dybdahl - Slashdot User

Submission + - Perceptive post compares Microsoft now to IBM then (red-bean.com)

Submitted by

kfogel

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:33PM

kfogel writes: "Ben Collins-Sussman wrote a very perceptive blog post after reading the "Microsoft Pleads With Consumers to Adopt Vista Now" story today. He notes that a similar situation spelled the beginning of the end of IBM's dominance in the 1980's: although IBM set the hardware standards for a while, the market eventually moved beyond them, and the day came when IBM introduced a standard and *everybody ignored it*. Ben was in high-school then, and writes: "I remember thinking to myself 'Wow, this is a big deal. It's the beginning of the end for IBM.' And I was right! ... Well, I just had that same moment again [about Microsoft]". An excellent read and a spot-on analogy, IMHO. The URL is: http://blog.red-bean.com/sussman/?p=69"

Submission + - Vivoleum: Exxon's Answer to Fuel Crisis

Submitted by

robotim

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:24PM

robotim writes: "At one of North America's largest gas and oil conferences, Exxon unveiled a new product called "Vivoleum" as a possible future fuel when we run out of oil. The conference took place in Calgary, Canada (where Canada's largest oil reserves reside,) and the Exxon representatives were not paid officials from the company, but rather volunteers from the Yes Men. Wired has two articles, one with the press release from the event and another is a Q&A with Andy Bichlbaum from the Yes Men. Interestingly, not everyone seems to think burning people for fuel is a bad idea."

Submission + - World Bank Goes Open Source (salon.com)

Submitted by

wemmick

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:21PM

wemmick writes: "Salon covers what seems to be a pretty cool social aggregator developed by, oddly, the World Bank called BuzzMonitor. It "allows users to aggregate all types of feeds (blog feeds, search feeds, news feeds) and collaborate around them. It provides tag clouds, Digg-like voting, Technorati and Alexa widgets, user tags and many other features." Built on Drupal, free download."

Submission + - Designing IS Strategies To Avoid Network Threats (xtalks.com)

Submitted by

Romeo Cole

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:20PM

Romeo Cole writes: "Webcast Title:
Designing IS Strategies to Stay Ahead of Network Threats

Event Speakers:
Dave Cullinane, CISO, eBay
Dan Lohrmann, CISO, State of Michigan
Michael Yaffe, Director of Marketing, Core Security Technologies

Event Date:
June 28, 2007 @ 1-3PM EDT

Event Sponsor:
Core Security Technologies

Is your Business Prepared?

Learn about computer security breaches and their devastating consequences on an agency and its constituents. CSO's, CIO's, CISO's and IT Security Professionals are making cyber security a priority concern. Given the recent events, everyone understands the grave impact of security vulnerabilities and communication disruptions to the agency's business if cyber vigilance is not exercised fully.

Now more than ever, CIOs, CSOs, and CISOs have to stay 2 steps ahead to ensure the security of their systems and company data. While many struggle to manage this cyber menace, others have initiated proactive strategies to meet this challenge.

There are always hackers, cyber attacks, and other threats coming from both outside and inside the organization and these threats keep getting more and more sophisticated. Systems are always vulnerable to new attacks or new internal security measure failures.

Listen to recognized practitioners who understand all too well that security is a business issue, and IT is a tool to drive business results. Speakers will share how they are addressing these threats strategically.

Take Away Points Include:
-Demonstrating a Return on Investment in Security
-Strategic Cyber Security Project Case Studies — specifically looking at
-Internet Filtering
-Penetration Testing
-Anti-Spam Filtering
-IT Security Awareness
-Cyber Emergency Exercises — testing your defenses with a case study on Michigan's involvement in DHS's global exercise called Cyber Storm

Program Is Intended For:
-IT Security Professionals, CSOs, CISOs, CIOs, VPs, Directors, Heads of IT, VPs, Directors, Heads of Planning and Network Administrators

Registration for live webcast is free and via email. Complimentary streaming is available. Webinar will also be made available as an archive. Dont miss this informative webinar.

Reserve your spot for free to attend live web cast"

Submission + - Press Wrongly Claim China Ahead Of US In Emissions (apathy.net)

Submitted by

cybermage

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:00PM

cybermage writes: "The Guardian broke the story of a new study that says "China overtakes U.S. as world's biggest CO2 emitter". The press has begun echoing the story everywhere without giving it much scrutiny. But, is it true? On a per person basis, the U.S. emits four times the carbon of China. Also, when you consider how much American manufacturing for American consumption is outsourced to China, how can the study be taken at face value?"

Submission + - Microsoft to change Vista Search to keep Goole Hap (gadgettastic.com)

Submitted by

fatgadget

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @08:36PM

fatgadget writes: "Microsoft has responded to a complaint that its computer search function has put Google and other potential rivals at a disadvantage. They will change the way their desktop search works. The new search will allow users to select a default desktop search program on personal computers running windows. The function, known as "Instant Search," allows Windows users to enter a search query and get a list of results from their hard drive that contain the search term."

