July 2004 - main - earth.li

Linux User Group for Essex is here!
by LUGE Admin 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

http://www.luge.org.uk I know there's one in Southend, but I thought Chelmsford would be too narrow, and I like the name Chris Walker came up with a couple of months back and after all, Linux is supposed to be fun! Look forward to building something cool and having some meetings. My design friend Kelly said she'd wave her magic wand at some point in the next week or two and make it look pretty (she did www.LinuxVAR.co.uk design) so I look forward to Tux on Ice! ;) I'm "semi-geek" (you think after 20 years of coding I would class higher!) so look forward to learning from the uber-geeks and helping a few non-geeks experience and enjoy the freedom of FLOSS. Steve Purkiss Linux User Group Essex admin http://www.luge.org.uk

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Sage alternative for Linux
by Seb James 22 Jul '04

22 Jul '04

Dear all, If anyone out there has been looking for an alternative to Sage or Quickbooks that they can run on a Linux or BSD box, then take a look at phpOrganisation. phpOrganisation is an open source php/mysql based business process application, which is aimed at UK organisations (because it understands VAT). It features: An address database, which is the central information around which phpOrganisation structures its processes. All entities relating to the organisations processes are in this database, whether employee, supplier, associate or personal. Customer relationship tools. Two marketing lists are available; the tracker, and the client list. Move a contact onto one of these lists, and then keep a record of emails, phone conversations and use the "next contact due" feature to act as a reminder for re-contacting. Ordering System. Generate purchase orders for products and services, view the PO and print it out for the supplier. As invoices are received from the supplier, register the invoices and track the time left to pay on the supplier invoice page. Project and Contracts can be set up and time and costs can be allocated to a project or contract. Track your costs to learn what it really costs to deliver your services and develop your products. Generate quotations and store a record of previous quotations. phpOrganisation assists you in storing your quotation wordprocessor files in a single location on your filesystem. phpOrganisation doesn't generate web based quotations, in the way it does for purchase orders, invoices and statements, as this lacks the flexibility that is required in drafting quotations for most small businesses. Generate client invoices against contracts, print the invoices, or generate statements for a client, showing paid and overdue invoices. Generation of VAT return information, to aid to process of completing your VAT paperwork. Help notes feature. Each user can have descriptive notes about phpOrganisation show up in the webpages. When familiarity is gained, the helpnotes can be turned off. phpOrganisation does not yet feature stock control, or a groupware style shared calendar, but these are planned features. phpOrganisation is GPLed and available at sourceforge: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/phporganisation Support in installing, running and implementing new features for phpOrganisation is available; contact me at the email address below. We'd welcome contributions to phpOrganisation - there's much still to do. Drop me a line if you'd like to help. More information about phpOrganisation and Hypercube Systems is at: http://www.hypercubesystems.co.uk/ regards, Seb James -- Business Systems, Hypercube Systems Ltd Providing Open Source IT solutions. Tel: 0845 458 0277 Web: www.hypercubesystems.co.uk Mob: 07900 958964 Email: seb(a)hypercubesystems.co.uk

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RE: [ALUG] So where do I start then?
by Steve Purkiss 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 08:50, bjsamuels(a)beenthere-donethat.org.uk wrote: > On 19-Jul-2004 Steve Purkiss wrote: > > > > Met Chris from frugalIT in Witham the other night at my A12 business > > networking club meeting and he said would be good to set something up > > for the - let's say "lower" regions of East Anglia - Norwich is a bit > > too far and Southend is an entirely different world to Chelmsford. > > > > So, where do I start then? Do I buy a domain or set up a subdomain? > > Anyone wanna point me in the right direction? > > > > I may not be a sysadmin wizard but I'll help all I can to set up and > > run... > > Chris > > Are you aware that there is an Essex Linux User Group (ELUG) in existence? > > It does have a web site at http://www.epos.demon.co.uk and I am still actually > subscribed, I think, to the mailing list. The web site doesn't appear to have > been updated since 1997 and the mailing list has been dead since 2001. > > I did post about this to the ALUG list at the beginning of July but it seems to > have gone largely unnoticed. > > I don't know where you are geographically but I am near Tiptree. I may be able > to offer some help. You can either email me or telephone on 01621 816561. > > Regards > > Barry Samuels > http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk > The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain Hi, Steve here actually - yes was aware of the one in Essex - I contacted the guy who ran it about a year back and he said it was now defunct. So I'm starting up a group for Essex/the East which is not covered by the rest - mainly Chelmsford and surrounding areas (Brentwood, Braintree, etc.) Until I get the site up then happy to collect names if anyone's interested. Cheers, steve -- Open for Organisations supporting open source software http://www.open4.org/

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Re: [ALUG] So where do I start then?
by John Seago 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

Further to my earlier post on this matter, I will put something in the uk.local East Anglian and uk.local Essex, with a view to eliciting a response to the ALUG main list. -- John Seago Linux User #219566 (http://counter.li.org)

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Linspire (Lindows) "Light my fire" Parody
by kpwatson＠pop3.ukfsn.org 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

