1/7     Don't EVER, EVER, EVER send money order to any seller on eBay. eBay
        has absolutely no control of anything and does not make refund when
        you're screwed. I learned it from the hard way.
        \_ ebay has no fraud department? i'm shocked.
        \_ use a credit card, sucker!
        \_ details?
        \_ Uhm, duh?  Next you'll be telling us that PayPal has fucked you
           over, too.  Ebay's policy is online and you can read the PayPal
           policy at http://paypalsucks.com
        \_ Especially if the seller's address is the International House.  I
           worked for 6 mos. at a company that (unbelievably) took credit card
           orders, purchased money orders and sent them to sellers--with no
           item escrow (oh, and that was the side business, not anything I
           worked on).  One seller from IHouse (I recognized the address when
           it was being passed around the office) legitimately sold
           electronics for 3-4 years, and then skipped town (to Turkey) after
           taking $10,000 in payments and shipping nothing.  Last I heard, the
           FBI is getting into it, but the company basically got
           screwed--credit card payments got reversed even though we performed
           the service (because the buyer didn't receive the product).  Did I
           mention how quickly I went to another job?  [formatd]
           \_ I'm confused.  What role did your company play in this?
              \_ The buyer purchased a money order from us using a credit card.
                 We (well, not me) then sent the money order to the seller.
                 Scary, eh?
                 \_ Is that company still around?  I'd like to do some
                    business with them.
                    \_ That part of the business is closed.  The other part (the
                       part I worked on) is doing quite well.
        \_ so what's the safest method of payment on eBay? Is it this order?
           dangerous|  cash->MO->check->paypal->credit card   |SAFE
           \_ I'd send cash in a clear plastic envelope before I used PayPal.
              http://paypalsucks.com
        \_ Watch 'Catch Me If You Can', good movie
        \_ Don't buy stuff on eBay unless you're willing to risk being
           ripped off, or willing to pay for escrow.  Also, the buyer
           should pick the escrow company.  There are a number of cases of
           crooked sellers reccomending fake escrow companies.

1/7     What's proper attire for a play in a nice theater? I don't have
        a tux and am wondering what to wear. Thanks.
        \_ In California, whatever you want.
           \_ Within reason.  I'd say ideal would be a shirt with collar and
              a sportcoat  (not matched pants, that would be a suit).  Or
              some decent slacks and a nice sweater.  If you show up in torn
              jeans and a computer t-shirt you probably won't get kicked out
              but you will look a bit out of place.
        \_ You *can* wear whatever you'd like, but you *should* wear a decent
           shirt (buttons & collar), not jeans, not sneakers or other lesser
                 except for Prada, D&G, etc. sports shoes _/
           quality footwear, and for christ's sake *shower* and put on some
           deordorant before you go.  There's nothing worse than sitting next
           to someone that smells like a hacker or homeless person after
           shelling out big bucks to go out.  The tux, etc is overkill, btw.
           I don't think you'll ever see that in CA.
        \_ Purple suit, feathered hat, gold tooth, cane
           \_ But watch out for those goldfish shoes!
        \_ Thanks to all who answered. I was just really wondering whether
           a sportcoat was absolutely necessary (since I don't have one of
           those either).
           \_ Only if it's cold or you feel like it.  You won't be horribly
              out of place without one.  Button/collar shirt, real shoes,
              shower, real pants.

1/7     How do I escape an apostrophe character in an SQL query
        SELECT * FROM foo WHERE bar LIKE '%it\'ll be a long summer%'
        \_ In Oracle, you escape apostrophes with another apostrophe.
           \_ Thanks.
        \_ It's different for different dbs.  The above works for a number of
           different ones.

1/7     Anybody know of any stable high tech companies that is NOT moving
        jobs to India?   Just for the heck of it, I searched Apple's career
        page.  All the openings seems to be in the U.S.  Any other tech
        companies that does this?  Thanks.
        \_ Cisco is keeping most of its real software development (IOS,
           NMS, VoIP, etc) in the US. The stuff they are moving to India
           is the monkey-push-the-button SQA, porting and IT web tools.
        \_ are european and japanese high tech companies outsourcing to
           india also?
           \_ A bunch of 'em, but it's mainly for routine shit (line
              programming, backoffice, call center.)  I know of very little
              architecture or proj. management type stuff that's going there.
              A lot of people I work with have had good experience with
              outsourcing things like bill processing or creating ppt
              presentations, but _nothing_ good to say as soon as anything
              innovative comes into play.  The consensus is, and sorry, I'm
              both a messenger and someone who's had this experience, that
              Indian techs will not wipe their ass without training or a
              manual, or take any sort of initiative.  On a side note, Roche
              pharmaceuticals is (attempting) to move all its IT support to
              Madrid from Switzerland, with round-the-clock support done by
              Mexico City.  It was either PWC's or McKinsey's idea, and it's
              looking pretty grim already.  The big "threat" for countries
              like Germany is actually Poland--lots of educated young people
              coming out of college and a _lot_ less bureaucracy than some
              of the more entrenched EU countries add up to factories moving
              there.  There are quite a few examples of Germans commuting
              to work in Western Poland nowadays.  -John
              \_ Yep.  It's a slow grinding downward death spiral for the
                 once great European empires.  Down to the last dregs before
                 they're just history book fodder.
                 \_ So then what does that say about our Empire?
           \_ EU is.  No idea if Japanese are.  Probably not since they're
              a bunch of super racists.
              \_ Yeah but I think they don't mind doing stuff with China.
                 It's not just India, Singapore is another big one.
                 \_ dont forget Russia
                    \_ which is outsourcing to North Koreans:
                       http://www.iht.com/articles/120603.htm

