Mi blog lah! Το ιστολόγιό μου

11Apr/074

Firefox shortcuts in Linux on non-us keyboard layout, and Greek

You tried to use the common keyboard shortcuts in the Linux version of Firefox, with a keyboard layout other than us, and you realised they do not work. For example, Ctrl-C does not work when the Greek keyboard layout is active because Firefox receives Ctrl-Ψ (which is undefined).
This is a well-known problem affecting keyboard shortcuts in many languages.
How can someone solve the problem; Should Firefox for Linux be configured so that internally it would consider Ctrl-C and Ctrl-Ψ correspond to the same keyboard shortcut (perhaps in the language pack)? Well, the problem is that one would prefer a solution that is independent of the keyboard layout. You might be running a Greek localisation of Firefox with an active layout for Hindi.
The optimal solution is to have Firefox associate the keyboard shortcuts to physical keys (whatever that means) instead of the characters they are producing. Bug #69230/Mozilla has been there for quite some time although an acceptable solution is available in both GTK+ (GNOME) and OpenOffice.org. For example, in a GNOME application, both Ctrl-C and Ctrl-Ψ are equivalent.
So, what can we do now with the Linux versions of Firefox? Well, it is possible to write a Firefox extension that would intercept keys being pressed in a local layout and convert to the standard keyboard shortcuts Firefox likes.
Such a workaround is available for the Greek language, written by Athanasios Lefteris, at Mozilla και συντομεύσεις πληκτρολογίου σε Linux.
Currently the extension exists in the sandbox of the Mozilla add-ons, meaning that you are required to register (free) and also configure your profile to allow the view of sandboxed extensions (=in early stage of development, about to get accepted). It is desired to to try out the extension and write a short review. This will help to get the extension accepted as official add-on to the masses.

Many thanks to Athanasios!

p.s.
There is an existing Russian version of the extension. It is expected that other languages will follow.

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23Feb/0713

Video playback problems (black) after installing Beryl (or Compiz)

Note: Here we describe a workaround. The proper solution is to fix the graphics drivers and the X.Org X server. Such work is taking place, and for several cases you do not need this workaround. Especially with newer versions of Linux.

You just installed your 3D Linux desktop and you are really enthusiastic about it. But when you try to play some videos, you get a strange black output. What's going on?
The common software video players that come with the Linux desktop are able to display the video stream to several types of output devices. This includes several types of output for the graphical interface, and also obscure output devices such as text mode, using ASCII characters.
The default output device is XVideo (or Xv) for players such as those based on GStreamer (totem) and VLC.
As you guessed, there is a bug with XVideo when using Beryl/Compiz. Therefore, to fix, you need to switch to another output device that works.
For GStreamer players (such as totem, the default movie player in GNOME, Ubuntu and so on), you need to run from the command line the command
gstreamer-properties
(with older distributions such as Ubuntu 6.06 there is an option in System/Preferences for this).
and pick
Video, then for Default Video Plugin choose X Window System (No Xv). Click on test to verify that it actually works. Click Close and you are set.
VLC is not installed by default in Ubuntu 6.10. You need to install manually using the Synaptic Package Manager (under System/Administration), once you have activated the Universe repository in Repositories.
Start VLC and click on Settings, then Preferences. Expand Video and then expand Output modules. You will notice several options for output device. How do we actually choose which one should be the active output device? Well, it appears it's a bit tricky. Select the item Output modules, and notice the checkbox at the bottom right that says Advanced options. Check the box, and now you have the option to select a different output device. Pick X11 video output, click on Save and you are set!

Update (17 Jun 2007): Added section at UbuntuGuide.org, How do I fix black windows during video playback.

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31Oct/060

Downloaded Fedora Core 6 DVD :)

I finished downloading Fedora Core 6 using the Bittorrent protocol in about two days. The download speed was 90Kbps (1Mbps downstream link).

