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Scanners - 'manual scan'?
by James Freer 21 Jan '08

21 Jan '08

http://www.ebuyer.com/search/?strSearch=&bolShowAll=true&intStoreID=7&intCa… I'd be very grateful if someone could advise if any of these HP scanners are what i'd call manual scan. I've had an HP PSC500 which allows me to darken or lighten the scan. I wanted to replace this PSC500 as she's large and costs 2 pairs of ink cartridges per year. I bought a Canon Canoscan LIDE 90 last year to find that it only did 'auto scan' and for some things i tested it on it wasn't that good. There was a fault with it so i could return it thankfully. Looking at the specs i can't see if any are a 'manual scan' - be grateful for help. It may be they are all auto scan these days, which is fine for photos but not so good for scanning b/w drawings i've found. james

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Asus EEE PC Stock
by Martin Collins 20 Jan '08

20 Jan '08

Hi, Anyone managed to find stock on-line of the 4GB babies?? Clove tech (www.clove.co.uk) site doesn't say whether they have stock or not and the site is throwing up all sorts of errors. When you finally get to the checkout my little padlock has a red-line through it indicating it's not secure, so I'm staying well clear! Rgds, Martin

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Default sort order for KDE applications
by Chris G 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

Is there any way to set the default sort order for files/directories in KDE applications? I don't run KDE but I'm using some KDE programs (digikam in particular) and I'd like to know if it's possible to change the sort order of directories in pearticular. I'm not talking about within digikam, I'm talking about a general configuration parameter for all applications, there may not be such a thing of course but I was just hoping. -- Chris Green

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Web interface to apt-get upgrade
by Mark Rogers 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

Are there any web interfaces to "apt-get upgrade", or any other ways I can keep a system up to date simply but not automatically? The target is Linux based servers provided for clients which need to be kept up to date (eg because they'll be web facing) where they need a simple interface to allow them to apply updates which is no more complex that Windows Update. Otherwise I'll be under pressure to install the applications under Windows instead, something I'm keen to avoid! If none exist it doesn't sound too hard to implement other than ensuring it is secure (a minor detail!). I believe I can use the sudoers file to allow the apache user to run 'apt-get upgrade' as root without allowing it to do anything else? -- 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] Web interface to apt-get upgrade|ubuntu upgrades! testing?
by Bev Nicolson 18 Jan '08

18 Jan '08

Firefox has certainly been upgraded through the updates although we have yet to reach version 2. Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Web interface to apt-get upgrade|ubuntu upgrades! testing? > Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:04:05 +0000 > > > > On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 11:44 +0000, James Freer wrote: > > > The question i would raise is "how much" testing do they do - > > i'd say not enough. They seem to put themselves under a lot of > > pressure to provide a new version every 6 months - why not just > > each year and thoroughly test. From what i have understood the > > upgrade is for security only. But then as i've noticed with 6.04 > > Firefox wasn't upgraded. > > > To be honest most migration problems will be relating to either out of > package meddling (strange configs, hand installed software conflicting > with registered packages, packages from third party resources etc) or > specific to some particular hardware (in itself hard to test against due > to the diversity of the x86 platform) Firefox in 6.06 was upgraded from > 5.10 I am sure. > > 1 yearly upgrades would mean that people would spend a lot of time > running out of date packages due to ubuntu's policy of not incrementing > software versions generally for ongoing updates to an existing > installation. This is I feel important as it provides a degree of > predictability in that if you say you are on Ubuntu 6.06 I can > reasonably safely make the assumption of kernel version x and gnome > version y etc. The LTS versions are an alternative of 6 monthly updates > at the cost of running older software..you takes your choice. > > Also...and this IMO is key. > > If you update yearly then really the software versions you are going to > want to include aren't going to be even released until the last half of > the existing Ubuntu versions lifetime..so what do you do for the first 6 > months given that some of the software versions you plan to include > don't even exist ? You can't test properly unless you are running the > shipping versions of the included packages. > > in answer you your individual points > > a] not something I have ever seen..sorry. Sounds like the Bios on both > machines was reporting 2 floppies as I cannot understand otherwise how > this would happen, did they have zip drives or something else that may > have been miss identified ? > > b] 6.06 surely ? In what way did the update get confused ? tbh a general > problem here would be all over the net considering the number of people > with machines still on LTS (me included) > > c] There always are problems on the forums with a new version I can't > remember if 7.04 was any worse or better than previous or latter > versions, I ran it for 6 months+ so it couldn't have been all bad, in > fact I remember updating to 7.04 a little bit earlier before official > release than I usually do..again hardware diversity and people only > posting when there is a problem and not when it works just fine distort > results. A place used by and large as a support forum isn't a great > place to gauge software quality because how do you know how many people > aren't having problems ? > > d] Never heard of this or experienced any synaptic problems with any of > the 5 or 6 7.10 systems I have used..again it would be interesting to > see linkage or specifics. > > e] This I want to see..a ps2 keyboard that provides a USB interface ? > Sounds hardly standard to me in fact I am not even sure how this would > work. Have you submitted a bug or asked for help in the forums as if > this keyboard is reasonably common I would expect a lot of interest. > > It sounds like I am defending Ubuntu rather aggressively here..it is not > my intention to suggest that Ubuntu is the best option always. If > another distro works out better for you or you prefer a 1 year release > schedule then the beauty of linux is that you are free to try it. Maybe > Debian's release strategy would be a better fit for you as you can make > a choice as to how "bleeding edge" you want your system and then have > rolling upgrades rather than a fixed "new distro" cycle. > > Kind Regards > Wayne > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [ALUG] Modem permissions problem
by Dave Cooper 18 Jan '08

