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Old machines
by Steve Engledow 26 May '10

26 May '10

Mornin' all, While I'm on a spate of posting things to the list, I have quite a lot of computer parts laying dormant in my spare room and should probably get rid of them. So does anybody need a load of spare parts (I can compile a list if anyone cares that much) or a low-spec PC? I think I've got enough parts to build 3 complete machines apart from cases (I've only got one of those spare). Cheers, Steve --- There are 11 kinds of people in this world, but you'll have to work it out for yourself.

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Re: [ALUG] OT Trinary WAS:Movie Editing
by James Bensley 26 May '10

26 May '10

On 26 May 2010 10:31, Steve Engledow <steve(a)offend.me.uk> wrote: > Sorry, forgot to hit list-reply. *facepalm* And again, double face palm! http://brotch.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/double-facepalm.jpg And no it shouldn't be that, it should be what ever I want it to be ;) -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ - There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand trinary, those who don't understand trinary and those who don't understand trinary.

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Movie Editing
by Wayne Stallwood 26 May '10

26 May '10

I just bought myself a SSD based video camera (Sanyo VPC-CG10EBK) This writes out video as H.264 / AVC with mpeg-4 AAC audio What are my best options for basic editing, adding filters, transitions, effects and re-encoding to different formats. Also is there any suitable way of doing framerate conversion to make this compatible with DVD players etc (it defaults to either 30 or 60fps depending on resolution) Previously I have used kino to reasonable effect with raw DV and it seems to fail to import the audio and then plays back at about 20x speed. Are there other solutions people out there have used for this type of file ? Aviddemux-gtk seems to work but feels clunky and limited in operation compared to kino.

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Pan
by Anthony Anson 25 May '10

25 May '10

On recommendation (ALUG Passim), went looking for Pan and found quite a lot of sites. It seems that it's written for Gnome, which is fine on the Acer as I use Gnome on that, but this Eee is under the thrall of KDE. Any reason why Pan can't be accessed from that? TAAAW, it's listed as a newsreader. Does it do mail a) at all? b) well? Any outstandingly important reason why it is recommended that I should correct any errors on 'my PC' before downloading? Oh, and a totally wild and OT shot in the dark - anyone on the list interested in target shooting? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Bashed...
by Anthony Anson 24 May '10

24 May '10

Tired of three-stage shutdown in Tellytubbies Eee, I opened a terminal and tried: shutdown -h now Ripost was: Bash: shutdown: command not found (Original command taken from The One Page Linux Manual) To save me lots of GPRS-wasted time, does anyone know what the magic words are, pretty please? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Thunderbird colours in Ubuntu 10.04
by Mark Rogers 24 May '10

24 May '10

I've just upgraded to U10.04 using the default (I think) Radiance theme. I'm slowly getting used to the new min/max/close icon positions. However, in ThunderBird, the folder listing used to show folders in three different styles: bold black for folders with unread email in them, bold blue for folders with *new* unread email in them, and black (not bold) otherwise. Now, in U10.04, the folders with new unread email are still bold but now in a light grey colour, making them far less prominent than the other two folder states despite being the most important. (a) Is this just me? It could be something I've tweaked in the past and need to un-tweak (b) Any idea how to change this? -- 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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Virtual Box Query
by Mark Jonathan Myatt 23 May '10

