Comment Re:So long cables running from space to earth? (Score 4, Informative) 371
He didn't play SimCity 2000 either.
Comment Re:Mandated (Score 1) 1246
Who's this Noone guy?
Comment Re:Reloadable cards. (Score 3, Informative) 196
This makes sense to me and I believe there are some services attempt to do stuff like this.
OTOG (Off the Top of Google):
OTOG (Off the Top of Google):
Cellphone Networks Survive Inauguration, Mostly 121
nandemoari writes "Everybody was talking about Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday morning, and it showed. According to reports, a number of mobile phone networks faced overload circumstances that day until late afternoon, when the chat sessions finally began to dissipate.
Having the most trouble that morning appears to have been T-Mobile, and AT&T also had some difficulty that morning."
Comment Re:This is a real problem (Score 1) 1654
They say it "requires Office XYZ" but what they mean is "you need to be able to create and edit Word compatible documents". Most users are going to take the statement "requires Office XYZ" literally because they don't understand the alternatives, and the people saying "requires Office XYZ" are probably even less likely to understand that there are even alternatives available.
This is something that has impressed me about my current college; all of my professors who require their students to submit works digitally have taken the time to point out that their are alternatives to Microsoft and how to get them, namely OpenOffice. Also, all the campus computers have Firefox 3 installed as the default browser, although they have Office 2007 for productivity.
Comment Re:Linux on the desktop (Score 1) 515
This isn't news to me. On my computer which has a Belkin Wireless G USB adapter and dual boots XP and Ubuntu, I've regularly noticed that doing a speed test on Ubuntu gets results up to like 200% faster than a clean XP install, and 120-150% faster than a tweaked XP install (using SG TCP Optimizer). YMMV.
More Brains Needed
232
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that more people need to donate their brains to medical research if cures for diseases like dementia are to be found and are urging healthy people as well as those with brain disorders to become donors. 'For autism, we only have maybe 15 or 20 brains that have been donated that we can do our research on. That is drastically awful,' said Dr Payam Rezaie of the Neuropathology Research Laboratory at the Open University. 'We would need at least 100 cases to get meaningful data. A lot of research is being hindered by this restriction.' Part of the problem, according to Professor Margaret Esiri at the University of Oxford, may be that people are reluctant to donate their brains because they see the organ as the basis of their identity. 'It used to be other parts of the body that we thought were important,' says Esin. 'But now people realize that their brain is the crucial thing that gives them their mind and their self.' Dr Kieran Breen, of the Parkinson's Disease Society, said over 90% of the brains in their bank at Imperial College London were from patients, with the remaining 10% of 'healthy' brains donated by friends or relatives of patients. 'Some people are under the impression that if they sign up for a donor card that will include donating their brain for research. But it won't,' says Breen. 'Donor cards are about donating organs for transplant, not for medical science.'"
Ubuntu Kung Fu
253
Lorin Ricker writes "Back in the dark ages of windows-based GUIs, corresponding to my own wandering VMS evangelical days, I became enamored of a series of books jauntily entitled Xxx Annoyances (from O'Reilly & Assocs.), where "Xxx" could be anything from "Windows 95", "Word", "Excel" or nearly piece of software which Microsoft produced. These were, if not the first, certainly among the most successful of the "tips & tricks" books that have become popular and useful to scads of hobbyists, ordinary users, hackers and, yes, even professionals in various IT pursuits. I was attracted, even a bit addicted, to these if only because they offered to try to make some useful sense out of the bewildering design choices, deficiencies and bugs that I'd find rampant in Windows and its application repertory. Then I found Keir Thomas, who has been writing about Linux for more than a decade. His new "tips" book entitled, Ubuntu Kung Fu — Tips & Tools for Exploring Using, and Tuning Linux, and published by Pragmatic Bookshelf, is wonderful. Having only recently wandered into the light of Linux, open source software, and Ubuntu in particular, this book comes as a welcome infusion to my addiction." Read below for the rest of Lorin's review.
Comment Re:Again, fail (Score 1) 246
Wtf is this anyway /.? Seems like these are just about trying to show the flashiest thing they can find and calling it "teh Best <whatever />." I still use a Logitech LX3 myself.
The Best Computer Mice In Every Category 246
ThinSkin writes "Now that the folks at ExtremeTech have finished writing about the best keyboards for every occasion, they conclude their roundup of input devices with the best computer mice in every category, which includes ergonomic mice, gaming mice, notebook mice, and so on. While this year's crop of gaming mice didn't impress much, there were advancements in non-gaming mice and tracking, as demonstrated by Microsoft's Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack technology — which is considered more precise than optical and laser. Even ergonomic mice saw little growth in the year — prompting the reviewer to rely on the older Zero Tension Mouse as a favorite."
Comment Re:Some highlights (Score 3, Funny) 50
I've been awake for over 40 hours now, but did anyone else think of data loss caused by icebergs when they read the title?
Comment Re:Manga can be anything (Score 1) 164
Takahashi is the third most common family name in Japan per number of households per here. And Rumiko Takahashi wasn't associated with Rurouni Kenshin from what I recall.
Comment Re:Nothing abnormal about SSH probes... (Score 1) 167
Precisely my thoughts on the matter. The handful of low bandwidth sites I've worked with that had SSH would have endless logs of failed attempts. And it seemed a large percentage of which even came from within the data center that hosted the servers (probably a sign we should've changed hosts, but that wasn't my call).
Comment Re:Unhappy? (Score 1) 193
What's it say if I went to Hulu after reading this article?
Good Cross-Platform Speech-Recognition Programs? 175
CryoStasis writes "I am a graduate student getting my degree in biomedical sciences. Because my work often requires me to maintain a local sterile environment (under a biological hood) I find that I am unable to physically touch my computer, which sits beside me, in order to open my notes, protocols, etc. while I'm working. As a result, I have begun to search for a voice-recognition program that will allow me to tell the computer what files/programs to launch. I know that the general field of voice recognition has come a long way, but I find that the built-in speech recognition systems in both OS X and Vista are clunky and difficult to use. Are there any good, cross-platform speech-recognition programs available that might fit the bill?"
