Comment Re:I can think of a few (Score 2, Funny) 496
Yeah, those red access points really do stand out quite a bit. Although, could you imagine the trouble you'd have if they painted them beige or something like that?
Submission + - OGP releases video of VGA emulator booting (osnews.com) 1
Theovon writes: "Slashdot hasn't seen much news about the Open Graphics Project for some time now, but the OGP has been quite busy, especially recently. As you may recall, the OGP's goal is to develop a fully open-source graphics card. All specs, designs, and source code are released under Free licenses. Right now, they're using FPGAs (large-scale reprogrammable chips) to build a development platform that they call OGD1. And they've just completed an alpha version of legacy VGA emulation, apparently not an easy feat. They have posted a Youtube video of OGD1 driving a monitor, showing Gentoo booting up in a PC. This completes a major step, allowing OGD1 to act as the primary display in an x86 PC. The announcement can be seen on the OGP home page, and there's an OSNews.com article. Finally, the Free Software Foundation has taken notice of this and is asking for volunteers to help with the OGP wiki."
Submission + - SGI - Government Welfare Recipient
riscguru writes: It appears as though the government handed out SGI a big fat award knowing they were foundering.
From ComputerWorld
By February, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) was in deep trouble. It was shedding employees and continuing to lose money — yet it announced that it had just signed a $40 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense.
The DOD purchases three to six systems in its high-performance computing program each year. The machines are used for cryptology, missile defense, weather forecasting and many other uses. The agency buys from all the major systems vendors.
...
The multiyear, $25-million contract with SGI was signed in January for six systems for a number of DOD computing centers. SGI was picked on the basis of an annual review that included a complete evaluation of the technology. "SGI offered the most compelling solution with the best usability, overall performance and price/performance,"
"price/performance..." how about millions of money for absolutely no performance. This is laughable. The government can't keep keep giving contracts to companies to "keep them afloat." Cray and IBM were the two competitors who "made it" into the DARPA PetaFlop challenge. They are the only one's capable of true innovation and development in HPC these days. Cray got the handout the year before. Linux Networx got one years ago ... look where they are now?
From ComputerWorld
By February, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) was in deep trouble. It was shedding employees and continuing to lose money — yet it announced that it had just signed a $40 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense.
The DOD purchases three to six systems in its high-performance computing program each year. The machines are used for cryptology, missile defense, weather forecasting and many other uses. The agency buys from all the major systems vendors.
...
The multiyear, $25-million contract with SGI was signed in January for six systems for a number of DOD computing centers. SGI was picked on the basis of an annual review that included a complete evaluation of the technology. "SGI offered the most compelling solution with the best usability, overall performance and price/performance,"
"price/performance..." how about millions of money for absolutely no performance. This is laughable. The government can't keep keep giving contracts to companies to "keep them afloat." Cray and IBM were the two competitors who "made it" into the DARPA PetaFlop challenge. They are the only one's capable of true innovation and development in HPC these days. Cray got the handout the year before. Linux Networx got one years ago
Submission + - Realities of open source Cloud Computing with PHP
An anonymous reader writes: In this article you will learn how Aptana makes it easy to develop applications based on PHP and MySQL, and how to deploy them to the cloud. Also explore some of the critical design differences between a cloud application and a traditional N-tier application.
Submission + - The World's Largest Raised Floor (datacenterknowledge.com)
1sockchuck writes: "What's the largest raised floor data center in the world? Data center developer i/o Data Centers is installing 460,000 square feet of raised floor in its new facility in Phoenix, which will come online later this year. It's the largest single data center project in the history of flooring vendor Tate, which has installed more than 450 million square feet of flooring. The huge project is being built a time when data center construction has been slowed by the credit crunch. But i/o Data Centers, which focuses on the Phoenix market, says the new facility is fully funded and supported by local demand."
Submission + - Oracle will Buy Sun for $7.4 Billion (theregister.co.uk)
reporter writes: "According to a story just published by "The Register", the management of Oracle has offered to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion. The resulting merger is a vertically integrated company that builds both the hardware and the software deployed in a typical server room. Other vertically integrated companies include IBM and Hewlett Packard. Curiously, we now have the computing big 3 plus 1: IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Oracle/Sun — plus Cisco. They roughly mirror the auto big 3 plus 1 (in the distant past): GM, Ford, Chrysler — plus AMC."
