Re: [GTALUG] nice deal on ThinkPad E16

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 18:40 bitmap via talk  wrote:

> Hi, the page
> https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpade/thinkpad-e16-%2816-inch-amd%29/21jtcto1wwca1
> says "8 GB DDR4-3200MHz (Soldered)"
>
> Is it possible to upgrade soldered RAM?
>

The thread says it has an additional ram slot for a possible total of
40gigs.


On Mon, Jul 31, 2023, at 11:57 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
>
> <
> https://forums.redflagdeals.com/lenovo-canada-thinkpad-e16-g1-ryzen-5-7530u-8gb-256gb-2-5k-400nits-720-price-drop-2626562/
> >
>
> - 16"
> - carefully customize (as outlined)
> - choose the excellent display option (3560x1500, 400 nits
> - AMD CPU. Current gen number but 2 generations behind; still good.
>
> Note: Rakuten cashback is 12% today, making this an especially good day
> for this deal.
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Re: [GTALUG] war story in progress: NVMe drive

[Jason Shaw via talk]

You may be able to use virtualbox and a Windows image to run the upgrade.

Here's a nice list of where you can find images:
https://github.com/SheepKid12/msft-modern.ie-images#available-images

-jason

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 12:46 D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk 
wrote:

> I bought a used ThinkCentre M75q tiny desktop computer through kijiji.
> I upgraded the RAM and disk.
> For a disk, I bought a WD Black SN770 2TB NVMe drive.
>
> I've installed it and installed Fedora Linux on it.  All fine.
>
> I don't know that much about management of NVME drives.  They mostly just
> work.  But I got curious about firmware updates.
>
> - WD only supports firmware updates through Windows or MacOS!
>
> - this machine has no Windows license (surprising but true) or
>   installation.  Less surprising, it has no MacOS license or installation.
>
> - there seems to have been a firmware update a while back (some reddit
>   queries about it five months ago).
>
> - My unit is probably new enough that it came with that new firmware.  How
>   to check?
>
> - this article points to an NVMe tool for linux:
> https://opensource.com/article/21/9/nvme-cli
>
> - nvme-cli works and seems useful but I don't really know how to read the
>   output.  It does say "frmw  : 0x14" which might contain the required
>   information.
>
> - When I try to log in to WD support, they say that I must change my
>   password (their site must have been compromised since I last logged in).
>   When I OK that, they say that they have emailed me a link but it does
>   not arrive.
>
> How frustrating.
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Re: [GTALUG] keyboards

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 12:24 PM Giles Orr via talk  wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 at 16:40, o1bigtenor via talk  wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 2:41 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
> talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> | From: Evan Leibovitch via talk 
> >>
> <<>>
> > Thanking one and all for their input!
>
> There appear to be a lot of definitions of what "ergonomic" means when
> it comes to keyboards.  I tend to the most extreme example: I own
> three (working) Kinesis Advantage keyboards.  The Advantage2 can be
> had for $400-$450 Canadian - not cheap.  They come with Cherry brown
> switches, but I have a habit of retrofitting them with Cherry blues -
> which makes them noisier and more expensive.
>
> Everybody is recommending the keyboard(s) they love ...  I have a
> CoolerMaster with Cherry Blues, and several IBM model Ms, and have had
> many other types of "ergonomic" keyboards over the years.  I love the
> feel of the switches in both the CoolerMaster and the model Ms, but I
> find I need the two halves of the keyboard farther apart for comfort.
> I also prefer vertical columns of keys - as opposed to the now totally
> unnecessary leftward slant of key columns on almost all modern
> keyboards.  I've experimented with keyboards a lot to end up where I
> am: the Kinesis Advantage took a month to adjust to, but has been
> worth it ... for me.  It's my daily driver both at home and at work.
> You have to make your own call on these things.
>
> A note about gaming keyboards: gamers seem to tend to prefer low
> activation force, linear keys (Cherry Blacks or Cherry Reds).  Most
> people who type for a living (as opposed to gaming) seem to prefer
> "tactile" keys, which is quite different from the "linear" keys which
> don't have any feedback at all until they bottom out.  I hate linears
> (but again - personal taste).  And then there's the "clicky" thing:
> the noise the IBM model M makes can be enough to clear a small room.
> Some people really really hate that noise.  I get that, but I still
> love the feel of those things.
>
> Further reading (my intro to keyboard layouts and key types):
> https://www.gilesorr.com/blog/computer-keyboards.html
>

Thanks for that Giles.

