Milo_Mindbender - Slashdot User

Submission + - Bulletproof video conferencing for Alzheimers home?

Submitted by Milo_Mindbender on Thursday July 31, 2014 @05:16PM

Milo_Mindbender writes: I'm trying to find a bulletproof near zero maintenance video conferencing client for shared use in an Alzheimers living facility. It's used so the patients can regularly see their relatives who are often out of town. Most everything I've tried on PC or Mac requires tweeks/updates from time to time to keep it working, not good in a place where there are no computer savvy people. It looks like most of the low cost dedicated boxes have died out too. The ideal setup will be turnkey with little-to-no maintenance and if possible support auto-answering calls from approved users. It needs to be compatible with video conferencing apps the relatives can easily get on phone/tablet/pc such as Skype, Facetime, Hangouts...etc.

Any suggestions?

Comment Re:I'd do it the slow but secure way. (Score 1) 325

by Milo_Mindbender on Tuesday March 23, 2010 @04:40PM (#31588972) Attached to: Need Help Salvaging Data From an Old Xenix System

The system actually dates from 1985 or so. I'm aware it isn't "the first" however it is one of the first BBS systems that:

* Was privately owned (not Compuserve or a university computer)
* Had 5 simultaneous dial-up connections.
* Was designed for and used mainly by non-computer people.

There were plenty of single-line BBSs at the time but very few multi-line ones that were available to the general public.

This system used the general BBS structure made popular by the CDC Plato system back in the early 1970's.

Comment Still want to know about the disk format (Score 1) 5

by Milo_Mindbender on Sunday March 21, 2010 @10:20PM (#31562750) Attached to: Need help salvaging data from an old Xenix system

The machine only has a 5" floppy and I don't have any disks for it, or a drive that will work on a PC, so that's out.

My main question remains, does anyone know what file system this machine used?

I'm aware of kermit and X,Y,Zmodem for transferring stuff but I was hoping to avoid going that route. The ports on this thing are only 9600 baud so even this relatively small transfer would take awhile...plus I was hoping to avoid building/buying custom cables that I'll only use once. Pulling the hard drive is easier, so long as Xenix used a file system that modern Linux can read.

Submission + - Need help salvaging data from an old Xenix system 5

Submitted by Milo_Mindbender on Sunday March 21, 2010 @01:35AM

Milo_Mindbender writes: I've recently got hold of an old Altos 586 Xenix system (a late 80's Microsoft flavor of Unix) that has one of the first multiuser BBS systems in the US on it and want to salvage the historical BBS posts off it. I'm wondering if anyone remembers what format XENIX used on the 10MB (yes MB) IDE hard drive and if it can still be read on a modern Linux system. This system is quite old, has no removable media or ethernet and just barely works, the only other way to get data off is a slow serial port. I've got a controller that should work with the disk, but don't want to tear this old machine apart without some hope that it will work. Anyone know?

Comment My only objection... (Score 3, Insightful) 495

by Milo_Mindbender on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @01:56PM (#16009065) Attached to: Misconceptions About the GPL

The biggest problem I've seen with GPL is that static linking your (completely NON GPL) code with a GPL library seems to make the entire program subject to the GPL. While dynamic linking to DLL's doesn't. This has always been the biggest sticking point with using libraries under full GPL (not LGPL) as part of a piece of software. I've had to avoid using many useful GPL libraries simply because the platform I'm on required static linking.

If they would straighten this out in the license I think GPL software and GPL licenses would see a LOT more use. Having a distinction between static and dynamic linking (particularly given all the different ways you can link code these days) makes usage rules much more confusing. A non GPL program shouldn't be subject to GPL unless it's source code actually contains stuff copied from GPL sources. Simply static linking with a GPL library shouldn't make you GPL too.

This is really the only objection I have to GPL, all the other terms don't bother me at all.

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