Comment Re:IT is a customer service group (Score 1) 576
> So stop loading people's computers with so much crap that getting to a productive point takes 10-15 minutes and maybe they'll be more apt to shutdown and reboot for you.
AC has a very good point that I wish some admins would learn. If it takes 15 minutes to boot a machine and get to the point of being sat at a desktop, noone is going to reboot the machine. Thus, you're going to be chasing around, booting the damn things off the network until they reboot and get any waiting updates.
It takes a very special kind of setup to make Windows XP run slower and lock up more than Vista on the same hardware. (Yes, RM, I'm looking at you. Start hiring good programmers, dammit.)
Comment Re:Absolutely not. (Score 1) 576
Percussive maintenance?
Comment Re:Linux. (Score 1) 757
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Viruses
"...viruses, Trojans, and other threats--specifically written for Linux has been on the increase in recent years and more than doubled during 2005 from 422 to 863."
Also, have a nosey at the list of threats.
Okay, then think about this...
1. What happens if the repo that yum gets the files from is compromised and a new checksum is added? yum won't complain, will it? (Chances are, though, that this will be caught fairly quick (or I'd hope so...) and rectified.)
2. See Above
3. Installs from source? (Okay, assuming the average user can figure out the horribly complex "configure && make && sudo make install" sequence. You never know...)
4. Installs of random
Submission + - Australia Pushes to Ban Card Skimming Devices (watoday.com.au)
SJ2000 writes: "The State opposition has called for new laws to ban the possession and manufacture of ATM and identity skimming devices.
He said the State and Commonwealth attorney generals had already agreed on and recommended amending the legislation to include offence such as:
*The possession of equipment capable of being used to make identification information with the intention of using, or allowing another person to use, that equipment for the purpose of committing an identity crime offence, punishable by up to 3 years imprisonment."
That's very generic, technically anyone who owns (or sells) any Magnetic Stripe Card reading devices can be punished under this if they are able to establish some form of "intention" especially for sellers.
Comment Re:You've Already Lost (Score 1) 427
I'm sorry for posting as an AC, but the
Hmm... seems to be working fine here...
7 Deadly Sins Aren't Enough 4
As proof that things are only getting worse the list of deadly sins, written in the 6th century, has just had an update. The Vatican has added pollution, mind-damaging drugs, genetic experiments, and monetary social injustice. New Line Cinema has already retained Morgan Freeman and is working on a script for 'Ten'.
Net Neutrality Blasted by MPAA Bosses 222
proudhawk writes "The LA Times is reporting that the MPAA's Dan Glickman has taken another swipe against net neutrality at his recent ShoWest appearance. 'Glickman argued in his speech that neutrality regulations would bar the use of emerging tools that ISPs can use to prevent piracy. That's what some studio lobbyists have been telling lawmakers, too, in their efforts to derail neutrality legislation. And depending on how the regulations are written, they could be right.'"
Bionic Arm Might Go Into Clinical Trials 107
prostoalex writes "The bionic arm project sponsored by DARPA is nearing completion, and might undergo clinical trials. 'The arm has motor control fine enough for test subjects to pluck chocolate-covered coffee beans one by one, pick up a power drill, unlock a door, and shake a hand. Six preconfigured grip settings make this possible, with names like chuck grip, key grip, and power grip. The different grips are shortcuts for the main operations humans perform daily.'"
Apple QuickTime DRM Disables Video Editing Apps 448
An anonymous reader writes "According to numerous posts on Apple's discussion forums (several threads of which have been deleted by Apple), as well as a number of popular video editing blogs, Apple's recent QT 7.4 update does more than just enable iTunes video rentals — it also disables Adobe's professional After Effects video editing software. Attempting to render video files after the update results in a DRM permissions error. Unfortunately, it is not possible to roll back to a previous version of QT without doing a full OSX reinstall. Previous QT updates have also been known to have severe issues with pro video editing apps."
