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Microsoft

Submission + - A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protectio

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Peter Gutmann's article featured in latest Risks digest. See http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt for review of Vista's DRM protection. Executive Summary — Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.
User Journal

Journal SPAM: The Collision Of Civilisations 2

Journal by mercedo

When I saw The Last Samurai, there was a scene American army advisor Nathan Algren told Japanese last samurai about the Battle of Thermopylae, August 480 BC, in which King Leonidas fought with Persian counterpart Xerxes only by 300 well trained Spartans. The number of Persian army was over 100 thousand. Probably this battle was familiar to Americans, though, I had no idea what the Battle of Thermopylae was like.

Space

Submission + - Mars Rovers get software upgrade

Submitted by
cheros
cheros writes: "The Mars Rovers are unexpectedly working much longer than expected (well, they DO use Linux :-) so NASA has decided to give them revised software.

From the article:
The unexpected longevity of Spirit and Opportunity is giving the space agency a chance to field-test on Mars some new capabilities useful both to these missions and future rovers. Spirit will begin its fourth year on Mars on Jan. 3 (PST); Opportunity on Jan. 24. In addition to their continuing scientific observations, they are now testing four new skills included in revised flight software uploaded to their onboard computers.

Hats off to NASA for something that robust..

= Ch ="
Java

Submission + - Got MyEclipseIDE?

Submitted by
nfets
nfets writes: "I've been a Java/J2EE Consultant for over 8 years now and I've been a MyEclipse subscriber since approximately 1993. I am always impressed in how fast MyEclipse kept up with the version of Eclipse and Eclipse plugins being released. New technologies emerge all the time and before you could think about it, the tools you love to use is already integrated on their next beta and eventually GA release. more..."
Data Storage

Submission + - A file system best suited for archival storage?

Submitted by
Amir Ansari
Amir Ansari writes: "There have been many comparisons between various archival media (hard drive, tape, magneto-optical, CD/DVD, etc.). Of course, the most important characteristics are permanence and portability. But what about the file systems involved? For instance, I routinely archive my data onto an external hard drive: easy to update and mirror. But which file system provides the best combination of reliability, future-proofing, data recovery, and availability across multiple platforms? (In my case, Linux, OS X, BeOS/Zeta and Windows.) Open Source best guarantees the future availability of the standard and specification, but are file systems such as ext2 suitable for archival storage? Is journalling important, or do frequent write operations compromise the physical medium?"
Programming

Geeks In Asia Use Clever Hacks To Get Slashdot 154

Posted by kdawson from the whatever-it-takes dept.
Daedius writes "My comrade Hugh Perkins is living in Asia and he has been without reliable internet connectivity for many days. He uses l33t hacks to get his daily dose of Slashdot in desperate times." From the posting: "The Taiwan earthquake has brought telecommunications in the Taiwan/Hong Kong region to a standstill. I am living in Shenzhen and am unable to read Slashdot directly for several days. Gmail and Google have privileged bandwidth and local servers and both continue to work perfectly from the region. Could there be some way to use Google or Gmail to read Slashdot? A solution was to upload an executable to my web hosting in America that would receive zipped executables by email, execute them, then email me the results."
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia blocks Qatar from posting

Submitted by
nwetters
nwetters writes: "Qatar is a small country on the Arabian Peninsula. As is the way in many parts of the world, Internet traffic is censored through a proxy server, and this has led to the whole country being blocked from posting to prevent vandalism."
Handhelds

Journal Journal: Review: Ten Reasons Why I Hate My Palm LifeDrive

Journal by LoadWB

[EDIT: I added the word "Review" to the title so that it might have a better chance at showing up in search engines. I really want people to see how frustrating being a Palm customer is.]
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft "in-car" deal with ford

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is teaming up with Ford to offer in-car connectivity. Apparently this will be based on Bluetooth allowing hook-up of "iPod[s] or cellular telephones" in a market Microsoft "has long wanted to enter". Yeah right. More me-too-ism from Seattle.
Businesses

Submission + - Small Business Switches to Ubuntu

Submitted by
firenurse
firenurse writes: "The Inquirer is running a story about how one small business switched to Ubuntu. The article can be found here http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36 635

YOU NEVER QUITE wrap your head around how anti-consumer Microsoft's policies are until they bite you in the bum. Add in the customer antagonistic policies of its patsies, HP in this case, and vendors like Promise, and you have quite a recipe for pain. Guess what I did today?"
The Internet

Submission + - Linux Web Site Hosting

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My personal web site is being hosted by a shared Linux hosting provider that has become completely unreliable due to multiple mergers. I'd like to switch to a new Linux hosting provider that's cheap and reliable. It would be nice if the host had all the standard stuff (CPanel, scripting languages, reasonable allowances for data transfer and disk use, etc.) but I mostly need to SSH into the host so I can develop like I do on my home server. I've searched tons of hosting review sites but most of them seem useless. What hosting providers are Slashdot users using?
Windows

Submission + - Vista's DRM could one day spell its demise

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Gutmann describes in great detail the various measures Microsoft has taken to lock down Windows on behalf of Hollywood. "in order to playback HD-DVD and BluRay content, Microsoft agreed to degrade video and audio functionality in Windows. Gutman points out that when "premium" content is being played, component video — YPbPr — and S/PDIF interfaces are disabled." "If I do ever want to play back premium content," he wrote, "I'll wait a few years and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows PC. It's somewhat bizarre that I have to go to Communist China in order to find vendors who actually understand the consumer's needs."

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All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. -- Dawkins

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