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concatenate two jpeg images
by Ian Thompson-Bell 07 May '10

07 May '10

I have two jpeg images that I can arrange to have the same height. I want to combine then into a single image of the two, side by side. I cannot seem to find a way to do this in GIMP. Any ideas? Cheers Ian

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Thunderbird 3 Smart Folders
by Wayne Stallwood 06 May '10

06 May '10

Ok after an initial "ugh" when Thunderbird got updated to version 3 as part of my upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04 I have sort of adjusted and it *is* better. But one thing that I can't get is adding smart folders properly...has anyone done this and how ? At the top of the folder tree I have an "Inbox" smart folder which is a combination of my local (pop collected) inbox and an imap work one I want to add another smart folder that only shows unread items in the same way just under this. I can change the filter on the existing "Inbox" smart folder so that messages are only shown if status-isn't-read and that works fine (although annoyingly it only updates if you leave it and navigate back) but what I can't seem to do is add an additional folder that behaves like this. I worked out that the easy way to add new smart folders is to perform a search and then in the search options click "save search as virtual folder" but this only allows me to add the virtual folder as a subfolder to one of my existing accounts...not put it at the top with the other smart folders.

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Keyboard is king?
by Anthony Anson 06 May '10

06 May '10

Can anyone suggest why, occasionally, I turn on the Eee (t's still running Tellytubbies Xandros) and no keyboard function works. Right arrow, left arrow, tab, nuffin. Order is restored when the mouse is tweaked. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Re: [ALUG] Any raid experts among us?
by Adam Reid 06 May '10

06 May '10

Righty... the situation's changed a bit now, as Brett outlined. Raid is now repaired, but won't start on boot, for reasons not known. Syncing doesn't cause lockups, or that's not proven, but something does cause a USB devices to stop responding, eg keyboard & mouse. this happened on the live cd as well, although the PC was working normally otherwise. Basically, as it stands now, I have a working raid, in the live cd mdadm --assemble --scan /dev/md0 works perfectly, but something has changed that stops it being loaded at boot time; the kernel gives up waiting for the root device to be ready & drops me at busybox. I could make a backup of the array and reinstall the whole system, but I'd prefer to solve the problem if possible. I'm making a full backup tomorrow anyway, whatever happens.

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Any raid experts among us?
by Adam Reid 05 May '10

05 May '10

Allo all, I've run into a spot of bother (understatement of the year) while upgrading Ubuntu to 10.4. More specifically, after upgrading, the device names of my drives seem to have shuffled around a bit, and raid5 (softraid) broke. I'm unable to rebuild the array, as it seems to value the old device names more highly than the uuid's, and errors out. Pastebin of the current drive situation is at http://www.pastebin.com/2AT9fQYF . The drives used to be sda, sdb and sdc, but somehow the dvd drive took over sdb post-upgrade. You can see my attempts to sort the situation here, and the results: http://www.pastebin.com/t8wPxZHu . I can get to busybox on the PC, and am using a liveCD to try to repair it. I'm wondering whether shuffling the cables around to realign the drive letters is a sane idea ... or whether that'll make the problem worse. Any insight much appreciated.

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Geekbench In Xubuntu
by Simon Royal 03 May '10

03 May '10

Hi I am interested in getting Geekbench in Xubuntu. I have downloaded the file from the website, unpacked it and went to Execute it, but it doesn't do anything. I'm dual booting XP and Xubuntu on my ThinkPad 600 and have benched XP and would like to see if there is an diference under Xubuntu. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ 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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Xubuntu Sound Problems Continue
by Simon Royal 02 May '10

