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Submission + - Linux - Apparently no more than Office

Submitted by
Cyvros
Cyvros writes: "Linux Today mentions two comments ([1] and [2]) by "jerryleecooper" at ZDNet about why Linux cannot possibly succeed against Windows.

The reason? Linux runs on Windows. Apparently. From his second post:
"I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this. ... Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible."

Whoa. Could this mean... Linux is no more than Office?"
Media

Submission + - How MediaSentry Poisons P2P

Submitted by
Quid custodiet ipsos custodes?
Quid custodiet ipsos custodes? writes: "Ars Technica has an interesting tour of MediaSentry's operations. MediaSentry, best known for putting fake files on P2P networks, apparently has no less than 60 employees, 2,000 geographically diverse co-located servers, and 9 GBps of bandwidth which it uses to attack P2P networks that serve files it has been hired to protect. They use no less than four different tactics: decoy files, some of which are now advertisements; spoofing results to P2P network search requests; spamming uploaders with download request to eat their bandwidth; and swarming, where they join BitTorrent or similar swarms and serve bogus data to slow or corrupt the downloads. While some of this has been known for a while now, it would be interesting to see how this admission to the details of their operation plays in court. Given that the RIAA has offered little more than screenshots as evidence on infringement, could they not be mistakenly accusing people based on spoofs they paid MediaSentry to create?"
Bug

Submission + - Microsoft Update Memory Leak

Submitted by
mksolid
mksolid writes: "I'm a computer technician for a small IT company and I have been driven absolutely crazy since Friday with a problem that occurred when I would boot up any Windows XP desktop machines. When I opened Task Manager to monitor the resource usage, I noticed that the 'svchost.exe' process (run by the SYSTEM account) would take up 99% CPU time and cause a massive memory leak for the first 5-10 minutes after logging into a user account. I did virus scans, anti-spyware scans and anything that I could to ensure that the problem wasn't related to malicious software, and I even setup a clean test system and still had the same problems. I finally decided to use TDIMonitor and check the network for the culprit resource hog, and I discovered that the system was repeatedly sending out requests for various Microsoft files. I simply disabled Microsoft Update from the Windows Update page and the problem has gone away. Our machines now startup and operate very smoothly within seconds. I suppose the discovery is that there is a bug in Microsoft Update that causes a massive memory leak and it needs further investigation by Microsoft."
The Internet

Submission + - X/HTML 5 Versus XHTML 2

Submitted by
Vlad Alexander
Vlad Alexander writes: "The competition to become the next markup language for the Web is heating up. The article X/HTML 5 Versus XHTML 2 focuses on the two specifications vying to become the successor to HTML 4.x and XHTML 1.x, and looks at what's cool and what's uncool about these two competing technologies.The emergence of XHTML 2 and, latterly, of HTML 5, is in response to the need to meet user demand for rich Web-based applications, the need to generate better search results, and requirements to make the Web more accessible to people of all abilities and using all types of devices. XHTML 2 and HTML 5 essentially take different approaches to these issues, and each will have different impacts on the future development of markup languages."
Patents

Submission + - Linked List Patented in 2006

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Congratulations are in order to Ming-Jen Wang of LSI Logic Corporation who, in patent #10260471 managed to invent the linked list. From the abstract, "A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes." Good-bye doubly linked list. We should also give praise to the extensive patent review performed by Cochran Freund & Young LLP.
Networking

Submission + - Linksys switches require Windows

Submitted by Mikael Hakali
Mikael Hakali writes: This is a story about a Linksys SRW224G4. After almost one year of well functional network I decided to update the firmware to the latest 1.2.1b.

After the update I quickly realized that both FireFox and Opera rendered the web management interface incorrectly. I sat down with their online support (full transcript here) that and concluded that they had no support for other browsers than Internet Explorer (surprise...) and they failed to give me the older firmware which worked fine.

They even agreed on that the only option for me to access the management was to purchase a Microsoft Windows licence.

The web browser support would not have been a problem if they would have included featurability and configuration options through their serial CLI menu interface. Though the CLI is designed only to support dummy L2 (No VLAN/SNMP/ACLs/QoS etc) switching functionality options.

