<< | FAQ Index | UNIX System Mail Mini-FAQ >>
These are mostly "about" questions, for common problems see Support.CommonProblems
1. Meta-questions
Meta means "Beyond, of its own kind or transcending.
1.1 What is The Vistua Network?
The Vistua Network System (VNS) is a private, non-profit, computing organization mainly located in the State of New York.
More about this.
1.2 I have a Complaint or Comment
If you are a member of the general public and you have a complaint or comment about our web-site or public services please use the "contact" form linked at the bottom of most pages.
2. Technical/Engineering
2.1 Why are Some Machines Said to have Names?
Because Humans have a hard time remembering complex sequences of numbers. Machines in the LAN and elsewhere in the Vistua Network are given names to make it easier to network and administer them and in some cases the names are required to make them usable. Almost all these machines are given names in the domain vistua.net.
2.2 Why vistua.com and vistua.net?
Vistua.com is the Vistua web-site and web applications such as groupware. Vistua.net is used internally by VNS to help distinguish internal functions (not all of which are available on the public Internet) from external functions and for taxonomic purposes.
2.3 What are the Outgoing Nameserver IPs?
- 208.67.222.222 (primary)
- 208.67.220.220 (secondary)
2.4 Is DPI being conducted?
No: VNS does not conduct Deep Packet Inspection, we cannot make any guarantees that your packet will not be deeply inspected, due to the nature of
the Public Internet.
3. E-Mail
3.1 How can I Check my Email From a Remote Location?
You can check your email as well as other groupware applications such as calender by going to www.vistua.com, in almost any browser and clicking "Mail Login" in the top right quadrant.
It has been reported to us that some filters block www.vistua.com because it is a wiki and the access-point operators are paranoid prudes. If this happens to you, try this following alternate URL: http://bit.ly/logintovistuamail
3.2 I've Heard That Checking Email in a Public Hot-Spot is a bad idea, is this true?
It is sometimes a bad idea to check your email in a public WIFI hot-spot. Not all hot-spots are encrypted and anyone with a piece of software called a "packet sniffer" could easily intercept your email as well as user-name and password. However, the Groupware Email web-app is protected by its own cryptography and therefore you do not have to worry about this in most cases.
3.3 How does the Groupware Handle Spam?
Spam is highly effectively filtered by the system. Nearly all spam is blocked by sophisticated lexical analysis, what spam does get through can be marked as such to improve the effectiveness of the analysis.
3.4 Is there an Email "Cheat-sheet"?
4. Services
4.1 Can I SSH into my account?
You can SSH to your account on the machine, however, only the main host in a LAN is directly accessable. If the major hostname for that LAN is "chix" then you must SSH to tty.chix.vistua.net.
4.2 Is it Possible to SSH to Another Machine?
Yes, you must SSH to the tty for the major host for that LAN and then use its own ssh command to connect to the other machine, of course that machine must be running an SSH server.
4.3 Can I tunnel services over SSH?
Yes, you can tunnel arbitrary services over SSH, technical support for this is not provided though, you are on your own (although PuTTY can do that semi-automatically, hint, hint). You can also forward X11 in this way, provided of course, that you have an X server available on the client end (try
Xming on MS Windows).
4.4 Is FTP, Telnet or Scp available?
Inbound FTP services are no longer available, use scp instead. Telnet has also been discontinued, use SSH instead. scp is a companion program to SSH that is like a secure version of rcp. SFTP is also available as it is part of SSH.
Naturally, you can FTP to other sites from within VNS, the regular UNIX ftp command is available as well as various other programs.
4.5 Can I use my USB Device?
Usually, materially all USB Mass Storage devices (thumb-drives, etc) are supported. Most still cameras are supported as long as they support USB Mass Storage or another well known protocol. While at least some web-cams can be got to work, sometimes it's not easy, most web-cams use proprietary protocols which are not publicly specified. Almost all music players work (follow
Mp3 Player instructions)
For everything else, it's best to ask the administrator
5. Software
6. I Need to Export a Word-Processing Document to MS Windows/The Web.
If you don't need it to be editable you can use the "PDF Export" option of OpenOffice to make a version which is guaranteed to display correctly on virtually any platform, including MS Windows,
but which cannot be edited.
If, though, you anticipate people editing the document you need to export it as Microsoft Office Word (.doc) format. You will see an option for this in the "file type" line item in the save dialog box.
The MS Office formats are proprietary and do change without notice. At the current time the OpenOffice → MS Office conversion usually goes well, although MS Office cannot open OpenOffice's files, OpenOffice can export to MS Office formats with a reasonable degree of aptitude. It is not, however, guaranteed that the conversion will be perfect, either direction.
7. Why does Firefox Say "You have been Updated to the Latest Version", Periodically?
Because of software updates that happen from time to time. Firefox feels compelled to pester everyone with this page. Just ignore it.
8. Other
8.1 Where can I get the Sarcastic Troubleshooting Flowchart?
It was reprinted from the web comic XKCD and is available on its website "Tech Support Cheat Sheet"
8.2 Why is the analogue clock widget (or other circles) oval instead of round?
Because of a property of the monitor. If you see circular objects look "oval" you have a monitor with a non 1:1 pixel aspect ratio see that article for explanation.
8.3 Why is the Sky Blue?
Because gas molecules are smaller than the wave-length of visible light, they tend to absorb and diffuse it, rather than absorb and reflect it in the manner of a solid or liquid. The highest frequencies (violet, indigo, blue, green) are scattered more easily this way, and therefore the sky is blue because the dominant factor of solar light in these frequencies is blue.
This phenomenon also causes the sunset to be red. As the earth rotates your point of view, relative to the sun, the suns rays pass for long distances close to the ground, which has thicker atmosphere, as a result of this, the moderate to high frequencies (which are scattered more easily) are lost, leaving mainly the lowest frequencies, yellow, orange and red.
Large volcanic eruptions can enhance the blueness of the sky by flinging much terrestrial rubbish into the atmosphere, and intensifying this phenomenon.
Moonlight is too weak to be affected by this phenomenon, which is called Rayleigh Scattering
Categories: Faq
Special note: please do not put this page in any other categories than "Faq"
Mail Login
Calendar
Contacts
Network Search
Downloads |
+/
-
Print Version
Feeds