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Microsoft

Teacher Avoids Getting Sent to Siberia For Piracy 252

Posted by CowboyNeal from the off-the-hook dept.
Piracy Support Line writes "Russian principal Alexander Ponosov will not be visiting Siberia any time soon, at least not for the allegedly illegal Microsoft software that were preloaded on the computers they bought and Microsoft supported the reseller's story. Although Bill Gates rejected Mikhail Gorbachev's personal appeal for mercy on behalf of the teacher, the judge was kinder. Judge Elvira Mosheva decided to dismiss the case because 'Microsoft's financial damage is too insignificant for a criminal investigation.'"
Programming

Submission + - Negative coders killing progress

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: We have a problem with negative coders that are dragging the whole company down. I am sure that this is not a problem isolated just to us; so do any /.'ers have any useful advice to share with us on how to deal with these kinds of people/situations?

At our company we are attempting a rewrite a major part of our software, which is badly needed to bring us up to speed with current technology, failure to move in this direction within the next couple of years would ultimatley sink the company. A few employees have been assigned the task and have had a hard time getting the project done.

There are difficulties with the flow of information between the 3 coders, the project manager, a regional manager and the CEO. They constantly disagree between business requirements, functionality and deadlines. The coders are very negative and complain all the time, about everything. Management do not seem to help by having requirements that constantly change and a lack of critical decision making being made (according to the negative coders).

I do not know the source of the problems, but I do know that the overwhelming negative nature of the coders is running the project into the ground. One of the 3 developers and the original project manager have resigned because of the difficulty in dealing with the negative environment and the lack of progress. The current project manager is heading in the same general direction as his predecessor....becoming the scapegoat for the negative coders. The coders are far to valuable to get rid of, as they have far to much fundamental knowledge that the company cannot afford to loose.

I would be interested in hearing any advice that people have, and if anyone has similar experiences that they can share. Have you had a similar problem in the past? What did you do and what happened?
Handhelds

Camera Phones Read Hidden Messages in Print 126

Posted by CowboyNeal from the go-go-gadget-decoder dept.
pikine writes "As reported by BBC News, Fujitsu has developed a technology that encodes 12-bytes of information in a printed picture by skewing yellow hue, which is difficult to discern by human eye but fairly easy for camera phones to decode using software written in Java." The first target uses are promotional contests and competitions, not entirely unlike those game pieces that need to be viewed through a colored filter.
Space

Submission + - Possible impact crater in Black Rock Desert

Submitted by brianc
brianc writes: Ian Kluft, author of WebFetch and amateur rocketeer, has pulled together a compelling case supporting the discovery that "an elliptical-shaped impact crater approximately 30 miles (48 km) wide east-to-west and 40 miles (64 km) long north-to-south exists at the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada". Although additional field-based research is necessary, the Impact Field Studies Group believes there is enough evidence in Ian's findings to add the location to their Suspected Earth Impact Sites (SEIS) list. Besides the numerous high powered rocket launches that ultimately led to the discovery, Black Rock Desert is the home of the annual Burning Man Festival.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Not So Global Warming

Journal by OverlordQ

A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models. This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human acti
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft blasts IBM in open letter

Submitted by carlmenezes
carlmenezes writes: Arstechnica has an article on Microsoft's open letter to IBM that adds fresh ammunition to the battle of words between those who support Microsoft's Open XML and OpenOffice.org's OpenDocument file formats. Microsoft has strong words for IBM, which it accuses of deliberately trying to sabotage Microsoft's attempt to get Open XML certified as a standard by the ECMA. In the letter, general managers Tom Robertson and Jean Paol write: "When ODF was under consideration, Microsoft made no effort to slow down the process because we recognized customers' interest in the standardization of document formats." In contrast, the authors charge that IBM "led a global campaign" urging that governments and other organizations demand that International Standards Organization (ISO) reject Open XML outright.
Could MS actually be getting a taste of their own medicine?
Mozilla

Submission + - Over 27% of Firefox patches come from volunteers

Submitted by
dolphinling
dolphinling writes: "Everyone knows the Mozilla Corporation makes a lot of money and employs a lot of people now. Google has full-time employees working on Firefox too, as do a number of other places. Yet despite that, in the six months up to Firefox 2 "27% of the patches to Firefox and Gecko and other key projects were submitted by key volunteers, [and] those patches represent 24% of changes made to the source code". What's more, those numbers only counted contributers with 50 patches or more, so the actual numbers are probably quite a bit higher. It's good to see that even as Mozilla does so well in the business world, it can still keep its ties to the community so strong."
Networking

