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Re: Broadband dilemma
by Peter 11 Oct '05

11 Oct '05

I ordered BT Broadband with a Game Router a couple of years ago for a friend - he had ISDN, so ordering from anyone but BT involved ISDN cancellation charges, and going with BT got him a free router. It went in on time and has worked just fine ever since. The BT Game Router, at least, works with Linux, its accessible in the usual way from a web browser. I was a bit surprised to discover that it came configured with the firewall off and no password or user name or configuration guide in the documentation. Maybe that is somewhat understandable in a Game Router. However, calling support got these quite easily. The main reason for buying from a reseller rather than direct must be price. If you look at the pricing from Tiscali, say, as compared to BT Retail, there's around £100 a year in it and no difference in service. They really need to get the fat out of Retail. We ourselves bought Tiscali, threw out the usb modem, bought a Hayes one port modem/router from Ebuyer, and hooked that up to our ethernet hub. I had to call Hayes support to get it configured right, but they were wonderfully helpful and very well informed. Tiscali, or the router, seems to lose the IP address every three or four months - which rebooting the router fixes. We are not very demanding users, but it works fine. My neighbour, who is a more demanding user, also has Tiscali, also provided his own router, and is quite satisfied. Regards, Peter

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RE: [ALUG] The Anglia Knight, was: Rethemeing Engine...
by Keith Watson 10 Oct '05

10 Oct '05

> From: MJ Ray Sent: 10 October 2005 14:47 ... > Unfortunately, the real knight is too skinny to be replaced > with a fat penguin without looking seriously strange, at Perhaps something based on Henry VIII would be better source material? Regards, Keith ____________ Mistakes are the portals of discovery. - James Joyce

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RE: [ALUG] Rethemeing Engine...
by Keith Watson 10 Oct '05

10 Oct '05

> From: Matt Parker Sent: 10 October 2005 11:02 > On Monday 10 October 2005 09:28, Adam Bower wrote: > > Does anyone on the list have any ideas about what really > pushes "East Anglia" graphically? > > Tux in the Sutton Hoo helmet? Tux in a chariot doing a Boudicca impression? Regards, Keith ____________ 'Remain steadfast...and one day you will build something that endures; - something worthy of your potential.' - - Epictetus

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Linux PC
by Dave Briggs 10 Oct '05

10 Oct '05

Right, well, I've been meddling on the fringes of Open Source and linux for too long: using free software on Windows wherever I can, having a dual boot PC a couple of years back, messing around with live CDs since. But now I guess it is time to go for it, and as I 'need' to get a new desktop PC soon, I am going to make it a Linux only machine. Brave of me, huh? Anyhow, what options are there? Buy a windows PC and install Linux over the top? Buy a linux ready PC? Or buy the bits and do it myself? I do want to make this a linux only box, with all the bits in it those known to work well with the penguin. Any thoughts? -- Dave Briggs linux(a)davebriggs.net | http://davebriggs.net | http://palimpsest.org.uk

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RE: [ALUG] Rethemeing Engine...
by Keith Watson 10 Oct '05

10 Oct '05

> From: MJ Ray Sent: 10 October 2005 00:57 > Brett Parker <iDunno(a)sommitrealweird.co.uk> > > > Also, from IRC earlier, maybe it's time we actually got us a pretty > > logo, so any logo developers out there that want to take a > stab at it, > > please do. [...] > > For my entry in the retheme competition, I'm struggling to > find a suitable picture that conveys "Anglia" or ALUG's sense > of place in the world too. My current ideas are the Norwich > skyline (visible at http://mjr.towers.org.uk/comp/alugtalk/ > just now), Ely cathedral, Orwell bridge, or Lynn's custom > house. UEA Nelson Court (kit meeting venue) is showing on > Brett's rethemer. If you have an idea or - even better - a > suitable base image, please email me or mention it on > irc.alug.org.uk #alug tomorrow 8pm. > I always liked slef's idea of tux in armour riding on a Gnu (sinilar to the old Anglia TV logo). Started fiddling around with this some time back but my GIMP skills are not up to it. Got some reference images somewhere is anyone else want's a go. Regards, Keith ____________ I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. - These three are your greatest treasures. - Lao-Tzu

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 10 Oct '05

10 Oct '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Broadband dilemma
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 09 Oct '05

