Dear Eskimo North Customer,

– User Meeting –

I am tentively considering a user meeting October 29th at Spiros on Aurora but would like at least 20 people to RSVP to indicate an interest in attending. So if you would like this to happen please e-mail me and let me know you are interested.

– OwnCloud –

OwnClouod cloud services are back. We previously lost them due to an upgrade in PHP version which was incompatible. The system requirements only listed a minimum PHP version so I did not anticipate this disruption. Because I was unable to get the old software working on the newer platform, it was necessary to start over with version 9.1 which is in place now with even more Apps. There are also more ways to connect with it now.

You can get to it on the web at:

https://www.eskimo.com/owncloud/

Or go to our main web site:

https://www.eskimo.com/

… And select Web Apps -> OwnCloud.

– Shell Server Updates –

Fedora has been upgraded to Fedora 24, a massive improvement over Fedora 23 which was seriously broken. An attempt to update in place  failed miserably and so it was necessary to install from scratch. Getting that to work was a bit of a challange owing to the fact that it would not work with the stock virtual machine configuration but I did finally figure out how to make it go.

Ubuntu has been upgraded to Xenial, 16.04.1 LTS. Upgrade in place went smooth as it usually does with Ubuntu. We did have some issues with x2go because the x2go server incorporated version 1.2 of xrandr and Ubuntu 16.04 requires version 1.3 or later. I worked with the developers to get a pre-release installed that fixes this problem. If anyone else has this issue with a Ubuntu machine, there are instructions on our web site for fixing this.

– WordPress Sites –

If you are using Comet Cache on your WordPress site do not install the current upgrade being offered. It is broken. I installed it on our main site and it resulted in requests just hanging indefinitely. I will let you know when a working upgrade is available.

– Personal Stuff –

Now that I’ve had my blood sugar reasonably under control for a number of months, I am starting to see some healing of my nerves. I no longer have permanent numbness anywhere, only occasional intermittent numbness below my knees. My feet are no longer numb ever. Pain level is down considerably from what it was a few months ago. Most of the time no pain while I’m up and only occasionally mild pain when I am laying down for many hours. So I’m back to having a more normal amount of functional hours in the day to get things done.

– Projects –

I am still trying to find a replacement for osTicket as it is broken under PHP7 and development seems to have stalled on that project.

I am still working on on getting real time streaming for audio and video working so people can do things like Internet radio and television stations. My own interest in this is in radio and technology has changed so much since I was last involved in radio that there is a major learning curve, but that’s something I enjoy. Johnny Five Need Input…

– Customers –

I appreciate your business and I very much appreciate it when you tell your friends about us. Since we’re really a niche provider word of mouth is particularly important.

If there is anything I can do to make this service more useful or aesthetically appealing to you, please do let me know.

Robert Dinse
Nanook@Eskimo.Com