It is interesting to note that quite often, downloading files with Bittorrent does not yield good speeds. One reason could be the traffic shaping that the ISP may implement (not common). Another reason is the operating system places a limit on the number of concurrent half-open connections. This is especially true when there are 2000+ users in the swarm and the download speed is stuck to 0. For example, Windows XP SP2 sets the limit to 10, which makes it slow for your torrent client to pick up the fastest download buddies in the swarm. In other cases, the modem may not be capable to handle several concurrent connections and drops the link.

Are there any other problems?

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5Sep/064

Freenigma (PGP) firefox extension for your GMail

The image “http://www.freenigma.com/img/encrypt.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Freenigma is a Firefox extension that adds PGP support to GMail. You install the Firefox extension and when you are about to write an email in GMail, it rewrites the page code to add the PGP support.

Using public-key cryptography is generally cumbersome when you take in account the management of the public keys of the other people you communicate with, and also keeping around your private key to decrypt the mails you receive. Freenigma, currently at beta, helps alleviate these problems.

I would like to see a security researcher look into the implementation of Freenigma, and especially for any sources of vulnerability.

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6Jul/06Off

Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.06

With Ubuntu Linux 6.06, it is much clear how to install those codecs in order to get broad multimedia file support.

In Ubuntu, the multimedia infrastructure is handled by GStreamer; you install GStreamer plugins and any application that uses GStreamer can immediately benefit from the new codec support.

A typical installation of Ubuntu will bring in the free and open-source codecs by default. This includes the base gstreamer plugins package, gstreamer0.10-plugins-base that covers

  1. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstadder.so
  2. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstaudioconvert.so
  3. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstaudiorate.so
  4. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstaudioresample.so
  5. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstaudiotestsrc.so
  6. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstcdparanoia.so
  7. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdecodebin.so
  8. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstffmpegcolorspace.so
  9. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstogg.so
  10. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstplaybin.so
  11. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstsubparse.so
  12. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttcp.so
  13. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttheora.so
  14. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttypefindfunctions.so
  15. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideo4linux.so
  16. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideorate.so
  17. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoscale.so
  18. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideotestsrc.so
  19. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvolume.so
  20. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvorbis.so

With a properly encoded multimedia file, you can play music or video with subtitles. Such good codecs are Ogg, Vorbis and Theora. You can also rip CDs; cdparanoia is also there.
By default you also get the good package, gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
It contains

  1. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgst1394.so
  2. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstaasink.so
  3. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstalaw.so
  4. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstalpha.so
  5. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstapetag.so
  6. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstavi.so
  7. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstautodetect.so
  8. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstcacasink.so
  9. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstcdio.so
  10. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsteffectv.so
  11. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstgoom.so
  12. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstid3demux.so
  13. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstlevel.so
  14. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstefence.so
  15. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmulaw.so
  16. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstossaudio.so
  17. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstrtp.so
  18. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstrtsp.so
  19. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstsmpte.so
  20. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttaglib.so
  21. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstudp.so
  22. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideobox.so
  23. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoflip.so
  24. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstwavenc.so
  25. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstwavparse.so
  26. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstauparse.so
  27. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdebug.so
  28. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstnavigationtest.so
  29. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstalphacolor.so
  30. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstcairo.so
  31. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstflxdec.so
  32. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmatroska.so
  33. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideomixer.so
  34. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstcutter.so
  35. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmultipart.so
  36. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstflac.so
  37. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstjpeg.so
  38. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstpng.so
  39. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstspeex.so
  40. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstgconfelements.so
  41. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstshout2.so
  42. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideobalance.so
  43. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsticydemux.so
  44. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstximagesrc.so
  45. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstannodex.so
  46. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstgdkpixbuf.so
  47. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsthalelements.so
  48. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdv.so

This includes generic AVI support, access to digital video and Firewire devices, visualisers, the Matroska codec, access to shoutcast servers, the speex audio codec, the flac codec and many more.

At this point, you can install Pitivi, a gstreamer-enabled video editor written in Python that helps you create your own movie. Make sure you install gstreamer0.10-gnonlin which enables non-linear editing in gstreamer.

