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10369 discussions

kmail
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

It really seems that the kde team have taken leave of their senses. I just upgraded to squeeze in the continuing effort to deal with xsession errors - they have changed now in kind, but there are still a bunch of them - one side effect of which was to update kmail. The thing now comes with two 'features' which seem designed to destroy usability, and no guide on how to get rid of the things. One is that messages are separated by day and week, with drop down tabs. Why anyone would want this is a mystery. It makes scrolling through your old messages just about impossible. The other is that wherever you move the mouse these crazed popups appear, to obscure whatever you were looking at. This was probably put in in case you should persist in trying to scroll through, and make it doubly impossible! A bit of google searching revealed an obscure button and a setting deep in the bowels of the thing which let you turn them both off and get back to something that looks like a normal email client. But really, what on earth has happened to these guys? Kmail used to be, out of the box, a nice simple email client packaged with a quite decent calendar. You can still get back to that, but you have to make an effort. Al

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Re: [ALUG] kmail
by Peter Alcibiades 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

It is kmail Version 1.11.2. Not running KDE as a DTE - though I have in the past. I seem to have got rid of the most brain dead features now, except that for some crazed reason when you pass the mouse over the folder pane, it insists on delivering you a popup that tells you what each folder is, in case you had suffered from memory loss since the last time you did it. But of course, preventing you from seeing half the pane. This is maddening but just about manageable as long as its limited to that pane. The developers of this thing should be forced to use it as shipped for a few months, it would be enormously educational for them. This was a true Victor Meldrew moment. Another one happened in the ongoing process of this upgrade to sqeeze. Imagine this. You are running Gnome perfectly happily but notice some oddities here and there. Like for instance the screensave appears to be disconnected, and you get xsession errors about themes not being installed. So you try dpkg-reconfigure, and are told that Gnome is not installed! "I don't believe it!" you cry, before you can stop yourself. Peter

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"YouTube Medley"
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 14 Jul '09

14 Jul '09

Greetings all! What I want to do: 1. Download a certain series of YouTube videos and store them locally in a suitable format (MP3?) such that each can be viewed from the local file. 2. Merge these into a single video DVD to make a "medley" which can be played straight through from the DVD. Advice on how to do #1, and (if that is possible) how to proceed to #2, would be most welcome! Platform: Debian Etch or Lenny (both available). With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Jul-09 Time: 11:40:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] [Fwd: Re: From Ipswich Freecycle Mods: : Offer two pay as you go mobile sim and top up cards felixstowe]
by Chris G 13 Jul '09

13 Jul '09

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 03:23:30PM +0000, Martin Pike wrote: > i have a couple of observations on this. > > first, if he didn't post a taken to the previous one, then that post is > still 'active'. > It's surely not a requirement to post a taken message is it? > we could also consider adding sim cards to the same category as vouchers, > i.e. they don't save anything (much) from landfill. > > cheers > > --- On Mon, 13/7/09, Angelika <freecycle2(a)angelika.co.uk> wrote: > > From: Angelika <freecycle2(a)angelika.co.uk> > Subject: [Fwd: Re: From Ipswich Freecycle Mods: : Offer two pay as you > go mobile sim and top up cards felixstowe] > To: "Ipswich Mods" <Ipswich_Freecycle-owner(a)yahoogroups.com> > Date: Monday, 13 July, 2009, 4:16 PM > > What's the policy when someone claims that "it's a different one from > the one I offered yesterday"? > -- Chris Green

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Putting a SATA drive in standby
by Barry Samuels 12 Jul '09

12 Jul '09

I have, in the last few days, changed my 2 x 250 GB IDE drives for 2 x 1 TB SATA drives. One drive is used once a day to mirror the other. Previously I used hdparm to spin down the mirror drive after a short period of inactivity and I've tried to do the same with one of the new drives but I suspect it isn't working. If I issue the command 'sg_start --stop /dev/sdb' I hear a click from the computer as if the drive is being switched off but can't detect any difference in noise. That could be because the drive is ultra quiet but if I then try to mount a partition on the drive it mounts instantly. With the previous drives if I did that there would be a significant pause whilst the drive was spinning up to running speed. Does the fact that there is no pause of any sort when mounting the drive mean that it hasn't stopped? I've also tried 'sdparm --command=stop /dev/sdb' with the same results. If I issue the command sdparm --command=ready /dev/sdb then it comes back with 'ready'. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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How things have changed
by Steve Fosdick 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

I've just bought a couple of new bits of hardware and was very pleasantly surprised how things have changed for the better. I got a wireless trackerball and a UPS both with USB connections. I plugged the trackerball receiver in, pressed the connect button and it started working. That wasn't a great surprise but obviously nice. I plugged the UPS in and, before I had a chance to check that it had been detected and then look for software for it an icon appeared telling me the UPS was fully charged and also reporting on the batteries in the wireless trackerball. For simplicity this beats having to install software from an accompanying CD in order to get the same features. It seems when manufacturers adopt standard protocols or are more open about the protocols and interfaces they do use the pace of development increases dramatically. Steve.

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Deleting from a Google Groups archive
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hi FOlks, If anyone out there is running a Google Groups mailing list, I'd be grateful for advice about the following question, which I can't seem to find the answer to myself! I have just set up a Google Group for use as a mailing list by a small group of volunteers working on a local-history project. I have not gone "live" with it yet All seems to be working, in my tests. However, this means that my test messages have gone into the archive. I would like to delete these before going "live". But I have not managed to locate any means of doing this, despite being the owner and manager! Any advice? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Jul-09 Time: 09:57:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Linux-based information screens
by Mark Rogers 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

This is one of those things that Google would probably give me the answer if I could think of the right question. I want to create an information screen, similar to the kind of things you see in railway stations etc, maybe showing a live TV feed in one area, some headlines coming from an RSS feed, a slideshow of images in another area, etc. Ideally I'd like something that runs from live-CD, with configuration on a USB stick, so that restarting the PC just restarts the system without risking any corruption. Any suggestions, whether to what I should use or at least what I should search for? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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using scponly shell
by samwise 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '09

Hi, Hopefully, not too off-topic but I'm having trouble setting up a user account on a FreeBSD server (an OS I'm not greatly comfortably with yet), to use the scponly [http://www.sublimation.org/scponly/wiki/] shell. I basically want to allow the account SFTP access, but not have an interactive login shell - so scponly looks like what I'm after. I've set the user's login shell to be /usr/ports/shells/scponly and also added the shell to /etc/shells. When I try to SFTP into the server with the user, though, I'm getting the "Received message too long 1416128883" error. Googling hasn't really helped much. Anyone got any suggestions? TIA, Peter.

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 9th July 2009
by David Reynolds 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '09

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 9th July 2009 at The Reindeer (10 Dereham Road, Norwich, NR2 4AY; tel. 01603 762223). It's very near the junction of Dereham Road and the Norwich inner ring road (Grapes Hill) and serves a selection of real ales, nice pub food (if you fancy going early to eat) and coffee. There are generally people there from 20:00 onwards and we tend to sit to the left of the main entrance. We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, David -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk ----- 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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HTML code for YoTRube sequence
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 04 Jul '09

04 Jul '09

Hi Folks, I am no expert whatever on HTML (at best I can do the basic basics), so if there's a solution to the following query please spell it out! I'm trying to concoct a web-page which would play, in sequence and without user intervention, a series of movies from YouTube. As an example to work on, take the following three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_-McoAriI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g247CEZ9p70 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJQM5xBaRXI The idea is to give a URL where there is a top-level page, in which there is a link such that, if the user clicks on it, the above are automatically played in sequence and, when they are completed, it returns to the top level. I don't know if this is even possible without some embedding of durations, since once a YouTube link is opened there is (as far as I can tell) no indication of completion, so it stays there until the user does something else. With durations, it may be possible for the HTML to step to the next YouTube URL after that time has elapsed (though I've no idea how to program that). Any suggestions very gratefully received! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Jul-09 Time: 23:11:53 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] xsession-errors again...help
by Peter Alcibiades 04 Jul '09

04 Jul '09

OK, now mono is gone. Thanks for that suggestion. Also we are no longer endlessly looking for pidgin and beagle bits. Restarted, and those particular errors seem to have gone, but are now succeeded by the following...! I googled them, and some of them seem to be associated with kmail. Then I have some nphelix errors, that is another thing that you have to go to endless lengths to kill but it won't stay dead. Is it normal to have xsession errors? Or if your system is set up right, should there basically be none? Peter ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) Removing DOMNodeRemoved listener ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x3c00003 (Evince Doc) Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed. ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) kbuildsycoca running... Launched ok, pid = 3954 ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:996:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave QLayout::addChildLayout: layout already has a parent WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 1) suspended.