02 May '10

Hi I still havent gotten any further with geting sound to work on my ThinkPad 600 under Xubuntu 10.04. I tried following some tips I found online and atleast got something to show up in Mixer. When the machine boots you hear the speakers being initialised - you get that crackle for a second or so. But when I play an MP3 in Exaile it plays all crackly and you cant even make the song out. However, tonight I was on FaceBook and someone started chatting to me and when I got a new message I got a sound. I have never had that before, so something must be working somewhere. I just double checked an MP3 again and no joy, and I then thought about playing an audio CD, but while the CD played I got no sound. Any further ideas? Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ 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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Xubuntu Copy Dialog Box
by Simon Royal 01 May '10

01 May '10

Hi I was copying some file to my USB Flash Drive the other day from Xubuntu and it didn't come up with a copy dialog progress box. I didn't think too much of it at the time. This morning I was trying to create an alias of my windows partition on my desktop and accidently dropped it so it is copying the whole partition onto my desktop and there is no dialog or progress box. It is a 6GB partition and there is no way to stop it. I can here the hard drive chugging away so I know it is doing it. Why is there no box that comes up? Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ 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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Xubuntu Sound Help Please
by Simon Royal 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

Hi I am running Xubuntu 10.04 - upgraded yesterday from 9.10. I have not had sound working in either versions. I have a ThinkPad 600 - which is notorious for sound problems. In Mixer it only listed Dummy as a device. I followed some instructions written for Ubuntu a while back specifically for the TP 600. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=188736 Now I have partial success. In Mixer it shows CS4237B (Alsa Mixer), CS4237B (OSS Mixer) and Playback: CS4237B Analog Stereo as well as a couple of capture devices. Now when I play an MP3 using Exaile playback is very choppy to the point of you cannot hear the music. I followed the instructions carefully and double checked I had everything for the sound written properly. II could not find on my system in the boot folder the menu.lst to edit the acpi settings and I am wondering if this has anything to do with it. Also on boot it shows on the screen the following message 'cs423x pnpbios unable to assign' or something like that as it shows only briefly before loading the desktop. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I seemed to have gotten this far. It would appear to me that the drivers or modules are loading correctly but it is a hardware conflict that needs resolving. Please help. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ 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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Xubuntu 10.04 First Look
by Simon Royal 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

Hi I installed Xubuntu 10.04 last night, updating via Update Manager option. It took a long while - about 12 hours - but I think this is more down to it only being a 300Mhz P2 rather than any reflection on the software. The general look is the same as 9.10. It seems generally faster. Firefox booted a lot quicker and page navigation was quicker. Boot time is considerably faster and has a new look boot screen. So far so good. Machine is a ThinkPad 600 P2 300 with 296MB RAM and 15GB HD. The update didnt resolve the audio problems, something I will have to resolve myself. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Xubuntu 10.04
by Simon Royal 29 Apr '10

29 Apr '10

Hi I am currently running Xubuntu 9.10 on my ThinkPad. The new Ubuntu 10.04 LTS came out today and in my Update Manager it says there is 10.04 ready to be installed. I cannot find anywhere on the Ubuntu or Xubuntu site a reference that Xubuntu 10.04 has been released today as well. This is the first time I have upgraded from one major version to another. I am assuming the update available will install Xubuntu and not the latest version of Ubuntu over the top of what I have already? Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ 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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deja-dup and amazon s3
by Peter Alcibiades 29 Apr '10

29 Apr '10

Has anyone made deja-dup work with s3? Or indeed anything else work with s3? I have followed an excellent user guide, not that dd should hardly need one, its so simple, and it fails to work saying that there is no network connection available. Don't understand what I have to do to make it connect. Maybe I'm using the wrong host name - how does this have to be specified? Peter

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Sleep In Xubuntu
by Simon Royal 27 Apr '10