I have verified that this is the case with their 48 port gigabit ethernet switch aswell.

I'm posting this article primarily to discourage users in the same situation as me from using their product and secondarily to send a message to management of LinkSys to work towards supporting open platforms for atleast products such as switches. If it's by improving their CLI or making their web interface more compatible would both be a satisfactory solution.
Microsoft

Submission + - NZ objects to Microsoft Open XML standard

Submitted by kumachan
kumachan writes: According to a Standards New Zealand spokesperson, the objection is that "the ISO [The International Organisation for Standardisation] has already developed a standard for XML open format [that is, Open Document] and the committee does not believe that there is a need for another standard, and that Microsoft's [standard] is in conflict with the existing one." http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/82AF97DEB BAFD057CC2572990006C14C
The Internet

Submission + - What does it take to survive the Slashdot effect?

Submitted by
Dave
Dave writes: "How much hardware, bandwidth, etc. does it take for a server to survive the Slashdot effect? Is the Fark or Digg effect worse than Slashdot? Is there a guaranteed way to avoid these effects?"
Space

Submission + - Scientists Break Speed of Light

Submitted by PreacherTom
PreacherTom writes: Scientists at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, NJ are reporting that they have broken the speed of light. For the experiment, the researchers manipulated a vapor of laser-irradiated atoms, causing a pulse that shoots about 300 times faster than it would take the pulse to go the same distance in a vacuum, to the point where the pulse seemed to exit the chamber before even entering it. Apparently, Uncle Albert is still resting comfortably: relativity only states that an object with mass cannot travel faster than light. Still, the results are sufficient to merit publication in the prestigious journal, Nature.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - ICT Patch for Withdrawal Symptoms on Shutdown Day

Submitted by
Moonaire
Moonaire writes: "Shutdown Day (March 24) is the day to see if one can survive for 24 hours without the computer/internet. This task is near impossible for uber geeks who'll get withdrawal symptoms and convulsions within the first hour. So, Moonaire has written down the 7 most important things any geek needs to prepare, in order to survive Shutdown Day. Item #1 is the ICT Patch. Just like how the nicotine patch helps to keep smokers off smoking, the ICT Patch is a small sticker of your favourite website that you stick on yourself, so you don't get withdrawal symptoms. Read at http://www.thecreativityclub.com/events/7-things-t o-prepare-for-shutdown-day/"
Portables

Submission + - Open Source Laptop Tracking?

Submitted by
rhs.coder
rhs.coder writes: "I've recently purchased a 2.0 GHz MacBook for school next year at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. While the campus is safe, the surrounding area is not. Consequently, I'm worried about what I see as a major investment being stolen. I've looked into a few pay-service laptop tracking agencies, some of which even use the built-in iSight to take a picture of a thief; however, I do not make enough money to pay such a company monthly or, more likely, with an "extortion" fee once my laptop is stolen. How does the Slashdot crowd track their laptops? I'm very interested in learning what scripts or other hacks readers have made for this service. Are there any open source projects which could run under OS X that will provide some basic tracking ability? Of course, reliability and unobtrusiveness are a must"
Windows

Submission + - Windows Vista keygen is a hoax

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The author of the Windows Vista keygen that was reported yesterday on Slashdot has admitted that the program does not actually work. Here is the initial announcement of the original release of the keygen, and here is the followup post in which the same author acknowledges that the program is fake. Apparently, the keygen program does legitimately attack Windows Vista keys via brute force, but the chances of success are too low for this to be a practical method. Quote from the author: "everyone who said they got a key a probably lying or mistaken!"
It's funny. Laugh.

Journal Journal: Looking for a cheap XP clone coded from scratch 2

Journal by Alien54
It must be Friday. Here we have an ad for somebody (not me!) looking for someone to code out a complete operating system that is completely functional, has all of the features of Windows XP, is unhackable, and compatible with all existing files. Budget: $1000 - $3000 They don't ask for much, do they? On the other had, we could always give the guy an XP style skin for your favorite distro.

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