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Re: [ALUG] xsession-errors again...help
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Jul '09

03 Jul '09

Wayne, yes, I do turn out to have gnome do. Or had, since now it is completely removed. So I'll try this for a couple days. Thanks, this is the easiest first step. Then if this doesn't work, or doesn't fully work, I will follow up with Phil's suggestions first on removing mono, and then on monitoring file access, which should get to the bottom of it. Many thanks for that too. I do have mono installed, so that could be the next thing to go... Peter

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xsession-errors again...help
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Jul '09

03 Jul '09

OK, this time I decided to have at it root and branch, so did locate to find every pidgin or beagle file there was. I had already removed pidgin using synaptic, but there were a few left over documentation files and some libraries. Then did rm on the lot of them. It makes no difference! I am still getting the errors. Are we at a point where the only thing that will work is a clean reinstall? Surely this cannot be? Is there any way to find out what it is that is looking for the pidgin files? As in Cannot index Thunderbird contacts because a System.ArgumentNullException was thrown: Argument cannot be null. Parameter name: path Could not read Pidgin buddy list file: Could not find a part of the path "/home/peter/.purple/blist.xml". Well, it is not surprising it cannot find part of the path, because I have deleted the whole folder. But what is it that is looking for it if there is neither pidgin nor beagle installed? Thunderbird is equally mysterious. Maybe the thing to do is get rid of Iceweasel? Could it be that? I have also gone through and eliminated beagle in the same way. Does not seem to make any difference. Peter

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xsession-errors again...help!
by Peter Alcibiades 28 Jun '09

28 Jun '09

My xsession-errors file is filling up with a constant stream of messages like this: Cannot index Thunderbird contacts because a Beagle.Util.InvalidMorkDatabaseException was thrown: This file is missing a valid mork header Could not read Pidgin buddy list file: Document element did not appear. file:///home/peter/.purple/blist.xml Line 1, position 1. And yet I have neither Thunderbird nor Pidgin installed. Nor the Debian equivalent, icedove. How to stop this stuff? In desperation I tried installing them and then doing completely remove. Is this something to do with Mozilla, that Firefox aka Iceweasel demands that you have this other stuff installed and configured with addresses? Why? Is the solution maybe to just get rid of Firefox and go to Konqueror - which I have done for one other person, on account of the impossibility of printing properly? Or any other suggestions? Al

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Identica/Twitter
by steveydoteu 21 Jun '09

21 Jun '09

I am looking for means of posting to both at the same time. For example if I post on Twitter, it also reposts to Identica. I know that Identica offers this feature, but as of yet I have not found a means of doing so via Twitter. Any suggestions? Linux or Windows.

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http://identi.ca/group/alug
by steveydoteu 21 Jun '09

21 Jun '09

http://identi.ca/group/alug That is all. Just thought it wise to share with the list.

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A KDE 4 mystery
by Barry Samuels 20 Jun '09

20 Jun '09

I have just upgraded my laptop running Debian Testing/Squeeze. This caused KDE 3.5 to be replaced with KDE 4. I have set up 6 workspaces under KDE 4 and if I log out or shutdown and reboot then go back into KDE there is only one workspace shown. If I do the same again I go back to 6 workspaces - ad infinitum. Why should the number of workspaces alternate like that? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Handheld technological frontiers
by Richard Bensley 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Check it out, copy and paste on the iPhone! Check it out, copy and paste on the iPhone! Check it out, copy and paste on the iPhone! Check it out, copy and paste on the iPhone! Check it out, copy and paste on the iPhone!

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Program to tail and highlight
by Jon Dye 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hi all, I'm currently tailing some log files so I can watch what's going on with a particular process. What I'd really like to do is to highlight particular matches in the file, preferably with different colours. Does anyone know of any command line applications that could do something like this? Thanks, JD

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DNS
by Mark Rogers 16 Jun '09

