Aryabhata - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mac Office, $150 M, and the Story Nobody Covered

Submitted by DECS on Sunday March 11, 2007 @12:49AM

DECS writes: In July of 1997, the ongoing rivalry between Apple and Microsoft appeared to vanish with the announcement a new cooperative partnership. Why did Microsoft invest millions in a partnership with its most obvious remaining competitor in the desktop operating system market? Mac Office, $150 Million, and the Story Nobody Covered

Submission + - Top 22 Mac OS X Software Tools

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10, 2007 @08:39AM

An anonymous reader writes: Mac advocate John C. Welch is at it again, this time weighing in with his list of Top 22 Mac OS X Products. The collection of software tools ranges from the obvious — Boot Camp — to the obscure but perhaps more useful. That'd be little-known apps like Peter Borg's Lingon, for creating launchd configuration files, and BBEdit a professional HTML and text editor. (A collection of screen shots is here.) What's on your personal list of indispensable Mac productivity aids and programming tools? Also, do you think Welch pays too much attention to built-in OS X tools such as Workgroup Manager and Sync Services at the expense of third-party products like NetworkLocation?

Submission + - No passport for Britons refusing mass-surveillance

Submitted by

UpnAtom

on Saturday March 10, 2007 @08:29AM

UpnAtom writes: "From the And you thought Sweden was bad dept:

People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to will be denied passports from March 26th.

The Blair Govt has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.

Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea."

Submission + - Improving software help (and user's lives)

Submitted by develinflex on Saturday March 10, 2007 @08:12AM

develinflex writes: There are generally two kinds of questions a user might have while seeking help on a software application.

1. "What does something do? What is something?" type of questions.

2. "How can something be accomplished?" type of questions.

Providing information 1 is trivial — you just need to iterate through all menus, widgets and components on the screen, and describe them one by one. You can also have things like tooltips, whatsthis widgets, etc. that can be associated with every displayed widget.

How does one give a systematic list of the second type of questions? The problem is tricky because the keywords users might use to search for help might not be the exact technical terms used in the manual. For example, users may "know" that they need to use a text-box, but may not know that the thing to be used is called a text-box.

How would you, as a developer, arrange information in a way that is easy to discover for end users who know only their functional requirements? What other techniques can you use to speed up (I'm extremely sorry...) "software-usage knowledge discovery"?

Submission + - Open Source IP Surveillance Systems?

Submitted by

Missionary Man

on Saturday March 10, 2007 @07:59AM

Missionary Man writes: "I'm looking to build an IP based surveillance system. Ideally, it will use 3-4 IP-based cameras and have an open-source solution (preferably Linux). There seems to be dozens of manufacturers selling hundreds of cameras, but very little in the way of OS software for controlling them.

Does anyone know of an OS project in this area? Has anyone successfully built one of these systems? What are the recommendations/pitfalls?"

Submission + - RIAA Opposes 'Fair Use' Bill

Submitted by

fishyfool

on Saturday March 10, 2007 @01:08AM

fishyfool writes: "Link to story There's a new bill in congress aimed at preserving our fair use rights. It should come as no surprise that the RIAA is against it. this quoted; "The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research. The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said.""

Submission + - Mathematica vs Matlab

Submitted by

Ahmad J

on Saturday March 10, 2007 @01:05AM

Ahmad J writes: "I am doing petroleum reservoir simulation and to do so I have to solve highly nonlinear set of partial differential equations simultaneously. I have access to both matlab and mathematica. I am wondering which one is better to go with: matlab or mathematica?"

Feed Your Money: Getting Out of a 2-Year Cellphone Contract Alive (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Friday March 09, 2007 @11:12PM

It’s not easy to escape a two-year cellphone contract. But it can be done by turning to the innovators on the Internet.

Submission + - Shuttleworth should sell GNU/Linux computers

Submitted by

libervisco

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @10:13PM

libervisco writes: "In an open letter to Mark Shuttleworth, Jeremiah Foster suggests that Shuttleworth and Canonical should get into the hardware business, pre-installing GNU/Linux on computers and therefore removing the need to install as an obstacle to increased adoption.

