Re: [OCLUG-Tech] OT: volunteer with spare PCIe slot
Did you get any takers? I've yet to switch out my old analog tuner card for a digital, and I was wondering how well a Hauppauge 1250 might work with my mythTV (whether it would just work). I've got a PCIe x16 slot. If it crashes we know; if it works, I'd like to try hooking my antenna up to it and seeing if a quick menu config will yield compatibility. I'm not going to make you sit there while I hunt drivers. I just want to gauge the effort. On 13 October 2011 19:56, James bjloc...@lockie.ca wrote: I need someone with a spare PCIe slot to try my digital tuner card. http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-HVR-1250 I don't care if you get any channels, I just want to see it not crash. :-) ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
Re: [OCLUG-Tech] the big move -- made it here in one piece
I echo the endorsements for PC Cyber and RB...I'll throw some love in for Canada Computers on Merivale Road. CC prices are not cash-discounted either, in case you need to charge it. Cheers. On 15 April 2011 09:06, Andrew Plumb and...@plumb.org wrote: On 2011-04-15, at 8:50 AM, Stephen Gregory wrote: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 07:43:42AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote: slowly getting unpacked in my market area condo so it's time to figure out where the important stuff is in the area. as in, where's a good place to buy a honking big external drive to which i can start ripping all of my CDs? Pccyber and Canada Computers. One or both should have a shop within walking distance. I also like RB Computing, but they are out in Bells Corners in the west end. +1 for RB Computing. Since they don't keep everything listed in local stock, your best bet is to place the order online (see http://www.shoprbc.com/ca/index.php) for in-store pickup. It usually only takes a day or two for your purchase to travel from where it's at to the store front at 235 Stafford Rd. (see http://www.shoprbc.com/about/contactUs.php). Andrew. -- The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed -- William Gibson Me: http://clothbot.com/wiki/ ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
Re: [OCLUG-Tech] how to *start* computerizing several hundred CDs?
Jeff's mail only went to me...replying to put it back in the list... On 10 March 2011 10:22, Jefrrey Moncrieff jeffrey.moncri...@yahoo.ca wrote: Hi Rob, The worry I would have with 2 TB drives is read/write speeds. I used to like the bigger drives but, with more research that I am doing I would suggest 4 500gb then 1 2TB. Jeff From: C.T. Paterson i.adore.my...@gmail.com To: Robert P. J. Day rpj...@crashcourse.ca Cc: Ottawa Linux Users Group linux@lists.oclug.on.ca Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 9:58:56 AM Subject: Re: [OCLUG-Tech] how to *start* computerizing several hundred CDs? If my math has not failed me (it's early yet), a 2TB drive will store over 2,500 700 MB ISOs...so perhaps you could opt to simply take images of the discs to keep a full range of options on the table. Unless yours is a collection that would put ten of mine to shame, you may even have enough space left on the drive for when/how you intend to encode them...and then should you change your mind post-encode (FLAC sucks, MP3 all the way! ... I kid, I kid) it's purely a data matter to re-encode your entire collection. I'll also give a shameless plug for our local computer retailers (Feda, Canada Computers, PC Cyber, RB Computers)...you can often do better than $100 for a 2TB drive if you watch the flyers. Good luck! On 10 March 2011 08:47, Robert P. J. Day rpj...@crashcourse.ca wrote: when i make the final move to ottawa, i'll be in a condo that will have noticeably less space than where i am now so i don't want to waste any of that with CDs out on display in CD racks. ergo, and predictably, i want to start the process of computerizing the entire collection, then deciding how i want to set things up to play them. (always wanted to do this, just never had sufficient incentive.) i haven't decided on the final selection and playing technology but i would like to start just encoding them, little by little, to a massive external hard drive (a couple terabytes is $100 these days at best buy). what's a safe strategy i can use to start copying them to disk so that, no matter what i choose to do later, i won't have to redo all that work? my first thought is to simply use something like rhythmbox and save everything in FLAC format (yes, that will take way more room but, what the heck, hard drives are cheap these days). and later, if i want, i can always use a script or some other utility to encode them all to ogg format. also, since it would be nice to be able to play tunes from any laptop in the place, i was thinking of dropping the hard drive on the USB port of the wireless router, and making it accessible both from my linux systems and from my girlfriend's powerbook. suggestions? in short, i just want to start the tedious process of copying all that music to a hard drive, while not having to decide just yet how i'm going to finish the setup later. rday -- Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
Re: [OCLUG-Tech] how to *start* computerizing several hundred CDs?
Raw ISOs, yes, as an idea. I'm not sure how many music clients do well playing from ISO files, but I think it's the best way to turn your physical CDs into data without making any other decisions. I do something similar with my DVDs. The command is dd and would be something akin to: dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/rpjday/Music/My_Music.iso The man page for dd will tell you more. The ISO file is a disc image...a byte-for-byte copy of what's on the physical disc. A number of programs will treat the ISO file exactly as if it was the disc (though I've no idea if RhythymBox is one of them). Calculate that each CD will result in a 700 MB file, and you can plan out how much space you'll need. It's by no means an efficient use of hard drive space...but as you say, storage is cheap, and depending on the size of your CD library, you may have room for both the ISOs *and* the encoded results. It's redeeming quality (in my eyes) is that it becomes a perfect data copy of your physical library, allowing you to postpone all other decisions while still accomplishing the task of converting the physical to the digital. The ISOs would also let you turn the digital BACK into the physical, should that ever be something you'd want to do (unlikely, but it's there). I think going FLAC is probably good, too...certainly a more judicious use of disk space, and would allow you to start organizing your library. I thought of ISOs mainly on the strength of your question what's a safe strategy i can use to start copying them to disk so that, no matter what i choose to do later, i won't have to redo all that work? Cheers. On 10 March 2011 11:34, Robert P. J. Day rpj...@crashcourse.ca wrote: On Thu, 10 Mar 2011, C.T. Paterson wrote: If my math has not failed me (it's early yet), a 2TB drive will store over 2,500 700 MB ISOs...so perhaps you could opt to simply take images of the discs to keep a full range of options on the table. you're suggesting to just store the raw ISO images of each CD? what command or utility would you use to do that? i always thought you can't treat a music CD as a raw data stream given that each track is represented by a separate file. or am i misunderstanding something here? rday -- Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
Re: [OCLUG-Tech] options for high-speed net in the market area?
