saitoh - Slashdot User

Submission + - Walmart Prevents Shopping With Firefox

Submitted by

mattfite

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @08:58PM

mattfite writes: "I haven't yet seen this on /., but while looking for an artist's recording, I went to Walmart to try out the $0.88/song download. The link informs me that "We notice you're not using Internet Explorer. To continue, please visit this page using Internet Explorer 6.0 or later." Others have noticed this, too."

Submission + - Internet's Largest Internet Forum to Shut Down

Submitted by

Neo_Mushroom

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @08:32PM

Neo_Mushroom writes: "From the article: "2channel, the largest Internet forum in the world and an ISP in Japan, has been shuttered by a Japanese court ruling in a civil slander case. The corporation managing 2channel was declared bankrupt and its assets will be seized. The ISP will close on January 15th, and the future of the famous "mega-BBS" is uncertain."

For those who've never heard of 2channel, the BBS is massively popular, recieving over 2.7 million posts every day."

Submission + - Turning an Open Source Idea into Reality

Submitted by

Damian Carvill

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @07:56PM

Damian Carvill writes: "In December, Alfresco was announced as one of the World Economic Forum's 47 Technology Pioneers of 2007. In this article, John Powell, Alfresco's CEO, talks about the conception of Alfresco and gives some interesting insight into the process of developing and turning an open source idea into reality in under two years."

Submission + - R2D2 Projector Adds Force to Movies

Submitted by SvenForkbeard on Sunday January 14, 2007 @07:33PM

SvenForkbeard writes: "If there's a normal, unpretentious home theater projector out there in the universe, this is the projector it's farthest from. Star Wars fans will be knocking each other over to get to Nikko's R2-D2 home theater projector, which shoots video out of its eye (it would have been perfect if it used the hologram-projector port, though). The resolution is only 800 x 600 (south of high-def), but speakers are built in, and so is a DVD player as well as an iPod dock. And it wouldn't be R2 if he didn't move — you can make him follow you anywhere in your house via the remote control." http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/01/12/loo k_sir_droids.html

Submission + - Submitting Federal Proposals Requires Windows

Submitted by Petronius Arbiter on Sunday January 14, 2007 @06:41PM

Petronius Arbiter writes: The US federal government is requiring that proposals for grants etc be submitted using a common system at http://grants.gov/ . That's would be a good idea, except that, effectively, you must use Windows and Explorer. See http://www.grants.gov/resources/download_software. jsp :

To operate PureEdge Viewer, your computer must meet the following system requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... PureEdge on Grants.gov will not run within the Firefox browser.

They do have a Citrix substitute for non-Windows users. However:

Note that a limited amount of users can access the Citrix Server at any one time... Finally, you will find the best time to work and submit an application via Citrix is during off-peak hours, usually between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., EST.

Finally, if your organization has more than 10 non-Windows users, they want you to add a dedicated Windows box to handle the traffic.

Why is it legal for the federal government to require applicants to use an expensive, proprietary system with terrible security? This is particularly surprising because many technical people, from program officers to computer administrators, in the government personally like open source and detest MS.

As a crazy guess, over 100,000 different people each year submit proposals. That's 100,000 people who must have MS Windows licenses whether they want to or not.

Anyone who was concerned about the open format fight in Massachusetts last year should be concerned about grants.gov.

Finally, for National Science Foundation clients, this is a big step backwards. NSF has had an excellent online system, http://fastlane.nsf.gov/ for years. Fastlane has no bias towards MS. However, by federal edict, NSF people must also use grants.gov.

Submission + - Canadian coins not bugged after all

Submitted by Foobar_ on Sunday January 14, 2007 @06:23PM

Foobar_ writes: The Defense Security Service (an agency of the Department of Defense) has retracted its claims that it found tiny transmitters hidden inside Canadian coins, as previously reported on Slashdot and just about everywhere else. From the release: "This statement was based on a report provided to DSS. The allegations, however, were found later to be unsubstantiated following an investigation into the matter. According to DSS officials, the 2006 annual report should not have contained this information." Canada.com reports further.

Submission + - Big brother tracking (and taxing) on UK roads

Submitted by Thanster on Sunday January 14, 2007 @06:09PM

Thanster writes: The British government is working on plans to introduce pay per mile with GPS trackers in your car, this has massive big brother implications. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6160877.stm The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month. On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you can expect a For any concerned UK slashdotters, a petition has been raised here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

Submission + - Why "upgrade" to Office-2007

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @05:52PM

walterbyrd writes: "IMO: Office-2007 is a contender for the least useful upgrade in the history of computing. It's expensive, has a steep learning curve, and it's default format is even less compatible with anything else. Stan Beer discusses the "upgrade" in his article: Question: why do I need to upgrade to Office 2007?."

Submission + - FreeBSD 6.2 Released to Mirrors

Submitted by

AlanS2002

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @05:08PM

AlanS2002 writes: "FreeBSD 6.2 has been released to mirrors. The release notes for your specific platform are also available. "FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium and Athlon), amd64 compatible (including Opteron, Athlon64, and EM64T), ARM, IA-64, PC-98 and UltraSPARC architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. Additional platforms are in various stages of development.""

Submission + - Where to donate old hardware?

Submitted by on Sunday January 14, 2007 @04:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: Like many Slashdotters, I have a surplus of old computers and parts that I (and family and friends) no longer have use for. Some of this junk is still useful, and although I'm too busy to sell it piecemeal on eBay, it'd be a shame to just throw it away. I'd prefer to just drop this stuff off, driver disks and instruction manuals included where applicable, at a major charity such as Good Will, AmVets, or the Salvation Army, but I suspect that they wouldn't be able to move it and would end up throwing it away. Anyone have any recommendations for the major charities or any suggestions for recycling options?

Submission + - Goverment Wants Your Personal Details

Submitted by FREEDOM IS SLAVERY on Sunday January 14, 2007 @04:35PM

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY writes: It has been revealed that, in a positively authoritarian move, Britain's Tony Blair and left wing Labour party is plotting to create a massive centralised database of every citizen's personal details. Workers under orders from The Party have already started actively cataloging the details of 12 million children and recording personally identifiable details of everything from vaccinations and family details to whether a child is eating sufficient fruit and vegetables. Opposition parties and civil rights groups are outraged.

Submission + - World's smallest Bluetooth adapter

Submitted by Nevelgang on Sunday January 14, 2007 @04:13PM

Nevelgang writes: The Mogo Dapter from Newton Peripherals is world's smallest Bluetooth adapter. If you exclude the USB connector part it's barely bigger than a fingernail. This gadget is made by Newton Peripheral who says it's a "plug it and forget it" device for notebook users. It has a minimal power consumption in sleep mode and the chance that it breaks off should be really small. The only disadvantage is the price, it's roughly twice as expensive as regular Bluetooth adapters.

Submission + - Alternative to /.?

Submitted by KGBear on Sunday January 14, 2007 @02:14PM

KGBear writes: I've been participating in /. for about 10 years. Lately and more and more frequently I've been having this feeling that /. is becoming/has become irrelevant. Apple/Microsoft is good/bad, the recurring boring metrication of America, up to today's predictable take on IT people, make me wonder if /.'s era isn't over. In that spirit, what suggestions do /.'ers have for getting a high-quality fix of relevant, current, news for nerds?

Submission + - powerful, quiet and energy conservative

Submitted by

eneville

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @01:54PM

eneville writes: "It seems that all the advances in home computer hardware incur expensive use of power, the more MHz the more power it drains for top of the range equipment. Do any of the slashdot readers have any advice for purchasing a replacement computer that is reasonably fast, reasonably quiet and does not hurt the environment? The key point here is for lower power use whilst maintaining reasonable performance. Scaled up a little, this should also be good practice for business to implement, when I take a walk around a server room, or a data center I wonder just how much waste electricity is spent."

Submission + - A 2-nanometer-high Solomon's knot

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @01:14PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "UCLA chemists have built a molecular Solomon's knot at the nanoscale. The Solomon's knot is composed of two rings that interlace each other four times, with alternating crossing points that go over, under, over and under as one traces around each of the rings. This nano-version is roughly 2 nanometers high by 1.2 nanometers wide. And what would it be useful for? The project's leader offers a refreshing answer: "There is often a connection between the beauty and elegance of a chemical structure and its potential usefulness, and this Solomon knot structure is quite beautiful and elegant." Good luck to her! Read more for additional details and a picture."

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