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Internet Annoyances Needed for New Book (fwd)
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Hi folks. I thought some of you might be interested in this message I got from O'Reilly & Associates, requesting input for a new book they're working on, in their "Annoyances" series. Feel free to contact them if you have something useful to contribute... -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609 -----------------Forwarded message----------------- From: Marsee Heon <marsee(a)oreilly.com> To: gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca Subject: Internet Annoyances Needed for New Book Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 10:30:33 -0800 Dear User Group Leader: Thanks for the great response to our call, over the last month or two, for annoyances, gripes, and complaints about Excel and PC hardware. The email we got was very useful and a lot of your members not only sent annoyances, but fixes! As always, many thanks for the input. This time around, we have yet another book in the wings--this one focusing on Internet annoyances. Some of the annoying areas: Email (and spam), connecting to the Net (via dialup, DSL, cable, configuration and all that), wireless annoyances (from WiFi hassles to hotspots to fiddling with WEP), web sites (namely creating, hosting, and maintaining your own web site), browsing and browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, and others), AOL, instant messaging, using search sites, security annoyances, and of course, shopping and auctions. Got Internet gripes/annoyances/kvetches? Send 'em our way by having your members email me (marsee(a)oreilly.com) with "Internet Annoyance" in the subject line and we'll put our author on the job. As thanks for sharing, we'll make sure to get copies of "Internet Annoyances" sent to your group shortly after publication. --Marsee *** An example: Pictureless Pages Predicament THE ANNOYANCE: There are some great pictures available on the Web, but certain pictures don't appear on web pages I visit. Instead I see a red X or a funny little icon where the picture is supposed to be. THE FIX: Several circumstances can keep pictures from appearing: * There's a logjam at the web server or somewhere along the miles of wires between the web server and your browser. Try refreshing the page (press F5 or click the Refresh button on the toolbar). But you probably already tried that. * Something's wrong with the web server. The picture might not be on the server, or the programmer who created the web page might have put in the wrong path to the picture. * Internet Explorer may be configured so that it doesn't show pictures, a common setup for those with slow dialup connections who don't want to waste time downloading pictures. (If this option is set, you can selectively display pictures by right-clicking the X or the icon and choosing Show Picture.) To undo this setting in Internet Explorer, choose Tools-->Internet Options. Click the Advanced tab, and in the Multimedia section, check the Show Pictures box to make your pictures appear. * An invalid value in the Windows Registry is preventing pictures from appearing. It's an easy fix, even for those who are squeamish about poking around in the Registry. (Before you mess around with the Registry, back it up as per the instructions in the sidebar on page 47.) Select Start-->Run, type in regedit, and hit Enter. In Registry Editor, navigate to \HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.gif. In the right pane, click the Content Type item; its value should be image/gif. Then check \HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOT\.jpg; Content Type should be set to image/jpg or image/jpeg. For more information about this fix, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 307239. ***

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SATA drives, nVidia GeForce, supported by FC1?
by Gilles Detillieux 13 Mar '04

13 Mar '04

Hi, folks. One of our colleagues wants to put together a fairly sup'ed up PC to run our Linux based data capture and analysis software. He is planning on getting a Dell Optiplex GX270 Small MiniTower system (he's very keen on getting it from Dell), with a 120 GB SATA hard drive. Does anyone on this list have any experience with using SATA hard drives under Linux? I'd like him to use Fedora Core 1, as Red Hat's flavour of Linux is what I'm used to supporting (and our software is RPM packaged for Red Hat). I also think he might need to stick to the 2.4 kernel, as the driver for the A/D card we use hasn't (to my knowledge) ever been tested on anything but 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, so I'm a bit dubious about it working well with 2.6 for at least the next while. What I've read so far about SATA support on Linux, which isn't much, led me to believe not many SATA controllers are supported yet, and that SATA support seems to be in the 2.6 kernel. Has anyone tried SATA drives and do they work with 2.4? I've recommended he stick to standard ATA unless I hear of some success stories with SATA. A somewhat unrelated question: he was going to get this PC with an nVidia GeForce 4MX (with DVI & VGA outputs). I've never used this card (or any nVidia card for that matter - we tend to stick with ATI most of the time), so I was wondering if anyone knows if it plays well with FC1. I did a bit of quick googling this afternoon, but got somewhat mixed stories with some folks complaining of nVidia's drivers breaking after a kernel update, while some posts suggested no special drivers were needed for FC1. I'm not quite sure they were all talking about the same card though. Any words of wisdom? Thanks, Gilles -- Gilles R. Detillieux E-mail: <grdetil(a)scrc.umanitoba.ca> Spinal Cord Research Centre WWW: http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/ Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB R3E 3J7 (Canada)