23 May '10

Hello all - I have been running Fedora Core 12 for the last few months having previously been using Core 11. I am now wishing to have the use of a virtual box to run an existing MS Family Tree package on Windows 2000 professional. I have been unable to find a comparable Linux product. Whilst I have been using Linux for a number of years now I remain uncomfortable using Bash although I have some successes. So for the purposes of this enquiry please treat me as a 'terminal' user. I have been unable to complete the loading of the virtual product provided by Oracle: "Oracle VM Virtual Box 3.2.0.r61806". Although the software has been loaded correctly as well as Windows 2000 when trying to start it the following error message appears: "Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908) The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing '/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup' as root. Users of Ubuntu, Fedora or Mandriva should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary." I confirm DKMS and GCC have already been installed. When I do as instructed above the following error message appears: "[Mark@Mark ~]$ su Password: [root@Mark Mark]# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup Stopping VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ] Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module [FAILED] (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong) [root@Mark Mark]# " When I look at /var/log/vbox-install.log I get the following response: "[root@Mark Mark]# /var/log/vbox-install.log bash: /var/log/vbox-install.log: Permission denied [root@Mark Mark]# " The when I look at Var/log etc to see what can be done the following message appears: "Attempting to install using DKMS removing old DKMS module vboxdrv version 3.2.0 ------------------------------ Deleting module version: 3.2.0 completely from the DKMS tree. ------------------------------ Done. Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/vboxdrv/3.2.0/source -> /usr/src/vboxdrv-3.2.0 DKMS: add Completed. Error! Your kernel source for kernel 2.6.32.12-115.fc12.i686.PAE cannot be found at /lib/modules/2.6.32.12-115.fc12.i686.PAE/build or /lib/modules/2.6.32.12-115.fc12.i686.PAE/source. You can use the --kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it's located. Failed to install using DKMS, attempting to install without Makefile:159: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR=<directory> and run Make again. Stop." It is at this point I am now lost ! I don't fully understand the question. Any help on this will be gratefully received. One other query while I am writing; as follows: I have been trying to regularise the setup of my two HP printers. When using bash using the command hp-setup I get the following error messages:- "HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.10.2) Printer/Fax Setup Utility ver. 9.0 Copyright (c) 2001-9 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details. QGtkStyle was unable to detect the current GTK+ theme. Qt: Session management error: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported (process:8072): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_style_get: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed (process:8072): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_style_get: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed (process:8072): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_style_get: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed (process:8072): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_style_get: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed". Help towards sorting this out will be much appreciated Mark Myatt (Saxmundham)

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Random Lock-ups of my Ubuntu Box?
by James Bensley 22 May '10

22 May '10

Hey List, I have an Ubuntu 9.10 box on which I recently created a software RAID6; you can see what it looks like in rather good detail if I may say so my self ;) here: http://i48.tinypic.com/30jrbdl.jpg After this set up was all done I shut the machine down for the night. Now when I boot the machine up to start using the array it wants to run the file system check utility, fsck I believe (like it normally does, every N days or N mounts, "which ever comes first"). This is fine, I assume it wants to do this because its a new volume and I like to know everything is working fine so I would always let this run on any of my machines but on this machine, it gets to the desk top, I can see the process is running via top or the process monitor, but within 1 minute of being on the desk top the machine will locks up and is unrecoverable so I am forced to turn it off? This happens every time, so ever since a week ago when I first made this RAID array, I haven't actually used the damn thing yet! I can't understand why this would be; I thought it may have been the power supply as it is only 250 watts but I have the machine connected to a watt meter and I added the drives one at a time watching the watts increase, we are only at 140 Watts? I had thought that maybe it was to many devices on one single power cable coming out of the power supply as I have had to use splitters on the power cables so I swapped the power supply out temporarily for one in another machine that is rated for 500 watts and had more power cables coming out of it but no...I also stood another machine next to it, turn them on at the same time and used the 2nd machines power connectors to power some of the drives so the power was shared between the two PSUs, but no it still locked up Next I thought it was the south bridge being over run but surely it wouldn't of been able to sit there for 20 hours building the RAID and formatting it? Is it possible that the building of the RAID wasn't very intense and now its all set up, when it tries to boot to the desktop and run fsck this is now making the drives work hard and so that only now the systems weakness is showing? (I did try increasing the south bridge voltage but the options in the CMOS are very limited and so I think there was a difference, it stayed on the desktop for 2 minutes before locking up instead of 1, but I can't remember, this would need validating). I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on how I can get this working again? P.s. sorry for the length! -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ - There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand trinary, those who don't understand trinary and those who don't understand trinary.

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time for an upgrade
by nev young 22 May '10

22 May '10

Hi, So I've been running kubuntu 8.04 (i386) for a couple of years now on my main PC and I'm seriously thinking of loading up ubuntu 10.04. Mainly because both laptops run ubuntu (one 10.04 and one 9.10) and the differences between gnome and kde keep catching us (me & the missus) out. I'm thinking of using the 64 bit version of 10.04 to get more out of the machine[1] but can not decide whether to load ubuntu server and load the destop bits or load ubuntu desktop and load the web and file server bits. Any advice or suggestions over and above my current plan of split the root partition[2] into 3 and have a triple boot to try each in turn. -- Nev [1] AMD AthlonX2 64bit dual core @ 2.2GHz [2] 135GB free, 9% used.

