August 2011 - main

Can't cope with these new fangled GUIs - help wanted with Thunderbird IMAP/SMTP setup
by Chris G 05 Aug '11

05 Aug '11

I'm trying to get Thunderbird to connect to a fairly standard E-Mail account and I'm failing miserably at the moment. The apparent problem is that I don't seem to be able to tell Thunderbird that the user name for both IMAP and SMTP authentication is user(a)isbd.co.uk. I've gone into manual setup for the account and changed the user name to user(a)isbd.co.uk but now when I tell Thunderbird to get mail it says:- Enter your password for user@isbd.co.uk@mail.gridhost.co.uk which is fairly stupid! How do I get Thunderbird to allow me to set the user name to something which isn't <user>@<name of domain>? The correct mail server to use *isn't* related to the name of the domain where the user's mailbox is. The domain for the user's mailbox is isbd.co.uk but the mail server (if you're using SSL) is mail.gridhost.co.uk. -- Chris Green

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Obscure PHP / FTP issue
by Mark Rogers 04 Aug '11

04 Aug '11

Not sure if anyone here will be able to shed some light on this but Google isn't helping. I have some PHP code that opens a connection to an FTP server (running Pure-FTPd), writes a few lines to a file, then closes the connection. In other words: $fh = fopen('ftp://user:pass@ftp.example.com/test.csv','w'); for ($i=0;$i<=100;$i++) fputs($fh, "blah blah blah\r\n"); fclose($fh); The problem is that when I look at the uploaded file it's contents have been truncated. Putting a suitably long sleep() before the fclose "solves" this for some definition of "suitably long" but obviously isn't a real solution. Inserting an fflush($fh) makes no difference. I'm not sure if this is a PHP issue (specifically with the FTP wrappers to fopen/fclose), or a generic FTP issue, or a problem specific to Pure-FTPd. I have however tried to two different servers running very different versions of Pure-FTPd with the same effects. If there was a standard issue here I'd have found something with Google, surely? Otherwise I don't know where to go looking? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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A new appp!
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 02 Aug '11

02 Aug '11

First, my apologies for cross-posting (which I know will affect some of you), but this is one of those news gems which deserves the widest publicity. I just received my ISP Zen's latest News letter. One item therein is: Powerpoint politics There's a new political party in Switzerland and its sole aim is to have PowerPoint outlawed. The Anti-PowerPoint Party says banning the application would allow people to get back to doing some real work. In the party's blog, it claims that so many government institutions use PowerPoint that about 11 per cent of more than 4.1 million employees have to waste time on presentations on a regular basis. The ban might happen. Citizens can force a referendum on any subject in Switzerland. All it takes is 100,000 voters to sign a petition demanding one. URLs in the Zen article: [techeye.net: "Switzerland demands Powerpoint's death"]: http://zen-mail.co.uk/IJT-HCUP-3BFWEB-6SFFZ-0/c.aspx Sample quote: "Looking at the problem Europe wide, SAP thinks that Powerpoint costs the 110 billion Euros which is coincidentally how much the Greek debt bail-out will cost." [techeye.net: US Army declares war on Powerpoint"]: http://zen-mail.co.uk/IJT-HCUP-3BFWEB-6SFG0-0/c.aspx Sample quote: "Sam Nuxoll, a platoon leader in Iraq, seems to have shaken the Pentagon with a quote that said he was spending most of the war making Powerpoint slides. Instead of spending his time dodging bullets, he was making bullet points." ===================================== And I shall add one of my own favourite APP diatribes (much inspired by Edward Tufte, one of the great experts in the presentation of information, and a pioneer in formulating the principles of good presentation): http://services.exeter.ac.uk/cmit/media/audio/ Microsoft-Powerpoint-And-The-Decline-Of-Civilisation-BBCR4-2004-10-18.mp3 (equivalently: http://tinyurl.com/42al9e9 ) [BBC Radio 4, 18 October 2004. Duration 14 minutes. Which was a delightful surprise to me that day, with R4 casually on in the background] See also the Wikipedia article on Tufte: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_tufte There's a good (bullet-pointed???) summary of his views on PowerPoint in Section 2.2 "Criticism of PowerPoint". Best wishes to all! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Aug-11 Time: 11:37:35 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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