April 2015 - luv-talk

Suspect disk control
by Keith Bainbridge 10 Apr '15

10 Apr '15

Good afternoon all Sorry to ask here, but I can't think how to structure a web search. On my desktop PC after running for say 15 minutes I hear a click, and the disk activity lights up solid for 2/3 seconds. PC also becomes unresponsive. This will repeat every 10/15 minutes. I have tried swapping the disk on to a different SATA output, without any change. I know it is getting old, but it has had little use most of its life. Any suggestions of cause and fix please. Keith Bainbridge Keithrbaugroups(a)gmail.com

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Kogan 4K monitor
by Russell Coker 09 Apr '15

09 Apr '15

https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/kogan-28-ultra-hd-4k-led-monitor/ The price is good but would the monitor be any good? Apparently it's a PITA to get a 4K monitor going but this is a mostly solved problem (according to an LCA2015 lecture). Of course that means it probably won't work on Debian/Wheezy etc, but anyone who's happy to run Debian/Unstable, Rawhide, etc and get a new video card should be able to get this going. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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IEEE VIC: Lilypad Arduino @Monash Thu 17:00, Forum on the Defense Controls Act @Melbourne Fri 16:15
by Rodney Brown 09 Apr '15

09 Apr '15

These may interest LUV members https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/ieee-wie-wearable-electronics-workshop-usin… Wearable Electronics Workshop using the Lilypad Arduino Microcontrollers, organized by IEEE Women in Engineering Victorian affinity group. This workshop is aimed at beginners. ... Thu 9 Apr 17:00-20:00 Monash University, Clayton Campus *The Computer Society Chapter of IEEE Victorian Section and the Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) present:* *The Future of Science & Technology Research under Defence Controls: A Forum on DTCB 2015* */Presented By :/// /Dr Greg Adamson (IEEE SSIT): Introduction// Dr Kevin Korb (Monash): An Overview of DTCA// Dr Carlo Kopp (Monash): An Overview of DSGL// Kris Browne (Dept of Industry): The Chief Scientist’s Steering Group// Tina Mathewson (Defence Explort Controls Organization): DTCA 2012 & 2015// Dr Kevin Korb (Monash): Response to DTCB (Senate submission) // Simon Wolfe (Blueprint for Free Speech): Response to DTCB (Senate submission)/ /Date :/Friday April 10, 2015 /Time : /4:15pm - 5:45pm (Panel Discussion and Audience Participation) /Location :/Alan Gilbert Building G21 (Theater 1), University of Melbourne ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ /Forum Abstract:/// /This forum will first briefly introduce the Defence Trade Controls Act and the amendments newly proposed by Chief Scientist Ian Chubb's Steering Group (DTCB 2015) and how they will impact science and technology research. Speakers representing a variety of viewpoints will respond, followed by a discussion open to the audience./* ... * This is a free event open to the public.*

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External USB drive failing
by Daniel Jitnah 07 Apr '15

07 Apr '15

Hello all, I have a 1TB usb external drive used mostly for backup, and occasionally to run virtual machines stored on it. It is a Lacie Porche model of roughly 3-4 yrs and it has a Hitachi disk drive in it. It has 5 partitions of ~200gGb each. HDSentinel says it has been powered on for 212 days... which could be right, as it not on everyday, and says it is at 100% health status. Since a few days it is consistently remounting in read-only mode when a large file is copied onto it (1gb+ files), meaning the copy fails. Small files do not seem to cause any problem. A CD image iso copies ok. Running fsck shows no errors. But badblocks shows plenty of bad blocks. So far all of the bad blocks seem to be on a single partition with reiserfs. (admittedly I have not checked the disk completely - just that the first 30% of the other partitions (ext4) show no bad blocks, where as the reiserfs one shows badblocks very early in the check. Badblocks checks take a long time - btw, I don't remember why this one partition is reiserfs, and others ext4?) IMHO 212 days is not a lot! Could there be other reasons than "really badblocks" thats causing this problem? I would think that a badblock check is filesystem independent. OR is there any reason why a partition with reiserfs would be particularly prone to developing badblocks? Also any recommendation for a good 1 Tb USB external drive (powered is fine, it does not have to be portable). Cheers Daniel. PS: Lev if you read this, as I recall you bought a similar external drive shortly after I bought mine. Is yours still running good?

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laser printer tip
by Mike 06 Apr '15

06 Apr '15

Mon Apr 06 16:39:42 EST 2015 Hi there, As part of my involvement with a local Mens Shed I get access to a lot of donated/discarded printers (and computers/laptops etc). The laser printers often come from small/medium businesses where it appears that they were used for "left hand side column printing". A favourite software fix for this is to change the orientation of the print by rotating the image 180 degrees. This is easily done in the printer settings in Linux and as the RHS is not used as much as the LHS the resulting image is almost like new if you are using it also for LHS printing... Mike

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