December 2010 - Roundtable

wireless access
by VE4PER Andy 27 Dec '10

27 Dec '10

Anybody have a suggestion for improved wireless access. I have MTS Allstream unlimited EVDO access, allegedly. During business hours their Portage La Prairie tower radiation coverage pattern getd shrunk to provide local city support as a priority over rural areas. This causes rural customers to get switched to old 1X towers whose BW's are worse than dial-up even. Latency just sucks bigtime. They have made all sorts of promises about HSPA coming; first Sep 1st them Dec 1st now they have managed to drag their butts into Mar 1st, if then. Data for my merlin x720 card says 3.2 Mbps download and 1.2 Mbps upload yet I have consistently had to open trouble tickets for low speeds, since day 1. Of course with newer inet games and devices being sold now it is even worse. It is so bad it doesn't download speedtests from either speedtest.net or speakeasy.net speedtest sites. I have perused the forums and find comments that Xplorenet appears to be just about as bad for not delivering on BW promises or advertising. I am not too far from Hwy 13 and Hwy 1 intersection and SkyCable/SkyNet says I am in a black RF hole for their service. This partnership agreement between MTSAllstream and Rogers is almost turning into an agreement to keep Rogers from turning up their HSPA towers which I understand are allegedly ready to turn on. Tends to keep the competition at bay. Thanks

2 1

Re: [RndTbl] wireless access
by Adam Thompson 26 Dec '10

26 Dec '10

X.25 Packet Radio? You already have the license... <grin> -Adam

1 0

Command line challenge: trim garbage from start and end of a file.
by John Lange 25 Dec '10

25 Dec '10

I have files with the following structure: garbage garbage garbage output start .. good data .. good data .. good data .. good data output end garbage garbage garbage How can I extract the good data from the file trimming the garbage from the beginning and end? The following works just fine but it's dirty because I don't like the fact that I have to pick an arbitrarily large number for the "before" and "after" values. grep -A 999999 "output start" <infile> | grep -B 999999 "output end" > newfile Can anyone come up with something more elegant? -- John Lange www.johnlange.ca

5 10

Question about Laptops
by Mike Pfaiffer 25 Dec '10

25 Dec '10

Merry Christmas and happy holidays (what ever works for you - you never know). ;-) My father had decided to look at a laptop. He wants to put his family tree program on it and take it for a trip out East this spring. He has seen me running Linux on my desktop for years and thinks he would like to give it a try on the laptop. Even in a dual-boot configuration. Being cheap (a typical Winnipegger) he is only willing to spend $200 -$300 for the machine. There are some "deals" in the advertising for Staples, Future Shop, and (Ugh) Best Buy. He is serious enough to risk going out on Boxing day (and this is from a guy who is afraid of crossing to the West side of the Red). The question is what are some good brands and locations to scope out? Later Mike

5 8

usb ports
by Kat 24 Dec '10

24 Dec '10

The black plastic bit in one of my USB ports broke off. The metal contacts are in there, undamaged. The laptop thinks the port is functioning fine, and it does function... as long as the device plugged in is in contact with the metal. It's loose, so any movement on the laptop or device will unseat it. Anyway, I'm avoiding using it for now. It's tempting to try to fix it myself. Is this possible? Any advice? I think the laptop is still on warranty, but I don't know how much of a PITA that would be. -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Katherine Scrupa Network Technology CCNA, Hons.

7 7

MUUG Meeting, Dec 14, 7:30pm -- Round-table, Mingling & Munchies
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 24 Dec '10

24 Dec '10

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, December 14. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Round-table, Mingling & Munchies As the holiday hustle and bustle gets into high gear, we'll take it easy this month, with a longer-than-usual round-table session (if there's a need for it), followed by a time for mingling and nibbling on munchies (instead of the usual, short coffee break). There will also be a door-prize draw at the end, but in order to enter the draw this month, we ask that you bring a tin or other non-perishable food item for Winnipeg Harvest. You'll get one draw ticket per item you bring, to a maximum of 3 tickets. So, please be generous, and you might just take home a cool book from O'Reilly! The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $5.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