Judge Deals Blow to RIAA 229

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @08:27PM from the glad-that's-all-worked-out dept.

jcgam69 writes "A federal judge in New Mexico has put the brakes on the RIAA's lawsuit train, at least in the US District Court for New Mexico. The case in question is part of the RIAA's campaign against file-sharing on college campuses and names "Does 1-16," who allegedly engaged in copyright infringement using the University of New Mexico's network. In a ruling issued last month but disclosed today by file-sharing attorney Ray Beckerman, Judge Lorenzo F. Garcia denied the RIAA's motion to engage in discovery. This means that the RIAA will not be able to easily get subpoenas to obtain identifying information from the University."

Submission + - Cache Method to Improve Application Performance

Submitted by on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @07:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: I am currently trying to speed up some processes that slurp up and process some amounts of data from moderately sized databases of several 10's of gigabytes.

I am looking at one approach to build an object layer that will serve as a cache / mediator between the main database and the clients, but I see issues with lazy writing, data merging, and multi-user access.

I currently read data into screens from ADO recordsets, and write similarly. Therefore I am looking at some rewriting to make screens and related code run against my home-grown object layer.

What do people think of this approach, and what other approaches might be suggested? Since some screens include summary and computed information, being able to run SQL against the cache would be a benefit and save me writing some code.

NASA Frees Their Robotics Software 112

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @07:19PM from the now-everyone-will-make-robots dept.

kremvax writes "It's a field day for robotics hackers everywhere, as NASA releases the first installment of their CLARAty reusable robotic software framework to the public. According to the JPL press release, these modules contain everything from math infrastructure to device drivers for common motors and cameras, and computer vision, image, and 3D processing."

Submission + - Global Cooling - The other shoe drops (canada.com)

Submitted by

fyngyrz

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @06:40PM

fyngyrz writes: "As always, there are rumbles of discontent from the scientific community with regard to global warming. This article from R. Timothy Patterson, professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, lays the overriding mechanism of climate change squarely at the feet of the various solar cycles. In the article, he explains that solar energy impacting the earth is part of the mechanism, while the sun's solar wind drives cloud formation in a complementary cycle that enhances the effect of the actual heat input. But that's not the kicker. The interesting part is he is predicting global cooling, rather than warming."

Submission + - Conservapedia - The Truth Will Set You Free (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by

FraterNLST

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @06:29PM

FraterNLST writes: "Most of us have heard of that joke that is the conservative answer to wikipedia — well, it's still alive and growing. This article gives some words from its founders, and some more brilliant extracts of "unbiased, conservative opinion."

I particularly like the one about Hillary Clinton being unsuited for president as she displays all the signs of classical narcissism. Oh, and she's a democrat, not that that would matter to an unbiased conservative."

Submission + - iPhone to Support Native YouTube Client (apple.com)

Submitted by

MattPat

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @06:29PM

MattPat writes: "Much like the client currently available on the Apple TV, iPhone users will get a previously-unmentioned piece of functionality when the iPhone ships in 9 days: a native YouTube client.

Apple® today announced that iPhone(TM) users will be able to enjoy YouTube's originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone's stunning 3.5 inch display. ... "iPhone delivers the best YouTube mobile experience by far," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Now users can enjoy YouTube wherever they are — on their iPhone, on their Mac or on a widescreen TV in their living room with Apple TV."

Apple already has a QuickTour of the functionality on its website."

USAF Developing New "SR-72" Supersonic Spy? 428

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @06:16PM from the next-comes-high-altitude-flak-cannons dept.

Kadin2048 writes "According to an Air Force Times article, the famed Lockheed Martin 'Skunk Works' may be hard at work on a new supersonic spy plane (with 'artist concept') for the U.S. military, to replace the SR-71 'Blackbird' retired a decade ago. Dubbed by some the SR-72, the jet would be unmanned and travel at about 4,000 MPH at as much as 100,000 feet, with 'transcontinental' range. Some have speculated that new high-speed spy planes could be a U.S. response to anti-satellite weapons deployed by China, in order to preserve reconnaissance capabilities in the event of a loss of satellite coverage. Neither the Air Force nor Lockheed Martin would comment on the program, or lack thereof."

Submission + - Where does a sysadmin go for help?

Submitted by on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @06:03PM

An anonymous reader writes: I believe I have stumbled up a new FreeBSD based rootkit/hack/backdoor/whatever you want to call it. I'm pretty sure I know how it was installed on the server, I've got a pretty good idea of how most of it works, but there are parts that are over my head. I am not an idiot, but I am lacking the reverse engineer skills required to see exactly how it works. I am leery about posting my findings to a public forum because the last thing I want to do is give the script kiddies a new toy to play with without having full knowledge of how it works myself. I would prefer to disclose what I've found to a trustworthy third party who can elaborate on my findings and then have the findings posted publicly should this turn out to be something new. Please keep in mind I have googled, yahooed, searched forums, searched usenet for any mention of what I have found and have come up empty handed. It's entirely possible this is nothing new, and I am a n00b, but in either case my question is: where does a sysadmin go when he doesn't have and can't find an answer? PS: I am already aware that in Soviet Russia, answer finds you. Unfortunately I don't live in Soviet Russia. :(

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