heavenlypennies - Slashdot User

Psystar Offers $399 "OpenMac" Computer 615

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 14, 2008 @04:34PM from the dead-before-it-even-got-started dept.

mytrip writes to tell us that Psystar has announced a new line of Intel-based computers that promise to run an unmodified version of Mac OS X "Leopard". Unfortunately almost immediately after the launch their website went down and as of this story remains unaccessible. "Astute readers may well hear this news and ask themselves if it doesn't sound like a Mac clone, something whose time came -- during Gil Amelio's tenure at Apple -- and went shortly after current CEO Steve Jobs assumed the helm at the company. [...] It definitely defies the EULA for Mac OS X, which specifies that the purchaser of a legal copy of Leopard is entitled to install the operating system on an Apple-branded computer. If you buy the $399 OpenMac, you can check the EULA yourself if you also buy the pre-install option, as the company includes a retail copy of Leopard with your purchase."

Safari 3.1 For Windows Violates Its Own EULA, Vulnerable To Hacks 368

Posted by Zonk on Thursday March 27, 2008 @08:45AM from the you-have-chosen-poorly dept.

recoiledsnake writes "The new Safari 3.1 for Windows has been hit with two 'highly critical'(as rated by Secunia) vulnerabilities that can result in execution of arbitrary code. The first is due to an improper handling of the buffer for long filenames of files being downloaded, and the second can result in successful spoofing of websites and phishing. This comes close on the heels of criticism of Apple for offering Safari as a update for approximately 500 million users of iTunes on Windows by default, and reports of crashes. There are currently no patches or workarounds available except the advice to stay clear of 'untrusted' sites." Further, Wormfan writes "The latest version of Safari for Windows makes a mockery of end user licensing agreements by only allowing the installation of Safari for Windows on Apple labeled hardware, thereby excluding most Windows PCs." Update: 03/27 17:23 GMT by Z : Dave Schroeder writes with the note that the license has been updated to correct this mistake.

Windows Vista Annoyances 399

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @03:14PM from the that's-a-big-list dept.

stoolpigeon writes "It has been well documented that the reception for Microsoft's Windows Vista has not been all that warm. Yet, visiting the web site of many PC manufacturers or visiting a retail outlet selling computers will show that most new hardware is being offered with Vista as the primary if not only option. O'Reilly's newest in their Annoyances series, "Windows Vista Annoyances", by David A. Karp, seeks to alleviate some of the pain for new Vista users. For the Vista owner who is able to put the book's suggestion into place, the edge should be taken off. For the individual considering a purchase of Vista and wondering if it can really be that bad, this book seems to indicate that yes, it is that bad." Read below for the rest of JR's review.

IE8 May Not Pass the Acid2 Test After All 434

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday January 23, 2008 @02:02PM from the follow-me-indy-i-know-the-way dept.

dotne writes "CNET has published an article called Acid2, Acid3 and the power of default. The article predicts that IE8 will not pass the Acid2 test after all: '[Another] scenario could be that Microsoft requires Web pages to change the default settings by flagging that they really, really want to be rendered correctly. Web pages already have a way to say this (called doctype switching, which is supported by all browsers), but Microsoft has all but announced that IE8 will support yet another scheme. If the company decides to implement the new scheme, the Acid2 test — and all the other pages that use doctype switching — will not be rendered correctly.' Microsoft's IE8 render modes have been discussed here previously, and they've caused an uproar in the web development community. According to the scheme, authors must put Microsoft-specific <meta> tags into their pages in order for them to be rendered correctly. I doubt Acid2, nor Acid3 will have Microsoft extensions in them."

How Do I Become an IT/IS Manager? 371

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @04:29PM from the do-i-even-want-to dept.

link915 writes "For the last seven years I have moved around from job to job climbing the rungs of the IT ladder. I've worked in tech support, network operations, sys admin, and as a programmer. Two years ago I took a job with a company that has a small IT department. We are now hiring on more people and doubling the department, and along with this growth comes an IT manager. Now, I could stay and wait things out with the goal of taking over the IT manager's position someday; or I could look for a new job as a manager elsewhere. What are others' experiences with moving up the ranks in IT? Is it best to move on to another company or to stay where you are and try to get ahead there?"

Cocaine Vaccine In the Works 724

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 03, 2008 @01:15PM from the runnin-round-my-brain dept.

martyros writes "Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine are performing clinical trials of a vaccine that teaches the immune system to attack cocaine, preventing it from giving a high. The vaccine is made by attaching inactivated cocaine molecules to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins. When the immune system attacks the cholera proteins, it also 'learns' the cocaine molecules as well. The result is that the immune system 'recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.'" An earlier story from The Star notes that human trials for vaccines against both cocaine and nicotine are well under way.

Duke Nukem Forever Teaser Released 341

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @03:51PM from the beginning-of-the-end-times dept.

smithtuna33 writes "As of today there is a teaser up for Duke Nukem Forever at 3dRealms. It's up on Youtube as well, since the site is already slow. Not much actual game-play, but still ... might this game actually see the light of day after so much talk?" 1up, GameTrailers, and Voodoo Extreme have it too.

Vinyl To Signal the End for CDs? 883

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 29, 2007 @05:27PM from the wtb-10-disc-changer-for-my-car dept.

