Comment Re:Ubuntu 9.04 (Score 2, Informative) 417
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/10.04/release/
Lucid as well.
Comment Re:planned breakage (Score 1) 365
There was a series of Dell Inspiron laptops (8400? 8500? maybe 5000 series) that had the most ridiculous power connector. It was this big beefy cylinder, with a big beefy cable, where the receptacle on the motherboard was soldered on by three tiny tiny pins. Not even a big thick ground shield solder connection to help handle the physical stress. After a few months the connector would physically come off of the board requiring an RMA to Dell. A friend had three laptops go bad (once I resoldered the connector for him, worked like a charm till it came loose again) before Dell said they wouldn't replace the motherboard anymore. He eventually got them to send him a newer model with the same specs, even took the same power connector, and the problem disappeared.
Decency Group Says "$#*!" Is Indecent
821
The Parents Television Council says the "$#*!" in the title of the upcoming CBS show $#*! my dad says is indecent. From the article: "'CBS intentionally chose to insert an expletive into the actual name of a show, and, despite its claim that the word will be bleeped, it is just CBS's latest demonstration of its contempt for families and the public,' declared PTC President Tim Winter. 'There are an infinite number of alternatives that CBS could have chosen, but its desire to shock and offend is crystal clear in this decision.'" By this logic Qbert was the filthiest game ever made.
Comment head tracking perspective tricks (Score 1) 232
There's a link at Ars Technica that has an interesting possibility.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/with-the-nintendo-dsi-xl.ars
Microsoft Wants To Participate In SVG Development 292
rossendryv writes "After many years of fighting against the standard, Microsoft announced they are joining the WC3's SVG working group to help with the development of SVG. 'We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform,' said Patrick Dengler, senior program manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team in a blog post."
Wikipedia In Your Pocket, $99 412
An anonymous reader notes the announcement by Sean Moss-Pultz (Openmoko, Inc.) of a new geek device: The $99 WikiReader. All of Wikipedia in your pocket with no Internet connection required. Works in bright sunlight. 3-button interface. You can update the information in the WikiReader either by mail (they ship a microSD card) or by downloading a 4+ GB file.
ARM and Dual-Atom Processors in New Portables 147
chrb writes to tell us that Dell's new Latitude Z has finally been delivered as promised, complete with ARM processor. Codenamed BlackTop, the device runs a modified version of Suse Linux, and is capable of near-instant bootup. Dell's research has apparently found that some early users spend 70% of their time in the Linux environment." Relatedly snydeq writes "Colombian computer maker Haleron has designed a netbook that combines Atom processors in an effort to provide the performance of a standard laptop at a price more affordable to Latin Americans. The Swordfish Net N102 includes two Atom N270 processors running at 1.6GHz. Haleron worked for six months to modify Intel's 945 chipset to run the two processors. The processors divide the workload, much like a dual-core processor does, the company said. The netbook, which begs the question, when does a netbook stop being a netbook, comes with Windows XP Home Edition. 'We found that it works best on the Windows XP operating system. Both Windows Vista and the new Windows 7 performed below Windows XP in the load sharing department,' the company said."
Moblin V2.0 Beta For Netbooks and Nettops 50
superbubba writes "The Moblin steering committee is happy to release the Moblin v2.0 beta for netbooks and nettops for developer testing. With this release, developers can begin to experience and work with the source code of the visually rich, interactive user interface designed for Intel Atom based netbooks."
Comment Re:OpenCL != OpenGL (Score 1) 770
That is true, I was thinking more of 3D graphics/replacement for OpenGL like the summary seemed to imply. OpenCL would be really awesome for stuff like Photoshop, video transcoding, etc, definitely.
Comment OpenCL != OpenGL (Score 5, Informative) 770
FTA: and OpenCL a new open graphics standard
Not quite.
OpenCL is like CUDA, but supposed to be more open along the lines of OpenGL, hence the name. The same guys who manage OpenGL (Khronos) manage OpenCL as well. You could probably use it to do graphics, but that would be stupid.
Ad Block Plus Filter Maintainer "rick752" Dies At 56 385
A user on Reddit pointed out that Richard "rick752" Petnel, maintainer of one of the most popular filter lists for Ad Block Plus, has passed away at age 56. In an article last year Petnel described a bit of what he was up against in the ad world. "'I'm playing against some pretty big players,' he said, explaining his reluctance to step forward. 'I don't want to be harassed. . . . I don't want to be bribed. I started it because I was frustrated with getting my computer infected from ads -- malware and spyware and all that stuff,' he said. 'I kind of went overboard with it. But you have to admit, it's pretty amazing, right?'" Update 15:05 GMT by SM: updated to reflect Rick's status as maintainer of the most popular Ad Block Plus filter as opposed to Ad Block Plus itself.
Comment Re:I had this happen to me at Microcenter (Score 1) 492
How is this fraud? He told Discover exactly what happened, and they took care of it. Assuming the GP didn't lie (either to us or to the Discover people), this is a perfectly valid method of dealing with being screwed over. Although, the little snide comment about the manager's orientation was uncalled for, and probably got him his flamebait mod.
Personally, I would have called the central office and had them take care of it. Had to do this once with a hotel where we found a used hypodermic under a bed in our room on the second night of our stay (wasn't there the first night, so someone shot up in our room during our occupancy). We only found it because my friend's fiancee was making sure we didn't leave anything as we packed, reached under the bed, and brushed it with her hand. Had the needle been pointing outward, she would have gotten a tasty dose of someone else's drugs and bodily fluids. Manager only wanted to refund the cleaning fee, I stated this wasn't acceptable, left, and called the central office. 5 minutes after calling the head office, the manager called me back, apologized, and refunded my entire stay.
Comment Re:Convenience costs money (Score 1) 492
It would probably be cheaper to give each new employee an allowance for a new computer and have them make the purchase directly.
But then everyone has a different machine from a different vendor, so a lot of your IT tips and tricks (standard images for all the machines, hot spares, emergency parts, etc.) go out the window, which means your support costs go up. If you're a small business, it's no big, but once you start getting into multiple hundreds of machines that need administered, shit can get nasty if each machine is just different enough to be a pain.
When Servers Explode
142
1sockchuck writes "Have you ever lost your patience with a server? We're not sure who was the first person to intentionally blow up a server, but plenty of others have followed in their footsteps, and many seem to have captured the event on video. The Gallery of Exploding Servers documents the sometimes incendiary relationship between man and machine. Those who prefer a kinder, gentler disposition may prefer the guide to Flying and Crashing Servers."
Comment Re:Apple prices (Score 2, Informative) 479
Dude, those ARE the FB-DIMM prices. FB-DIMM long ago stopped being more than a few dollars off from the normal DDR2 option.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134688
Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM ECC Fully Buffered DDR2 800 - $33.49 each, $66.98 total; GP quoted $67.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134862
Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM ECC Fully Buffered DDR2 800 - $156.99 each, $627.96 total; GP quoted $604.
FB-DIMM memory does not invalidate his argument in any way.
