September 2004 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Anyone else noted landscape printing problems?
by Michael McDonald 30 Oct '04

30 Oct '04

Yesterday I had some difficulty trying to address a set of envelopes for an organisation that I belong to. Was using Open Office (using mail merge) running under Fedora Core 2. The envelopes were being printed in landscape mode. The problem was that the addresses did not print at the planned position. Changing margins etc, to try and fix the problem didn't work as sometimes the shift in location didn't match the change! In order to get the job done, I had to use Open Office running under Windows XP. Also, I've noted that sometimes when I specify a custom page size, all I get is a blank sheet! The fix to that problem is to specify A4 and adjust right and bottom margins to suit. Comments, anyone? Michael

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RE: [wlug] WLUG Members - Input Required
by David Nicholls 09 Oct '04

09 Oct '04

1. funding/rig etc... Well, for a rig or something of this nature how about getting some sponsorship for it? Dse might be a good place to start. Also if you are looking at other ideas, how about trying for funding for CDs with the LDP/tutorials/talks the lug has given, funding for a linux/wlug "road show" to businesses, and other groups mentioned in the charter? 2. newbie stuff... Definitely a must. Mayberetool the lecture series that gets put on up here up at the uni. Three things I think are really important are: - installation (still... even if it is getting easier), especially as some people set up home networks and want to connect - configuration - troubleshooting Oh and maybe add a fourth... - help resources. how and where to get them Oh hey what about having the equivalent of "support group meetings"? I think its DunLUG who meet in a café or something like that... We could organise similar nights for newbie groups to meet with more experienced users maybe and let some of that knowledge rub off maybe or something similar? I don't know. Perhaps that sounds silly. Cheers... david -----Original Message----- From: Greig McGill [mailto:greig(a)hamiltron.net] Sent: Wednesday, 22 September 2004 10:32 pm Subject: [wlug] WLUG Members - Input Required 1. WLUG Funding Last year, the committee attempted to raise funds for the purchase of a mobile test rig/demo lab consisting of a server, a workstation, and several peripherals for use in presentations, training, and perhaps community education. We were declined on all three attempts, but will be trying again this year. What we need to know is: Is this a good goal for funding? Do you have a better idea? Is there a service you would like to see the WLUG provide that is currently unrealistic due to funding restrictions? Keep in mind that funding must be applied for with a specific project in mind, as funding cannot be used to meet ongoing running costs, or allow for events that may not happen. 2. New and Inexperienced Users As mentioned at the AGM, the WLUG has been accused of being unsupportive of new or inexperienced users. It was explained that the *active* members of the WLUG, ie. the ones who do all the work, are experienced users, and are thus unlikely to arrange meetings on beginner topics, or arrange installfests, which they have little desire to attend. We don't wish to alienate the new or inexperienced users however, but we need some of them to step up, and volunteer to present some beginner topics, arrange workshops, and perhaps start a "beginner stream". You will have the full backing, and support of the "old hands" - just tell us what you need. I repeat TELL US WHAT YOU NEED! Nothing is more demoralising than being complained at for not providing something which no one has ever told us they wanted. We do have something scheduled for the new people. October's meeting will be dedicated to using the WLUG resources - the Wiki, mailing list, effective use of Google, etc. It will also feature a live "fixup workshop". This will consist of people bringing their "broken" setups, and we will pick a few, and solve them, live, on the projector. This will not only get the problem fixed, but will show the troubleshooting process, and hopefully demystify the black-magic aspect of what the 'gurus' of the group do. Details will follow. Suggestions are welcome and encouraged. Regards, Greig McGill ElPresidente :)

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MacOS X....
by Oliver Jones 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

Received an iBook for my mother today. MacOS X is quite sweet. Lots of eye candy. The benefits of an OpenGL powered UI. Even groovier of course is the fact the it is BSD under the hood. A fact made perfectly clear once you launch a terminal or look at the process list. I would certainly be very tempted to get a Mac if I couldn't find a decent laptop to run Linux well. My business partner is trying to run FC2 on a Dell D800 and having "issues". I want a Laptop but don't want "issues". And I most certainly do _not_ want a Windows laptop. An Apple at least would be a Unix box. I could run lots of Unix apps.. The Gnome guys could do worse than copying Apple when it comes to user experience. Not overly impressed with Safari though (aka KHTML + Apple UI). Apple should have used Gecko for their HTML component. Firefox and Safari share many UI similarities. More thoughts as they come to me.... Regards -- Oliver Jones » Director » oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 Deeper Design Limited » +64 (7) 377 3328 » www.deeperdesign.com

