July 2006 - main - earth.li

Hosting issues for not-for-profit image site
by Mark Rogers 22 Sep '06

22 Sep '06

I've been in contact with a website which hosts a large range of images (www.bioimages.org.uk) The images are "a large selection of pictures of Natural History objects, mostly British in origin", which currently amount to around 400M of HTML (autogenerated from a database) on IIS, and 3-4GB of photographs hosted separately. The site is currently offline due to attempted site rips causing load and bandwidth problems. I've offered to help look at the problem, but due to the capacity required I don't think I'm in a position to help with the hosting, although I may be able to help technically. Several issues comes to mind which I'd like advice on. I think there are Apache modules which can help to control the abuse aspect, but I'm not sure where to start - any suggestions? There are options like scripting the site (eg using PHP) and limiting the number of downloads per session. I could probably come up with a solution but its not something I have experience in managing. If anyone has suggestions for a generous host that would be useful too. What he's currently looking for is hosting for the HTML but not the image library, but cites bandwidth as the biggest problem. I need to work out why that is - I'd be surprised if the bandwidth fotr the HTML itself is a huge problem (although I think the way the pages are generated means that they are static pages with new timestamps after each generation, so search engine traffic alone could be massive). I have no direct connection with the site; its a friend who manages a site which makes reference to the images that brought the problem to my attention. I am inclined to help because I think this sort of thing is what the web should be about (ie decent libraries of decent information). -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Updating Redhat 9 system
by Mark Rogers 05 Aug '06

05 Aug '06

I'm trying to update a RedHat 9 system that's not been updated in a while. If I try: up2date -u I get: RPM package conflict error. The message was: Test install failed because of package conflicts: package krb5-libs-1.3.1-1 (which is newer than krb5-libs-1.2.7-14) is already installed How do I get past this? [FWIW: This server is a development server with lots of Apache vhosts, MySQL databases and not a lot else. It is only ever accessed via SSH/http/samba.] -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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SpamAssasin and gocr/jocr
by Mark Rogers 31 Jul '06

31 Jul '06

Has anyone here experimented with defeating imgae-based spam using something like gocr (jocr.sf.net)? I've seen one attempt (http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/OcrPlugin) but I've not tried it (I'm not convinced by the method it uses, since it uses a fixed word list). My thought was that it ought to be simple to automatically OCR any image attachment and add some headers to the email containing the image text, then have SA check those headers for content (does SA check headers?) That way any words appearing in the image that have previously been seen in spam as plain text will get caught. It also occurred to me that OCR accuracy might not be too important. After all, if the same image spam is seem multiple times and marked as spam, then the OCR misinterpretations of the words will be common to each scan even if the words found are wrong. However, I have no real idea how to go about implementing this. -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 31 Jul '06

31 Jul '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! 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 xchat, irssi 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://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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20" monitor to go!
by Guy Eastwood 29 Jul '06

29 Jul '06

I have a CTX 20.5" (according to the measuring tape) CRT monitor I want the get rid of - is an EX1300F I think. Worked perfectly last time it was used, I just want the space back! If anyone is interested let me know.. I'd appreciate a few quid for it as it wasn't cheap when originally bought. New owner to collect from me in Sutton (next to Stalham, NR12). If anyone is interested mail me an offer! G

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USB Hubs
by Bob Dove 26 Jul '06

26 Jul '06

Hi folks, Re USB Hubs. In the early days of USB - 1.1 I think - I had a hub that had its own power supply. This was used for a sort while 'til I got fed up and installed USB 2 card. Later silly boxes equipped with USB 2 anyway. I have two hubs - free gifts with software - mainly to make it easier to plug devices rather than the tangle of wires (worse than Hi-Fi) at back of machines. These are unpowered and everything I have connected (printer, scanner, external drives) work well except the external drives are slow when compared to those inside the box. Cheers, Bob Dove.

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USB again: input devices and hubs
by MJ Ray 25 Jul '06

25 Jul '06

Does anyone here know how to 'tie' a particular input device to a particular window? I'd like my usb keyboard to work one particular window, rather than be a general X input device. Which USB are good buys right now and do any *not* work with Linux's EHCI/OHCI driver? (I ask because when I don't get a recommendation, I seem to buy the most awkward hardware available...) Thanks in advance, -- MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ irc.oftc.net/slef Jabber/SIP ask

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 24 Jul '06

24 Jul '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! 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 xchat, irssi 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://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Re: [ALUG] usb woes
by Rob Page 23 Jul '06

23 Jul '06

I'd ruled this out because I was expecting it to cause overly nasty disruption to mouse movement, however it is nowhere near as bad as I'd expected, even set to reload every 2 seconds, but i'm trying another mouse at the moment, which *seems* to be working (so far) Thanks! Rob. On 7/22/06, Richard Lewis <richardlewis(a)fastmail.co.uk> wrote: > > On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:03:32 +0000, "Rob Page" <page.rob(a)gmail.com> > said: > > Unloading > > and reloading the usbhid module gets it working again, but this is an > > absolute pain. Also, killing X also gets it working again... > > > > Anyone have any idea what I can do to make it work? > > > What about a cron job which reloads the usbhid module once a minute? ;-) > > Richard. > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > Richard Lewis > Sonic Arts Research Archive > http://www.sara.uea.ac.uk/ > JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > >

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Toshiba 4030CDT & Linux
by Simon Royal 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Hi I am after some advice. I haven't posed a message to the list as I was waiting for a newer laptop. I now have a Toshiba Satellite 4030CDT with 128MB of RAM, it is a Pentium Celeron 300Mhz. What is the best way to go with Linux. I don't want to use DSL as I would like something a little higher spec. I like Ubuntu but I think it will run a little slow on this machine. I would like to dual boot it with Windows 2000 which is already installed so what do I need to do. Simon

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