Re: [PLUG] Help needed with Virtual Box

[Dick Steffens]

On 08/07/2017 10:09 PM, DAL wrote:
> Hello. A decade ago I was a frequent PLUG attender and learned a lot
> from other members. I use Linux MINT nowdays for routine things (and
> some Ham Radio Digital Communications) and am marginally competent with
> it, for routine things. .
>
> I'm into VirtualBox now and seem stuck! Have tried installing VirtualBox
> (along with the matching Oracle Extensions) on a half dozen new and old
> computers with a half-dozen different Linux builds. VirtualBoxseems to
> work OK in limited testing with Windows 7 and other guests, however *I
> cannot get the USB and COM ports to work* as a guest from a box.
>
> But those same ports work fine when running Windows or Linux from the
> base alone. After much reading and testing I can't find the problem. .

Did you install VirtualBox from the Linux MINT repository or from a 
package downloaded from Oracle? USB only works on the Oracle supplied 
package. I don't know about COM ports, but I would guess it's the same. 
I recently installed VirtualBox on my Ubuntu MATE machine from the 
Ubuntu repository and learned the requirement when a USB connected 
device didn't work. I uninstalled VirtualBox, downloaded the correct 
version for my machine from Oracle, installed that one, and it works the 
way I expect it to.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens

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Re: [PLUG] Help needed with Virtual Box

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 7 Aug 2017 22:09:39 -0700
DAL  dijo:

>I wonder if there might be someone at the next Sunday afternoon clinic 
>who could help if I brought a portable computer along with Linux? Or 
>even better, is there someone on the Vancouver side of the river who I 
>might contact directly for a little local help? (I live in Salmon
>Creek.) .

You are more than welcome at the next Clinic (August 20), but in the
meantime I have a thought:

Assuming you have Guest Additions installed, USB devices can be made
available to the guest OS, but only one OS can see the device at a
time. If you have mounted the device in your guest OS then it will not
exist for your host OS, and vice-versa.
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[PLUG] Help needed with Virtual Box

[DAL]

Hello. A decade ago I was a frequent PLUG attender and learned a lot 
from other members. I use Linux MINT nowdays for routine things (and 
some Ham Radio Digital Communications) and am marginally competent with 
it, for routine things. .

I'm into VirtualBox now and seem stuck! Have tried installing VirtualBox 
(along with the matching Oracle Extensions) on a half dozen new and old 
computers with a half-dozen different Linux builds. VirtualBoxseems to 
work OK in limited testing with Windows 7 and other guests, however *I 
cannot get the USB and COM ports to work* as a guest from a box.

But those same ports work fine when running Windows or Linux from the 
base alone. After much reading and testing I can't find the problem. .

I wonder if there might be someone at the next Sunday afternoon clinic 
who could help if I brought a portable computer along with Linux? Or 
even better, is there someone on the Vancouver side of the river who I 
might contact directly for a little local help? (I live in Salmon Creek.) .

Thanks for any help.
w7...@comcast.net

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Re: [PLUG] mailx question

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 7 Aug 2017, Rich Shepard wrote:

> After posting the message I realized that I want to use the m4 macro
> processor, not mailx.

   Mea culpa! I think the heat's fried my NPU. The m4 macro processor handles
the input file then pipes it to mailx. That's where I'll add the two
attachments.

Apologies all,

Rich
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Re: [PLUG] mailx question

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 7 Aug 2017, Bill Barry wrote:

> Yes, that will do it.
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14473732/attaching-more-than-2-files-in-mail-in-unix

Bill,

   Thanks.

   After posting the message I realized that I want to use the m4 macro
processor, not mailx. I've been using m4 for several years now but without
any attachments to the message. The man page does not appear to have that
option so I'm looking for more complete documentation; will try the info
version now. If you know of more comprehensive m4 docs please point me to
them.

Regards,

Rich
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Re: [PLUG] mailx question

[Bill Barry]

On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 2:34 PM, Rich Shepard 
wrote:

>The mailx man page has a brief description of the '-a' option to attach
> a
> file to the message. If I want to attach two files do I use the '-a' option
> twice?
>
> Rich
>
>
Yes, that will do it.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14473732/attaching-more-than-2-files-in-mail-in-unix

Bill
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[PLUG] mailx question

[Rich Shepard]

   The mailx man page has a brief description of the '-a' option to attach a
file to the message. If I want to attach two files do I use the '-a' option
twice?

