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251 lines
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<TITLE>Linux Gazette 72: The Answer Gang</TITLE>
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<IMG ALT="" SRC="../gx/navbar/left.jpg" WIDTH="14" HEIGHT="45" BORDER="0" ALIGN="bottom"><A HREF="lg_bytes72.html"><IMG ALT="[ Prev ]" SRC="../gx/navbar/prev.jpg" WIDTH="16" HEIGHT="45" BORDER="0" ALIGN="bottom"></A><A HREF="index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Table of Contents ]" SRC="../gx/navbar/toc.jpg" WIDTH="220" HEIGHT="45" BORDER="0" ALIGN="bottom" ></A><A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Front Page ]" SRC="../gx/navbar/frontpage.jpg" WIDTH="137" HEIGHT="45" BORDER="0" ALIGN="bottom"></A><A HREF="../faq/index.html"><IMG ALT="[ FAQ ]" SRC="./../gx/navbar/faq.jpg"WIDTH="62" HEIGHT="45" BORDER="0" ALIGN="bottom"></A><A HREF="lg_tips72.html"><IMG ALT="[ Next ]" SRC="../gx/navbar/next.jpg" WIDTH="15" HEIGHT="45" BORDER="0" ALIGN="bottom" ></A><IMG ALT="" SRC="../gx/navbar/right.jpg" WIDTH="15" HEIGHT="45" ALIGN="bottom">
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<H1><A NAME="answer">
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<img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" alt="(?)"
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border="0" align="middle">
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<font color="#B03060">The Answer Gang</font>
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<img src="../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif" alt="(!)"
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border="0" align="middle">
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</A></H1>
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<BR>
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<H4>By Jim Dennis, Ben Okopnik, Dan Wilder, Breen, Chris, and the Gang,
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the Editors of Linux Gazette...
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and You!
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<br>Send questions (or interesting answers) to
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<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</a>
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</H4>
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<p><em><font color="#990000">There is no guarantee that your questions
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here will <b>ever</b> be answered. Readers at confidential sites
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must provide permission to publish. However, you can be published
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anonymously - just let us know!
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</font></em></p>
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<P><A HREF="tag/bios.html">TAG member bios</A></P>
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</center>
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<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
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<p><hr><p>
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<H3>Contents:</H3>
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<dl>
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<dt><a href="#tag/greeting"
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><strong>¶: Greetings From Heather Stern</strong></A></dl>
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<DL>
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<!-- index_text begins -->
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<dt><A HREF="tag/1.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>pppd problem</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/2.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>getting volume label for CD</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/3.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>clock problem</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/4.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>Please need help !!! ext2 problem !!!</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/5.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>determining screen resolution</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/6.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>question on IP forwarding.</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/7.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>Hi Gazette</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/8.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>SCSI</strong></a>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/9.html"
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><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(?)" border="0"
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><strong>RH7.1 onThinkPad 560X cannot find ttyS00</strong></a>
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<!-- index_text ends -->
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</DL>
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<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
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<A NAME="tag/greeting"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="../gx/dennis/hbubble.gif"
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height="50" width="60" alt="(¶) " border="0"
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>Greetings from Heather Stern</H3>
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<!-- begin hgreeting -->
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<p>
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Hello everyone and welcome once more to The Answer Gang. Last month I
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was quite stressed out about some overly broad attempts to curtail our
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freedoms, in case "bad guys" might try to use those freedoms wickedly.
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There's a thread on the topic in the
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<a href="lg_mail72.html">Mailbag</a> (one reader didn't like
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how I described Dmitry's case) and the <a href="lg_bytes72.html">News Bytes</a>
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section has more legal details to cringe about.
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</p><p>
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In the mail processing space, my pet peeve of the month goes back to those
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darn Quoted Printables and HTML attachments. We've gotten some Spanish
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and Italian letters and those really do need to be that way. (Thanks,
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we can barely recognize things in those languages, but it's so much easier
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to give to the translators when it hasn't been mangled.) But all of you
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english speakers need to tell your web browser to stop doing the double
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mail thing. It's three or four times the bits, and the HTML is utterly
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useless to my processing efforts. So do yourself a favor, and spend those
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recycling electrons on something else.
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</p><p>
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In the real world space, well, that's it. Space, the final frontier. Do
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you know that the United Nations had a holiday of their very own declared
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a few years ago, called "World Space Week" ? You probably didn't. And that
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would be because the television media loves to beat on one exciting story
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until it's gone past "exciting" and all the way down to "wouldn't rent the
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video from the cheapies rack". The paper press likes the AP wires because
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they don't have to go chase stories, just reformat them a little. Where's
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the real News out there? Obviously Space isn't news... since there hasn't
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been another pair of feetprint on the moon since I was too young to know
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what a TV was.
