Comment Re:Ah ha! (Score 1) 389
infected computers on their network costs them money in the form of more traffic
If they charge per GB transferred, what's their incentive to reduce the usage of a client's system?
Comment Cue Meme: (Score 1) 853
Adolf Hitler rant about missing iPhone in 3...2...1...
Comment Use Rome's Strategy to fight Rome (Score 1) 391
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdict
Seriously. What's the percentage of Italy's advertisement revenue from Youtube? Significant enough to question whether to maintain business in a country obviouly hostile to your service and willing to convict your employees that are helpful to the government in prosecuting the crime recorded on video?
If Google was seriously considering leaving the Chinese market (or using the threat to re-evaluate Chinese practices regarding them) then TPTB should consider an Interdict against Italy.
Youtube has already shown an ability to restrict content based on political boundaries, so this shouldn't be so much of a problem to implement. Maybe even put a nag screen (as they do to users of IE6) letting the Italian users know that this practice by their elected officials will not be tolerated.
Patent Markings May Spell Trouble For Activision 82
eldavojohn writes "If you pick up your copy of Guitar Hero and read the literature, you'll notice it says 'patent pending' and cites a number of patents. A group alleges no such patent pends nor are some of the patents applicable. If a judge finds Activision guilty of misleading the public in this manner, they could become liable for up to $500 per product sold under false patent marking. The patents in question seem to be legitimately Guitar Hero-oriented, and little is to be found about the mysterious group. The final piece of the puzzle puts the filing in Texas Northern District Court, which might be close enough to Texas Eastern District Court to write this off as a new kind of 'false patent marking troll' targeting big fish with deep coffers."
Comment Renting from the CES Block of Rooms? (Score 1) 285
Not mentioned in the article was did they pay for one of the (usually discounted) block of rooms CES had set aside. Usually large conventions set aside a block of rooms at a discount for people participating in the convention. Their guarantee subsidizes the cost of these rooms, and give them a bit more control over what goes on there. Doesn't make their actions less ass-hat, but does let me understand why the CES would have that much sway over the occupants of the rooms, as they might have paid for (up to half) part of the rooms' cost.
Comment I'm not George Bush either... (Score 1) 1721
Can I have a Nobel Peace Prize?
Comment Re:Score (-1) Off-topic (Score 1) 517
Sorry, you misspelled
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, eodcyninga, rym gefrunon, hu ða æelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaena reatum, monegum mægum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he æs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum ah, oðæt him æghwylc ara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. æt wæs god cyning!
Comment POKE and Sandbox (Score 2, Interesting) 580
I remember using PEEK and POKE to manipulate the memory on the C64. Is the emulator sufficiently sandboxed or could you use POKE outside of the conventional memory to brick^H^H^H^H^Hfree your iPod?
Comment IETab for IE 8.1 (Score 5, Funny) 283
Can I run IE Tab on Internet Explorer and make the world explode?
Comment What keeps Baidu from... (Score 1) 141
...deep-linking to the songs on Google's servers?
It'd be upsetting for Google if they setup all the infrastructure, eat all the costs, and Baidu reaps the rewards by linking to the self-same content.
Submission + - "Virtual Chalkboard" software for Linux?
mistapotta writes: "I'm a teacher who uses Linux at home and to a limited degree at work. We've recently deployed virtual chalkboards/whiteboards (nothing but a glorified touchpad that works as a mouse.) We've got software for Windows, but I'm looking for a similar program (preferably FOSS) for Linux.
For those unfamiliar, a teacher can carry the tablet around the room, using a computer projection system, and present multimedia presentations, solve pre-prepared problems, and pass the tablet around the room so students can work problems on the board. Current software suites allow for capture of the screen (to PDF or other document formats), write with a pen, highlight areas of the board or desktop, erase/undo, simple OCR for words written through the touchpad, an online calculator, and other graphic aspects.
Does anyone know of software that's available for Linux for teachers?"
For those unfamiliar, a teacher can carry the tablet around the room, using a computer projection system, and present multimedia presentations, solve pre-prepared problems, and pass the tablet around the room so students can work problems on the board. Current software suites allow for capture of the screen (to PDF or other document formats), write with a pen, highlight areas of the board or desktop, erase/undo, simple OCR for words written through the touchpad, an online calculator, and other graphic aspects.
Does anyone know of software that's available for Linux for teachers?"
Traveling With Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer 133
Some people care about bags; obsession is a better word. (See the Bags subforum of the Every Day Carry Forums for evidence.) How are the straps attached? Is that 1050 denier, or 1600? Makers like Crumpler, Ortlieb and Maxpedition inspire impressive brand-loyalty, but probably no bag maker has customers more enthusiastic than Tom Bihn's. (There really is a Tom Bihn, too -- he's been designing travel bags since he was a kid; now he has a factory with "all the cool toys" to experiment with designs and materials.) When I started looking for a protective case for my MacBook Pro, I discovered that a few of my coworkers were part of the Bihn Army, and after some Tupperware-style evangelism I was convinced to buy a few items from the Bihn line-up: a backpack (used); then a messenger bag (new); then a mid-sized briefcase, used, which is now my portable filing cabinet. (Take this bias for what you will; I stuck with my previous messenger bag for more than a decade.) For a just-completed trip to Israel, which I couldn't quite make in true one-bag travel fashion, I brought along one of the newest Bihn Bags — the Checkpoint Flyer — and found it to be worth its (considerable) price. Read on for my review.
Why Mirroring Is Not a Backup Solution 711
Craig writes "Journalspace.com has fallen and can't get up. The post on their site describes how their entire database was overwritten through either some inconceivable OS or application bug, or more likely a malicious act. Regardless of how the data was lost, their undoing appears to have been that they treated drive mirroring as a backup and have now paid the ultimate price for not having point-in-time backups of the data that was their business." The site had been in business since 2002 and had an Alexa page rank of 106,881. Quantcast said they had 14,000 monthly visitors recently. No word on how many thousands of bloggers' entire output has evaporated.
Comment My experience with the OLPC (Score 1) 556
I bought my son one of the OLPC XO Give-one-Get-ones last year. He just turned two then, and just turned three earlier this month.
My son loved to use the camera option on it (I bought one of those sites that fit in the USB port next to the lens) so he'd run around the house taking pictures of stuff, and telling us about it. He also loves to play the Mini Tam Tam. Although he's having quite a problem learning that the touchpad on the laptop moves the mouse pointer on the screen, he enjoys clicking the mouse buttons to make the animals make noises. I also added VLC player and Hamachi on it so he can watch his Dora and Diego videos streamed from my media server. The only real problem is that the sites he likes to visit (Noggin and NickJr) don't allow all the features to be used unless you're using Windows/IE.
The key is, he's not ready to be alone with it -- not for safety reasons, but I'm not ready for the laptop to be a babysitter.
Point is, with Amazon coming out with another XO release (http://www.amazon.com/xo), I'm thinking of buying another one so I can teach him how to interact with someone using the Sugar interface.
