- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Botnet Email Address?
by phiscock＠ee.ryerson.ca 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

Subject: It sounds crazy but her mind can be easily controlled From: "Michael Scott" <support(a)botss.nl> Spam from an email address 'botss'? Maybe this is an in-joke among the spammers... -- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325

1 0

Cool, but obscure unix tools :: Software architect Kristof Kovacs
by phiscock＠ee.ryerson.ca 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

http://kkovacs.eu/cool-but-obscure-unix-tools Courtesy of my Bro, Dave Hiscocks. -- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325

5 7

Keep X from going to sleep
by William Witteman 19 Mar '15

19 Mar '15

Here's a problem I'm hoping to solve: When idle for some amount of time, X shuts down the screen. When a program like VLC is playing a video (or even paused) this does not happen. How can I tell X to never sleep? I just want it to send output down that cable, constantly, forever. I manage screen burn and power wasting by turning off the monitor, but when the screen goes to sleep, my inexpensive monitor (an LG) sometimes has trouble noticing and won't display anything until X is restarted, which is a pain. Thanks! PS The system is Debian testing.

11 23

(no subject)
by R. Russell Reiter 18 Mar '15

18 Mar '15

Sorry for the empty post just now. I wish I could claim to be all thumbs, but the way I see kids today operate one of these things ... I can't even do that. -- Sent via K-9 Mail.

2 2

It's alive! Utah software company's decade-old suit against IBM revived | The Salt Lake Tribune
by James Knott 18 Mar '15

18 Mar '15

Some things never die! http://www.sltrib.com/news/2303519-155/its-alive-sco-group-suit-revived

1 0

OT: How Superstar Companies Like Apple Are Killing America’s High-Tech Future
by Ivan Avery Frey 18 Mar '15

18 Mar '15

Might be of interest to people on this mailing list. http://ineteconomics.org/institute-blog/william-lazonick-how-superstar-comp…

4 4

Microsoft reveals patents that read on Android (some on Linux kernel)
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 17 Mar '15

17 Mar '15

Microsoft has been asking for royalties from all sorts of Linux vendors and Android vendors. They've claimed something like "200 patent families" apply to Android. Most companies have signed up, as far as we know. Kyocera has not os Microsoft is suing them for infringement of 6 specific patents. Now we know which they are. They each look obvious to me but apparently that's not the test that is used in the US. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/09/microsoft_lobs_sueball_at_kyocera/> Apparently Microsoft make billions a year off these. US patents expire 20 years after filing date. The latest was filed in late 2004 so it runs for almost a decade longer.

1 0

Gnu Manifesto Turns 30
by Ivan Avery Frey 17 Mar '15

17 Mar '15

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-gnu-manifesto-turns-thirty

1 0

Dirty Power and Wi Fi Far field effect
by Russell Reiter 16 Mar '15

16 Mar '15

I live close to the exhibition grounds which is near to one of the city's major grid switches. For example, they were testing the new streetcars, the ones with three sections for navigating tight turns and they browned us down to (I assume) 50hz. This was visible as all the lights dimmed and the streetcar appeared to navigate the loop a short time later. As I don't have ups I had powered down my tower. The next time I powered up the breaker in the power supply tripped and when I reset it and booted, my 1.5v agp video card was toasted, at least I hope its the card and not elsewhere on the bus. So that's not so bad, there's no enterprise stuff at risk, I just hack together another box and carry on. However, now I have a real problem and I'm in need of a solution. Yesterday I fired up the WiFi while my SO was drying her hair. I toasted her salon quality hair dryer. Not good. :-( There is no gfi outlet and at this point I'm wondering if I need UPS, for the hair dryer, if not the computer. So my question is, does anyone on this list have similar problems and a low cost hack they have used to deal with Toronto's iffy grid. TIA Russell

12 39

war story: creating Raspberry Pi 2 boot card
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 14 Mar '15

14 Mar '15

I found an excuse to buy a Raspberry Pi 2. Mathematica was too slow on the Raspberry Pi B. We bought one at the Canada Robotix store in Markham. $48.99 + 6.37 tax. The RP2 uses Micro SD rather than normal SD and the software isn't 100% compatible so I created a new MicroSD as the "hard drive". I used a SanDisk Extreme PLUS microSDHC UHS-1 32GB card (I had one on hand). I wanted to use the latest Raspbian because it is compatible with the RP2 and includes Mathematica. I tried several things before one worked. I'm writing this up to save others from frustration. These accounts are based on my unreliable memory -- I had no idea that it would have been worth taking notes. I was kind of improvising, starting from here <http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/> Spoiler: my current hypothesis is that my (Linux) desktop's SD interface is silently busted in some way. If you've done any of this, I'd like to hear how it worked for you. Attempt 1: - The card was brand new, already formatted with some FAT-family filesystem - I fetched the NOOBS Offline and network install - I installed the card in my desktop computer and used Linux unzip - I moved the card to the RP2 and powered it on. The green "reading SD" and orange or red "power" LEDS came on and stayed on, with no other visible activity. I gave up. Attempt 2: - same card - from my desktop machine, I dd'ed the RASPBIAN image onto the card - I tried to boot it. Same result. Attempt 3: - same card - booted Windows on a notebook and ran SD Formatter 4.0 (as prescribed in <http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/>) to create just the right filesystem. - went to my desktop machine and unzipped NOOBS into the card - I tried to boot it. Same result. Attempt 4: - same card - booted Windows on a notebook and ran SD Formatter 4.0 (as prescribed in <http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/>) to create just the right filesystem. - I used Windows to unzipped NOOBS into the card - I tried to boot it. It worked! ================ Early hypotheses that are refuted: - my microSD card was no good. Or not compatible with the RP2 - my RP2 was no good Lingering hypotheses: - Perhaps my desktop's SD interface is silently busted. It is a common factor on all failures. - the preformatted filesystem that came on the microSD may not work for the RP2's boot system - Linux's unzip botches things some way. Perhaps some flag is needed. Experiments I should try (but may not): - retry each of the experiments that failed, but use Linux on my notebook rather than on my desktop. - see if my notebook can read and verify microSD cards written by my desktop

7 10