From leigh.sharpe at gmail.com Wed Dec 1 02:29:10 2010 From: leigh.sharpe at gmail.com (Leigh Sharpe) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 21:29:10 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations Message-ID: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> Hi All, I'm using Config::Simple to retrieve configuration options from an external file. One of the configuration options is a password, but I'm really not keen on having a password in plain-text in a config file. Just setting the config file to be non-world-readable isn't really adequate. Can anybody suggest a way of obfuscating the password in the config file, and being able to retrieve it in my program? Leigh. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddick at iinet.net.au Wed Dec 1 03:58:57 2010 From: ddick at iinet.net.au (David Dick) Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:58:57 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> References: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> Message-ID: <4CF63881.7060406@iinet.net.au> On 01/12/10 21:29, Leigh Sharpe wrote: > Hi All, > I'm using Config::Simple to retrieve configuration options from an > external file. One of the configuration options is a password, but I'm > really not keen on having a password in plain-text in a config file. > Just setting the config file to be non-world-readable isn't really > adequate. Can anybody suggest a way of obfuscating the password in the > config file, and being able to retrieve it in my program? I think it has to come down to the question of what you are trying to defend against. If you are trying to protect the password against a determined attacker with a local account on the machine, i cannot think of a way. Obfuscation ain't much of a hope against a determined attack. If you are trying to help a sys-admin not know the passwords just b/c they _have_ to look at the config file, would padding and base64 encoding be acceptable? From the above, it sounds like you are trying to protect against a user that already has an account on the machine in question, which would have to raise the possiblity of the attacker obtaining root access via a privilege escalation attack and owning the box anyway. The only other way that i could think of is encrypting the password with a variable (like the account password) that only the allowed user knows. That way, the complete secret is not stored on the filesystem. However, even then, with a hostile local (probably soon to be root) user, i don't think you could be confident that your secret will stay secret for long. From sam at nipl.net Wed Dec 1 06:36:10 2010 From: sam at nipl.net (Sam Watkins) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 01:36:10 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> References: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> Message-ID: <20101201143610.GE31430@opal.ai.ki> On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 09:29:10PM +1100, Leigh Sharpe wrote: > Hi All, > I'm using Config::Simple to retrieve configuration options from an external file. One of the configuration options is a password, but I'm really not keen on having a password in plain-text in a config file. Just setting the config file to be non-world-readable isn't really adequate. Can anybody suggest a way of obfuscating the password in the config file, and being able to retrieve it in my program? Ok, I was silly enough to implement some sort of password encryption / decryption thing in perl. It uses a 20-byte secret, which shouldn't go in the same config file, random salt, sha1, XOR and base64 encoding. I think this would deter casual inspection at least, and it would be extremely hard to break without the secret... unless I've made some stupid mistake! A limitation is that the password may not be more than 20 characters long. One might encrypt longer passwords in < 20 character sections. You could use this or similar to send encrypted passwords to users, e.g. in a web cookie, keeping the secret hidden from them on a server. http://sam.ai.ki/secret.pl I guess this is probably overkill for your needs. Sam From shlomif at iglu.org.il Wed Dec 1 06:50:49 2010 From: shlomif at iglu.org.il (Shlomi Fish) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 16:50:49 +0200 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations Message-ID: <201012011650.50254.shlomif@iglu.org.il> On Wednesday 01 December 2010 12:29:10 Leigh Sharpe wrote: > Hi All, > I'm using Config::Simple to retrieve configuration options from an > external file. One of the configuration options is a password, but I'm > really not keen on having a password in plain-text in a config file. Just > setting the config file to be non-world-readable isn't really adequate. > Can anybody suggest a way of obfuscating the password in the config file, > and being able to retrieve it in my program? > First of all read this: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral- bazaar/ar01s09.html (sorry for the broken URL.) Reading from it: [quote] Another lesson is about security by obscurity. Some fetchmail users asked me to change the software to store passwords encrypted in the rc file, so snoopers wouldn't be able to casually see them. I didn't do it, because this doesn't actually add protection. Anyone who's acquired permissions to read your rc file will be able to run fetchmail as you anyway?and if it's your password they're after, they'd be able to rip the necessary decoder out of the fetchmail code itself to get it. All .fetchmailrc password encryption would have done is give a false sense of security to people who don't think very hard. The general rule here is: 17. A security system is only as secure as its secret. Beware of pseudo- secrets. [/quote] Now if that's still what you want, you can have the password encyrpted with a key before being stored in the configuration file and then decrypted upon loading. You can do it with the bitwise xor operator ("^") with a long enough key, or perhaps use something like http://search.cpan.org/dist/Crypt-Blowfish/ . Either way, people who have access to your source code will be able to tell what your password is. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ My Aphorisms - http://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html She's a hot chick. But she smokes. She can smoke as long as she's smokin'. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . From scottp at dd.com.au Wed Dec 1 13:14:45 2010 From: scottp at dd.com.au (Scott Penrose) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 08:14:45 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <201012011650.50254.shlomif@iglu.org.il> References: <201012011650.50254.shlomif@iglu.org.il> Message-ID: On 02/12/2010, at 1:50 AM, Shlomi Fish wrote: > I didn't do it, because this doesn't actually add protection. Anyone who's > acquired permissions to read your rc file will be able to run fetchmail as you > anyway?and if it's your password they're after, they'd be able to rip the > necessary decoder out of the fetchmail code itself to get it. This is 100% correct, and yet completely wrong. Some real world examples are: * Fake or even Real Video cameras. They act as a deterrent * Deadlocks on your house, when you have windows The down side of encrypting (and really, it is just obfuscating in this case) your password is you may get a false sense of security, e.g. you might post it on the net in a forum an example of config. The upside of encrypting (obfuscating) is that it protects against accidental finding. Subversion, GIT and many other command line tools in unix obfuscate their passwords. These are mature projects who have thought about the issues. (mind you they have also covered the security too, by recommending things like SSH keys). If you were running a simple disk scan, or helping someone manage disk issue/disk space, you won't be accidentally giving away your passwords. So yes... think... NO EXTRA SECURITY. Just Obfuscation. But even obfuscation has its place. Scott From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Wed Dec 1 17:11:31 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:11:31 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] AI contest Message-ID: <4CF6F243.4090303@strategicdata.com.au> Hey guys, The AI Contest is over for this year. The winner was bocsimacko, written in Lisp. This thread has some people discussing their methods, in case you're curious.. I haven't read far enough to see if bocsimacko tells all.. http://ai-contest.