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Dud keyboard solved! Thanks.
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

Apologies for not responding earlier -- I was in Cambridge most of yesterday, and did not have time to deal with people's replies until today. Many thanks to all who responded. I do seem to have raised a lot of dust in attics! Since I was in Cambridge, I followed up Ken's suggestion, so popped into Maplin's and bought an L90BT (PS2 female to DIN male adaptor). As Wayne indicated, it wasn't cheap (£7.99), but is nicely made and solid. Since Maplins had a few "on the hook" in the shop, there was no issue about being "lucky to find one in a hurry"! Anyway, back at home, this morning I used the adaptor to connect a PS2 keyboard to the DIN socket on the box. Worked perfectly, and I fscked the filesystem (Statutory Declaration: I have not made a typo). I am now back to emailing normally from that machine! The following may be of interest (and a possible useful warning). I dismantled the old DIN keyboard to try to diagnose the problem. The heart of its mechanism is two plastic sheets with "printed circuitry" on them: on the underside of the upper sheet, and on the upper side of the bottom sheet. These lie below the keys, and when a key is pressed it presses the upper sheet down onto the lower sheet, and makes a contact. I suspect that this may be the source of the problem. Because the computer in question is mainly accessed remotely, its keyboard is hardly ever used (except occasionally when rebooting); so, to keep the keyboard out of the way, I have had it standing upright on its edge (the edge that would be nearest to you when laid flat for use). Undoubtedly, at least when putting it back on its edge after use and probably often when just shifting stuff around, the keyboard has been tapped onto the tabletop when in the upright position. This may have caused the plastic sheets to shift inside the keyboard, either getting it out of alignment with the pegs on the keys (that press down on the sheets) or moving it out of touch with the contacts in the keyboard case that connect the sheets with the little chip that feeds the cable. Whether that is the explanation or not, the end effect has been that pressing a key produced no result (and the effect had been intermittent until yesterday, when it had apparently become permanent). So beware! (Another warning: dismantling a keyboard should not be done lightly. There are lots of loose bits inside. Reassembling and getting everything back in line is not trivial. Indeed, I recall, from years ago, taking the bottom off a keyboard only to discover that it had spring-loaded insides. It took ages to pick all the little bits up from the floor ... ). I shall be in touch privately with the people who have kindly invaded their attics on my behalf, once I have brought that machine properly up-to-date again. Meanwhile, thanks again and best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 28-Jan-10 Time: 08:57:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] ISP issue, some sites I'm completely unable to access..
by Anthony Anson 27 Jan '10

27 Jan '10

Ken Hamer wrote: > On 26/01/2010 22:38, Anthony Anson wrote: >> Not sure where their exchange is - might even be Bunwell... >> </thinks> > Depends what is meant by Tibenham. Some parts of it are on the New > Buckenham exchange - unlucky ones on Tivetshall through cables made of paper. Or wet string? >> If I want a reasonable connection I have to take the little box into >> Norwich, where the dongle will play nicely. >> Afraid you are not alone. But fear not! Mr. Brown is trying to get >> you 2Mbps! This will happen Real Soon Now. Not a lot of good - Mr. Brown will have to explain to BT that their bit of beryllium between their pole and their junction box is broken, and suggest to them that since I've been telling them this for around five years, a bit of (an?) expedition might not go amiss - which is why my connection is via Vogonfone. Mind you, since I don't try to access video streaming, music and the like, the PAYG dongle only costs me - has only cost me up to now £2½ per month. >> Can't get the wi-thingy to work with the Fat Cat's wireless router >> thobut. > That will be thick walls, long reach, incorrect encryption key, broken > adapter or broken router. Maybe all five. All routine. Try HomePlug > devices. Devolo ones work. Of course your router needs to be getting > a connection. Does it? I haven't got a router connected - I take the Eee into the Fat Cat, and so does Neville of this (ALUG) parish. We get the magic screed from the bar, and key it in. Neville's flaptop connects straight away, mine just sits there, claiming that it's connecting. This happens every time. Wireless connection works in my brother's house, at my sister's, in other pubs, friends' houses, but not at the Fat Cat. It doesn't reject the attempt, it just sits there smugly and pretends it's doing something. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Re: [ALUG] Is there a calendar/appointments program that will show?me a list of the next n appointments?
by Peter Alcibiades 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

