astrosmash - Slashdot User

Gracenote Founder Rewriting History At Wikipedia 201

Posted by kdawson on Saturday December 02, 2006 @05:12PM from the setting-the-record-straight? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf is busy again in his attempts to rewrite history after his recent interview at Wired. This time around he is aggressively deleting or seeking removal of any content on Wikipedia that discusses the controversy behind the commercialization of the formerly GPL'd cddb. Slashdotters may remember when cddb joined the Bad Patent Club back in 2000. Gracenote followed up by filing lawsuits against its customers for trying to switch to freedb and for alleged patent violations. Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote — its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help."

Submission + - Corporate America is not ready for Windows Vista

Submitted by thefickler on Saturday December 02, 2006 @04:44PM

thefickler writes: Corporate America is not ready for Microsoft's new Windows Vista, according to a new study by Softchoice. The study found that 50% of the PCs inventoried are below Windows Vista's basic system requirements and roughly half of these PCs will need to be replaced outright to run Vista. 94% are not ready for Vista Premium edition.

Submission + - Is gpa important for a MS degree?

Submitted by

Jack

on Saturday December 02, 2006 @04:37PM

Jack writes: "I will be completing my MS in Network Security in 2007. My BS is in Systems and Networking. If I get an A for my last graduate course I will be able to graduate with high honor (gpa 3.845). I will miss graduating with highest honor by .005 points. If I retake the course I got a B in and this time get an A I can graduate with distinction (gpa 3.90 or better). My question is will either of these titles help me? Does anyone care about GPAs anymore? I am a network and systems administrator with almost 10 years of experience, 3 MCSEs, and soon a MS. I left my job last year to work on my Master's full time (that and that my former boss was a self-centered egotistical fool that I could stand no longer)."

Submission + - Is OSS GUI innovation the linux weak spot?

Submitted by

hedgehog

on Saturday December 02, 2006 @05:37AM

hedgehog writes: "Looking at Ubuntu this evening, and having been an on-again / off-again Linux user for about eight years now, I'm often struck by how dated some of the design aspects to most desktop environments feel. This isn't intended to troll.

From early 90s icon design (though Gnome arguably looks a bit fresher) to nearly every distro sporting some kind of start button / taskbar interface, Linux always seems to be playing a game of catchup in this regard.

I understand the argument that grandpa wants something that looks familiar, but thinking of another OSS project — Firefox — won its audience on tabbed browsing. There was a feature that probably wasn't familiar to most novice users who switched. Yes everything else looked familiar, but where's the tabbed browsing equivalent on the desktop environment side? Arguably our elders are also not the only ones that should be courted into the Linux camp.

Skinnable apps often go the route of clunky, flawed usability on any OS, because there's no QA for zeeb69's manga skin. What about default, modern UI that sports a "killer app" feature?

I realize this is a number of visual aspects not-so-neatly rolled into one for purpose of discussion, but what's the Slashdot community's opinion on the state of UI? Is this a problem? If so, are distros simply not courting the right designers? What can be done to improve upon this? If my assumption is flawed, what might be done to change that stigma?"

Submission + - MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill

Submitted by Lawst on Saturday December 02, 2006 @04:12AM

Lawst writes: Wired is reporting how a "tough California bill that would have prohibited companies and individuals from using deceptive "pretexting" ruses to steal private information about consumers was killed after determined lobbying by the motion picture industry."

The bill won, which approval in three committees and sailed through the state Senate with a 30-0 vote encountered unexpected, last-minute resistance from the Motion Picture Association of America.

From the article: "The MPAA has a tremendous amount of clout and they told legislators, 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading'"

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