Rich

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Re: [PLUG] Libre Office Writer Version: 5.1.6.2 and curly quotes

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 7 Aug 2017, Paul DeStefano wrote:

> I can't resist chiming in here.  I also vote for LaTeX; it's amazing.  I
> think it's a steep learning curve, but I also think it will payed off for
> most people. I started teaching myself two years ago and I love it. Feel
> free to contact me if you want to try.

Paul,

   I used LaTex in emacs until I discoverd LyX . You'll
still need to write some LaTeX code (e.g., for /vspace{} and /hspace{}) but
for most things the menus or icons save remembering all the tag syntax.

> LaTeX can be tricky, but it also does *all* the typesetting.  That's the
> idea: you focus on expressing your ideas, let the computer make the
> document.

   Yes. The philosophy is to focus on content and let the styles and classes
do the presentation.

> Plus, if you have used LO Presentation, before, then you know you cannot
> use your .odp file in PowerPoint at a conference or something--it never
> works right.  But you can make PDF work on *any* computer.

   I've used the beamer class for years. Again, you focus on the content and
let the application set up the look and feel for you. Want to change color
or overall appearance? Change one variable in the preamble and you're done.

   BTW, for anyone who needs a CV or resume take a close look at the
modernCV style. It's outstanding.

> Regarding citations/reference, I want to plug Calibre.

   In addition to JabRef and Callibre, there's RIS and at least a half-dozen
more reference databases for linux.

Rich
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[PLUG] Libre Office Writer Version: 5.1.6.2 and curly quotes SOLVED

[Joe Shisei Niski]

Well, before purging LO from my system, I thought I'd check LO's bug 
list, whiched suggested wiping the user's settings files, and that 
restored the funcionality I need for the short term. Thanks to all who 
contributed to the discussion - and yes, my next paper will be typset in Lyx

-- 


Joe Shisei Niski
Portland, Oregon, USA
至誠
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Re: [PLUG] Libre Office Writer Version: 5.1.6.2 and curly quotes

[Paul DeStefano]

On Sun, 6 Aug 2017 16:40, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Aug 2017, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> 
> > I'll disagree with the suggestion to use Lyx, but only because Joe 
> > said that he needed to do college papers. For academic writing today 
> > you are in a world of pain doing citations and the references section 
> > unless you have either Zotero or Mendeley, and both work only with 
> > LO/OO or MS Word.
> 
> John,
>
>I did not mean to be harsh in my response, but LaTeX/LyX and bibtex 
> (or biblatex) are very heavily used in academia. Take a look at it.

I can't resist chiming in here.  I also vote for LaTeX; it's amazing.  I 
think it's a steep learning curve, but I also think it will payed off for 
most people.  I started teaching myself two years ago and I love it. 
Feel free to contact me if you want to try.

LaTeX can be tricky, but it also does *all* the typesetting.  That's the 
idea: you focus on expressing your ideas, let the computer make the 
document.

There are a million templates on the web; you don't even have to learn it 
from scratch.

For one thing, I found beamer (a LaTeX document "class" for making 
presentations) to be *far easier* than LO Presentation, and, although I 
haven't used it in many years, I'm confident that applies to PowerPoint, 
too.  Beamer is a dream.  I made my first beamer in an hour and it was 
completely done, perfect.  No fussing with margins and other minutia.  So 
organized, so sensible, so good looking.  It literally makes some slides 
for you.

I have recommended to other people they try beamer as their first LaTeX 
experience.  Beamer takes your thoughts and makes presentations.  You 
don't have to think about margins or "master" slides.  LaTeX makes PDF 
files (and DVI and PostScript files, to be accurate), not .ppt or .odp. 
But, PDF supports lots of fancy things, today, so you shouldn't consider 
that a hindrance.  LaTeX cannot do all the fancy stuff in PDF, but beamer 
can make simple transitions, for example, so it's not so simple that 
you'll be disappointed, I think.

Plus, if you have used LO Presentation, before, then you know you cannot 
use your .odp file in PowerPoint at a conference or something--it never 
works right.  But you can make PDF work on *any* computer.

Regarding citations/reference, I want to plug Calibre.  Calibre is part of 
most Linux distros, is cross-platform (has Windows client), *and* exports 
bibtex .bib reference files (and many other citation formats).  I used 
this recently.  I just selected the "books" in my library I wanted, and 
exported a .bib file...bingo, my LaTeX paper had a reference list.  I've 
looked into Zotero and it creeps me out.  Go the OSS way, try calibre. 
Calibre is also supposed to work with ebook readers like Nook, Fire, 
Kindle, and Kobo, although I have had trouble with that on Linux.