On Tuesday 26 January 2010 09:45:15 Chris G wrote: >.... I was rather trying to get away from displaying in a terminal > window. > Must have a look at railender. But my guys don't see a console window, they would have zero tolerance for that. All they see is a desktop icon, which is labelled 'print calendar'. Double click it, and a little dialogue box comes up looking pretty, and asking 'you want to print?' They click the OK button in this window, and the next thing they know, they are looking at an open office word document with a list and the secretary reformats and prints from that. I generate 365 days looking forward. Don't know exactly what you can limit the konsolekalendar output to. But I'm anyway filtering and reformating the raw output, so it would be possible to just get everything using konsolekalendar, and then select in the filtering scripts. They find kontact quite nice to use otherwise, multiple address books, to do lists, the integration of kjots now, stickies. The format of the list was the only thing they didn't like, so it seemed worth going to a bit of trouble to fix it. It would be nice to have a usable todo out of the box. But kontact is so convenient for them with all the parts in the left pane. Peter

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Is there a calendar/appointments program that will show me a list of the next n appointments?
by Chris G 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Well, having just about sorted out my events/appointments *recording* I now want a 'screen friendly' way of displaying them that will alert me to upcoming appointments without taking up too much screen real estate. My appointments/events will be in an iCalendar file (or at an iCal server) so most programs can see them, however I can't find anything to show them to me as a list of events. So far I have looked at:- Sunbird - no list mode at all, only week, month, next n weeks, not to mention that you can't have just the one pane showing. Evolution - does have a list view but you can't close down all the other panes so only the list is showing. Orage - no list view Osmo - no list view I guess it's not all that difficult to DIY, I already have a little python utility for showing upcoming reminders in the xfce panel. I could adapt this to do something similar in a small terminal window but if there's something out there that can do what I want already I might as well use it. I just want a utility to display the next x events (maybe limited to the next y days) in a simple list - date/event/description - so I can run it as a sticky window visible on all my worktops. -- Chris Green