Up to here you got free and open-source software.

You can continue with more codecs by installing the package gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly. This package is not part of the official Ubuntu distribution; you need to enable the Universe repository. Use System/Administration/Synaptic Package Manager to install these additional packages.
Ugly are the plugins and codecs that may have distribution problems in some countries.

Ugly includes

  1. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsta52dec.so
  2. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstasf.so
  3. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdvdlpcmdec.so
  4. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdvdread.so
  5. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdvdsub.so
  6. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstiec958.so
  7. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmad.so
  8. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmpeg2dec.so
  9. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmpegaudioparse.so
  10. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmpegstream.so
  11. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstrmdemux.so
  12. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstsid.so

This package will bring in, among others, DVD playback and subtitle support, ASF file support, MP3 support (MAD package) and MPEG2 video playback.
You can also get MP3 support if you install the gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 plugin which is available from Universe as well. This package is probably free to use in any country thanks to the efforts of the Fluendo team.

It appears that if you install ugly, it is good to install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg so that you get support for

FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer

This GStreamer plugin supports a large number of audio and video compression
formats through the use of the FFmpeg library. The plugin contains GStreamer
elements for encoding 40+ formats (MPEG, DivX, MPEG4, AC3, DV, ...), decoding
90+ formats (AVI, MPEG, OGG, Matroska, ASF, ...), demuxing 30+ formats, and
colorspace conversion.

Finally, there is a package gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad with plugins of potentially suboptimal quality. It includes

  1. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstbz2.so
  2. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstcdxaparse.so
  3. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdtsdec.so
  4. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstfreeze.so
  5. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstgsm.so
  6. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmms.so
  7. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmodplug.so
  8. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstmusepack.so
  9. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstqtdemux.so
  10. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttrm.so
  11. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstspeed.so
  12. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstswfdec.so
  13. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttta.so
  14. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideo4linux2.so
  15. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstwavpack.so
  16. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstxingheader.so
  17. /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstneonhttpsrc.so

With bad you get GSM audio codec support, MMS support, QT playback support for some formats, Flash (SWF) playing support, Video4Linux2 support, MUSEPACK support and a few more.

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15Jun/060

GNOME: Women’s Summer Outreach Program

Η εικόνα “http://perkypants.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/gnome-wsop.jpg” δεν μπορεί να προβληθεί επειδή περιέχει σφάλματα.

Πρόκειται για το γραφικό περιβάλλον GNOME που θα βρείτε σε διανομές ελεύθερου λογισμικού όπως Ubuntu Linux, Fedora Linux, OpenSUSE και αλλού.

This summer, GNOME will sponsor three female students to hack on GNOME-related projects from the comfort of their own home. Each project will last two months, and each participant will each receive a stipend of 3,000 US$. You can submit your own proposal for how to improve GNOME, or choose from our list of potential projects. You don't need to be the world's greatest coder to take part, since several mentors will be assigned to get you up to speed and help with any problems. If you're worried about whether you're suitable, feel free to ask us what we think.

Πηγή: http://www.gnome.org/projects/wsop/

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9Jun/061

How to easily modify a program in your Ubuntu?

Suppose we want to change the functionality of an Ubuntu application but we do not want to go into all the trouble of finding the source code, installing in /usr/local/, breaking dependencies with original versions and so on.

Let's change Character Map (gucharmap), and specifically change the default font size from 20pt to 14pt, so that when you start it there is more space in the character window. Currently Character Map does not offer an option to save this setting.

We get the source code of Character Map,

# apt-get source gucharmap

Then,

cd gucharmap-1.4.4/

and now we edit the file gucharmap/main.c

We know what to edit because we visited the GNOME CVS Website, at http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gucharmap/

and we examined the logs for the file http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gucharmap/gucharmap/main.c?view=log

which show that for Revision 1.69, the following change took place,

Log: 

2004-02-01  Noah Levitt

* gucharmap/gucharmap-table.c: Improve square size.

