Re: tcl/tk question
On 05/08/2011 07:15 PM, Richard Pieri wrote: On May 8, 2011, at 7:13 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: The issue commonly occus when a Windows user does not first bring up Exceed. Putty would have -X set, so the DISPLAY environment variable gets set. The gotcha is that it uncommonly occurs when there is a communications problem between X client and server. It is not possible for an X client to reliably distinguish between user error and genuine faults. Assuming that all X server failures are user error is bad design. Actually, it's not too important. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Email migration script
Does anyone have a script that will either POP3 or IMAP to a source mail server and copy to a destination mail server? Normally I've done this by just using the client's credentials to copy mailboxes one at a time with Thunderbird, but I have a client with a couple hundred mailboxes. The script can be either PHP, Bash, Perl, Ruby or Python. It can be as simple as it only takes 1 mail box at a time, and I'll write my own wrapper around it. -matt ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: Email migration script
On Mon, May 09, 2011 at 08:58:17AM -0400, Matt Shields wrote: Does anyone have a script that will either POP3 or IMAP to a source mail server and copy to a destination mail server? Normally I've done this by just using the client's credentials to copy mailboxes one at a time with Thunderbird, but I have a client with a couple hundred mailboxes. The script can be either PHP, Bash, Perl, Ruby or Python. It can be as simple as it only takes 1 mail box at a time, and I'll write my own wrapper around it. fetchmail? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: Email migration script
Hi Matt- Two choices come to mind: 1) imapsync (http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/, previous versions of the program are freely available) 2) There are now a number of commercial services that do this: http://www.migrationwiz.com/Public/landing/imapmigrations.aspx http://www.yippiemove.com/index.html are two I have found, (though I've not used any of them, we use imapsync) -- dNb ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: tcl/tk question
On May 9, 2011, at 7:46 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: Actually, it's not too important. Your call. My preference is to avoid problems with inconsistent interfaces and unpredictable behavior. --Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity
A Linux Journal (free) article on Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/ubuntu-1104-unity-released-mixed-reactions It quotes mixed reviews of Unity from around the net, such as: Rob Williams said, Unity impressed me a lot more than I expected it to. After some use, that all becomes easier to get used to, but I don't think it'll ever feel like it's the best way to do things. The simple fact is that it'll require more steps than what we're used to. This makes me wonder if Unity fares any better than GNOME 3 in terms of being able to gracefully revert features to the old way. Apparently you can do a wholesale switch back to GNOME 2 (a login screen selection), which may make the most sense if you want the traditional UI wile still using the latest apps in the 11.04 repositories, but in the article comments I see, I tried to switch back to Ubuntu classic but that also is buggy and I have more program crashes. Many comments mentioning defecting to Mint. LJ also has a video review of Unity: http://www.linuxjournal.com/video/unity-3-rants-and-tip It starts by showing a GNOME 2 desktop for comparison (configured almost identically to my own). Unity has approximately the same UI as GNOME 3, so I'm not sure why they diverged from that project. The comments on the above article say they'll be using GNOME 3 in 11.10. I think I could live with the side-bar dock. Most of us use wide screen displays with horizontal pixels to spare. But the application menu (perhaps good for a small screen or touch screen navigation) and the Mac-style window menus in the top bar seem more problematic. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA Enterprise solutions through open source. Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity
On 5/9/2011 9:36 PM, Tom Metro wrote: Unity has approximately the same UI as GNOME 3, so I'm not sure why they diverged from that project. The comments on the above article say they'll be using GNOME 3 in 11.10. I think I could live with the side-bar dock. Most of us use wide screen displays with horizontal pixels to spare. But the application menu (perhaps good for a small screen or touch screen navigation) and the Mac-style window menus in the top bar seem more problematic. I like having things on the side rather than on the bottom; it's a much better use of the screen real estate on a widescreen display. I have a slight preference for the right side rather than the left; it seems less visually cluttered to me. One thing I've always found annoying about Gnome 2 is that you can't effectively move the taskbar to the side of the screen as you can in Windows -- yes you can put it there but it misbehaves in various annoying ways. So you're stuck with two vertical UI bars, which is two too many on a widescreen display. I HATE the Mac and Windows 7 style conflation of application shortcuts and icons for running applications; the separate taskbar and shortcut icons of older UIs like Gnome 2 (with shortcuts docked on the top bar) or the Windows Quick Launch toolbar work better for me. At least Windows 7 lets you put things back to the old way, though it's harder than it should be; on the Mac you're stuck, and you're also stuck with it on Ubuntu so long as you use Unity. (Gnome Classic, Kubuntu/KDE, and Xubuntu/XFCE are all possible alternatives.) I've also never liked the Mac-style menus on the top of the screen rather than in the window title bar. It strikes me as a UI decision that