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Programming

Submission + - Adventuresome or "hands on" tech careers?

Submitted by omission9
omission9 writes: For about 10 years I have worked mostly behind a desk in a cubicle and am starting to feel that this environment is making me miserable. The cheap fluorescent lights, the stuffy air, and the restless feeling I get from just sitting so long are starting to really annoy me. My background is mainly as a programmer but I started my career as a network engineer/network administrator. I am also a member of the US Naval Reserve and am cleared as high as Top Secret. Are there any jobs out there that match this sort of skill set(more or less programmer but generally excellent tech skills) that don't require being stuck behind a desk? Paying relatively well would be a major plus as would something that provides a solid career(20+ years of work). Anyone out there in /. land that is reading this from anywhere other than a cube farm that may have some advice?
Announcements

Submission + - $25 Mill for solution to removing greenhouse gases

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The Virgin Earth Challenge (of Virgin Airlines fame) is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth's climate. http://www.virginearth.com/"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Welcome to garage door opener hell

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Washington Post has an interesting story of military abuse today: abuse of garage door openers. Seems a large number of folks living near the Quantico Marine base in eastern Virginia have found their garage door openers being rendered useless by a wireless signal coming from the base. And they aren't the first, the story says. Garage door openers have been zapped in other towns near military operations for a couple years now experts say. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1184 7"
Education

Submission + - Jakon Nielson on Life-Long Computer Skills

Submitted by
khendron
khendron writes: "The Jakob Nielson's latest newsletter, he laments the fact that schools appear to be teaching kids how to use specific computer application (he cites Excel in his example). What a waste of time, since these skills will be useless by the time the kids graduate. Instead, he lists a number of "life-long" computer skills that we should be teaching kids: Search Strategies, Information Credibility, Information Overload, Writing for Online Readers, Computerized Presentation Skills, Workspace Ergonomics, Debugging, and User Testing and other Basic Usability Guidelines.

From the article about Debugging: "We shouldn't turn everyone into a programmer, but the basic debugging concept is a fundamental survival skill in the computer era. Most spreadsheets contain formula errors, for example, and unless people know how to find such mistakes, they'll make decisions based on the wrong numbers."

Who thinks his list is accurate? Or complete?"
Security

Submission + - Modern Day Witch-Hunt in Connecticut

Submitted by zhenya00
zhenya00 writes: USAToday is reporting on a story most of us are already familiar with; the case of Julie Amero, a 40 year old Norwich, Connecticut substitute teacher who has been convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor when the un-patched Windows 98 computer she had used to check her email began to display a flurry of pornographic pop-ups to the students in her classroom. She faces up to 40 years in prison when she is sentenced this Friday March 2.
From the article:

"Julie Amero was a victim of a school that couldn't be bothered to protect its computers, of a prosecutor without the technology background to understand what he was doing, a police "expert" who was not, and a jury misled by all of them. "Miscarriage of justice" doesn't begin to describe it."
Can this country really allow something like this to happen? Why isn't there general outrage on the front page of every newspaper? Why aren't those responsible being flooded with calls and emails from angry citizens?
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedians are 42% Liberal, 8% Conservative

Submitted by
Jon
Jon writes: "Jimmy Wales has claimed that Wikipedians are more likely to be liberal, and Wikipedia has been accused of liberal bias. But a sampling of 901 Wikipedians reveals surprising statistics. 42% of Wikipedians self-identify as liberal (49% is current American average) 8% of Wikipedians self-identify as conservative (41% is current American average) 42% of Wikipedians self-identify as libertarian (5% is a rough American average) So liberals are proportionately represented on Wikipedia, conservatives are very under-represented, and libertarians are extremely over-represented."
Yahoo!

Submission + - Yahoo email down - Problem to affect all users

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Yahoo email was down all day today morning. I went to yahoo's homepage to see if there was any indication of their recognition of this, but there was none. I was able to login into yahoo messenger and everything else. the Yahoo answers / problems with service section is full of people asking questions. Apparently Yahoo decided to play it non-chalantly when a user called. He was "told" that all yahoo users would have this problem. See here for more. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/;_ylt=Av2Jnc2XngC1uDp 2JRmqHiX89xd.?link=list&sid=396546412"
The Internet

