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The Internet

Submission + - Are web-developer certifications worth it?

Submitted by
riyley
riyley writes: "I'm a fairly advanced web developer with some hard experience in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Coldfusion and PHP. Now the HR at my company wants me to prove it in a way they understand, certificate. My boss has asked me to select some solid certifications and i've come up with three providers: W3Schools, BrainBench and ExpertRating.

I would like to know if these companies hold any more weight than the frame around the cert, or if it's a waste of my departments money and time? Is there another company I should look at? I'd prefer that in 3-5 years when i'm ready to move on to another job, that these would still be worth padding my resume with. Is that a pipedream?"
Intel

Submission + - Power consumption and the future of computing (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mrdirkdiggler
mrdirkdiggler writes: ArsTechnica's Hannibal takes a look at how the power concerns that currently plague datacenters are shaping next-generation computing technologies at the levels of the microchip, the board-level interconnect, and the datacenter. In a nutshell, engineers are now willing to take on a lot more hardware overhead in their designs (thermal sensors, transistors that put components into sleep states, buffers and filters at the ends of links, etc.) in order to get maximum power efficiency. The article, which has lots of nice graphics to illustrate the main points, mostly focuses on the specific technologies that Intel has in the pipeline to address these issues.
Software

Submission + - Part-Time Jobs in Computer Science?

Submitted by Cornflake917
Cornflake917 writes: I currently have my bachelors in Computer Science. I've landed a decent paying position that I've been working at over a year now. Every once in a while, I get to work on an interesting project. However, I'm starting to get burned out. I really think a 40 hour work week is just too much for me. After about 5-6 hours of work, my mind just shuts down for the day. You may consider me lacking of passion, but I really want to work less. I only get three weeks of vacation a year. I wouldn't mind taking a serious pay cut if I only had to work 9 months out of the year and about 20-30 hours a week. What type of part-time software jobs, if any, are available to me?
Programming

Submission + - Best Web Programming Practices

Submitted by superflat
superflat writes: I often see stories on Slashdot bemoaning how web developers don't care about XSS protection and security. As I developer I know that I don't know that much about it (but I try and do what I can) but would like to have a good reference that covers the basics and some of the not so basic stuff that I should look out for. Could the folks here at slashdot suggest some good books to get me started?
Networking

Submission + - Tracking stolen laptops via MAC address

Submitted by
ArhcAngel
ArhcAngel writes: "My stepson's laptop was stolen recently and the person who stole it knew exactly where to look. I'm pretty sure he is acquainted with the person who stole it and they go to college together. My question for /. is since I have the MAC address of the laptop and I know where the kid goes to school is there a way to have the college IT dept. flag that MAC address when it hits the schools network? Has anyone ever done something similar and what kind of help or hindrance was the IT dept. in assisting in this kind of request?"
Software

Submission + - Baylor Lab goes open source: $15,000 in 15 minutes

Submitted by
lisah
lisah writes: "The Human Neuroimaging Lab at Baylor College may be best known for their double-blind Coke vs. Pepsi taste test, but they also do a tremendous amount of work in the area of brain research. Recently they added a new unit to the facility that will double their internal network needs and increase their bandwith needs. With a little bit of research and a few minutes of his time, Systems Administrator Justin King discovered an open source solution to address virtually all their expansion issues — and all for less than $15,000. From the article, 'King says he heard about Hyperic from a Slashdot post, downloaded the free [trial] version, and installed the software in one step that took him no more than 15 minutes. 'I thought, 'How easy is this?''"
Communications

Submission + - Freest Phone Calls Ever?

Submitted by
drowe67
drowe67 writes: "Li Yuqian (Beijing, China) and I (Adelaide, South Australia) just made the first VOIP call using the IP04 Open Hardware IP-PBX. Unlike any other PBX projects the IP04 hardware is free (as in speech). Anyone is welcome to copy, modify, manufacture and hack the design. The hardware was designed using open source gEDA CAD software, and it even runs uClinux and Asterisk. Could these be the freest phone calls ever? Even the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell was wrapped up in 19th century patent wars over his hardware!"
Businesses

Submission + - Unhealthy attitudes towards IT and how to correct?

Submitted by
alanshot
alanshot writes: "What is the best way to stop the attitude of "I dont need to learn this, that is what we have you guys for"?

As some background, I am one of 3 techs in a relatively low tech company. our 18 sites are spread over 8 states, so most of my 350 computer users are not physically near me.

On a daily basis we deal with the users via IM, email, and telephone support. On occasion we are forced to send incredibly detailed, step by step instructions to the users to have them perform some relatively mundane tasks such as making a config change, installing a patch (think DST), etc. Many of the users take the attitude of "I dont need to do this, I'll just wait until IT confronts me about it and let them do it via remote console. Besides, this is too hard to do, I dont have time, its not my job, and [insert other irrelevant excuse(s) here]"

They also treat thier computers with the same amount of respect that a 3yo does his toys. They dont worry about going to an insecure site, mindlessly clicking any random link that pops up, etc. After all, "Our guys are great, they can fix anything I can do to this."

If you do the math, you understand very quickly that this attitude doesnt work, and contributes to a higher than necessary workload for my department.

How do you go about changing the attitudes of your users, and help them understand that they need to take the responsibility to operate thier computers in a more responsible manner, as well as perform the actions requested of them in order to keep thier computers maintained and running properly.

(We are well on our way to implementing a fully managed environment, so the answer isnt "automate, use RIS/WSUS/GPO's, etc.")"
Portables

Submission + - OLPC manufacturer to sell $200 laptop

Submitted by srinravi
srinravi writes: ArsTechnica reports that — Quanta, the company manufacturing the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project's XO laptops, plans to begin selling low-cost budget mobile computers for $200 later this year. According to Quanta president Michael Wang, the company plans to leverage the underlying technologies associated with OLPC's XO laptop to produce laptop computers that are significantly less expensive than conventional laptops.

The OLPC project, which hopes to bring inexpensive Linux-based laptops to the education market in developing countries, selected Quanta (the laptop manufacturing company that produces mobile computers for HP, Dell, and Acer) to produce the individual XO laptop units. OLPC project founder Nicholas Negroponte says that OLPC has no plans to make XO laptops, which are "designed for the poorest and most remote children in the world," available to ordinary consumers in developed countries. OLPC plans to sell the laptops in bulk to governments, which will then distribute the hardware to school children.
Windows

Submission + - Command line list in Windows Vista

Submitted by
JamesVista
JamesVista writes: "Windows Vista is seen as a vast improvement graphically, over Windows XP, however for administrators and other power users, the command line will sill be open every half an hour to get to the core of the operating system when the mouse is lost in favor of the keyboard. Hundreds of programs can be spawned from the command line as well with additional switches to give you a much more powerful control over the GUI. The command line may not be Linux but it is still powerful enough not to forget about and sometimes finding those commands can require some serious searching! This list of commands explains it all in terms of commands easily found as well as those tucked away, plus commands to get straight into settings and less known GUI applications contained within the vista operating system."
Software

Submission + - What Bosses should know: software requirements

Submitted by
Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: "CIO.com asked developers to name the ONE thing that they wished the CIO understood about software requirements. The summary is several pages long, but it pulls no punches: from the role of requirements, to defining who creates the requirements (and in how much detail), to the need to shake the boss to get him to understand that requirements change, to paying attention to the process. It's all here, in Five Things CIOs Should Know About Software Requirements, with a few dozen developer's voices loud and clear. For instance, one developer comments, "The CIO has to realize that if there is no bad news, there is something very wrong. Smiling people nodding 'Yes' in meetings is not a sign of great intelligence at work.""

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