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Education

Gen Y Workers Reinventing IT for the Better 447

Posted by Zonk from the worse-or-better dept.
buzzardsbay writes "We all know the complaints about young employees. They depend too much on their parents' money, they need constant hand-holding, they have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees, and they're naive about corporate culture. But despite this conventional wisdom, there's growing evidence that the different working styles of Gen Y workers might be causing fundamental — and beneficial — changes in the way enterprises run, especially when it comes to IT. For example, they may show better judgment when making tech purchases and are often better with green IT initiatives. This is a nice counterpoint to a previous story (and resulting incendiary comments) that dubbed young tech workers a risk to corporate networks."
The Internet

Is Copy Protection Needed or Futile? 392

Posted by Zonk from the hard-to-explain dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Columnist Saul Hansell is hosting a debate about copyright issues and technology on his blog at the New York Times . On one side Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal, says that anyone who is intellectually honest must 'acknowledge, confront and speak to the tidal wave of unlawful, wholesale reproduction and distribution of copyrighted content that is currently occurring in the digital world' and that we should be 'identify workable, flexible and effective approaches that reduce piracy without being intrusive and that fully respect other interests such as privacy and fair use.' Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, responds that 'locks will be broken, and so a business model that depends on locking is very vulnerable' adding that locks may form a part of certain successful business models but 'too much reliance on locking can seriously backfire.' Wu and Cotton will respond to each other and to comments by readers today." As for the man on the street, Panaqqa wrote us with word that the Question Copyright site has posted an interesting video of ordinary people explaining why they think copyright exists. It's pretty clear that most people don't understand it at all.
Games

Jack Thompson Facing Disbarment Trial 258

Posted by Zonk from the facing-the-music dept.
pwizard2 writes "Gamepolitics reports that controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces the start of an ethics trial this morning, a process which could ultimately see him disbarred. The review board has set aside the entire week to hear details on the case. 'Over the weekend, Thompson turned to the Florida Supreme Court in an apparent effort to block this morning's trial from moving forward. In one court filing Thompson asserted that he was willing to accept a 90-day suspension of his license to practice law. The embattled attorney claimed that such an offer had been on the table, but that the Florida Bar was now seeking his permanent disbarment.'"
Slashdot.org

Slashdot 10-Year Anniversary Party Grand Prize Winner 102

Posted by CmdrTaco from the congratulations-for-the-carnage dept.
From Brisbane to Beunos Aires... From the UK to France to Romania... from New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between, we had well over 100s of parties and over 2,300 registered attendees scattered around the world. Many of them got boxes of t-shirts and ThinkGeek gift certificates (and some of them even got them on time). We've seen cakes with legos and logos, we seen nerf gun fights, and even a lawn sporking. I've put a tiny sampling of my favorite pictures online. The grand prize winner is of the $1k store credit at ThinkGeek is Lindsi from Minneapolis. Their party featured a lolcats cake, a taco bar and a dude in a helmet smashing computers with a sledge hammer in a raining parking lot. They earned it. We had a great time in both Palo Alto and Ann Arbor- I hope you guys had fun wherever you gathered. See you again in 2017!
Handhelds

Submission + - Nokia adds QWERTY to Linux tablet (linuxdevices.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Nokia today announced its third Linux-based Internet tablet. The new N810 tablet is smaller, heavier, and faster, with a slide-out hardware QWERTY thumb keyboard, GPS receiver, FM transmitter (for in-car listening), and a light-sensing screen dimmer. It retains the same ARM11-based processor as Nokia's earlier N800, albeit clocked a bit faster. A full Mozilla-based browser with Flash 9 and Windows Media file support are also new, and are claimed to offer the best AJAX Web 2.0 experience on any mobile device. Next, Nokia plans to add WiMax to its Linux tablets, it has promised.
Patents

Submission + - Patent case filed against Red Hat and Novell

Submitted by jlindy
Patents

Submission + - Patent case against red hat and novell

Submitted by raffe
raffe writes: From Groklaw: IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement They claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. You might recall the patent was used in litigation against Apple in April 2007, and Beta News reported at the time that it's a 1991 Xerox PARC patent. But ars technica provided the detail that it references earlier patents going back to 1984 claim to have the rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412 for a User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects issued Dec. 10, 1991 along with two other similar patents. So in July one Microsoft executive arrives; then as of October 1, there is the second, a patent guy. October 9, IP Innovation, a subsidiary, sues Red Hat. And Novell. So much for being Microsoft's little buddy. I think SCO II has arrived
Patents

