Linux So I re-partitioned the disk with fdisk and recreated the file system with mke2fs. Now fdisk -l reports:- Disk /dev/sdc: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 91201 732572001 83 Linux Which is identical to what it reported before. However the disk now mounts successfully! root@backup# mount -n -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /usbdisk root@backup# So what's different? I guess it must be something to do with the file system created by mke2fs. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Using rsync --link-dest continued, comments welcome
by Phil Ashby 01 Apr '11

01 Apr '11

Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > Well here's my initial attempt at writing the incremental backup using > rsync's --link-dest :- > ...[weekly rotating backup script] I got this going on my file server (not a NAS - it's a Debian box) using the following script, which can be executed at any interval that seems appropriate*, and retains a specified quantity of previous backups rather than a time limited number. I find that so little changes between backups that I can keep 100 of them on the same size backup media as the main storage (1TB, ~60% full). This should work in ash almost as-is, but you may need to use dc for the maths (subtracting 1) instead of shell built-in capability: TGT=`echo $BKP 1 -pq|dc` Notes: - This keeps the backup device mounted read-only unless a backup is in progress, to avoid 'finger trouble' nuking important stuff. - Uses the noatime option when mounted rw, to improve performance. - Since this is a full file system backup, it excludes rather than includes folders. - It doesn't try to back up if there is <10G of free space on the backup device (empirical determination, typically I see 10-20G of change at worst per backup). - Error messages (and debug) to stderr as this is run by cron so will get emailed to root (me). - Any issues are collected and stored in the backup folder. Phil. * - currently every 4 hours during the day but not overnight since the machine may be busy using my free overnight bandwidth :) ----8<---- #! /bin/sh # Take a snapshot of the current filesystem (minus snapshot folder and caches) #DBG=--verbose BACKUP_DEV="UUID=go-look-in-dev-disk-by-uuid-xxxxxxxxxxxx" BACKUP_DIR=/var/backups/snapshot EXCLUDES="/dev /proc /sys /mnt /media /tmp /var/cache /var/lock \ /var/www/.get_iplayer $BACKUP_DIR" # Time/date records BKSTART=`date` # Only keep up to 100 snapshots MAX_BACKUP=100 # 10GB in k MIN_SPACE_K=10000000 docmd() { [ -n "$DBG" ] && echo debug: "$*" >&2 $* } NEED_REMOUNT= remount() { docmd mount -o remount,ro $BACKUP_DEV $BACKUP_DIR } barf() { echo "$*" >&2 [ -n "$NEED_REMOUNT" ] && remount exit 1 } # Mount the snapshot folder read-write docmd mount -o remount,rw,noatime $BACKUP_DEV $BACKUP_DIR [ $? -eq 0 ] || barf "unable to remount $BACKUP_DIR rw" NEED_REMOUNT=1 # Space check docmd cd $BACKUP_DIR AVAIL=`df -k . |tail -1 |(read d b u a t; echo $a)` [ $AVAIL -gt $MIN_SPACE_K ] || barf "out of backup device space" [ -n "$DBG" ] && echo "debug: available space: ${AVAIL}k" >&2 # Rotate existing backups [ -d backup.$MAX_BACKUP ] && docmd rm -rf backup.$MAX_BACKUP BKP=$MAX_BACKUP while [ $BKP -gt 0 ] do TGT=$(($BKP-1)) [ -d backup.$TGT ] && docmd mv backup.$TGT backup.$BKP BKP=$TGT done # rsync changes into fresh backup, hard-linking unchanged files for p in $EXCLUDES do echo $p >>/tmp/backup-excludes.$$ done docmd rsync $DBG -a --link-dest=$BACKUP_DIR/backup.1 --exclude-from=/tmp/backup-excludes.$$ / $BACKUP_DIR/backup.0 >/tmp/sync-log.$$ 2>&1 if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then echo "rsync into $BACKUP_DIR had some problems, see log" >&2 docmd mv /tmp/sync-log.$$ $BACKUP_DIR/backup.0/RSYNC.LOG fi docmd rm -f /tmp/backup-excludes.$$ /tmp/sync-log.$$ # Time/date records BKSTOP=`date` docmd echo "Backup started: $BKSTART, completed: $BKSTOP" >$BACKUP_DIR/backup.0/README.DATES # Remount read-only NEED_REMOUNT= remount [ $? -eq 0 ] || barf "unable to remount $BACKUP_DIR ro"

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date command error
by James Bensley 31 Mar '11

31 Mar '11

Can anyone explain this? [user@machine ~]$ date Tue Mar 29 16:48:38 BST 2011 [user@machine ~]$ date --date="1 month ago" Tue Mar 1 15:48:47 GMT 2011 Shouldn't that last one say the date one month ago, not 28 days ago? (I suppose one month needs to be quantified). Not sure how 'date' has worked that out but I'm guessing the change in time zone might perhaps be to blame? Can anyone shed some light on this? -- James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?