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ISP issue, some sites I'm completely unable to access..
by James Elsey 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Hey Guys, I'm experiencing rather odd behaviour with my internet connection at home recently, and I'm hoping some of the BT / Telecoms guys out there may have some pointers. I have a terrible connection anyway, around 0.2-0.5Mb at the best of times (was I refered to as the "pauper" or "peasent" of the connection ladder?) Over the past few weeks I'm completely unable to access particular websites, most notably Paypal, national-lotter.co.uk, LinkedIn, and pretty much 50% of any search results in google I want to go to. This is happening across all machines on my network, linux and windows alike, wired and wireless, and also my iphone(unless I put it on 3g) I have a netgear DG834T router, about 6-7 years old. There are no blocked sites and as far as I know the configuration hasn't be altered in some time, so no reason for it to suddenly alter. I am on(...dont laugh)..AOL.. Traceroutes below, as you can see google is fine, but paypal and linkedin are no-goes. any suggestions? [james@nevada ~]$ traceroute www.google.com traceroute to www.google.com (209.85.227.99), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.701 ms 0.993 ms 1.276 ms 2 host-92-4-32-1.as43234.net (92.4.32.1) 17.593 ms 21.644 ms 26.533 ms 3 92.31.251.12 (92.31.251.12) 88.683 ms 89.057 ms 89.980 ms 4 xe-10-3-0-scr001.loh.as13285.net (78.144.2.7) 47.956 ms 50.310 ms 55.938 ms 5 xe-11-0-0-scr010.sov.as13285.net (78.144.0.226) 59.461 ms 63.296 ms 67.303 ms 6 google-pp-sov.as13285.net (78.144.5.6) 72.963 ms 18.244 ms 19.564 ms 7 209.85.255.175 (209.85.255.175) 24.930 ms 209.85.252.76 (209.85.252.76) 27.816 ms 32.202 ms 8 66.249.95.170 (66.249.95.170) 45.845 ms 72.14.232.134 (72.14.232.134) 47.719 ms 169.276 ms 9 209.85.252.83 (209.85.252.83) 57.386 ms 209.85.251.231 (209.85.251.231) 61.225 ms 65.619 ms 10 209.85.243.97 (209.85.243.97) 72.739 ms 209.85.243.101 (209.85.243.101) 74.667 ms 209.85.243.93 (209.85.243.93) 31.873 ms 11 wy-in-f99.1e100.net (209.85.227.99) 29.866 ms 34.736 ms 38.122 ms [james@nevada ~]$ traceroute www.linkedin.com traceroute to www.linkedin.com (64.74.98.80), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.594 ms 0.874 ms 1.527 ms 2 host-92-4-32-1.as43234.net (92.4.32.1) 17.691 ms 22.002 ms 26.405 ms 3 92.31.251.12 (92.31.251.12) 30.564 ms 52.454 ms 52.924 ms 4 xe-10-3-0-scr001.loh.as13285.net (78.144.2.7) 46.274 ms 50.407 ms 54.782 ms 5 host-78-144-0-253.as13285.net (78.144.0.253) 64.163 ms 64.884 ms 67.766 ms 6 xe-10-2-0-scr010.thn.as13285.net (78.144.1.2) 138.286 ms xe-11-0-0-scr010.thn.as13285.net (78.144.1.0) 19.790 ms 19.498 ms 7 limelight-pp-thn.as13285.net (78.144.3.6) 31.326 ms 31.705 ms 33.123 ms 8 tge11-1.fr4.lga.llnw.net (69.28.172.149) 116.711 ms 117.578 ms 118.541 ms 9 tge8-4.fr3.ord.llnw.net (69.28.172.198) 147.721 ms 150.073 ms 154.725 ms 10 linkedin.tge3-4.fr3.ord.llnw.net (208.111.156.70) 160.655 ms 163.514 ms 168.470 ms 11 * * * 12 * * * 13 * * * 14 * * * 15 * * * 16 * * * 17 * * * 18 * * * 19 * * * 20 * * * 21 * *^C [james@nevada ~]$ traceroute www.paypal.co.uk traceroute to www.paypal.co.uk (66.211.168.114), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.746 ms 1.037 ms 1.352 ms 2 host-92-4-32-1.as43234.net (92.4.32.1) 18.230 ms 22.547 ms 27.719 ms 3 92.31.250.44 (92.31.250.44) 30.698 ms 35.535 ms 39.924 ms 4 xe-9-3-0-scr001.log.as13285.net (78.144.2.133) 45.724 ms 56.942 ms 57.867 ms 5 Opal-ge-2.2.0.mpr1.lhr2.above.net (213.161.78.209) 60.632 ms 64.985 ms 68.887 ms 6 abv-l3-pni.London1.Level3.net (208.185.188.186) 73.356 ms 29.552 ms 48.372 ms 7 ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net (4.69.139.97) 54.120 ms 57.921 ms 62.327 ms 8 ae-41-41.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.137.66) 136.767 ms ae-43-43.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.137.74) 140.902 ms ae-42-42.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.137.70) 144.830 ms 9 ae-3-3.ebr4.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.132.93) 168.750 ms 169.572 ms 170.063 ms 10 ae-64-64.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.178) 171.559 ms ae-74-74.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.182) 194.713 ms ae-64-64.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.178) 187.984 ms 11 ae-62-62.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.145) 182.185 ms ae-92-92.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.157) 186.082 ms 190.084 ms 12 ae-2-2.ebr2.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.69) 172.932 ms 148.265 ms 148.700 ms 13 ae-1-100.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.113) 150.208 ms 115.825 ms 110.926 ms 14 * ae-3.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net (4.69.132.61) 144.893 ms * 15 ae-21-52.car1.Denver1.Level3.net (4.68.107.38) 164.332 ms 368.666 ms ae-21-54.car1.Denver1.Level3.net (4.68.107.102) 165.221 ms 16 EBAY-INC.car1.Denver1.Level3.net (4.53.1.58) 171.416 ms 175.255 ms 178.668 ms 17 * * * 18 * * * 19 * * * 20 * * * 21 * * * 22 * * * 23 * * * 24 * * * 25 * * * 26 * * *^C James Elsey

