SEMiSLUG Notes
11 August 2005
Question & Answer Sessions
- Was G. Carlin's skit on A. Bell and the invention of the telephone ever
recorded? (On a legitimate recording.)
- No one knows -- this information is lost to us, alas.
- Anybody want some styrofoam peanuts or know where I can recycle them?
- Any place that does shipping -- try a "UPS store" for example.
Failing that, Ann Arbor recycling will take it.
- ndiswrapper -- broadcom wireless card. Joy?
- Can't set ESSID when trying to connect to a WEP-enabled site. This
is bad. There's a for-pay driver wrapper from Linuxant that works,
so Scott's going to go with that for now.
- Content management system for an engineering department -- 20-30 people --
should be easy to set up. Must work better than the blog we're using.
Suggestions?
- No concensus -- you may have to try a few of the options.
- Getting an ultra-portable laptop -- got any experience with USB-IDE
converters and DVD-RW drives?
- Try http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=USB2IDE-N&cpc=SCH&srm=0
for a cheap thrill. It's not too expensive, it might work, and
you're not out that much if it doesn't.
- RHEL4 + VMware = ext3 journal corruption?
- This is a repeatable problem. The kernel mounts the VMware
partition as read-only after encountering some flack from VMware,
but no idea why. VMware guest was set to use an amount of
memory equal to the amount of physical memory on the machine --
this might be the source of the problem. Try to restrict it
to 75% of the physical memory, at most.
Post something to the VMware community bulletin board with your
settings and see if anyone else has anything to say.
Note: mount doesn't query the kernel, it reports on the last
mount command.
- Internet throughput measurement system?
- ping? traceroute? Chris wants something like the DSL report
sites at their site.
"Go to SpeakEasy?"
- Any know a place to get realtively cheap metal chips for use with a
particular piece of PC hardware?
- Kevin has a passive cooler for chip that needs a longer clip than he
currently has. E-mail the people who sent the cooler -- ask for the
correct clip?
(Needle-nose pliers + paper clip?)
- Where's _____?
- As for MRW, Carol had foot surgery on Monday. Nuff said?
MJO is deep under cover within SGI.
Becki is ... is ... in Dearborn, I think.
- Kevin is looking for a sanity check on a routing configuration -- got
any suggestions?
- [not attempting to duplicate Kevin's diagram] It doesn't sound as
straight forward as it sounds. I think. Chris and Kevin seem to
know what they're talking about, though, so ask one of them.
Experimentation may be in order.
- Any more questions?
- Yes.
- Opera user agent -- manual edit. Well?
- Opera is supposed to be settable so that it'll claim to be other
browsers -- but it still sticks "Opera" at the end of the browser
ID string. RegEdit.exe hasn't given any joy.
Try looking for Opera keys in general and browse through those.
Anyone out there got any suggestions?
-
Presentation
Gabe shows off new toys:
- MTG 2.5" Smart Disk Enclosure from www.compgeeks.com
(Go shop around a bit -- see what they've got. We couldn't
find the one that Gabe has any more; it may have been a close-out.)
- VR3 FM Modulator from eBay
Plug a flash drive in the USB port and broadcast any MP3 files
on it. A good place to start searching is:
http://search.ebay.com/vr3-fm_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8QQfsopZ1
He also showed a silly video available at:
http://www.ideatown.com/mich/index.html
Okay ... it _was_ available at that page. It should be back later.
(They promised.) Try googling for
mjd-thestarwarscantinacomedyparodysongvideo.wmv
and see what you come up with.
Otherwise, it's been a very short presentation.
Rumor & Innuendo (No names, please)
If you can now get DSL to your house, try calling Comcast and asking what
they can do to be competative. They _can_ be flexible. Or so we're told.