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Comment Re:Why brasero? (Score 1) 140

by TheDreadedGMan (#27324219) Attached to: Review of GNOME 2.26 and GTK+ 2.16

yep my thoughts exactly, I've tried to use Brasero to burn data discs and after arranging and moving files around a bit it almost always crashed on me... kinda like using an old version of Nero... although the nero drag-and-drop-into-random-folder bug is not there there are enough unique bugs that I'm unimpressed... I'll have to try the latest version and see if it's any better...
The Internet

New Zealand Halts Internet Copyright Law Changes 216

Posted by CmdrTaco from the undo-undo-undo dept.
phobonetik writes "The New Zealand Prime Minister announced his Government will throw out the controversial Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment (New Technologies) Act and start again. The proposed law changes contained 'guilty upon accusation, without appeal' clauses and heavy compliance costs to ISPs and businesses. The changes were hours away from being signed but a series of online protests, a petition on Government grounds, as well as public rebuttal by a large ISP and by Google contributed to the Government changing course and respecting the wishes of the IT industry."

Comment Re:But IE8 doesn't work with Slashdot correctly. (Score 1) 532

by TheDreadedGMan (#27173755) Attached to: Microsoft Says IE Faster Than Chrome and Firefox

wow I sometimes wondered what happened to the internet junkbuster...

Seems to be still as efficient as ever, currently using just 7MB under WindowXP.. servicing all my browsers (FF3, Chrome2, Safari4, IE7)

Performing pretty quick... now I don't need adblock!! sweet!

Thanks for pointing this out too me
Image

Science Unlocks The Mystery Of Belly Button Lint 161

Posted by samzenpus from the extreme-navel-gazing dept.
After three years of research, including examining 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button, Georg Steinhauser has discovered a type of body hair that traps stray pieces of lint and draws them into the navel. Dr Steinhauser's observations showed that "small pieces of fluff first form in the hair and then end up in the navel at the end of the day." Chemical analysis revealed the pieces of fluff were not just made up of cotton from clothing. Wrapped up in the lint were also flecks of dead skin, fat, sweat and dust. Unfortunately, further study has failed to yield a hair or fiber that would give Dr. Steinhauser the last three years of his life back.
The Almighty Buck

High Tech Misery In China 876

Posted by kdawson from the dawn-of-the-industrial-age dept.
theodp writes "Think you've got a bad job? Think again. You could be making keyboards for IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo and HP at Meitai Plastic and Electronics, a Chinese hardware factory. Prompted by the release of High Tech Misery in China by a human-rights group, a self-regulating body set up by tech companies will conduct an audit of working conditions at the factory. In return for take-home pay of 41 cents per hour, workers reportedly sit on hard wooden stools for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Overtime is mandatory, with workers being given on average two days off per month. While on the production line, workers are not allowed to raise their hands or heads, are given 1.1 seconds to snap each key into place, and are encouraged to 'actively monitor each other' to see if any company rules are being transgressed. They are also monitored by guards. Workers are fined if they break the rules, locked in the factory for four days per week, and sleep in crowded dormitories. Okay, it's not all bad news — they're hiring."
Graphics

S3 Graphics Fails At Delivering Linux Driver 132

Posted by Soulskill from the patience-is-not-infinite dept.
Ashmash writes "Phoronix is running a story about S3 Graphics failing to provide Linux support for their Chrome 500 products even though they have announced in press releases going back months that there is Linux support. S3 Graphics has gone as far as advertising OpenGL 3.0 support for Linux and one of their representatives had promised a driver by last December. This situation has been going on for months, but there is no Linux driver at all for the Chrome 500 series."

Comment it's been said before (Score 1) 81

by TheDreadedGMan (#26698993) Attached to: Setting Up Ubuntu On a PS3 For Emulation

Well yes you can "hobby" linux on your PS3... sony even provides some help... but if you think you're going to get anything cool out of it, think again, it's just going to be a hobby...

1. No HD... wow SD is so "cool"
2. No GPU... wow my PS3 has such cool 3d graphics... or not!!

So basically you get a low end computer with the inconvenience of PPC (so you can't use the majority of binaries) it's non-usefulness as a slick media player (no HD etc) or a "Game machine" (no x86 or GPU) basically means it's a big fail and thanks to Sony for a hobby "yes it runs linux" -- but no cool features.

