May 2019 - Roundtable

How does on get the date function to work in Libre Office spreadsheet?
by eh＠eduardhiebert.com 08 May '23

08 May '23

Hi, I've formatted the cells as date mm/dd/yy and entered the values as is. Also tried by preceeding with equal sign in case deemed to be a formula but neither works. I assume a difference between two days yields the difference in days, correct? Or are the formula different than plain math? Eduard the Osborne guy at last meeting

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Plain Text Accounting (plaintextaccounting.org)
by Mark Jenkins 16 May '19

16 May '19

I didn't have the URL on the tip of my tongue, but I mentioned yesterday if I could start my adventures in bookkeeping from scratch I would turn to one of the many simpler solutions covered here: https://plaintextaccounting.org/ (Saying this with hindsight in my 13th year as a GNUCash user which including presenting at MUUG, developing Python bindings, and developing the now abandoned code seen at bokeep.org . Hopefully this is my year as I hand-off all business related bookkeeping to others) The whole thing plain text thing was sparked by Ledger https://www.ledger-cli.org/ And as the plaintextaccounting.org site explains, many clones of the same have been mode. For those who like their demos in video form, here's one I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJtaM43PgXQ Never actually used these, but the design concepts seems right on for unix-heads compared to GnuCash which I think takes its early inspiration from Quicken. Mark Jenkins ------------ post script rant for bored readers: One thing that plaintextaccounting.org gets wrong is they misunderstand what double-entry bookkeeping is all about. They say: """Double entry accounting? Where are the debits and credits? Most (not all) plain text accounting implementations use signed amounts instead of debits and credits. This makes them "double entry light" perhaps, but it has been a rather successful simplification, intuitive to most newcomers.""" The idea of having avoiding negative numbers by having two columns (one for increase in value, one for decrease in value) isn't the double-entry aspect of bookkeeping at all, that's simply a "two-column" display format. Of course a data format can be simplified and just use a signed integer instead of storing two columns and GnuCash does this. (while still representing with two columns in the GUI). Wikipedia has a much better grasp of this very old idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_system "Double-entry bookkeeping, in accounting, is a system of bookkeeping so named because every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to a different account." So as a concrete example, for me to say that a cash withdrawal from my bank account results in a ledger entry that increases the value of my cash on hand account and a separate ledger entry that decreases the value of my record of my bank account, that's a double-entry and it has nothing to do with using two columns with positive values or a single column with negative or positive. The important thing is that the redundant entries themselves provide all kinds of checks and balances which helps protect against a lot of errors. As it turns out though, the very old term "double-entry" is itself a bit of a misnomer. The reality is more N>=2 entry (multi-entry accounting). For example, if my old business did an hour of IT work at $100 an hour and was a GST registrant, than the issuing of an invoice is going to increase the value of accounts receivable by $105, increase the amount of liability for GST payable by $5 and increase by record of income by $100. That's N=3. Notice how quickly I descended into describing all three entries as an "increase", even though it's still going to be debit $105, credit $5 and credit $105 (debits==credits) for the respective accounts or 0 == +105 + -100 + -5 if we use a signed representation instead of a two column positive representation. That's the thing about negatives numbers. People don't like them, even as a way to describe our own liabilities. I found it very instructive early when I was just starting out to turn off in GnuCash the convention of displaying the credit balances of Liabilities, Income, and Equity as accounts positive values and instead display them as negative balances as they truly are in the internal representation and to then make some example transactions. Doing this flips the conventional accounting equations of: assets - liabilities = net worth (equity) and income - expenses = change in net worth (equity) and you get 0 = assets + liabilities + equity 0 = expenses + income +change in net worth And then the math head was enlightened.

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new Spectre-type flaws
by Trevor Cordes 16 May '19

16 May '19

The gift that *still* keeps on giving... to infinity and beyond! https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/mds Short: new "MDS" Microarchitectural Data Sampling class of flaws regarding writes and reads to CPU cache due to separate store-address and store-data sub-operations and shared buffer space (much like TLB in other flaws). Sounds like some of these might be even easier to exploit than Spectre: like MFBDS, which might not even require a "widget". Interesting these flaws all have a CVE from 2018... these have been known (but kept quiet) for a while. All our computers made slower in ... 3 ... 2 ... 1

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Fun with BASH
by Geoffrey Jacobs 16 May '19

16 May '19

Just to follow up on the discussion of interesting BASH tricks last night, here is how one could implement file system traversal if find didn't exist. Note that GLOBIGNORE isn't always required to be explicitly set as shown for the root and parent directory to be excluded, but this does as required and provides clarity. #!/bin/bash GLOBIGNORE=". .." # Ignore the current and parent directory # This will be implicit with GLOBIGNORE not null, although . and .. can still # be explicitly selected if nullglob and failglob aren't set descend() { for i in * .*; do if [ -d "$i" ]; then pushd "$i" descend # Do things to files in the directory here popd fi done } descend # end script Also, Douglas Adams on the Galactic Presidency is translated by the jive filter: Anyone willin' an' capable t'git demselves elected President by no means should be allowed t'do de job. What it is, Mama! Or Hanlon's Razor as presented by a Swedish chef: Nefer ettreeboote-a tu meleece-a thet vheech is edeqooetely ixpleeened by stoopeedity. Yes, the filters package is endless fun.

