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Feed Planning a drunken stag night? Avoid Slovakia (theregister.com)

Two months' jail for nude fountain stunt groom

A Worcestershire builder's bride-to-be looks likely to be walking up the aisle alone after her other half was jailed for two months for jumping naked into a fountain during a drunken stag night in Slovakia.


Feed Eurocom kicks out a quad-core laptop, the Phantom D900C (engadget.com)

Filed under: Laptops

We've definitely seen some shady reports of a quad-core laptop make the rounds, and it looks like geographically misnamed Canadian laptop outfit Eurocom is going to be first off the line with a Intel Core 2 Quad notebook. A Eurocom spokesperson apparently confirmed to Laptoping that the company is prepping a quad-core Phantom D900C -- which probably means that monster-laptop Clevo (or whichever company is their ODM) is working on a quad-core D900C, since the Phantom is yet another rebrand. Laptoping says the 17-inch machine will feature a 2.4GHz Q6600 "Kentsfield" Core 2 Quad and dual SLI-capable GeForce Go 8700 or Quadro FX3500 graphics, an HD DVD drive, and up to three drives that can be run as a RAID 0/1/5 array -- all of which means battery life on this 11.9-pound monster will probably run down faster than a 6-minute mile. Still, the idea of stuffing four cores into a laptop gets us all excited, but the current $3,200 pricetag on the dual-core Phantom doesn't bode too well for the double the power.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Operating Systems

Submission + - Running Linux and Windows apps simultaneously

Kamen Tomov writes: "I currently use Windows XP on the desktop and run Linux prorams on a remote machine. What virtualization and remote desktop software should I install to be able to run Linux on the same computer and to have Linux client-side applications on the Windows desktop? Should I run Linux under Windows or Windows under Linux will be better? I have a CPU that supports virtualization and 2GB of RAM."
Music

Submission + - EFF-An Update on the Innards of iTunes Plus Files

sehlat writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been investigating the innards of iTunes-plus files. Last week, they reported on additional information apparently contained in the tracks over and above the music content itself.

This week they have published an update on their findings. Some of the mystery information appears to be cover art. However, they do mention:

While there are no watermarks, there are some other interesting fields that are likley to have privacy implications. In particular, there is a 1024 bit variant field labeled sign and a 630 byte variant field labeled chtb. These are unique for every combination of user and track we've seen. Neither of these fields existed in the FairPlay DRMed .m4p tracks that Apple has been selling in the past.
Programming

Submission + - 10 Things to Know When Starting A Facebook Applica (experienceproject.com)

nsheth2001 writes: "By releasing a development platform, Facebook's enabled developers to create some amazing applications riding off their social network. It's not too hard to get an application of your own up and running, but it's nice to have some help, as the documentation's not complete. Here are a few tips to help you get started!"
Software

Submission + - Disable init of a service under linux:

Tribbin writes: .
Disable init of a service under linux:

- X front-end (services-admin)
- ncurses font-end (sysv-rc-conf)
- terminal front-end (update-rc.d)
- Uninstall the package
- chmod a-x /etc/init.d/
- Edit the initscript
- Any of the above will do
- Reinstall the distribution
- Let somebody else do it
- Other
- This poll has way too many options
Software

Submission + - Windows, OS X and Linux: Is There A 4th Platform?

OOPen writes: "An article on OSWeekly.com talks about a fourth platform. Something other than OS X, Linux and Windows and why these three platforms don't allow a fourth contender to enter. "On the other side of this issue, it's easy to just say that Microsoft isn't in a hurry to make Apple's products work well with its operating system, but if you'll remember, Microsoft's own Zune was incompatible with Vista from the very start. If they can't even get their own stuff to work right out of the box, then how in the world are we supposed to expect them to get everything else working, too? In Microsoft's case, this negligence in terms of compatibility is evident of bigger problems within the company."
Enlightenment

Journal Journal: The two weeks notice I can't get rid of. 3

Back in April of this year I was talking with another company about a position they had open for a technician. Everything was going well so I decided to draw up a two weeks notice for my current company. I was uncertain if it sounded professional or not, so I tried emailing it to a friend. After several unsuccessful tries due to their email filters, I decided to throw it up on http://www.pastecode.com/** and allow my friend to look at it on there, making s
IBM

Submission + - IBM Data Tapes "Fell Off the Back of the Truck

Demongirl writes: "According to Information Week, a contractor for IBM managed to lose several data tapes as he was driving through New York State. Lost as in, they might have fallen out the window, he might have gotten in an accident and they fell out or somebody took them, whatever. You get the idea. The driver does not have a clue. (He doesn't remember getting in an accident??)

The tapes contain contain information on IBM employees — current workers, as well as former employees and retirees. The tapes hold employment data on them, including names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, and beginning and end dates of employment.

The tapes were lost on February 23. IBM is only just now making the information widely known?

I dunno, maybe this is old news to you. But it's a surprise to InfoWeek certainly."

Feed TV Networks Realizing That The Traditional 30 Second Spot Needs To Change (techdirt.com)

Well, it's about time. For years, it's been obvious that the traditional 30-second TV commercial was an endangered species. With so many competing entertainment options competing for anyone's attention, combined with technology like TiVo, the 30-second spot had a pretty short-life span if TV and advertising execs didn't figure out a way to adapt. The New York Times is noting that for next fall's schedule, nearly all the networks are playing around with some form of more entertaining commercial break. They're all finally recognizing the simple fact that ads are content too, and if you want people to watch them, they actually need to be good content. Of course, we've heard this before. After all, it was four years ago that NBC claimed it had come to the same conclusion and was going to make its commercial breaks more entertaining -- but it doesn't seem like that plan went very far. Though, one good thing in the article, is that it appears that ABC learned its lesson from last year. You may recall last summer that an ABC TV exec claimed that people didn't want to skip commercials and suggested that people wouldn't mind if ABC came up with a technology that stopped people from skipping commercials on their TiVo. However, in this article, a different ABC exec notes: "[Viewers] have control, and we're not going to fight that. We want to make it easy for them to get what they want, where they want, when they want." Of course, it only took them a decade or so of kicking and screaming to recognize that.

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