* gucharmap/main.c: Increase default font size.

When we click on the link Diff to previous 1.68 of the above page, we pinpoint the change,

version 1.68, Sun Feb 1 03:46:21 2004 UTC version 1.69, Mon Feb 2 00:48:05 2004 UTC
Line 93 main (gint argc, gchar **argv)
Line 93 main (gint argc, gchar **argv)

gint default_size = PANGO_PIXELS (1.5 * pango_font_description_get_size (window->style->font_desc));

gint default_size = PANGO_PIXELS (2.0 * pango_font_description_get_size (window->style->font_desc));

The change in the multiplier (from 1.5 to 2.0) changes the font size from 15pt to 20pt.

20pt is too big for us, therefore we edit the file gucharmap/main.c and change the 2.0 to 1.4 (14pt).
At this point we can compile the package using the command line

$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

dpkg-buildpackage: source package is gucharmap
dpkg-buildpackage: source version is 1:1.4.4-1ubuntu1
dpkg-buildpackage: source changed by Sebastien Bacher
dpkg-buildpackage: host architecture i386
fakeroot debian/rules clean

..........

At this point it is possible that you will get an error that an essential package is missing. The above command line will name the missing files, therefore you can simply install by

# apt-get install package-name

In case you do not have the basic compiler packages, you would need to install the build-essential meta-package. Do

# apt-get install build-essential

Finally, after the dpkg-buildpackage command completes, it will create one or more .deb packages in the directory above gucharmap.

# cd ..

# ls -l *.deb

gucharmap_1.4.4-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

libgucharmap4_1.4.4-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

libgucharmap4-dev_1.4.4-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
#

You can now install them (over the original packages) by running

# dpkg -i gucharmap_1.4.4-1ubuntu1_i386.deb libgucharmap4_1.4.4-1ubuntu1_i386.deb libgucharmap4-dev_1.4.4-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

Now we start the Character Map from Applications/Accessories/ and we get the default character size of 14pt!

Is there something we should pay attention on top of this? Yes, we should investigate the GNOME Bugzilla in case there is relevant work on this issue. We visit

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/

and specifically we click on the link Browse.

There, we select the package gucharmap (how do we know that Character Map is gucharmap? We either click on Help/About in Character Map which shows the internal name, or we run ps ax at a Applications/Accessories/Terminal while Character Map is running; the name gucharmap will pop up at the end of the long list.).

gucharmap is under the Desktop heading in the Browse list; or click on this direct link of bug reports on gucharmap.
If you start perusing the gucharmap bugs list, you will notice Bug #140414, titled remember settings. This report describes a superset of the problem we tried to solve above. That is, the bug report asks to enable Character Map to use the GNOME configuration database (gconf) so that it saves/remembers the user settings. However, this specific bug report is still pending.

The correct way to solve the configuration settings issue of gucharmap is to implement what is described in Bug #140414. If you have Ubuntu 6.06, you most likely have a very recent version of the source code of gucharmap. Therefore, the differences would be rather minimal. You can give it a go and try to get the gconf functionality in place.

You compile, install and test. If it works, you can make a patch of your changes; visit another directory and download a fresh copy of the source code using the apt-get source packagename command. Rename gucharmap-1.4.4 to gucharmap-1.4.4.ORIGINAL

# mv gucharmap-1.4.4 gucharmap-1.4.4.ORIGINAL

and make sure you clean the original gucharmap-1.4.4/ directory from compiled files (enter the directory were you did the source code changes and run make clean).

Finally, create a diff file,

# diff -ur ~/tmp/gucharmap-1.4.4.ORIGINAL ~/gucharmap-1.4.4/ > remember-settings.patch

In ideal terms, it is preferable if you could produce a patch for the latest version of gucharmap. That is, the version of gucharmap you get from http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gucharmap/. By doing so, the developers will love you because they will be able to simply apply the patch and limit the burden of adding the feature. Indeed, if it is too much effort to get a build system running, you can start off with simple patches and if you feel you are doing well with it, make the extra mile to have a build system. More on this in a future post.

