feitingen - Slashdot User

Comment Mildly annoying (Score 2) 359

by feitingen on Friday June 21, 2013 @07:57AM (#44068997) Attached to: My view of touchscreen laptops:

I have a touch screen laptop which appears like a normal laptop, so people don't know it's touch at first glance, and I usually forget to warn them. This leads to mildly annoying situations when I'm using it with someone. Someone: Hey, what's this? (touches screen) Hey, what happened? Me: You clicked on it. Now I either have to just click back in the browser, or rectify whatever they clicked on. Of course my screen is smudgy, but it seems a lot of people instinctively want to touch screens, so they are going to be smudgy anyways.

Comment nuke everything (Score 1) 547

by zaunuz on Friday July 27, 2012 @03:12PM (#40794453) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Clean Up My Work Computer Before I Leave?

stick the drive into a linux box and:
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb bs=512
(obviously, make sure the drive in question is listed as /dev/sdb before proceeding)

Ask Slashdot: Value of Website Design Tools vs. Hand Coding? 342

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 24, 2012 @10:23AM from the pre-built-motherboards-are-for-wimps dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I am pretty computer literate, and have a son who is extremely computer savvy. He taught himself C#, Javascript, built his own desktop with his Christmas and birthday money two years ago and is an avid reader of stackoverflow, reddit and many forums. He recently was asked to design a website for an architect, and likes to code by hand using Notepad++ and the Chrome developer tools. He uses CSS and Javascript libraries, but is convinced that all visual editors (Dreamweaver, Expression Web and so on) are only for extreme beginners and create non responsive, non compliant sites. I argue with him that while handcoding abilities are essential and great there is a value in knowing and using WYSIWYG editors. We agreed that having slashdot weigh in would be useful — comments appreciated on either the approach or good tools he can and should use."

Comment Some are willing to take a pay cut to switch jobs (Score 2) 374

by zaunuz on Wednesday July 11, 2012 @04:03AM (#40611871) Attached to: To get me to switch jobs, it'd take ...

Around three months ago i found myself in a job that i hated - I spent 5 out of 10 weeks on the other side of the world, the pay was good, but not good enough to justify the frustration the job involved. I decided to leave, and my new job paid roughly ~30% less than my old one, and ever since i started i haven't regretted it for a second. In fact, i am currently on the clock, sitting in my couch at home, while my toddler son is playing with a SATA cable that belongs to him. I voted 50% pay increase, as that's what's closest to the 100% pay increase it'd cost my old employer for me to go back to them.

Comment Missing option (Score 0) 396

by zaunuz on Saturday February 18, 2012 @07:39AM (#39084533) Attached to: Do you like your cell phone?

I have an iPhone, you insensitive clod!

What Do I Do About My Ex-Employer Stealing My Free Code? 545

Posted by samzenpus on Monday August 01, 2011 @05:06AM from the get-a-meeting-with-the-bobs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I recently found out that the company I used to work for is removing all the open source licenses (GPL and MIT) from my work, distributing it as proprietary software and taking all the credit despite the fact that they contributed nothing to it. They are even renaming it something really silly. What should I do?"

Ubisoft Brings Back Always-Connected DRM For Driver: San Francisco 261

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday July 28, 2011 @06:37AM from the back-by-popular-demand dept.

Last year Ubisoft introduced DRM for their PC games that required a constant internet connection, going so far as to terminate single-player games if the connection was interrupted. After facing outrage, boycotts, and DDoS attacks, Ubisoft seemed to have softened their stance, issuing a patch for two games that allowed offline play. Unfortunately, it seems the change wasn't permanent; Ubisoft's upcoming racing game Driver: San Francisco marks the return of the contentious DRM.

Study: 5% of Mobile Gamers Willing To Spend $50+ 54

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday July 28, 2011 @04:05AM from the fool-and-his-money dept.

derGoldstein tips a story at AllThingsD about a study into mobile gamers' spending habits: "[The study] provides a fairly compelling argument as to why a developer should continue to give away his or her games for free ... After evaluating the spending habits of 3.5 million consumers across both iOS and Android, Flurry found that among those who pay for in-app transactions, greater than five percent will spend more than $50, which rivals the amount paid at retail for top console and PC games."

