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Automating sftp
by Graham 05 Sep '04

05 Sep '04

Can anyone explain to a novice the way to automate an sftp batch session without the need to supply a password each time? The manpage refers me to sshd and says I need to configure public key authentication, but what does that mean in practical, step-by-step terms? -- GT

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Mozilla - Dial up.
by Leon Stedman 02 Sep '04

02 Sep '04

In the bottom right corner of my Mozilla screen there is an icon which announces "You are online. Click to go offline". Clicking the icon has no effect other than changing (toggling) the both the icon and the helpful message. Could anyone please explain how to make it do more? It could, for instance, dial the ISP and put me on line, or run a script to achieve the same effect. Leon Stedman

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k3b and CD burning
by Wayne Stallwood 02 Sep '04

02 Sep '04

This is driving me insane Ever since upgrading to my new box (and SuSE 9.1) I can't get creating audio cd's from mp3's to work properly. I have tried every version of k3b I can find (from the version on the SuSe disks, through the version available on YOU to the bleeding edge version 0.11.13 I found on SuSE's website) I have even tried compiling k3b from source (however it seems to dislike or at least not understand 64bit machines) and unless I manually build everything from alsa to qt to the versions it wants it isn't going to work. The truly sickening thing is that it worked once. About the first thing I did when I built my new machine is burn a CD for my Girlfriend to play at work. Now (regardless of what version of k3b I use) I get a perfectly readable CD, with all the track information in the right place, times etc. yet when I try and play it (in a regular CD player) a strange pulsing sound which vaguely resembles the original music is heard (and no someone hasn't overwritten all my mp3's with German techno music...I checked) Funnily enough if I ask k3b to produce a clone copy of an audio cd the result is perfect (something I could never get to work on audio disks before) so at least I know the writing bit is working. I think it is either something to do with the mp3's getting decoded (by the mad_lib ?) or between there and the raw tracks being passed to cdrecord. I am trying to create a disk using the command line tools only (to better understand the stages) However all my mp3's are at 160kps or higher. If I pass them through say mpg123 to get a wav output track how do I resample it to 128kbps so that cdrecord will accept it ? Also after reading the cdrecord man file I wonder if cdrecord is confused about the endian mode of my (admittedly rather current NEC 2510 drive) however if I try and specify -swab in the user parameters for cdrecord within k3b it seems to get ignored (and forgotten) Any ideas, or perhaps a quick how to burn a 160kps mp3 to audio cd using only the command line so I can at least drop cdrecord into verbose mode. Ta Wayne

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Re: [ALUG] Disposing of old kit
by C Neil Bauers 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

On Sunday 29 August 2004 9:41 pm, Ted Harding wrote: > Hi Folks, > > Does anyone have suggestions for disposing usefully > (i.e. not simply taking it to the tip^H^H^H recycling > centre) of assorted old computer kit? Try your local post 16 college or sixth form college. The computing students there will be keen to get hold of useful kit. Cheers. Neil.

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Lifetime email and spam protection
by Graham 29 Aug '04

29 Aug '04

At one time I frequently changed ISP and got fed up with having to tell dozens of people each time about the new email address. The solution I've used for some years is to get a "lifetime email address"; an address that redirects mail to wherever you actually are. There are several places to get these; the one I use is at http://www.pobox.com and costs me $15 per year. You can try one out for a month, free. The only problem with using the same address for a long time - made worse by having a 2-character user ID - is that the spammers find you pretty quickly. I now get anything up to 100 spams a day. However, pobox have just added a spam filter to their basic service, at no extra cost. This seems to be doing a splendid job; I'm getting virtually no spams at all. It's better than any solution you can run on your own computer as it removes the mail at their end, so you don't need to download it to examine it. I can now happily give my address to anyone without fear of being deluged by a new wave of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). So I'd recommend the pobox.com service to anyone with a spam problem or who regularly changes provider. P.S. I don't get paid for endorsing them. -- GT

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SuSE 9.1 Epson C64 and Gimp-Print
by Martin Collins 27 Aug '04

