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Wanted - plain, simple, GUI address book
by Chris Green 28 Jan '17

28 Jan '17

I use mutt for E-Mail but I'm looking for a GUI address book because my address book requirements extend well beyond (but include) E-Mail addresses for mutt. I have been using the Contacts app in Owncloud with pycardsyncer keeping a local address list in sync with the Owncloud Contacts for mutt to use. However I'd like to make things simpler and better, the existing set-up has some disadvantages (for me) :- The Owncloud Contacts app is not very good, in particular you can't sort by Last Name which really bugs me. I'd really prefer to keep addresses wholly locally rather than on the cloud (even though it's my own cloud). Apart from anything else I'm quite often not able to access the internet and I still want my addresses and to be able to update them. The pycardsyncer (plus pc_query) application is 'deprecated', it's being superseded by vcardsyncer and some other bits and pieces. They're not in the Ubuntu repositories though and I prefer not to go 'ex repository'. The current set up is a fairly complicated way to fulfil a simple requirement. So I'm after a nice, simple, GUI address book program for my Linux desktop and laptop. I'm happy to use a mail program whose address book is easily accessible without navigating past the mail bit (e.g. like Thunderbird, but Thunderbird is overkill). I either want a mutt accessibility option or for the data to be kept in something sensible like a sqlite database that I can quickly write a simple script for to feed mutt. It must support postal addresses, phone numbers, etc. and preferably have some notes/comments ability too. I'd prefer something in the Ubuntu repositories though something in Python that I can maintain myself is also OK. Any suggestions anyone? -- Chris Green

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How to unmount an ext4 file system, journalling makes it permanently busy
by Chris Green 13 Jan '17

13 Jan '17

Is there any way to unmount an ext4 filesystem without shutting down? I can do it easily by going to single-user mode or removing the filesystem from /etc/fstab and rebooting but both of these require the system to be shut down. However it seems to be impossible otherwise because the journalling process makes the filesystem busy. Is this right? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] How to get rid of these corrupted files?
by Srdjan Todorovic 11 Jan '17

11 Jan '17

On 11 Jan 2017 09:58, "Chris Green" <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 10:10:42AM +0000, Chris Green wrote: > > Otherwise, I'm out of ideas. > > > So am I, I'm copy all the files of the drive and I'm going to re-make > the file systems. > ... and now, 16 hours later I'm seeing some errors. I've run 'mkfs.ext4 -c -c /dev/sdb1 and on the *second* pass I'm seeing some errors. The first 0xAA pass got no errors but the pass that's running now, writing 0x55, is getting some errors. So, presumably, that's what the problem is. However it's strange that nothing else was showing any errors, SMART reported nothing at all and Did smart long test complete at all? Im under the impression it only works when disk is idle, so if you were fscking then it wouldnt have been idle. Thats certainly been my experience recently. Regards Srdj

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th January
by Viperfang 09 Jan '17

09 Jan '17

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 12th January at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 6th January.
by Viperfang 03 Jan '17

03 Jan '17

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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How to set system date/time automatically at power up, no CMOS clock
by Chris Green 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

I have a BeagleBone Black system which monitors things on a boat. When it powers up the time is basically random, there's no CMOS clock to give it a start. Thus I need a way to get it to about the right time and date for ntpd to take over and keep it correct. What's the normal way of doing this? It needs to be automatically run at startup. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 138, Issue 3
by Christopher Dawkins 15 Dec '16

15 Dec '16

>> 1. Re: Building an (air gapped) offline Linux laptop as a >> newbie to Linux (mick) > What is your threat model? A question I wonder too, but welcome to the Unix world. If you have been previously on Windows I suppose you would be worried about security, but I'd suggest you stop worrying now. Unless you are in a public position and disliked by many, such as being Donald Trump, since almost any networked system can be breached by a skilled and determined opponent. If the threat to you is such that you need an airgapped machine then I wonder how you plan to protect the machine itself, as apart from some special products (iPhones?) it's usually possible to get inside a machine if you can get it to your laboratory bench. So the important questions are not software ones, they are: Do you live in a bunker or in a house? How many security men do you have guarding this bunker or house? How many steel or six-foot-concrete walls are there between you and the outside? If you have glass windows, is the glass toughened and more than several inches thick? Do you ever leave the house with the machine inside and not guarded by a small army? Would you ever carry the machine outside without a military guard? Do you search and scan all your visitors? Will your machine have internal explosives wired to all the case screws? If you don't apply the measures suggested by the questions above, the airgap could prove to be of no use, so much so that it's not worth bothering about. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Building an (air gapped) offline Linux laptop as a newbie to Linux
by Ian Henderson 14 Dec '16