27 Apr '10

Hi I am having a really annoying problem in Xubuntu. When my ThinkPad 600 goes to sleep it wont wake. I then have to take the battery out before I can turn it back on. This is annoying. It has been happening ever since I reinstalled Xubuntu a week ago. I had it running on there before and it never had this problem. I dual boot XP and Xubuntu and tried the XP out today. I don't use it very often. And it works fine and so does the sleep, so it cannot be a hardware fault as such. I am using exactly the same hardware inc wireless card in both XP and Xubuntu. I even tried turning off the sleep options in Xubuntu so that it didn't go to sleep when the lid was closed etc, but that seems to make no difference. Can anyone help? Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ 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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What PDA to get for use with Linux?
by Chris G 26 Apr '10

26 Apr '10

My wife's Palm Treo is feeling its age in various ways and needs replacing. Currently she synchronises the Treo with Evolution in Gnome using the built-in Gnome/Evolution synchronisation software. So, what can we buy now to replace the Palm that will allow her to continue as far as possible in the same way? I'd prefer a solution that doesn't involve a separate server system/process, especially one 'out in the cloud', but apart from that we really don't have any major constraints. -- Chris Green

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iSync For Xubuntu
by Simon Royal 25 Apr '10

25 Apr '10

Hi I use iSync in Mac OSX to sync my phone contacts and it works flawlessly. Is there anything in Xubuntu that works the same? My mobile is a Sony Ericsson P990i. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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Need any hardware?
by Chris Walker 25 Apr '10

25 Apr '10

I've long been a magnet for unwanted hardware and last week collected a couple of old PCs. One is a Time PC with an 800 MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and a 30 GB hard drive. I've been playing with it for a few days trying out various linux installs including Puppy, aLinux but it currently has Debian installed on it. It's free if anybody wants it. The second is a small Patriot machine. I haven't played much with that and so it still has Windows 98 on it. This is the machine type - http://www.dansdata.com/bookpc.htm It says on that page that it's suitable as a "home theatre, entertainment and Internet access device" but I'd say the fan is too noisy. Other than that, it works. They both come with monitors but I only have one keyboard and mouse for them. I also have a Compaq NC3122 dual network card. See here for details - http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c003… PM me if you're interested in any of these. I'm in Wymondham if that helps. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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GIMP/ImageMagick question
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 25 Apr '10

25 Apr '10

Hi Folks, I have a JPEG (from rhe Web) of a map of the regions in The Gambia. I want to use that as the basis for preparing an EPS file of the various borders of these regions. The objective is to import it into a document (a number of times). If I just use ImageMagicks 'convert' program to convert the JPEG into EPS, it's big -- 2.4MB -- because it plants each pixel separately. So the resulting document would be enormous. Also the text in the JPEG doesn't come out too well. And, anyway, in effect it's still a bit-map under another name! I would be content with an EPS with just the outlines as vector graphics. So what I'm thinking of is using the JPEG as "background" or "underlay" in a drawing program so that I could simply use the mouse to plot in the outlines I want into a (transparent layer on top of that, and then save the resulting layer (outlines only, but maybe a few text annotations as well) as an EPS file. I'm not (so far) seeing anything that corresponds to that aim in ImageMagick (but could be wrong, because the documentation for that is massive). I'm guessing that the GIMP could, but I might need some initial guidance on how to start that up for this purpose! In short, I want to trace the outlines of an image on screen into an EPS file. There's another program called 'xfig', but I'm pretty sure this doesn't allow a background as I've described. Any suggestions/help/advice most welcome. Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-Apr-10 Time: 19:13:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 58, Issue 23
by Adam Reid 21 Apr '10

21 Apr '10

> Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:31:54 +0100 > From: gizbun <gizbun(a)aacute.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] [ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social > Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <1271698314.7663.9.camel@gizbun-desktop> > Content-Type: text/plain > > Damn was looking forward to this and I have a migraine coming on! > > David I've re-recorded the videos to better show the process, and added some answers/demonstrations to questions asked. You can find them at http://dev.anyma.co.uk/presentation/PartOne.ogv (36mb) and http://dev.anyma.co.uk/presentation/PartTwo.ogv (55mb). Obviously just pause if you'd like to read something in more detail, or stop the cursor; I didn't realise how much I was moving it around until watching the video afterwards. Regarding vocaloids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ a news article about them, gives a bit of background information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVHNgBj8sfs Anger - has excellent CG work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOt5tK1eZfY Part 1 of a live concert - as I said, the vocaloids have idol status in Japan. I love the leek glowsticks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXNH8TEP8vM and Double Lariat for Samwise