1/7     I know soda runs a browser based ssh login scheme but I've never
        had to use it so I know nothing about it.  Now for various unimportant
        reasons I need the same thing running on my home machine.  What is
        the name of the software that soda uses for this and where can I get
        it?  Thanks!
        \_ Easier is just download putty ssh when you need it.
        \_ Google for "mindterm", or just grab it from soda. There's different
            versions.  It is  a 'ssh1' client implemented in java. -ERic
            URL is http://www.mindbright.se/mindterm
        \_ and an excellent FAQ for getting to systems from behind networks
           with firewalls administered by idiot/bofh network admins:
           http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Firewall-Piercing
        \_ It sounds to me like he is looking for server software, not a client.
        \_ OP here to clarify: a friend who recently can ssh out from a corp
        \_ OP here to clarify: a friend who recently who ssh out from a corp
           network no longer can.  they only have some sort of http proxy to
           the public net now.  I'm looking for a way for them to abuse the
           corp http proxy to ssh to remote hosts outside the corp net.  I
           thought the soda solution was running some sort of proxy abusing
           ssh client which is why I asked about that.
           \_ I could never get mindterm to work right with http proxies.
              Mindterm2 has no problems, though.  Run it as a local jarfile
              if you have funky security settings.  -John
           ssh client which is why I asked about that.
              \_ Thanks!

01/07   More tips on having pale skin from the resident CSUA vampire.
        Avoid direct sunlight.  Sunlight is the primary cause of vampire death.
        And don't use a lot of sunscreen lotion thinking that you'll be ok.
        The high SPF lotions are all oil-based and can cause illness if taken
        internally.  I use moisturizer creams with SPF of 5.  Higher SPF means
        more oil.  And I never go out into the sun.  That means no going
        to the beach, no getting tanned (I consider that ritual suicide,
         yuck), no walking around the parking lot in the middle of day,
        no eating garlic or wearing crosses, etc. -pretty boy
        \_ how many aging skate rats here remember when all those kids used
           to write in to Thrasher about how vampires were being oppressed,
           and how they just want to skate like everyone else?
        \_ Do you base your obsession on real medical facts? Some amount of
           sunlight daily is healthy.
           \_ Not if you're a vampire.
        \_ Uh... why not use a high SPF and NOT take it internally!?

1/7     http://www.berkeleydates.com
        \_ Hey, there's no yellow fever option. What good is this thing?
        \_ There are no other users on the system at the moment.
        \_ Is there a real Berkeley alum site that let's us make non-romantic
           (ie: job contact & networking) connections but doesn't hit us up
           for money constantly like the utterly useless on campus alumni
           org?

1/7     Do you compete in anything these days?  (non-sex related)
        (Sports, Netrek, board games, ...)
        \_ Basketball, Poker, board games, computer games in that order
           of frequency. - crebbs
           \_ what level are you?  Win any competitions/money?  What board
              games?
           \_ does netrek have an official rating system?  Is anyone
              on csua rated?
                \_ netrek doesn't have ratings akin to chess ratings;
                   it's closer to MUD/Evercrack with levels.  There are
                   a number of CSUA geeks who have at least one Admiral. -tom
        \_ Counterstrike, Halo.
        \_ Shooting real guns - no sim shit.
           \_ are you in competition shooting?  Biathalon?  Skeet shooting?
        \_ What do you have against competative sex?
        \_ I compete in the MOTD.
           \_ Competitive censoring?
              \_Competitive trolling.

1/7     Someone needs to figure out how larryl jammed up motdedit - isn't
        it supposed to exit if you take too long?
        \_ Someone else did this by running motdedit, editing the motd with
           vi, saving changes, and then leaving vi running "in case someone
           overwrote his changes."  I guess a limitation of motdedit is that
           you actually need to quit your editor entirely in order for it
           to relinquish the lock.  I have no idea why the time-out doesn't
           work effectively.
           \_ the first part is wrong.  the person did not use motdedit, but
              instead just ran "vi /etc/motd.public".  The timeout in motdedit
              does work so long as motdedit isn't sent SIGSTOP/TSTP, at least
              the way motdedit is right now.  --Jon
              \_ No, you're wrong.  I'm the person.  I ran motdedit. -emarkp
           \_ That would be me.  Since motdedit launches the editor,
              backgrounding the editor will background motdedit, and the timeout
              doesn't work.  My solution: don't use motdedit.  Vim warns me if I
              try to write a file which has changed anyway, so it's of little
              use to me. -emarkp
           \_ I believe this bug was fixed. The question is how did larryl
              jam it up again, this morning?
              \_ or last night, as the case may be:
                    [soda:~] 14:24 (214)last larryl
                    larryl ttyDi 216.233.16.78 Thu Jan  8 00:47 - 00:49  (00:01)

1/7     Someone was asking about which hard drive is in the iPod mini:
        http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5136124.html?tag=st_rn
        \_ So is the drive 4 Gigabytes or 4 Gibibytes?
           \_ giga, mebi!

1/7     To the guy who was interested in listening to NPR/RealAudio on
        Linux/FreeBSD: http://www.live.com/mplayer

1/7     What's the WindowsXP version of winipcfg called?
        \_ ipconfig (command-line) ... if you want a GUI-based one, try:
           http://csua.org/u/5gn (microsoft.com)
           \_ Thanks! -op