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Cool anti software patent demonstration picture thingy
by Joe Button 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

http://www.softwarepatentdemo.org/index.php?lang=GB

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Unixy question
by Wayne Stallwood 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Not strictly a Linux question, but it could be just as relevant on a Linux system. I have a client with a SCO SYSV Unix Box running a legacy Accounting system. It is a korn shell. They have a Windows based Print Workflow system (called StreamServe I believe) that takes print jobs from a spool folder and prints or emails Credit account statements generated by the Accounting package. Unfortunately the way the queue works is that once a job has been processed by streamserve it is deleted from the queue folder on the Unix box by the streamserve application. The problem is that it is very difficult and time consuming to regenerate the reporting run if something fails upstream of the Streamserve box resulting in lost prints. (this is what happened the other day) I can't tell the streamserve application to not delete the processed jobs as it simply prints whatever is in the queue every time it polls. The Streamserve box looks for a particular file extension before processing the file. I can change the file extension that the Streamserve looks for. So my plan is to change this extension and then have a script that looks for jobs (of the original extension) in the queue and copies them to a archive area before renaming them to a pattern that the (modified) streamserve application is looking for. It is important that I don't introduce any delay of more than a minute or so into the workflow but the print files rarely exceed a couple of MB so that shouldn't be a problem. I could just knock together a script that does this from Cron but in order to not introduce too much of a delay it would have to run about once a minute. This box is quite heavily loaded sometimes and it is of limited performance anyway. So my question is- What is the most efficient way to "watch" a folder for a particular file pattern, if I have a looping "if exist" script is this likely to consume lots of resources as surely it would be continuously polling the disk to check for that file. Is it good practise to do this (perhaps with some sort of introduced delay in the loop) or is there a better/cleaner/more efficient way. Regards Wayne

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[ALUG Announce]Bolton, 14/15 July, FLOSS in Education
by MJ Ray 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- > From: Tony Whitmore <tony(a)tonywhitmore.co.uk> > > This year's FLOSS in Education (FLOSSIE) conference is being > held in Bolton on the 14th and 15th July. Tickets are just £35 > for individuals and it should be an interesting conference > judging by the speakers. Interest in FLOSS in schools has > increased since the Becta TCO report last month. For more > details, please see: > > http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/flossie/conference200507.html ----- 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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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Removing dev packages in Ubuntu
by beb 26 Jun '05

26 Jun '05

Evening all, Does anyone know how I find which dev packages I have installed on Ubuntu pls? My apt-cache-fu is lacking ;-) Thanks, beb

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locale question
by Chris Green 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

First question - why does the default profile (i.e. /etc/profile) set the LC_ALL environment variable? Surely it would be better to set the LANG variable. If you set LC_ALL it *overrides* any individual settings to other LC_ variables so you can't set LC_CTYPE (for example) while leaving others unset. Second question - is there any easy way to get a sensible (i.e. POSIX) collation sequence while at the same time getting accented characters by setting LC_CTYPE to 'en_GB'? At present I need to:- unset LC_ALL export LC_CTYPE=en_GB export LC_COLLATE=POSIX (unless of course I change /etc/profile, but then it's another system customisation that I'll lose and forget about at the next upgrade) It seems broken to me that the en_GB collate sequence mixes up all the hidden files with normal file, why does it do this? Did it always do this, it's only recently that 'ls -a' has produced what looks to me anyway like a very mixed up output. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Broadband in the Black Hole
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

Hi Folks, Those interested who haven't already heard may like to learn that a notorious broadband black hole in the region is planned to be filled shortly. Details of the announcement can be found at the Nordelph Web site http://www.nordelph.org/BT/ under the tab "Nordelph Future". In summary, the following exchanges areplanned to be bith ADSL and SDSL enabled by the end of October this year: Broadfield, Hertfordshire; Burnt Fen, Suffolk; Higham, Suffolk; Knarr Cross, Cambridgeshire; Brandon Creek, Norfolk; Nordelph, Norfolk; Linstead, Suffolk; and Six Mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire. The exchanges are to get ADSL, and additionally will also be enabled for SDSL thus benefiting businesses in the area. The work on the exchanges is slated to begin in the next few months and completed by the end of October 2005. (Knarr Cross exchange is by Thorney, East of Peterborough; Burnt Fen exchange is situated near Shippea Hill on the A1101 Littleport-Mildenhall road; all other names can be found on most maps). Now I'm expecting to be asking you folks for advice on setting up ADSL/SDSL on Linux! Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 17-Jun-05 Time: 16:24:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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strange keyboard problem
by Wayne Stallwood 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

a really odd thing has just happened in that suddenly my keyboard is only partially functional. auto key repeat is broken and i am unable to use the shift key, num lock or caps lock. hence this whole message is in lower case. i am running ubuntu 5.04, my keyboard is a coolermaster aluminium one but essentially is a standard usb keyboard. need to reboot in a while to write a legible letter. i would like to test it in a console but of course i can't use crtl,alt fkey either. before i reboot can anyone think of any diagnostic steps i can take, for example is there something that will return the key presses from the keyboard. the only thing i can think may have caused it is perhaps vmware. that said i haven't run it for a day or so and the fault has only just appeared. the only reason i think it might be vmware is that it takes control of the capslock and numlock status as you mouseover the virtual machine window. any ideas....it's a bit odd to say the least wayne

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Wireless network roaming
by Barry Samuels 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

I have a laptop with a wireless PCMCIA card which connects to my home network. This relies on a set of fixed parameters supplied by /etc/network/interfaces. I went away recently to a hotel that provided a wireless internet facility. It was then that I realised that I couldn't use it because I didn't know how to even though they gave me an access code - a single string of numerical digits. I assume that there must be a way of setting up my laptop to scan for wireless access points and connect to any available ones. How would the access code provided by the hotel fit in? What about things like machine hostname, IP address etc? Any pointers please? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

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