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1168 From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Wed Dec 1 17:19:41 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:19:41 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] AI contest In-Reply-To: <4CF6F243.4090303@strategicdata.com.au> References: <4CF6F243.4090303@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: <4CF6F42D.6020806@strategicdata.com.au> On 02/12/10 12:11, Toby Corkindale wrote: > Hey guys, > The AI Contest is over for this year. > The winner was bocsimacko, written in Lisp. > > This thread has some people discussing their methods, in case you're > curious.. I haven't read far enough to see if bocsimacko tells all.. > > http://ai-contest.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1168 The winning bot's source code: http://quotenil.com/git/?p=planet-wars.git From shlomif at iglu.org.il Thu Dec 2 02:40:32 2010 From: shlomif at iglu.org.il (Shlomi Fish) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 12:40:32 +0200 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: References: <201012011650.50254.shlomif@iglu.org.il> Message-ID: <201012021240.32772.shlomif@iglu.org.il> On Wednesday 01 December 2010 23:14:45 Scott Penrose wrote: > On 02/12/2010, at 1:50 AM, Shlomi Fish wrote: > > I didn't do it, because this doesn't actually add protection. Anyone > > who's acquired permissions to read your rc file will be able to run > > fetchmail as you anyway?and if it's your password they're after, they'd > > be able to rip the necessary decoder out of the fetchmail code itself to > > get it. > > This is 100% correct, and yet completely wrong. > > Some real world examples are: > > * Fake or even Real Video cameras. They act as a deterrent > * Deadlocks on your house, when you have windows > > The down side of encrypting (and really, it is just obfuscating in this > case) your password is you may get a false sense of security, e.g. you > might post it on the net in a forum an example of config. > > The upside of encrypting (obfuscating) is that it protects against > accidental finding. > > Subversion, GIT and many other command line tools in unix obfuscate their > passwords. These are mature projects who have thought about the issues. > (mind you they have also covered the security too, by recommending things > like SSH keys). How do you know that they do that? Please cite it. I've looked into the contents of ~/.subversion/auth/svn.simple/ and the passwords are stored there in plaintext, completely unencrypted. Note that Subversion has an option to use the KDE or GNOME password managers, which is more secure (but possibly less convenient). Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ What does "Zionism" mean? - http://shlom.in/def-zionism She's a hot chick. But she smokes. She can smoke as long as she's smokin'. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . From scottp at dd.com.au Thu Dec 2 03:11:58 2010 From: scottp at dd.com.au (Scott Penrose) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 22:11:58 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <201012021240.32772.shlomif@iglu.org.il> References: <201012011650.50254.shlomif@iglu.org.il> <201012021240.32772.shlomif@iglu.org.il> Message-ID: <1D5B8D99-F1AD-45FD-8207-6D3FCAC833F0@dd.com.au> On 02/12/2010, at 9:40 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote: > How do you know that they do that? Please cite it. I've looked into the > contents of ~/.subversion/auth/svn.simple/ and the passwords are stored there > in plaintext, completely unencrypted. Note that Subversion has an option to > use the KDE or GNOME password managers, which is more secure (but possibly > less convenient). You are correct - I was wrong about Subversion. CVS did it, but SVN does not. Some other examples that do it: * Opera * IE * Firefox That last one I wasn't sure on, but sure enough it does. Obviously you can easily unencrypt in the browser :-) My viewing of my apps shows me that more applications do obfuscate than not. I did a search for my common passwords across my system, and did not find too many cases. Scott From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Thu Dec 2 16:17:13 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:17:13 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <20101201143610.GE31430@opal.ai.ki> References: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> <20101201143610.GE31430@opal.ai.ki> Message-ID: <4CF83709.9010302@strategicdata.com.au> On 02/12/10 01:36, Sam Watkins wrote: > On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 09:29:10PM +1100, Leigh Sharpe wrote: >> Hi All, >> I'm using Config::Simple to retrieve configuration options from an external file. One of the configuration options is a password, but I'm really not keen on having a password in plain-text in a config file. Just setting the config file to be non-world-readable isn't really adequate. Can anybody suggest a way of obfuscating the password in the config file, and being able to retrieve it in my program? > > > Ok, I was silly enough to implement some sort of password encryption / > decryption thing in perl. It uses a 20-byte secret, which shouldn't go in the > same config file, random salt, sha1, XOR and base64 encoding. I think this > would deter casual inspection at least, and it would be extremely hard to break > without the secret... unless I've made some stupid mistake! Well, the script you link 404s when I try to download it.. > A limitation is that the password may not be more than 20 characters long. > One might encrypt longer passwords in< 20 character sections. > > You could use this or similar to send encrypted passwords to users, e.g. in a > web cookie, keeping the secret hidden from them on a server. > > http://sam.ai.ki/secret.pl > > I guess this is probably overkill for your needs. I recommend that people use established crypto libraries when they need crypto. It's harder to get this stuff right than you might think.. and these other libraries have *already been written*, so you can be lazy AND secure at the same time! :D For eg: Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA Crypt::CBC However for the case in question - encrypting passwords in config files - can I just point out: What's to stop an attacker editing your Perl program, finding a point after the config is loaded and decrypted, and just inserting: say "The decrypted password is: " . $self->config->password; Toby From sam at nipl.net Thu Dec 2 18:13:51 2010 From: sam at nipl.net (Sam Watkins) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 13:13:51 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <4CF83709.9010302@strategicdata.com.au> References: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> <20101201143610.GE31430@opal.ai.ki> <4CF83709.9010302@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: <20101203021351.GB23479@opal.ai.ki> Sam Watkins wrote: > Ok, I was silly enough to implement some sort of password encryption / > decryption thing in perl. It uses a 20-byte secret, which shouldn't go in the > same config file, random salt, sha1, XOR and base64 encoding. I think this > would deter casual inspection at least, and it would be extremely hard to break > without the secret... unless I've made some stupid mistake! Toby Corkindale wrote: > Well, the script you link 404s when I try to download it.. whoops, sorry about that, fixed now. http://sam.ai.ki/secret.pl > I recommend that people use established crypto libraries when they need > crypto. It's harder to get this stuff right than you might think.. On the other hand, the people who write / hack the established crypto libraries make mistakes too (e.g. the Debian openssl / ssh fiasco): http://www.halon.org.uk/stuff/debianpwnie.jpg http://loldebian.