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Mailbag

This month's answers created by:

[ Anderson Silva, Amit Kumar Saha, Ben Okopnik, S. Parthasarathy, Karl-Heinz Herrmann, René Pfeiffer, Mulyadi Santosa, Neil Youngman ]
...and you, our readers!

Our Mailbag


short: gnash works.

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Tue, 9 Nov 2010 14:23:47 -0500

----- Forwarded message from "s. keeling" <keeling at nucleus.com> -----

Hey B. I looked into the "Flash Problems" link. Useful information, thanks.

[I'm back using my sandbox machine as possible kernel bug is burning up my AMD 64 HP Pavilion. Running Sidux-->aptosid on a Compaq Evo PIV-2.4GHz] This works:

i   browser-plugin-gnash                 - GNU
Shockwave Flash (SWF) player - Plugin for 
i   gnash                                - GNU
Shockwave Flash (SWF) player              
i A gnash-common                         - GNU
Shockwave Flash (SWF) player - Common file

I've no trouble reading LG, including cartoons. Thanks for helping me figure this out.

It does tend to spiral out of control on bad flash (WaPo), but it's more usable than Adobe's has been (MB-3 menu actually gives the user control!!! Woohoo!). :-)

-- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - -

----- End forwarded message -----


IPTables + Squid problem

Deividson Okopnik [deivid.okop at gmail.com]


Tue, 9 Nov 2010 12:43:04 -0300

Hello everyone

My old internet server crashed and i had to setup a new one, and im having several problems.

My squid configuration is pretty simple, I basically allow everything:

Allow manager localhost 	
Deny manager 	
Allow purge localhost 	
Deny purge 	
Allow localhost 	
Allow all

And my iptables config file is empty (exists but is empty - /etc/network/iptables)

And msn doesnt work on the machines behind the proxy, and noone can atach files to emails - im guessing no ports are being forwarded (cause of the empty iptables file) but if I put content in it, eg.:

#!/bin/bash
iptables -F
and do an sudo iptables-apply, it gives me an "line 2 failed - failed" - what am I doing wrong? btw im on ubuntu 10.04, and allowing any outgoing connection to any port would be good enough, later Ill think about the security.

[ Thread continues here (4 messages/8.47kB) ]


Unlogo - adblock for video.

Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]


Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:13:52 +0100

"Unlogo is an FFMPEG AVFilter that attempts to block out corporate logos using OpenCV 2.1 and an awesome 'plugin' framework for FFMPEG developed by Michael Droese." http://unlogo.org/pages/about Code: http://code.google.com/p/unlogo/

-- 
<Leftmost> jimregan, that's because deep inside you, you are evil.
<Leftmost> Also not-so-deep inside you.


[hardabud@romandie.com: Linux Comic]

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Tue, 5 Oct 2010 11:42:35 -0400

----- Forwarded message from H?rda Bud <hardabud at romandie.com> -----

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:25:47 +0200
From: H?rda Bud <hardabud@romandie.com>
To: TAG <tag@lists.linuxgazette.net>
To: editor at linuxgazette.net
Subject: Linux Comic
Hello,

A comic you might be intrested in: "Jolly Roger - a history about copyright in cyberspace"

From the historical background of "intellectual property" to ACTA, through Free Software, Napster and much more. Told in a simple and funny way, this comic (under Creative Commons) is available in downloadable CBZ and EPUB formats or to be read directly on the site: http://www.hardabud.com/jollyroger/

Hope you enjoy it Best regards,

Anders hardabud.com

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *


Cameron Sinclair on open-source architecture

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:39:18 -0500

Another stunning TED presentation (I have to ration myself on those; I can only stand so many meteor impacts on my heart and soul in a week.) This one is about improving global living standards, and open source as an inevitably required part of it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_sinclair_on_open_source_architecture.html

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *


An ssh puzzle

Neil Youngman [ny at youngman.org.uk]


Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:57:20 +0000

I have a glitch that's stumped both me and my sysadmin.

I wanted to know which hosts a particular file that needed updating was on and I thought this simple loop would answer that question.

$ for n in `seq 1 25`; do ssh host$n ls -l /path/to/file; done

This worked for the first 4 hosts, ten it got to the 5th host where it displayed the banner and hung. Trying it directly as a simple command;

$ ssh host5 ls -l /path/to/file

also hung after displaying the banner.

$ ssh host5

allowed me to log in normally and

$ ls -l /path/to/file

showed that the file did not exist on host5.

Next I tried

$ ssh echo foo

which worked normally, so I tried

$ ls -l /bin/sh

which also worked normally.

$ ssh host5 strace ls -l /path/to/file

didn't hang either and I couldn't see anything that struck me as odd in the output

$ ssh 'host5 ls -l /path/to/file 2> /dev/null'

did not hand ang modifying it to

$ ssh 'host5 ls -l /path/to/file 2>&1'

allowed me to see the error message.

The problem seems to be related in some way to the handling of standard error, but I can't think of anything that would cause it to behave like that. I have a workaround that gets me the information I need, but I would like to resolve the underlying problem. Do any of the gang have any idea what could cause this sort of behaviour?

Neil Youngman

[ Thread continues here (2 messages/2.73kB) ]


GPG public key

Dr. Parthasarathy S [drpartha at gmail.com]


Sat, 20 Nov 2010 09:14:07 +0530

I have a question about importing public keys using GPG/Kgpg (under Linux). I get a public key file (it is an ascii text file usually). I would like to check the fingerprint of the key, **without importing the key into my keyring**. Is there a way out using GPG/Kgpg (under Linux) ? Someone give me a clue please.

Many thanks,

partha

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. S. Parthasarathy                    |   mailto:drpartha at gmail.com
Algologic Research & Solutions    |
78 Sancharpuri Colony                 |
Bowenpally  P.O                          |   Phone: + 91 - 40 - 2775 1650
Secunderabad 500 011 - INDIA     |
WWW-URL: http://algolog.tripod.com/nupartha.htm
GPG Public key :: http://algolog.tripod.com/publikey.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Talkback:180/grebler.html

Neil Youngman [ny at youngman.org.uk]


Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:02:41 +0000

Some time ago I came across PDFTK, but I've never really had a use for it. it sounds as though it should do what you need, but a quick scan of the man page doesn't tell me whether it honours restrictions in the PDF.

http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/

Neil Youngman

[ Thread continues here (2 messages/2.49kB) ]


This is just.. sick :)

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:06:33 -0500

http://trouble-maker.sourceforge.net/

App randomly breaks your system so you can learn how to fix it. Um, billed as "not for production systems".

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

[ Thread continues here (3 messages/2.30kB) ]


Google: Making Websites Run Faster by 2x

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Wed, 3 Nov 2010 15:05:09 -0400

Rather interesting new bit from Google: on-the-fly page/site optimization. Wonder what the magic trick is... I'll have to look into it as soon as I have some Spare Time. [hollow laugh]

----- Forwarded message from Diana Wilson <dianawilson at google.com> -----

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 09:03:53 -0700
From: Diana Wilson <dianawilson@google.com>
To: TAG <tag@lists.linuxgazette.net>
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: Developer News: Making Websites Run Faster by 2x
Hi, We just?launched a new open-source Apache module called mod_pagespeed that any webmasters can use to quickly and automatically optimize their sites. (It's like Page Speed, but makes the changes automatically.) It can reduce page load times by up to 50% -- in other words, essentially speeding up websites by roughly 2x. This is one of our more significant "speeding up the web" contributions.?

Webmasters know that if it's not fast, it doesn't matter how pretty it is -- people won't use it. At Google, we're obsessed with speed--we measure it, pick it apart, think about it constantly. It's even baked into our quarterly goals. Mod_pagespeed comes on the heels of a bunch of other speed pushes we've already told you about, from Google Instant to the Images redesign to SPDY to Fast Flip to ultra-high-speed broadband... etc.

Let me know if you have any questions or want a deep dive briefing. Regards, Di -- Diana Wilson Developer Global Communications and Public Affairs Manager direct: 650-253-6280 cell: 916-768-2202 dianawilson at google.com ----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

[ Thread continues here (3 messages/4.15kB) ]


CGI (no, the other kind of CGI.)

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:59:55 -0500

Just gotta share this with you folks:

http://gizmodo.com/5691747/prepare-for-t[...]-meltingly-realistic-cgi-youve-ever-seen

100% computer-generated.

We now live in The Matrix. :)

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

[ Thread continues here (3 messages/2.79kB) ]


Accented characters

Dr. Parthasarathy S [drpartha at gmail.com]


Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:46:12 +0530

I do send and receive mails frequently in French. I use Thunderbird, or Google mail web interface.

How do I add diacritical marks (accent marks) in the text ?

Can someone guide me please ? I find both scim and ibus clumsy. I was thinking of something simpler like a plugin for gedit or nedit where we can just go ahead and type. Since French has very few characters with accent marks and only about a handful of accent marks, I guess it would be much easier that way. Or is there an easier way ? I remember, long ago, when I was a student, I used to escape and type the Hex value of the ASCII code of these characters.

partha

PS: Why do people become so lazy as they grow up ? ;-)

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. S. Parthasarathy                    |   mailto:drpartha at gmail.com
Algologic Research & Solutions    |
78 Sancharpuri Colony                 |
Bowenpally  P.O                          |   Phone: + 91 - 40 - 2775 1650
Secunderabad 500 011 - INDIA     |
WWW-URL: http://algolog.tripod.com/nupartha.htm
GPG Public key :: http://algolog.tripod.com/publikey.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ Thread continues here (10 messages/13.17kB) ]


Poetic licence -- BSD licence, in verse

Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]


Fri, 8 Oct 2010 15:18:34 +0100

http://www.gerv.net/writings/poetic-licence/bsd.html

-- 
<Leftmost> jimregan, that's because deep inside you, you are evil.
<Leftmost> Also not-so-deep inside you.


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Published in Issue 181 of Linux Gazette, December 2010

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