I’m building a new file and print server using Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy), so I’ve installed CUPS to take care of the printing. Being a server there is no GUI environment installed, so I need to use the CUPS web interface from my laptop to configure the printer queues. This was pretty easy to achieve:
- Install the
cupsys package and its dependencies.
- Edit
/etc/cups/cupsd.conf.
- Find the lines that begin
Listen and add one for the machine’s IP address, e.g.
Listen 192.168.0.10:631
- I enabled browsing because it helps other computers find printers. Look for
Browsing Off
- I added
@LOCAL to the definition of the <Location /admin> stanza. This means any host on the network can reach and use the admin section of the web interface. This is fine for home, but might not be appropriate for the workplace.
- Saved and restarted
cupsd.
- Added the user
cupsys to the group shadow.
The last step is necessary to allow CUPS to authenticate users. CUPS requires a username and password when adding printers etc. Having completed the above step you should be able to authenticate using the username and password of the first user you set up on the machine.
One of the first things I noticed is that the web interface in CUPS 1.2.x has been vastly improved over the older version I’m used to on my Debian Sarge server. As well as aesthetic tweaks it’s now possible to do things like moving jobs between queues. CUPS is still quite a way from a full print server environment as it lacks a rich quota and billing system.
Someone has paid £72 for an old, no doubt vomit-stained and possibly whiffy, jacket of Jono’s. I know it’s for charity and everything, but you have to draw the line between kind-heartedness and lunacy somewhere. 
I wonder if the winner is Ted, wanting to add to the beard he aquired last summer. Perhaps he’s trying to build a duplicate Jono out of spare parts for his own nefarious reasons? If we see Jono suddenly renouncing the Ubuntu and endorsing the SUSE we’ll know why!
Back in October, just after my birthday, I started going to the gym at work on a regular basis. Why? I just got bored of being so big. As in fat. I put on weight when I was about nineteen as the theatre lifestyle lead me to spend many hours propped up against the Harlequin bar. I then carried that weight, literally, through university. Things haven’t really improved much since as my job is relatively sedentary. Combined with equally chair-bound hobbies, my weight has increased over the last few years. I looked at the BBC BMI calculator and found that I shouldn’t be much over 13 stone for my height to be in the “OK” weight range. Not having scales at home made this difficult to measure, but I know I was 16 stone at the end of September.
Initially I went to the gym once a week, but soon upped to two or three times a week. I’m lucky that Louisa, Jo and Andi from work have been going along too. It’s been great having people to go with as it’s not really a chore when you have people to chat with. And, yes, share the suffering and indignities. (The other advantage is that because there are three of them, there’s usually someone going even if someone flakes out! Naming no names.) Jo has even got me onto the tennis court a couple of times and it’s good exercise. Although she got most of hers in the form of laughter.
I also cut a load of crap out of my diet at the same time and replaced it with more sensible stuff; I even have a fruit bowl on my desk at work. So I was very pleased when I stepped on the scales this morning (yes, we have some now!) to see that I’ve lost a whole round stone since October. It’s a good start, but overall quite a low loss rate. I lost most of it in January but it’s slowed quite a bit in February for various reasons. So I better work harder in future!