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ESAT? WiFi etc..
by Oliver Jones 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

One side effect of getting the Mac today was that it has Wireless Ethernet. Enabling it in the office made me aware of a couple of nearby WiFi AP's. Might have to do some war driving in Taupo... :) One in particular that I noticed was an AP called ESAT_Test. It was a public AP that is setup in some sort of Mesh network. From the homepage I got redirected to when I tried to access Google it looked like some sort of dedicated public AP device. Anyone know anything about this? Regards -- Oliver Jones » Director » oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 Deeper Design Limited » +64 (7) 377 3328 » www.deeperdesign.com

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Logwatch on RH9
by Oliver Jones 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

A couple of the RedHat 9 boxen I have continuously produce this in their logwatch results: Malformed UTF-8 character (unexpected continuation byte 0xae, with no preceding start byte) in pattern match (m//) at /etc/log.d/scripts/services/kernel line 112, <STDIN> line 123. Malformed UTF-8 character (unexpected continuation byte 0xae, with no preceding start byte) in pattern match (m//) at /etc/log.d/scripts/services/kernel line 112, <STDIN> line 123. If I remember rightly there was a bug in Perl's UTF-8 handling that produced this sort of thing. How do I get RH9, Logwatch & Perl to play nice? Regards -- Oliver Jones » Director » oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 Deeper Design Limited » +64 (7) 377 3328 » www.deeperdesign.com

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Acceptable use of the WLUG Mailing List
by Meeting Reminder bot 30 Sep '04

30 Sep '04

The WLUG mailing list is the discussion-list extension of the Waikato Linux Users Group. As such, we expect members of this list to adhere to the principals espoused in our official Charter[1], in particular, Rule 6, which covers the activities on this mailing list. While this is an Acceptable Use Policy, the WLUG committee do recognise the need for informal discussion among list members, and draconian administration is not the goal of this policy. Please keep in mind, however, that your comments to this list do represent the WLUG, and while it is good to be seen as an organisation with a sense of humour, some comments may do serious harm to our credibility as a serious advocate of GNU/Linux and all things Free Software/Open Source related. List discussion; * Should not commit slander or libel against any person or * organisation * Should not be unprofessional or petty, especially with respect to * the names of other software companies * Should not indulge in ad hominem attacks * Should not reproduce copyrighted material without permission from * the copyright holder * Should not indulge in marketing or advertising, other than on a * private sale basis, or advertising of jobs - which may be * announced once only. * Should maintain a reasonable level of spelling and grammar * Should be honest * Should not promote or denigrate political, cultural, or religious * views * Should not continue inflammatory or abusive threads * Should accentuate the positive, without hyperbole or blatant * misrepresentation Posters who consistently violate these guidelines will be dealt with at the discretion of the List Maintainer. If you feel you have been unfairly dealt with, you have recourse to any member of the WLUG Committee[2]. [1] http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugCharter [2] http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugCommittee

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3c tablet pc and linux
by Stephen Pearce 27 Sep '04

27 Sep '04

I found this on the internet recently ... it is $1290US plus postage ... it uses a transmeta 5800 processor and has a built in 3 Meg pix camera .. .. has anyone any knowledge of its ability to run linux? (as advertised it is running some windows version). google 3c and tablet and pc to track down the page) Stephen

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Cisco ATA-186
by Aaron Martin 25 Sep '04

25 Sep '04

Does anyone have a Cisco ATA-186 (or ATA-188) that I can get off them today, I urgently need one for a job I am doing tommorrow. I will replace it with a brand new one as soon as the one I have ordered arrives (should be tuesday).

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WLUG Meeting is on monday
by Meeting Reminder bot 24 Sep '04

24 Sep '04

The WLUG meeting is on monday ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A WLUG meeting was booked for this date, but has been moved to the 23rd due to a guest speaker. See [MeetingTopics.2004-09-23] Location will be at Waikato University in LitB

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procmail bounce matching
by Jamie Curtis 23 Sep '04

23 Sep '04

Hi, I have recently started having lots problems with people spamming with the from address of my domain and the domain catchall getting ~2 - 5k bounces arriving in my mailbox each day. I really don't want to remove the catchall, just get rid of all the random bounces. All my incomming mail is filtered through procmail and I want a good procmail recipe to match on bounces and chuck them away. Unfortunatly I don't seem to be able to find any reliable way to match a message as being a bounce without just lots of from filters detecting the common from styles of the different SMTP servers out there. Any suggestions ? Cheers, Jamie

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