How Do You Keep Up With Science Developments? 337

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 28, 2011 @02:48AM from the update-please dept.

malraid writes "As a nerd who used to love science back in high school (specially physics), I now find myself completely disconnected from any and all scientific developments and news. How do you try to stay up to date with scientific developments? Science journals? Whatever makes it into Slashdot's front page? Books? Magazines? I'm looking for something engaging and informative, for not something that will require me to go and get a PhD just to be able to comprehend."

Better Copyright Through Fair Use and Ponies 169

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 28, 2011 @12:13AM from the omg-fair-use dept.

Balinares writes "With even harmless parody sites like Peanutweeter now getting shut down by twitchy lawyers in the name of brand dilution concerns, the situation with fair use has become bleak. Yet some companies are learning at last. Variery reports that when parodies of their latest production started popping up online, Hasbro not only allowed it to happen, but started contributing some of their own. Now their My Little Pony reboot has gained a huge following and reached cult status. Fair use does make everything better. That, or it's the ponies."

Comment Hire someone to check it out. (Score 1) 182

by zaunuz on Thursday June 02, 2011 @06:23PM (#36325898) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Verifying Security of a Hosted Site?

As mentioned earlier, hire someone to check out your security measures. Many companies do this. Sadly i can't remember any names off the top of my head, but google is probably not completely clueless.

And obviously: Make sure that the contractors are legit and not just in it to rig the system with backdoors

Does Quantum Theory Explain Consciousness? 729

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 26, 2011 @06:23PM from the when-will-jesus-bring-the-pork-chops-and-antimatter dept.

astroengine writes "Quantum theory is often seen as the root cause of unrelated, mysterious phenomena. Take consciousness for example. British physicist Roger Penrose recently argued 'that we will need to invoke 'new physics and exotic biological structures': rewriting quantum theory to make sense of consciousness.' But why do this, especially as there is no apparent causal link between quantum mechanics and the conscious mind? There appears to be a very basic logical fallacy here that even the most prominent physicists seem to be making."

Tom's Hardware Benchmarks Inkjet Printer Paper 160

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 26, 2011 @05:42PM from the this-time-a-jump-rope-can-be-hi-fi dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We all know that the specs of your inkjet printer, driver settings, and ink cartridges can make a big difference in the quality of your prints. But the cheapest and simplest aspect of printing can also have a big impact on the final quality: the paper. This short article is an interesting read, the author actually found ways to 'benchmark' inkjet printer paper."

TI vs. Calculator Hobbyists, the Next Round 301

Posted by timothy on Friday May 20, 2011 @07:27AM from the not-how-google-would-do-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Texas Instruments has struck back against Nspire gamers and hackers with even stronger anti-downgrade protection in OS 3.0.2, after the TI calculator hacking community broke the anti-downgrade protection found in OS 2.1 last summer and the new one in OS 3.0.1 a month ago. In addition to that, in OS 3.0.1 the hacker community found Lua programming support and created games and software using it. Immediately, TI retaliated by adding an encryption check to make sure those third-party generated programs won't run on OS 3.0.2." But if you want it, you can get OS 3.0.2 here.

When AIM Was Our Facebook 395

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 18, 2011 @10:13AM from the something-to-think-about dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Gizmodo reports that there was a stretch of time in the 90s and early 00s when AOL was a social requisite. 'Everyone had an AIM handle,' write Adrian Covert and Sam Biddle. 'You didn't have to worry about who used what. Saying "what's your screenname" was tantamount to asking for someone's number — everyone owned it, everyone used it, it was simple, and it worked.' When we all finally got broadband, it was always on and your friends were always right there on your buddy list, around the clock. AIM was the first time that it felt like we had presences online, making it normal, for the first time ever, to make public what you were doing. 'Growing up with AIM, it became more than just a program we used. It turned into a culture all its own—long before we realized we'd been living it.'"

Slashdot Top Deals