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Using rsync --link-dest continued, comments welcome
by Chris G 31 Mar '11

31 Mar '11

Well here's my initial attempt at writing the incremental backup using rsync's --link-dest :- #!/bin/ash # # # Backup script run daily # dirs="chris dps laptop" today=`date +%a` case $today in "Sun") yesterday="Sat";; "Mon") yesterday="Sun";; "Tue") yesterday="Mon";; "Wed") yesterday="Tue";; "Thu") yesterday="Wed";; "Fri") yesterday="Thu";; "Sat") yesterday="Fri";; esac for dir in $dirs do # # # remove last week's backup # rm -fr /ExtendVolume/$dir/$today # # # Run rsync to create a new backup for today # rsync -a --link-dest=/ExtendVolume/$dir/$yesterday /DataVolume/$dir/ /ExtendVolume/$dir/$today done It works to the extent that it's creating the backup for 'today' on /ExtendVolume, I'll have to wait until tomorrow before I can tell if it's doing the hard links right. I get a warning error today of course:- --link-dest arg does not exist: /ExtendVolume/chris/Wed but that's fine, it's actually quite encouraging! :-) If anyone can suggest a better way of working out 'yesterday' than that horrible case sequence I'd love to see it. While the case works it grates rather when I look at it! (It has to be in ash or sh, the NAS doesn't have bash or similar) -- Chris Green

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Anyone know anything about rsync --link-dest option usage?
by Chris G 31 Mar '11

31 Mar '11

I'm aiming to use rsync's --link-dest option to do some incremental backups but I'm not absolutely sure I've got its use correct. What I'm going to do is maintain incremental backups for the last seven days, so they'll be in directories named for the days of the week. The script will work out values for today and yesterday and then do (example for today):- rm -fr /backup/Wed rsync -a --link-dest=/backup/Tue fromSource /backup/Wed Will this do what's intended? I'm less interested in detailed syntax errors but want to be sure I will get 7 days of incremental backups. -- Chris Green

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snd-hda-intel won't load automatically
by Jenny Hopkins 30 Mar '11

30 Mar '11

Hullo all, I've got an ubuntu (maverick) computer that is refusing to load sound modules on start-up. lspci: 00:08.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP79 High Definition Audio (rev b1) Subsystem: PC Partner Limited Device 437b Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at fae78000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2 Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel The command 'sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel' loads the modules and all works, but this has to be run manually. The file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf: # autoloader aliases install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0 install sound-slot-1 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-1 install sound-slot-2 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-2 install sound-slot-3 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-3 install sound-slot-4 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-4 install sound-slot-5 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-5 install sound-slot-6 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-6 install sound-slot-7 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-7 # Cause optional modules to be loaded above generic modules install snd /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-ioctl32 ; /sbin/modpro be --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; } # # Workaround at bug #499695 (reverted in Ubuntu see LP #319505) install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-pcm-oss ; : ; } install snd-mixer /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-mixer $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-mixer-oss ; : ; } install snd-seq /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-seq $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; /sb in/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-oss ; : ; } # install snd-rawmidi /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-rawmidi $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-mi di ; : ; } # Cause optional modules to be loaded above sound card driver modules install snd-emu10k1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-emu10k1 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-emu10k 1-synth ; } install snd-via82xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-via82xx $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; } # Load saa7134-alsa instead of saa7134 (which gets dragged in by it anyway) install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist saa7134-alsa ; : ; } # Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0 options bt87x index=-2 options cx88_alsa index=-2 options saa7134-alsa index=-2 options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2 options snd-intel8x0m index=-2 options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2 options snd-usb-audio index=-2 options snd-usb-caiaq index=-2 options snd-usb-ua101 index=-2 options snd-usb-us122l index=-2 options snd-usb-usx2y index=-2 # Ubuntu #62691, enable MPU for snd-cmipci options snd-cmipci mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388 # Keep snd-pcsp from being loaded as first soundcard options snd-pcsp index=-2 # Keep snd-usb-audio from beeing loaded as first soundcard options snd-usb-audio index=-2 options snd-hda-intel enable=1 index=0 model=PC I added the last line after perusing the internet, but it doesn't help. Can anyone see what I can't? I'm not too hot on sound and modules and t'ing. Is this wrong: Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel ? Many thanks, Jenny

