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PDA to use with Linux?
by Jan T. Kim 30 Jan '08

30 Jan '08

Dear All, my Palm Tungsten is getting increasingly short of breath (battery life) and so I think of getting a successor. I'd like a handheld of some sort that * uses flash memory (i.e. permanent storage that survives battery outages) * interoperates with Linux (the Palm can be backed up and restored using pilot-xfer, but I've not found anything useful to work with the data in the *.pdb ("Palm Database") files) * is small (the Zaurus SL-C palmtops seem interesting to me in many ways, but I think they're just a bit too bulky for shirt pockets, and also, they're quite expensive) * provides a decent choice of software for contacts, diary keeping, and (ideally) an advanced "To Do" tool that understands dependency graphs and integrates with the diary Any recommendations / experiences / comments? Please let me know. Best regards, Jan -- +- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+ | email: jtk(a)cmp.uea.ac.uk | | WWW: http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/people/jtk | *-----=< hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans >=-----*

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TV adapter
by Barry Samuels 29 Jan '08

29 Jan '08

I would like to get a Hauppauge WinTV Nova T 500 adapter which I understand works with Linux. That's the easy part. It would be very inconvenient to install it in my desktop because it would require a connection to a TV aerial socket and I don't have one near my desktop. My idea would be to assemble another computer using some spare parts that I have together with some parts that I would have to re-aquire. I say 're-aquire' because I would have had all the necessary parts if I hadn't given away a lot of them (CPUs, hard drives, RAM) to a local computer recycling charity a few months ago. Why is it that one does not have a use for these parts until they've gone? I'm assuming that if I assemble the said computer with the TV adapter in it (putting it near a TV aerial socket) and can connect wirelessly to my desktop then I could access the TV adapter from my desktop using something like MythTV. Would such a thing be possible? I would be looking at a minimal install of Linux on the new box with all the processing done on my desktop. This would assume that I could connect the two boxes using nothing more than a wireless adapter in each i.e. no router. My desktop has an on- board wireless adapter and I have two spare PCI adapters one of which I could use in the new box. Is it possible to get two wireless adapters to communicate in this way? Would that be fast enough to cope with the data from the TV adapter? What sort of specification for the new machine would be required? I have a Gigabyte GA-7ZXE mainboard which takes a Socket A Athlon (which I would have to aquire) and it takes PC-133 SDRam (which I would also have to aquire). What's the minimum RAM I would need? I would also need to aquire an IDE hard drive. What's the minimum size I could get away with? I wouldn't normally want to use a screen or keyboard after the machine has been setup - would that cause problems when booting? What else haven't I thought of? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Cube cases ???
by James Freer 26 Jan '08

26 Jan '08

Be grateful if someone could comment from their experience of building PC's. I've been thinking about building one of these. I used to like the slim desktop as they were a convenient size - until i noticed the more recent ones have low profile pci card slots which i'm not so keen on. The cube case takes a standard power supply and standard pci cards - so i've had a look at a few. Looking at ebuyer i noticed this cheaper one and the comments a purchaser has made - a lot of ????? and yet 4 stars. For the price it seems a fair enough case... I couldn't make out what he was getting at... perhaps i'm just thick... if it's bad i've seen far worse!!!! comments please? http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135583 also #135581, 135582 slight variations it would appear in the comments is the following link http://forum.coolaler.com/showthread.php?t=171184 james

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Broken Gnome/Metacity account - how to fix?
by Martyn Drake 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

Hello, Having ham-fisted my way through trying to fix a knackered user account on RHEL 5 that is using Gnome/Metacity (i.e. the RedHat desktop), I can't seem to copy a set of healthy files across - the WM still moans about missing files and the what not. Is there a utility that I could run to re-generate a set of default working files so that the user can at least re-do their old settings manually? I confess ignorance to Gnome/Metacity, but then again, I'm not one for using Linux on the desktop these days, so I'm a bit out of practice.. Regards, Martyn

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Extracting from mbox files
by Mark Rogers 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

I need to extract some emails from a 600MB .mbox file, which is >99% spam. Its a dspam quarantine box that's gone unpruned and now has some emails I need to remove from the quarantine, and the whole mbox file can be deleted afterwards. Any suggestions? This is on a server to which I have SSH root access, so pretty much any non-GUI tools are open to me. I have tools that will handle it in principle, just not now its that size (eg the dpsam web UI tools would be OK if I could just remove everything older than the last couple of weeks first). So an mbox pruning tool would be fine too. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Monitoring HTTP redirects from Firefox
by Mark Rogers 24 Jan '08

24 Jan '08

Does anyone know of a way from within Firefox that I can capture a sequence of redirects and work out what's happening? I can use wget and see a sequence of 301/302 redirects that way, but I need to do this within a session so I really need to follow it in Firefox. Or Opera/IE I suppose (all on Ubuntu 8.04). Something obscure is happening on one of my sites when I follow an HTTPS link which is causing it to redirect back to HTTP, which is probably something to do with something in the session that I'm not getting chance to investigate. Therefore the ability not just to capture the sequence but also to step through it would be helpful. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Scanners - 'manual scan'?
by James Freer 21 Jan '08

21 Jan '08

http://www.ebuyer.com/search/?strSearch=&bolShowAll=true&intStoreID=7&intCa… I'd be very grateful if someone could advise if any of these HP scanners are what i'd call manual scan. I've had an HP PSC500 which allows me to darken or lighten the scan. I wanted to replace this PSC500 as she's large and costs 2 pairs of ink cartridges per year. I bought a Canon Canoscan LIDE 90 last year to find that it only did 'auto scan' and for some things i tested it on it wasn't that good. There was a fault with it so i could return it thankfully. Looking at the specs i can't see if any are a 'manual scan' - be grateful for help. It may be they are all auto scan these days, which is fine for photos but not so good for scanning b/w drawings i've found. james

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Asus EEE PC Stock
by Martin Collins 20 Jan '08

20 Jan '08

Hi, Anyone managed to find stock on-line of the 4GB babies?? Clove tech (www.clove.co.uk) site doesn't say whether they have stock or not and the site is throwing up all sorts of errors. When you finally get to the checkout my little padlock has a red-line through it indicating it's not secure, so I'm staying well clear! Rgds, Martin

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Default sort order for KDE applications
by Chris G 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

Is there any way to set the default sort order for files/directories in KDE applications? I don't run KDE but I'm using some KDE programs (digikam in particular) and I'd like to know if it's possible to change the sort order of directories in pearticular. I'm not talking about within digikam, I'm talking about a general configuration parameter for all applications, there may not be such a thing of course but I was just hoping. -- Chris Green

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Web interface to apt-get upgrade
by Mark Rogers 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

Are there any web interfaces to "apt-get upgrade", or any other ways I can keep a system up to date simply but not automatically? The target is Linux based servers provided for clients which need to be kept up to date (eg because they'll be web facing) where they need a simple interface to allow them to apply updates which is no more complex that Windows Update. Otherwise I'll be under pressure to install the applications under Windows instead, something I'm keen to avoid! If none exist it doesn't sound too hard to implement other than ensuring it is secure (a minor detail!). I believe I can use the sudoers file to allow the apache user to run 'apt-get upgrade' as root without allowing it to do anything else? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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