Keyboards are a very personal choice, and what's right for one user isn't
going to be right for another.

Personally, I use a ThinkPad X1 Carbon quite regularly and have for ~10
years, and love the touchpoint (red nub), so even my external keyboard for
a long time was the ThinkPad TrackPoint kb (
https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/accessories-and-monitors/keyboards-and-mice/keyboards/KBD-BO-TrackPoint-KBD-US-English/p/4Y40X49493).
Over time though, my posture was suffering and my wrists were sore at the
end of a workday. Combined with a personal accident that resulted in some
permanent fingertip damage on my dominant hand, I needed something with
better ergonomics, so I took the plunge on a split style, mechanical
keyboard, and can't imagine going back.  The added benefit of having the
desk area immediately in front of me wide open is great too.

I would like to try an ortholinear split keyboard at some point, but have
no real desire to spend a month or two re-learning to type again.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] keyboards

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 16:40 o1bigtenor via talk  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 2:41 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
> talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
>
>> | From: Evan Leibovitch via talk 
>>
>> |   The emergence of high-end gaming on PCs has led to a quest for
>> | keyboards that are super-responsive and comfortable for long periods.
>>
>> Yeah.  That seems like the best place to look.
>>
>> Beware: I've found their goals are not completely aligned with mine.
>> Here are some.
>>
>> One feature that I don't care about is rainbow coloured lights for the
>> keys.  Benign, but you are paying for this.  On mine (a Razer Blackwidow
>> Ultimate -- love the names), I've got a green light per key, solidly on
>> unless I install a daemon to change that.
>>
>> Another is "tenkeyless" which means "without numeric keypad".  I use
>> the numeric keypad and don't want to lose it.
>>
>> Another is low-latency: I've never noticed keyboard latency.
>>
>> Another is: ugly seems to be valued.
>>
>> All support n-key rollover, for large n.  This requires sending multiple
>> USB packets per keystroke.  This in turn confuses the firmware on a
>> couple
>> of our machines: if we wish to adjust firmware settings, we have to plug
>> in a different keyboard.  As you can imagine, that took some effort to
>> figure out.
>>
>> There are many web pages that describe the colours of switches.
>> 
>>
>> My wife likes "blue" keys (noisy and tactile).
>> I like "brown" keys (less noisy but tactile).
>>
>> If you care a lot, you may care about the company that produced the
>> switches.  I haven't bothered to sudy this aspect.
>>
>>
> Interesting comments from all of the responders so far.
> Is anyone using an ergonomic keyboard from this group.
> The old rectangular keyboard makes my hands ache at the
> thought of using only this. I have some cheap keyboards gotten
> with machine purchases - - - my working keyboard for anything
> more than a few keystrokes is an ergonomic version. I'm about
> 60 cm across the shoulders so a keyboard that's some 35 cm
> just isn't comfortable.
>
> I also like my numeric keypad - - - - do a lot of entries on that
> for business use and would like to have it part of the keyboard
> if at all possible.
>
> I have used the mechanical keys in a very long time - - - think
> I would prefer less noise rather than more but for high quality
> would like give on that!
>
> Re: gaming - - - - I'm having too fun fun and use far too much time
> on my system without playing any games - - - tend to relax with a
> book (most often a physical copy too).
>

I switched to a split keyboard about a year ago, a Kinesis freestyle pro,
and after a few month learning curve, I honestly can't imagine switching
back. My shoulders feel so much better after a day of typing that I can
hardly believe it. It has quiet mechanical switches that feel nice and
responsive and should be fine for open concept offices.