Now Canonical and Ubuntu have made great strides toward realizing your vision yet there remains a bottleneck — people still have to install linux. Installing linux is easier than ever, but installing any operating system is unfortunately not trivial and is a chore that most computer users have no use for and will avoid. Remove this impediment, sell linux pre-installed.

This may really be a next logical step forward which may bring in more people to GNU/Linux than putting proprietary blobs into the system (which would be unnecessary if only hardware supported by free drivers is selected for computers)."

Submission + - Remote Control To Prevent Aircraft Hijacking

Submitted by

Snad

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @10:03PM

Snad writes: "The UK's Evening Standard is reporting that Boeing plans to roll out aircraft remote controls systems in a bid to eliminate the threat of terrorist hijackings, and prevent any repetition of the events of September 11 2001.

"Scientists at aircraft giant Boeing are testing the tamper-proof autopilot system which uses state-of-the-art computer and satellite technology. It will be activated by the pilot flicking a simple switch or by pressure sensors fitted to the cockpit door that will respond to any excessive force as terrorists try to break into the flight deck.
Once triggered, no one on board will be able to deactivate the system. Currently, all autopilots are manually switched on and off at the discretion of pilots. A threatened airliner could be flown to a secure military base or a commercial airport, where it would touch down using existing landing aids known as 'autoland function'.""

Submission + - Apple Unveils New Product-Unveiling Product

Submitted by cantideris on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @09:44PM

cantideris writes: In a surprise announcement today, Steve Jobs introduced the new product-introducing product, iLaunch. From the article:

The iLaunch runs Keynote-formatted presentations in high definition through a built-in projector while displaying a 3-D rotating image of the product. Voice-recognition software, Apple's most advanced to date, can recite a speech highlighting the features of the device while injecting several clever digs at competitors. Should a product demonstration experience a glitch or malfunction, the iLaunch boasts a complex algorithm that can automatically produce humorous and distracting quips.

Submission + - Why Millions of Home Alarm Systems are Useless

Submitted by

Michael Jagger

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @08:15PM

Michael Jagger writes: "Here is link to a post that describes why one of the most popular home alarm systems in North America is a complete waste of money. The post describes why the hardware itself is useless as well as shows a picture showing exactly how an alarm should not be installed. The system described in the post, which is unfortunately similar to those in millions of North American homes, offers no value to anyone except for the monitoring companies who charge a monthly fee to provide a virtually useless service. Does your alarm system look like this?"

Submission + - SPAM: An architectural plan of the cell

Submitted by

FiReaNGeL

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @06:28PM

FiReaNGeL writes: "Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Colorado have now obtained the first 3D visualization of a complete eukaryotic cell at a resolution high enough to resolve the cytoskeleton's precise architectural plan in fission yeast. The image of this unicellular organism reveals remarkable insights into the fine structure of the cytoskeleton as well as its interactions with other parts of the cell. "Our 3D image of fission yeast can serve as a reference map of the cell for all biologists interested in its architecture," says Johanna Höög. "You can extract information about all sorts of cellular structures and processes from it or use it to place findings into the spatial context of the cell.""

Submission + - An eBay for Money

Submitted by

friedo

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @05:59PM

friedo writes: "After launching about a year ago and growing primarily through word-of-mouth, the web-based lending site Prosper.com has caught the eye of the mainstream media. So far, Prosper has originated more than $36 million in loans, with interest payments (and risk) going directly to users who bid as little as $50 on individual loans in a reverse Dutch-auction for the lowest interest rate. Any US resident can be a lender, and bid based on the borrowers' Experian credit history and personal story."

Helping Dell To Help Open Source 177

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @05:34PM from the skunkworks dept.

Glyn Moody writes "Dell's IdeaStorm is turning into a fiasco — for Dell, and for open source as well. Instead of just shouting at the company to sell pre-installed GNU/Linux systems, how about helping them find a way to do it? Here's a suggestion that I've posted on the IdeaStorm site: that Dell set up an independent business unit for GNU/Linux systems, just like The Innovator's Dilemma tells us to do when faced with a disruptive technology."

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