bpechter - Slashdot User

Comment www.google.com/ie gone -- also used by the blind. (Score 4, Interesting) 281

by bpechter on Tuesday May 11, 2010 @11:44AM (#32170080) Attached to: Scroogle Has Been Blocked

The wife used the www.google.com/ie interface for accessability reasons. It worked much better for her with her screen reader. She's totally blind. She'll miss the interface and I know there were others using it for the same reason.

Lower Merion School's Report Says IT Dept. Did It, But Didn't Inhale 232

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 06, 2010 @03:46PM from the so-what's-a-few-snapshots-anyhow dept.

PSandusky writes "A report issued by the Lower Merion School District's chosen law firm blames the district's IT department for the laptop webcam spying scandal. In particular, the report mentions lax IT policies and record-keeping as major problems that enabled the spying. Despite thousands of e-mails and images to the contrary, the report also maintains that no proof exists that anyone in IT viewed images captured by the webcams."

Comment Time to bring back usenet (Score 1) 157

by bpechter on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @11:30AM (#32098936) Attached to: Spam Causes Microsoft To Kill Newsgroups

Time to bring back point to point newsfeeds which limit access. Spam control by knowing exactly who you'll feed -- and who you cut off for spam.

Bring back the days before Eternal September and the great renaming.

Writer Peter Watts Sentenced; No Jail Time 299

Posted by timothy on Friday April 30, 2010 @10:30PM from the new-spirit-of-openness dept.

shadowbearer writes "SF writer Peter Watts, a Canadian citizen, whose story we have read about before in these pages, was sentenced three days ago in a Port Huron, MI court. There's not a lot of detail in the story, and although he is still being treated like a terrorist (cannot enter or pass through the US, DNA samples) he was not ordered to do any time in jail, was freed, and has returned home to his family. The judge in the case was, I believe, as sympathetic as the legal system would allow him to be."

Man Accused of Trying To Sell Kids On Craigslist 172

Posted by samzenpus on Friday April 23, 2010 @02:16PM from the in-what-section-does-one-list-children? dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "You can get a lot of good deals on Craigslist, apparently including children. A New York State man has been arrested for allegedly trying to sell his children on the online marketplace. From the article: 'State Police Investigator Bryan Blum said Joshua A. Stagnitto, 24, was charged with one count of third-degree falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor, after a report was made to Monroe County Child Protective Services advising them of the posting on the online marketplace. The posting indicated a person was selling their children. Police said an investigation revealed Stagnitto was the source of the posting.'"

Comment Re:ClearOS (Score 1) 618

by bpechter on Monday April 12, 2010 @08:32AM (#31815668) Attached to: What Advice For a Single Parent As Server Admin?

ClearOS (I used the earlier ClarkConnect 3.x and 4.x) was ok but a bit more than I needed (web shares and pages were more than I
needed).

I've added most of what I need on top of IPCOP. Filtering, time based controls are available.

I put in my own dhcp and dns to allow me to redirect the gateway to a non-existant IP so I can have a time period when my kid can use the network based printer and computer for homework -- but not get to the outside world to screw around with Social Networking or games... I ssh in and run a script to restart dhcp to allow access to the outside when the work's done.

Having openvpn so I can get to the home network securely was a plus.

Iron Alloy Could Create Earthquake-Proof Buildings 107

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 25, 2010 @01:37AM from the shake-all-you-want dept.

separsons writes "Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University designed a new shape memory metal alloy. The super elastic iron alloy can endure serious stretching and still return to its original shape. The scientists say that once optimized, the material could be used in everything from braces to medical stents to earthquake-proof buildings!"

Need Help Salvaging Data From an Old Xenix System 325

Posted by timothy on Sunday March 21, 2010 @08:23AM from the warrior-princess dept.

