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The PCWorld Experience
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 28 May '09

28 May '09

Long story, so apologies -- but the details matter. A few days ago I was checking my bank account online. I noticed a Direct Debit for £7.99 made that day. Puzzled, I checked the full transaction details: it was to PC World. I checked back earlier -- another one, a month earlier. Well, I had been to PC World in Cambridge a couple of months earlier. Objective: pick up a cheapish laptop to play with some Linux distros, then do a proper installation. I noticed a quite nice Hewlett Packard T2390 on special offer at £329.97 (not too keen on the keyboard, but it's OK. The rest seems fine). While I was looking around, one of the shop-floor assistants latched on to me assiduously. I tried asking him something about printers, (built-in PostScript with auto-duplex capability) but he didn't know much. While I was at it I picked up an ethernet switch and a laptop carrier bag. Total bill £387.20 (added up in my head). He then offered to help me carry the stuff (cardboard box with the laptop in, switch box, bag) to the checkout, which I didn't really need but since he offered ... He then stood beside me at the checkout while I paid. Total payment £387.20 (as added up in my head). I got the receipt, along with what looked like some publicity leaflets, and went out to my car. I didn't get an offer of help for that bit. I didn't check the details on the receipt at the time -- I felt that things had basically taken their expected course. After checking my bank account, however, I did check the receipt in detail. At the top: HEWLETPACK A961EM T2390 £329.97 and beneath that, in very small print: Discount Manager Offer - Manager Discretion -£7.99 then: PC PERFORMANCE £7.99 followed by the items for the network switch and the bag. So I had been signed up for their "PC Performance" cover, including the first instalment of £7.99, without noticing (it had not changed the total price). And I have no recollection of being asked at any time if I wanted this. If I had been, I would have said no -- because the first thing I intended to do was to wipe off Windows and put on Linux, which would probably have voided any warranty. (In any case, I never take up these "product cover & support" things). I then phoned "PC Performance" (a PC World sideline), and was told that they would cancel the cover, and cease the D/D, but I could not get a refund because more than 2 weeks had passed. If I wanted to get the money back, I should contact my Bank to initiate an "Indemnity Claim". So I phoned my Bank, and described the situation. "Oh, it looks as though they've been a bit cheeky", she said. We discussed Indemnity Claim, and it seemd a long shot (there had been two of them at the till, one the cashier, the other the shop-floor assistant), so I dropped the idea. But she said she would immediately close the D/D. She rang back a few minutes later, to say that since the D/D had been cancelled on the same day a debit had been made, the debit of £7.99 for that day would be refunded. So that left me overall £7.99 out of pocket (break-even on the first one, due to "Manager's Discretion"). Not worth trying to take further, though I felt annoyed enough to want to! Well, that's my PC World experience! Moral: look closely at the receipt! (Though by the time I could have done that, it would all have been set up already -- but at least I would have been within the 2-week period for getting any money back). (And I didn't get the impression that it was the first time the Bank lady had heard such a story ... ). Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 27-May-09 Time: 17:43:46 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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webcam and firewall java applet problem
by Jenny Hopkins 24 May '09

24 May '09

Hi, I'm trying to enable access to an internal webcam externally, through a firewall. For complex reasons I won't go into unless necessary, the firewall forwards to a server running xinetd, which then port forwards to the camera. The firewall has ports 8090 and 40001 opened, the manual stating these are the two required. The xinetd conf forwards 8090 to the camera port 80, and 40001 to the camera port 40001, the former rule called 'camera' and the latter 'camera_image'. Now - using debian and firefox browser, i.e. the java applet option, I can see the webpage but the image is blank white. (The same setup could see the image fine on the internal network.) Error message on page: "Loading java applet failed". Only the 'camera' rule is invoked in the firewall log. Windows IE users select the ActiveX button and can see the image fine, and I note that now in the firewall log the 'camera_image' rule is now being invoked as well as 'camera'. The java applet does not try and use port 40001 for some reason, but I can't see any rejected requests for other ports. Can anyone shed any light on this? I hope I've explained it well enough. Thanks, Jenny

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Re: [ALUG] Keyboard not working in KDE4
by barrie jones 20 May '09