In UNIX & GNU/Linux, there is more than one way to do everything.

-- 
Paul DeStefano
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Re: [PLUG] Libre Office Writer Version: 5.1.6.2 and curly quotes

[Joe Shisei Niski]

On 08/06/2017 09:21 PM, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Aug 2017 16:40:01 -0700 (PDT)
> Rich Shepard  dijo:
>
>> On Sun, 6 Aug 2017, John Jason Jordan wrote:
>>
>>> I'll disagree with the suggestion to use Lyx, but only because Joe
>>> said that he needed to do college papers. For academic writing today
>>> you are in a world of pain doing citations and the references
>>> section unless you have either Zotero or Mendeley, and both work
>>> only with LO/OO or MS Word.
>> I did not mean to be harsh in my response, but LaTeX/LyX and bibtex (or
>> biblatex) are very heavily used in academia. Take a look at it.
> I suspect that you are out of date. Indeed, those tools still exist and
> they are amazing. But the PSU Department of Applied Linguistics teaches
> graduate students how to use Zotero to create the student's
> bibliographic database and use it to create citations and references
> with Word or Writer. Consider the following workflow and compare it to
> your tools:
>
> 1) I open a web page that contains a book, journal article, or web
> content. At this point Zotero (which is an add-on for Firefox or
> Chrome) adds a little icon to the title bar - a book icon if the work
> is a book, a text icon for articles, etc. I click on the icon and the
> work is automatically added to my database, complete with all the stuff
> needed to create citations and references lists in my word processor
> later. I can do this with any web page that has a work on it, including
> web pages from any library. As it adds the work it pops up a split
> screen in the web browser where the bottom half will display what
> Zotero proposes to add to my database of works. About one time out of
> twenty Zotero messes up slightly and I need to make a minor
> correction, e.g., Zotero thought that 'Joe Blow' was the author of the
> work but in fact he is the editor. Except for such corrections I don't
> have to type a thing, almost completely eliminating typos in my
> citations and references list.
>
> Later as I am writing my paper in Writer I decide to cite Blow's work.
> Zotero has a second add-on for Writer (strangely it is installed in
> Firefox, yet its functions are in Writer). The functions are available
> in a Zotero toolbar, whose leftmost icon is 'Citation.' I click on the
> Citation icon and I get a Zotero popup whose opening page asks me what
> academic style I want. I select APA, and thereafter this question is
> never asked again - the add-on makes this a part of the document. Then
> the popup asks me to select the work I want to cite, displaying a list
> in alphabetical order by author. I select Blow's work and instantly the
> citation appears in my paper, in perfect APA formatting. (There are
> options, e.g., I can add a page number to the citation.)
>
> Finally, as I have finished writing the final paragraph of my paper, as
> a student who understands APA style requirements, I enter a blank line,
> then type and center 'References,' then another blank line. At this
> point I turn to the Zotero toolbar and click on the icon for
> References. Bang! There is my reference list - every work that I have
> cited in the paper, perfectly formatted for APA requirements.
>
> I have used Zotero and Writer to produce dozens of academic papers, and
> I have never found an error in the formatting of the citations or
> references list, nor has any professor.
>
> And additional nicety of Zotero: If I wish I can click on a button on
> the Zotero popup in Firefox and Zotero will copy my entire database to
> their servers. In case my world goes up in flames, I can recover my
> database in minutes. Of course, my database also resides on my own
> computer, buried somewhere in .mozilla.
>
> An additional comment about bibtex. One of our professors had been
> called upon to teach the graduate level class on academic research,
> required for master's degree candidates, his first time teaching the
> class. He asked me about Zotero because he knew I used it, yet he had
> not. In our conversation he said 'apparently no one uses bibtex any
> more, at least not around here.' He added that the department
> guidelines for the class specified instructing the class in Zotero
> and/or Mendeley. I ended up giving a guest lecture to the class on
> Zotero. Some had already used it, most had not, and as I demonstrated
> it there were wide eyes and mouths agape as they realized they need
> never type a references list again.
>
> Oh, and one more thing. I remember being taught in the late 50's that
> if you wished to cite someone you entered a superscript footnote in
> the text, which was to appear at the bottom of the page, something like
> this:
>
>   1. Blow, Joe. Some Work He Wrote, Doubleday, New York, 1958.
>   2. Op cit.
>
> And so on. Today, there may still be an academic style that uses
> footnotes for citations, but I can say that I have not seen such a
> method for citations in a long time. In the APA style we put the
> citation in the