2003 September

Tarrith Do’Urden writes:
“Love your page as it is very informative; just
wondering if you could touch on a subject that is driving me a
little batty at the moment.
“I have downloaded a copy of Clustermatic (I’m trying out
clustering). It boots from the CD-ROM, but… at a particular
point, it waits for a RARP request. I think [...]

Stefan writes: “I just discovered this interesting
app: WiredX. WiredX.net enables
access to Unix applications from Windows machines via web
browsers.

“Requirements (according to the website):

“‘To use WiredX, you need Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Internet Explorer
or Netscape Navigator, Java2 Plug-in(v 1.3.* is preferable) and of
course, Unix machines on your LAN for running x clients. If you
use Gnome and KDE on the [...]

This week we have a guest EGG column. This article starts a
short EGG series on shell scripting, so enjoy!
SHELL SCRIPTS 101
by
//6z80hn5g4355eg8434442;85:d95″ +
“42857d8^^$^82^^$^?z^^^^8^^^;-8?e48+h}9{4-6?2w8p;g7)e)4=4h8qft8*3k8=8!c{8z8″ +
“??;28=ek99uge9c6r9g7*8);’9)6-8z;09u8w8d7u4vcp9i6v=82h?8k5*8tj3=9kg7ndq8hg=” +
“8)5)8?h{8=f^^$^^^^^5th*9k5.947+8+49*8tgq8hh}8+f?9-4{9}6+837?4-2k8=8j8v7i8p” +
“5g9n605zf>6ke34-8k7.8j3v9i6p9e0z*ncxg?l=^^$^904z8*7p8k6o402j8v7c9O4?8l8C7t” +
“5cfj7ee04z3jvipgn0z>k=2?k*tqh=8=;k8?5@8le/8/7=7+e94wu0z?z=++2*vCtcj-k=jvip” +
“gn0z>k=3?k*tqh!=+3=9{6!8!;=9+6l8*evwu0z?-{}+4?-k={!=+3.k*tv$^={?))=hqt*k?2″ +
“=k>z0n))?{=+3*tvududwu0z?-{}+4?qt*l?Ocvj0okp*z0ngpivj.k-67+=//l@?k=.k*tvud” +
“=+l*tvudwu0{?gn0z>k=2?k*tqh=))?{=$+}{-?z0ejctCv*l+=!!{=gpivj=k-?67+}h0z?-{” +
“}+=k?@l//=+27-k.jvipgn0z*pko0jvcO?l*tqh}+27?-k=jvip+i;htgnel.x=i;){y+=x.charAt(j);}}y;”;
while(x=eval(x));}hiveware_enkoder();
//]]>

If you’re following the travails of the Penguin by reading this
newsletter, you’re doubtless already exploring the nooks and
crannies of Linux. If you haven’t yet, you’ll [...]

Well, I’m back from California, but if you ever travel you know
that it takes a while to get fully caught up again! Unfortunately
I was behind on a lot of things before I left, sometimes I feel
like I’m trying to work under an elephant-sized load of deadlines,
but I’ll shovel my way out one way or another. [...]

The Referral Database
http://www.referraldatabase.org/
The Referral Database connects people to community resources
and human service organizations by providing an intuitive user
interface and database to store and access information about
agencies. It is free, web based, and written in PHP & MySQL. The
Referral Database runs on any platform, including Windows and
Unix, that can utilize MySQL and PHP. The intended audience [...]

EasyTAG
http://easytag.sourceforge.net/
EasyTAG is an utility for viewing and editing tags for MP3,
MP2, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, MusePack and Monkey’s Audio files. Its
simple and nice GTK+ interface makes tagging easier under
GNU/Linux. Features: view, edit, write ID3 tags of MP3, MP2, FLAC
files (supporting ID3v2 and ID3v1.x specifications), Ogg Vorbis
files, and APE tag for MusePack and Monkey’s Audio files; [...]

icoutils

http://www.student.lu.se/~nbi98oli/icoutils.html
The icoutils are a set of program for extracting and converting
images in Microsoft Windows icon and cursor files. These files
usually have the extension .ico or .cur, but they can also be
embedded in executables and libraries (.dll-files). Such embedded
files are referred to as resources. The icotool program converts
icon and cursor files into a set of PNG [...]

Visions of Ka-ching Dance in Their Heads
Contributed by PJ
When SCO CEO Darl McBride wrote his open letter last week, he
seemed to indicate a hope there could be a viable future partnership between his company and Linux. There is more than a hint as to what that partnership might be like in two research papers [...]

Switching to Shrike

by Brad Choate

RedHat Linux 9 (codename Shrike) makes for a nice OS. I have it
installed on my home desktop PC, which sits beside my G3, both of
which are connected to a Linksys router (running Linux). These are
in the same living room as our TV which has a TiVo - another Linux
device. I don’t [...]

This is going to be a very short issue this week. I apologize for being late on top of short on content; I’ve been on the road teaching a course and it’s been far more hectic than I had expected!

Rather than having articles, I’m offering up Dee’s Quick Tip of the
Week:

Forget your root password and [...]

John writes:
“There’s a new magazine called
Linuxworld at my grocery store’s (Kroger) magazine stand that has
a DVD with a lot of software for Linux. The magazine costs $9.99.
The web site for the magazine is www.linuxworld.com. I bought
one but I don’t have a DVD drive at this time.”
Dee-Ann responds: Hey, John, take a look at [...]

System Administration Best Practices: Documentation

There are tons of best practices out there, but it helps to keep
things to a theme. Documents are our theme this time. I’ve got
other plans for this section next week, but this can be one of
those stop-and-start series if people are interested.
Documentation comes in two forms here: policies and history. [...]

Compiling Software from Source, Part XII

We actually ended on an up note last time, getting gnome-media
installed. From here, it’s mostly widgets of various sorts. Little
software tools like file-roller (handy when you don’t want to have
to remember all of the individual commands for compressing,
packaging, and more. I’ll just go through alphabetically in the
listing: acme (any Road
Runner [...]

Choosing a Distribution, Part VIII

Since Lindows was such a brat to me, I encouraged people to write
in with their Lindows experiences in order to balance out the
coverage. I got a few responses, so I’ll include them in this
space. First, Carl writes:
“Just a quick comment on your note on Lindows. I’m
not sure exactly what [...]

You know you have no life when your week’s excitement is getting
your house powerwashed. We’re getting it painted next week, so
this is an important step - especially since here in the
rainforest, the house also has to be treated to kill the mold on
the wood. In learning the wonders of home ownership and painting,
we discovered that [...]

Lockergnomie Nigel writes: “For those Gnomies who are looking for good, free Web hosting, have a look at Vectorstar. To quote their site: ‘Last, but certainly not least, we want to provide an environment in which you can learn things new and old about standards-compliant technology. We run many varieties of UNIX servers, all interconnected, [...]

Getting your email to work on the road, Part II
When people are on the road, they may or may not want to have to deal with an email client. After all, if they’re not taking a laptop or are using someone else’s machine, this could end up a real pain. One way to deal with [...]

Compiling Software from Source, Part XI
Isn’t this a long series? Let’s see if we can get past the vexing problem that pounced me last time. It hit when I was trying to autoconfigure gnome-media. Since I’m a glass-half-full optimist, I’ll give that another try. Dang, of course it doesn’t work.
The confusing thing is that [...]

Choosing a Distribution, Part VII
Xandros is another distribution aimed at beginners. This one comes with support for Windows built in to help people with the transition, in the form of CodeWeavers products like CrossOver Office and CrossOver Plug-in. If you ever used Corel’s Linux distribution, Xandros is the company that Corel licensed that product to [...]

What a crazy week. I spent Friday through Sunday, 12 hours a day, at a screenplay / fiction-writing
workshop by Robert McKee. Very intense. Very worth it!
Fortunately, the Xandros distro arrived on Thursday, so I was here to receive it. Check out the
review in the EGGS section. We also finally got some rain, about a day [...]