Not the cheapest, especially once the tilting kit and wrist rests were
added in, but my posture is worth it.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] [probably offtopic] e-sign solutions

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 11:53 AM Evan Leibovitch via talk 
wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> I have a short-term need for an e-signing facility.
>
> There are a few free ones (digisigner.com) but I'm not familiar with
> them, and I'm not prepared to pay Adobe $40/mo for justa doc or two.
>
> Any recommendations? Anything to avoid? Thanks!
>
> Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
> @evanleibovitch / @el56
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I've used DocHub ( https://dochub.com/ ) for signing PDFs and it's been
fine.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] Script to show HTTP(S) and TLS details for a website

[Jason Shaw via talk]

Looks like a handy script to have.  My only real suggestion is to change
the shebang to
*#!/usr/bin/env bash*
as it's more portable than the current one.  Still not perfect, but works
reliably on more systems.

-jason

On Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 11:46 AM Giles Orr via talk  wrote:

> This may be seen as self-promotion - that's not totally wrong.  But I
> think this may also be useful to others and (as I acknowledge in the blog
> post) I'm quite pleased with the resultant script.
>
> Over the past year and a half I've slowly developed a shell script that
> gives a concise summary of the state of TLS and HTTP(S) on a given
> website.  It looks like this:
>
> $ tlsdetails google.ca
> Using OpenSSL:  /usr/bin/openssl
> Expiry Date:Oct 27 17:27:07 2019 GMT (78 days)
> Issuer: Google Trust Services, CN
> TLS Versions:   tls1_3 tls1_2 tls1_1 tls1  (tried but unavailable:
> ssl3 ssl2 )
> HTTP Version:   2
>
> I first started work on it after a couple embarrassing certificate
> expiries.  It then grew to check the Issuer, TLS versions, and more
> recently whether or not a site supports HTTP2.
>
> (The pointer to the OpenSSL version is shown because the script will also
> run on Mac, and their version of 'openssl' is problematic at best.  That
> line is of course easy to remove if you don't like it.)
>
> If you're interested, you can find the details here:
>
> https://www.gilesorr.com/blog/tls-https-details.html
>
> Any suggestions to improve the script would be most welcome.
>
> --
> Giles
> https://www.gilesorr.com/
> giles...@gmail.com
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Re: [GTALUG] [OT] mySQL help

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 7:50 PM Stephen via talk  wrote:

> Can anyone spot what is wrong?
>
> So I connect to the server with:
> stephen@Avalon:~$ mysql -u root -p
> Enter password:
> Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
> Your MySQL connection id is 11
> Server version: 5.7.26-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 (Ubuntu)
>
> Copyright (c) 2000, 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights
> reserved.
>
> Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
> affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
> owners.
>
> Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input
> statement.
>
> mysql>
> ===
> I create grants
> mysql> grant all on rois3324_stephen.*  to
> "rois3324_stephen"@"localhost" with grant option;
> Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
> ===
> I try to see grants
> mysql> "rois3324_stephen"@"localhost"
> ->
>
> It looks like no grants were created. And I get a confirming error from
> PHP.
>
> Can anyone see what is wrong?
>
> Thank you!
> --
> Stephen
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Hey Stephen, you are running mysql 5.7, so I'm going to link some docs and
walk through what I'd do in this situation.  I apologize if you know this
stuff, or have already tried any of it as I'm operating off the set of
information you've provided. :)

First off, I'd run
SHOW GRANTS FOR "rois3324_stephen"@"localhost";
to ensure that the grants you want match the grants it displays.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/show-grants.html

Second, I'd run
SHOW CREATE USER "rois3324_stephen"@"localhost"\G
to further make sure that things look as they should.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/show-create-user.html

Next up is to run FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
To ensure that what you've just written to disk is loaded into a freshly
cleared cache.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/flush.html#flush-privileges

I'm unsure of how GRANT works if CREATE USER hasn't already been executed,
but to me, this appears to be a possible case. The above steps should
hopefully reveal any discrepancies.  It's also worth remembering that
'localhost' and 127.0.0.1 are not necessarily treated identically,
depending on your mysql configuration and /etc/hosts files.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/grant.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19712307/mysql-localhost-127-0-0-1

If you can sanitize the output from the above commands so they don't
contain personal information and send them along, we can help troubleshoot
further, but this is where I'd get started.
-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] Local source for weird RAM

[Jason Shaw via talk]

I second Crucials wizard. It's quite a nice tool to find the exact specs
you need for RAM, and can then look into other brands, or buy direct from
Crucial.  Anecdotally, I love Crucial's RAM, even if their prices aren't
the best, I've not had issues with any of their hardware in 15+ years of
buying from them.