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USB Playstation adaptor controllers no longer working
by samwise 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Hi, all. Got a new hardware issue that I'm not really sure where to start debugging. I run Debian AMD64 Testing and, when Lenny was Testing, I had a great setup for playing with emulators. I have four PSX pads which I could use via two USB adaptors - each adaptor supporting two of the pads. However after upgrading to Squeeze (kernel version 2.6.30-2), which involved several kernel upgrades and an upgrade from KDE 3 to 4 plus swapping out the motherboard and graphics card at around the same time (I know, I know - I just didn't test absolutely everything between upgrades), I've come back and discovered the USB adaptors are no longer recognised, though they do have power lights etc. when plugged into the computer. I've tried both in a Windows PC and they work, so it's not a hardware fault. Also, I have a new PC USB joystick which /does/ work with the new KDE 4 setup, and is automatically recognised in the KDE 4 Control Center. I've done some googling but haven't found anything which looks particularly relevant. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to start debugging this? I think I was spoilt first time round - the adaptor didn't require any special drivers or config tools. Last time, it was one of the few things that "just worked" when I built my Lenny computer. It just showed up as two joypads in the general KDE 3 System Settings - plus the correct joypads devices were automatically built and placed in /dev. :( This is as far as I've got debugging it on my own - I can see it being recognised by lsusb and dmesg, but no idea what the next step is to getting it to auto-populate the right devices in /dev. Something to do with HAL, maybe? I tried ensuring the joydev kernel module was loaded manually, but it made no difference. I can supply more info, as required. Cheers, Peter. # lsusb Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:c504 Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse+Keyboard Receiver Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0b9a:016a Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0424:20fc Standard Microsystems Corp. 6-in-1 Card Reader Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0409:0058 NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub where the joypad adapter shows up as "Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0b9a:016a". $ dmesg <SNIP> [279764.908007] usb 2-1: new low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4 [279765.111875] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0b9a, idProduct=016a [279765.111878] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0 [279765.111946] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

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Damn pidgeon
by James Freer 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

Anyone into animation? The animation on this is superb! http://www..youtube.com:80/watch_popup?v=jEjUAnPc2VA james

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Re: [ALUG] Damn pidgeon
by Ian Porter 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

That was well funny :) cheers soz to James and Alex, I have been playing with my iPhone and it was sending from the wrong email address Ian www : www.codingfriends.com On 23 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Alex Scotton <alex.scotton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Absolutely awesome little animation, loving the faces the pigeon pulled... cheers for that, love a little bit of humour in the morning haha On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:11 PM, James Freer <jessejazza(a)googlemail.com> wrote: Anyone into animation? The animation on this is superb! http://www..Pigeon: Impossible <http://youtube.com:80/watch_popup?v=jEjUAnPc2VA> james _______________________________________________ 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! _______________________________________________ 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!

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Todo/Task 'links', does any program do this already?
by Chris G 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

As you know (probably bored to tears by now) I've been looking for a TaskList/Todo type program for a while. I've just recently realised what would really suit me - a way to add links to a web page which would pop up specific Tasks/Todos or, if it was a new task, would pop up the New Task entry box. This is surely possible, fairly easy even, a PHP link (or even some JavaScript) could easily fire off some code to search for an event in an ICS file or on a Caldav server and pop up the required window. If there's nothing out there that does this it's so "exactly what I want" I'll put my coding hat on and do it myself. Does anyone know of anything that does this or that might provide some of the tools/hooks etc that I'd need to do it myself? -- Chris Green

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extra function keys
by John Woodard 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

My laptop has 3 extra function keys, one brings up the default email client, Evolution on this Ubuntu box the other two are marked for the default web browser and default media player, however they do nothing at present. I expect these would launch Outlook, IE and WMP in Windows. What I would like is that they are remapped to volume up/down and mute. What is the best way to do this? Ubuntu 9.10 Gnome with pretty much everything set at defaults, no compiz or any such trickery. Cheers, BJ

