Linux Format forums

evilnick · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:01 am Post subject: Any subscribers got the Firefox

issue yet? We'd be interested in your comments

Rhakios · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:26 am Post subject:

Well, yes. A very stylish looking cover, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Or are you fishing for comments about your new picture? Laughing

Will you always be gnawing a crow-bar from now on Question

brian · Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:53 am Posts: 36

In work right now and can't provide specific comments, but I thought it was a good read, off the top of my head both the firefox and the GCC 4.0 articles were good, and the KDE vs Gnome was lighthearted and provided a chuckle Laughing

p.s. good to have the site back!

guy · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:20 pm Post subject:

Bought today, not read yet.
Saw it alongside the competition (ahem) in WH Smith's today. Checked out all three. No contest Smile

. Fantastic cover, relevant content. Shame I'm not techy enough for Slackware, but the rest of the DVD looks cool.

One thing, they only had the DVD edition. Is the CD one still going?
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Cheers,
Guy
The eternal noob

Marrea · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:54 pm Post subject:

I'm getting LXF on subscription now and I'd like to say (a) this is the first mag I have subscribed to that actually reaches me at home several days before it appears in the newsagents, which is great; and (b) I'm extremely impressed with the way it is packaged - that piece of cardboard makes all the difference.

The content just seems to get better and better. Keep up the good work, guys.

Nigel · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:49 pm Post subject:

I would second that - especially with regard to the packaging. It's about the only mag that I've had delivered that seems to be Postman-proof Laughing

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Hope this helps,

Nigel.

nelz · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 5:37 pm Post subject:

Do you want to change places Guy? I tried a couple of places round here, Borders and WHS, and they only had the CD edition.
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linuxgirlie · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 8:27 pm Post subject:

What, huh? Theres a new version of LXF out now!!........Will go down to WHS and get my copy tomorrow........

obionekanewbie · Joined: Sat Apr 09, 2005 9:37 pm Posts: 1

got me issue in good time. first mag i have subscribed too! better than the wifes Now mag anyway!

.... about firefox... great article.... using the tips already editing away at the about:config!!!

cheers.

f3llah1n · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:01 pm Post subject:

well i havent got it yet, but immediatly I can tell it will be brilliant.. i can now finally upgrade my Slack from 10.0 from Issue 57 to 10.1

Ive been waiting for a 10.1 coverdisk forver! Smile

The Firefox article looks promising also Surprised

guy · Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 12:15 pm Post subject:

kevh100 · Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2005 2:43 pm Posts: 2

Hi,

Like the issue Smile

especially the mailserver article. It's nice to see a straightforward comparison of them. The URL for the the SmoothWall site is incorrect though Confused

It should be www.smoothwall.net. Also the DansGuardian filtering proxy is available for the OS version of Smoothwall (SmoothWall Express). You can get it from here. Privoxy is also a good at controlling/blocking cookies, banners and popups (also available for SmoothWall)

Kev

AndrewBallantine · Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:11 pm Posts: 8

I really enjoy LXF and have been a subscriber since LXFD23.

LXF66 is very smart, but more important full of useful content.

However even the best can improve a bit.

Suggestion:

I like the way you surround input text in blue to make it clear when it's a single line despite printing it on more thn one line to fit the magazine column. What I find very difficult to establish is where the spaces are. Now I know it's terribly old fashioned, but why don't you use a mono spaced font. Then the spaces would be as clear as a bell. In one of the tutorials this month there is one command that is very difficult to decipher and would require several experiments to get it right. It is (on page 85)

grep '<DT><A HREF="' $1 | cut '-d"' -f2 > url_list

Now is that HREF= " ' or HREF= ' " (spaces added for clarity)
and cut '-d " ' or cut '-d ' "

I am sure you are going to say that it's obvious because of the matching parentheses, but a newbie doesn't know that. It is enfuriatingly frustrating when trying to follow these tutorials to be unsure what one should be typing. A monospaced font would resolve that instantly.

On the same page:

\rm url_list
\rm url_control_tmp
touch url_control_tmp

are marked in a single blue area which I thought meant a single command. Is this a publishing error?

Keep up the great work.

Kind regards,

Andrew Ballantine

evilnick · Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 11:21 pm Post subject:

Since the dawn of computer magazines, code listings have been troublesome. I remember typing in several pages of listings for my ZX80 (on its touch sensitive keyboard!) only to find it didn't work - and worse still, after checking it three times it still didn't work because somehow a comma got missed out of the printed version.

We use a proportional font because it dramatically reduces the amount of space for the listing. It does cause problems, but so do the lines breaking, and there would be a lot more of them with a monospace font. On the whole, I think it works this way. I do take the point about spaces though. It's something we'll have to look at. Perhaps we should double the spaces or something.

Sometimes the code boxes don't work properly. Sorry, mistakes happen, and while we are breaking in some new production monkeys, they are likely to make one or two mistakes. Sorry.

Flea · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:34 am Post subject:

Just finished reading the latest mag, its brilliant, but then it always is! Wink

I especially liked the firefox feature, more of that please!
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