-jason

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 11:59 AM William Porquet via talk 
wrote:

> Try Crucial.com for their web-based compatibility wizard? Worked for me a
> few times.
>
> Even if you don't want to pay their prices, you have enough information to
> be dangerous. :-)
>
> Cheers,
> William
>
> On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 14:52, Mike Kallies via talk 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello GTALUG,
>>
>> I have an HP ML110 G6 which I'm using for some minor virtualization, but
>> it has 12G of RAM in it.   I've been looking how to bring it up to 32G,
>> but the options have been risky and expensive.   So much so, that
>> replacing it with a different machine seems more worthwhile.
>>
>> Does anyone know a local source for these 8G "Dual Ranked, ECC,
>> Unbuffered/NON-REGISTERED" modules?
>>
>>
>> https://trainingrevolution.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/hp-proliant-ml110-g6-server-maximum-memory-configuration-32gb/
>>
>> Or should I give up and buy a new machine?
>>
>> --
>> Mike Kallies
>> m...@kallies.ca
>> ---
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>>
>
>
> --
> William Porquet, M.A. ⁂ mailto:will...@2038.org ⁂ http://www.2038.org/
> "I do not fear computers.  I fear the lack of them." (Isaac Asimov)
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Re: [GTALUG] optimum swap size

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 7:02 AM Gary via talk  wrote:

> I have kubuntu 18.04 with 20 gigs ram. Does anyone know what the optimum
> size swap area that I should have? Currently, my swap partition is 2
> gigs. Can I increase that by creating a swap file in addition to the
> swap partition?
>
> /gary
>
> Is swap size still as relevant as it was a decade ago? On a host with 20G
RAM, I'd imagine the likelihood of hitting swap being much lower.  Having a
couple of G available just in case seems like a good idea, but I'm unsure
if the old (Total RAM * 2)=swap equation still rings true.

*does some quick internet sleuthing*

According to this article:
https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-swap-space.html RedHat basically says
that for CentOS server 7, a minimum of 4G is recommended.  The caveat to
this is that if your system needs to hibernate/suspend-to-disk, in which
case you'll want 1.5-2x RAM as swap in order to write in-use memory to disk.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] Spamhaus block

[Jason Shaw via talk]

I gave up on trying to keep a local mail server off of spamhaus and similar
lists and ended up getting an account at authsmtp.com to relay outbound
mail through so that they can deal with the deliverability side of it.
Sending 4000 messages a month is probably cheaper than the amount of time
you've invested in trying to get your IP safelisted.

-jason

On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 10:33 AM Marc Lijour via talk 
wrote:

> Does anyone has insights about dealing with Spamhaus?
>
> I'm getting increasingly frustrated by being listed without explanation.
> I run a very low bandwidth mail server and a website for my business. I
> am running postfix with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. I'd like to know what I am
> missing.
>
> Spamhaus is very popular which in turn affects Twitter, LInkedIn, beyond
> just the mail.
>
> Is it possible to run one's own mail server this days?
>
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Re: [GTALUG] cron scripts **BOOM**

[Jason Shaw via talk]

darryl, you should be able to look at yum or apt/dpk histories to see
if/when cron was updated and possibly gleam some information about who/what
did it.

for debian and ubuntu :
https://serverfault.com/questions/175504/how-do-i-get-the-history-of-apt-get-install-on-ubuntu
for redhat/rpm based distros: 'yum history info crontab' or whatever the
name of the cron package is called

Certainly sounds like something automatically updated the cron package to
me.  Good luck in the forensics.
-jason


On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 12:30 PM Alex Beamish via talk 
wrote:

