February 2014 - Roundtable

IBM "clicky" keyboards
by Adam Thompson 13 Oct '16

13 Oct '16

Enough people have wondered/asked/complained to me about this that I'm posting this now as a public service. IBM Model "M" keyboards are still available, *NEW*, today. They are expensive, but they are the original design that you can use as a melee weapon. The catch is that they don't say "IBM" or even "Lexmark" on them. They are available for purchase from the manufacturer, Unicomp, who can be found online at http://www.pckeyboard.com/. You can also find some vintage NIB units from time to time at http://www.clickykeyboards.com/. There are also a number of other manufacturers now making similar, but not quite as good, keyboards. - CVT Inc., the maker of the Avant Stellar (I own two of them), which is the direct descendant of the Northgate Omnikey, seems to have restructured and no trace of their keyboard manufacturing operation can be found online. However, Northgate keyboards are still available new-in-box from (this is a horrible site, beware) http://www.northgate-keyboard-repair.com/. - The Happy Hacking keyboard (now owned by Fujitsu, apparently) is equally comforting to some people despite having a totally different feel. They, and many others, can be had from http://www.elitekeyboards.com/ - Das Keyboard - Anything using Cherry MX Green, Blue, or White keyswitches. The "green" switches apparently are the closest anyone's come yet to emulating the IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp switches... and they can be had in MUCH cheaper keyboards, like the Rosewill RK-9000 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201040 and http://techreport.com/review/23405/rosewill-rk-9000-series-mechanical-ke yboards-reviewed). - And there are an increasing number (yes, again, after the big die-off ca. 2009) of speciality manufacturers of "ergonomic" keyboards that are making clicky keyswitches available as an option. One of the better ones is a tiny shop in Ontario, but I can't find the name right now. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicomp http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_MX -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net

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SpamAssassin false positives on DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_Q?
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 23 Feb '16

23 Feb '16

I mentioned this problem at the last round-table session, but didn't get a solution, so I thought I'd post it here, just in case anyone has any suggestions to offer. I'm still seeing a whole bunch of false positives in SpamAssassin, since an update was installed in mid-September on a CentOS 5.7 system, for a rule called DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_Q, which is only supposed to be triggered when the "Date:" header has a date that is 4 days to 4 month ahead of the date in the "Received" header that has the _smallest_ difference in date. Here are the headers from the latest e-mail I've received with this false-positive. (I've stripped out irrelevant headers, for the sake of clarity and simplicity.) From topfivestories(a)messagent.itworldcanada.com Mon Nov 14 07:50:13 2011 Received: from mail.messagent.itworldcanada.com (mail.messagent.itworldcanada.com [207.112.10.80]) by palladium.cs.umanitoba.ca (8.13.8/8.13.8) with SMTP id pAEDoAxV028594 for <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca>; Mon, 14 Nov 2011 07:50:12 -0600 Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:50:13 -0500 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_Q, HTML_MESSAGE,RP_MATCHES_RCVD autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on palladium.cs.umanitoba.ca Note that I'm calling spamd via the spamass-milter on a system running sendmail. Note also, that in the above example, the only "Received" header was the one generated by my own server. (I've had other false positives, however, with multiple "Received" headers, all of which were within seconds of the time in the "Date" header.) Any ideas? -- 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

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big scanner
by Trevor Cordes 27 May '15

27 May '15

Does anyone have big (like tabloid or bigger) scanner they want to sell? Even an ancient SCSI or parallel one might be ok. I just want *big*. Do they even make scanners bigger than legal or tabloid?

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Linux distro for Pentium III
by Robert Dyck 01 Jun '14

01 Jun '14

I have a customer who wants a laptop with Linux. My impression is he wants to learn Linux. I have refurbished laptops: IBM ThinkPad A21m, with Pentium III processor @ 750 MHz, 512MB RAM, and I can upgrade the hard drive to 40GB. Which distro of Linux would you recommend? I would ask Mike Pfaiffer, but he passed away earlier this year. Thanks, Rob Dyck

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infant game
by Trevor Cordes 28 Feb '14

28 Feb '14

Does anyone know of a Linux game for infants that would do something visual and audible on each different keypress? Like always roll a ball across the screen with a little ditty each time Z is pressed? My kid loves to sit and hit keys on the living room computer keyboard, it would be great if he can see something happening other than the complete foobar'ing of my mythtv. If not, I think this would be a great idea for pre-toddlers, and I may program something myself.

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Re: [RndTbl] Refurbished SmartUPS
by Adam Thompson 27 Feb '14

27 Feb '14

Upsforless.CA I've purchased upses and batteries from them before. Decent support, decent prices, not incredibly awesome but good enough to give them my money. -Adam On Feb 26, 2014 2:02 PM, Robert Keizer <robert(a)keizer.ca> wrote: > > Anyone know of a Canadian reseller for a refurbished SmartUPS? > > Specifically ~1500VA at ~1kw output or so. Rackmount. With smartslot. > > Normally I would go with upsforless.ca but they don't have one in stock. > > Rob

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Refurbished SmartUPS
by Robert Keizer 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

Anyone know of a Canadian reseller for a refurbished SmartUPS? Specifically ~1500VA at ~1kw output or so. Rackmount. With smartslot. Normally I would go with upsforless.ca but they don't have one in stock. Rob

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Solaris zone shutdown time
by Kevin McGregor 21 Feb '14

21 Feb '14

Is there any reliable way to tell from the global zone in Solaris 10+ just when a zone (now in 'installed' state) had been shut down? I can more or less tell when the last boot was, but I don't have any ideas for when it was last shut down.

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NTP DDOS Attacks
by John Lange 14 Feb '14

14 Feb '14

Does anyone know of a public site which documents the traffic associated with the recent NTP DDOS attacks? I'm trying to see if the attacks correlate to some packet loss we are seeing. -- John Lange

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Fw: Deal/Day: Celebrate ❤ Day with 50% Off Pink Programming Ebooks - Give In To Temptation
by Trevor Cordes 14 Feb '14

14 Feb '14

I'm sure many of you have seen this already. Others may not be O'Reilly mail-list members. Anyhow, O'Reilly is having a 50% off deal on programming e-books ("pink" covers, but I always thought it was more of a violet) for one day only (Feb 14-ish). E-books only, NOT print books. I don't recall, what is the deal MUUG members get at O'Reilly on e-books? Is it 50% off also? If so, I guess this sale isn't terribly useful to us! http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/valentines-day.do?code=DEAL&cmp=em-p… *** Give In To Temptation *** Valentine's Day-Do It Right This Time with Pink Programming Ebooks & Videos Valentine's Day is all about the heart-yours and your loved ones. This year, forego the mushy cards and chocolates and get to the heart of your passion. From Python to Git to Erlang to C-and everything in between-these titles are sure to excite. For one day only, SAVE 50% on pink programming ebooks and videos from shop.oreilly.com and let your heart delight. Want something extra to add to your celebration? Check out our Bonus Book. Ebooks from shop.oreilly.com are DRM-free. You get free lifetime access, multiple file formats, and free updates. Sync with Dropbox - your files, anywhere. Use discount code DEAL - This deal expires February 15, 2014 at 5:00am PT, and cannot be combined with other offers. Offer does not apply to Print, or "Print & Ebook" bundle pricing.

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