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Comment Re:Time Machine (Score 4, Informative) 304

by japa (#39534985) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: It's World Backup Day; How Do You Back Up?
Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux inspired from “flyback project” and “TimeVault”. The backup is done by taking snapshots of a specified set of directories.

I use it with external USB drive and it has saved my butt couple of times. Cases where I thought the focus is in certain nautilus window, then doing Shift-delete + enter in very quick fashion and fraction of a second later realizing there was another nautilus window with focus on some directory which is now nuked... As this is just a frontend to rsync and uses hard links, there is the advantage of the backed up files being available even without the backup program as normal files within the directory structure on the backup media.

Comment Re:Fuel tax? (Score 1) 500

by japa (#37079304) Attached to: Dutch Government To Tax Drivers Based On Car Use

Isn't this much easier to achieve -- albeit with less accuracy -- via fuel tax? Every time the government here proposes a mileage tax, I can't help but think we already have one. Added benefit of encouraging people to drive more efficient cars.

Yes, but it's too simple a solution. There will be no hi-tech companies with their (gps) solutions that are trying to get their solution as the mandatory one. ie. No-one to offer nice "gifts" to the law makers to help them make the right decision etc...
Image

IT Worker's Revenge Lands Her In Jail 347

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-idea dept.
aesoteric writes "A 30-year-old IT worker at a Florida-based health centre was this week sentenced to 19 months in a US federal prison for hacking, and then locking, her former employer's IT systems. Four days after being fired from the Suncoast Community Health Centers' for insubordination, Patricia Marie Fowler exacter her revenge by hacking the centre's systems, deleting files, changing passwords, removing access to infrastructure systems, and tampering with pay and accrued leave rates of staff."
Patents

8-Year-Old Receives Patent 142

Posted by samzenpus from the young-inventor-society dept.
Knile writes "While not the youngest patent recipient ever (that would be a four year old in Texas), Bryce Gunderman has received a patent at age 8 for a space-saver that combines an outlet cover plate with a shelf. From the article: '"I thought how I was going to make a lot of money," Bryce said about what raced through his brain when he received the patent.'"
Patents

RuneScape Developer Victorious Over Patent Troll 89

Posted by Soulskill from the vanquishing-trolls dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Gamasutra reports that a US District Court judge has dismissed the patent infringement lawsuit brought against RuneScape developer Jagex discussed previously on Slashdot. Judge David Folsom last week dismissed online chat company Paltalk's claims that Jagex infringed on Paltalk patents relating to online network communications. The judge's ruling only resolved Jagex's case. Microsoft settled with Paltalk for an undisclosed sum in 2009 after the online communication technology company sued over the patents in a $90 million claim. That settlement opened the door to Paltalk's claims against other game companies, including Blizzard, Turbine, SOE and NCSoft. Paltalk alleged in the Jagex-related suit that it had suffered 'tens of millions of dollars' in damages. Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard said in a statement, 'It is exceedingly unfortunate that the US legal system can force a company with a sole presence in Cambridge, UK to incur a seven-digit expense and waste over a year of management time on a case with absolutely no merit,' and that Jagex 'will not hesitate to vigorously defend our position against any patent trolls who bring lawsuits against us in the future.'"
Image

In Case of Emergency, Please Remove Your Bra 123

Posted by samzenpus from the breathing-easy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Caught in a disaster with harmful airborne particles? You'd better hope you're wearing the Emergency Bra. Simply unsnap the bright red bra, separate the cups, and slip it over your head — one cup for you, and one for your friend. Dr. Elena Bodnar won an Ig Nobel Award for the invention last year, an annual tribute to scientific research that on the surface seems goofy but is often surprisingly practical. And now Bodnar has brought the eBra to the public; purchase one online for just $29.95."
The Military

Military Personnel Weigh In On Being Taliban In Medal of Honor 171

Posted by Soulskill from the identity-conflict dept.
SSDNINJA writes "This is a feature from gamrFeed that interviews nine US service members about playing as the Taliban in the upcoming Medal of Honor. One soldier states that games like MoH and Call of Duty are 'profiteering from war.' Another says, 'Honestly, I don't really see what the whole fuss is about. It's a game, and just like in Call of Duty, you don't really care about what side you're taking, just as long as you win. I don't think anyone cares if you're part of the Rangers or Spetznaz, as long as you win.' An excellent and interesting read."

