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Comment Nope (Score 1) 835

by johndmartiniii (#29365455) Attached to: Does Your College Or University Support Linux?
I am at the American University in Cairo and the IT department here neither uses or supports any Linux. There is a general suspicion in the wider computing community in Egypt that you must pay for something, particularly software, for it to be any good. So, everyone just pirates copies of Windows and then steals closed/proprietary software from each other. Brilliant situation.
Windows

Windows 7 Hits Build 7600 (Possible RTM) 671

Posted by timothy from the all-aflutter dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One Microsoft Way is reporting that Microsoft has significantly incremented the build number of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: 'Reports across the Web are pointing to a build 7600 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is significant because the bump in the build number would suggest that Microsoft has christened this build as the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The RTM is expected to be given out to Microsoft partners sometime later this month and launched on October 22, 2009, the day of General Availability (GA). The build string is "7600.16384.090710-1945," which indicates that it was compiled just a few days ago: July 10, 2009, at 7:45pm. Microsoft only increments the build number when it reaches a significant goal, and the only one left is the RTM milestone. The last builds that were leaking were all 72xx builds, so such a large bump is suspicious but at the same time it is something Microsoft would do to signify that this is the final build.'"

Comment Re:Nothing to do with sex... (Score 1) 174

by johndmartiniii (#28556063) Attached to: Daily Sex Helps Improve Fertility
True enough. I sometimes accidentally read comments elsewhere and think "What the #*$% is wrong with these people?" /.ers can at least sort of spell and use complete sentences. This indicates that any /. offspring might have a chance at being a bit better spoken than their peers if not actually more intelligent.
The Media

Submission + - Journalism Benefits from Technology, Not Opposite (slate.com)

Submitted by
johndmartiniii
johndmartiniii writes: "Jack Shafer's column this week at Slate.com gives a perspective on modern journalism different from the one we usually hear regarding declining print news agencies. Rather than destroying the industry, Shafer argues that technological advances in publishing have only served to keep journalism alive, as long as journalists and news bureaus were willing to evolve as well. From the article: 'Technology, culture, business, and audience tastes are always in flux, making it the job of writers young and old to grab the best available tools and get to the business of chronicling the world. The cheap tools and affordable devices the average Joe has at his disposal to produce precision journalism and distribute it around the world are enough to make the reporters of yesterday sob in envy. It's the difference between digging ditches with a spade and excavating a canal with dynamite.'"
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox 3.5 Reviewed (slate.com)

Submitted by
johndmartiniii
johndmartiniii writes: "Farhad Manjoo has a review of Firefox 3.5 at Slate.com this week. From the article:

"Lately I've been worried about Firefox. Ever since its debut in 2004, the open-source Web browser has won acclaim for its speed, stability, and customizability. It eventually captured nearly a quarter of the market, an astonishing achievement for a project run by a nonprofit foundation. But recently Firefox seemed to go soft." The worried tone in the beginning of the review gives way to excitement over the HTML5 features being implemented, saying that thus far Firefox 3.5 "offers the best implementation of the standard--and because it's the second-most-popular Web browser in the world, the new release is sure to prompt Web designers to create pages tailored to the Web's new language.""

Comment Re:My setup (Score 1) 421

by johndmartiniii (#28450345) Attached to: How Do You Sync & Manage Your Home Directories?
I have been doing something like this for a few years now with an NSLU2 loaded with Debian. NFS shares between systems when I am at home. Rsync mirrors the 1TB disk on the server. I have recently been using Back-in-time to keep incremental snapshots. I will upgrade to the OpenRD-Client when we manage to get Debian sorted out fully on the SOC that it uses (which is the same as the SheevaPlug).

It isn't exactly the sort of solution the asker in TFA is seeking, but it could be applied similarly to meet his needs.
Earth

DoE Considers Artificial Trees To Remove CO2 418

Posted by timothy from the putting-the-artifice-in-artificial dept.
eldavojohn writes "CNN is running an article on a new angle of attack to reducing greenhouse gases. After meeting with the US Department of Energy on the concept, the researchers revealed the details that each 'tree' (really a small building structure in the concept design) would cost about as much as a Toyota and remove 1 ton of CO2 from the air per day. Don't worry, they're accounting for the energy the 'tree' uses to operate: 'By the time we make liquid C02 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of C02. Compare that to the average power plant in the US, which produces one mole of C02 with every 230 kilojoules of electricity. In other words, if we simply plugged our device in to the power grid to satisfy its energy needs, for every roughly 1,000 kilograms [of carbon dioxide] we collected we would re-emit 200, so 800 we can chalk up as having been successful.' Each unit would remove 20 automobiles' worth of CO2 from the air and cost about as much as a Toyota... so the plan might be a five percent surcharge on automobiles to fund these synthetic tree farms."
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft to "Give Away" Anti-virus Softwa (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
johndmartiniii
johndmartiniii writes: "Microsoft is preparing to release a beta version of an anti-virus program called "Morro". It will apparently lack many of the features of full security suites by companies such as McAffee and Symantec and focus only on virus detection and removal. In this case it is probably best to attempt to do one thing and try to do it well rather than a bunch of tasks. This is Microsoft's second attempt to move into the virus removal game. Perhaps it will be more successful than their OneCare offering last year."

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