> I know that crontab -r removes the user's crontab, but what's more likely
> (based on your content) is that a new version of cron was installed -- and
> that process somehow overwrote the existing crontab with what looks like a
> default version.
>
> I have a line in my crontab that does a periodic save:
>
> #  2018-1121: 1533: Save the current crontab for later backup
> 36   8,15   *   *   *   crontab -l >/home/web/crontab.latest
>
> I then use rsync to back that file (and others) up to a safe place.
>
> Alex
>
> On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 11:45 AM Darryl Moore via talk 
> wrote:
>
>> so I have about 100 servers running 16.04 spread over North America.
>>
>> Today it became apparent that the root user cron script was deleted on
>> all 100 of them. The script is at /var/spool/cron/crontab/root and
>> everything I had has been deleted and replaced with
>>
>> # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
>> # (- installed on Fri Dec 28 08:18:31 2018)
>> # (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
>>
>> crontabs were all originally installed using the crontab executable.
>> when I redo it the same way I get the proper crontab file but with this
>> above header added. This was never the case before. I do not have
>> automatic updates turned on on any of my machines. The date stamp in
>> this header is within a few seconds of the above on all my machines. I
>> also have a few machines running Armbian, and they are exactly the same.
>>
>> This is a major F*up for me and I have no idea how it happened. Has
>> anybody else had similar experiences? I'd love to know.
>>
>> regards,
>> darryl
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>
>
> --
> Alex Beamish
>
> Software Developer / https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alex-beamish-5111ba3
> Speaker Wrangler / Toronto Perlmongers / http://to.pm.org/
> Baritone, Operations Manager / Toronto Northern Lights, 2013 Champions /
> www.northernlightschorus.com
> Certified Contest Administrator / Barbershop Harmony Society /
> www.barbershop.org
>
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Re: [GTALUG] dreamhost reply, is dh key exchange question.

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 15:47 Anthony de Boer via talk 
wrote:

> Jason Shaw via talk wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 3:06 PM Mike via talk  wrote:
> > > That is, SSH to your other shell account, and instead of running your
> > > email program, run "ssh user@eugene...", and once connected to eugene,
> > > proceed as though you were connected directly.
> >
> > This is a great recommendation and can be easily automated.  In your
> > personal ssh config, usually ~/.ssh/config you can add in:
> >
> > Host *.dreamhost.com
> > ProxyCommand ssh -q shellworld_host nc %h %p
>
> Those suggestions are two very different things.  Mike is suggesting
> SSH'ing to the shell on the intermediate box and then SSH'ing from it,
> while Jason is suggesting to SSH the intermediate and then use it to
> pipe an inner SSH connection through the outer SSH connection and emerge
> there for the onward hop to the destination.
>
> Caveat for the first solution: it involves using your credentials on the
> intermediate box, so if anyone evil has compromised it they can now pop
> the destination box too.
>
> Caveat for the second solution: the SSH conversation still involves the
> near-end client negotiating crypto with the far-end server, so if that
> started off being the problem it's still that problem.  Also, the middle
> box might not have nc (netcat) installed but there are other tactics
> like LocalForward configuration that can do the same thing.
>

Ooh, you're absolutely right!  I've been using this for sold that I didn't
stop to think about how it actually works under the hood.

> > Such plumbing is often necessary for a variety of reasons.  Just make
> > > sure you know where you are.  The commands "whoami", and "hostname"
> > > are often useful!
>

Great recommendation.
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Re: [GTALUG] dreamhost reply, is dh key exchange question.

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 3:06 PM Mike via talk  wrote:

> 
> However, I have what may be an easier solution, one that I should
> already have thought of:  If you still have working SSH-based shell
> access to a different host, you should be able to SSH FROM THERE to
> your dreamhost system.
>
> That is, SSH to your other shell account, and instead of running your
> email program, run "ssh user@eugene...", and once connected to eugene,
> proceed as though you were connected directly.
>
> Such plumbing is often necessary for a variety of reasons.  Just make
> sure you know where you are.  The commands "whoami", and "hostname"
> are often useful!
> 
>

This is a great recommendation and can be easily automated.  In your
personal ssh config, usually ~/.ssh/config you can add in:

Host *.dreamhost.com
ProxyCommand ssh -q shellworld_host nc %h %p

With this in place, you'll be able to just type 'ssh yourhost.dreamhost.com'
and you'll bounce through shellworld_host (substitiute your actual
shellworld host account) to make it mostly seamless.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] Crontab versioning

[Jason Shaw via talk]

I'd recommend using git or a similar version control system, and then have
some sort of configuration management tool like ansible put it in place on
the server.