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/pony-small1.png http://pwnies.com/archive/2008/winners/#fail Also, there more 'known exploits' for established crypto libraries than for my home-brew bogus crypto.. but that might change if anyone looked into it! > What's to stop an attacker editing your Perl program > say "The decrypted password is: " . $self->config->password; Absolutely, in that context it's only an obfuscation, just a little harder to decode than base64. It's more useful if attackers can't see the key, e.g. to encrypt web cookies. Alternatively, the key might be stored only in the RAM of a running process, and the attacker would then have to snoop through memory hunting for it (or search directly for the decrypted password), or run a debugger / tracer... Better to lightly obfuscate the passwords and protect the root account! but to achieve this it would mean not using Linux I guess; at any one time there may be several local root exploits, and several remote code execution exploits in common web services. I guess people should use Plan 9 or OpenBSD if they actually want to have secure servers. But I'm not an exploit expert, and I use Debian GNU/Linux for my servers. Sam From daniel at rimspace.net Thu Dec 2 19:43:07 2010 From: daniel at rimspace.net (Daniel Pittman) Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:43:07 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Obfuscating passwords in configurations In-Reply-To: <4CF83709.9010302@strategicdata.com.au> (Toby Corkindale's message of "Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:17:13 +1100") References: <427E99398D774610BDB95960F032B073@ROMULUS> <20101201143610.GE31430@opal.ai.ki> <4CF83709.9010302@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: Toby Corkindale writes: [...] > I recommend that people use established crypto libraries when they need > crypto. It's harder to get this stuff right than you might think.. and these > other libraries have *already been written*, so you can be lazy AND secure > at the same time! :D > > For eg: > Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA > Crypt::CBC FWIW, if you are using those you are probably *still* working at way too low a level in your design: those are solid cryptographic primitives, but there are millions of ways to screw those up. For example, RSA falls terribly if you don't have random padding or ignore problems with it; DSA fails if you reuse a nonce; many encrypted cookie schemes are vulnerable to oracle attacks that allow recovery of the key; a bunch of chaining modes are vulnerable if you reuse output, others if you reuse the IV. Note: CBC is specifically vulnerable to an oracle attack if you HMAC then encrypt, and have detectably different failure modes. Which are vulnerable to real remote timing analysis over the Internet. You really want to be picking up an existing, well designed and well tested cryptographic protocol, and using a standard implementation of it. Use HMAC rather than inventing your own or using a keyed hash; encrypt-then-MAC rather than the reverse. The best practice would be to use SSL/TLS, and GPG for encryption; if you need a library then pick up Gutmann's cryptlib[1], GPGME, or Keyczar: http://search.cpan.org/~flora/Crypt-GpgME-0.09/ http://search.cpan.org/~alvarol/PerlCryptLib-1.11/ http://search.cpan.org/~oyama/Crypt-Keyczar-0.06/ That also saves you one other huge risk of cryptography: thinking that, by and large, it actually matters worth a tinkers damn for your application. For most applications there are way more interesting risks that it provides practically no protection against. Just grab an existing, very high level solution, use that, and address your time to solving real problems like security against other vectors. Daniel Footnotes: [1] ...which is commercial. -- ? Daniel Pittman ? daniel at rimspace.net ? +61 401 155 707 ? made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons From jarich at perltraining.com.au Sun Dec 5 16:53:30 2010 From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:53:30 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melb UG xmas bash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4CFC340A.7040906@perltraining.com.au> G'day folk, We're all invited to join the Melbourne User Group XMas Bash from 6:30pm on Monday 13th December at the Lounge, First floor, 243 Swanston Street. As far as I understand, the PHP UG and several other UGs have been invited, so it should be a good crowd. All the best, Jacinta From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Sun Dec 5 16:56:41 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:56:41 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> On 17/11/10 11:53, Toby Corkindale wrote: > Greetings Perl Mongers! > > The next Melbourne Perl Mongers meeting will be on December the 8th at > 6:30pm. > > Since it will be December, I wondered if we'd like to do anything > different for the "xmas meet"? Well, the next meet is due to be the 8th, this wednesday. I haven't had any replies for suggestions for it. Are people interested in having a pub-only social meet, or should we just combine with the general Melbourne User Group meet-up that Jacinta mentioned? -Toby From sgc294 at internode.on.net Sun Dec 5 17:12:30 2010 From: sgc294 at internode.on.net (Andrew) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:12:30 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> On 06/12/10 11:56, Toby Corkindale wrote: > On 17/11/10 11:53, Toby Corkindale wrote: >> Greetings Perl Mongers! >> >> The next Melbourne Perl Mongers meeting will be on December the 8th at >> 6:30pm. >> >> Since it will be December, I wondered if we'd like to do anything >> different for the "xmas meet"? > > Well, the next meet is due to be the 8th, this wednesday. I haven't > had any replies for suggestions for it. > > Are people interested in having a pub-only social meet, or should we > just combine with the general Melbourne User Group meet-up that > Jacinta mentioned? > > > -Toby > ______________ As I cannot attend the Melb User Group meet-up on the 13th, I'm all for a meeting on the 8th. Pub-only, sounds good. I think that is what the December meeting has been in the past. Cheers Andrew From jdthornton at ozemail.com.au Sun Dec 5 20:21:48 2010 From: jdthornton at ozemail.com.au (john thornton) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:21:48 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] looking for script to save weeks of slogwork Message-ID: <4CFC64DC.8070409@ozemail.com.au> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello I don't know if this is done in python,perl or what the blazes. Let me explain. I am a student at a college. It has a forum whose adminstator has agreed to my request, as a student, to give PM privileges to all students. Now, since all students get automatic status on the forum, virtue of their student number, the admin has told me this: I have been following up on the Private Messaging permissions for all students as I think it is a valuable function for students to use. It looks as though we will have to manually give individual students permission to send PMs to each other. With thousands of students registered