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Stream media to xbox
by James Elsey 23 Jan '10

23 Jan '10

Hey guys, Does anyone here stream media across their network to an xbox 360? I've got a load of media on my fedora desktop, mostly AVI / mkvs, I want to watch them via my 360 but I really don't want to have to burn DVDs each time, and then there is the added problem of whether the 360 will read copied DVDs or not. I know there is some application that will act as a media server, to host video to the PS3, but I can't seem to find anything for the 360. I could try MythTV, but last time I tried that (about a year ago) is was effort to configure, and also was a pain having to run to the desktop to turn the video on then run back and forth to change shows/volume etc I've got telnet/vnc on iphone, maybe I could use that as a remote? Any ideas? I've got 3 seasons of stargate atlantis that are begging to be watched... James Elsey

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How to stop KDE4 automounting an external (USB) drive?
by Barry Samuels 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

My wife's machine is running KDE4 and when a USB (IDE) drive is plugged into it it tries to automount the partitions which are not user mountable (root only) and pops up 9 windows saying that they couldn't be mounted. I'd like to stop those popups or stop KDE4 from trying to mount that drive. Telling HAL to ignore the drive makes no difference. Help much appreciated. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Well I'm slowly homing in on what I think I'm looking for
by Chris G 21 Jan '10

21 Jan '10

Just to keep you all well bored, here is where my search for a Wiki/Blog/CMS is now taking me. (I'm not really trying to be boring, comments, suggestions and such would be very welcome) I *think* what I'm basically after is an easy to use (i.e. easy to enter text) web page creation system which is somewhere between a blog and a wiki. The fly in the ointment is that I want to be able to put 'events' into the text somehow and I can't find any Wiki/Blog/CMS that really seems to be able to do this. Oh, I also want to be able to handle a hierarchy of pages. So, to try and give an example of what I want to do, bring out the old boat buying 'project'. This will have chunks of information (i.e. web pages) laid out as follows:- Boat purchase Searching for boat Types of boat Insurance Engineer survey ... ... Then the page about Insurance would basically be a sort of blog:- 28-Dec-2009 Asked for a quote from DBA insurers 05-Jan-2009 DBA quoted £387, seems reasonable 12-Jan-2010 Asked for quote at the Boat Show ... bla ... bla <EVENT> 01-Apr-2010 - boat insurance required I want that <EVENT> entry to somehow be a link to a calendar application of some sort which will actually have the event set up so I get a reminder or, even better, I want the blog/wiki to know that <EVENT> means it's got to remind me. My existing web info management system (cobbled together by me using reStructuredText and a small python script to automatically run it when .rst pages are browsed) does quite a bit of what I want. It provides a hierarchical set of web pages with 'crumb' links and (very) easy creation and editing using reStructuredText. However it doesn't really have any bloglike time/sequence awareness and neither does it have any ability to embed alarms/events. It may be that I could add what I need to my existing system but it feels like someone somewhere should surely have something like this already. It looks like TextPattern *might* provide quite a bit of what I want, I may install it and have a play. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] preventing shutdown with remote working going on
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Jan '10

20 Jan '10

Thanks, this is brilliant. I have to make sure it catches XDCMP sessions as well as SSH ones, but it seems bound to. Brilliant! Yes, the answer might well be a server and all remote logins, from a technical point of view. Agreed. They have talked about that. But how they would manage to maintain it themselves, if something happened to me? This is doing our best to keep it as simple as possible, and to make sure that if it falls over, it will be no more than inconvenient. Or if I fall over. Peter > Assuming a debian-like system, what about molly-guard? > > http://www.ubuntugeek.com/molly-guard-protects-machines-from-accidental- > shutdownsreboots.html > http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/molly-guard > > Cheers, > > David >

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DNS queries
by Mark Rogers 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