18 Jan '08

MJ Ray wrote: > Dave Cooper <dave(a)accuramatic.co.uk> wrote: > >> As su, chmod 777 /dev/ttyS0 fixes it, but only until it happens >> again. ttyS0 appears to be owned by root. It seems to me maybe it >> should be owned something/someone else to fix this permissions >> problem but I don't have a clue who. Can anyone put me right on this >> please? >> > > Look at what group ttyS0 belongs to. Try ls -l /dev/ttyS0 > The group name will probably be just after the "root". Then, add your > user(s) to that group with the command > usermod -a -G whatevergroupnameitsaid username > > Yes! That works! Thanks Paul, thanks MJ (hope your head's still above water in the soggy south-west?). Just one supplementary question? How does that usermod -a -G whatevergroupnameitsaid username work? Why doesn't it need to include any mention of ttyS0?? thanks, Dave > or if that doesn't work, edit /etc/group to add the username to the > end of the line starting with whatevergroupnameitsaid. > > Alternatively, change the permissions on /dev/ttyS0 forever. These > days, that's often done by udev, so grep -r /etc/udev/rules ttyS > to try to find where the MODE is set. > > Hope one of those works for you, >

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

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 next week (Monday 21st January) at 20:00: The Milestone Beer House 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 252425 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA The Milestone pub is in the centre of Ipswich, near the now-defunct Odeon cinema and not far from The Regent Theatre. There is more information on the venue, including car parking info, on the ALUG wiki: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/Meetings All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. This month's meeting is the 1st anniversary of the Ipswich ALUG meets since we re-started them last year! Well, the first meeting last year, wasn't widely publicised as I tried to gauge some interest, but it was technically a meet with an agenda, notes and everything! Anyway, this month will be a time for reflection and the bringing up of the amusing anecdotes of where it didn't quite go according to plan over the year (PeteT starting his GIMP tutorial without having any pictures to work with, Joe angering both Tracy and the RSPB in one fowl swoop etc.). If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for our group over the coming year, this'll be a good time to bring them up. Oh, and we've added Unreal Tournament and more playable ScummVM games to the list for anyone who wants to be anti-social. Might even get Doom3 or UT2004 up and running by then, too. 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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Modem permissions problem
by Dave Cooper 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

Hi. I'm trying to set up a class 2.0 US Robotics modem to handle faxes. I'm using efax-gtk on Mandriva Free 2008. The modem connects ok, but periodically I get the error: 'efax-0.9a: 19.30.27 Error: can't open serial port /dev/ttyS0: Permission denied efax-0.9a: 19.30.32 finished - unrecoverable error' As su, chmod 777 /dev/ttyS0 fixes it, but only until it happens again. ttyS0 appears to be owned by root. It seems to me maybe it should be owned something/someone else to fix this permissions problem but I don't have a clue who. Can anyone put me right on this please? Dave Cooper

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Synergy & Java
by James Taylor 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

Hey all, Has anyone here had any problems with Synergy and Java applications - My "server" is a Vista machine, and the clients are various, including XP and a knoppix box. If I open up a Java program on the "server", and give it focus (i.e. Netbeans or Eclipse) then the roll-over to other screens stops happening - I have to give focus to another app (thunderbird or firefox suffice) that then allows the rollover to occur. Has anyone else had anything like this happen to them? JT

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iPods & Linux
by Greg Thomas 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

My birthday present has arrived; an iPod Nano. I've a whole load of Music ripped from CDs over the years in various formats. What I'd like to do is rip them to a lossless codec now that disk space is so cheap. If I stuck to Windows, the choice would be easy; simply use iTunes, rip to ALAC, and sync with my iPod. What would the denizens of ALUG recommend to use with Linux? Ideally, I'd like a tool that would treat my lossless source library (FLAC?) as a master, and then re-encode that more can fit on to my iPod. Lets face it, I'm no audiophile, and probably can't tell the difference between a native CD and whatever the default codec/bitrate is for WIndows Media Player. Thoughts welcome, Greg [With apologies if this came up recently. I'm sure I've seen stuff on this before, but couldn't see anything in the archives]

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