27 Aug '04

I've googled this one to the limit and I know the answer to the problem but I'm stumped for a solution - can anyone help please? My printer is an Epson C64 and I'm using SuSE 9.1 which has libgimpprint 4.2.6 installed. This version of gimp-print has a known bug for my printer - see http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/epson-list/2004q1/003527.html. It means all my print outs are too high and too much to the left. It's been fixed in version 4.2.7 which is now out. The link above details an "emergency fix" for 4.2.6 but it is only applicable when compiling from source. There lies the problem. You can't uninstall libgimpprint easily due to dependency issues and there's no packaged libgimpprint 4.2.7 for Suse yet (if ever). There's also no libgimpprint source package at all. Further, SuSE does a strange thing in that libgimpprint is a seperate package to cups-printer-drivers which contains the necessary ppd files. However if you compile gimp-print from source it provides both?? Is there anyway I could apply this "emergency fix" described in the link above with my current set up? With previous linux distros I have got around the problem by using a real dirty hack as follows; 1. note the names of all installed libgimpprint.so.x.x.x.x.'s in /usr/lib 2. Without uninstalling package libgimpprint, compile and install gimp-print from source 3. Delete files in 1, above and re-create as symbolic links to the new libgimpprint.so's created in 2. 4. Re-start cups (/etc/init.d/cups restart) 5. Re-configure printer and manually select the newly installed ppd file. I really don't want to break my system this time, as there must be some way to beat this beast, so would really appreciate some advice. Many thanks, Martin

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Subject: [ALUG] disk space and shell patterns, was: Weekly IRC reminder
by Stuart Bailey 26 Aug '04

26 Aug '04

On Wednesday 25 August 2004 06:25, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > It's a shame there wasn't a suitable pretty disk use tool, but I got a > long way (half a gig freed up) by using "du -sk * | sort -n" in home > and working on down the tree. Is there a good pattern (is this a > glob?) which will cover all dot files but not . (current directory) > and .. (parent dir) or is .??* as good as it gets? Have you looked at filelight - it was featured in this months Linux User (well, the september issue). http://www.methylblue.com/filelight It will display a breakdown of your file system in a pie chart type format. Different colours for different file types. The root level (or the top level from where you start) is nearest the centre of the circle. As you move your mouse over the chart, the respective filenames are shown like tool tips. -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Proprietor) (01953) 601294 (07778) 383739 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ---------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please email postmaster(a)linusoft.co.uk immediately. You should not copy or use this email or attachments for any purpose nor disclose their contents to any other person. NO BINDING CONTRACT WILL RESULT FROM THIS E-MAIL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A WRITTEN DOCUMENT IS SIGNED ON BEHALF OF LinuSoft. LinuSoft cannot accept any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of this message as it has been transmitted over public networks. *************************************************************************

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Or not
by Wayne Stallwood 25 Aug '04

25 Aug '04

"I have kept this off list as it is not a Linux related question." Ok so everytime I press reply to a list mail it defaults to the sender rather than the list. "Yes I know why it is this way, I understand that it is my mail client, I am not complaining, just stating a fact" (Wayne, remembering list arguments of old) This behaviour is totally repeatable until I actually intend to reply to the original sender rather than the list, then it defaults to "reply to list"

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Re: [ALUG] Security, firewall?
by John Seago 25 Aug '04

25 Aug '04

On Wednesday 25 Aug 2004 18:22, Ian bell wrote: > Unless you plan on having a static IP and a constant connection to the > internet it is usualy fairly easy to set up. The most straightforward > way is to use an external ADSL modem/router and use this to provide > the necessary rpotection. The one I have is a very cheap one with > four ethernet ports and an 802.11 wireless. At the moment I just use > the wireless coneection. Mine is so simple and cheap it doen't even > have a built in firewall but most ports are blocked by default. Those > that aren't are easily set to stealth mode. > > To find out what ports are vulnerable on your system go to grc.com and > run their shields up programme which will scan your ports for you. > > Ian I have ordered an ADSL modem/router with four ports and wireless, (Linksys WAG54G), so it looks as though I 'm all set, but I'd still like a recommendation on the book, as I would like, however vague, an understanding of what I'm doing! -- John Seago Linux User #219566 (http://counter.li.org)

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