Comment Backslash (Score 1) 839
How about even just getting staff to say only "slash" and "backslash" instead of pedantically saying "forward-slash" every damned time.
Comment Light sleeper (Score 5, Funny) 249
Wait until you have children. You'll get much better at sleeping.
Comment Re:Good enough (Score 1) 471
If I had mod points and if you could spell I'd mod you up.
Win 2000 was more stable, really just Windows 5 a step up from Windows NT 4.
Windows ME was an abomination, the worst of both worlds.
Windows XP was really just a step up from Windows 2000, turning off themes and a few other trivial changes brought it right back to what users were comfortable from Win2k. Better Games support as you say.
Windows 7 is by all accounts more stable but even after you make tweaks it is still another set of differences and just generally a bunch of pain in the ass minor changes for little extra gain.
Microsoft is increasingly facing diminshing returns, older versions remain a bigger challenge to them than Linux. Same as it ever was.
Robot Walks Like a Human, Requires No Power 195
MrSeb writes "Today's groundbreaking entry into the Uncanny Valley is a pair of mechanical, robot legs that are propelled entirely by their own weight: they can walk with a human-like gait without motors or external control. Produced by some researchers at Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan, all the legs require for sustained motion (they walked 100,000 steps, 15km, over 13 hours last year) is a gentle push and a slight downwards slope. They then use same 'principle of falling' that governs human walking, with the transfer of weight (and the slight pull of gravity), pulling the robot into consecutive steps."
Ask Slashdot: What To Tell High-Schoolers About Computer Science? 315
First time accepted submitter lsllll writes "I got drawn (without my intention) into three 20 minute sessions, talking to high school students about computer science and programming, and am wondering what are some of the things I should talk to them about. I have previously done the same thing for a forty minute period, and all the students wanted to talk about game programming. My only game programming experience dates back to the late '80s and programming a few games (some which ran on top of Novell's network) in Turbo Pascal. Since then I have done lots of database design, web interface programming, and systems configuration and integration. I am pretty fluent with Windows and Linux, but my contemporary programming skills are somewhat limited to Coldfusion, PHP, Javascript, SQL and bash scripts. Should I talk to them about different aspects of computer science, what it's like to work full-time in the computer industry, or do I make the sessions just question and answer, since 20 minutes might not allow me to talk and do question and answer?"
Comment More like a recompile [was Re:About time] (Score 1) 114
A developer got it to compile successfully, on different hardware. There are no intereface changes and the article makes it clear they are more targeting tablets anyway than mobile devices with really small specialised interefaces. It is techincally a "port" but that is misleading and suggests a lot more than has really happened.
How Do You Explain Software Development To 2nd Graders? 430
First time accepted submitter zimania writes "At the start of every school year, my kids' teachers invariably ask if any parents have any special skills they can present to the students. As a software engineer, I'd like to give a presentation to the classes about developing software. The tricky part is making a presentation fun, inspirational, and easy enough for 2nd and 4th graders to grasp. Has anybody been brave enough to attempted such a thing? Are there kid-tested prepackaged presentations freely available? Would it be best to present the development of a simple game? Web page? Any advice is welcome."
GNOME and KDE Devs Wrangle Over 'System Settings' Name 289
An anonymous reader writes "The developer of the KDE System Settings application has launched a formal complaint against GNOME for renaming 'Control Center' to 'System Settings' in GNOME 3.0. This developer is demanding that GNOME immediately change the name of their control panel area. Developers on both sides are now discussing this act."
Comment Re:Large removable disk on the low end, tape highe (Score 1) 397
WinRAR? PAR? Seriously. It would also be tediously slow and be a micromanaging solution that only covers the files but fails to consider the need to also keep a working backup image of the system and a properly licensed version of InDesign to ensure he can still reopen the files.
Tapes make sense especially since they can easily be couriered for offsite backup. A well thought out disaster recovery plan must include offsite backup.
The submitter mentions 60GB InDesign files and sounds like a small profession or high end amatuer, so the extra cost of a RAID setup sounds like it would be a sensible investment.
Copying to new media sounds sensible but is not exactly the right answer, the correct solution is not only to make backups but to also to check that you are able to restore from backup.
Comment Whole screen click was Blackberry not Nokia (Score 1) 172
> I saw this one Nokia phone that had a feature that Apple didn't come up with, which was to make the whole display a button that was clickable, so touching was one kind of input, and that was separate from clicking. I thought that was pretty cool.
BlackBerry Storm: The Novelty Wears Off Fast
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1860717,00.html
the first smartphone with a clickable touchscreen. I even enjoyed the few minutes I spent playing
But after 24 hours of actually testing the new BlackBerry side by side with its main competition
Comment Twitter (Score 1) 228
I for one welcome our new Twitter banning overlords
Comment Microsoft patent reform (Score 1) 162
Maybe you were shooting for a funny moderation?
It willl take more than once bitten to make Microsoft twice shy. They weren't bitten hard, Microsoft have so much cash this was but a scratch.
Face-Mounted Nose Stylus Created For Phones
208
Lanxon writes "Designer Dominic Wilcox has come up with a Pinocchio-style 'finger-nose stylus' that lets you use your phone hands free, reports Wired. He came up with the design after he found that he wanted to use his touchphone in the bath. A wet hand is not a good touchscreen navigation device, so he found himself using his nose to scroll, but found it hard to see precisely where his nose was touching the screen. The solution was to create a nose extension 'finger' that would allow for navigation while holding the phone firmly in his one dry hand."
Microsoft and Nokia Finally Sign Definitive Agreement 95
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft and Nokia yesterday announced the signing of a definitive agreement regarding their global mobile ecosystem partnership. We already know that Microsoft and Nokia will work together to reach out to developers, but the two have agreed to make Windows Phone developer registration free for all Nokia developers. There are also plans to open a new Nokia-branded global application store that leverages the Windows Phone Marketplace infrastructure so that developers can publish and distribute applications through a single developer portal to consumers that use Windows Phone, Symbian, and Series 40 devices. Lastly, Nokia will contribute its expertise in operator billing to ensure participants in the Windows Phone ecosystem can take advantage of Nokia's billing agreements with 112 operators in 36 markets."
Comment Paint.net not open source (Score 1) 141
It was open source but Paint.net is not open source. The author was annoyed at people misrepsenting and reselling his work and closed the codebase.