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Re: [ALUG] ALUG meeting lift?
by Anthony Anson 20 May '10

20 May '10

Srdjan Todorovic wrote: > On 20 May 2010 17:03, Anthony Anson <tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk> wrote: >> Srdjan Todorovic wrote: >>> Have you managed to find someone that can give you a lift? >> Unfortunately, no. >> >> It's a bit late now, as my bus to Norwich leaves at around 9.50 am. >> >> It'll have to be next time now. >> >> (Besides, I spent a bit more than I ought to have done on homebrew kit and >> ingredients yesterday...) > > Ah. It's just that I will probably be leaving for Norwich soonish > (maybe - possibly having food in a different pub with some other ALUG > people before main pubmeet), and I am based in Wymondham. Next month might be a better bet, I think, if the offer is still open, and if I haven't got the motorcycle on the road by then. (Have to renew my licence too, as I've reached a 'landmark' bidet.) > I usually leave the pub at about 10:45 pm ish... so might have been > able to give you a lift back. Only problem is I have no idea where you > live... The Wymondham end of Bunwell... > If some fuel money was on the table (a fiver?) then I could perhaps > give you a lift if you are not going to stay past sort of 10:50pm ish. > > Otherwise, not sure anyone else is going past your area.... Looking in my wallet, there's a big hole there with about fifteen quid unspoken for, cowering in the corner. This has to last me until Monday. OK, if in Norwich I could raid the hole in the wall, but it is getting a little late in the day for tidying everything away into the workshop, cleaning-up and finding a presentable change of clobber. Been power-sawing logs... -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Mystery!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 20 May '10

20 May '10

Sorry to be completely off-topic, but there's quite a few of you who are savvy in rare areas; plus, you're local! Scenario: At times during the last few days I've seen a low-slung white car/van driving around. It has "Anglian WILLHIRE" on the sides. On the roof is mounted a blackish flat plate, about 15in x 9in in size and angled so that it is elevated about 45deg above the horizontal and facing forward. Perpendicular to this plate (therefore pointing upwards at about 45deg to the vertical) is an array of rods, which seem to be about 3in long and about 1/2in (or a bit smaller) in diameter. I couldn't count exactly, but I'd say it looks like a 4x6 array. (All quantities in this description are approximate!) I first saw this vehicle driving over the farmer's field opposite my house last week, some yards in from the edge and driving parallel to the edge. It was actually driving on the earth of the field, not on any track. I've subsequently seen it 3 times, driving along the road (a) between my house and the fields, (b) coming back over the bridge to the NorthEast over the Little Ouse river. See at postcode CB7 4TG on google maps for topographical reference (The "A" pointer you will get is close to the point from which I first observed it). Clearly this is monitoring something, but I cannot imagine what. What would the little rods on the plate be for? Any ideas? With thanks, and apologies once again for going OT! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 19-May-10 Time: 11:09:34 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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[ALUG Announce] Norwich Meeting Thursday 20th May @ Coachmakers, Thorpe Road.
by Steve Pearce 19 May '10

19 May '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Due to last week's football madness, the second Thursday monthly meeting for Norwich was cancelled. Several regulars have confirmed they will be getting together this Thursday to make up for it. The meeting will be held at the usual venue from 8pm: The Coach and Horses 82 Thorpe Road Norwich Norfolk NR1 1BA Website: http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ Hope to see you there! Steve ----- 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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MP3 Plays Only In Command Line
by Simon Royal 18 May '10

18 May '10

Hi I am still battling with sound on my ThinkPad 600 running Xubuntu. I have managed to get some sound and even play MP3 via command line - mpg123 and mplayer. But I cannot get any program to play it. It either doesnt play at all or plays so crackly you cant even hear the music. Is this a hardware limitation or am I doing something wrong? Please help, I am a fairly new Linux user. When using mplayer via command line I noticed that it said 'pulse' is this the audio output engine/settings it is using as under Mixer there is also a mention of Pulse under one of the Output options - along sine OSS and Alsa. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 600 running Xubuntu 10.04 & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/197222280/direct/01/ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now

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Re: [ALUG] C beginner question
by Phil Ashby 17 May '10