-jason

On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 10:44 AM, Alex Beamish via talk 
wrote:

> I'm developing scripts that get run by crontab, so I'm in there making
> updates fairly regularly. I would love to be able to document the changes,
> so I'm wondering if there a usual and customary technique to version
> crontabs?
>
> Ideally there would be some sort of hook around 'crontab -e', but failing
> that, I'd have the output of 'crontab -l' (run regularly by cron?) go to a
> versioned file. Plan B sounds a bit hokey to me.
>
> --
> Alex Beamish
>
> Software Developer / https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alex-beamish-5111ba3
> Speaker Wrangler, Toronto Perlmongers / http://to.pm.org/
> Baritone, Board Member, Toronto Northern Lights, 2013 Champions /
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Re: [GTALUG] Increasing interest in the Go language

[Jason Shaw via talk]

Go is becoming more and more common in the SysAdmin/SRE tools world.
Kubernetes, GH-OST, and as mentioned by Lennart, many of the other docker
tools are all in Go.  It looks like a language that's going to be around
for a while.


On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 11:06 AM, Lennart Sorensen via talk 
wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 09:14:24AM -0500, David Collier-Brown via talk
> wrote:
> > Later this month I'm joining a company that is fairly Go-intensive.  They
> > originally prototyped in Perl, but over time needed more performance but
> not
> > to the level that would require assembler or even C.
> >
> > What else have folks observed?
>
> I think all the docker tools are written in go.
>
> Certainly seems to be getting some popularity in places.
>
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Re: [GTALUG] In Conversation

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 11:23 PM, Scott Sullivan via talk 
wrote:

> Thanks to all those that came out to the GTALUG meeting, and the social
> afterwards. A couple of interesting items came up in conversation, so I
> wish to share the links more broadly.
>
> * Phones
>
> ** Librem 5
>
> https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
>
> Pursim, is a company offering laptops with the most comprehensive
> Free/Libre and Open Source for their hardware (their laptops ship
> CoreBoot). There now trying to do the same for a phone, and have
> successfully funded it's development. KDE and Gnome communities are on
> board for UI development.
>
>
As someone who has been interested in Free/Open Source mobile platforms
since I learned about the OpenMoko FreeRunner ( http://openmoko.org
although that appears down) ages ago, and used one for quite a while, It's
refreshing to see more people taking up the torch in the form of the Libre
M.  I've already backed it for a phone because it sounds ideal.

There's also the Neo900 ( https://neo900.org/ ), which has very low specs
compared to modern phones, but has been a long term pet project to
revive/reinvent the glory of the Nokia N900.

I'm currently awaiting Sailfish X's availability in Canada, so that I can
reflash that onto my Sony Xperia X, so that I can have an experience like
the Nokia N9 (imho the best smartphone ever made) running a more pure Linux.

Sad I missed the irl conversation about these devices.
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Re: [GTALUG] touch screens

[Jason Shaw via talk]

>> What are the new phones?  I'm guessing they are the Libre M from Purism (
>> https://puri.sm/ ) and possibly the Sony SailfishX in cooperation w/
>> Jolla ( https://jolla.com/sailfishx/ ) but I'm always keen to hear of
>> others.
>>
>
> Announce is the wrong term, because it was idle conversation on the
> sidelines and at the social. But Dee is referencing my post with the
> subject "In Conversation".
>
> https://gtalug.org/pipermail/talk/2017-October/005364.html
>
> --
> Scott Sullivan
>
>
That'll teach me to read all my unread emails before responding :)  Thanks!
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Re: [GTALUG] touch screens

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 8:08 AM, o1bigtenor via talk 
wrote:

> Greetings
>
> Reading of the announcement of 2 new 'smart' phones at the meeting prompts
> me to ask the question.
>
>
What are the new phones?  I'm guessing they are the Libre M from Purism (
https://puri.sm/ ) and possibly the Sony SailfishX in cooperation w/ Jolla
( https://jolla.com/sailfishx/ ) but I'm always keen to hear of others.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] Interest in an IM for TLUG?

