robzon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Stallman convinces Cuba to switch to open source

Submitted by

prostoalex

on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:41PM

prostoalex writes: "Big victory for Richard Stallman in North America, as Cuba decided to adopt open source software on the national level. Both Cuba and Venezuela are currently working on switching the entire government infrastructure to GNU/Linux operating system and applications, Associated Press reports from Havana: "Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, which is developed by a global community of programmers who freely share their code." AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro."

Submission + - Build Ajax apps using Google Web Toolkit...

Submitted by

BlueVoodoo

on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:19PM

BlueVoodoo writes: "In this third article, find out how to get the client and server talking to each other. You'll use the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework within GWT to make getting data off the server almost as simple as making a Java method call."

Feed Neural Implants Help Injured Go (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:12PM

People with spinal-cord injuries can't urinate on command, but implants promise to reconnect their bladders to their brains. In Bodyhack.

Submission + - FCC wants to regulate violence on TV

Submitted by on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:05PM

An anonymous reader writes: CNN is reporting that the FCC has released a report that claims Congress can expand the FCC's authority to regulate broadcast television. Currently, the FCC can regulate profanity and sexual content, but the new report calls for the power to regulate violence as well.

Server Power Consumption Doubled Over Past 5 years 148

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:05PM from the lets-get-that-fusion-thing-going-huh dept.

Watt's up writes "A new study shows an alarming increase in server power consumption over the past five years. In the US, servers (including cooling equipment) consumes 1.2% of all the electricity in 2005, up from 0.6% in 2000. The trend is similar worldwide. 'If current trends continue, server electricity usage will jump 40 percent by 2010, driven in part by the rise of cheap blade servers, which increase overall power use faster than larger ones. Virtualization and consolidation of servers will work against this trend, though, and it's difficult to predict what will happen as data centers increasingly standardize on power-efficient chips." We also had a recent discussion of power consumption in consumer PCs that you might find interesting.

Submission + - Linus fires latest shot in GNOME Wars

Submitted by HellFeuer on Friday February 16, 2007 @04:56PM

HellFeuer writes: Linus speaks out against GNOME again. When challenged to use GNOME for a month, he submitted patches to the GNOME project to prove his criticism is *constructive*, saying "The code is actually _cleaner_ after my patches, and the end result is more capable. We'll see what happens". However, he still didn't commit to actually using GNOME.
Where do you stand on Linus vs GNOME?

Submission + - Linus calls GNOME "limiting"

Submitted by

lisah

on Friday February 16, 2007 @04:39PM

lisah writes: "The flame wars between Linus Torvalds and the GNOME community continue to burn. Responding to Torvalds' recent claim that GNOME 'seems to be developed by interface Nazis' and that its developers believe their 'users are idiots,' a member of the Linux Foundation's Desktop Architects mailing list suggested that Torvalds use GNOME for a month before making such pronouncements. Torvalds, never one to back down from a challenge, simply turned around and submitted patches to GNOME and then told the list, '...let's see what happens to my patches. I guarantee you that they actually improve the code.' After lobbing that over the fence, Torvalds concluded his comments by saying, 'Now the question is, will people take the patches, or will they keep their heads up their arses and claim that configurability is bad, even when it makes things more logical, and code more readable.'"

Submission + - Apple the latest company to jump the gun on 802.11

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Friday February 16, 2007 @04:34PM

PetManimal writes: "Apple has just released the latest model of the Airport Extreme base station, which besides adding home storage networking capabilities, also pushes a wireless standard that's not even ratified: 802.11n. Although it's not the first "pre-n" wireless gear, the article says it does much better than the Linksys pre-n hardware in terms of setup and ease of use. As for whether the plethora of pre-n hardware on the market now is setting the stage for interoperability problems later on, eWeek reports that wireless vendors are already taking steps to make gear from different 802.11 manufacturers play nice, by releasing new router firmware and client drivers designed to improve interoperability among chip-set implementations, and implementing chip sets from multiple vendors. The draft 2.0 version of the 802.11n standard may be approved in the middle of this year, which could lead to final approval in late 2007."

Submission + - What does good ajax code look like?

Submitted by b0wl0fud0n on Friday February 16, 2007 @04:13PM

b0wl0fud0n writes: I've been browsing through the web to look up good coding standards and guidelines for ajax, but I've been cluttered with returns of basic tutorials and examples. Enough with basic tutorials, where can I go to find in depth resources for large ajax web application development?

Feed Water on Mars: New Evidence (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday February 16, 2007 @04:12PM

Photographs sent by a NASA orbiter suggests that water may indeed be flowing on Mars. And where there's water, there's at least a chance of life. By the Associated Press.

Submission + - End of the World? Nah,.Only 3 Football Fields Wide

Submitted by

j2xs

on Friday February 16, 2007 @04:03PM

j2xs writes: "So a funny thing happened today as I was checking my web stats report. This company was surfing DataRush, so naturally I went out to take a look at 'em... then I found this quote regarding what the world can expect in 2036. Heck, forget that! Look what happens seven years earlier!