PJ1216 writes to mention that vinyl seems poised to make a comeback in the music industry. Some are even predicting that this comeback coupled with the surge in digital music sales could possibly close the door on CDs. "Portability is no longer any reason to stick with CDs, and neither is audio quality. Although vinyl purists are ripe for parody, they're right about one thing: Records can sound better than CDs. Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound. Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary."

SCO Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy 421

Posted by Zonk on Friday September 14, 2007 @04:19PM from the a-true-catastrophy dept.

Can you say "the SCO, the" in German? writes "Trading of SCO's stock has been halted on news that SCO has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This move just so happens to fall on the eve of SCO's trial with Novell. One would think that their prior boasts were mostly bluster, that they believe they have almost no chance of prevailing at trial, and that they're now desperate to protect their executives from SCO's creditors while seeking yet another delay. From the release: 'The SCO Group intends to maintain all normal business operations throughout the bankruptcy proceedings. Subject to court approval, SCO and its subsidiaries will use the cash flow from their consolidated operations to meet their capital needs during the reorganization process. "We want to assure our customers and partners that they can continue to rely on SCO products, support and services for their business critical operations," said Darl McBride, President and CEO, The SCO Group. "Chapter 11 reorganization provides the Company with an opportunity to protect its assets during this time while focusing on building our future plans."'"

Acer to Acquire Gateway for $710 million 222

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday August 27, 2007 @11:28AM from the bargain-shopping dept.

downix writes "On the way into work today, I heard about Acer buying Gateway. A bold move strategically, I wonder what consequences this will have for Gateway's employees and customers. As the purchase price was at $1.90 per share, those of us that purchased Gateway shares a few years ago are reminded just how far it has fallen."

Blogger Finds Bug in NASA Global Warming Study? 755

Posted by Zonk on Friday August 10, 2007 @12:11PM from the not-such-a-good-thing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at DailyTech, a blogger has discovered a Y2K bug in a NASA climate study by the same writer who accused the Bush administration of trying to censor him on the issue of global warming. The authors have acknowledged the problem and released corrected data. Now the study shows the warmest year on record for the contiguous 48 states as being 1934, not 1998 as previously reported in the media. In fact, the corrected study shows that half of the 10 warmest years on record occurred before World War II." The article's assertion that there's a propaganda machine working on behalf of global warming theorists is outside the bounds of the data, which I think is interesting to note.

MS Promotion Site Flagged By MS Anti-Phishing 279

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @07:35PM from the too-good-to-be-true dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign that lets any student at an Australian university buy the Ultimate edition of Office 2007, usual price $1,150, for only $75 — a discount of about 93%. But when students go to the promotion site, Microsoft Live OneCare pops up a warning that the site may be a phishing scam. The warning reads: 'Phishing filter has determined this might be a phishing website. We recommend that you do not give any of your information to such websites. Phishing websites impersonate trustworthy websites for the purpose of obtaining your personal or financial information.'"

Submission + - Alternatives to Applecare ripoff?

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @05:45PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "In the high tech world, vendors often charge 10-20% per year for maintenance, which usually includes software updates. More importantly, it usually includes some level of SLA for repairs, typically somewhere between 24x7 to 3 day turnaround.

"Applecare" costs around 10-20% (for two years). It does not include software upgrades, but that is minor compared to their service record. A 1.5 year old machine has already been in the shop over 3 weeks between two different services and is not expected to be fixed any time soon. For this second repair it has been sitting for eight days and they have not even looked at it yet — and do not expect to anytime soon — "there's about 10 machines ahead of you". The Mac will soon have spent 5% of the time since purchase at "Applecare".

I run Linux for most things, but the Mac is used for Photoshop and the print drivers. It is needed to produce work for shows. So... are there service warranties for the mac from 3rd party providers that are worth anything?

Or is there any way of having Apple behave responsibly?"

Submission + - HDTV retro-gaming blues

Submitted by MadHatter on Thursday January 04, 2007 @02:22PM

MadHatter writes: I am a proud new owner of a LG 42 inch Plasma HDTV (42PC3D). However I was disturbed to find out that when I plugged my classic NES into it to play Mario on the big screen, I noticed a lag between the time I pressed the buttons and when he jumped. I thought maybe this was a bad controller, but after I tried the other one, the same thing happened. I tried different ratio aspects... no change. I started doing some research and found out that there is a large problem with HDTV's and older generation consoles. It has to do with the time it takes to upscale the image to the native resolution of the tv. Some tv's have a "game" mode that help a little, but mine does not. This seems to me a big problem that more people should know about when buying a HDTV — even some games on systems as new as PS2 have problems with it. I have read on some forums about VGA upscalers, but these are expensive themselves. Has anyone had any success with these and is it worth it to buy one? How have other people had success playing retro consoles on HDTV?

Vista and the Music Industry 438

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 01, 2007 @02:54AM from the locked-down dept.

BanjoBob writes "Vista locks down all the DRM functionality and actually reduces the quality of playback of some media. This includes both audio and video content. As a company creating music and video products, how can we use Vista to create, distribute, and use legal media? I have read nothing to indicate that Vista has a model to allow 'authorized' use without causing problems. Currently we use Windows 2000 and Linux products. If what we understand is true, Vista and future Microsoft products won't be viable options for us since prior to publication, media must be copied multiple times, edited, moved around, re-edited and often modified into various forms (trailers, etc.) before, during, and after production. This naturally includes backups and recovery. If Vista is intent on prohibiting these uses, then Microsoft is intent on keeping their products out of the realm of content creation and editing. How do others deal with these issues?"

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