Roundtable December 2009

roundtable@muug.ca

18 participants
13 discussions

Text based spread sheet
by John Lange 23 Dec '09

23 Dec '09

I have a very wide "tab delimited" file that I need to edit in an ssh console. I've been downloading it, editing it with OpenOffice, then re-uploading it but aside from being tedious, that isn't always possible if I don't have my laptop handy. Does anyone have any recommendations for a curses based program that would make my life easier? I have no requirements other than editing and preserving the file's tab structure in columns. If it can keep the top row (the column labels) in view while editing that would be a bonus. -- John Lange http://www.johnlange.ca

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Changes for Ubuntu?
by Montana Quiring 18 Dec '09

18 Dec '09

Interesting read (Linux Journal) about the changes going on at Canonical: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/even-self-appointed-benevolent-dictator… -Montana Blog and Aggregation Site: http://montanaquiring.info iPhone/Touch Apps I have bought: http://appshopper.com/feed/user/antikx/myapps

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Interesting effect
by Mike Pfaiffer 18 Dec '09

18 Dec '09

It seems zenity won't display if a different user is logged in. For example running it as a single line from /etc/rc.local won't bring up a popup. It may not have worked well with at either. Does anyone have a suggestion which works well with at and can be called from /etc/rc.local? I have everything else working for the public access box. Just not the notification. I figure we can leave the notification routing for a week and just post a note. Later Mike

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Fwd: USENIX WebApps '10 Submissions Deadline Approaching
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

FYI... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Board] USENIX WebApps '10 Submissions Deadline Approaching Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 16:07:35 -0800 From: Lionel Garth Jones <lgj(a)usenix.org> To: info(a)muug.mb.ca, gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca I'm writing to remind you that the submission deadline for the USENIX Conference on Web Application Development (WebApps '10) is approaching. Please submit your paper titles and abstracts by January 4, 2010, and your complete papers by January 11, 2010. The Call for Papers, with submission guidelines, can be found at http://www.usenix.org/webapps10/cfpb/ WebApps '10 is a new technical conference designed to bring together experts in all aspects of developing and deploying Web applications. Suggested topics related to Web application development include but are not limited to: * Computing substrates and deployment technologies ("cloud computing") * Frameworks for developing Web applications * Client-side toolkits, libraries, and plug-ins * Storage systems * Security issues for Web applications * Management techniques for large-scale Web applications * Languages for Web applications * Scalability issues and techniques * Techniques for creating highly interactive Web applications * Software as a service * Applications that illustrate interesting new features or implementation techniques * Performance measurements of Web applications * Real-time data delivery over the Web * Web services WebApps '10 will take place June 23–25, 2010, in Boston, MA. I look forward to receiving your submissions! Sincerely, John Ousterhout, Stanford University WebApps '10 Program Chair webapps10chair(a)usenix.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Call for Papers: USENIX Conference on Web Application Development (WebApps '10) June 20–25, 2010 Boston, MA http://www.usenix.org/webapps10/cfpb Paper abstracts and titles deadline: January 4, 2010 Complete papers submission deadline: January 11, 2010 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Public access machine results
by Mike Pfaiffer 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

I have a VM up for testing. Looks like I'm working in reverse order here... Going from what I thought was hardest to what I thought was easiest. So far I've managed to get the shut down routine working reasonably well. I have the command stored in /etc/rc.local. I did not know about this... As a file owned by root the user needs to be in the a sudoers list in order to edit it. It looks like the timer begins as soon as the computer enters mode 5. Thanks go to Steve for pointing out I can cancel the shutdown command with a "-c" option. Again, this only works if the account is in the sudoers list. The cool thing is by using the "at" command the shutdown program isn't running through the whole session. I like the halt option because we don't have to be there for it to work. I can get notification of sorts if there is a terminal/shell open. It isn't likely the people using the machine will use the terminal so I'm going to look at my samples for zenity scripts and try one of those to generate a pop-up. Since zenity is still part of Gnome this should take about 10 minutes if I can find where I left my samples. ;-) After that I'll follow through with Sean W.s suggestion about tar-ing the user directory, wiping it out, then doing a restore. Things should go really well. I'll be setting it up this Friday (I have an XP repair to do first - the user took off the AV software and replaced it with a trojan claiming to be AV software). If all goes well it should be running by the end of the day. Thanks everybody for your help. If the people in charge see it working better than the XP machine sitting next to it, we will probably have TWO Linux machines as public access machines. ;-) Later Mike

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Parts?
by Kevin McGregor 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Hi there, I'm going to mod my WRT54GL to use power over Ethernet, and I need some good quality wire. I was going to use some from the wiring harness of an old power supply (e.g. AT, ATX), but I don't have any around I can cannibalize. Does anyone else have something I can use? Or a suggestion? Kevin

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power supplies
by Trevor Cordes 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Someone was asking tonight about power supplies. As I mentioned at the time, I think Enermax is the most reliable. I've sold over 2000 Enermax PS's over 10 years and it is by far the one that dies the least often. I've done at most 2-3 repairs/replacements of Enermax PS's. The rest are still running. Everytime I give another brand a try, I regret it. The only other brand I consider is if I need to "cheap out" I'll use an Antec case with a builtin Antec PS. They seem pretty good too and are more affordable (when bought in the case). In either case, I recommend the APFC models, as they save electricity (lower TCO) and are generally built better. My favorite model for Enermax is the Liberty series and I use the 400 and 500W's successfully in nearly all computers. A good 500W will give you more and cleaner power than a cheapo 600W. My company sells them if you have trouble getting them elsewhere or want to buy local. Email me for details/pricing. I can bring orders to the meetings. Good luck!

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Public access machine
by Mike Pfaiffer 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

The CLL is setting up a public access machine in the next couple of weeks. It is installed with Mint 8 (a multimedia Ubuntu fork). I would like to set up a couple of init scripts. The first will delete the public account home directory and copy a "clean" version in its place each time the computer starts. The second will shut down the computer after half an hour of use. I haven't touched on cron since university 20 years ago and I've never written an init script. Having written a few shell scripts I know the copy script should be very simple. I'm not sure how to set up the timer script or make them run on start up. Would anybody be able to fire off some quick directions? This may be a "foot in the door" situation. Later Mike

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Re: [RndTbl] Public access machine
by Adam Thompson 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Mike, you already guessed how to make it impervious to user modification, make it owned by root. That's not 100% foolproof either, but close. The files can just be created, they're never there by default (and on the two distros in particular that *did* provide them default, they still *should* not have been there). Bigger problem I realized with my own solution: the user *can't* logout before 30 min are up! Or, more precisely the sleep(1) will keep running after the X session has apparently ended - they'll probably get the blank grey X background with no clients, until the 30min is up. No, there's an elegant solution to this problem I just don't know what it is yet. -Adam

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Re: [RndTbl] Public access machine
by Adam Thompson 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Actually... That's an excellent suggestion. Except: the last command in a .xinitrc or .xsession file must stay runningfor the duration of the X session. Normally, that command is "kdeinit" or "gnome-session", or historically, the window manager executable i.e. "mwm" or "twm" or whatever. If you start GNOME, say, by including "gnome-session &" as the second-last line, the *last* line can then be "sleep 1800". When it exits, so does the X session. (It might be nice to provide a countdown timer for the user.) -Adam

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Roundtable December 2009