In fact, one of the "reasons" for having a computer, e.g. playing copied games of course will not work as that's not what Sony wants you to do with "your" hardware... they would prefer you use their OS, their software etc
Security

Trojan Hides In Pirated Copies of Apple iWork '09 431

Posted by timothy from the good-reason-not-to-pirate-software dept.
CWmike writes "Pirated copies of Apple's new iWork '09 suite that are now available on file-sharing sites contain a Trojan horse that hijacks Macs and leaves them open to further attack, a security company said yesterday. The 'iServices.a' Trojan hitchhikes on iWork '09's installer, said Intego, which makes Mac security software. 'The installer for the Trojan horse is launched as soon as a user begins the installation of iWork, following the installer's request of an administrator password,' Intego said in a warning. Once installed, the Trojan "phones home" to a malicious server to notify the hacker that the Mac has been compromised, and to await instructions."
GUI

Windows 7 Taskbar Not So Similar To OS X Dock After All 545

Posted by timothy from the this-comparison-is-not-like-the-others dept.
cremou brulee writes "Redmond's photocopiers have been unusually busy for the last couple of years, with the result that Windows 7 copies a lots of Mac OS X features. First and foremost among these is the Dock, which has been unceremoniously ripped off in Windows 7's new Taskbar. Or has it? Ars Technica has taken an in-depth look at the history and evolution of the Taskbar, and shows just how MS arrived at the Windows 7 'Superbar.' The differences between the Superbar and the Dock are analyzed in detail. The surprising conclusion? 'Ultimately, the new Taskbar is not Mac-like in any important way, and only the most facile of analyses would claim that it is.'"
Programming

Survey Says C Dominated New '08 Open-Source Projects 378

Posted by timothy from the take-that-25-other-letters dept.
svonkie writes "C overwhelmingly proved to be the most popular programming language for thousands of new open-source projects in 2008, reports The Register (UK). According to license tracker Black Duck Software, which monitors 180,000 projects on nearly 4,000 sites, almost half — 47 per cent — of new projects last year used C. 17,000 new open-source projects were created in total. Next in popularity after C came Java, with 28 per cent. In scripting, JavaScript came out on top with 20 per cent, followed by Perl with 18 per cent. PHP attracted just 11 per cent, and Ruby six per cent. The numbers are a surprise, as open-source PHP has proved popular as a web-site development language, while Ruby's been a hot topic for many."
Privacy

Using Speed Cameras To Send Tickets To Your Enemies 898

Posted by kdawson from the ticket-me-elmo dept.
High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras to get back at their perceived enemies, and even teachers. The students duplicate the victim's license plate on glossy paper using a laser printer, tape it over their own plate, then speed past a newly installed speed camera. The victim gets a $40 ticket in the mail days later, without any humans ever having been involved in the ticketing process. A blog dedicated to driving and politics adds that a similar, if darker, practice has taken hold in England, where bad guys cruise the streets looking for a car similar to their own. They then duplicate its plates in a more durable form, and thereafter drive around with little fear of trouble from the police.
Microsoft

MS Says Windows 7 Will Run DirectX 10 On the CPU 503

Posted by kdawson from the aero-capable dept.
arcticstoat writes "In what could be seen as an easy answer to the Vista-capable debacle, Microsoft has introduced a 'fully conformant software rasterizer' called WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) 10, which does away with the need for a dedicated hardware 3D accelerator altogether. Microsoft says that WARP 10 will support all the features and precision requirements of Direct3D 10 and 10.1, as well as up to 8x multi-sampled anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and all optional texture formats. The minimum CPU spec needed is just 800MHz, and it doesn't even need MMX or SSE, although it will work much quicker on multi-core CPUs with SSE 4.1. Of course, software rendering on a single desktop CPU isn't going to be able to compete with decent dedicated 3D graphics cards when it comes to high-end games, but Microsoft has released some interesting benchmarks that show the system to be quicker than Intel's current integrated DirectX 10 graphics. Running Crysis at 800 x 600 with the lowest quality settings, an eight-core Core i7 system managed an average frame rate of 7.36fps, compared with 5.17fps from Intel's DirectX 10 integrated graphics."
Data Storage

On the State of Linux File Systems 319

Posted by kdawson from the here-hold-this-for-me dept.
kev009 writes to recommend his editorial overview of the past, present and future of Linux file systems: ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, Reiser4, ext4, Btrfs, and Tux3. "In hindsight it seems somewhat tragic that JFS or even XFS didn't gain the traction that ext3 did to pull us through the 'classic' era, but ext3 has proven very reliable and has received consistent care and feeding to keep it performing decently. ... With ext4 coming out in kernel 2.6.28, we should have a nice holdover until Btrfs or Tux3 begin to stabilize. The Btrfs developers have been working on a development sprint and it is likely that the code will be merged into Linus's kernel within the next cycle or two."

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