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Norwich thursday evening meeting 8th January 2004
by Syd Hancock 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

It's come around quickly this month but the 'second thursday' Norwich evening meeting is this week, thursday 8th January 2004, from 8pm at the Forum Coffee bar. Details on the alug website http://www.alug.org.uk Regards Syd

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Re: [ALUG] Microsoft and schools
by Stuart Hammond 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

I think the idea of the government using OSS (eg Linux OS) on school desktop computers is slightly narrow sighted for education is there to allow people to go forth and gain employment and as most workplaces don't use Linux as the OS for there desktop machines it would not really be following that ethos. How ever as some one who has just started to use Linux i am gradually finding windows terrible. i use Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer in Windows as it dose not crash when ever i get a popup ad also the GUI of Linux is so much nicer than Windows exspecaly with the built in multiple desktops and the ability to have more than one taskbar, however i think what Linux needs is easier software installation (tarballs etc. scare me) and better device/games support and then it would really be truly superior to Windows in every way (from a user point of view). What it needs to solve all of these is probably better reconition in the business arena on desktops which would at least force the government to teach people how to use it. Yours S Hammond _________________________________________________________________ Get Hotmail on your mobile phone http://www.msn.co.uk/msnmobile

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Predictions for 2004
by Graham Trott 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

The link below is to an article at silicon.com predicting winners and losers in 2004. Linux is in the first list for servers and the second for client side, partly because of the unnecessary, confusing and destructive battle between KDE and Gnome. While I don't necessarily agree completely with the article I think it has some fair points. http://www.silicon.com/management/ itdirector/0,39024673,39117578,00.htm?nl=e20040106 I'd also like to predict some more losers: 1 The public wi-fi access point. As long as prices stay where they are, that is. 2 Java as a client-side solution, given the increasing bloat with every version release. (That may well apply to .NET too, for the same reason, but I wouldn't know.) Why in hell can't Sun or IBM modularise the thing so if you don't want it all you don't have to download it (or force your customers to)? 3 Sun - already in the loser list, but for the additional reason that they don't understand end-users. Some fine ideas but seemingly targetted at a world that won't exist for another five or more years. 4 Anyone who expected broadband to be taken up by every Mom and Pop in the land. 5 Mom and Pop, who can't download the service patches from Microsoft and thus catch every virus and worm going. Nice to think Linux could gallop along on its white horse and save the day, but it's too fragmented and difficult for said Mom and Pop to set up. After all, ain't nobody else gonna do it for them. And just to show I'm not all negative, a winner: Computer users everywhere, able to use an increasing base of good-quality free software as an alternative to overpriced commercial stuff or nag'n'bitch shareware. When this trend gets far enough along, coupled with much better standards than at present and making source downloads a LOT easier to use, Linux may emerge as a viable desktop candidate for ordinary people. -- GT

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Re: [ALUG] Does anyone know lftp -c commands ?
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

I wondered why the response I sent below hadn't appeared on the list. I had sent to to Mark by mistake - sorry Mark! Here it is again: > Similar to Graham, my untested guess: lftp -e 'open -u > mylogin,mypassword mydomain ; ls' Bingo! I tried semicolons and it didn't work but I didn't think of enclosing the whole lot in single quotes. The combination of the two works. Thanks to you both. Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Security problem - some ideas sought
by James Green 07 Jan '04

07 Jan '04

Hello All, Here's an interesting scenario for you security buffs out there - I've been approached to think about the issues and return with some verdicts and would appreciate some intelligent ideas I'm sure you can conjure up... Company A has its software installed on lots of customer Windows machines around the world. The software has effectively got 'root' access on the machine, and talks regularly to a central server to gain upgrades etc. If the software is tampered with, the computers could well cause disruption. [ Yes, really bad idea. Microsoft should indeed be shot for allowing it. ] The upgrades can be 'pushed' out at will to a subset of customers, or to all. The software, having full Administrator access, needs to be careful. Or, more to the point, the procedure for releasing upgrades and changes to the software needs to be highly secure. One idea that was my initial on the subject is as follows: Six 'trusted' employees, six 'secure' servers. Employees are minor shareholders in the company. For an upgrade to be pushed out, a majority of the trusted employees must submit the same upgrade package to a majority of the servers, and the servers between them must agree that the upgrade is verified as coming from the claimed sources. Combined, they should check out. If any one employee, or one machine, were to raise a black flag, the process is aborted. In the event that a bad upgrade is indeed rolled out any two employees can activate a rollback procedure (which I can't think of procedurally right now). Normally I would of course be thinking in terms of specialised identity and verificaton equipment, but Company A doesn't exactly have the resources of the CIA or NSA, so remote servers and a chain of trust is the closest they can get. PGP keys all round I suspect. A nightmare to secure, and is still open to attack, both internally and externally, however thats how I see it. I warn that I got almost three hours sleep last night due to "server issues" so if I make no sense thats probably why. Comments/suggestions on completely different ideas/etc most welcomed. I don't have experience in this field. Thanks all, James

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Does anyone know lftp -c commands ?
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 06 Jan '04

06 Jan '04

I've been struggling to get the lftp -c and -e options to work. There's no elaboration of the -c option in the man page and a search on the web produces nothing extra. Does anyone know the proper syntax? If, for example, I try: lftp -e open -u mylogin,mypassword mydomain ls All I get is: lftp: ls: no address associated with name How is one supposed to enter a series of commands on the command line? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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dinamic library
by Vasko Tomanov 06 Jan '04

06 Jan '04

The key "feature" here is that I want to write a piece of code in Linux that will read a .conf file when it starts up, and then "load" and "link to" several libraries, all of which will export the same interface. In Windows, what you do is get hold of the name of the DLL from somewhere (e.g. the registry), call LoadLibrary() on it, then call GetprocInstance() to get the address of the various entry points. Libtool appears to be different -it just says "link to this file when you compile the project" - that's no good because I don't want the drivers to be fixed at compile time any suggestions ? Cheers Vasko Tomanov

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Names
by Tarquin Mills 06 Jan '04

06 Jan '04

I did not take part in the earlier ALUG names debate, but while reading Free as Freedom, I have decided I perfer Anglian GNU/Linux User Group to Anglia Linux User Group. "promise me to use the term GNU/Linux instead of Linux and tell all your friends to do likewise." (Quote from RMS) -- Tarquin Mills bmud (BitMap UNIX Display) Terminal

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ALUG Sunday meeting in Norwich January 25th
by Syd Hancock 05 Jan '04

05 Jan '04

There will be a sunday afternoon meeting in Norwich on the 25th January 2004, from 2pm at The Billy Bluelight, Hall Road. Full details of venue etc are on the ALUG website http://www.alug.org.uk Following Norwich sunday meeting planned for April 25th. Details later. Regards Syd

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 05 Jan '04

05 Jan '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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