[Jason Shaw via talk]

Thanks for championing this, Evan!

I'm fairly married to Slack as my instant messaging platform of choice, so
the likelihood of me running another client for GTALUG chat is pretty
unlikely.

That said, I'm also not the most active or vocal, so receiving the email
only information is fine by me.

On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 4:48 PM, Evan Leibovitch via talk 
wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> A couple of casual; conversations took place before and after Tuesday's
> meeting regarding the "where to eat" issue. I suggested that maybe some
> situations such as this could benefit from a real-time chat system.
>
> Scott mentioned the PITA factor of TLUG itself creating and monitoring an
> instant messaging group, so I am volunteering to set this up IFF demand
> exists.
>
> That does not mean everyone has to love it, and email will continue to be
> the "official" place for meeting notices and official business. But I
> thought this might be better for those of us who are getting tired of email
> threads, and the newer generation that by and large detests email.
>
> The preferred (and arbitrarily chosen) tool is "Telegram". It's support
> for Linux is excellent, it has a (unofficial) Pidgin plugin available, and
> a user base already in the hundreds of millions. I know that many have
> Skype but I'm trying to wind its use down; the latest update, with all the
> sine-wave animations, is dreadful.
>
> ​So... please speak up if you think this would be a good thing. If you
> won't use it, that's OK too. All I'm looking for is reasonable expectation
> of use.
>
> --
> Evan Leibovitch
> Toronto, Canada
>
> Em: evan at telly dot org
> Sk: evanleibovitch
> Tw: el56
>
>
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Re: [GTALUG] router upgrade

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 10:17 AM, James Knott via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
wrote:

> On 07/11/2017 10:09 AM, Jason Shaw via talk wrote:
> > Myles, how's the range on this one?  I have an older ASUS that does a
> > good job hitting all four floors (100+ years old Victorian) for the
> > most part, but it's starting to show it's age.
> >
>
> Well, yes, at 100 years + I guess it would be.  ;-)
>
>
My wording was terrible there :)
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Re: [GTALUG] router upgrade

[Jason Shaw via talk]

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 9:51 AM, Myles Braithwaite via talk  wrote:

> o1bigtenor via talk wrote:
> > I've been running an Asus rt-n16 router, using dd-wrt, for about 6.5
> > years now. On the second one for about 1.5 years and no longer have a
> > spare for the next time the router craters.
> >
> > Am finding it very difficult to determine an update/upgrade for my
> router.
> >
> > Any suggestions?
>
> I'm a fan of the TP-Link TL-WR940N, so much that I have recommend it to
> everyone I know. I have three of them in various locations (home, farm,
> and HackLab.TO).
>
> It's base software is amazing and works great out of the box.
>
> I haven't run OpenWRT (an active fork of dd-wrt) on it but I know Scott
> Sullivan has and he's really smart about this type of stuff.
>
> It cost $39.99 on NewEgg  (this is a short link to
> the NewEgg website).
>
>
Myles, how's the range on this one?  I have an older ASUS that does a good
job hitting all four floors (100+ years old Victorian) for the most part,
but it's starting to show it's age.

-jason
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Re: [GTALUG] DMA kernel attacks

[Jason Shaw via talk]

Can we keep personal opinions and insults off the list?