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5May/0616

Mydomain sucks!

No, it's not my domain that sucks, it's mydomain.com sucks, a web-hosting company.

Last June I chose mydomain.com to move my website to, as they had a special offer for a domain transfer and webhosting. Since my needs for my Website were specific, I gladly accepted the offer.

Since then, the service was good; I did not have to bother them as everything was working ok and I could find my way with installing software on my site.

It was a Sunday near the end of April that when I tried to access my site, I found that I exceeded my monthly quota. Due to this, my Website gets blocked and any access was replaced with a generic "Blocked" page. This page has ads and makes money over my expense (the referenced links gain from the popularity of my Website when GoogleBot visits).

In one respect it is a compliment to have your Website become popular and exceed its bandwidth. However, before buying more bandwidth, I wanted to make sure when the new month starts and the bandwith is set to zero. Surprisingly, this information was not on the notification. By the way, notifications are not sent to you by e-mail; they are stored on the Web hosting administration pages, so if you do not visit that page you aremore than likely to miss it. At this point I noticed something strange; since my website was blocked, there was additional traffic arriving which was strange. No, the block page was a HTTP redirect to another web server so any traffic would be minimal (200 bytes per hit?). Due to my website being blocked, I was unable to connect with FTP to access my files either.

"No, we use a rolling 30-day period to calculate your monthly bandwidth. Therefore, there is no day after which your bandwith is set to zero", I was told by the customer support. A rolling 30-day period simply means that every morning your bandwidth for the last 30 days is calculated. If it is under the limit, you get access today, else you are blocked. "So, this means that my 30-day bandwidth total will be smaller tomorrow and I may get access?", I recounted. "No, it is actually possible that the bandwidth may increase and you will still be blocked", he explained. "Can you tell me the daily bandwidth consumption for the last few days?", I insisted. "No, we do not keep daily bandwidth consumption.", he fired back. I don't want to be pushy here, as a web hosting company you need to keep daily bandwidth consumption if you want to use the rolling 30-day period system; you need to know the bandwidth of the oldest day so that you take it off when a new day gets completed.
The following days had this pattern; I would see in the administrative pages of mydomain that the "Bandwidth Used this month" was increasing steadily. I would call the customer support and try to explain that this rolling 30-day period is not working. And no, I do not want to upgrade my bandwidth because something is wrong with your systems.

It is quite funny how ridiculous the situation became. The customer support would not accept that there is a problem with their system. They tried to be polite and professional but it did not work well. I got the "Oh, it's you again" attitude and at some point I heard laughter in the background. Imagine this family conversation at bedtime, "Darling, how was job today?" "We had this crazy customer telling us we don't know how to do our job".

The customer support telephone number is 360-253-2210 which is in Vancouver, WA (US). And it was not outsourced to another country. The customer support explained that the web hosting business is in the same building as well.
Eventually they realised that I might have a point and they promised to investigate. They would send an e-mail to me about it. The next day comes and there was no e-mail (I never received an e-mail). However, my website was up and running. The administrative pages showed that I was given some extra bandwidth. On the other hand, the 30-day bandwidth value never decreased but kept increasing steadily. The access to my website was really good for me as I managed to back up every single bit of my files (and mysql database!). In addition, I grabbed a copy of the log files (the log files of the last 30 days, each day as an individual file).
I enjoyed the extra bandwidth bonanza for a while and when I was blocked again, I got back on the phone. "Bandwidth keeps increasing very quickly, and btw, I wrote a script that parses the log files and shows a substantial discrepancy between MY values and YOUR values", I started. "Sir, you need to upgrade your bandwidth or change hosting plan" he repeated. Somehow I was not suggested this time to wait for my bandwidth to drop.