09 Oct '05

Hi Folks, I'd welcome comments on the following situation. According to the Sphinx, my exchange is due to be BB enabled on 12 October -- a mere 4 days off!!!! It's a BT exchange (Brandon Creek), a BT phone line, and I'm a BT customer for the telephone service (and, currently, also for dialup acess). The only external signs of activity I've seen so far, passing by the other day, is that the radio dish on top of the pole, which used to face South towards Littleport, now faces North. So maybe something really is happening! More to the point, between me and it is some 5km of overhead cable, as things stand at the moment (they sometimes fall down, literally ... ). BT's website tells me, this morning: "Check availability - results For Telephone Number 01353676*** on Exchange BRANDON CREEK Our initial test on your line indicates that you may be able to get Broadband from BT with speeds up to 1Mb, which is up to 20 times faster than dial-up. At the moment, your telephone line is unable to support our 2Mb speed broadband package. Also, due to the length of your line, an engineer visit may be required to set up your broadband service. Your local BT telephone exchange is unable to support broadband at the moment, but it will by 12th October 2005. If you decide to place an order, a further test will be performed to confirm if your line is suitable for the speed of service you wish to order. Order Broadband from BT online and get a FREE modem saving you a £25 charge which applies if you order by phone." This raises a number of issues, in the context of the fact that, a priori, I'm not that keen to order broadband from BT anyway, for various reasons (one of which is their attitude to non-Windows users -- their basic service, for example, is apparently not even Mac-compatible!). 1. "you may be able to get Broadband from BT with speeds up to 1Mb," 2. "Also, due to the length of your line, an engineer visit may be required to set up your broadband service." 3. "If you decide to place an order, a further test will be performed to confirm if your line is suitable for the speed of service you wish to order." All of this tends to point to the possibility that it might not work without engineer intervention (if at all ... ). So the dilemma is: If I order broadband from a non-BT ISP, where would their engineer stand, being non-BT, in the event of difficulties arising from the BT part of the system (the setup in the exchange, the length and quality of the overhead cable, the final line from the pole to my house, etc. The latter, for instance, had to be renewed by a BT engineer a while ago because its covering had perished, letting the rain in to the cable. Who knows what the cable's like further back along the line ... )? Would a non-BT engineer be able to fix problems that a BT engineer could fix (which might involve fiddling with exchange setups)? If there could be snags on that front, then maybe going for non-BT might be a bad idea, though on other grounds it would be a good idea! (I'm particularly tempted by comments on some of the ISPs that have come up recently on ALUG). Another issue is the "modem/router" that BT would supply (free according to the above, though that's not an important factor). I wonder how a non-BT modem/router would work in this case. I happen to have in hand at the moment a Peak CAS4047 "High Speed 1 WAN 4LAN Broadband Router" (quoting from the box), which claims to be RJ45-connectable to a Cable/DSL modem, so this should in principle be OK provided there's a modem for it to connect to. But I wonder about the BT "modem/router". I've tested the Peak's browser accessibility (point Firefox to "http://192.168.1.254" and you can have a nice little chat with it, apparently allowing all sorts of things to be set up including routing to the internal fixed IPs of your LAN, while getting a dynamic IP for itself from the ISP, not to mention various firewalling options). So it looks good. But it would be plugging into the BT modem. Any likely problems? NB that BT assert on their website that their "modem/router" requires Windows compatibility. I'm not going to waste my time trying to find out from BT Customer Support whether that's really true, or whether you can just switch it on, plug in any DSL-compatible router, wait for it to get its IP address, and then simply carry on, independently of not using Windows. So I think the dilemma can be summed up: Would I, as a Linux user, be buggered if I got a BT installation? Would I be buggered anyway if I got another ISP to provide the service? Comments welcome! (Please remember that I'm totally new to this area of going on-line, so I'm not familiar with the bits and pieces). Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Oct-05 Time: 13:34:23 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Problem with the Library
by Wayne Stallwood 08 Oct '05

08 Oct '05

I am moving the library to it's new home but I am having a few problems talking to mysql. mysql --host=localhost --user=opendb --password=thepassword Works, I can then see a database called aluglib and run queries on the tables etc. In my opendb config.php I have // Database configuration $CONFIG_VARS['db_server.host'] = 'localhost'; //OpenDb database host $CONFIG_VARS['db_server.dbname'] = 'aluglib';//OpenDb database name $CONFIG_VARS['db_server.username'] = 'opendb'; //OpenDb database user name $CONFIG_VARS['db_server.passwd'] = 'thepassword'; //OpenDb password But when I try and login to the Library I get the following error Access denied for user: 'opendb@localhost' (Using password: YES) Not being very experienced with these things, can anyone give me some pointers to what I am doing wrong. To move the library I simply dumped the old database and then imported that into the new one with mysql blah blah databasename < dump.sql. the rest of the site was just coped over using scp. Then I just changed the config in config.php and checked permissions. I thought that should be it ?

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Re-theme
by Bob Dove 08 Oct '05

08 Oct '05

Hi Folks, Looked at the new 'home-page' in IE6 on (SORRY) Windoze. Looks good to me - please keep it simple, no flash, java or activex - you know, the stuff that makes you site look wonderful and opens doors to all sorts of danger! Firefox is set up to crush all that sort of stuff on my machine - and on many other I would assume! Cheers, BD.

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It takes two to tango...
by Bob Dove 08 Oct '05

08 Oct '05

Hi Guys, How about some sitting in the sun and relaxing, it's getting a tiny bit tiresome to watch this quarrel. BD

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