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Re: [ALUG] date command error
by James Bensley 29 Mar '11

29 Mar '11

Hmm, yes I see there are multiple ways to deal with it. This runs in a script, it runs with %Y-%m --date="1 month ago" but today it was of course returning "2011-03" so that is what sparked my question initially. I will change it and parse a day also as Ted mentioned, thanks all for your input, it is appreciated :) --James. (This email was sent from a mobile device)

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Archiving mail from an Exchange Server into something more "sensible"
by Mark Rogers 29 Mar '11

29 Mar '11

I have an "old" Exchange Server (2008), which I'm decommissioning. On it there are several mailboxes which I'd like archived so that I can access them as IMAP folders on another (Linux) machine in future if I need to. We no longer have an internal mail server of any variety to host the mailbox archive (we've moved to Google Apps) so I'll be settings something up specially (probably a virtual machine). The majority of the mailboxes are "general" ones like sales, accounts, etc, and a lot of the others are for people who no longer work for the business, so ideally I'll move the email into one new account with folders for sales/accounts/etc rather than create them as different accounts. Any suggestions as to the best way to do this? There will be several GB of email in total. My main concern is to retain as much information as possible, such as email headers and timestamps. I considered pulling all the email via POP3 into a mail client on my desktop but I'm not confident that I won't end up losing some of that information (timestamps being the main thing: I still want to see when the email "arrived", not have it look like the email arrived at the time I did the POP3 transfer). -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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ASDA online shopping -- website doesn't seem to like linux?
by James Freer 23 Mar '11

23 Mar '11

using Ubuntu 10.04 [also tried on my old machine on 8.04 and clean install on spare PC Xubuntu 10.04] Does anyone shop online with Asda. I've been using it for over a year now. End of Feb it started coming up with "our website is experiencing difficulties... please try again later". So i did... and got the same message every time i tried. I thought i'd made a breakthrough when instead of first 'booking a delivery slot', did the shopping (didn't get their message) and then after booking the slot back it came. I telephone and filled out their online form and apparently the website is working fine. It seems a] their website has been updated and doesn't like linux (which doesn't make sense using Firefox browser) b] Macintosh machines seem to get the same message It would appear they've done something on the website so linux users have problems. Does anyone else shop online with Asda by any chance... any problems? Any suggestions from a geek what could be wrong or what i could suggest in my next letter? thanks james

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Media playing software - do they all build their own indexes or what?
by Chris G 22 Mar '11

22 Mar '11

I'm just beginning to dip my toe(s) into moving recorded music and other such things (e.g. radio programmes) onto a computer or computers. One thing I'd prefer is to be able to keep all the files in a directory hierarchy of my own making rather than using a media player's own way of doing things. How does most media player type software handle this? If you point them at a hierarchy full of sound files do they build their own indexes from the shape of the hierarchy and the content (as in genre information etc.) of the files or what? Are there any (all?) that work like Digikam with images for instance where you can tell it to keep *all* of the information in the image files (as well as building its own index) so that if you move the hierarchy or want to access it with other software everything works still? -- Chris Green

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OT: Embedded development project anyone?
by Phil Ashby 22 Mar '11

22 Mar '11

Hi all, I've been offered a small development contract that I can't take up at the moment, and was wondering if anyone hereabouts would be interested. Details that I have at present: Porting C from AVR to Cortex M3 based SolderCore board (www.soldercore.com) Rowley Associates IDE available Please contact me directly if you are interested in more info and I'll put you in touch with the request originator. Phil.

1 0

Ubuntu Theme
by Simon Royal 21 Mar '11

21 Mar '11

Hi I use Ubuntu 10.10 and the default theme is an orange and black combo called 'Ambiance'. Every so often my EeePC boots to a different looking theme, a grey one that looks like a 9.10 theme. It doesnt do it every boot. I cant replicate it. If I go into Appearance then I can change it back. Any ideas? Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

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PLay CDs with shift of pitch?
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 21 Mar '11