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VMware Offer - some background info...
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 12 Mar '04

12 Mar '04

Someone pointed out that we didn't really say what VMware was, how much it cost, etc... Oops, sorry!... Our bad! The notice in the newsletter was rather brief, only quoting the pertinent details of the original e-mail notice we got from VMware. In my last e-mail, I should have quoted the entire original offer, rather than just the newsletter's brief notice. Anyway, we had a MUUG meeting presentation on VMware some time ago, but neweer members wouldn't have been privvy to that... http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/99-00.html#sep Briefly, VMware is a complete virtual machine environment (with emulation at the hardware level), which permits you to run multiple guest operating systems, each in their own virtual machine. You can, for example, try out new versions of Linux as guest OS's, while still running your more stable version as the host OS. It's also got some nice features for software developers/testers to use. There are versions available for both Linux and Windows (NT/2000/XP) host OS's. There is a web site for VMware (www.vmware.com), where you can find out more, as well as obtain a free 30-day trial license and download the full- featured program. (The trial license has no restrictions other than a time limit, as far as I remember.) You can also get all the pricing information online at the VMware Store, accessible from their main web site. (Though I had trouble accessing it from my Mozilla browser, and had to resort to MS IE. Arg! YMMV.) The price is $299 US for the download distribution of VMware Workstation. A $100 US rebate does make for a significant discount on that, and may make it more attractive to some. Hope this helps clear up the confusion. -- 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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VMware Offer - last chance to respond!
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 11 Mar '04

11 Mar '04

In the most recent issue of MUUG Lines, we wrote... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- VMWare Offer Last chance to have your name submitted for the VMWare offer. "If you send us a list of your members' names and email addresses (with their permission!), when they support our Linux development efforts by purchasing a copy of VMware Workstation, we will send them a $100 rebate. The program for Linux group members will begin on December 22, 2003. In the next 6 weeks, we'll also be providing all registrants with a referral code. This code will both provide your colleagues with a 5% discount off of VMware Workstation and provide you with 15 VMware Points when they purchase it on our web site. Approximately every 6 weeks, we ll send you a statement of your points earned, at which point you can redeem them for various product and merchandise." If you are interested in this promotion and want us to submit your name and email to VMWare, please send us an email to vmware(a)muug.mb.ca. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To date, we've only had two responses to this request (which also ran in the January and February issues). So, on the off-chance that people are not reading the newsletter, but are actually interested in the offer, or maybe they've just been meaning to respond but needed one last nudge, here it is: This is your last chance to take advantage of this offer. We'll be collecting any additional responses we receive at the address <vmware(a)muug.mb.ca> until the end of next week, i.e. midnight on Saturday, March 20, and sending those addresses (along with the two already received) to VMware early the following week. They will then contact you with details on how to get your $100 rebate. So, if you're interested, respond now, before you forget! -- 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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IP Phones
by John Lange 10 Mar '04

10 Mar '04

There is an article on the Globe & Mail site today about new telephone technology (IP Phones). http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040304.gttwtelework04/… Though this article describes expensive proprietary technology from Nortel and HP it should be noted that Asterisk (the OpenSource PBX) does all of the same things described in the article and more. -- John Lange BigHostBox.com (204) 885 0872

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hard drive failures
by Ian Timshel 10 Mar '04

10 Mar '04

http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ There was some talk tonight about hard drive failures. I couldn't remember the name of the tool set I had used to solve some long standing flakiness that came down to small errors beginning to show up on some older drives. I spent countless hours blaming one thing and another before finally looking at the hardware. I tossed four old drives after I learnt some of my way around this software. As a consequence the software I was so frustrated with seems to magically have been transformed into usefulness on the new drives.. Hope this helps someone out Thanks Bill for a good presentation tonight. Ian

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CIPS March Dinner - Linux in the WorkPlace- March 16th
by John Lange 08 Mar '04