14 Dec '16

Hi, all, I am new to Linux. I'm porting over to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with the Unity desktop from Windows 10. I want to keep things as simple (and hopefully therefore as reliable) as possible, for home/office critical use. I also want to stick to the main and universe repositories. Because prices were much lower for Linux-compatible laptops than with Win 10 installed, I can afford two. I plan to divide them into one for critical offline-only use, and the other for universal online use. I will air-gap the two. But it also means that I need to complete the final build of the offline air-gapped laptop ahead of porting data, after which it will not go online again (unless for a wipe and rebuild). For the offline-only laptop, I am looking at the following range of apps. Could I ask that you check my ideas, and offer suggestions and advice, please.:- 1) An office-like suite, for which I will be using LibreOffice, which is installed by default. 2) I need a whole-directory and free space overwriting utility, as well as the means to securely delete individual files. My understanding is that shred and wipe are available by default. I am looking at bleachbit for the whole-directory and free space wiping. But the software centre says "sudo" for this app: does that mean it has elevated privileges and is this a bad idea? 3) GtkHash for SHA256 etc. cryptographic hashes, primarily to verify backups. 4) Can anyone suggest an archiving utility which also verifies the files within the archive (I can then hash the archive file backup)? Archiving does not necessarily have to include compression. Are any installed by default? 5) GnuPG. I understand that this is installed by default? Am I correct that I can encrypt with password files if transferring on FAT32 USB or CD/DVD with this? Is it GUI? 6) CD/DVD burning, including both copying using a single optical drive, ordinary file burning and creating bootable CD/DVD from ISO images. I'm looking at Brasero for this. Can anyone suggest any other apps I should include ahead of locking off the build? I'm also assuming that the default 16.04 LTS supports formatting USB sticks to ext4, including encryption? Also, anyone any thoughts on using live-CD version of Ubuntu for online banking (in case the online unit got owned)? Please remember that I am a complete newbie to Linux. So please remember if you start talking about OpenWTF 0.666.1066 I will have no idea what you're talking about! Not for some months yet, anyway. :) Thanks for your help, Ian (C) Copyright 2016 by Ian Henderson. All rights reserved. Do not pass on my email address without my prior written consent (if emailing multiple recipients at the same time, use the BCC field in place of the To field).

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mail failures
by Nev Young 07 Dec '16

07 Dec '16

Hi, Can any one offer advice about a problem I've been having with email for a few months now? I suspect it has something to do with increased security at host mx4.hotmail.com but I can not confirm this. The problem (in brief) I host a number of websites. Each of these has a "contacts" page where any one may send an email. The page contains the following fields: 1 a drop down box to select the recipient (e.g. secretary, chair, treasurer, events co-ordinator, etc.) 2 a text field for the sender's own email address 3 a free text field. This prevents the sender knowing the email address of the recipient and sends an email with: To: = the recipients real email address From: = the sender's own email address Subject: = "website contact" and the body containing the free text stripped of any HTML. All of the above works fine for all sender addresses and recipient addresses *except* when the sender is <sender>@yahoo.co.uk and the recipient is <recipient>@live.co.uk which results in a failed to deliver message which contains: A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: <recipient>@live.co.uk SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host mx4.hotmail.com [65.55.37.120]: 550 5.7.0 (COL004-MC4F7) Unfortunately, messages from (212.23.1.5) on behalf of (yahoo.co.uk) could not be delivered due to domain owner policy restrictions. ------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------ Meanwhile a copy of the email sent at the same time to me as site administrator works fine and is delivered. 65.55.37.120 is microsoft 212.23.1.5 is Zen internet (my isp). obviously <sender> and <recipient> have replaced real email names. Any ideas what I need to change to make hotmail accept these emails again. Or do I just have to wait it out? Nev

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 8th December
by Viperfang 05 Dec '16

05 Dec '16

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 8th December at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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