16 Jun '09

I've always shied away from running DNS for "real" customers, as it's such a critical part of the infrastructure and is easily managed by the domain registrar (usually 123-Reg). However, after a second DNS outage in 2 yrs at 123-Reg (which should be near impossible, as DNS is the one thing it is easy to make redundant) I've reached the point (again!) of considering running my own. I've always found configuring Bind to be, er, a bit of a bind, so are there any simpler options out there or should I just bite the bullet and install bind? What is the typical system overhead of running DNS - should I add it to my web/mail servers or should it be separate? It makes sense to use our (separate) web and mail servers, if only because if both of those are down then it doesn't really matter than DNS is down too! Requirements are to be able to handle domains and subdomains (ideally multi-level subdomains although we don't have that at the moment so I won't miss it), and wildcards, with A,CNAME and MX records. So pretty basic stuff. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Re: [ALUG] Gentoo kernel installation hangs while removing something under /var
by Jim Rippon 15 Jun '09

15 Jun '09

----- "Dan Hatton" <vi5u0-alug(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > what size was the partition you had mounted? > > IIRC, 12GB, so not _that_ small. > That sounds like plenty - there may indeed be something else wrong. Were you using the stages from the CD or downloading them, and had you chrooted when you installed the kernel? > > I'm tempted to make /var/tmp/portage a symlink to something in the > root filesystem, then. Is there any reason that would be enormously > stupid? > I have never tried - if you haven't come across it already, gentoo-wiki.com is an excellent resource for particular system setups and packages - although I don't know whether this case would be on there. There is an article I came across with a quick search for using tmpfs (swapping RAM disk) for portage here http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Speeding_up_emerge_with_tmpfs It may be easier to configure portage to use a different location to extract/build packages - see man make.conf for details of how you can redirect this, or have a look through the portage section of the online docs http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=3 Jim

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 15 Jun '09

15 Jun '09

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 (Monday 15th June) at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Sorry for the late reminder - I've been camping all weekend with no access to internet. Topics for discussion is wide open - nothing major planned this month. We can potentially discuss eBooks and see an in-development Android title tho. Remember to call or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which I have a tendency to do if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see you there, 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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Linux Journal cut-price subscription offer
by MJ Ray 14 Jun '09

14 Jun '09

Message-ID: <eba6d2300906120329s2fd9be4ga5abe51e865ff5f9(a)mail.gmail.com> From: Alan Pope <alan(a)popey.com> ----- Forwarded message from noreply(a)linuxjournal.com ----- Subject: Exclusive savings for our International readers Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:52:40 -0700 (PDT) Are you tired of the rising costs of just about everything? So are we! For a limited time all international subscriptions to the print edition of Linux Journal will be reduced to the low price of $49.50 for 1 year (a savings of over 30% off the regular price) AND upgraded to include a free digital subscription. As a special bonus you will also receive Linux Journal's System Administration Special Issue free of charge. Act now, https://secure.linuxjournal.com/subs/rb/tn26462?promo=M96INTL Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

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Re: [ALUG] Gentoo kernel installation hangs while removing something under /var
by Jim Rippon 12 Jun '09

12 Jun '09

Dan, Sounds like your var partition had filled up perhaps - what size was the partition you had mounted? Don't know your experience with Gentoo, but it extracts package sources under /var/tmp/portage/$(package_name) and compiles them therein so you need to have a fair amount of space in /var in order to extract/build larger packages (openoffice, firefox, kernel etc). Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Hatton" <vi5u0-alug(a)yahoo.co.uk> To: "Anglia Linux Users' Group" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: Friday, 12 June, 2009 13:04:47 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: [ALUG] Gentoo kernel installation hangs while removing something under /var Dear All, Any idea what might be going on in the following, please? I'm installing Gentoo from the latest (20090606, IIRC) installation CD, on a new machine. I followed the handbook as far as attempting to install a kernel with emerge tuxonice-sources (I also tried the more standard emerge gentoo-sources, with the same symptoms). The emerge process (or rather, a process started by it) hangs just after applying patches to the kernel. top reveals that almost all the CPU is being taken up by an attempt to rm something under $(chroot)/var. the exact pathname of the "something" scrolled off-screen before I could catch it, but it looked like it was probably a directory full of patches. When I killed the rm process, emerge carried on nicely, and put a kernel source tree where I'd expect it, in $(chroot)/usr/src. That kernel configured OK, and at least started to compile OK before I had to leave it to go do my day job. So what's the problem, apart from that it's kind of inelegant for an install process to hang and need special measures by the user? If this sort of thing happens on other packages too, the stuff that should have been rm'd and hasn't will pretty quickly fill the small partition I've mounted as $(chroot)/var. Possible explanations welcome. -- Thanks, Dan _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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