Comment Yay! (Score 1) 283
First vote!
I love paper books but ebooks are so handy... I keep reference books in print and light reads electronic.
Marooned Off Vesta 55
mcgrew writes with this quote from an AP report:
"After four years sailing through space, the Dawn spacecraft was expected to slip into orbit late Friday around a giant asteroid to begin a yearlong investigation into the origins of the solar system. It is the first of two scheduled tour stops for the NASA probe that almost never made it to the launch pad. Because of its stunted growth, Vesta holds 'a record of the earliest history of the solar system,' said the mission's lead scientist Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles."
Dawn's mission homepage has all the information and pictures collected so far. On July 9th, it snapped our best look to date at the ~530-kilometer-wide Vesta, from 40,000 kilometers away. When it arrives, it will take observations from successively lower orbits, the final one being only 460km above Vesta's surface. Next May, Dawn will break orbit and head to Ceres. (mcgrew adds, "The submission's title is a nod to Isaac Asimov. Lets hope Dawn doesn't get marooned!")
Police Say Mac Tech Installed Spyware To Photo Women
235
CWmike writes "He was hired to fix their computers, but police say that Trevor Harwell instead installed spyware software that took candid photos of his clients in various states of undress. Harwell had been a Macintosh specialist with a Los Angeles-area home computer repair company called Rezitech. That's how he allegedly had the opportunity to install the spy software, called Camcapture, on computers. While working on repair assignments, the 20-year-old technician secretly set up a complex system that could notify him whenever it was ready to snap a shot using the computer's webcam, according to Sergeant Andrew Goodrich, a spokesman with the Fullerton Police Department in California. 'It would let his server know that the victim's machine was on. The server would then notify his smartphone... and then the images were recorded on his home computer,' he said. Police say they've found thousands of images on Harwell's computers and have identified dozens of victims, all of them women in Los Angeles and Orange County. Harwell was arrested Wednesday by Fullerton police." But was he a good repairman?
Comment Re:Yes. (Score 1) 367
The WD TV Live HD Media Player does not contain the necessary hardware to support Netflix and some other commercial content providers, unfortunately. Happily, most of the other features of the WD TV Live Plus and even the WD TV Live Hub in many cases have been brought back to the WD TV Live where possible. As for Netflix Canada support on the WD TV Live Plus and WD TV Live Hub, this is supported and should be fully operational.
Western Digital KB 6612: NetFlix support in Canada for the WD TV Live Plus and Live Hub
Disclaimer: I am a technical support auditor for Western Digital.
Comment Re:unity (Score 3, Informative) 729
Actually, there's an Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS and 6.06.2 LTS, and 10.04.1 LTS and 10.04.2 LTS as well. Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS comes out on July 28th.
The LTS releases are supported for 3 years/5 years on the desktop/server, so the CD images are rerolled with updates every 6 months.
Comment Re:problem is, Unity is a disaster (Score 1) 511
It does take a little getting used to. I still tap Super to bring up the Dash and then start typing away, but for casual browsing, well, I'm hoping there are improvements to be made.
I don't see anything wrong with the GNOME 2 desktop with panels, but between Unity and GNOME Shell I definitely greatly prefer Unity. But what I'm most grateful for in Linux is that the desktop environment and window managers are all decoupled from each other and the OS itself so that we really do have as much choice as we're willing to configure.
Comment Re:problem is, Unity is a disaster (Score 1) 511
Who the hell thought it was a good idea not to have a decent easily accessible menu with all your applications?
That'd be the Applications Lens that comes up when you press Super+A or click on the application lens icon in the Launcher?
Comment Re:Linuxconf (Score 5, Insightful) 539
I never had the pleasure of using it. However, making things easier in Linux isn't "dumbing down" the operating system. It's simply making things more accessible. Done properly, the fancy GUI stuff just snaps together with the existing CLI and config file stuff and then you get to choose the most appropriate way to manage and configure your system. That's a win for absolutely everyone.
And that's what will keep Linux competitive--the ability to meet novice computer users alongside having the power and the efficiency for die-hard CLI lovers.
Comment Re:We will when MS does. (Score 1) 325
The first freedom of Free Software is the freedom to run and use a program for any purpose you see fit. If you restrict commercial usage, then that software is no longer Free. In addition, the GPL forbids this type of additional restriction from being placed on the software when you distribute it.
Other software licenses may be more permissive in this regard.
Comment Open! (Score 4, Insightful) 85
The beautiful thing, though, is that because development discussion is held in open, publicly archived mailing lists and all development is done in logged, publicly accessible source code repositories, the interested observer can investigate and come to the real conclusion on his own to see whether either party's explanation makes sense.
Why Teach Programming With BASIC? 709
chromatic writes "To answer the perennial question 'How can we teach kids how to program?', we created a web-based programming environment. As we began to write lessons and examples, we surprised ourselves. Modern languages may be powerful and useful for writing real programs, but BASIC and Logo are great languages for demonstrating the joy of programming."
Comment Excellent! (Score 4, Insightful) 217
The games are fun, they work on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the charities are good causes.
This is pretty much just win-win for everyone, a great way to not only *get* some nice games on Linux but *support* games on Linux, and to support a bunch of good causes as well. I'm less familiar with these games than the last bundle but I'll check them out and likely donate if I like even one of them.
How Should a Non-Techie Learn Programming? 346
CurtMonash writes "Nontechnical people — for example marketers or small business owners — increasingly get the feeling they should know more about technology. And they're right. If you can throw up a small website or do some real number-crunching, chances are those skills will help you feed your family. But how should they get started? I started a thread with the question on DBMS2, and some consistent themes emerged, including: Learn HTML + CSS early on; Learn a bit of SQL, but you needn't make that your focus; Have your first real programming language be one of the modern ones, such as PHP or Python; MySQL is a good vehicle to learn SQL; It's a great idea to start with a project you actually want to accomplish, and that can be done by modifying a starter set of sample code (e.g., a WordPress blog); Microsoft's technology stack is an interesting alternative to some of the other technology ideas. A variety of books and websites were suggested, most notably MIT's Scratch. But, frankly, it would really help to get more suggestions for sites and books that help one get started with HTML/CSS, or with MySQL, or with PHP. And so, techie studs and studdettes, I ask you — how should a non-techie go about learning some basic technological skills?"
Comment Liability (Score 5, Funny) 230
I'm liable for first posts.
Comment Fantastic! (Score 4, Interesting) 278
This would be a fantastic idea. Not only would the rules be transparent and non-ambiguous, but the potential for experimentation and self-analysis would be incredible. Python is definitely one of the better languages to use for this, as it tends to be very readable and self-explanatory as far as programming languages go.