Submission + - The coming Internet revolution in science

Submitted by
vacognition
vacognition writes: "http://vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu/faq.html
This linked FAQ discusses why Harvard's Visual Cognition Laboratory is setting up an Internet-based lab. The Internet may soon change how the cognitive and social sciences are conducted, much in the way the open source movement has changed software, wikipedia has changed information gathering, etc. In the traditional lab-based model, scientists pay a small number of people to be subjects, subjecting them to a lot of testing. (By "a lot", I mean typically 1 hour, but it can last much longer.) The experiments are very carefully controlled in the lab. Now, as bandwidth has increased dramatically, it is possible to post a short (i.e., 1-5min) experiment online and get thousands of volunteers to participate, gathering just a little data from each. Of course, the controls scientists use in the lab (controlling the size of display, the timing, etc.) are much less exact. But for many experiments, the sheer amount of data more than makes up for these extra random factors. This is not only a different way of doing cognition and social science — one that makes the process much more open and accessible for everybody — but is also allows for new types of experiments. In the past, an experiment that involves asking subjects only one question was often hard to do because you may need very large numbers of subjects. Again, the Internet solves this problem. I'm not arguing that Web-based experiments will make the laboratory obsolete, but they are going to make huge change in the feasibility of many types of experiments and in the way in which they are conducted. That's the theory, anyway, behind my own new Web-based experiments. A fair number of other labs are already doing on-line experiments, but this lab is one of the very first to put vision experiments on the Internet. (Many have thought vision experiments require too much control over timing, display size, etc., to be effective on the Internet. Most Web-based experiments are surveys.) Those of you who object to blatant advertising should ignore the link, but both of you who want to read more and/or participate in my study, go to http://vacognition.wjh.harvard.edu./ I apologize for the blatant advertizing, but my excitement about the concept is very sincere, and I think it's something that would be of interest to slashdot readers..."
Windows

Submission + - Benefits of Windows User Access Control

Submitted by
Abtin Forouzandeh
Abtin Forouzandeh writes: "Having used Vista for a few months, something keeps nagging me about windows user account control. For UAC to be useful, the user needs to have a fair amount of knowledge about a) what UAC is, b) what application its blocking, c) the consequences of blocking the action, and d) an alternate approach if the blocked action did something useful. Anyone who has ever worked with end-users can tell you that they are generally disinterested in learning anything about computer usage beyond how to use word and make a spreadsheet. Frankly, even as a highly technical user, I nearly always approve the UAC dialog even if I don't know the consequences. Since users lack knowledge, and Vista keeps asking esoteric/ambiguous questions, then users will always approve UAC dialogs.

So my question is, since UAC so clearly fails in its goal of making computing more secure, and substantially increases complexity, why is it common wisdom that turning off UAC is "not recommended"? For 99% of users, is there any true downside? Or has the community come up with ways to make UAC useful?"
Portables (Apple)

Apple May Be Re-Entering the Sub-Notebook Market 281

Posted by Zonk from the time-to-upgrade dept.
An anonymous reader writes "AppleInsider is reporting that Apple has plans to reenter the sub-notebook market this year. The project, the article states, should be unveiled around the time of WWDC (summer). Drawing parallels to the legendary PowerBook 2400, the sub-notebook will offer some of the best elements of old and new. With a small footprint, light weight, and manageable screen it will fill a niche not currently occupied by any Apple hardware. At the same time, it will offer some new technologies that the current crop of computers do not: 'The new MacBook model is expected to introduce some features not yet available with Apple's existing notebook offerings, such as onboard NAND flash. Plans reportedly call for the notebook to be the first of the company's MacBook offerings to utilize the solid-state memory in order to improve power efficiency and facilitate near instantaneous boot times. This feature, however, had not been frozen upon last check.' Apple hopes this micro-notebook will capture interest both here in the states and in Japan, where the appeal of small consumer electronics may offset the current weak computer market."
Programming

Submission + - How do you learn new languages?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: How do you go about learning a new (programming) language? Do you buy a book? Use online tutorials? Message boards? Take a class?
Software

Submission + - Silicon Valley, follow the money

Submitted by
mrspin
mrspin writes: "This week the The New York Times sparked a lively debate, after it published an article which argued that when it comes to creating innovative technology, geography still matters — and that Silicon Valley is the place to be. And it's certainly true that Silicon Valley, compared with other innovation hot-spots, has the much needed Venture Capital and the connections that enable money to flow from one new company to another. Want proof? ZDNet takes a look at LinkSViewer, a new web-based visual networking tool for exploring capital relationships in Silicon Valley."
KDE

Submission + - Why Does KDE Use Slaves?

Submitted by
Jabari Zakiya
Jabari Zakiya writes: "I wrote this blog on Freesoftware Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/ and the majority of the comments so far have been in support of the use of the terminology of "slaves" to describe KDE widgets. I say the use of the "slave" metaphor is totally inconsistent with the concept of "free software." Apparently, others don't. So, should KDE use "slaves." http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/2075"

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