i22yb - Slashdot User

The Homemade Hard Disk Destroyer 497

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 17, 2009 @08:51AM from the if-you-can-recover-that-you-earned-it dept.

Barence writes "All businesses have sensitive data they need to destroy when they replace PCs, but disposing of hard disks properly can be an expensive business. This has led one IT manager in the UK to come up with his own, homemade solution — Bustadrive. It uses a powerful 'hydraulic punch' to physically deform a hard disk, rendering it virtually unreadable, and requires nothing more than a pull of the lever on the front — similar to a drinks-can crusher. PC Pro tested the Bustadrive, and also sought the opinions of data destruction companies as to whether the device was really as effective as hoped, or just a fun way to mangle a hard disk or two."

Microsoft Trial Misconduct Cost $40 Million 231

Posted by timothy on Monday August 17, 2009 @08:12AM from the at-least-he-wasn't-feeling-vindictive dept.

SpuriousLogic writes "The judge who banned Microsoft from selling its Word document program in the US due to a patent violation tacked an additional $40 million onto a jury's $200 million verdict because the software maker's lawyers engaged in trial misconduct, court records reveal. In a written ruling, Judge Leonard Davis, of US District Court for Eastern Texas, chastised Microsoft's attorneys for repeatedly misrepresenting the law in presentations to jurors.'Throughout the course of trial Microsoft's trial counsel persisted in arguing that it was somehow improper for a non-practicing patent owner to sue for money damages,' Davis wrote. The judge cited a particular incident in which a Microsoft lawyer compared plaintiff i4i, Inc. to banks that sought bailout money from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. 'He further persisted in improperly trying to equate i4i's infringement case with the current national banking crisis implying that i4i was a banker seeking a "bailout,"' Davis said."

Domain Tasting "Officially Dead" Thanks To Cancellation Policy 102

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday August 14, 2009 @02:07PM from the plenty-of-other-shady-practices-left dept.

Ars Technica is reporting that domain tasting has been all but eradicated now that the full penalty for excessive cancellations has taken effect. "In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations; they would face penalties for anything above that. Initially, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit, which was in effect from June 2008 to July of this year. Later, it adopted an official policy that raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration; that took effect in July 2009. The results have been dramatic. Even under the low-cost budget provisions, domain withdrawals during the grace period dropped to 16 percent of what they had been prior to its adoption. Once the heavy penalties took hold, the withdrawal rate dropped to under half a percent."

Comment Dymo LabelWriter Turbo 330 (Score 1) 188

by i22yb on Thursday July 30, 2009 @09:24PM (#28891307) Attached to: Linux-Friendly Label Printer Recomendations?

We've got a Dymo LabelWriter Turbo 330. We do anywhere from 20-100 labels a day with no problems. I have not used this on Linux; however, Dymo does offer a Linux driver for it here: http://www.dymo.com/media/Software/dymo-cups-drivers-1.2.0.tar.gz

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is that most of these label printers are THERMAL printers, meaning no cartridge / toner / drum / etc. to deal with - you just have to buy the thermal compatible labels. A great source I have found for the roll labels is: http://www.labelsdirect.com/ We use shipping labels to print sold tags and inventory tags for the furniture store I work at and can get a roll of 300 labels for about $7.00. Compare that to a package of sheet fed labels, along with the time it would take to deal with them, and the added toner/drum costs of a laser printer and you will see why most businesses go with the label printers for high volume output!

Secrets of Schizophrenia and Depression "Unlocked" 334

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Thursday July 02, 2009 @11:27AM from the just-a-little-less-crazy-loose-in-the-world dept.

Oracle Goddess writes "According to the US National Institute for Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, scientists have discovered a remarkable similarity between the genetic faults behind both schizophrenia and manic depression in a breakthrough that is expected to open the way to new treatments for two of the most common mental illnesses, affecting millions of people. Previously schizophrenia and depression were assumed to be two separate conditions, but the new research shows for the first time that both have a common genetic basis that leads people to develop one or the other of the two illnesses."

Obama Taps IBM Open Source Advocate For USPTO 88

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday June 19, 2009 @06:26PM from the baby-steps dept.

langelgjm writes "President Obama has announced his intent to nominate David Kappos, a VP and general counsel at IBM, to head the US Patent and Trademark Office. This move is particularly notable not only because of IBM's much friendlier attitudes towards open source compared with some of their rivals, but also because Kappos himself is open source-friendly: 'We are now the biggest supporters of the open source development project,' explains David. 'Admittedly this policy is not easily reconcilable with our traditional IP strategy, but we are convinced that it is the way to go for the future.' Not just a lawyer, Kappos earned an engineering degree before working in the legal field. Kappos has been described as 'critical of the American approach to patent policy.' Given his background, could this mean a new era for US patent policy?"

A Mathematician's Lament — an Indictment of US Math Education 677

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday June 19, 2009 @02:05PM from the beating-the-joy-out-of-education dept.

Scott Aaronson recently had "A Mathematician's Lament" [PDF], Paul Lockhardt's indictment of K-12 math education in the US, pointed out to him and takes some time to examine the finer points. "Lockhardt says pretty much everything I've wanted to say about this subject since the age of twelve, and does so with the thunderous rage of an Old Testament prophet. If you like math, and more so if you think you don't like math, I implore you to read his essay with every atom of my being. Which is not to say I don't have a few quibbles [...] In the end, Lockhardt's lament is subversive, angry, and radical ... but if you know anything about math and anything about K-12 'education' (at least in the United States), I defy you to read and find a single sentence that isn't permeated, suffused, soaked, and encrusted with truth."

Camara Goes On Offense Against the RIAA 316

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 10, 2009 @11:47AM from the balls-in-our-courts dept.

whisper_jeff writes "Ars has an excellent write up outlining how Kiwi Camara (Jammie Thomas-Rasset's new lawyer) is following the 'Best Defense is a Good Offense' philosophy and going on the attack against the RIAA. Not content to just defend his client, he is laying siege against the RIAA's entire campaign and beginning the work of dismantling it from the bottom up, starting with the question of whether they actually do own the copyrights that were allegedly infringed. And, if you're thinking this is good for everyone who's been harassed by the RIAA, you'd be right — Camara, along with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, plans to file a class-action suit seeking to force the RIAA to return all the (ill-gotten) money they've earned from their litigation campaign." We first discussed the efforts of Nesson and Camara to thwart the RIAA last month.

The Anti-ODF Whisper Campaign 213

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 10, 2009 @11:05AM from the are-you-saying-odf-won't-make-my-docs-smell-bad dept.

eldavojohn writes "Groklaw is examining the possibility of an anti-ODF whisper campaign and the effects it has had on the ODF and OOXML Wikipedia articles. In the ODF article, Alex Brown bends the truth to make it seem like no one is supporting ODF, and that it is a flawed and incomplete standard. From the conclusion, 'So what is one to do? You obviously can't trust Wikipedia whatsoever in this area. This is unfortunate, since I am a big fan of Wikipedia. But since the day when Microsoft decided they needed to pay people to "improve" the ODF and OOXML articles, they have been a cesspool of FUD, spin and outright lies, seemingly manufactured for Microsoft's re-use in their whisper campaign. My advice would be to seek out official information on the standards, from the relevant organizations, like OASIS, the chairs of the relevant committees, etc. Ask the questions in public places and seek a public response. That is the ultimate weakness of FUD and lies. They cannot stand the light of public exposure. Sunlight is the best antiseptic.'"

Burglar Nabbed By Backup Program 98

Posted by samzenpus on Friday May 29, 2009 @12:21AM from the stupid-is-as-stupid-does dept.

Bruce Perens writes "A Berkeley, California, burglar engineered his own arrest, and that of his girlfriend, when he stole a laptop and used it as his personal computer. He didn't realize that the laptop had an automatic backup program, and that the photos he took were being copied to his victim's backup repository. Berkeley police recognized him, and his location, from the photos."

ODF Alliance Warns Governments About Office 2007 ODF Support 312

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 20, 2009 @03:43PM from the please-sub-in-the-new-bullet-points dept.

omz writes "The ODF Alliance has prepared a Fact Sheet for governments and others interested in how Microsoft's SP2 for Office 2007 handles ODF. The report revealed 'serious shortcomings that, left unaddressed, would break the open standards based interoperability that the marketplace, especially governments, is demanding.'"

Secret EU Open Source Migration Study Leaked 311

Posted by kdawson on Friday May 15, 2009 @08:45AM from the why-they-stick-with-office dept.

Elektroschock writes "For 4 years MEP Marco Cappato tried to get access to the EU Council's 2005 open source migration study because he is a member of a responsible IT oversight committee in the European Parliament. His repeated requests for access were denied. Now they have finally been answered because the Council's study has escaped into the wild (PDF in French and English). Here is a quick look. It is embarrassing! Gartner, when asked if there were any mature public Linux installations in Europe, claimed that there were none. Michael Silver said, 'I have not spoken to any sizable deployments of Linux on the desktop and only one or two StarOffice deployments.' Gartner spread patent and TCO FUD. Also, the European Patent Office participated in the project, although it is not an EU institution."

Linux.com Relaunched Under New Management 70

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @03:02PM from the things-change-almost-always dept.

mikesd81 writes "Linux.com has been relaunched under the direction of the Linux Foundation. The goal of the site is supposed to be a community hub that lets the Linux community participate and contribute their knowledge. An initial look as the site is today makes it look like a news site. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin insists that the plan wasn't for Linux.com to be a breaking news organization but rather as a resource for the Linux community as a whole."

Breast Cancer Gene Lawsuit Argues Patents Invalid 294

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @09:33AM from the time-to-reconsider-my-patent-on-feet dept.

bkuhn writes "The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation have filed a lawsuit charging that patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid. The lawsuit (PDF) was filed on behalf of four scientific organizations representing more than 150,000 geneticists, pathologists, and laboratory professionals, as well as individual researchers, breast cancer and women's health groups, and individual women. Individuals with certain mutations along these two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are at a significantly higher risk for developing hereditary breast and ovarian cancers."

Law of Armed Conflict To Apply To Cyberwar 242

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 08, 2009 @07:14PM from the logic-bombs-vs-smart-bombs dept.

charter6 writes "Gen. Kevin Chilton, the head of STRATCOM, just declared that the Law of Armed Conflict will apply to cyberwar, and that the US won't rule out conventional (read: kinetic) responses to cyber-attacks. This means that we consider state-supported 'hackers' to be subject to the Geneva Conventions and Customary International Law, including the rules of proportionality and distinction (i.e. if we catch them, we can try them for war crimes). Incidentally, it also means we consider non-state cyber-attackers to be illegal enemy combatants, which means we can do all kinds of nasty stuff to them."

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