Milo_Mindbender writes "I've recently gotten ahold of an old Altos 586 Xenix system (a late '80s Microsoft flavor of Unix) that has one of the first multi-user BBS systems in the US on it, and I want to salvage the historical BBS posts off it. I'm wondering if anyone remembers what format Xenix used on the 10MB (yes MB) IDE hard drive and if it can still be read on a modern Linux system. This system is quite old, has no removable media or ethernet and just barely works. The only other way to get data off is a slow serial port. I've got a controller that should work with the disk, but don't want to tear this old machine apart without some hope that it will work. Anyone know?"

Funeral Being Held Today For IE6 194

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 04, 2010 @12:44PM from the good-riddance dept.

An anonymous reader writes "More than 100 people, many of them dressed in black, are expected to gather around a coffin Thursday to say goodbye to an old friend. The deceased? Internet Explorer 6. The aging Web browser, survived by its descendants Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8, is being eulogized at a tongue-in-cheek 'funeral' hosted by Aten Design Group, a design firm in Denver, Colorado."

Printing Replacement Body Parts 101

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 03, 2010 @04:49AM from the portrait-mode dept.

Deep Penguin sends in a piece that appeared in The Economist a couple of weeks back about a developing technology to "print" body parts for transplant. "A US and an Australian company have developed the $200,000 machine, which works by depositing stem cells and a 'sugar-based hydrogel' scaffolding material. (The stem cells are harvested from a transplant patient's own fat and bone marrow, to avoid rejection down the line.) The companies are Organovo, from San Diego, specializing in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne, Australia. The initial targets are skin, muscle, and 'short stretches of blood vessels,' which they hope to have available for human implantation within five years. Down the line, they expect the technology could even print directly into the body, bypassing the in-vitro portion of the current process."

Patent Markings May Spell Trouble For Activision 82

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 23, 2010 @07:41AM from the almost-rocket-docket dept.

eldavojohn writes "If you pick up your copy of Guitar Hero and read the literature, you'll notice it says 'patent pending' and cites a number of patents. A group alleges no such patent pends nor are some of the patents applicable. If a judge finds Activision guilty of misleading the public in this manner, they could become liable for up to $500 per product sold under false patent marking. The patents in question seem to be legitimately Guitar Hero-oriented, and little is to be found about the mysterious group. The final piece of the puzzle puts the filing in Texas Northern District Court, which might be close enough to Texas Eastern District Court to write this off as a new kind of 'false patent marking troll' targeting big fish with deep coffers."

Sun's Project Darkstar Game Server Platform No More 82

Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 03, 2010 @01:00PM from the dropped-off-the-moving-truck dept.

sproketboy writes "Project Darkstar, an open source software platform from Sun labs that simplifies the development of horizontally scalable servers for online games, is being discontinued as of the Oracle acquisition. This project, mentioned a couple of years back on Slashdot, was a unique concept for building an application server specific to on-line gaming. Sadly they were so close at version 0.9.11 (which is still very stable). Hopefully the open source community can get involved and help continue work on this project."

Why Time Flies By As You Get Older 252

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 02, 2010 @11:03PM from the like-a-banana dept.

Ant notes a piece up on WBUR Boston addressing theories to explain the universal human experience that time seems to pass faster as you get older. Here's the 9-minute audio (MP3). Several explanations are tried out: that brains lay down more information for novel experiences; that the "clock" for nerve impulses in aging brains runs slower; and that each interval of time represents a diminishing fraction of life as we age.

DVD-CSS's Encryption Not Enough? Here Comes DECE 361

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @09:49AM from the dedicated-to-bono dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Studios digitally restricting (drm) or locking down content with DVD-CSS not enough for you? Well, get ready, here comes the entertainment cartel's Holy Grail, all-hardware encryption, via 'DECE.' And let's not forget this little issue."

Kodak Wireless Picture Frames Open To Public 185

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @09:07AM from the look-ma-a-picture-of-a-goat dept.

Jaxoreth writes "The Kodak Easyshare Wireless Digital Picture Frame displays images via a per-frame RSS feed hosted by FrameChannel. Each frame's URL is identical except for a parameter matching its particular MAC address, enabling public browsing of users' feeds. And worse, if you reach the feed of a not-yet-activated frame, it gives you the code to activate it, allowing you to preload it with whatever content you choose."

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