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The movie from tonight
by Kat 15 May '19

15 May '19

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

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Need help with website development (compensated work)
by Kevin McGregor 12 May '19

12 May '19

I've been in contact with someone from the Good Neighbours Active Living Centre (www.gnalc.ca) They are in need of help with fixing and enhancing their site. If anyone feels they can help out, let me know and I'll forward your contact info to them. Here is the gist: Good Neighbours Active Living Centre is a charitable organization that is looking for help with creating interfaces to our current CRM online software/website. This program is open source. Because I do not understand the lingo with regard to building an interface, it might be best if someone could meet with me to discuss. We also need some basic website design help. If those interested could email me, then we can discuss cost and time expectations. The tools in use are CitySoft, HTML5, ColdFusion, Java, and MySQL. Kevin

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MUUG Meeting, May 14, 7:30pm -- AWS Virtual Private Cloud, Stupid Bash Tricks
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 07 May '19

07 May '19

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 14. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: AWS VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) Wyatt Zacharius will show us Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) which lets you provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. You have complete control over your virtual networking environment, including selection of your own IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways. RTFM: Stupid Bash Tricks Prepare to be amazed, delighted, and confused by Katherine Scrupa. The group holds its 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 for this month: *Room 1M28* Manitoba Hall, University of Winnipeg, entrance on Ellice Ave. between Spence and Balmoral St. Parking is available on the surrounding streets and in the lots on nearby streets. Look for signage once you're at the building, or ask a security guard. ******************************************************************* For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their web server: https://muug.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: https://muug.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Manitoba UNIX User Group E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.ca> c/o Gilbert E. Detillieux Web: http://muug.ca/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609

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GnuCash revisited
by Hartmut W Sager 05 May '19

05 May '19

I did cause quite a GnuCash discussion here in Mar 2017, but this time I have one simple question. Since it is difficult to quickly create a large GnuCash test data file, does anyone here know about GnuCash performance on a "large" file of about 20,000 transactions? Specifically: 1. How long do the load/open and save/close operations take? 2. How smooth or snappy are various navigations, scrolling/paging up/down, searching, filtering, etc.? 3. Are there any dangers of data loss due to possible GnuCash "comfortable size" limits? Hartmut W Sager - Tel +1-204-339-8331

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Firefox extensions broken for everyone
by Trevor Cordes 04 May '19

04 May '19

No, it's not just you. As of a few hours ago a cert built into Firefox that handles extensions (which are all signed now) expired (doh!!) causing Firefox to complain to everyone their extensions are at risk or disabled. https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/05/04/0457201/a-glitch-is-breaking-all-f… Let's see how fast the distros get a patched version from upstream to fix this... Letting your cert expire... not one of Mozilla's brightest moments.

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Re: [RndTbl] Roundtable Digest, Vol 173, Issue 1
by Vijay Sankar 04 May '19

04 May '19

On 5/4/19 12:00 PM, roundtable-request(a)muug.ca wrote: > Send Roundtable mailing list submissions to > roundtable(a)muug.ca > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > roundtable-request(a)muug.ca > > You can reach the person managing the list at > roundtable-owner(a)muug.ca > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Roundtable digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Firefox extensions broken for everyone (Trevor Cordes) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 4 May 2019 00:54:21 -0500 > From: Trevor Cordes <trevor(a)tecnopolis.ca> > To: MUUG RndTbl <roundtable(a)muug.ca> > Subject: [RndTbl] Firefox extensions broken for everyone > Message-ID: <20190504005421.039a56eb(a)pog.tecnopolis.ca> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > No, it's not just you. > > As of a few hours ago a cert built into Firefox that handles extensions > (which are all signed now) expired (doh!!) causing Firefox to complain > to everyone their extensions are at risk or disabled. > > https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/05/04/0457201/a-glitch-is-breaking-all-f… > > Let's see how fast the distros get a patched version from upstream to > fix this... > > Letting your cert expire... not one of Mozilla's brightest moments. > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable(a)muug.ca > https://muug.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > > > ------------------------------ > > End of Roundtable Digest, Vol 173, Issue 1 > ****************************************** There was a suggestion in the OpenBSD mailing list (misc@) to change xpinstall.signatures.required in about:config to false and also a suggestion to look additional details at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548973 https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-add-ons-in-fire… Hope this is useful info. Vijay -- Vijay Sankar ForeTell Technologies Limited vsankar(a)foretell.ca

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