- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

[OT] Problem with Toroonto Free Net?
by SlackRat 27 Mar '15

27 Mar '15

I can't even ping from here or have I missed something along the way? bash-4.1# ping torfree.net ping: unknown host torfree.net bash-4.1# bash-4.1# ping freenet.toronto.on.ca ping: unknown host freenet.toronto.on.ca bash-4.1# -- Slackrat

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USB Fan
by phiscock＠ee.ryerson.ca 26 Mar '15

26 Mar '15

The local Dollarama is selling a nice little USB powered fan for $3. It comes with a USB - to - Fan adaptor cable and provides a pleasant breeze. My wife is using a couple of them (plugged into USB power adaptors) to ventilate the seedlings that are sprouting in our kitchen. I got one in advance of the hot summer weather. I'm thinking it will be very convenient to plug into a front-mounted USB connector on my computer. FWIW, Peter -- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325

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Dinner Ideas for April's Meeting
by Myles Braithwaite 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

Anyone have any dinner ideas for next month's meeting?

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SSL Certs
by Christopher Browne 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

Someone (I don't know whom) wasn't thrilled to have their Mailman password sent to our web site via non-SSL, hence non-encrypted connection. Which points to it being desirable to have an SSL cert. We could doubtless set up a self-signed cert; that's obviously not going to go through without "oh, that mightn't be totally legit" warnings. We'd not be overly keen on "spending all our substance" on SSL certs, not when the only use is to protect Mailman passwords. I hear Mozilla may be coming out with something later this year (something called "letsencrypt.org"); anyone have other bright ideas? -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

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NTP's Fate Hinges On 'Father Time' - InformationWeek
by Stewart C. Russell 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

A slightly disheartening tale of NTP's possible future: <http://www.informationweek.com/it-life/ntps-fate-hinges-on-father-time/d/d-…>. (via MetaFilter, which has a few decent comments on the matter: <https://www.metafilter.com/147900/NTP-or-Not-NTP-That-is-the-question>) cheers, Stewart

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GECOS
by Ansar Mohammed 24 Mar '15

24 Mar '15

Hello All, what's the correct pronunciation of "gecos"?

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Survey Software, was Re: [GTALUG-Announce] Meeting 14th April, 2015 at 7:30 pm
by Christopher Browne 24 Mar '15

24 Mar '15

One question that we noticed at the ops meeting that we wanted asked (and I'm asking it now, early, so as to encourage any needful research!) was... Does anyone know of some good open source/free software for managing surveys? We have put together a survey or two in the recent past using the Google Forms framework, which was easy enough and useful enough, but decidedly not "free enough" in enough senses of "free." There are a number of senses of "ideal" that may wind up conflicting; there are lots of potential disqualifying factors that might readily leave us without any options, alas. There are some open source options that seem likely to taunt us with the complexity of the installation requirements - LimeSurvey.org taunts me with the number of things in addition to PHP 5.3 that it requires - surveyproject.org is open source, but, being written using C#/.NET, likely would require horrendous efforts to get it to run atop a Linux-based system - https://open.jira.com/wiki/display/WST/Home taunts me with the number of .jar/.war files required What I *want* is something that doesn't need managing a wholesale Web Framework in order to work. (Heh, it's "just a matter of writing a bit of Drupal code!!!") I do observe some comparative analyses: <http://www.surveyproject.org/Survey%E2%84%A2/Comparisons/tabid/128/Default.…>, <http://jspsurveylib.sourceforge.net/FeatureTable.html> There are plenty of proprietary options (there's a wikipedia analysis that doesn't recognize the existence of anything else!!! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_survey_software>) which should have some obvious downsides in that: a) You donate control to someone else; b) You have to share data with someone else; c) Your data may be forced to pass through a foreign nation's intelligence service's hands (and I have seen people express dismay at that) I'm a bit surprised that someone hasn't constructed some sort of "little language" for this. Actually, I'm wrong; there's an ACM paper exactly about that. <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1593181&dl=ACM&coll=DL&CFID=647881351&CFT…> <http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~hcc/papers/surveyLangFinal.pdf> But that's only one component of a solution, so it shouldn't be surprising that there's not a package for that. At any rate, it IS clear that there are plenty of companies doing a lot of business running surveys, and working pretty hard to offer simple-to-use solutions. People are, in particular, using Google's survey mechanisms a lot, and I hear SurveyMonkey mentioned a lot. "We could do that" for some of our simple, non-critical survey needs, but it would be nice to have something more under our control. Perhaps someone has gone far enough down this road to have seen more answers than are obvious here.

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[GTALUG-Announce] Meeting 14th April, 2015 at 7:30 pm
by Myles Braithwaite 24 Mar '15

24 Mar '15

<http://gtalug.org/meeting/2015-04/> # LessCSS with Myles Braithwaite and a Round Table Q&A Session *LessCSS* LessCSS extends the CSS language to make it actually useable by adding features like variables, mixins, functions, and a bunch of other techniques that allow you to make your stylesheets more maintainable, themeable, and extendible. *Round Table Q&A Session* A Round Table Q&A Session is where we take questions from the audience, and the audience discusses and attempts to answer those questions from their own knowledge. It's a great way to meet fellow members of our community and discover the skill sets we each bring to the table. ## Location George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre 245 Church Street, Room 203 Ryerson University <http://goo.gl/maps/16oJ2> <http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23447525> ## Schedule * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. * 9:00 pm - After each meeting a group of GTALUGers move to the The Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St East) for refreshments and more socializing. ## Code of Conduct We want a productive happy community that can welcome new ideas, improve every process every year, and foster collaboration between individuals with differing needs, interests and skills. We gain strength from diversity, and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This code of conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment. We will challenge prejudice that could jeopardize the participation of any person in the community. The Code of Conduct governs how we behave in public or in private whenever the Linux community will be judged by our actions. We expect it to be honored by everyone who represents the community officially or informally, claims affiliation, or participates directly. It applies to activities online or offline. We invite anybody to participate. Our community is open. Please read more about the GTALUG Code of Conduct here: <http://gtalug.org/about/code-of-conduct/>. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the GTALUG Code of Conduct please contact one of the GTALUG Board Members. --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Looking for speakers for upcoming meeting on "Keeping Time in Linux"
by Myles Braithwaite 24 Mar '15

24 Mar '15

We want to do a bunch of short talks for an upcoming meeting on *Keeping Time in Linux*. We are looking for speakers in: - PTP - What's going on with NTP? - GPS Updating - What to do about VMs? - NTP with {Physics,Security,Financial} It will most likely be in late spring/early summer. If you are interested in speaking please contact the speaker coordinator @ <speaker-coordinator(a)gtalug.org>.

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Blast from the past "SCO has a valid case"
by Myles Braithwaite 23 Mar '15

23 Mar '15

Thanks to Alex Volkov we have a archive of all the old GTLAUG messages and I found this gem: SCO has a valid case: <http://gtalug.org/pipermail/legacy/2003-August/thread.html#133>. You can view the old archive here: <http://gtalug.org/pipermail/legacy/>.

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