as users on the forums, this is not a small task. We will start with the top 200 or so users who frequently use the forums and go on from there. ****** Now, instead of this slogwork is there any script that could do it quickly? A python script? php?perl? I don't know what the technology behind the forum is. I could ask if that will help people here advise me. But for now I am trying to keep my question uncluttered and simple. It does seem to me to be a task that a lot of forums would be faced with. Any help will be appreciated. If someone were to write a script I cannot pay you anything; but I could give you acknowledgements on the forum. Thank you Andrew -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJM/GTcAAoJEHBYxueRMf9HNHYH+gMmZts0TKOdWmU/I+imCpPK CAaYntnHvzpZ6n1YgIt2gE2kv+N53jjqLZuInQnS2x6y5mFDtwYMPYg8tT4ElbBx HYG7BVj6wF6GEjq4F6rs4GlqTv5zFvn8cKLZIoLzmigkcwEChve6a9b8f3qpERGh iB7NPZPF5iQsth1R+wPVhZdifk1xlxKR7axOekBCcXBHMkyOs7R77iM0zfpbg+lI RgFs0FQjpJuByw358j+UeWz61Ajz6fBUN32brwvw/dqO2KOZkw0BCVQFO1UEguYE i4cJQMa9kegiro1on67kZzjEJamy7EU7+LNtRdrAtgy43Ht9O3oA1665t63wnHQ= =zcE7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From daniel at rimspace.net Sun Dec 5 20:27:27 2010 From: daniel at rimspace.net (Daniel Pittman) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 15:27:27 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] looking for script to save weeks of slogwork In-Reply-To: <4CFC64DC.8070409@ozemail.com.au> References: <4CFC64DC.8070409@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 15:21, john thornton wrote: > I don't know if this is done in python,perl or what the blazes. Let me > explain. > > I am a student at a college. It has a forum whose adminstator has agreed to > my request, as a student, to give PM privileges to all students. Now, since > all students get automatic status on the forum, virtue of their student > number, the admin has told me this: > > > I have been following up on the Private Messaging permissions for all > students as I think it is a valuable function for students to use. It looks > as though we will have to manually give individual students permission to > send PMs to each other. With thousands of students registered as users on > the forums, this is not a small task. We will start with the top 200 or so > users who frequently use the forums and go on from there. > > Now, instead of this slogwork is there any script that could do it quickly? > A python script? php?perl? I don't know what the technology behind the forum > is. I could ask if that will help people here advise me. But for now I am > trying to keep my question uncluttered and simple. It does seem to me to be > a task that a lot of forums would be faced with. This should actually be absolutely trivial: the forum will use something to store the user details in, probably an SQL database. When you grant the private message feature to a student it will alter something in that database to record that fact; if you identify what that is and all you can then direct change that setting in the database using whatever SQL administrative tools you have available. That should sort you out in short order; I would guess that it would be one, maybe two, SQL statements tops. Even without that, though, knowing where the data was stored and what the forum software was would be a big help. Regards, Daniel -- Daniel Pittman ? ? ? ? ? ? daniel at rimspace.net ? ? ? ? ? ? +61 401 155 707 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Sun Dec 5 20:30:23 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:30:23 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] looking for script to save weeks of slogwork In-Reply-To: <4CFC64DC.8070409@ozemail.com.au> References: <4CFC64DC.8070409@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <4CFC66DF.8000705@strategicdata.com.au> On 06/12/10 15:21, john thornton wrote: > Hello > I don't know if this is done in python,perl or what the > blazes. Let me explain. > > I am a student at a college. It has a forum whose > adminstator has agreed to my request, as a student, to give PM > privileges to all students. Now, since all students get automatic status > on the forum, virtue of their student number, the admin has told me this: > > > > I have been following up on the Private Messaging permissions for all > students as I think it is a valuable function for students to use. It looks > as though we will have to manually give individual students permission to > send PMs to each other. With thousands of students registered as users on > the forums, this is not a small task. We will start with the top 200 or so > users who frequently use the forums and go on from there. > > > ****** > > Now, instead of this slogwork is there any script that could do > it quickly? A python script? php?perl? I don't know what the technology > behind the forum is. I could ask if that will help people here advise > me. But for now I am trying to keep my question uncluttered and simple. > It does seem to me to be a task that a lot of forums would be faced with. Your forum will have a database back-end; just log into that and write an SQL query. eg. UPDATE users SET private_messaging_enabled = true; From alfiejohn at gmail.com Mon Dec 6 03:23:26 2010 From: alfiejohn at gmail.com (Alfie John) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 22:23:26 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Andrew wrote: > > As I cannot attend the Melb User Group meet-up on the 13th, I'm all for a > meeting on the 8th. > Pub-only, sounds good. I think that is what the December meeting has been > in the past. > Same here. Which pub? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sgc294 at internode.on.net Mon Dec 6 15:31:00 2010 From: sgc294 at internode.on.net (Andrew) Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:31:00 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> Message-ID: <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> On 06/12/10 22:23, Alfie John wrote: > On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Andrew > wrote: > > > As I cannot attend the Melb User Group meet-up on the 13th, I'm > all for a meeting on the 8th. > Pub-only, sounds good. I think that is what the December meeting > has been in the past. > > > Same here. Which pub? How about here? 6:30pm Portland Hotel (Public Bar) Corner Lt Collins & Russell Sts Melbourne I think we met there once before. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sam at nipl.net Mon Dec 6 17:46:55 2010 From: sam at nipl.net (Sam Watkins) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 12:46:55 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Videos from OSDC 2010 Message-ID: <20101207014655.GF2945@opal.ai.ki> hi, I prepared a torrent containing the 58 presentation videos from the recent Open Source Developers' Conference. There are 33 hours of xvid video, it will fit on a DVD-R and the quality is decent. The quality of the talks was good too! http://sam.ai.ki/OSDC-2010.torrent You can see the programme of talks here: http://2010.osdc.com.au/programme ... but their DNS is down, so try: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2010.osdc.com.au/programme Please help seed the torrent, so people can download at a reasonable speed. Most bittorrent clients allow you to choose which files to download, if you don't want them all. If you really can't use bittorrent, you can download the files from my server. But I do prefer if you use bittorrent, and it will download faster too! wget -r -c http://hu.nipl.net/OSDC-2010/ I'm also happy to post physical DVDs, just send me your name and address. The videos are also available for streaming and download at: http://osdc.