Eventually I managed to get them to admit that the system that checks the bandwidth is faulty,

"There does seem to be an issue with the bandwidth meter that is being looked into. Unfortuantely we do not have an eta (sic) as to when it will be fixed. We can go ahead and give you another 100mb of disk (sic) space at no charge, or you are more then welcome to upgrade to oen (sic) of our new hosting packages. Please let us know what you would like us to do. Thank you."

As a customer I am not happy with this resolution. My monthly bandwidth is below the hosting plan limit so I should get full service. However, MyDomain does not acknowledge that.

I was quite happy to get the initial offer for a domain name and web hosting bundle last year. I would not mind to keep my webhosting there for the next year. However, this attitude is unacceptable.
We are in May now and I have already moved to a new webhosting company. This is a small company and there is a person behind it that you can contact and have a conversation. The Web hosting features are much more advanced and I have full access to all the features. I'll write about this in a few weeks (if I encountered a problem or all are well). If you are on the technical side, you can find which company it is.

I just checked the mydomain bandwidth quota. Obviously it is not increasing anymore (I moved away from them) but it did not drop a tiny bit.
The customer support number 360-253-2210 corresponds to several companies, namely Dotster, Hostlane, 000domains, SignatureDomains, and NameZero, to name a few. That is, it looks that all these companies are the same with different fronts so that they capture more customers. Therefore, be prepared when calling their customer support number.

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3May/060

ISO/IEC 26300

The OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard has now been adopted by ISO/IEC!

Washington, DC - The OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance), a broad cross-section of associations, academic institutions and industry dedicated to solving the problem of improving access and retrieval of electronic government documents, today congratulated the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for its sweeping approval of the OpenDocument Format as an international standard.

"Approval of the OpenDocument Format by ISO marks an important milestone in the effort to help governments solve the very real problem of finding a better way to preserve, access and control their documents now and in the future," said Marino Marcich, Executive Director of the ODF Alliance. "There's no doubt that this broad vote of support will serve as a springboard for adoption and use of ODF around the world. At the same time, it also represents a milestone for the ODF Alliance, which in just weeks has seen a groundswell of support and continues to grow everyday."

Source: ODF Alliance Press release

For more on the background of this development, see the Consortium Info Blog.

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1May/060

Back online!

After two weeks of webhosting problems, we are back online with a new webhosting company.
Setting up the blog again was very easy; it took less than 20 minutes.

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11Mar/060

“Proposal for additional QA and localisation time on Dapper”

Mark Shuttleworth sent an e-mail titled Proposal for additional QA and localisation time on Dapper to request a six-week delay for the release of the next version of Ubuntu Linux.

meeting on Tuesday 14th March - once at 09:00 UTC (for the Aussies and Asian communities) and then again at 18:00 UTC (for Europe and the Americas). The meetings will be in #ubuntu-meeting on irc.freenode.net.

That is at 11:00am and 20:00pm local Greek time respectively. Try to make it on IRC this Tuesday!

If the delay for the release of Ubuntu 6.04 (now 6.05?) passes, it would create a perfect opportunity to make sure that Ubuntu 6.04 will work out of the box for the Greek users.

Therefore, please install Ubuntu Dapper (Flight 5 is currently the latest) and check to see if it works out of the box for tasks that relate to the Greek language. To search for existing bug reports or file new ones, use Launchpad. You can register and setup your account which will help you to follow bug reports for the Greek language. There are groups that you may join to, Ubuntu Greek Testers, Ubuntu Greek Users and Ubuntu Greek Translators. In addition, there is a mailing list with a vibrant community to help fix problems in Ubuntu for the Greek language, Ubuntu Greek mailing list. Join up and see the list archives for the discussions that took place.

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21May/04Off

Έχετε συναντήσει το παρακάτω πρόβλημα σε Firebird/Mozilla;

Μερικές σελίδες δεν εμφανίζονται σωστά. Πρέπει να επιλέξετε ανανέωση σελίδας και το πρόβλημα λύνετε. Δείτε το παρακάτω παράδειγμα.

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