21 Mar '11

Greetings! The nub of my query: is there a program which will play an audio CD, with an option which allows the pitch to be shifted? Background: Since quite a while ago (at least back to the 80s) you could buy "Music Minus One" records (on 33rpm vinyl then), along with an appropriate printed musical scores. The idea was that you could buy, say, a piano concerto "Minus One Piano", so it just played the orchestral part, and you would play along on your piano. Likewise say a piano quintett "Minus One Piano", or a string quartett "Minus One Cello". If you are playing a missing string (e.g. violin) part, you can of course easily tune your instrument to the pitch at which the record-player is playing. Not so easy if you are playing the piano part -- you don't want to re-tune your piano each time! However, in those days you could find record players with a knob which allowed you to change the speed of rotation of the turntable, so you could tune the playback pitch of the vinyl disk. It seems Music Minus One is still available, but now they're on CDs, not on vinyl disks. And, for personal reasons, what I want is the "Minus One Piano". While I have a few of the old ones on vinyl, the disks are no longer in great shape, and also I no longer have a speed-adjustable turntable. Therefore, on the basis of the above logic, I'm looking for a program which can play back a CD with adjustable shift of pitch (and that's a "proportional" shift, of course, so that say lowering it by 1/4 of a semitone means 1/4 of a semitone throughout the whole bass-treble range). Any suggestions appreciated! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Mar-11 Time: 17:49:19 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Kiddy Friendly Browser
by Simon Royal 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

Simon Just thought I would point out a serious flaw with the Firefox addon. It has to be manually activated by clicking on the K icon in the Firefox toolbar. There is no way of launching Firefox ready in kiddy mode, which I think kind of defeats the point. Simon ----- Original Message ----- From: Simon Elliott To: Anglian Linux User Group Subject: Re: [ALUG] Kiddy Friendly Browser On 13 March 2011 16:21, Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> wrote: > So at present they are running Windows XP on some good spec P4 Celeron > 2.5Ghz machines, but with all the anti-virus and anti-malware software > it makes the machines crawl. They are also using a kiddy safe browser > called KidZui which I think is a kiddy front end for IE You are mistaken.. Kidzui do a Firefox add-on. Problem solved? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/kidzui/ Looks like it runs full screen when you click the K on the toolbar, I wonder if there's a command line switch to launch Firefox with Kidzui enabled full screen automatically, pop that in the start up applications and you'd be away. -Si _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

1 0

Any suggestions for a simple way to print four passport photos on one sheet of 4 x 6 paper?
by Chris G 17 Mar '11

17 Mar '11

Has anyone got any ideas of how to print four copies of a single image on a 4" x 6" piece of paper? I guess one way would be to put them into an Open Office document to position them but it seems a bit overkill for such a simple thing. -- Chris Green

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Is there a way to provide a secondary/backup SMTP server for Evolution?
by Chris G 17 Mar '11

17 Mar '11

We have (at least) two SMTP servers available to us for sending mail, in fact we have way more than that as we have two ADSL connections from different ISPs (hence two SMTP servers from them) and we also have two hosting services separate from the ISPs and they too provide SMTP servers. Is there any way that we can use these to provide some redundancy when sending mail from Evolution? At present I can't see any really easy way to do it as Evolution doesn't really allow for the use of more than one SMTP unless you manually change accounts. I run postfix on one of the machines here, I could point Evolution at postfix for sending mail, can one tell postfix to try an alternative SMTP server if the main/default one is down? It feels like the MX records for the 'smarthost' that we send our mail to (both from Postfix and Evolution at the moment) should provide this but I'm not convinced that it does. E.g. the mail relay I'm using for my local postfix is relay.mail.gandi.net and that doesn't return any explicit MX records in response to a query. The mail relay used by evolution is provided by my hosting at TsoHost and is mail.isbd.net, that does have an MX record:- chris$ host mail.isbd.net mail.isbd.net is an alias for isbd.net. isbd.net has address 188.65.115.75 isbd.net mail is handled by 0 isbd.net. I can manipulate the zone file for isbd.net but I'm not sure if that will actually do what I need. Can anyone help/elucidate/point me somewhere useful? A bit of Googling suggests that maybe Postfix's fallback_relay is what I need but I'd like to find a tutorial/howto because the basic manual is a bit concise shall we say. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Ugliest sites on the net.
by Phil Ashby 17 Mar '11

17 Mar '11

On 16/03/11 12:00, Bill Hill <mail(a)wbh.org> wrote: > Following from the pubmeet talk about the worst websites out there, (frames, > flash, geocities, vbsript!) well, after a bit of searching I've found again my > contender for this hotly contested category. > > http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/indexpage.html Ye gods (literally!). Did anyone dare to click through to the main page? This appears in a large font: "Pressurous Moments Storybook Collection" It's almost as if someone is doing it on purpose ;) P

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