17 May '10

On 16/05/10 02:04, Ian wrote: > > Incidentally, this is such a common requirement ISTR there are some > library functions that do these tests for you but I cannot for the > life of me remember where they are! getopt is the 'normal' way of parsing command line options in C, although I rarely use it for less than 4 options (too much pain just to avoid a few extra lines, and not posix): http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_1.2.0/gLSB/libutil-getopt-3.html I typically write: #include <string.h> // For strncmp() etc. ... main (int argc, char **argv) { int arg; char *str_arg = "default"; ... for (arg=1; argc; arg++) { if (strncmp(argv[arg], "-h", 2)==0) { // They need help :) return usage(); } else if (strncmp(argv[arg], "-o", 2)==0) { str_arg = argv[++arg]; } else if (strncmp(argv[arg], "-x", 2)==0) { ... } else { return usage(); } } ... } Using strncmp() instead of strcmp() means this supporta shorter options identified by their unique prefix parts (eg: -o[ption] -x[tend] etc.) HTH, Phil.

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 17 May '10

17 May '10

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 tonight, Monday 17th May, 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. 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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C beginner question
by James Bensley 16 May '10

16 May '10

Hey List, I have what is hopefully a beginners C question which will be easily answered (this following little app is for converting watts, amps and volts); I have the following code: http://pastebin.com/m30x4G17 The problem I have is although the code works, it is because I have used the strncmp function to compare the first pasted argument and a string value such as "-watts", "-volts" or "-amps" because without it I was getting errors about comparing integers and pointers but I am confused as to why C thinks this. Using if(argv[1]=="-watts") produces no errors but the if statements are never hit, as in the if statement is never met and the code is never run. How should I be coding this to make these comparisons? -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/

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Web Dev Job
by Sam Tuke 14 May '10

14 May '10

I'm moving to Berlin in July to work for the Free Software Foundation Europe. As a result, my primary client is looking for a new developer to telecommute and work on their website www.donttravelempty.com . Those interested please email me directly at sam(a)donttravelempty.com. The site uses lots of FOSS (see http://www.donttravelempty.co.uk/about-site.php ), and you'll need good PHP, MySQL and communication skills. Number and spread of hours + pay are negotiable. Sam.

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Pub Meet Suggestion
by Steve Engledow 13 May '10

13 May '10

Hi all, Following the recent heads-up about the impending football mob, I'm suggesting we move to the Cider Shed on Sprowston Road. It's too far out of the city to be mobbed, there's good beer and cider (Fat Cat beers!) and there's a car park. So, any takers? Steve

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Norwich Pub meet heads up
by Montmorency 13 May '10

13 May '10

Just letting everybody know... there's some kind of football parade going on in the city this evening, on account of Norwich City winning something or other. I heard a crowd of 30,000 is expected. I imagine parking around the Coach and Horses is going to be non-existent. Furthermore, the C&H is a bit of a football pub, on home-game days. So I imagine it'll be packed out - standing room only. Sixteen stone men with beer guts, wearing replica football shirts intended for 12 stone profession athletes, are definitely not a pretty sight. So I'm going to skip it this evening. katsmeat

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Xubuntu, Sound, mplayer. Help!
by Simon Royal 13 May '10

13 May '10

Hi I am still trying to fathom out MP3 playback on my ThinkPad 600. Sorry if I seem to ignore peoples suggestions, but I'm not. I must have just missed the reply. Anyway. I trying installing mplayer from Synaptic, and it appears to me to be Movie Player, which is already installed in Xubuntu. Correct me if I am wrong. Now I am back to getting no sound at all. I still get the crackling of the speakers on boot - like it is initialising them. However, it will not play any type of audio file. I have tried MP3, MID and WAV in both Movie Player and Exaile and no sound at all. I tried playing with Aumix and it looks like it is set ok, I also raised all the levels in Mixer for all instances. I also tried playing an audio CD, to no avail. You see the timers going but no sound comes out. Any help please? Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 600 running Xubuntu 10.04 & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/197222280/direct/01/ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now

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Re: [ALUG] Xubuntu ThinkPad Audio Oddness
by Simon Royal 12 May '10