I have a list of addresses I need to perform a DNS lookup for. What I need to know is the authoritative server for the domain, and the result of the lookup (A record with IP or CNAME with host). I tried: dig www.google.co.uk .. and it's not showing me the authoritative servers. So I tried: dig www.google.co.uk +nssearch .. and got a blank response. Suggestions? Background: I have a webserver which will shortly be changing it's IP address. It has a local DNS which will be updated as part of the migration so anything which uses that server for authoritative DNS will be updated automatically. However anything on an external DNS may need updating, depending on whether it references the server by CNAME or A record (and if CNAME I need to check that whatever that is gets updated too). So I need to know which addresses still point at the server, and of those which are not in the local DNS and of those which need updating (and where). -- 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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Which Netbook For Ubuntu?
by Simon Royal 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

Hi I have been using Ubuntu solidly for a few weeks now and loving it. A Mac fan prior to that for 10 years, I got given an old Samsung A10 laptop, installed Ubuntu and the rest is history. The Samsung is a little beaten up but works fine. Now I have gotten comfortable with Ubuntu and sold my Apple PowerBook I am on the look out for something a bit better and would really like a small netbook. I don't do anything to intense. I only write, email, surf (including games in FaceBook), the odd image editing in GIMP and a bit of Skype. First of all, does anyone have any recommendations as to which netbook to look at? Does anyone have one for sale? I don't really want anything with a 7" screen. I need one to run Ubuntu 9.10. My current Samsung is a 1.1Ghz Duron, so something with a little more oomph would be nice, although Ubuntu runs very smoothly on it with 1GB RAM. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Re: [ALUG] Laptop Adapter
by Simon Royal 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

James Picture is attached. Sorry for the poor quality but I only have my mobile for communication. Under the laptop it says 19v 4.2a max. On the adapter it says 19v 3.79a. The adapter was a cheap 2-power one not a genuine Samsung one. Simon --- Catch me on Twitter http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype me: Simon-Royal - original message - Subject: Re: [ALUG] Laptop Adapter From: James Taylor <jt(a)imen.org.uk> Date: 18/01/2010 23:03 Can you read the underside of your laptop and tell us the voltage and power that you require, then if possible take a pic of the socket? Maybe a camera phone pic would suffice? JT On 18 Jan 2010, at 20:25, Simon Royal wrote: > Hi all. > > Can anyone help in my hour of need. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, which I have been running Ubuntu on and loving it. > > The adapter has just blown. The light doesnt come on and I am stuck without a computer or access to my files. > > You dont happen to have a spare one or a generic one? > > Simon > > --- Catch me on Twitter http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype me: Simon-Royal > > > _______________________________________________ > 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!

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Laptop Adapter
by Simon Royal 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

Hi all. Can anyone help in my hour of need. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, which I have been running Ubuntu on and loving it. The adapter has just blown. The light doesnt come on and I am stuck without a computer or access to my files. You dont happen to have a spare one or a generic one? Simon --- Catch me on Twitter http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype me: Simon-Royal

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Large load average when running dd to a CF card
by Srdjan Todorovic 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

Hi all, Any ideas why I get large average loads (8.82, 4.20, 1.80) when running dd that copies 2GB of data to a compact disk flash card using a USB disk reader in Fiesty (or whatever it is called)? If I kill dd, the load drops to more sane levels. It just hit 9.9 :( Thanks, Srdjan

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preventing shutdown with remote working going on
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Jan '10

18 Jan '10

How do you stop users from shutting down the system if there are other people connected, but allow them to shut it down if there are not? Here's the background, I have machines A and B in different locations. Machine A is sometimes going to be used by just anyone, on account X, and sometimes by the main secretary on account Y. Sometimes, to allow the others to work on Machine A, the secretary will decamp to another room, and continue to work on account Y on machine A, but will be phyically located at machine B. Now it occurs to one, life being what it is, that from time to time some other user sitting at machine A, not used to the concept of multiple logins, will just try and turn off the machine while the secretary is working and logged in on it on the different account. How do I stop this? Hopefully by sending a message to the effect, you cannnot shut down this machine because there are other people connected? On the other hand, I don't want to stop all user shutdowns, because often there is not going to be any remote connection. I'm proposing to just use XDCMP by the way, for the remote working, since we are behind a firewall router. This is safe enough in that case, isn't it? Peter