Submission + - Red Hat and Novell sued for patent infringement

Submitted by twistedcubic
twistedcubic writes: Red Hat and Novell have been sued for patent infringement in Texas by IP Innovation, LLC. and Technology Licensing Corporation. On October 9, IP Innovation filed suit claiming Red Hat and Novell violated U.S. patents 5072412, 5533183, and 5394521. The patents were originally assigned to Xerox Corporation. A cursory look suggests the patents involve virtual workspaces and sticky windows with different properties in each virtual workspace. Groklaw has the scoop.
Microsoft

Ecuador Tax Agency Closes Microsoft Branch Offices 109

Posted by CowboyNeal from the time-to-sniff-the-paper-trail dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Ecuador Tax Agency (SRI) has closed Microsoft branch offices for seven days. 'We have twice requested balances, payment reports and complete tax information, but the company hasn't given it to us, so in accordance with our laws we have proceeded with the closure,' the SRI official in charge of the proceeding said. Microsoft said it was a human mistake."
Communications

Apple Sued Over iPhone Bricking 418

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-the-price-change-suit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The week's debate over the iPhone 1.1.1 has finally resulted in legal action. InfoWeek reports that on Friday, California resident Timothy Smith sued Apple in a class-action case in Santa Clara County Superior court. The suit was filed by Damian Fernandez, the lawyer who's been soliciting plaintiffs all week for a case against Apple. The suit doesn't ask for a specific dollar amount, but seeks an injunction against Apple, which prevents it from selling the iPhone with any software lock. It also asks that Apple be enjoined from denying warranty service to users of unlocked iPhone, and from requiring iPhone users to get their phone service through AT&T."

Gates Successor Says Microsoft Laid Foundation for Google 500

Posted by Zonk from the yin-and-yang dept.
thefickler writes "According to Bill Gates' successor Craig Mundie, there would have been no Google without Microsoft. 'I mean, the fact is: Google's existence and success required Microsoft to have been successful previously to create the platform that allowed them to go on and connect people to their search servers. Now, Microsoft's business is not to control the platform per se, but in fact to allow it to be exploited by the world's developers. The fact that we have it out there gives us a good business, but in some ways it doesn't give us an advantage over any of the other developers in terms of being able to utilize it.' This comment comes from a lengthy interview between Mundie and APC magazine, which talks with the newly installed strategy and R&D head. Other interesting topics discussed include the future of Microsoft and Windows, OOXML, and and the 'rise of Linux' on the desktop."
Microsoft

Microsoft and Novell Open Interoperability Lab 113

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the still-in-the-skeptic-camp dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention that the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts opened today. The lab is supposed to allow both Novell and Microsoft developers to work together for better interoperability between SUSE and Windows Server. "Located in Cambridge, the 2,500-square-foot lab and workspace will be home to a combined team of the best and brightest Microsoft and Novell engineers focused on making Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise work better together. The first priority for the lab team will be to ensure interoperability between Microsoft and Novell virtualization technologies. Additional work will include standards-based systems management, identity federation and compatibility of office document formats."
HP

Submission + - 15 year old IIP Printers opened up on ZDNET

Submitted by
avatar139
avatar139 writes: "As posted on http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-63115.html At the risk of revealing my age, anyone over the age of 35 years old may recall the invention of the HP IIP one of the first and to this day still the best and most reliable laser printers around. Several companies still use this model amazingly enough, and when you think about the average lifespan for consumer and corporate electronics, that's pretty impressive. The digital gallery that ZDNET set up showcases the device fairly well, so if you are interested in laser printers in general, and the internals of such devices you might want to take a look at the gallery."
Editorial

Submission + - Even Nerds Get Abused by Credit Card Companies

Submitted by
Pat Hicks
Pat Hicks writes: "Once upon a time long, long ago I sat across the desk from a banker and listened to the
clock tick as he scanned my loan application for my first house. As the vest buttons of his three piece suit strained, he looked over his reading glasses at me and with the experience of having looked at hundreds, maybe more, of these applications he said,

"You didn't borrow any of this down payment, did you? We'll be able to find out if you
didn't save it yourself?"

"Oh, no sir. All twenty percent of the down payment is mine."

"Well, you're pushing it with your monthly payment being 27% of your gross income.
We prefer the payment to be no more than 25% of your net income. We might be able to
do something but I can't guarantee it."