Comment Warrant Canary (Re:Other uses for this sidestep?) (Score 1) 404

by japa (#33235940) Attached to: ISP Owner Who Fought FBI Spying Freed From Gag Order

"At each board meeting I tell them we have not been served by any (search warrants)," she said. "In any months that I don't tell them that, they'll know."

I wonder if this technique could be used in other ways.

An ISP could use automation to send its customers some sort of message once a day as long as

It's already been used for quite long time. Check out rsync.net http://www.rsync.net/philosophy.html "Warrant Canary". They've started this practice long ago. (Perhaps 2006 as stated in the page copyright..

Comment Re:Free. (Score 1) 242

by japa (#32999848) Attached to: Google's Free Satnav Outperforms TomTom
Don't know if this applies to all Garmin devices, but at least for my eTrex I can upload selfmade maps. I use maps based on openstreetmap ( http://www.openstreetmap.org/ ) data. There are several places to get pre-compiled maps for your device if you don't want to create them on your own.

Additionally there are other software enabling one to use topo/bitmap maps on Garmin, but I have not found one which would be completely free (as beer). Haven't been looking that much though as I'm relatively happy with OSM maps. They have theyr limitations but one definately gets more than what one paid for , which is rarely the case with commercial maps.
The Almighty Buck

UK Video Game Tax Cuts Sabotaged? 123

Posted by Soulskill from the i-wonder-if-it-rhymes-with-shmactivision dept.
ninjacheeseburger writes "Develop recently published an article claiming that the UK government was put under pressure by one of the biggest game companies in the world to cancel planned tax breaks for video game developers. This company had apparently viewed game tax relief as a measure that would have given the UK an unfair advantage over other nations."
XBox (Games)

New Xbox 360 S Uses Less Power, Makes Less Noise 176

Posted by Soulskill from the slices-dices-etc dept.
Vigile writes "Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox 360 S console at E3 this month, and without delay the new machine has been dissected and tested. The most dramatic change is the move to a single-chip CPU/GPU hybrid processor that is apparently being built on the 45nm process technology from GlobalFoundries, AMD's spun-off production facilities. With the inclusion of the new processor, the Xbox 360 S uses much less power (about 30-40%) compared to previous generation machines, and also turns out to be much quieter as a result of a single, larger fan. This article has photographic evidence of the teardown, with comparisons between this Valhalla platform and the older Falcon system, along with videos of the reconstruction process and noise comparisons." The new console also takes measures to protect itself from overheating, so RRoDs shouldn't be a problem with this revision.
Intel

The Big Technical Mistakes of History 244

Posted by kdawson from the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept.
An anonymous reader tips a PC Authority review of some of the biggest technical goofs of all time. "As any computer programmer will tell you, some of the most confusing and complex issues can stem from the simplest of errors. This article looking back at history's big technical mistakes includes some interesting trivia, such as NASA's failure to convert measurements to metric, resulting in the Mars Climate Orbiter being torn apart by the Martian atmosphere. Then there is the infamous Intel Pentium floating point fiasco, which cost the company $450m in direct costs, a battering on the world's stock exchanges, and a huge black mark on its reputation. Also on the list is Iridium, the global satellite phone network that promised to make phones work anywhere on the planet, but required 77 satellites to be launched into space."

Comment Re:Surprise (Score 1) 272

by japa (#31082382) Attached to: Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries

No, not in a tool. I mean - pop-up warning "Hey, your hard drive is failing" without your intervention. Like the battery warning.

After my first HD failure I installed smarmontools ( http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ ). The next time I got advance warning about the oncoming failure. I had dropped my laptop from about 1 meter and less than week from that incident, I got the popup. About week from that my system would not boot any longer. There are other smart monitoring software also, but this one is open source, thus you are getting good bang for the buck.

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