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How to test if a cat5 (or cat6) is working as well as it should?
by Chris Green 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

I have a number of quite long (i.e. 30 metres or more) cat5e cables strung about the place and would like to test how 'clean' they are. It's easy enough to test their basic integrity (i.e. if all 8 wires are correctly connected) and I have done that. However I'd like to see if they are actually good enough to provide maximum performance when running gigabit. Presumably if they aren't working too well one will see errors and retries at the hardware level - is there a tool for monitoring this? Mostly these cables have just one switch between the ends but there are a couple where there may be two switches involved. -- Chris Green

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Problems with new[ish] Firefox on Ubuntu 11.04
by Chris Green 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

I have just upgraded my system to xubuntu 11.04 and I have a couple of problems with the version of Firefox it has installed. The first problem is that I can't even see what version of Firefox it is as the main menus have disappeared (that's the File, Tools and other menus, including the Help menu which tells you which version of Firefox you have). How on earth do I get those menus back? Secondly the new Tab layout is a pain, I've turned off 'Tabs on top' but the tabs are still in a sill place because the leftmost tab sits above the sidebar, not above the web display area. Is there any way to get back to the old layout where the tabs are actually above the pages they refer to? -- Chris Green

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Burning to a remote drive
by Wayne Stallwood 06 Dec '11

06 Dec '11

Hi there. So I am on a laptop now which means the built in optical drive has sub par performance, currently I am archiving a good deal of material from old DVD's onto a Media Server (HP MicroServer) The MicroServer has a bay for a SATA optical drive so I am going to add one anyway....for the archiving I can just run local copies on the server which will be fine. However I got to thinking that sometimes I have a bit of a run on making discs as well and it would be nice to be able to burn from CD burning software on the laptop to the remote drive. When the laptop is docked there is a Gig-E connection between the two and I assume that NBD's support burning as it is just native access to the raw block device over the network ? But has anyone actually done this and did it prove reliable ? Or is there a better way, Am I better off using iSCSI rather than NBD's ?

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 8th December
by Viperfang 05 Dec '11

05 Dec '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, 8th December 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 irc.alug.org.uk 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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ALUG Hello everyone :)
by wiedxma k 03 Dec '11

03 Dec '11

Hi everyone, I joined the mailing list yesterday and I thought I would introduce myself. I am a woman. And I work and live in Ipswich. I’ve been interested in GNU/Linux since 2002/2003. The first distro I saw and got installed on my HP nx9020 laptop was Slackware. Someone told me ‘if you learn Slackware, you will be fine with any distro”, so I gave it a go. I used to work on Windows 98, Windows XP and HP, HP-UX. The job I do now has nothing to do with Linux or computers. I neither am IT professional nor a geek. (OK, maybe a very little one:)) Today I use Ubuntu on my old HP nx9020 and Windows 7 on my brand new, shiny, lovely ThinkPad T420s. It’s just a few weeks old baby and the only reason it’s got Windows 7 on board is that I was curious how it looks and feels like and if it’s any better than XP. I’m not impressed. Actually, it annoys me more and more every day. So, the time to install some nice and working OS is coming. I like reading books, walking, chatting on IRC and learning new things. I’m not a very talkative person (as for a woman!) so you may see me hanging quietly at #ALUG quite often. So, this is me. And I look forward to chatting to all of you ALUGers! Krystyna (Medea)

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USB Port Replicators
by Jim Rippon 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

Hi everyone, I'm wondering if anyone has had any luck or otherwise with USB Port Replicators - and specifically the sound and serial outputs on them. I've a system at home that lives underneath my desk, but has no sound card, but given my radio is on the blink I was looking at getting some use out of my mp3 collection and rediscovering some old tunes. Looking at something like the following ebay lot: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Targus-Mobile-USB2-0-Port-Replicator-PAEPR092E-NE… Appreciate any feedback :) Jim

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Energy monitoring
by Mark Rogers 01 Dec '11