5 5

Re: [RndTbl] Roundtable Digest, Vol 72, Issue 8
by Kat 24 Dec '10

24 Dec '10

Haven't used a soldering iron since 1994. There are two other ports, but I often use them all. It's a Toshiba, not a MacBook Air :) I think I might try epoxy, and if that doesn't work, buy a hub. That's when needing three ports is more of an issue. Thanks guys. Kat On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 12:00 PM, <roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca> wrote: > Send Roundtable mailing list submissions to > roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca > > You can reach the person managing the list at > roundtable-owner(a)muug.mb.ca > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Roundtable digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. usb ports (Kat) > 2. Re: usb ports (Adam Thompson) > 3. Re: usb ports (Sean Cody) > 4. Re: usb ports (Sean Walberg) > 5. Re: usb ports (John Lange) > 6. Re: usb ports (Sean Walberg) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:22:01 -0600 > From: Kat <uniquegeek(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [RndTbl] usb ports > To: roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca > Message-ID: > <AANLkTi=Nks8vYK7gVcXA0DZZBjMeHN77EoyYWjoGhbJ=(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > The black plastic bit in one of my USB ports broke off. The metal contacts > are in there, undamaged. The laptop thinks the port is functioning fine, > and it does function... as long as the device plugged in is in contact with > the metal. It's loose, so any movement on the laptop or device will unseat > it. Anyway, I'm avoiding using it for now. > > It's tempting to try to fix it myself. Is this possible? Any advice? > > I think the laptop is still on warranty, but I don't know how much of a > PITA > that would be. > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Katherine Scrupa > Network Technology CCNA, Hons. >

1 0

Fwd: USENIX HotPar'11 Submission Deadline Approaching
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 21 Dec '10

21 Dec '10

FYI... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: USENIX HotPar'11 Submission Deadline Approaching Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:26:30 -0800 From: Lionel Garth Jones <lgj(a)usenix.org> To: info(a)muug.mb.ca, gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca On behalf of the Program Committee for the 3rd USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Parallelism (HotPar '11), we'd like to invite you to submit position papers. HotPar '11 will bring together researchers and practitioners doing innovative work in the area of parallel computing. Multicore and multithreaded processors are the pervasive computing platform of the future. This trend is driven by limits on energy consumption in computer systems and the poor energy performance of conventional microprocessors. Parallel architectures can potentially mitigate these problems, but this new computer architecture will only be successful if languages, systems, and applications can take advantage of parallel hardware. Navigating this change will require new concurrency-friendly programming paradigms, new methods of application design, new structures for system software, and new models of interaction between applications, compilers, operating systems, and hardware. We request submissions of position papers that propose new directions for research of products in these areas, advocate non-traditional approaches to the problems engendered by parallelism, or potentially generate controversy and discussion. Paper registration (abstract submission) due: Sunday, January 16, 2011, 11:59 p.m. PST Paper submissions due: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 11:59 p.m. PST More information and submission guidelines are available at http://www.usenix.org/hotpar11/cfpa We look forward to receiving your submissions! Sincerely, Michael McCool, Intel Mendel Rosenblum, Stanford University HotPar '11 Program Co-Chairs hotpar11chairs(a)usenix.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HotPar '11 Call for Papers 3rd USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Parallelism (HotPar '11) May 26-27, 2011, Berkeley, CA http://www.usenix.org/hotpar11/cfpa/ Paper registration (abstract submission) due: Sunday, January 16, 2011, 11:59 p.m. PST Paper submissions due: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 11:59 p.m. PST -----------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Google Maps mashup challenge anyone?
by John Lange 17 Dec '10

17 Dec '10

I have a web site that lists geo-locations linked to google maps. I have another (unrelated) web site that shows a coverage area, also on google maps. I need to know which locations fall inside the coverage area. Having never done anything with google maps, I have no idea if this is trivial or very hard and I'm looking for some pointers. Of course I Googled it and found all kinds of examples but it looks like you kind of have to know what you're doing... -- John Lange www.johnlange.ca

1 0

Bring in your cans!
by Sean Cody 14 Dec '10

14 Dec '10

With tonight being the monthly meeting/mixer and the day for our raffle don't forget to bring your non-perishable items for entry into the draws! See you this evening, -- Sean (mobile)

1 0