Fast forward to today and many are quick to blame the sub-prime crises we face now on the
plethora of people that can't discipline themselves financially or the predatory lenders
that have created mortgage banking products that are, at best, questionable in nature.

But, how did this situation develop in the first place?

First, look back to the Supreme Court decision in 1978 that allowed usury credit card
interest rates to be exported from North Dakota. Soon, other states joined the bandwagon
and, adjusted for inflation, from 1968 to 2000 credit card debt increased by 6,000 %.
That's right, I needed a comma. One more time; a six thousand per cent increase. Today,
20% of all twelve year olds in this country carry a credit card!

Is it the personal responsibility of the consumer to cease and desist using credit cards and going further into debt? Sure. Absolutely. Is there corporate responsibility for banks to scale back on the two billion mail solicitations a year for credit cards to American consumers and ask themselves is it morally right to require credit card agreements to have thirty pages of terms which allow more and more creative ways to trap the customer into deeper debt? Agreements which Harvard Law School professors that teach contract law can't read? I think the answer has to be "yes" in both cases.

But, what does this have to do with credit card abuses by banks and sub-prime mortgage loans? Well, in a word,everything.

Sub-prime loans just like the out of control credit card industry are the direct result of
banking de-regulation, and after two decades of this de-regulation, home owners of today
are three and one half times more likely to lose their homes to foreclosure than their
counterparts a generation ago. With home loan payments that are 40% to 50% of a
family's gross monthly income, with more available credit, more complex credit and
more expensive credit we suddenly find ourselves in a mess of foreclosures and
bankruptcies. And, we are now surprised?

Sub-prime loans are not the problem, they are a symptom of the problem and the problem
is that, "Just a generation ago, the average family simply couldn't get into the kind of
financial hole that has become so familiar today. The reason was straightforward: A
middle-class family couldn't borrow very much money. High-limit, all-purpose credit
cards did not exist for those with average means. There were no mortgages available for
125 percent of the home's value and no offers in the daily mail for second and third home
equity loans. There were no "payday lenders," no "live checks," no "instant money," and
certainly no offers to "consolidate" all that debt by moving it from one credit card to
another.", because it would have been against the law to do so, according to Elizabeth
Warren of Harvard Law School who recently testified to Congressional hearings.

So, what is, or, maybe the better question: is there a solution? To me there is, and it is
two fold.

First, some banking regulation is absolutely necessary. It is no accident that Congress is
investigating credit cards which charge what would have been usury interest rates prior to
de-regulation with incomprehensible terms, trick billing cycles and "traps" to squeeze
ever more profit and fees out of the consumer. It seems $29 Billion in revenues were not
enough for the banking industry in 2005, so interest and penalty fee revenues were
increased using these predatory tactics to attain $79 Billion in revenues. There is no
reason to believe that revenues went down since these numbers were reported.

So, when this is combined with predatory fees, interest rates and deceptive practices used
by credit cards companies, the consumer is getting steered, squeezed, mislead and their
economic viability drained. Two decades of deregulation has taught us that market forces
left to themselves, simply are incapable of finding within their structure the morality to
do what is right. With more and more regularity, when describing the dire circumstances
of debtors, we are discussing and addressing the person next door in suburbia. It is no
longer a low income problem.

Without a change in the laws, it is my opinion that combined consumer and lender based
action is needed for short term and a long term strategy to positively impact those most
affected by all predatory lending.

At first blush the solution I recommend seems counter intuitive. However, if an abundance of credit is here at least for the foreseeable future and possibly forever, and unless the laws in place are soon to be changed, then credit re-establishment to improve credit scores in particular seems to me to be the means to move "higher risk" borrowers away from predatory sub-prime loans of all kinds to main stream or "A" category loans with much lower interest rates.

Such action is based on a moral understanding that economics is the core of "Family
Values", that divorce due to financial strains, missed child support payments due to
bankruptcy and families without economic independence destroys the vitality of the
family and the ability of families to care for their children.

Such action is also suggested with the knowledge that debt free lifestyle is preferable,
admirable and some suggest very attainable. While I certainly don't discredit or disagree
with this goal, the facts are, that most American workers will not attempt to achieve a debt free life.

So, the reality for most consumers is that the best option available at this time is to secure the lowest possible cost of credit available to them. And do so, as soon as possible while targeting the overall goal of debt reduction.