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Re: [ALUG] How to diagnose heavy system load at power up?
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 18 Jan '10

18 Jan '10

Give bootchart a go (usually available in your distro as a standard package). http://www.bootchart.org/ You should get a nice picture of where all your CPU and memory is going at startup. Phil. ________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:57:44 +0000 From: Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> Subject: [ALUG] How to diagnose heavy system load at power up? To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <20100115165744.GB4223@chris> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I recently noticed that if I log in to my xfce GUI straight after powering up my computer it takes an inordinately long time. Like it takes four or five minutes from when I enter my name and password to when the desktop appears completely. After suspecting that there was something awry with my X startup (such that it was doing something odd the first time it was run) I realised that it was simply that the system was very heavily loaded by something during/after boot. Watching the load average during the X startup it went over 8 whereas if I login to X after the system has been running for some hours the load average reaches the giddy heights of 0.14. With a load average of 8 things almost grind to a halt, some processes retry starting (I get more than one xfdesktop for example) and update-notifier times out trying to access repositories which it has no problems at all with if I log in later. Another symptom is that some nfs mounts haven't completed before the terminal windows appear on the desktop so when I run mutt (mail program) which uses one of the NFS mounts it fails to see its mail directories. That's seriously wierd. I've tried to analyse what's going on by running top (and 'w' and ps) in a console window while the system starts up but I really can't see anything obvious that's hogging any resource. One noticeable thing apart from the load average being so high is that my 8Gb of memory gets eaten up too, but there seem to be no particular processes using either lots of CPU or lots of memory. Can anyone suggest further ways of trying to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

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For Sale: ATi Radeon 4870 1GB PCIE
by Richard 17 Jan '10

17 Jan '10

Hey all, as title suggest I am selling a graphics card. I don't use it anymore. Needs a new home. ATi Radeon 4870 1GB PCIE - £80 ONO Please email directly or call me. Cheers, Richard -- Richard Bensley - 07540878285

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How to diagnose heavy system load at power up?
by Chris G 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

I recently noticed that if I log in to my xfce GUI straight after powering up my computer it takes an inordinately long time. Like it takes four or five minutes from when I enter my name and password to when the desktop appears completely. After suspecting that there was something awry with my X startup (such that it was doing something odd the first time it was run) I realised that it was simply that the system was very heavily loaded by something during/after boot. Watching the load average during the X startup it went over 8 whereas if I login to X after the system has been running for some hours the load average reaches the giddy heights of 0.14. With a load average of 8 things almost grind to a halt, some processes retry starting (I get more than one xfdesktop for example) and update-notifier times out trying to access repositories which it has no problems at all with if I log in later. Another symptom is that some nfs mounts haven't completed before the terminal windows appear on the desktop so when I run mutt (mail program) which uses one of the NFS mounts it fails to see its mail directories. That's seriously wierd. I've tried to analyse what's going on by running top (and 'w' and ps) in a console window while the system starts up but I really can't see anything obvious that's hogging any resource. One noticeable thing apart from the load average being so high is that my 8Gb of memory gets eaten up too, but there seem to be no particular processes using either lots of CPU or lots of memory. Can anyone suggest further ways of trying to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

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Problem with anacron and cron *never* running jobs
by Chris G 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

I have a backup job that (should) be run daily. There is a script called 'backup' that is in /etc/cron.daily. If the computer is shutdown regularly then anacron does its job and runs backup a few minutes after the computer is powered up again. If, on the other hand, the computer is on all the time then cron runs the job at 07:30. However, and this is the problem, if the computer is Suspend[ed] and isn't running at 07:30 then the jobs in /etc/cron.daily never get run. Is there any way around this? -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '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 18th January, 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. After the successful Christmas meal we had earlier in the month, we resume with our first traditional meet of the new year. We didn't get any volunteers for a tutorial this month (surprise!), so we'll see what can be knocked up last minute. We've been doing well attendance-wise for the last couple of meets, so let's continue with a strong start to the new year. :D 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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