12 May '10

Marcus Before I was getting no audio, now it is just MP3s. i want to know if it can be fixed or if it is an outdated hardware problem. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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Xubuntu ThinkPad Audio Oddness
by Simon Royal 11 May '10

11 May '10

Hi. For the past few weeks I have been trying to get audio working on my ThinkPad 600 under Xubuntu 9.10 and now 10.04. I followed some instructions I found online for manually editing modprobes etc... and I still couldnt get MP3 to work and assumed it was all audio not working. However, a few days ago I got a 'blip' sound while FaceBook chatting and today I played a YouTube video and it played the sound, however I cannot get an MP3 to play. Is it my machine is too old? All I get is crackling. I have tried Amarok, Exaile and Movie Player. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 600 running Xubuntu 10.04 & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Copy Evolution contacts, appointments, etc. - how?
by Chris G 10 May '10

10 May '10

I want to copy Evolution contacts, calendars, tasks and memos from one user to another and can find no remotely sensible way of doing it. I tried copying the whole .evolution hierarchy but that seemed to do nothing at all - I suspect possibly because of Evolution background processes hanging on to things. Copying addressbook.db apparently doesn't work according to what I can surmise from a bit of googling. Is there really no way to do this? -- Chris Green

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1/6/10, Cornhill, Ipswich: dorkbot anglia
by samwise 10 May '10

10 May '10

Hi, For anyone interested in cool things to do with techy stuff, dorkbot is coming to East Anglia. It's first announced date is at the Cornhill in Ipswich. Press release cut and pasted below. Go to the main website to see it with links etc. Peter. http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotanglia/ dorkbot anglia Thursday 1st July 2010, 8-10pm, Free Entry Town Hall Galleries, Cornhill, Ipswich, UK. IP1 1DH We are delighted to announce the inaugural meeting of dorkbot anglia, an evening of talks and conversations with "people doing strange things with electricity" in the East Anglian area. The event is part of the ip-art festival and kindly hosted by the Town Hall Galleries. David Chatting, cofounder of the Curiosity Collective, introduces: * Pixelh8 / Matthew C. Applegate makes music from reprogramming old and rare computers. http://pixelh8.co.uk/ * Tim Hunkin, engineer, cartoonist and maker of TV’s The Secret Life of Machines describes his humorous slot machines, automata and simulator rides on Southwold Pier. http://timhunkin.com * John Bowers, musician, sound artist, hardware hacker and academic discusses some of his most recent work. http://onoma.co.uk/ * Plus, "OpenDork" a short ad-hoc slot for anyone to talk about their work - the floor is yours! dorkbot encourages grassroots meetings of artists, engineers, designers, scientists, inventors and anyone else working under the very broad umbrella of electronic art. Started by Douglas Repetto at Columbia University in 2000, dorkbot is now global in almost 100 cities; dorkbot anglia is the newest. Our intention is for dorkbot anglia to run every two or three months in a different town in the region. If you would like to participate or could offer a venue, please get in touch - Please join the mailing-lists: the announce list for our monthly announcements and a blabber list for open discussion. Follow our tweets via twitter and find the event on facebook.

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Re: [ALUG] ssh assistance please
by mick 09 May '10

09 May '10

On Sun, 9 May 2010 15:29:18 +0100 "Martin A. Brooks" <martin(a)hinterlands.org> allegedly wrote: > You might have better luck using a regular VPN such as OpenVPN. > Here's a HOWTO: > > http://hinterlands.org/wiki/index.php/OpenVPNQuickstart > Martin/Brett Thanks - but unless I'm missing something obvious, the VPN solution won't work easily in my scenario. Bear in mind that I want 90% (or so) of my web browsing to go out normally (unproxied). I only want my tor traffic (from separately configured browsers on various clients) to go via the proxy to the external VPS. And I want a simple configuration which means I point to a local proxy. If I set up a VPN from my local proxy (say 192.168.1.20) to my VPS (say 195.195.195.195) that will give me a route to the VPS which is independent of the normal default route to the outside. That would mean that I would need to reconfigure my clients to add a new static route to the VPS via the tunnel on the local proxy. That adds a complication I don't want. Of course, if I could set up a VPN from my external router that would make it slightly easier, but I'm pretty sure my cisco wont run openvpn. So autossh looks like the way to go (thanks Brett). But I'd still like to know why the tunnel dies. 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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