01 Dec '11

I'd like to play with one of the various energy monitoring gadgets that seem to be everywhere these days. I'm looking for one that will transfer data to my PC, and obviously that PC is running Linux (Ubuntu 11.04 at the moment, not sure if it will go to 11.10 yet...) Any suggestions/recommendations? I'm as lazy as they come so ideally I'm looking for something that can be permanently connected to my PC (therefore presumably a wireless connection will be involved at some point); I don't really want a box that collects data that I then take to my PC to download it once a week/month/year/never. And I'm also looking for access to the raw data, but also suggestions for suitable GUIs welcome too. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Any PHP PDO/Sqlite experts here, can't fathom this error message
by Chris Green 28 Nov '11

28 Nov '11

I'm flummoxed by this error, even worse is that the code seems to work sometimes but I can't see any pattern in the data that causes it. The code is as follows:- try { $insQuery = "INSERT INTO log "; // $insQuery .= "(seqno, year, month, day, hour, minute, waterway, pk, place, distance, eng_hrs, fuel_cm, fuel_lt, note, type, sailing)"; $insQuery .= "(seqno, year, month, day)"; $insQuery .= " VALUES "; // $insQuery .= "(:seqno, :year, :month, :day, :hour, :minute, :waterway, :pk, :place, :distance, :eng_hrs, :fuel_cm, :fuel_lt, :note, :type, :sailing );"; $insQuery .= "(:seqno, :year, :month, :day);"; $st = $db->prepare($insQuery); foreach ($rows as $row) { $row['seqno'] = $seqno++; $st->execute($row); } $st->closeCursor; } catch (PDOException $e) { dbglog("PDO() insert error" . $e->getMessage()); dbglog("insquery: $insQuery"); foreach($row as $k=>$v) { dbglog("k is: $k, v is $v"); } } ... and what I'm seeing in the log is:- 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: PDO() insert errorSQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 25 bind or column index out of range 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: insquery: INSERT INTO log (seqno, year, month, day) VALUES (:seqno, :year, :month, :day); 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: year, v is 2011 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: month, v is 11 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: day, v is 12 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: hour, v is 10 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: minute, v is 00e 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: waterway, v is 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: pk, v is 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: place, v is Cappy 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: distance, v is 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: eng_hrs, v is 2695.3 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: fuel_cm, v is 8.5 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: fuel_lt, v is 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: note, v is Engine started after replacing blown mega-fuse, all OK otherwise 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: type, v is TEF 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: price, v is 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: sailing, v is 1 13:53:59 192.168.1.4: k is: seqno, v is 0 So what does "General error: 25 bind or column index out of range" actually mean, I could find nowhere that explains it. Now my guess is that it's telling me that I have a column name wrong somewhere but my 'log' table definitely has columns year, month, day and seqno of the correct type. Maybe I have the syntax wrong somehow for the VALUES() bit but again I can't find any really good explanation of exactly what the syntax is, it seems decidedly woolly. -- Chris Green

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Any WordPress users here - is it really this awful to change a WordPress domain?
by Chris Green 24 Nov '11

24 Nov '11

I've been developing a simple web site for someone using WordPress (along with zillions of others I believe). I've now discovered that it is horrendously awful to move it to another domain! Not only are links in WordPress absolute but there are also loads of database entries which have the absolute URL in them. So one has to fix all the links in pages one has created *and* one has to search through the database and fix URLs there too. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!! Setting the 'WordPress Address' and the 'Site Address' on the dashboard settings page only fixes URLs generated by the code (i.e. the menu links to pages). Apart from anything else it makes doing maintenance/development a nightmare. Is there any way around this or is the only approach for maintenance to have two parallel sites one 'development' and one 'live' where one tries out changes on the development site and then repeats them (hopefully correctly) on the live site. -- Chris Green

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Clam
by Bev Nicolson 23 Nov '11

23 Nov '11

Now it may be that I've missed something obvious here but I've got Clam installed but can't see anyway of running it, either with mouse clicks or otherwise. How do I do that? (Lucid, 10.10) Bev.

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