COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Pluggy]

OGFB died yesterday, with SQL errors. I think I've fixed it by restoring a a backup from yesterday.

[Wendyf]

Well done Pluggy. Fingers crossed.

[Wendyf]

The Dialect & Word Meanings Topic has become confused with this one. Chinatyke's post in that topic was the last one before the crash....perhaps the Chinese objected to to his post!

[David Whipp]

Thanks Pluggy...

[chinatyke]

The Dialect & Word Meanings Topic has become confused with this one. Chinatyke's post in that topic was the last one before the crash....perhaps the Chinese objected to to his post!

You could be right, many a true word spoken in jest. There are lots of problems here at the moment caused by the Great Fire Wall of China. This week the city of Nanning is hosting the annual and important China-ASEAN Exposition and trade fair so it may be something to do with security surrounding that event. The OGFB site has just been restored for me (about 8.30 am BST 1918/9/2014) and before that I was getting lots of the SQL errors and tried to report it to Pluggy but kept getting "message undelivered" errors from Hotmail.

I scan my Mac computer regularly and the result shows no infection but who knows? Hope this message doesn't cause any problems.

Anyway, well done Pluggy.

[chinatyke]

Another update from Mozilla Firefox today, version 32.0.2 (Mac). Lightning fast again. Interesting to know there was an automatic update on 13/9/2014 and now I am suspicious that it was the update that caused the problems I have been seeing all week (pages not loading properly) and it was just coincidence that a lot of ASEAN bigwigs are in Nanning this week. Today is the last day of the China ASEAN Expo and the city will get back to normal.

[Tizer]

I'll second David's `Thanks Pluggy' - I was unable to get into any OG posts and my last post in the Computer thread went missing.

[Cathy]

Yes Thanks Pluggy, much appreciated

[Pluggy]

I recovered the daily backup, which had been taken a couple of hours before the site crashed. Posts between the backup and the crash would be lost.

[Stanley]

Main thing is you did good!

[Tizer]

And he doesn't ask for a bonus!

[Stanley]

Had an interesting conversation with Janet about personal monitors that you wear night and day which assess your activity and other parameters which I'm not sure of yet. She is going to send me the package and I shall try it out. As many of you know, Janet is a smart kiddy when it comes to using computers and she reckons that the time will come when we will all be issued with something like this so our GPs will have a better idea of our general health. Early days but this old dinosaur is going to try it out. On a different matter, she was saying that when I die she wants to be able to use my workshop. She did general machining as part of her engineering degree so she has the basics. I've pointed her at the videos on Youtube posted by abom79 who is a bloody good man. The main thing is that she has the urge and it means the workshop will be kept together. It's the result of half a lifetime's experience and collection and you couldn't replace it. And yes, we have no problem talking about death! Life is a terminal disease.....

[Stanley]

Thanks to the people at Canonical. 84mb of new Linux delivered and installed. I haven't the faintest idea what it's all about but I trust them! Wonderfully fast and trouble-free. I remember the old days of Windows updates and very often something changed or went wrong. Not so with Canonical....

[Stanley]

Another 80mb this morning, update on Firefox I think because I never looked, just banged it in as usual....

[Tizer]

BBC web site, 25 September 2014
Shellshock: 'Deadly serious' new vulnerability found
"A "deadly serious" bug potentially affecting hundreds of millions of computers, servers and devices has been discovered. The flaw has been found in a software component known as Bash, which is a part of many Linux systems as well as Apple's Mac operating system. The bug, dubbed Shellshock, can be used to remotely take control of almost any system using Bash, researchers said."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29361794

This sounds like big trouble for those running servers but what does it mean for the likes of folk such as me? The only bit in the press release that seems relevant to me is: "For general home users worried about security, Prof Woodward suggested simply keeping an eye on manufacturer websites for updates - particularly for hardware such as broadband routers."

[Pluggy]

Ubuntu hasn't been patched yet, but I'm confident it will be. The Raspberry Pi's Raspdian OS (very similar to Ubuntu) has been patched already. Its not going to be a problem unless you're running a server with outside world access. By default the desktop versions of Ubuntu don't open any ports to the outside world, so unless you're giving phyical access to your machine to undesirables, its a non event for desktop machines.

[LizG]

You may recall a little while ago I was complaining that when I updated the software on my Kobo e-reader it deleted everything from the disk and that was the end of it. I contacted their Customer Service for help and after quite a few emails back and forth I received this;

" Please Note: Although our Kobo WiFi was a much enjoyed device, we are no longer able to provide updates to support new technology on it. As a result, we will be upgrading your device with a Kobo Touch eReader. "

The new Kobo arrived today - Yeah!!!

I thought that since I complained in public, I should acknowledge that they fixed the problem in public too.

[Stanley]

Did it fix the problem Liz?
4nb of security updates for Ubuntu this morning.... I shall not be losing any sleep. Thanks for the reassurance Pluggy.

[LizG]

The reader they sent was a far later model albeit re-furbished. I sent the faulty one back; we'd had it for about 4 years so it was well and truly out of warranty.

I took their comment to mean that their software upgrade caused the problem (although they didn't exactly say it) and they were accepting responsibility. I've successfully downloaded all my books from the website onto the new reader.

Once my Grandson goes home, and I have time to think, I'll look at loading some e-pub books from my PC.

[Tizer]

Well done, Liz, that sounds like you've made a big step forward for free!

Pluggy, thanks for the assurance about Ubuntu. I thought it would probably be only the servers that were vulnerable but at times like this there's a lot of misinformation flying about. I've just had a security update for `bash', Bourne Again SHell, the software at the centre of the problem - am I right in thinking that Bourne was the name of the software developer?

[Pluggy]

The Bourne Shell, which BASH is drived from was written by a Stephen Bourne in 1977 for Unix. BASH itself was written in 1989 but was popularised by Linux which first saw light of day a couple of years later. The shellshock bug has been in there since conception.

[Stanley]

I saw 'bash' in the list but of course had no idea what it was.....

[Stanley]

Not strictly a computer matter but when I got my big screen I started using the built in speakers on it. Watching videos on Youtube made me realise how bad they were so yesterday I reinstated my separate, powered speakers and got an improvement in clarity and volume.

Update this morning 650kb entitled 'bourne again bash'. It looks as though the lads have sent us a fix for that bug!

[Stanley]

Had a funny glitch yesterday for the first time. I was writing an article and my keyboard started to do repetitions. (RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR) At first I went to worst case, keyboard was obviously giving notice. Then I turned it over and looked in the battery compartment. One battery was cocked up for some reason. Pushed it back down and problem solved. Still can't work out why a bad contact gave repetitions....

[Pluggy]

I'm still convinced having a keyboard and mouse without batteries is a good idea.....