How Would You Deal With A Global Bandwidth Crisis? 478

Posted by Zonk from the read-a-book dept.
lopy writes "First Google claimed the internet infrastructure won't scale to provide an acceptable user experience for online video. Then some networking experts predict that a flu pandemic would bring the internet to it's knees and lead to internet rationing. We used to think that bandwidth would always increase as needed, but what would happen if that isn't the case? How would you deal with a global bandwidth shortage? Would you be willing to voluntarily limit your internet usage if necessary? Could you live in a world without cheap and plentiful broadband internet access?"
Space

Hayabusa To Begin Long Journey Back to Earth 92

Posted by Zonk from the any-mission-you-can-walk-away-from-right dept.
Sparky writes "Japan is planning to set the Hayabusa spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth next month after a delay of more than a year, but it's far from certain that it will get back safely. It was supposed to retrieve asteroid debris, but it's thought that a computer error prevented that from happening. A fuel leak means that its chemical thrusters are out of action, and the craft is relying on its weaker ion engines. The journey back will take 3 years, and the capsule will be on Earth in June 2010 — even if it is empty."
Security

Submission + - Malicious Websites Can Subvert Personal Routers

Submitted by Apro+im
Apro+im writes: PCWorld is reporting: "If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, do so now. That's what researchers at Symantec and Indiana University are saying, after publishing the results of tests that show how attackers could take over your home router using malicious JavaScript code."

The root of the problem seems to stem from routers allowing GET requests to have side-effects, allowing attackers to change settings and then perform man-in-the middle attacks. Though the story and the linked paper (PDF) claim that routers with changed passwords are immune, a quick experiment shows that routers which use HTTP Authentication can be compromised the same way, if the user has logged into their router earlier in the browser session. Also, though the article says this is a Javascript exploit, it can actually be executed by any tag which allows the inclusion of a "src" element from another domain (e.g., "img").
Businesses

Blackberry Owners Chained to Work 210

Posted by Zonk from the jacob-marley-in-a-suit dept.
seriouslywtf writes "New survey data suggests that Americans are split over whether Blackberrys are chaining them to work. While people who own Blackberries feel 'more productive', those with Blackberrys are more likely to work longer hours and feel like they have less personal time than those without. A Director of Marketing Strategies who owns a Blackberry pointed out that many employees feel obligated by employers who have handed out the devices. 'While being always on in a social context is a natural for young people, many of those in the 25-54 age group with families and corporate jobs are struggling with work-life blending. There is a need for the mainstream workplace culture to offer ways to counterbalance.'" Is the constantly connected, often mobile nature of the modern workplace a good thing, or not?
Games

'Losing For The Win' In Games 159

Posted by Zonk from the ftw-as-it-were dept.
simoniker writes "Designer Ben Schneider (Empire Earth, EyeToy: AntiGrav, Titan Quest) has written a new article exploring the possibility of enticing your players through the power of defeat. From the piece: 'Some of the most memorable moments in games depend heavily on reversals to kick their dramatic arcs forward, from Planetfall to Fable to Beyond Good & Evil to Deus Ex. And yet, as an industry, we clearly have a lot to learn — and a lot to invent. So, then, how do you draw a clear line between player failure and dramatic reversal? It is a question well worth pondering.' In other words, if the game forces the player to get his ass kicked, can the player ever forgive it, or is it the key to some really interesting moments when used in a positive way?"
Role Playing (Games)

Why Computer RPGs Waste Your Time 476

Posted by Zonk from the argh-my-life-she-has-been-wasted dept.
spidweb writes "RPGVault has an editorial about two particularly noxious qualities of computer role-playing games. Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel goes off on a tear, discussing how you work forever to earn the right to do anything exciting, and must 'prove yourself' by expending tons of your time. From the article: 'So now, thinking about playing an RPG just makes me tired. I'm tired of starting a new game and being a loser. I'm tired of running the same errands to prove myself. The next time I enter my fantasy world, I want it to not assume that I'm a jackass.'" I think Oblivion handled this well, scaling the world as you went and giving you really interesting things to do from the get-go. What other games dodge this bullet? Do you see this timesink as an inevitable part of the RPG genre?
Privacy

Submission + - Cops, FBI hates shared Wifi

Submitted by PhilipMarlowe9000
PhilipMarlowe9000 writes: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/02/10/AR2007021001457.html "We're not sure yet how to combat that," said Kevin R. West, a federal agent who oversees the computer crimes unit in North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation. "Free wireless spots are everywhere, and it makes it easy for people . . . to sit there and do their nefarious acts. The fear is that if we talk about it, people will learn about it and say, 'I can go to a parking lot, and no one will catch me.' But we need to talk about it so that we can figure out how to solve it."

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