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 3:28 PM, Russell Reiter via talk 
wrote:

> On Mar 17, 2017 3:11 PM, "Lennart Sorensen" 
> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 02:53:03PM -0400, Russell Reiter wrote:
> > Ok to recap. You assumed you needed to turn off the computer to install
> > PCIe. You learned PCIe is hot pluggable. You assumed the card had to be
> > plugged into the target machine, you learned it did not.
>
> Well no.  I already knew PCIe could be hot plugable and also knew it
> usually is not.  expresscard on the other hand always is, I just forgot
> it existed and didn't think the device in question would work with that.
>
> Brain initially says: PCIe attack implies desktop which doesn't have
> hotplug implies this is irrelevant. :)
>
> > I was just pointing out why you made those false assumptions and then
> > wrongly designated the information as irrelevant.
> >
> > Its because I didn't explicitly describe what was so obvious in the
> video.
> >
> > I'd normally politely say my bad but in this case I think not.
>
> If I had watched the video from the start initially it might have helped.
> Unfortunately youtube helped and made the link you posted start at a
> few minutes from the end.  Youtube can be annoying at times.
>
> And yes the "over usb3" comment did give the wrong initial impression.
>
> In the end it does seem like a neat trick.
>
>
> Not as neat as your way of pissing me off by selectively editing and
> trying to look reasonable about it.
>
> Those three posts in a row make it look like you are having a nice
> reasoned conversation with yourself.
>
> However, it was me you were replying to and you snipped without form.
>
> Thats one of the oldest shitheel moves on usenet. You were probably still
> in short pants when I first noticed that some people do treat others
> contempt in that manner.
>
> Its nothing new and I wouldnt ask for you to be banned as an abuser but
> best if you just ignore my posts from now on.
>
> You will come across smarter than the past set of arguments with me have
> demonstrated.
>
> OK
>
>
> --
> Len Sorensen
>
>
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Re: [GTALUG] Portable Backup Drive Compatible with Linux (and Recommended Backup Software)

[Jason Shaw via talk]

Getting 500 GB SSD for <$100 is probably not going to happen.

I personally like the form factor of Western Digital Passport drives as
they are USB powered,  USB 3, and small form factor.  I get decent
performance out of it, and so long as your backups are incremental, after
the initial sync, the future changesets should be fairly small.

-jason

On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Brad Fonseca via talk 
wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I am in the market for a new portable hard drive in order back up my
> files on my Linux system (running Mageia 5.1). My requirements are:
>
> - Reliable
> - Portable
> - Price Under $100
> - at least 500 GB in size
> - USB-powered (I don't want to have to deal with plugging it in)
> - no additional software included (an empty file system without having
> to immediately reformat the drive if possible)
> - Fast file transfer and retrieval rates (SSD with USB 3.0?)
>
> In addition, I'd like some recommendations regarding good Linux-based
> back-up software. I've looked at luckyBackup
> (http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/) based on some articles I've read
> but I know this group probably has some well-tested applications they
> prefer. Ideally, the application will have good documentation and/or an
> easy-to-use interface.
>
> Thanks so much in advance!
>
> Brad
>
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> Mobile: 416-876-2191
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Re: [GTALUG] Question

[Jason Shaw via talk]

I feel obligated to point out freshbooks.com as Accounting as a Service
based here in Toronto.  I do work there, so I'm a touch biased, but it
provides multiple users, mobile apps (android and iOS), as well as browser
based ui.

-jason

On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 1:26 PM, Alvin Starr via talk 
wrote:

> On 01/12/2017 01:13 PM, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
>
>> On 01/12/2017 08:16 AM, o1bigtenor via talk wrote:
>>
>>> Greetings
>>>
>>> Am trying to find (for need in the not to distant future) some of what
>>> is normally called 'accounting' software (its really record keeping
>>> software but that's a different argument!).
>>>
>>> What are you using that is, or could be, multi-user and has room for
>>> some complexity?
>>> (I am presently using 10 digit account numbers to get the granularity I
>>> want.)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I had pretty good luck with LedgerSMB.
>> It is a fork of SQL-ledger.
>> Both have a reasonable amount of Canadian content so it supports our tax
>> structure.
>>
>> It's written in perl and is reasonably extensible.
>>
>> After reading some of the responses from others I would put out there
> that its worth taking a look at LedgerSMB.
> It is Open and there is paid support and an Accounting as a service based
> on it.
>
>
> --
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> Netvel Inc.   ||   Cell:  (416)806-0133
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