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Data Storage

Building a Searchable Literature Archive With Keywords? 211

Posted by timothy from the must-be-in-here-somewhere dept.
Sooner Boomer writes "I'm trying to help drag a professor I work with into the 20th century. Although he is involved in cutting-edge research (nanotechnology), his method of literature search is to begin with digging through the hundreds of 3-ring binders that contain articles (usually from PDFs) that he has printed out. Even though the binders are labeled, the articles can only go under one 'heading' and there's no way to do a keyword search on subject, methods, materials, etc. Yeah, google is pretty good for finding stuff, as are other on-line literature services, but they only work for articles that are already on-line. His literature also includes articles copied from books, professional correspondence, and other sources. Is there a FOSS database or archive method (preferably with a web interface) where he could archive the PDFs and scanned documents and be able to search by keywords? It would also be nice to categorize them under multiple subject headings if possible. I know this has been covered ad nauseum with things like photos and the like, but I'm not looking at storage as such: instead I'm trying to find what's stored."
Software

Internal Instant Messaging Client / Server Combo? 360

Posted by kdawson from the this-message-is-being-recorded dept.
strongmantim writes "I manage an internal help desk (25-30 people) for a medium-large company in the healthcare industry. We're looking for an internal, secure, FOSS (if possible) instant messaging / presence awareness client and server combo. Transmission of Protected Health Information is a sensitive issue, so the server has to be able to log any conversations that occur. It is preferred that the client not support outside protocols such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc.; if it does, I will have to promulgate and enforce yet one more policy that my techs not connect to them. All of the computers that will connect run Windows XP. The system should be scalable up to ~100 people (in case we decide to include our entire office in the roll-out). Hardware and OS for the server are not an issue. Oh, and one more thing: It has to be free. Suggestions?"
Internet Explorer

IE8 May Be End of the Line For Internet Explorer 380

Posted by kdawson from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy reports on rumors that IE8 may be Internet Explorer's swan song: 'IE8 is the last version of the Internet Explorer Web browser,' Kennedy writes. 'It seems that Microsoft is preparing to throw in the towel on its Internet Explorer engine once and for all.' And what will replace it? Some are still claiming that Microsoft will go with WebKit, which is used by Safari and Chrome. The WebKit story, Kennedy contends, could be a feint and that Microsoft will instead adopt Gazelle, Microsoft Research's brand-new engine that thinks like an OS. 'This new engine will supposedly be more secure than Firefox or even Chrome, making copious use of sandboxing to keep its myriad plug-ins isolated and the overall browser process model protected.'" The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.

Comment Coincidentally (Score 5, Informative) 187

by counterplex (#27139577) Attached to: Barbara Liskov Wins Turing Award
I happen to have a printout of an article on "The Liskov Substitution Principle" and was wondering just yesterday how it is that as programmers we use these principles in everyday life yet don't know their names or the stories of how they came about. As the first US woman to earn a PhD in CS, I'm sure there are some interesting stories to tell about it.

For those who might not have her original text handy, the Liskov Substitution Principle states (rather obviously):

If for each object o1 of type S there is an object o2 of type T such that for all programs P defined in terms of T, the behavior of P is unchanged when o1 is substituted for o2 then S is a subtype of T

which, when stated in the words of Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin as something we probably all intuitively understand from our daily work, is:

Functions that use pointers or references to base classes must be able to use objects of derived classes without knowing it

Comment The most interesting thing on the Get Amnesty site (Score 1) 132

by counterplex (#26497987) Attached to: Anti-Piracy Firm Offering ISPs Money For Outing File-Sharers
"Further, violators are tagged with a complete history of their downloading activities, which is easily translated to create customer profiles for online marketing purposes" This looks like they'll be using file sharing statistics to provide the content owners a benefit too. Seems only fair that the file sharers who, by their very actions, actually give them the information about what is popular and what is not should get compensated for that. Instead they will be fined. Way to go Nexicon/RIAA!
Software

Submission + - Eye Candy 3D OpenGL Transitions for OpenOffice.org (oooninja.com)

Submitted by
ahziem
ahziem writes: "PowerPoint's push-down transition has done its 15 years of service, and it's time for something new. Do the sleepy faces in your meetings agree? OpenOffice.org Impress 2.4 upstages PowerPoint with ten 3D transitions rendered in OpenGL. Apple's Keynote has already had a similar feature, but Apple was always shiny like that."