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</p><p>
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I asked the Gang, since we're a well scattered bunch, what we do to get real
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news when we know we're being spoonfed "human interest" timeslices. Believe
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me, this doesn't just happen to US news - editors in other countries "slant"
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the stories to satisfy some invisible "market segment" instead of actually
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serve up the news itself. Mike grumbled that if we got even a few articles
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translated straight instead of "cleaned up to please western ideas" it
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would be worth a lot more. The answers were pretty solid: we get enough
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buzzwords to search on a little, then if possible, we hit the internet for
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a news site in the country of origin. And we read news sites from more than
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one country regularly anyway. I say "if possible" because, well, it helps
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if the site offers its data in a language we can read... Here's some of
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the favorites:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Canada: <a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/">www.globeandmail.com</a>
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<li>Britain: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/">news.bbc.co.uk</a>, the BBC
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<li>Britain: <a href="http://www.the-times.co.uk/"
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>www.the-times.co.uk</a>, the Times
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<li>USA: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"
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>www.nytimes.com</a>, New York Times Online
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</ul>
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<p>Breen adds the valuable comment that we must apply approrpriate filters
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as we read - consider the source, and what things they will prefer to bias
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towards. People will express their preferences; the corporate entity in
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charge of the paper will have its say in peer pressure and even just the
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headlines they choose. Still, "the problem with too much of the American
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press is that they apply the filter '> /dev/null' to nearly all foreign
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news. If I never see the news at all it doesn't matter what the perspective
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of the publisher is."
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</p>
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<p>So now I'll turn away from the social ill of talking about newsmen instead
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of coming up with some news, or failing that, something to talk about and
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get people thinking.
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</p>
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<p>I started getting interested in CAD a while back. Maybe
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I'll design my own little space capsule, plan that back patio we're going to
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put some changes in... someday ... or speculate on where the new "Enterprise"
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keeps the bathroom. Unfortunately for me, CAD tools for Linux come in four
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categories:
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</p>
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<ol>
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<li>Cirvuitboard design. Must be everybody's first project in the second
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year of college. There are lots of these.
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<li>Poor excuses for MSwin paintbrush. Obviously started in a jolt cola
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moment but not finished in a weekend and therefore never finished.
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<li>Think I'm already a masters degree in drafting, so I understand all their
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widgets and dots without docs.
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<li>support tools for 3d modelers, mostly experienced ones.
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</ol>
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<p>Now sadly, this means I can't give it the fun "unusability test" romp that
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I did to word processors a while back. While I'm not an utter babe in the
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woods* in this space, I'd have to say my skills are... well, rustier than my
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Spanish, at least I see that once in a while. But circuitry is not even in
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my scope, if they are trying to be paintbrush I can do better with The Gimp,
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and for the other two, yes darnit, I'm going to need those docs translated
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down a notch or two, or find where they stashed the glossary. Category 3
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looks like it will suit me best, and by the time I can use it, the 3d stuff
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will be fun. But for right now, all I wanted was some ways to stick to a
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grid and drop little "tree" "wall" and "door" icons among my distance marks.
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Dia is starting to look good; as soon as I can grok its XML symbol language
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(anybody have a Gimp plugin for these things? xfig conversions? anything?)
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maybe I'll feed it some really weird stuff and start layout out D&D
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wizards' halls again.
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</p><p>
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If you're working on a CAD project out there, I have a hint for you: if it
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remains easier to do all this on ten-to-the-inch grid paper, I'm not going
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to be using your stuff. Also, I've not a fear about buying software that does
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things well, but I'm not an aircraft design shop, you can't be charging me
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omegabucks** to see if I can plot out my garden better before springtime, and
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you're not going to get me to pay you to discover I can't figure you out. So
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for you commercial types, I recommend making the quickstart guides available
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for taste testing. In fact you should <em>have</em>*** quickstart guides,
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that put you through putting some sample item or place together. For you
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free-world coders, get some first year drafting students to try and make
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sense of that gibberish;
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anytime they say "huh?" treat it as a bug just as serious as broken menu
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items. We can only draft when our mechanical pencil actually has lead in
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it...</p>
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<p>Hmm, there's a fellow who mentioned he's got a new documentation site up
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(mentioned in the mailbag this month); time for me to see what he has lying
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around in the category!</p>
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<dl>
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<dt>*I used to help my Dad design scoutships for our Traveller games.
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<dt>**omegabucks:
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I just made that up. Lots of dollars including my last one.
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<dt>*** to be fair some do... so if you don't your competitors are
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already ahead by one.
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</dl>
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<!-- end hgreeting -->
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<P> <hr> </p>
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<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
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<H5 align="center">This page edited and maintained by the Editors
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of <I>Linux Gazette</I>
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<a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
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>Copyright ©</a> 2001
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<BR>Published in issue 72 of <I>Linux Gazette</I> November 2001</H5>
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<H6 ALIGN="center">HTML script maintained by
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<A HREF="mailto:star@starshine.org">Heather Stern</a> of
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Starshine Technical Services,
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<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A>
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</H6>
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