emil10001 - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: Tool to sync up bookmarks/etc across multiple machines 6

Journal by nizo on Thursday February 15, 2007 @01:20PM

This looks to be the best thing ever for tracking my bookmarks across multiple machines (firefox only, though I think there is an exploder version too):
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/

It can also sync cookies, history, passwords, etc. Pretty nifty.

Submission + - New teeny tiny RFID chips

Submitted by

paltemalte

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:47PM

paltemalte writes: "Hitachi has just come out with a new crop of RFID tags, measuring only 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters. Compare that with the previously smallest chips at 0.4 x 0.4 millimeters. The new chips width is slightly smaller than the width of a human hair. These new chips could put an end to shoplifting forever, but they could also be used by a government or other entity to 'dust' crowds or areas, easily tagging anyone present without their knowledge or consent. Think easy tracking of dissenters or demonstrators. Will someone come up with a surefire way of neutralizing chips that may be on your body or in your clothing?"

Submission + - Canadian ISPs Send Thousands of Copyright Notices

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:46PM

An anonymous reader writes: The CBC reports that Canadian Internet service providers are passing along thousands of copyright infringement notifications from U.S. copyright lobby groups such as the Business Sofware Alliance to subscribers under a system called notice and notice. Michael Geist comments that unlike the U.S. takedown approach, the Canadian system is proving effective while protecting privacy and free speech.

Submission + - U.S. senator: Time to ban Wikipedia in schools

Submitted by jcatcw on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:39PM

jcatcw writes: Preston Gralla is appalled by Senator Ted Stevens' latest: Senate Bill 49, aka Son of Dopa. The bill would require schools and libraries that receive federal Internet subsidies to block access to a variety of sites. Stevens, a dangerous buffoon according to Gralla, would effectively ban reference materials from libraries.

Submission + - Obama's Campaign 2.0

Submitted by

Slaryn

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:36PM

Slaryn writes: "Barack Obama's campaign website is taking a very unusual spin for a typical presidential campaign homepage, allowing users to create blogs, plan events, and interact with other users in an almost MySpace/Facebook fashion. From the site:

"This site — and this campaign in general — will always be a work in progress. We're going to experiment, we're going to try new things. Sometimes it will inevitably be a little rough around the edges, for sure, but that's the risk we're going to have to take if we're going to run this campaign in a new way."

Is social networking the way of the future in elections and voter-politician interaction?"

Submission + - What is Microsoft's appeal?

Submitted by

beerdini

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:23PM

beerdini writes: "It seems like most people I talk to in the IT industry have a sour impression of Microsoft. How is it that if 90% of the world uses their products, many of the business IT administrators always talk about it with disgust and frustration? If superior, better cost effective alternatives exist, what was the reason for implementing a Microsoft solution over that alternative. I know many companies have one major piece of software that most likely runs on a MS system, but if a complete overhaul of the network is being implemented more companies are migrating from their current systems (Novell, Mac, etc) to Microsoft than the other way. Are the people that are expected to maintain the system (IT dept.) even a part of the decision making process to migrate or is a management decision that falls to brand name familiarity? Why is it administrators allow the implementation of a product that they know will provide endless frustration and "what do you expect, its Windows/Microsoft" types of support issues, and probably subject themselves to an intense product training (probably out of their own pocket) just to keep their job?"

Submission + - Vista first look: Bugs and confusion

Submitted by

SeanAD

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:20PM

SeanAD writes: "The Register has an article of its impressions of Vista. With the many articles comparing it to OS X, this article also deals with expectations of what a new OS should include. The closing paragraph is pretty telling: "It does benefit from a lot of good ideas, many of them Apple's, of course, but good nevertheless. It simply doesn't work very well, unfortunately. There are serious problems with execution; it's not polished; it's not ready. It should not be on the market, and certainly not for the outrageous prices being charged. Don't buy it, at least until after the first service pack is out. Don't pay to be a beta tester.""

Submission + - Drug patents threatening cheap medicines to poor

Submitted by

GillBates0

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:12PM

GillBates0 writes: "The BBC is reporting that a recent court challenge to India's patent laws by pharmaceutical giant Novartis may cut the supply of affordable medicines to treat AIDS and other epidemics in the developing world. Based on the rejection of it's patent on a drug, Novartis is arguing that India's requirement for drugs to be "new and innovative" is not in line with the WTO TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement that India is party to. India came to be called the "pharmacy of the world's poor" since it stopped issuing patents for medicines in 1970 allowing its many drug producers to create generic copies of medicines still patent-protected in other countries — at a fraction of the price charged by Western drug firms. In 2005, however, it changed it's patent laws to comply with international regulations. NGOs including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Oxfam say that if Novartis succeeds, pharmaceutical firms will be able to put newer AIDS treatments based on existing drugs under patent protection in India, preventing cheap generic versions being exported to Africa and elsewhere. In 2005, Slashdot carried a story about efforts to put India's ancient traditional medicine and Yoga online, so as to make it visible as public domain to patent examiners. More recently, Slashdot carried a similar story about Tiwan's decision to violate Roche's patent on a bird flu drug for the benefit of it's people."

Submission + - MacTech's VBA to AppleScript Transition Guide

Submitted by

John C. Welch

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @12:03PM

John C. Welch writes: "As pretty much everyone in the Mac Universe knows, (or should know), the next version of Office for Mac OS X, Microsoft Office 2008, will not support VBA. However, that doesn't mean Office Automation is dead on the Mac. It just means you can't use VBA. However, AppleScript will automate the holy beejeezus out of Office 2008, the trick is dealing with the conversion. To help with this, MacTech Magazine, along with Paul Berkowitz, AppleScript AND VBA maven have been working on a fairly massive transition guide. Details are at: http://www.mactech.com/news/?p=1009354 and in conjunction, the Microsoft Mac BU is offering discounts on MacTech subscriptions at http://www.mactech.com/vba/.

It's not a perfect answer to the VBA issue in Office 2008, and there may end up being better answers from folks like RealBASIC, but it's not a bad way to at least see what one of the more constructive options is going to be like."

Submission + - Apple does not like DRM?

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @11:58AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "If Steve Jobs says (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/) that it's not Apple best interest but the music industry's intension to use DRM on iTunes music. If so then, why is it that Apple Games DRM protected?"

Submission + - Skymania News: Here's YOUR chance to find Beagle 2

Submitted by

suthers

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @11:56AM

suthers writes: "Space fans are being challenged to find lost UK probe Beagle 2. Nasa has just released the first close-up photographs of the region where the unmanned probe should have landed on Mars. They were taken with the HiRise camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but scouring them could be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Despite that, and the enormous size of the images, The Planetary Society is urging everyone to have a go! http://skymania.blogspot.com/2007/02/heres-your-ch ance-to-find-beagle-2.html"

Submission + - Critical flaw in current Firefox discovered

Submitted by HuckleCom on Thursday February 15, 2007 @11:52AM

HuckleCom writes: F-Secure has a blog post regarding the latest version of Firefox and a vulnerability that allows malicious javascript code to manipulate any of your cookies.

From the Blog: "There's a new bug reported in the way Firefox handles writes to the 'location.hostname' DOM property. The vulnerability could potentially allow a malicious website to manipulate the authentication cookies for a third-party site."

From what I can recollect, this seems to be the first vulnerability discovered in the actual current version of Firefox — at least for a good long time.

Slashdot Top Deals