On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 00:22:16 +0100 Bob bob@beriwold.plus.com allegedly wrote:
I do find that my friends have confidence in what I tell them and when I say Linux is the way forward they seem to accept it. I start them off with a dual boot system making them select Windows if they really want it otherwise it's auto boot taking them straight into Mint. I have converted 4 so far and I'm expecting a few more in the near future.
Well done (seriously). I have been a linux user since the mid to late 90s. Apart from my immediate family (who have no choice) I don't think I have /ever/ successfully converted anyone. Most of my non linux using friends won't let me anywhere near their PCs. Scaredy cats I call 'em.
I take your point on the Skype problem and will just have to stay with MS for that......unless anyone knows different. Is there another video platform that I don't know about?
My objection to skype is political, not technical. Skype is owned by Microsoft, the technology is proprietary (as is the crypto, which is known to be broken and accessible to national Governments).
There are perfectly good free, open, alternatives to Skype (and other voice or instant messaging systems). Take a look at https://prism-break.org/
Unable to decode/read your attachment (signature.asc) pls advise program/software for that.
As David has already said, that attachment is my openPGP signature (see http://gnupg.org/ ). GPG is available in the Mint repos but I don't think operamail supports it natively. Both claws (which I use) and thunderbird do provide such support and if you want to integrate GPG signing/encryption into email I'd recommend using one of those. Tbird in particular is quite good at this (through the enigmail plugin).
I routinely sign all my emails so that people know they came from me. Any non-signed email should be treated as suspect, unless it comes from my mobile where it will say something like, "this is an interim reply, I am away from my keys and will answer later." I don't trust my keys to a device which is easily lost or stolen. Though, as a result of a conversation with a friend who uses one, I am looking at using a GPG smartcard in future and I hope I can find some way of tying the two together.
One other problem I have a red cross in the update manager list in the system tray advising 'could not refresh list of packages'. So presumably I'm not totally up to date. Any advice would be appreciated.
Try another update - "apt-get update" on the command line and watch the output. You may find that the Mint repository was down/slow or otherwise temporarily unavailable.
If I have contravened any protocol in my response please let me know.
Not with me. I take the view that the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask. In my experience, someone on this list will know the answer to practically any question you may have (I ask loads). So questions are best directed to the list and not to individuals.
Cheers
Mick
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Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
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