20 May '09

On Tue May 19 23:26:48 BST 2009 Steve Fosdick wrote: > >On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 21:13 +0100, Srdjan Todorovic wrote: > > > >Seems a bit odd that your keyboard uses /dev/gpmdata if it does not exist. > >Almost sounds like a messed up X11 config... >Isn't /dev/gpmdata a _mouse_ repeater device. Why would this be in use for the keyboard whether or not it exists? Yes, gpmdata is a mouse device! I've been going round in circles on this problem and missed it. The SaX utility in openSUSE generated the xorg.conf and put in 2 device lines - /dev/gpmdata and /dev/input/mice and with my brain only half in gear I was looking at the first as keyboard since the second is mouse. I'm sure the keyboard isn't using it as there's no sign of it in /dev, and I've tried a very minimal xorg.conf with no specific devices or options so that the xserver configures on the fly, all with the same result. It just seems that whatever goes in xorg.conf makes no difference, which is why I wonder if it's a kde4 conflict. Barrie _________________________________________________________________ View your Twitter and Flickr updates from one place – Learn more! http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/137984870/direct/01/

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Keyboard not working in KDE4
by barrie jones 19 May '09

19 May '09

I installed openSUSE 11.1 with KDE4. The initial login was normal and I then set up my detailed video options from within KDE. After restarting the xserver everything was fine and I shut down the computer normally. However when I now log in to KDE the keyboard doesn't work at all. It seems to be a KDE4 issue because if I log out using the mouse (which is absolutely fine) the keyboard still works on the logon screen so kdm isn't a problem, and if I drop to a tty logon all is completely normal as well. I'm using a usb keyboard so I tried a ps2 keyboard which gives identical results. As the keyboard worked in KDE4 on the initial installation login I copied the original xorg.conf back, but that also results in a completely non-functioning keyboard. I've tried removing all detail from the input sections in xorg.conf, removing the keyboard and mouse devices (keyboard is listed as /dev/gpmdata which doesn't seem to exist), and putting in an option in the keyboard section to stop evdev. None made any difference - all fine on a tty and kdm logon screen, and keyboard completely unresponsive in KDE4 with the mouse normal. If I log on to icewm instead of KDE4 the keyboard is fine. When in KDE4 the keyboard is being recognised, using an event character device in /dev/input, with the keyboard name/type correctly listed and linked to it in /dev/input/by-id My mobo is an ASUS G43/ICH10 with an Intel core2duo 7400 cpu and 4GB memory. I'm using the onboard Intel GMA4500 graphics with the intel driver. I could remove KDE4 and install KDE 3.5 (which works perfectly with Debian Lenny on this machine), but taking a look at KDE4 was a major part of the reason for installing openSUSE so I'd like to sort this if I can. Barrie _________________________________________________________________ Beyond Hotmail — see what else you can do with Windows Live. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/134665375/direct/01/

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Open Source Action Plan in Government
by mick 19 May '09

19 May '09

I have worked in central government my entire career (some 35+ years). I even once worked for the organisation quoted below. I confess to being completely baffled how a new agreement with Microsoft meets the Government's committment to Open Source. See http://online.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk/aboutus/pressreleases/MicrosoftnewP… In particular the quote attributed to Angela Eagle: "It [the new agreement] also reinforces the Government's commitment to its Open Source Action Plan by setting up a facility to reuse and share licences across the public sector." 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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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 18 May '09

18 May '09

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 18th 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://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. Topics up for discussion tonight include a showing off of the latest Android handset running Cupcake (Android 1.5), a rant about why Google Contacts has no field to store birthdays, and the question of whether the iPod run it's course ... plus anything else we want to yak about. Remember to call or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which I have a tendency to do 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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Feasability of unvirtualising guest OS for speed and profit?
by Srdjan Todorovic 11 May '09

11 May '09

Hi everyone, I've got a VMware image of a Linux distro used for development tasks. I use VMPlayer to boot this distro and then I work in it. This distro is virtualised as the guest and host libc/toolchain/etc are of different versions (and also incompatible). But it's a pain to keep all the windows confined to the VMPlayer window. So, I was thinking of: - copying out the files from the vmplayer distro image to a specific directory on the host filesystem - chrooting to this directory - maybe setting up LD_LIBRARY_PATH or something similar (though if I'm chrooting, I doubt this step will be needed) so as to: - take advantage of SMP when running make - split out windows from 'pseudo-guest' distro across two screens - not have to faff about with vmplayer and the slight performance penalty - not have to worry about removable devices and vmware's handling of them. At some point, I will try this out. But has anyone ever tried this, and did you run into any particular problems? Anything nasty/tricky to be careful of? I don't specifically need the guest OSs kernel to be booting, which is why this is possibly a nice plan. Thank you Srdjan

