March 2013 - main

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 19 Mar '13

19 Mar '13

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back tonight, 18th March, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. I'm not sure if/when I'm going to be able to get along tonight. I may only be able to make it for last orders, so if someone can let me know they're going to be there, then I'll know who to call to find out where you all are. :) Cheers, Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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A plaintive wish for an application
by Chris Green 12 Mar '13

12 Mar '13

I have searched on and off for ages for decent forms layout software (preferably GUI and with a database behind it) and every time I think I may have found one it either fades aways into unsupported disuse or doesn't quite manage to provide the things I want. Just to pad this out a little I'll list what I've played with over the years (not in any particular order, just as they come to mind):- Knoda - looked promising once but is dead and unsupported now Rekall - as above, was semi-commercial anyway Dabo - quite nice, good support but no forms GUI Sqledit/Sqlkit - I can't quite get it to work for me kexi - good, except that scripts and subforms are missing still glom - seems to be going the way of all forms GUIs, no activity I know lots of projects die but it seems particularly common with these! -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 14th March
by Viperfang 11 Mar '13

11 Mar '13

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 14th March at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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PPTP vpn connections on Kubuntu
by Mark Rogers 11 Mar '13

11 Mar '13

Is there any documentation anywhere for the "Edit Network Connection" / VPN dialogue? Specific questions: - What is "System connection"? - Under IPv4/Basic, what is the difference between "Automatic (VPN)" and "Automatic (VPN) addresses only" Also, on more than one occasion I've had a connection drop out and been unable to restart it without rebooting the PC - there's presumably something else that I should be able to restart that falls short of a reboot? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Are there any contact/addressbook programs that actually store in vCard format?
by Chris Green 07 Mar '13

07 Mar '13

I'd like to keep my addresses in vCard format if I can as it will ease some sharing issues I have. However I can't find a program that actually keeps its data in this format, can anyone suggest anything? -- Chris Green

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apache -> nginx
by Mark Rogers 07 Mar '13

07 Mar '13

I am considering a strategy for migrating a server from Apache to Nginx (I've never used nginx before so I'll be doing all this on a test box first). The strategy is something like: install nginx alongside apache but using (say) port 81. Configure all the virtual hosts so that if <url> works now (on Apache), <url>:81 should also work on nginx, running concurrently. Test. (The idea is to get customers to do some final checks on their own sites, so this should work with minimum fuss.) When ready, kill apache and switch the port over on nginx. All the sites are running PHP/MySQL (except for a few static sites). Aside from making sure I have enough RAM to run both alongside each other, any reason to avoid this approach? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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FastCGI / php5-fpm, was Re: apache -> nginx
by Mark Rogers 06 Mar '13

06 Mar '13

On 6 March 2013 15:01, Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> wrote: > However, I've spent some time playing with nginx this afternoon, and I > have to say that the biggest PITA so far as been working with FastCGI My existing Apache/mod_php configuration is fairly simple. Lots of virtual hosts, many of which use PHP. Of those that do, there's probably 50% are "standard" packages (eg Wordpress) and the other 50% is "stuff wot I wrote". In all cases the virtual host will have a reasonable amount of PHP config; setting memory and file upload limits, etc, and setting options required by the "standard" packages. My own stuff will have include_path configured to point to whichever version of my standard PHP libraries the site uses, and any other config needed. >From my brief experiments with FastCGI this afternoon (with nginx/php5-fpm), switching to FastCGI is going to be a big headache when it comes to setting the PHP environment up per-site. I know I can set variables via the FastCGI interface but (unless I am misunderstanding something) it is messy and I really need to set everything for each site to be sure it'll work the way I want (ie if I set include_path for one site but not for another, it doesn't seem clear whether or not which include_path the other site will end up with, and even after removing the include_path altogether and restarting nginx, it seems I need to restart php5-fpm for it to revert to defaults, so I assume it goes with the last value it was told to use?) There are obviously others here with way more experience with FastCGI/PHP than I have, so am I losing the plot of is this going to be a big headache with my setup? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Email received?
by James Freer 05 Mar '13

05 Mar '13

I remember back about 2000 when i started using email there was a way that one could tell if it had been read. In those days i was using Outlook. How did it work? If it was set up on the email client then somehow it could check on the server that it was sent to. I've used gmail UI for a long while now but i was wondering if there was something in the header on each email that one could check. One has received: IDxxxxxxxx and i wondered if from one of those digits was the signal. thanks james

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OT - DB2, AS400, Websphere
by Stuart Bailey 03 Mar '13

03 Mar '13

Does anyone have any experience of DB2 / AS400 and Websphere I have a project to replace an existing website (with database backend) onto an OSS system using a LAMP server. Trouble is, the AS400 is used for all the financial site of the website. I do not have the source code for the websphere component, but will need to reverse engineer this in order to replicate the communication with the AS400 on the LAMP server. Does anyone have experience of these systems, or know anyone who does? Thanks, Stuart -- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Managing Director) Linux Specialist & Software Developer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Phone: (0845) 658 3563 Direct: +44 (0) 1953 878162 Fax: +44 (0) 1603 858583 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.linusoft.co.uk __________ Information from ESET Mail Security, version of virus signature database 8071 (20130303) __________ The message was checked by ESET Mail Security. http://www.eset.com

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after another mysterious crash
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Mar '13

03 Mar '13

Another mysterious crash. We run for three weeks or so continuously, no power off, then suddenly it dies. This time I thought to start from system rescue disk and try memory checks. This did seem to produce reporducible dying. After three crashes in a row I decided to bit the bullet and replace the innards. Yes, it would be possible just to replace the memory and see if that helped, but its productive time being lost at every iteration of this problem. The result is surprising. Now I have 16G memory in two sticks, and an i5 processor in an Asus itx board. It is a lot quieter and a lot cooler than the previous rig. In fact you can just about hear it. Started from the old hard drive with no problem and everything runs perfectly though rather faster. So, if you are looking for a compact and fast configuration, get the Silverstone mini itx case with the big fan on the front, put an i5 in it, and its perfect for a compact desktop. Recommended. I liked it with an i3, but this is superb. Al

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