doesn't scale well. It was fine when the Mac meant the beige toaster with its 9 display, but when you're talking about 30 behemoths the menus are too far away from where you are working. Too much mouse movement, and too much confusion because they're so far away from the active window. And as somebody else pointed out, if you like focus follows mouse (I don't) it's completely broken if you move over another window on the way to the menu bar. Moving the window widgets over to the left (Mac style) instead of the right (Windows, KDE, older Gnome style) happened in Ubuntu 10.10 and it struck me as a gratuitous UI change then. (At least it's easy enough to undo in Gnome Classic; a bit harder in Unity.) Neither is inherently better but what you are used to is better than what you aren't used to. All in all, Canonical seems to be trying to make the UI more like the Mac and less like Windows. That strikes me as a poor move if they're trying to attract new users, because Windows is where the big pool of available people are and because the stability of Linux is less of a draw for people who are already on a Unix-based OS. Speaking of cool shortcuts -- I always like the KDE shortcuts of middle-click on the Maximize button to maximize only vertically and right-click to maximize only horizontally. They're just so useful (especially the vertical one; I often want my windows to be as tall as possible and getting it in one simple click is great); I never figured out why other window environments didn't copy them. Clearly that won't happen in Gnome 3, which has followed the recent fetish of clean UI and gotten rid of the Maximize button altogether. Another bad decision; I'd prefer to keep it and add the additional KDE capabilities. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: All-in-one touch screen computers
On 5/9/2011 9:45 PM, Tom Metro wrote: I see there are a bunch of All-in-one touch screen computers on the market now. HP seemed to lead this trend, but now Dell, Gateway, Asus, and MSI have similar models. Structurally they're like a laptop built-in to a large screen, plus touch navigation. Potentially a good fit for someone who wants a semi-portable machine, but with a bigger screen than is practical for a laptop. Probably a good family computer. I'm wondering how well the touch screens are supported by Linux. Presumably it'll just look like a mouse to the OS, so it shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. But are there any distributions that are well tuned for (big) touch screen navigation? Would installing Linux on such a machine take away most of the advantage to the touch screen? (These machines typically come bundled with things like photo viewing apps and the like that are purposely designed for touch screen interaction.) Anyone tried Linux on one of these? I can't imagine that current Linux distros would work well, as they have no touch screen UI. What might work would be a port of one of the variants of Linux designed for mobile phones (Android, or maybe even MeeGo if anybody is still working on that). Eventually we'll probably see somebody do a Linux window manager designed for desktop touch screens but I haven't heard of one yet. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity
Mark? Dúlcey wrote: One thing I've always found annoying about Gnome 2 is that you can't effectively move the taskbar to the side of the screen as you can in Windows -- yes you can put it there but it misbehaves in various annoying ways. Try replacing the stock window list applet with a 3rd party alternative, like DockbarX. I just tried it with a left-side panel and it seems to work. Or was the misbehavior with other items on the panel? The real win would be getting rid of all horizontal panels. That could take more effort to pull off. I'm not sure how well the notification area, workspace switcher, and application menu behave when moved to a vertical panel. And even if they do behave, how comfortable that would be to use. So you're stuck with two vertical UI bars... There's absolutely no need to have two. The first thing I did when I switched to GNOME was to get rid of the Microsoft-inspired bottom panel. I moved the window selector to the top panel. Plenty of room on a wide screen. I HATE the Mac and Windows 7 style conflation of application shortcuts and icons for running applications; DockbarX supports that, but you don't need to use it. I make limited use of it. The visual feedback in DockbarX to distinguish a launcher from a running app is not as good as I'd like. I get the motivation behind this feature. If you are a simple user, you don't really care if the app is running or not, you just want it to appear. Once you become a slightly more sophisticated user, the distinction matters. If the UI can save real estate by combining the two operations, while still visually distinguishing them, then great. If not, then don't muddy the metaphor. I've also never liked the Mac-style menus on the top of the screen rather than in the window title bar. It strikes me as a UI decision that doesn't scale well. It was fine when the Mac meant the beige toaster with its 9 display, but when you're talking about 30 behemoths the menus are too far away from where you are working. Too much mouse movement, and too much confusion because they're so far away from the active window. Agreed. Pro: menus are in an absolutely positioned consistent place. Con: menus are not visually tied to what they impact; menus are inconveniently located at a distance from where you are working. Cons outweigh pros. The Windows XP-style task bar that ships by default on the bottom of the window is a similar fail. The user spends most of the time interacting with the middle to the top of application windows, yet to switch applications the mouse has to travel to the bottom of the screen? -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA Enterprise solutions through open source. Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss