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Submission + - Two novae at dawn

Submitted by
Auke Slotegraaf
Auke Slotegraaf writes: "Earlier in February, a nova erupted in Scorpius, and then flared up to naked-eye brightness. It is still (Feb 22) visible, and can be seen in the morning sky before sunrise. Then on the 19th, a second nova erupted, just 3 degrees away from the first! It is currently visible in binoculars. It is still unclear how bright the second one may become, but chances are we will have TWO naked-eye novae a cosmic hair's breadth apart! A finder chart of the two novae is at http://www.psychohistorian.org/astronomy/news/2007 0222-v1281-scorpii.html"
Upgrades

Submission + - ESR had enough with Fedora, moved to Ubuntu

Submitted by
sufehmi
sufehmi writes: "After almost losing his data because of a minor update from Fedora, ESR finally call it quits. In his posting on fedora-devel@, he lambasted on the purist attitude of the Fedora project, while losing touch with the reality.

I've moved away from Fedora once I realized that security updates are not going very well for older versions, endangering my computers; especially after the Fedora legacy project folded up.

Personally, I think it's possible to find a middle-path; where a Linux distro is both free (as in freedom) and Just Works (tm) for your average John Doe."
Programming

Submission + - How do you change careers into programming?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I have worked in tech support for the last several years, but find myself wanting to move on to something else — programming. I've written some small programs in my limited spare time but nothing particularly impressive; just functional stuff to make my life easier. I've spent a lot of time recently working through programming books, and feel I'm ready to make the switch in my career. That said, I don't have a CS degree, and find that responses to my resume have been along the lines of "Thanks, but we aren't hiring for tech support positions." Surely someone from the slashdot crowd has been in the same position — what would you recommend?
Software

Submission + - The future of packaging software in Linux

Submitted by
michuk
michuk writes: "There are currently at least five popular ways of installing software in GNU/Linux. None of them is widely accepted throughout the popular distibutions. This situation is not a problem for experienced users — they can make decisions themselves. However, for a newcomer in the GNU/Linux world, installing new software is always pretty confusing. The article tries to sum up some of the recent efforts to fix this problem and examine the possible future of packaging software in GNU/Linux."
Quake

Submission + - Quake Ported to Nintendo DS

Submitted by Joan Cross
Joan Cross writes: ID Software`s Quake the first-person shooter computer game that was released back in 2006 has today been ported to the Nintendo DS, the coder Simon Hall has manged to squeeze the program, working state and game data into the four megabytes of main memory of Nintendo`s handheld. The game is fully playable with both shareware or commercial pak files, total conversions and mods will work also.
PHP

Submission + - The right way to read files with PHP

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of the joys of dealing with modern programming languages like PHP is the amount of options available. PHP could easily steal the Perl motto, "There's more than one way to do it," especially when it comes to file processing. Learn how to use the different file functions of PHP. Review basic file functions, such as fopen, fclose, and feof; learn reading functions, such as fgets, fgetss, and fscanf. And discover functions that process entire files in one or two lines of code.
Networking

Submission + - Charter pulls a Verisign

Submitted by _peter
_peter writes: As of sometime today, Charter internet customers, at least in the St. Louis area, got their own version of SiteFinder. I just finished talking to their tech support for about an hour, and have verified that it is intentional, and the only way to ``opt-out'' is to let them set a cookie in your browser. Obviously this doesn't work for connections that aren't browser-based. When I asked to be transferred to account services to cancel, the very nice representative begged for a day to look into the issue. Perhaps any other Charter customers might want to check to see if they've received this feature as well.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Why Steve Isn't Going to Upset the DRM Apple Cart

Submitted by BSDetector
BSDetector writes: It seems that the Steve Jobs and Apple veneer may be cracking for all to see. In an article in the UK Guardian

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2 012883,00.html/

Charlie Demerjian from the Inquirer is quoted as saying '...called Jobs "the lowest form of hypocrite"'. Another telling quote from Torgeir Waterhouse of Forbrukerradet (Norway's consumer council) is that 'FairPlay is an illegal technology whose main purpose is to lock the consumers to the total package provided by Apple by blocking interoperability.'

Based on this article, it appears that the cult of Steve may have to deal with the barbarians at the gate more than than ever.
Google

Submission + - Google logo error!

Submitted by Bobshush
Bobshush writes: As you should know by now, Google has the wonderful practice of creating custom logos for holidays and other random events throughout the year. However, it seems that they've screwed up for Valentines day by misspelling their name. Check it out at google.com. Googe?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Outlaws 3rd Party IM Clients

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the latest update to the MSN Instant Messenger client, now called Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft has required all users to sign a new contract which among other things forbids the use of 3rd party instant messenger clients to connect to the MSN messenger service, such as the AJAX Meebo client, Gaim, and Trillian among others. Worth noting, they do provide a list of authorized 3rd party clients, such as Yahoo Messenger, that are allowed access to the service.

Excerpt: "In using the service, you may not use any unauthorized third party software or service to access the Microsoft instant messaging network currently known as the .NET Messenger service."
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox javascript/cookie vulnerability uncovered

Submitted by mybecq
mybecq writes: Michal Zalewski has uncovered and disclosed a serious vulnerability (BugZilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37044 5) in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1, whereby a javascript string containing '\x00' (escaped NUL character) can cause Firefox to allow malicious sites to manipulate cookies for third-party webpages.

A demonstration of the vulnerability is available. The vulnerability requires javascript and session cookies to be enabled to be able to be exploited.

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