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc ( osdc.blip.tv ) The files on blip.tv are much larger. Sam From alfiejohn at gmail.com Tue Dec 7 01:04:14 2010 From: alfiejohn at gmail.com (Alfie John) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 20:04:14 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Andrew wrote: > How about here? > > 6:30pm > Portland Hotel (Public Bar) > Corner Lt Collins & Russell Sts > Melbourne > Unless anyone says otherwise, Portland Hotel it is. See you guys tomorrow night. Alfie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdthornton at ozemail.com.au Tue Dec 7 12:51:34 2010 From: jdthornton at ozemail.com.au (john thornton) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 07:51:34 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC bittorrent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4CFE9E56.2040103@ozemail.com.au> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hmmm...wonder if iinet [my ISP] is throttling bittorrent. Both times - last night and now - I have tried to bittorrent download the OSDC full set of talks I get a good speed for awhile and then I am slowed won to dial up speed. [I use ADSL 2+]. Andrew -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJM/p5WAAoJEHBYxueRMf9H5NAH/0Oo8JJcURxNXVJLEgvLci9z 509UNfsMHvsHwKMk5NulMIEdhUSf+/SuxzaKR/f6HbGs8MKzyGsi1fTtRR9rPZn3 RbtwRyF0SwS2z+tk5vZzYdbxhztvWkUwjlyiSo4kaZgrgVIUzXWOtRAdBQX/Eo1u TNVFJbCWcWN7bgxObUemHlAM2cqcauFweFed2P857N+VAPzPEU+1JRa7eKRNtdar ol4oHLVQ8PPdaM6nGKCiZPj1NNcpDcEZmcDKFBcSYem+g+NPLADpTdUGMCV8l+Ti eMVCLIHBCOQcxSo5oKnkHzYwGMTmAnlD+ORuMPHuOa9WFYI0NtJTAjKqApLH/Ow= =qhMv -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From adrian.muhrer at rea-group.com Tue Dec 7 14:29:25 2010 From: adrian.muhrer at rea-group.com (Adrian Muhrer) Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 14:29:25 -0800 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC bittorrent Message-ID: <13E2D467-7453-4AAA-8E7D-6F5989A143D6@rea-group.com> IInteresting (sorry I couldn't help it) I have the same ISP and I seem I notice more frequent dc's (at my router) when torenting. The throughput is okay but it drops a lot Sent from my HTC ----- Reply message ----- From: "john thornton" To: "melbourne-pm at pm.org" Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC bittorrent Date: Wed, Dec 8, 2010 07:53 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hmmm...wonder if iinet [my ISP] is throttling bittorrent. Both times - last night and now - I have tried to bittorrent download the OSDC full set of talks I get a good speed for awhile and then I am slowed won to dial up speed. [I use ADSL 2+]. Andrew -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJM/p5WAAoJEHBYxueRMf9H5NAH/0Oo8JJcURxNXVJLEgvLci9z 509UNfsMHvsHwKMk5NulMIEdhUSf+/SuxzaKR/f6HbGs8MKzyGsi1fTtRR9rPZn3 RbtwRyF0SwS2z+tk5vZzYdbxhztvWkUwjlyiSo4kaZgrgVIUzXWOtRAdBQX/Eo1u TNVFJbCWcWN7bgxObUemHlAM2cqcauFweFed2P857N+VAPzPEU+1JRa7eKRNtdar ol4oHLVQ8PPdaM6nGKCiZPj1NNcpDcEZmcDKFBcSYem+g+NPLADpTdUGMCV8l+Ti eMVCLIHBCOQcxSo5oKnkHzYwGMTmAnlD+ORuMPHuOa9WFYI0NtJTAjKqApLH/Ow= =qhMv -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Melbourne-pm mailing list Melbourne-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tjc at wintrmute.net Tue Dec 7 16:09:36 2010 From: tjc at wintrmute.net (Toby Wintermute) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 11:09:36 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC bittorrent In-Reply-To: <13E2D467-7453-4AAA-8E7D-6F5989A143D6@rea-group.com> References: <13E2D467-7453-4AAA-8E7D-6F5989A143D6@rea-group.com> Message-ID: On 8 December 2010 09:29, Adrian Muhrer wrote: > IInteresting (sorry I couldn't help it) I have the same ISP and I seem I > notice more frequent dc's (at my router) when torenting. The throughput is > okay but it drops a lot Some ADSL routers can't handle the number of simultaneous connections required for torrenting.. From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Tue Dec 7 16:12:48 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:12:48 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> Message-ID: <4CFECD80.10905@strategicdata.com.au> On 07/12/10 20:04, Alfie John wrote: > On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Andrew > wrote: > > How about here? > > 6:30pm > Portland Hotel (Public Bar) > Corner Lt Collins & Russell Sts > Melbourne > > > Unless anyone says otherwise, Portland Hotel it is. See you guys > tomorrow night. Is that the bar which turned into the John Squire Alehouse, which we've been to a few times, or another one? See you later, Toby From deepfryed at gmail.com Tue Dec 7 16:45:54 2010 From: deepfryed at gmail.com (Bharanee Rathna) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 11:45:54 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC bittorrent In-Reply-To: References: <13E2D467-7453-4AAA-8E7D-6F5989A143D6@rea-group.com> Message-ID: +1 it's called syn flood to host. older routers have this issue. On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Toby Wintermute wrote: > On 8 December 2010 09:29, Adrian Muhrer > wrote: > > IInteresting (sorry I couldn't help it) I have the same ISP and I seem I > > notice more frequent dc's (at my router) when torenting. The throughput > is > > okay but it drops a lot > > Some ADSL routers can't handle the number of simultaneous connections > required for torrenting.. > _______________________________________________ > Melbourne-pm mailing list > Melbourne-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stephen.edmonds at monash.edu Tue Dec 7 16:55:02 2010 From: stephen.edmonds at monash.edu (Stephen Edmonds (ITS)) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 11:55:02 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: <4CFECD80.10905@strategicdata.com.au> References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> <4CFECD80.10905@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: I know it as the James Squire Brewhouse. Does anyone know about parking in the area? Given the weather, I want to park as close as possible... Stephen On 8 December 2010 11:12, Toby Corkindale wrote: > On 07/12/10 20:04, Alfie John wrote: >> >> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Andrew > > wrote: >> >> ? ?How about here? >> >> ? ?6:30pm >> ? ?Portland Hotel (Public Bar) >> ? ?Corner Lt Collins & Russell Sts >> ? ?Melbourne >> >> >> Unless anyone says otherwise, Portland Hotel it is. See you guys >> tomorrow night. > > Is that the bar which turned into the John Squire Alehouse, which we've been > to a few times, or another one? > > See you later, > Toby > _______________________________________________ > Melbourne-pm mailing list > Melbourne-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm > -- Stephen Edmonds Senior Portal Developer / Integrator Flexible Learning and Teaching Program Information Technology Services, Monash University From sam at nipl.net Tue Dec 7 18:19:31 2010 From: sam at nipl.net (Sam Watkins) Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 13:19:31 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC bittorrent In-Reply-To: References: <13E2D467-7453-4AAA-8E7D-6F5989A143D6@rea-group.com> Message-ID: <20101208021931.GK2945@opal.ai.ki> On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 11:09:36AM +1100, Toby Wintermute wrote: > Some ADSL routers can't handle the number of simultaneous connections > required for torrenting.. I doubt that is an issue with our torrent, which has <10 peers. I'm seeding from three servers and the upload rate is low now, although the servers have reasonably fast uplinks. Perhaps people have been shaped? I can offer rsync+ssh logins to complete partly downloaded torrents - contact me with you preferred login - or you can start again with wget -r -c http://hu.nipl.net/OSDC-2010/ Sam From andrew_dent at dentaur.com Tue Dec 7 18:34:22 2010 From: andrew_dent at dentaur.com (Andrew Dent) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:34:22 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: <4CFECD80.10905@strategicdata.com.au> References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> <4CFECD80.10905@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: <4CFEEEAE.3080804@dentaur.com> On 08/12/10 11:12, Toby Corkindale wrote: > On 07/12/10 20:04, Alfie John wrote: >> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Andrew > > wrote: >> >> How about here? >> >> 6:30pm >> Portland Hotel (Public Bar) >> Corner Lt Collins & Russell Sts >> Melbourne >> >> >> Unless anyone says otherwise, Portland Hotel it is. See you guys >> tomorrow night. > > Is that the bar which turned into the John Squire Alehouse, which > we've been to a few times, or another one? > > See you later, > Toby One and the same. http://www.portlandhotel.com.au/ Cheers Andrew > _______________________________________________ > Melbourne-pm mailing list > Melbourne-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm > From andrew_dent at dentaur.com Tue Dec 7 18:51:21 2010 From: andrew_dent at dentaur.com (Andrew Dent) Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:51:21 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne Perl mongers' December meet - ideas? In-Reply-To: References: <4CE32773.3050705@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC34C9.4050701@strategicdata.com.au> <4CFC387E.6090005@internode.on.net> <4CFD7234.9040604@internode.on.net> <4CFECD80.10905@strategicdata.com.au> Message-ID: <4CFEF2A9.20103@dentaur.com> On 08/12/10 11:55, Stephen Edmonds (ITS) wrote: > I know it as the James Squire Brewhouse. > > Does anyone know about parking in the area? Given the weather, I want > to park as close as possible... > > Stephen > Yes, the 2 closest options that are not on the street are 1. Wilson Parking http://www.wilsonparking.com.au/go/wilson-car-parks/vic/scots-church Entry via 181 Lt Collins Street, Exit onto Russell Street. From the Melways, it looks to be directly across the road (Lt Collins) from the Portland. 2. Council House Parking http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ParkingTransportandRoads/Parking/WhereToPark/Pages/Carparks.aspx#CouncilHouse In Lt Collins Street, west from the Portland. It is only small, at 38 car parks. From jarich at perltraining.com.au Sun Dec 12 15:32:57 2010 From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:32:57 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melb UG xmas bash In-Reply-To: <4CFC340A.7040906@perltraining.com.au> References: <4CFC340A.7040906@perltraining.com.au> Message-ID: <4D055BA9.600@perltraining.com.au> Jacinta Richardson wrote: > G'day folk, > > We're all invited to join the Melbourne User Group XMas Bash from 6:30pm > on Monday 13th December at the Lounge, First floor, 243 Swanston > Street. As far as I understand, the PHP UG and several other UGs have > been invited, so it should be a good crowd. G'day folk, Just a reminder this is on tonight. I'm sure it will be awesome, and I'm very sad that I probably won't be able to make it. :( J From alec.clews at gmail.com Mon Dec 13 03:44:27 2010 From: alec.clews at gmail.com (Alec Clews) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Setting Perl dev env Message-ID: <4D06071B.7090808@gmail.com> I've written an article with some brief suggestions on how to set up a Perl development environment for novices (http://alecthegeek.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/setting-up-a-perl-development-environment/) It may have some virtue as it's getting up voted in reddit. I'd be interested in the teams feedback. Thanks -- Alec Clews Personal Melbourne, Australia. Jabber: alecclews at jabber.org.au PGPKey ID: 0x9BBBFC7C Blog http://alecthegeek.wordpress.com/ From andrew_dent at dentaur.com Mon Dec 13 13:11:11 2010 From: andrew_dent at dentaur.com (Andrew Dent) Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:11:11 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Setting Perl dev env In-Reply-To: <4D06071B.7090808@gmail.com> References: <4D06071B.7090808@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4D068BEF.2060204@dentaur.com> G'day Alec You might want to mention that on Ubuntu, installing build-essential is required to compile Perl and install modules from CPAN as a c complier is not installed by default in Ubuntu. apt-get install build-essential Cheers Andrew On 13/12/10 22:44, Alec Clews wrote: > I've written an article with some brief suggestions on how to set up a > Perl development environment for novices > (http://alecthegeek.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/setting-up-a-perl-development-environment/) > > It may have some virtue as it's getting up voted in reddit. I'd be > interested in the teams feedback. > > Thanks > > From cosimo.streppone at gmail.com Thu Dec 23 15:51:51 2010 From: cosimo.streppone at gmail.com (Cosimo Streppone) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:51:51 +0100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Northern emisphere Perl Mongers coming to Melbourne Message-ID: Hi everyone, I'm a fellow Perl Monger, Italian, with a wife and 2 small children. I have been living and working in Norway for three years now. Now life is bringing me and my family to Southern Emisphere, and Melbourne in particular, this January to live and work there for 5-6 months. I would never forgive myself for missing out Melbourne.pm... Hope to have the pleasure to meet you in person, I'll ping the list again when I'm actually there :) -- Cosimo From ddick at iinet.net.au Fri Dec 24 00:25:04 2010 From: ddick at iinet.net.au (David Dick) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:25:04 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Northern emisphere Perl Mongers coming to Melbourne In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4D1458E0.8050408@iinet.net.au> On 24/12/10 10:51, Cosimo Streppone wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'm a fellow Perl Monger, Italian, with a wife and 2 small children. > I have been living and working in Norway for three years now. > > Now life is bringing me and my family to Southern Emisphere, and > Melbourne in particular, this January to live and work there for 5-6 > months. I would never forgive myself for missing out Melbourne.pm... > > Hope to have the pleasure to meet you in person, > I'll ping the list again when I'm actually there :) > Good stuff! I think Feb is our first meeting of the year. From alfiejohn at gmail.com Fri Dec 24 01:11:29 2010 From: alfiejohn at gmail.com (Alfie John) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 20:11:29 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Northern emisphere Perl Mongers coming to Melbourne In-Reply-To: <4D1458E0.8050408@iinet.net.au> References: <4D1458E0.8050408@iinet.net.au> Message-ID: Welcome Cosimo! On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 7:25 PM, David Dick wrote: > Hope to have the pleasure to meet you in person, >> I'll ping the list again when I'm actually there :) >> > > Good stuff! I think Feb is our first meeting of the year. I don't think there are any talks planned for the new year yet. If you're interested in hearing on a specific topic, maybe suggest it to the list and somebody might put up their hand and give it? :) Alfie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alec.clews at gmail.com Fri Dec 24 02:15:15 2010 From: alec.clews at gmail.com (Alec Clews) Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:15:15 +0000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Northern emisphere Perl Mongers coming to Melbourne In-Reply-To: References: <4D1458E0.8050408@iinet.net.au> Message-ID: <4D1472B3.9030208@gmail.com> On 24/12/10 09:11, Alfie John wrote: > Welcome Cosimo! > > On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 7:25 PM, David Dick wrote: > >> Hope to have the pleasure to meet you in person, >>> I'll ping