"Some believe that all of this is science fiction," Ailor stated, "but we know that an asteroid (Apophis) 300 meters in diameter, large enough to cause serious damage, will pass within 20,000 miles of Earth — closer than our weather satellites — in 2029, and an impact by the same asteroid in 2036 cannot be ruled out. This conference will help improve our readiness should we need to defend our planet in the future."

I for one, am hereby donating my software to the effort !! Hey Aerospace Corporate guy, uhhh, just TAKE the darn software and start modeling its trajectory!!
[nervous laugh turning to whimper...as the screen fades to black]"

Submission + - OxygenOffice Professional 2.1 is Downloadable

Submitted by

KAMI

on Friday February 16, 2007 @03:45PM

KAMI writes: "OxygenOffice Professional 2.1 — Extended, open and free
(formerly known as OpenOffice.org Premium)

Get more. Do more.

OxygenOffice Professional is a free and open source enhancement of official OpenOffice.org. The OxygenOffice Professional Team has modified the source of OpenOffice.org and bundled lot of extras with it. Here are just a few of the extras you get with OxygenOffice Professional:

* Possibility to run Visual Basic for Application (VBA) macros in Calc (for testing)

* Multiple monitor support for Impress
* Improved Calc HTML export
* Enhanced Access support for Base
* Fixed security issues
* Enhanced performance
* Enhanced color-palette

More than 3,200 graphics are included, both clip art and photos. These pictures are integrated into the gallery and can easily be placed into any OxygenOffice document. Several templates and sample documents are included, as well as over 90 fonts. The extras are ingrated by default in the installation of OxygenOffice Professional, but they are optional, so the user can decide what parts to include and what parts to leave out. These extra templates, fonts, and graphics are free for both personal and professional use. Additional tools like OOoWikipedia, which can search the free on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia, are also included. An enhanced help menu, addtional User's Manual, and the enabled extended tips are great to help beginners get started using OxygenOffice Professional.

OxygenOffice Professional is based on OpenOffice.org 2.1 This latest and greatest version has new functions like enhanced PDF management and direct export to LaTex. The OxygenOffice Professional team of internatioanl developers changed the name of the project , (which was formerly known as OpenOffice.org Premium), to simplify things and point out that this project is independent from the OpenOffice.org project. Our team loves and supports the OpenOffice.org project, and did not want to cause any potential confusion.

You can download OxygenOffice Professional 2.1 from here:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?grou p_id=170021

Homepage:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ooop/

Available language versions:
Hungarian (HU), English (EN-US), German (DE), Italian (IT), French (FR), Turkish (TR), Georgian (KA) and a special 5in1 language version with Hungarian, English, German, Italian, French for Windows.

Supported platforms:
Windows (Linux version has delayed)

The modified source code can be downloaded here via SVN:
https://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=170021"

Consumer Vista Upgrades Moving at Snail's Pace 269

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 16, 2007 @03:44PM from the playing-the-waiting-game dept.

Chester Freeze writes "During the holiday season, many shoppers bought PCs with the promise of quick, free Vista upgrades. The reality has been something else entirely: many Dell and HP customers are being told that they won't receive their copies of Vista before April. 'One source at a major OEM who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the real issue is that OEMs are still not sure which PCs are really ready to support Vista, and which PCs aren't... Customers who qualify for an Express Upgrade also qualify for OEM support for Windows Vista, even if their machines came with Windows XP. The last thing a Dell, Gateway, or HP wants to do is start sending out upgrades to customers who might have video cards that do not have particularly stable drivers yet (or sound cards, or RAID controllers, etc.). This could be a support disaster.'"

Submission + - PHP Security - Soft Hyphen Exploit

Submitted by on Friday February 16, 2007 @03:36PM

An anonymous reader writes: This hack can be used to make two different pieces of text absolutely indistinguishable to humans. Well this isn't actually a "security" threat, it's a threat to trust. Though the names look different to php, they look absolutely the same to the end user. And with a little trouble, a lot of pranksters can make use of this. End result, you can use any exiting members name on forums, etc. And this is just the beginning. this is achieved by using invisible soft hyphens that are not displayed by browsers, while there's no real security danger, it's a threat to digital trust everywhere.

Submission + - Nanotech battery claims to solve electric car woes

Submitted by rbgrn on Friday February 16, 2007 @03:07PM

rbgrn writes: A123 Systems claims to have invented a Lithium Ion battery that not only can discharge at very high rates of current but can be recharged very quickly without damage to the cells or overheating. From their website: "A unique feature of A123Systems' M1 cells is their ability to charge to high capacity in 5 minutes or less. That's a significant improvement over traditional Li Ion, which typically requires more than 90 minutes to reach a similar level of charge." Using this technology, General Motors has announced a plug-in hybrid SUV and Venture Vehicles is developing a fully electric 3 wheel vehicle. Politics aside, the main technological hurdle to mass adoption of electric cars has been a fuel station replacement when driving distances beyond a single charge worth of range. Will we finally be seeing high current recharge stations in the next decade?

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