Feed Engadget: Verbatim to launch Mini Blu-ray discs with Hitachi's camcorder (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Now that Hitachi has announced a Blu-ray camcorder to put some of that high-def footage on, you've got to have something to record onto, right? Verbatim will ship 8cm Mini Blu-ray Recordable/Rewritable (BD-R/RE) blank media in August for Japan, with shipments to North America and points beyond in October. The media will hold 7.5GB on a single side, with recording times of one hour for 1920x1080i resolution, and up to two hours at 1440x1080i. The discs come with Verbatim's standard hard-coat finish for protection against scratching and dust, making them pretty reliable for the kinds of stresses you'll see filming your own season of Survivor: Fargo.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
The Internet

Submission + - Pirate Bay earns 20,000 Euros a day (rixstep.com) 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: controverisal pro-piracy website the piratebay likes to portray itself as an innocent hobby site that provides a free index without censorship, but recent facts show that the site is earning up to 20,000 Euros per day from its advertising. Taking in money on this scale puts a different slant on the motives behind the Swedish filesharing site, and could open up the runners of the site to prosecution for profiting from copyright infringement.
Music

Submission + - Multiformat Listening Test at 64kbps

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: The Hydrogenaudio community is conducting a "Public, Multiformat Listening Test" (http://www.listening-tests.info/mf-64-1/) to see which codecs (AAC, WMA Pro and Vorbis) provide the best sound quality when compressing samples at 64kbps.

This test is open until the 5th of August and seems to be much, much harder than what one would expect, even for experienced developers of sound codecs, at bitrates that the public would find "too little", as the comments on the thread at the discussion forums (see: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?show topic=56397).

Do you think that you have good ears? That 64kbps is "too little"? Then try it for yourself and participate. Your participation will help us improve the codecs so that they are even closer to being "transparent" at such "low" bitrates.

Feed Techdirt: Fat Finger Reverses Stock Market Slump (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
The stock market has been taking a pounding over the past several sessions, but yesterday's action brought some relief as the major indices surged towards the close. There was no obvious catalyst for the move, although late-session reversals aren't all that rare. So, should investors be relieved that buyers stepped into the market? Not necessarily -- it would appear that the late really was simply caused by a so-called fat finger error. Basically, a trader at a major Wall Street firm messed up on an order and then had to do some major buying in order to cover for the mistake. Other traders, recognizing the situation, piled on, taking advantage of the sudden buying panic. These type of human errors happen from time to time, sometimes with great significant consequences for the offending firm or trader. In 2005, one such error at a Japanese firm ended up costing $251 million. This time, the consequences probably won't be so severe, although it still seems like it would be a good idea to develop some better preventative controls.
Microsoft

Microsoft's HD Photo to Become JPEG Standard? 369

Posted by Zonk from the what's-wrong-with-jpeg dept.
Mortimer.CA writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft has submitted their HD Photo to the JPEG committee: 'Microsoft's ongoing attempt to establish its own photo format as a JPEG alternative (and potential successor) took another step forward today when the JPEG standards group agreed to consider HD Photo (originally named Windows Media Photo) as a standard. If successful, the new file standard will be known as JPEG XR.' Microsoft has made a 'commitment to make its patents that are required to implement the specification available without charge.' While JPEG 2000 exists, HD Photo has several advantages (not the least of which is a lot less CPU power is needed). Is this a big of an issue as ODF/OOXML?"
Networking

Proposed IPv6 Cutover By 2011-01-01 398

Posted by kdawson from the swatting-a-nat dept.
IO ERROR writes "An internet-draft published this month calls for an IPv6 transition plan which would require all Internet-facing servers to have IPv6 connectivity on or before January 1, 2011. 'Engineer and author John Curran proposes that migration to IPv6 happen in three stages. The first stage, which would happen between now and the end of 2008, would be a preparatory stage in which organizations would start to run IPv6 servers, though these servers would not be considered by outside parties as production servers. The second stage, which would take place in 2009 and 2010, would require organizations to offer IPv6 for Internet-facing servers, which could be used as production servers by outside parties. Finally, in the third stage, starting in 2011, IPv6 must be in use by public-facing servers.' Then IPv4 can go away."

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