the list again when I'm actually there :) >> >> Good stuff! I think Feb is our first meeting of the year. > > I don't think there are any talks planned for the new year yet. If you're > interested in hearing on a specific topic, maybe suggest it to the list and > somebody might put up their hand and give it? :) > Or we could do some lighting talks on "What I did with Perl in 2010 and want I plan to do in 2011"? -- Alec Clews Personal Melbourne, Australia. Jabber: alecclews at jabber.org.au PGPKey ID: 0x9BBBFC7C Blog http://alecthegeek.wordpress.com/ From tjc at wintrmute.net Fri Dec 24 21:28:39 2010 From: tjc at wintrmute.net (Toby Wintermute) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 16:28:39 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Northern emisphere Perl Mongers coming to Melbourne In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 24 December 2010 10:51, Cosimo Streppone wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'm a fellow Perl Monger, Italian, with a wife and 2 small children. > I have been living and working in Norway for three years now. > > Now life is bringing me and my family to Southern Emisphere, and > Melbourne in particular, this January to live and work there for 5-6 > months. I would never forgive myself for missing out Melbourne.pm... > > Hope to have the pleasure to meet you in person, > I'll ping the list again when I'm actually there :) Welcome to Melbourne! The next Perlmongers meeting date would be Wednesday 12th January, although whether that occurs is dependent on interest and us organising something.. I don't see why not though. Plus: If you're in Melbourne then that should be reason enough :) Cheers, Toby From cosimo.streppone at gmail.com Sat Dec 25 02:14:20 2010 From: cosimo.streppone at gmail.com (Cosimo Streppone) Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 11:14:20 +0100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Northern emisphere Perl Mongers coming to Melbourne In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2010/12/25 Toby Wintermute : > On 24 December 2010 10:51, Cosimo Streppone wrote: > > The next Perlmongers meeting date would be Wednesday 12th January, At this point, I don't know yet if I'll be already in Melbourne, as crazy as that might sound :) -- Cosimo From jdthornton at ozemail.com.au Tue Dec 28 02:15:26 2010 From: jdthornton at ozemail.com.au (john thornton) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:15:26 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] real world business issues: file formats Message-ID: <4D19B8BE.2030507@ozemail.com.au> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I want to raise some nitty gritty issues of day to day business life. This is practical stuff. It's not some academic theory. I have some massive issues with file formats. OK. Backing up a minute, what business am I in? Well, to be insured there is client paperwork that must be followed. The insurance company [Rapid Solutions] issues the paperwork online and you download it for your business. Only people who are insured have access to the paperwork for download. It only comes in a Windows format. [more about that later] Now, the crux of the problem is that every year Rapid changes their insurance template. They do this to stop shysters using the template to write illegal reports. So, every year I have to spend days of valuable time tweaking the report's format because off the bat it is never quite what I want. In all this I have to not modify the format too much; it's broad intent is to stop a lawyer saying "aha, you only have a rough copy/draft of the report, your honour that is not admissible in court". Then there are invoices, other documents for clients and so on that have to be changed to reflect the new format as well. Since when this occurs every year Rapid Solutions changes the insurance numbers. OK. About a week ago the Rapid emailed us that they had changed their template again. There are 4 separate documents that they change. Each one has a different Australian Standard number. Each one uses a different file format!! Because they have been done by different people with different software. Yeah I know. This is beginning to sound more like 1980 than 2010. So I opened up the one with a .docx format. I have msoft word 2010 which opened it. But my business partner who needs it still uses msoft word 2003. Thus the .docx opened as total gobbledegook: a sea of blank squares. So, I put openoffice on his computer and the .docx file opened up OK, BUT, and it's a big BUT, drop down menus were no longer there. I mean things like "the house is good/bad/stinky/don't know/ as drop down choices to be put in with a mouse click. He can't use my computer; he has to write these reports on his own. But one positive to the Openoffice .odf format is that he can add in anything he wants; msoft word was limited in that way. So, what he's going to do is to go with Openoffice. He's going to add in each drop down box as an either/or choice to be crossed out; each box had 6 choices but most are not relevant to what he does. Openoffice also messes up some formatting when saved as a .odf, having been opened up in openoffice as a .docx, so he'll fix that. All this is a heck of a lot of slogwork, probably a day's worth. At least. Then there are other documents to modify as well. These reports are emailed and posted snail mail. [only the snail mail is insured officially but the email gives a heads up to the client who often needs to know stuff that night at a 12:00 midnight deadline.] One issue with email is that the person will be opening it up in msoft word. So what we've decided is to convert the .odf files to a pdf. This isn't without its issues. Such conversions are not always 100% accurate. Thus I would really, really like to find some windows file comparison software. .odf = pdf ???? [at least I should know if any text is missing] I have tried winmerge. I hate it. To me it would only be useful to the engineer from the film "First Contact". I went to wikipedia. It seems that most file comparison software is designed for coders to compare source file to source file. That's not what I need. I need to go "click" and know that my .odf has converted as I want it to for the pdf. That almost sounds like a job for some perl person ? :) Write a perl program for file comparison! In any case a lot of reformatting slogwork is ahead with the template. There's a lot of dark ages computing about. About 2 weeks ago I read on zdnet that the public service in Canberra is going to upgrade their computers...to Vista Service Pack 1. [yeah, that's not a joke.] That's not even adequate for Microsoft exchange server [needs Vista service pack 2 at least.] Yes, I know about Linux. I agree that Linux is a lot better than Windows. But I can't teach someone who was born in the 1940's Linux. Getting him to use Windows was in itself a feat of Hercules. He can't email. I have to send his emails. So if someone could write me a file comparison program in perl? :) Or just tell me a good one to get. Thank you Andrew -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNGbi+AAoJEHBYxueRMf9HvesH/AgEXvvEUmzKBEpvR9WzG3TQ Ue4e7V3Nq7D+c/iSsvlCYloXczpVMu6n95p2uigDg8o6+jLE8wgnySYxEKqtnw2C u9NP67aWB7/xsDQE8EQNm5a4pByVBTlSdnbfL62UpoqFwGDui7PX0w+j4hoYTZy4 V4U2fpJJx1+fGKqCt2D3nLuqNm5/z9vxRiKBHaoEIk6yXRLkNjKy5PUTJOZ1JEpf sEP2+NE8IvvOq2rz0vnQ/b1umWzhjEt/qqON1L/ssSbiCAu/XoT0ugWThOq8kKqF dUtcdSAjtUJ9ZBaBJbDFos/zfvoMNKmHZCKjSwzHzheCpmv4TnWvbD8v3h9HX1c= =uTdC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From ddick at iinet.net.au Tue Dec 28 03:06:53 2010 From: ddick at iinet.net.au (David Dick) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:06:53 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] real world business issues: file formats In-Reply-To: <4D19B8BE.2030507@ozemail.com.au> References: <4D19B8BE.2030507@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <4D19C4CD.5050805@iinet.net.au> On 28/12/10 21:15, john thornton wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > > I want to raise some nitty gritty issues of day to day > business life. This is practical stuff. It's not some academic theory. Lots of very practical people here. :) > That almost sounds like a job for some perl person ? :) Write a > perl program for file comparison! Okay. Some things that may help you. Apologies if this isn't helpful, but i'm a little busy atm. Win32::OLE This module allows you to programatically control Word as a OLE object. Read the following documentation for the actual module, and for another one that actually uses Win32::OLE to control Microsoft Word. These modules would help you if you need to extract data from a Word document. http://search.cpan.org/~jdb/Win32-OLE-0.1709/lib/Win32/OLE.pm http://search.cpan.org/~johanl/Win32-Word-Writer-0.03/lib/Win32/Word/Writer.pm Win32::GuiTest Don't be put off by the name, this excellent module allows you to drive any Win32 gui program (such as Microsoft Word) externally, by selecting windows, entering keystrokes, pressing buttons, etc. This would help you if you wanted to automate a series of repetitive tasks. http://search.cpan.org/~karasik/Win32-GuiTest-1.58/lib/Win32/GuiTest.pm http://www.piotrkaluski.com/files/winguitest/docs/index.html hope this helps. For the record, this sounds like it will take a fair chunk of someones time. From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au Tue Dec 28 18:33:15 2010 From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:33:15 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] real world business issues: file formats In-Reply-To: <4D19B8BE.2030507@ozemail.com.au> References: <4D19B8BE.2030507@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <4D1A9DEB.5000607@strategicdata.com.au> Have you considered that it might just be cheaper to purchase an updated version of MS Word? I mean, you're talking about doing a lot of manual conversions, and going from .docs -> .odf -> .pdf, and you're sufficiently unsure of this that you're looking to contract a programmer to automatically verify the process.. Given the sort of money that'll cost, seriously, maybe it's just cheaper to give into Microsoft and buy a later copy of Office for your partner? It'll probably come in handy elsewhere too. Or alternatively - can you get your upstream supplier to provide PDF files instead? Toby On 28/12/10 21:15, john thornton wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > > I want to raise some nitty gritty issues of day to day > business life. This is practical stuff. It's not some academic theory. > > I have some massive issues with file formats. OK. Backing up a > minute, what business am I in? Well, to be insured there is client > paperwork that must be followed. The insurance company [Rapid Solutions] > issues the paperwork online and you download it for your business. Only > people who are insured have access to the paperwork for download. It > only comes in a Windows format. [more about that later] > > Now, the crux of the problem is that every year Rapid changes > their insurance template. They do this to stop shysters using the > template to write illegal reports. So, every year I have to spend days > of valuable time tweaking the report's format because off the bat it is > never quite what I want. In all this I have to not modify the format too > much; it's broad intent is to stop a lawyer saying "aha, you only have a > rough copy/draft of the report, your honour that is not admissible in > court". Then there are invoices, other documents for clients and so on > that have to be changed to reflect the new format as well. Since when > this occurs every year Rapid Solutions changes the insurance numbers. > > OK. About a week ago the Rapid emailed us that they had > changed their template again. There are 4 separate documents that they > change. Each one has a different Australian Standard number. Each one > uses a different file format!! Because they have been done by different > people with different software. Yeah I know. This is beginning to sound > more like 1980 than 2010. So I opened up the one with a .docx format. I > have msoft word 2010 which opened it. But my business partner who needs > it still uses msoft word 2003. Thus the .docx opened as total > gobbledegook: a sea of blank squares. So, I put openoffice on his > computer and the .docx file opened up OK, BUT, and it's a big BUT, drop > down menus were no longer there. I mean things like "the house is > good/bad/stinky/don't know/ as drop down choices to be put in with a > mouse click. He can't use my computer; he has to write these reports on > his own. But one positive to the Openoffice .odf format is that he can > add in anything he wants; msoft word was limited in that way. > > So, what he's going to do is to go with Openoffice. He's going to > add in each drop down box as an either/or choice to be crossed out; each > box had 6 choices but most are not relevant to what he does. Openoffice > also messes up some formatting when saved as a .odf, having been opened > up in openoffice as a .docx, so he'll fix that. All this is a heck of a > lot of slogwork, probably a day's worth. At least. Then there are other > documents to modify as well. These reports are emailed and posted snail > mail. [only the snail mail is insured officially but the email gives a > heads up to the client who often needs to know stuff that night at a > 12:00 midnight deadline.] One issue with email is that the person will > be opening it up in msoft word. So what we've decided is to convert the > .odf files to a pdf. This isn't without its issues. Such conversions are > not always 100% accurate. Thus I would really, really like to find some > windows file comparison software. > > .odf = pdf ???? [at least I should know if any text is missing] I > have tried winmerge. I hate it. To me it would only be useful to the > engineer from the film "First Contact". I went to wikipedia. It seems > that most file comparison software is designed for coders to compare > source file to source file. That's not what I need. I need to go "click" > and know that my .odf has converted as I want it to for the pdf. > > That almost sounds like a job for some perl person ? :) Write a > perl program for file comparison! > > In any case a lot of reformatting slogwork is ahead with the > template. There's a lot of dark ages computing about. About 2 weeks ago > I read on zdnet that the public service in Canberra is going to upgrade > their computers...to Vista Service Pack 1. [yeah, that's not a joke.] > That's not even adequate for Microsoft exchange server [needs Vista > service pack 2 at least.] Yes, I know about Linux. I agree that Linux is > a lot better than Windows. But I can't teach someone who was born in the > 1940's Linux. Getting him to use Windows was in itself a feat of > Hercules. He can't email. I have to send his emails. > > So if someone could write me a file comparison program in perl? :) > Or just tell me a good one to get. > > Thank you > Andrew > > > > > > > > > > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNGbi+AAoJEHBYxueRMf9HvesH/AgEXvvEUmzKBEpvR9WzG3TQ > Ue4e7V3Nq7D+c/iSsvlCYloXczpVMu6n95p2uigDg8o6+jLE8wgnySYxEKqtnw2C > u9NP67aWB7/xsDQE8EQNm5a4pByVBTlSdnbfL62UpoqFwGDui7PX0w+j4hoYTZy4 > V4U2fpJJx1+fGKqCt2D3nLuqNm5/z9vxRiKBHaoEIk6yXRLkNjKy5PUTJOZ1JEpf > sEP2+NE8IvvOq2rz0vnQ/b1umWzhjEt/qqON1L/ssSbiCAu/XoT0ugWThOq8kKqF > dUtcdSAjtUJ9ZBaBJbDFos/zfvoMNKmHZCKjSwzHzheCpmv4TnWvbD8v3h9HX1c= > =uTdC > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > Melbourne-pm mailing list > Melbourne-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm -- Strategic Data Pty Ltd Ph: 03 9340 9000