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Comment Membership? (Score 2) 257

by a.koepke (#34902452) Attached to: Dating Site Creates Profiles From Public Records
Can they really claim someone is a "member" of the site if that person hasn't even heard of the site before?

If they decide to do this there should be some marker on that profile to say it has been created from public information obtained without that person's consent or knowledge.

There also needs to be some way to allow you to verify your identity and take ownership of the profile they have setup for you which should include the option to remove your profile.
Linux

Submission + - Boxee Box having difficulty with GPL?

Submitted by synthesizerpatel
synthesizerpatel writes: For those of you unfamiliar with the XBMC fork Boxee, it's recently been released as an appliance in the form of D-Link's Boxee Box (retail: ~$200 USD). The Boxee Box has an Intel CE4100 Atom processor and runs the Boxee fork on top of a Linux based operating system. However it seems that they're having some difficulty with the GPL.

While Boxee does commit their code back to XBMC, XBMC's SCM doesn't seem to include their CE4100 code (or doesn't yet? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt). Boxee's SVN (svn.boxee.tv) server is password protected so you can't download from their SCM — You can download tarball that is preported to be the source code for the CE4100 port from their webpage. Their documentation seems to cover their developer environments and doesn't take into account a fresh install. There's a fair amount that is right but it's mixed in with incorrect or out-of-context information and requires a bit of time to pick through.

Boxee also provides a link to the Intel CE4100 Environment 13.7.10304.125504, which comes with a broken installer stating that an unnamed (NULL) dependency is not met. You can unpack the SDK by hand with a little bit of effort and if you understand how cross-compiling works you'll eventually figure out how to start a build.

You then run into another problem.

Both the SDK and the Boxee source code are missing the drivers for the Intel CE4100 platform. Neither source or binary are provided even though the Boxee binary links against them (in their GPL code) and ships them on their Linux based platform. Its very difficult to find documentation on the CE4100. Intel's public website seems bereft of any information on it beyond press releases. You can sign up for an embedded products account but without a corporate backed account (NDA anyone?) you won't get access to the good stuff design guide, platform SDK, etc.

A word of warning in regards to people interested in hacking the Boxee — its made some efforts to be a closed product. They sign their filesystems which get checked before mounting, any root-shell acess methods that are published seem to get quickly fixed. After the latest root access methods were documented the holes were patched fairly quickly. . That being said, it's still fairly simple to get access to the root filesystem and to execute arbitrary code.

Lets all root for Boxee and D-Link to make things right. I'm sure it's simply an oversight but given that their product is based on the GPL software — I think it's reasonable to ask for the source code we're entitled to as customers.
Television

Submission + - Comcast combines Internet and TV with Spectrum (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by tekgoblin
tekgoblin writes: It appears that Comcast is testing a new service that combines both TV and Internet. Sounds familiar doesn't it (WebTV). Users will be able to access a wide variety of web-videos (YouTube?), on-demand content, live broadcasts, and recorded content. The new service however will not provide direct Internet access but will allow users to comment on TV shows and movies and allow access to social networks.
Software

The Final Release of Apache HTTP Server 1.3 104

Posted by timothy from the people-of-earth-you're-on-your-own dept.
Kyle Hamilton writes "The Apache Software Foundation and the Apache HTTP Server Project are pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.42 of the Apache HTTP Server ('Apache'). This release is intended as the final release of version 1.3 of the Apache HTTP Server, which has reached end of life status There will be no more full releases of Apache HTTP Server 1.3. However, critical security updates may be made available."
Science

Why Time Flies By As You Get Older 252

Posted by kdawson 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.

Comment Use Windows Indexing Service (Score 1) 232

by a.koepke (#29802581) Attached to: What Desktop Search Engine For a Shared Volume?
I am just embarking on a project to do exactly what the OP is asking for. Windows Server 2003 has an indexing service you can setup. http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Working-With-Windows-Server-2003-Indexing-Service.html It is limited in its own form but provides the back-end tools you need.

Combine that with the next article from that site and you have a solution: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Making-Windows-Server-2003-Indexing-Service-Useful.html

This article shows you how to use the Indexing service from an ASP script. The solution I am working on will be done in PHP as it can also link to COM applications. This basically allows you to put a file search tool on your Intranet which is indexed and returns the results very quickly. Best of all, it uses existing software on Windows and doesn't cost any extra.

Comment Re:TI-85 (Score 1) 776

by a.koepke (#27117987) Attached to: Favorite on-screen calculator?
I have an MS keyboard, one of the ones with the Calculator button above the number pad. One press and it is there. Only way it could get any easier and quicker is if the computer started reading my thoughts.
Image

Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer 857

Posted by samzenpus from the headdesk dept.
svnt writes "Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account, remortgaged their paid-for house, and took out a lien against the family car in an attempt to cash in on the deal. A undercover officer involved with the investigation called it the worst example of the scam he's ever seen. Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
Perl

You Used Perl to Write WHAT?! 307

Posted by kdawson from the tool-that-fits dept.
Esther Schindler writes "Developers spend a lot of time telling managers, 'Let me use the tool that's appropriate for the job' (cue the '...everything looks like a nail' meme here). But rarely do we enumerate when a language is the right one for a particular job, and when it's a very, very wrong choice. James Turner, writing for CIO.com, identifies five tasks for which perl is ideally suited, and four that... well, really, shouldn't you choose something else? This is the first article in a series that will examine what each language is good at, and for which tasks it's just plain dumb. Another article is coming RSN about JavaScript, and yet another for PHP... with more promised, should these first articles do well."
Censorship

Submission + - Software companies sues popular Australian forum (whirlpool.net.au) 3

Submitted by Pugzly
Pugzly writes: In a recent announcement on the Whirlpool front page, it appears that accounting software maker 2clix is sueing the founder of the forums as the founder "allowed statements 'relating to the Plaintiff and its software product that are both false and malicious' to be published on the Whirlpool forums."
Hopefully sanity will prevail, but it is the legal system...
Math

Submission + - Busting the MythBusters' Yawn Experiment

Submitted by
markmcb
markmcb writes: "Most everyone knows and loves the MythBusters, two guys who attempt to set the story straight on so many things people just take for granted. Well, everyone except Brandon Hansen, who has offered them a taste of their own medicine as he busts the MythBusters' improper use of statistics in their experiment to show yawning is contagious. While the article maintains it is still possible yawns are contagious, the author makes it clear that he's not giving the MythBusters any credit for proving such a claim, 'not with a correlation coefficient of .045835.'"

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