08 Mar '04

Many MUUG members are already aware of Scott Balneaves's tremendous accomplishments in the area of Linux thin clients. If any of you would like to know more, Scott and James Ramsay will be presenting their solution at this month's CIPS dinner. Details below: ************************************** Linux in the Workplace : A local real world story If you are like most IT professionals, you are under tremendous pressure to lower the cost of your business technology infrastructure, without lowering your service levels. The cost of desktop, and edge computing may represent one of the largest parts of your I.T. budget, and yet it seems like fixed cost with no alternative. You have probably noticed the not so quiet revolution happening around Linux and Open Source technology. You may have even considered exploring it further to see if it really represents a viable alternative in your technology environment. Legal Aid Manitoba faced the same challenges, and tackled them early with a bold step into the Linux and Open Source world. Over the past decade, Legal Aide has deployed Linux , and Open Source software in an effort to reduce the cost of computing. Join James Ramsay, Director, Systems and Technology and Scott Balneaves, System Administrator, as they discuss how they are using Linux and Open Source technologies, and the issues they encountered in their deployment. Legal Aid Manitoba will share their experience implementing a Linux and Open source infrastructure including Linux Thin Clients using Linux Terminal Servers. Come and hear the role Linux can play from top to bottom in your organization, and listen to a local colleague detail a real-life example of deploying Linux from servers to the desktop in a medium size organization. Your are sure to be enlightened! Liberty, Freedom, Some Good Fun, all at a lower cost All the details in the attached PDF. -- John Lange BigHostBox.com (204) 885 0872

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New Zire Handheld 2 MB Version and Syncing/Backup
by Mel Seder 07 Mar '04

07 Mar '04

My Zire (Palm Pilot) Syncs with the Windows software the unit came with. However my OS of choice is Red Hat's Fedora Core 1. Is it wise or for that matter even possible to sync using Windows and then immediately after sync using Linux? Jpilot was installed by by distro and it has an Install button under the file menu. I suppose I connect my Zire, turn it on and it will be off to the races. Is there anything else I should watch out for or do? ===== The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

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Job Posting
by Shawn Wallbridge 05 Mar '04

05 Mar '04

Here is a job description for a position opening at Frantic Films. Please pass this along to anyone you know that may be qualified and interested.... thanks shawn ---------------- In this term position the applicant will be responsible for assisting in the development of a database-driven dynamic web tool for production and asset management. This position requires a motivated self-starter to work closely with the production manager and a small team to design and develop of a pipeline solution that, in a flexible manner, will organize and streamline the flow of information within a visual effects studio. Minimum Qualifications: Applicants should have experience in application, database and report development. They should also have experience in developing applications ranging from small websites to large business systems. Applicants should be familiar with PHP development using a MySql database, and would ideally have experience in C# with .NET and C++. Additional knowledge or experience in any of C, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, VisualBasic.NET, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP would be beneficial. All interested applicants should send their cover letter, resume with references and salary expectations to: Gene Senior, Production Manager Frantic Films 70 Arthur Street, Suite 300 Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1G7 Email: gsenior(a)franticfilms.com

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Re: [RndTbl] Alternative to Outlook?
by Kevin McGregor 05 Mar '04

05 Mar '04

I'd like to know, too. In the meantime, much as I dislike the idea of supporting Microsoft in any way, you can go to Future Shop or Best Buy and pick up the Educational Version of Microsoft Office. That is, if the person buying it, or the person it's for, is or is related to a student, or a teacher, or someone who has ever been in a school, or has ever met a teacher, or knows someone who has been near a school, or... you get the picture. I think it's C$200. If you're desperate for a calendar program (standalone, for one person) you could always download the Palm Desktop. It's free if you have a Palm serial number handy. I think my Dad uses it. He did; I'm not sure if he still does. ----- Original Message ----- From: John Lange <john.lange(a)bighostbox.com> Date: Thursday, March 4, 2004 9:30 am Subject: [RndTbl] Alternative to Outlook? > I apologize for being a bit off topic here... But, I'm trying to > setup a > new PC for my father's business. > > Even though I use 100% linux desktops on all of my own PCs I > decided to > install WindowsXP on his machine. He has one of those "all-in-one" > printer, scanner, fax units and also uses a software/voice-modem > combination as an answering machine, neither of which are workable > underlinux. > > That being said, I want to use StarOffice instead of OfficeXP. No > problem, it installs and works great! > > But here is the question; for other people who have done this, > what do > you use as a replacement for Outlook's Calendar/Scheduler functions? > > I can use any one of Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail, Eudora for > email but > none of them have a Calendar (am I missing something?). > > I thought of just buying Outlook2003 but it's $110.00US (according to > the MS web site) !!! OfficeXP Standard edition (which includes > Outlook)is $530.00! (at Staples) > > Its really too bad there isn't a version of Evolution for Windows > because it would be perfect. > > I'm not interested in over-kill either (Act, Lotus Notes etc). > Just a > Calendar. If it also works as an email solution that's fine but I > don'tneed it to wash dishes and vacuum the carpet. > > It does NOT have to be free software. I'm willing to pay for the right > solution. > > Suggestions anyone? > > -- > John Lange > BigHostBox.com > (204) 885 0872 > > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable >

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