Gotta see and hear this; <http://www.linspire.com/RunLinspireFlash.php>

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Re: [ALUG] So where do I start then?
by John Seago 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

On Tuesday 20 Jul 2004 06:25, Steve Purkiss <bnmlist(a)open4.org> wrote: > > Met Chris from frugalIT in Witham the other night at my A12 business > networking club meeting and he said would be good to set something up > for the - let's say "lower" regions of East Anglia - Norwich is a bit > too far and Southend is an entirely different world to Chelmsford. > > So, where do I start then? Do I buy a domain or set up a subdomain? > Anyone wanna point me in the right direction? > > I may not be a sysadmin wizard but I'll help all I can to set up and > run... > > I'm planning a "training" event for ecademy sometime in the next month > or two so may just slip Linux on all the machines and run a dual event. > At the end of the day, all that is needed is a web browser to run > ecademy so why not?! > > Steve Purkiss I would have thought that it depends on whether this is an extension South of ALUG, or the construction of ELUG. The former may make an easer start, which can be developed into something else if there is a big enough base, later. The ALUG Web site is already there, along with this mailing list. It looks as though all you really need to do is find the bodies and perhaps when you think you've got enough organise a meeting for them. Whilst it may seem a long way to go perhaps attending the ALUG Barbecue may give you an idea of what works further North. -- John Seago Linux User #219566 (http://counter.li.org)

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So where do I start then?
by Steve Purkiss 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

Met Chris from frugalIT in Witham the other night at my A12 business networking club meeting and he said would be good to set something up for the - let's say "lower" regions of East Anglia - Norwich is a bit too far and Southend is an entirely different world to Chelmsford. So, where do I start then? Do I buy a domain or set up a subdomain? Anyone wanna point me in the right direction? I may not be a sysadmin wizard but I'll help all I can to set up and run... I'm planning a "training" event for ecademy sometime in the next month or two so may just slip Linux on all the machines and run a dual event. At the end of the day, all that is needed is a web browser to run ecademy so why not?! Steve Purkiss -- Open for Organisations supporting open source software http://www.open4.org/

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Problem delivering local mail
by Ian Douglas 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

Hi Folks, I am having trouble sending mail to other users on my PC. I used to me able to type "mail tux" at the shell prompt and create a mail which was delivered to user "tux" on my local PC but can no longer do this. Now if I try and send mail to local user "tux" then something on my system is incorrectly expanding the "To" address to tux(a)uk2.net (uk2 is my ISP) and sending it to my ISPs SMTP server, rather than simply putting it in tux's local inbox. My message to my local user therefore gets bounced back by UK2 as undeliverable (i.e mail to local users is now being treated as mail for remote users and leaves my PC rather than remaining on it and being instantly put in their local mailbox). If I try and send mail to my local user "tux" by quoting the full name of the local PC after his username: tux(a)bobbin.haberdashery.willowwindmill.net it again leaves my PC and is sent to my ISPs SMTP mailserver and is bounced back as undeliverable. I have copied the full text of the error messages I am getting onto the following webpage rather than appending them to this message: www.k1ngph1cher.uklinux.net/bobbinmailerrors.htm I guess I must have misconfigured something but am unsure what and don't know which files I need to edit to correct this. What do I need to tweak so that mail for local users is routed locally within my PC instead of being sent externally via my ISP? In case it is relevant the particular PC concerned (bobbin.haberdashery.willowwindmill.net) is running Slackware 10.0 Second question: Because of my mail delivery tests I now appear to have several test mail messages stuck in a mail queue somewhere on my PC. How do I delete all these duff messages from the mail queue so I can start sending valid emails again? Ta muchly! Ian.

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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gtoaster
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 18 Jul '04

18 Jul '04

Hi Folks, I'm experimenting with gtoaster (can use xcdroast OK but interested by this other program). All I'm trying to do at the moment is to write a backup copy of my home directory ( /home/ted ) to CD. However, I'm up against a blank wall at one point, and I'd be grateful if anyone can help me past it. 1. Startup gtoaster -- OK 2. In top left-hand panel, click "+" of "Unix Tree" to expand it -- OK 3. Click on "+" of "home" to expand it -- OK 4. "Drag&drop" "ted" into borrom RH panel -- OK (list of files flashes by) 5. Bottom LH panel has an item "CDROM" whose "+" expands to "ted" which in turn expands to the files in /home/ted. So far so good, apparently. However, at the bottom is "Fillstate 0MB/ 746<B" and there seems to be nothing I can do to get it to recognise that there's 488MB in the filesystem /home/ted. Also, on the lower RH panel, all it says is "ted 4096 bytes" which is just the size of the directory stub itself, not of its contents. Gtoaster will now allow me to write a CD, but all it contains is the directory stub. So that's my blank wall: I want to climb past this so that it actually writes the files under /home/ted to the CD, and I can't for the life of me see what the trick is! Nor does the documentation help. gtoaster-1.0beta6 on Red Hat 9.1 So all suggestions gratefully received. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 17-Jul-04 Time: 23:03:38 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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