The very first thing asked of a borrower today is their credit score number. With credit
scores taking over as the major determining factor for establishing the interest rate which a consumer must pay, and with cash purchases of automobiles, appliances and other large ticket items being out of the reach of most middle to lower middle income buyers, it is imperative to improve their credit or they will continue to be enslaved in usury interest rates for years to come.

If some of these usury rate loans were at normal interest rates, even with job layoff or any other life emergency, the consumer has a much better chance of not defaulting on a
mortgage payment. And, with credit scores closer to the national average of 679 which
qualify for better loans, the cost of credit is lowered resulting in better debt to income
ratios.

To accomplish credit re-establishment, I recommend addressing the three major problematic areas of someone being steered into sub-prime rates.

The first area is creating consistent payment history, establishing new credit and
producing permanent positive marks with "paid in full" status. To do so, the lending
product or vehicle of choice is secured loans. Typically, these kinds of loans fall into
another type of predatory lending as they want significant fees up front and/or deposits
that are never returned in exchange for providing secured credit card accounts. Banks, if
they have a secured loan program in place, are incredibly difficult to find and virtually all will not work with potential customers who do not posses significant amounts of capital with which to secure the loans.

However, with the backing of a consumer friendly lender that is willing to work with customers to raise their scores, the chances of success suddenly skyrocket. Payment history is consistent, timely and complete. New credit has been created responsibly as is the type of credit. At the end of the secured loan term, the borrower has improved their credit score by completing repayment of a secured loan with a final status of "Paid in Full". With diligence, perseverance, and commitment, the effort pays off handsomely. In fact, a twelve month process is capable of adding triple digits to a credit score with minimum expense.

And, such lenders are out there if one just knows where to find them.

The second area is teaching consumers about inaccurate items listed on credit reports. The credit challenged often are seduced by and sold a dream. They just want someone else take away all the bad from their record so that they don't have to deal with it and then, magically hope and expect their credit scores will shoot skyward. Sometimes, someone whispers in their ear exactly what they want to hear.

Very often, in the hard, cold, light of dawn that kind of pillow talk turns out to be an
illusion. However, the sizzle that sells the steak of such promises is that the credit
reporting agencies can be intimidating, the reports confusing, the companies themselves
inclined to protect their corporate interests and not that of the consumers, are much more
knowledgeable of their rights than most consumers, and typically are operating from a
position of superior knowledge. Not to mention, they profit from negative items
remaining on consumer credit reports. It is no wonder people don't want to face down
what they consider to be a man-eating troll hiding under the credit reporting bridge. To
the uneducated or unsophisticated, it can be an impossible task.

But, with applied knowledge comes power. Inaccurate information can be removed and there is nothing wrong, illegal or immoral with requesting inaccurate items be investigated and if unable to be verified, to have each one of them deleted. Such protection for the consumer and requirements on the credit reporting agencies is afforded all of us under United States federal law and specifically, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and there are others.

When a credit report doesn't look like a foreign language, it becomes clear why some
estimates place the number of reports containing errors at 70% (probably more). And, if
an item contains an error and is inaccurate, it has to be removed.

The final component is education, guidance and encouragement for making better decisions about credit, goal setting and having a positive attitude. To say there is no social stigma or psychological scars attached to filing bankruptcy anymore is simply not true. The fact is, it is hard to overcome any obstacle if you are despondent, but with the right tools, one can make some positive changes.

Credit re-establishment is the application of all three components to figuratively create a three legged stool. With each of them in place and working, a person's credit scores can increase by as much as 100 to 200 points or more in a calendar year, goals can materialize when none existed before and financial stability can be attained.

Poor credit does not have to remain an economic death sentence, or necessarily a
mandatory seven year sentence of servitude while in credit solitary confinement. Nor is it
reason to expect or accept second class citizenship status.

The truth is, there is no stopping someone that chooses achievement and then works to
implement it in their life. And, when willing to apply knowledge, exert some effort and
follow a plan, there is no need to live a "sub-prime" position in life now or ever.

Pat Hicks is the creator and author of "The Complete Guide to Credit Re-
Establishment" at http:/// www.freshstartcreditscores.com. His email address is: jphicks@sbcglobal.net."
Google

Submission + - Cache in google through Firefox has disappeared

Submitted by
josenyc
josenyc writes: "I cant see the cache in Google through Firefox. I wanted to look at the last time my page was crawled and had to go into Internet Explorer! I tried it on my co-workers comp and got the same deal."

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