Roundtable July 2015

roundtable@muug.ca

6 participants
5 discussions

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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Re: [RndTbl] Roundtable Digest, Vol 127, Issue 4
by uniquegeek＠gmail.com 12 Jul '15

12 Jul '15

Maybe it was resold from a movie set. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network. Original Message From: roundtable-request(a)muug.mb.ca Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2015 4:53 PM To: roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca Reply To: roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca Subject: Roundtable Digest, Vol 127, Issue 4 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. Sun making users feel better through fakery (Adam Thompson) 2. Re: Sun making users feel better through fakery (Daryl F) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:26:36 -0500 From: Adam Thompson <athompson(a)avant.ca> To: roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca Subject: [RndTbl] Sun making users feel better through fakery Message-ID: <CAFGv8b-XwnLpFM6VFcuJ+3_guvvZ_3OtT2_6XMKiCOdw8fRZ7g(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I have a Sun Storage Array 7110. This is an "integrated" appliance, running custom hardware and custom software. In the configuration GUI, on the page where I configure the 4 gigabit network ports, there are - as with everything else in the GUI - visual aids. In this case, there are schematic-style icons of four network ports on the left-hand side of the page, with little green and yellow indicators for link and traffic respectively. I know the green dots actually track the green LEDs on the back of the chassis, i.e. they do show actual link status in (near-)real-time. However, the yellow dots also flicker in a manner than *might* reflect the physical LEDs... but I was never sure. [image: Inline image 1] Today, while doing some unrelated maintenance on the unit, I got curious and dug in. I found this in the page's javascript: akNetDevice.prototype.setActivity = function (active) > { var dev = this; > for (var i = 0; i < this.akno_widgets.length; i++) this.akno_widgets[i].setActivity(active); > this.akno_timeout = setTimeout(function () { if (dev.akno_timeout) dev.setActivity(!active); }, 100 + Math.random() * (active ? akNet.DEVICE_FLICKER_ON : akNet.DEVICE_FLICKER_OFF)); };? *Despite* having found this, the flickering yellow dots *STILL* give me a sense of satisfaction, a vague notion that "oh, OK, the network ports are working"! Someone at Sun actually listened to a UI designer, it would seem. And yet I now also feel cheated - I was hoping the UI team was geeky enough to actually flash the browser window graphics in time with the hardware :). [image: Avant logo] *Adam Thompson* Senior Systems Administrator *voice:* 204.789.9596 x24 | *email:* athompson(a)avant.ca | *web:* avant.ca

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Sun making users feel better through fakery
by Adam Thompson 11 Jul '15

11 Jul '15

I have a Sun Storage Array 7110. This is an "integrated" appliance, running custom hardware and custom software. In the configuration GUI, on the page where I configure the 4 gigabit network ports, there are - as with everything else in the GUI - visual aids. In this case, there are schematic-style icons of four network ports on the left-hand side of the page, with little green and yellow indicators for link and traffic respectively. I know the green dots actually track the green LEDs on the back of the chassis, i.e. they do show actual link status in (near-)real-time. However, the yellow dots also flicker in a manner than *might* reflect the physical LEDs... but I was never sure. [image: Inline image 1] Today, while doing some unrelated maintenance on the unit, I got curious and dug in. I found this in the page's javascript: akNetDevice.prototype.setActivity = function (active) > { var dev = this; > for (var i = 0; i < this.akno_widgets.length; i++) this.akno_widgets[i].setActivity(active); > this.akno_timeout = setTimeout(function () { if (dev.akno_timeout) dev.setActivity(!active); }, 100 + Math.random() * (active ? akNet.DEVICE_FLICKER_ON : akNet.DEVICE_FLICKER_OFF)); }; *Despite* having found this, the flickering yellow dots *STILL* give me a sense of satisfaction, a vague notion that "oh, OK, the network ports are working"! Someone at Sun actually listened to a UI designer, it would seem. And yet I now also feel cheated - I was hoping the UI team was geeky enough to actually flash the browser window graphics in time with the hardware :). [image: Avant logo] *Adam Thompson* Senior Systems Administrator *voice:* 204.789.9596 x24 | *email:* athompson(a)avant.ca | *web:* avant.ca

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SCSI cable length
by Trevor Cordes 04 Jul '15

04 Jul '15

I have an external SCSI device that I'd like to plug in on a 10-15' cable. The device has a standard dense 50-pin 2-row connector. I thought at first that meant for sure LVD, but now I'm thinking it just means ultra. I need LVD to get over 1.5M cable length, according to spec. LVD lets me go to 12M it appears. If it's just ultra then I'm SOL, I guess. Is there a way to know what signalling this device uses based just on the connector? I checked all available interent specs, incl the original manual, for the device and *nothing* specifies anything other than "SCSI". I'm a big SCSI guy, but my memory on the subject is starting to get hazy due to disuse...

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Roundtable July 2015