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Netbook question(s)
by Chris G 07 May '09

07 May '09

I'm thinking of getting a cheap netbook to take on a (motorbike) holiday next month. It'll be Linux based of course and my requirements are pretty simple. All the basic, cheap netbooks will fulfil my basic requirements I think - i.e. they have a browser, can connect to the internet by WiFi, etc. However I have a couple of specific things which aren't always addresses in the advertising blurb:- How easy is it to add software? I really have to have ssh as that is how I access my E-Mail and that's one of the major reasons for getting the netbook. Are the "as supplied" Linux distributions sort of cast in stone or can one add things? I don't want to have to do a complete installation of a new distribution just to get ssh. Do any of the netbooks have a trackball rather than a pad? I really don't know why trackballs aren't more popular, I use one on my desktop and we now have a wireless keyboard with a trackball and it's magic, no separate mouse to lose/drop and the trackball is much nicer than a pad. -- Chris Green

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"Hacked to Pieces"
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 06 May '09

06 May '09

Hi again, folks. This is a sort fo follow-up to the Syleham gathering, since as I started to drive home after the meeting a programme "Hacked to Pieces" had just started on Radio 4. It is about computer crime, and how vulnerable most people are because of naivety about security. The programme can be found at 17:00 on http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm for today Sunday 3 May (in case you're reading this later). If you click on the link "N days left to listen" you can hear it. The bit that raised my eyebrows starts at 5min 30sec into the programme, where the presenter (Jolyon Jenkins) takes his laptop to be hacked into by Peter Wood of First Base Technologies (who provide a "hack your computer, guv?" service to companies who want to check their security). It lasts to 7min 40sec into the programme. In particular, I transcribed the following short extract: JJ: I was genuinely suprised by, in fact, how vulnerable I turned out to be. PW: The first thing I'll do is an easy check to see whether I can get a nice little automated tool to cough up your password straight away so I can log on as you. JJ: I'm fairly confident you're not going the get my password, because it's not a natural language word. PW: This isn't dependent on any dictionary-based word, it's just trying every permutation of letters and numbers up to 14 characters long. JJ: Ah, I'm feeling less confident because ... PW: Ah! There's your password JJ: Oh! PW: That took two hundred and ninety seconds of computational time. Well, my jaw would drop if I believed it! Even if the password is case-insensitive, that's 36 letters+numbers to try every "permutation" of. There are 36^14 different 14-character strings where each character can independently be any letter or number. And that's just the full 14-character string -- there's also all the shorter strings as well. Now, 36^14 is about 10^22, or 10^13 billion, or 10,000 billion billion. A 1-GHz CPU would take 10,000 billion seconds to execute that number of CPU cycles, or about 300,000 years. So there's no way the guy's password hacker is going to do what he said it would do. It's not too plausible when it comes to searching for shorter passwords either. An 8-character password (case-insensitive) still potentially requires 36^8 or about 3*10^12 tries; so (based on the previous calculation) that's 3,000 seconds or 0.83hr to execute 3*10^12 CPU cycles. Then you have to multiply that by the number of CPU cycles needed to work through each try, which is presumably not a small number. And it's worse if passwords are case-insensitive, since then there are 46^8 approx = 2*10^13, or 20,000 billion tries for an 8-character password, and it's 5.6 hours to execute that number of CPU cycles on a 1 GHz CPU. So the "outcome" of that little experiment strikes me a implausible, and I susepct that it was "rigged" in order to sex up the story. (Maybe JJ used a shortish password -- 46^6 is only 9.5 billion). This sort of thing is supposed to take place in the context of people (e.g. attending meetings/conferences) leaving their laptops unattended for say half an hour, thus allowing the hacker physical access. (And, by the way, it seems they're thinking of Windows machines). I'd be interested to hear if any of you folks have comments on the above! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 03-May-09 Time: 22:41:30 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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ALUG 10.0 kit meet Sunday 3rd
by John Woodard 04 May '09

04 May '09

Directions to the venue have been posted if you do have difficulty finding Syleham Village Hall, those who have been before can confirm it can be a little difficult to find, I will have my mobile turned on so you can call to be guided in. The signal for my network is flaky inside the hall but I will pop outside from time to time at the beginning to check for voice mail or text and will call you back. 07908 222428 Looking forward to seeing old friends and some new faces. Cheers, BJ

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