NCF to purchase from NCF. TekSavvy to purchase from TekSavvy...but NCF doesn't offer cable at this time. On 27 February 2011 13:37, Robert P. J. Day rpj...@crashcourse.ca wrote: On Sun, 27 Feb 2011, C. T. Paterson wrote: TekSavvy has started making cable internet offerings in some parts of Ottawa. so who would i contact if i wanted to get onto NCF via teksavvy? (if that's even how you would phrase it). NCF? or teksavvy? rday -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
Re: [OCLUG-Tech] Microsoft's Hand in Novell Deal Bodes Ill for Linux
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. On 23 November 2010 19:32, Michael Goguen michael.gog...@gmail.com wrote: what does FUD stand for? Michael Goguen On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Paul B. red.l...@rogers.com wrote: Another corporate acquisition that Bodes Ill for Linux. It didn't take long for the OOo crew (not Linux) to jump ship when Oracle got involved; the result was a fork, and I hope that the fork shows stability soon. Re branding alone will likely set that project back a year. Think of the documentation updates alone! THAT was likely as much FUD as anything. Did a big proprietary OS vendor have influence in any of that? We'll likely never know. MySQL is likely the next casualty under the Oracle brand. It's already forked, and I hope it does again if only to give the forked db a better name (I don't like my database's name when it sounds like a BBQ sauce). A better title: Microsoft ... Bodes Ill for OpenSUSE. Linux isn't going anywhere except everywhere. Before even installing a single distro on my own, I knew I had three appliances running it. When I installed my first distro, association with Novell was enough to keep me away from OpenSUSE, and now I'm happy about that decision. Who knows, maybe MS will follow the Red Hat lead and offer enterprise support for the OpenSUSE product. Does that sound insane? I don't think it is. If MS really wanted to bode ill for Linux, that's exactly what they'd do. That's all crystal ball stuff, though. Mine is REALLY cloudy. I'm not a big fan of PC Mag, either. If this sort of stuff strikes FUD, one can always migrate off of OpenSUSE. And keep good configuration notes and backups. But we're doing that already, right? :o) On 22/11/2010 11:46 PM, Lisa L wrote: Has anyone heard about this? FUD, perhaps, to an extent anyway, but something to be aware of too. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/211414/microsofts_hand_in_novell_deal_bodes_ill_for_linux.html Lisa ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
[OCLUG-Tech] Running Linux 24/7 on Thumb Drive - Wear?
Hey folks, I've been running linux on a thumbdrive for a few months now. The machine is on 24/7, and while I wouldn't go so far as to call it busy - it certainly has things to do throughout the day and night (it's a PVR). There have been a couple of incidents now, that have made me question the integrity of the system - and I wonder about the flash drive. I know (or think I know) that flash can wear out if read/writes are done to the same spot on the disk repeatedly - as might be done to /tmp. Does anyone think that might have happened over the course of some months? Is there anything that can be done to distribute the use of the drive so the wear is even? I have been (and will continue) googling about this - but I haven't come up with much except tutorials of how to get started. Thanks. -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
Re: [OCLUG-Tech] Re: encrypted disks
2009/4/23 Damian Gerow dge...@afflictions.org: John C Nash wrote: Before I say anything else: http://xkcd.com/538/. Please keep that in mind through all of this. Thanks very much for raising this topic, and for the xkcd reference - it was the second thing I had thought of. There are more topics in this area, but I'll leave it there. Hopefully this will kick off some discussion. Here's a more direct question to the list: What do you encrypt, and why? I was going to post a little more about my experiences, but it's already clear I have much more to learn than teach, so I'll be more circumspect and describe my situation instead. I have a laptop, and decided some time ago to use some encryption. On my laptop I have a lot of financial information (financial software, household budget spreadsheet, tax data, etc). I also carry around my work e-mail and several work documents. The work stuff is not any kind of security matter, but I reasoned that it's not really mine, and so I should take some nominal steps to protect it. My solution was to use the alternate disk installation of Ubuntu and set up an encrypted partition on my disk. The encrypted partition holds all the material listed above, with softlinks from my home directory to the files in question. It's 256 bit RSA (IIRC) with a passphrase that must be entered on boot. I'm one of those guys whose ignorance could easily fool me into thinking I've protected myself when I haven't. In terms of perception; one of the disadvantages of what I've done is that I don't believe I can use suspend/hibernate while travelling, as the data is not then protected. I'm also forced to consider that the extra time and effort spent upon every boot-up is not equal to the risk of my data getting compromised, or the risk to me and my employer if it does (call it the xkcd equation). After all, I don't use the secured data every time I start-up. A clean upgrade to 9.04 is in my future, and I'm considering a different encryption approach, and so am very interested in the discussion at play. Cheers. -- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -- Thomas Paine ___ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