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Encrypted PDF with odd password
by Dan Hatton 21 Apr '10

21 Apr '10

Dear All, I have an encrypted PDF file that I can open just fine in Adobe Reader under Windows. But I'd really prefer to read it in Xpdf (or any open source tool). Unfortunately, Xpdf needs the password supplied on the command line, and the password contains characters that are special to the shell. (Actually, I don't think I need to be coy about this. It contains a percent sign, an ampersand, and a pound sign.) I've tried escaping the special characters with backslashes, enclosing the password in various types of quotes, and putting the password in an environment variable, but all of these result in "Incorrect password" errors and failure to open the document. Any ideas, please? -- Thanks, Dan

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Xubuntu Or Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

Hi. I am loving linux. After 10 years as a Mac only fan. A few months ago I bought a 1ghz Samsung laptop and ran Ubuntu on it. I loved it. The laptop died shortly after that and I got a Thinkpad 600 and running Xubuntu on it. I chose Xubuntu as it is only a P2 300mhz and was under the impression it was lighter than Xubuntu. After numerous threads it seems Xubuntu in fact is heavier on CPU usage and RAM than Ubuntu. So as I intend to stick with this ThinkPad for a while would there be any benefit in installing Ubuntu on it instead of Xubuntu. Simon -- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 19 Apr '10

19 Apr '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 this Monday 15th February, 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://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Nothing particular planned this month, though I'm sure we'll end up covering broadband speeds again, if only briefly, now that Infinity is being rolled out (nowhere near us, I hasten to add). I may have a whinge about nvidia graphics drivers, as well. Remember to call (mail me in advance for my mobile no.) or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which might happen if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see you 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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ThinkPad, Xubuntu, Wake Problem
by Simon Royal 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

Hi I am having problems with ThinkPad 600 running Xubuntu. I had it on there before, no problem. I took it off and reinstalled it recently and am having problems with it waking from sleep. I close the lid and leave it. When I go to open it, it wont wake. Nothing I do will wake it. I have to hold down the power button to get it to go off. It won't then power up. I have to remove the battery and put it back in and then it will boot fine and other than that it works fine. It has been doing it for about a week. Then today it stopped and would wake normally when the lid was opened. I thought the problem had gone away, however, it just started doing it again a few minutes ago. Any suggestions? It is very annoying. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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SCSI Drives
by James Bensley 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

Hey Collective, Just got single Celeron old school beast server for my self to play with. Does anyone have any SCSI drives they want to (preferably) give me? It has 2x40GB 10K drives in it and I am looking for a few more so I can use it as a play ground at home. If anyone has got any I am after any size from 5GB > infinity as long as they are also 10K. TTFN. -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/

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ThinkPad 600 Xubuntu Sound Issues
by Simon Royal 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi I have an IBM ThinkPad 600 - which I got from a fellow group member. I have installed Xubuntu 9.10 and am having some problems getting the sound set up. I understand they have a different sound chip to the 600E and 600X and that most distros detect it with the wrong sound chip. Can anyone offer any advice or help on how to get sound working on this machine. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now

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Hosting
by Ian Porter 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi all, I am presently hosting my personal domain (http://www.codingfriends.com) on a friends server, but would like to host on my own but not for £30+ p/m. Was just wondering if anyone recommend cheap hosting, but also reliable. I have done a small search on google and come back with http://www.uk-cheapest.co.uk/hosting-plans.php http://www.freevirtualservers.com/free-hosting.htm There is an average 300 page views per day and rising :) Cheers Ian

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