Submission + - DiggEffect vs. SlashDotted (thembid.com)
thinkingserious writes: "Which is easier to obtain? Which is more beneficial to a startup? What do you think?"
Submission + - Are Firefox Extensions Ready to Be Exploited? (madpenguin.org)
techie writes: "Even if Firefox is a relatively secure browser, the extensions could really make it insecure, and the unfortunate thing is that we may not even know it. The author writes, "What is even worse is my fear that we could be setting a poor example should the security of rouge repositories become a problem. We might be able to spot trouble before it becomes an issue, but what about those who learn from us? It's something to consider, both with regard to trusting blind links to xpi files that are used to install Firefox extensions as well as the bounty of repositories that are just waiting to be added instantly with no thought.
Remember, this may not be a problem today, but this certainly is not an invitation for sloppy behavior, regardless."
Submission + - Reasons to close source code?
cowens writes: The last Ask Slashdot article got me to thinking about what reasons people have (or think they have) to close source code. Are any of these reasons valid? Can you think of any other reasons?
- You believe that your source code is so revolutionary that closing it will act as a significant barrier to your competitors.
- You are embarrassed by the code's lack of quality and are afraid of ridicule.
- You wish to license someone else's code and they are not FOSS friendly.
- You are afraid someone might discover a security flaw by examining the source code and exploit the flaw rather than reporting it to you.
- You are afraid of losing control of the project (similar to point 1).
- You have not actually considered why you want to close the source; AKA you are an idiot.
- It is what you have always done before; AKA you are a dinosaur and see point 6.
Submission + - Finding A Career While Still In School
thones writes: "As an avid reader of Slashdot, I truly believe that the information provided by the community is priceless, and with that in mind I come in need of some advice.
I am currently still in college, pursuing a degree in Computer Information Systems, and have approximately 2 years before I am finished with that degree. Now I chose to go the path that doesn't provide an associates degree in the process of obtaining my Bachelor's Degree. I have currently been working in IT as a system support specialist for 5 years, with two different companies. I have provided technical support for 400+ PCs, Macs, Printers, and PDA's/Cellphones/Blackberrys and network equipment.
My question for the Slashdot community is; what is the best way to land a job interview considering I don't have a degree and only have 5 years experience. As a poor college student I don't have excess money to get training and a ton of certifications, so what is the best option for me? Is it worth it to get one or two certifications? If so which ones? Should I consider getting my associates degree while still working towards my Bachelor's? What is the best way to get the hiring manager to over look the fact that I don't have a degree and be willing to give an interview? Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated."
I am currently still in college, pursuing a degree in Computer Information Systems, and have approximately 2 years before I am finished with that degree. Now I chose to go the path that doesn't provide an associates degree in the process of obtaining my Bachelor's Degree. I have currently been working in IT as a system support specialist for 5 years, with two different companies. I have provided technical support for 400+ PCs, Macs, Printers, and PDA's/Cellphones/Blackberrys and network equipment.
My question for the Slashdot community is; what is the best way to land a job interview considering I don't have a degree and only have 5 years experience. As a poor college student I don't have excess money to get training and a ton of certifications, so what is the best option for me? Is it worth it to get one or two certifications? If so which ones? Should I consider getting my associates degree while still working towards my Bachelor's? What is the best way to get the hiring manager to over look the fact that I don't have a degree and be willing to give an interview? Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated."
"Jericho" Fans Send Over Nine Tons of Nuts to CBS 408
nuts-to-CBS writes "After presenting 'Jericho' fans with a cliffhanging season finale, CBS promptly cancelled the program. The shocked fans quickly banded together, many using CBS' own public "Jericho" discussion forum, and began brainstorming on ways to convince the network to bring back the show for a second season. A plot point in the final episode of "Jericho" involving the expletive "Nuts!" (in reference to an historic conversation between generals) was turned into a campaign to send large quantities of nuts to CBS' NY, LA, and affiliate offices. Fans have sent a total of $26,000 for a pooled campaign hosted at Nuts Online to ship over 19,000 pounds of peanuts to CBS.
Other efforts acquired over $9,000 to publish full page advertisements in
Variety (National Edition)
and The Hollywood Reporter for Tuesday, May 29th. This is expected to become the largest ever fan campaign to bring a television show back from cancellation." There's more about the massive fan rollout below.
Broadband isn't Broadband Unless its 2Mbps? 351
quanticle writes "According to House Democrats, broadband isn't broadband unless its at least 2Mbps. The view of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications is that the FCC's data collection standards are hopelessly outdated, and is proposing a number of updates to their criteria. For one, they want 'broadband' reclassified to at least 2mbs, up from 200kbps. Another requirement will change the FCC's outlook on broadband availability. Just because one household in a zip code has broadband access, that will not longer mean everyone in the zip code does. 'The plan went over well with the consumer advocates who appeared before the subcommittee. Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America, said that the US is "stuck with a twentieth century Internet" and that he would support increasing the "broadband" definition to 2Mbps. Ben Scott of Free Press echoed that sentiment, suggesting that the definition needs to be an evolving standard that increases over time, which is in contrast to the current FCC definition; it has not changed in nine years. "We have always been limited by the FCC's inadequate and flawed data," he said.'"
Show Office 2007 Who's the Boss 267
jcatcw writes "Microsoft knows how you like your Office Suite. You like Ribbons ... they're a given, right? Well, if not, Computerworld reviews some third-party packages that allow you to customize the software's interface. Classic Menu gives you an Office-2003-like set of menus. It'll help you navigate old menu structures to find favorite commands, but don't expect to use all the familiar keyboard shortcuts. ToolbarToggle lets you customize the menus. However, Classic Menu has two advantages over ToolbarToggle: It's available for PowerPoint today, and it includes Office 2007 commands on its menus, a modification you can't make to ToolbarToggle menus. RibbonCustomizer works within the Ribbon's own constraints to let you change the display of icons and commands on existing tabs or any new ones you create."
Submission + - How Not To Comply With a Takedown Notice?
blazerw11 writes: "A friend of mine once wanted to be in advertising. He made some really funny ads for a greasy fast food joint, Gene & Jude's of River Grove, IL, that he loves. The ads are quite funny, so I offered to host them on my webserver. That was 7 years ago. They were basically forgotten about except when I occasionally looked at my web statistics and saw that they were the most popular pages on my webserver. As many as 10 people a month would actually view them. Well, today I got a certified letter from a lawyer representing Gene & Jude's claiming I've damaged their company and demanding that I take them down. Now, I can understand their point and if Gene or Jude would have called me and said, "Hey, I don't like those so much, could you take them down?" I would have in a heartbeat. Now that they've called their lawyer, my question is, what can I do at the very least to postpone taking them down or, better yet, keep them up?"
Submission + - Wii Browser Released - Already Bugs
aardwolf64 writes: Yesterday, Nintendo release the full edition of the Wii browser. Anyone with an Internet connected Wii was greeted by the blue glow informing them of a system message. It took me almost 5 minutes to find the first bug. The first thing I did was fire it up and try one of my internal websites. The URL is http://192.168.2.3/NFP, and it is case-sensitive. Apparently the Wii browser can only type in uppercase at the very beginning of the URL. Once something not-uppercased has been entered, using the Shift or Caps-Lock keys are useless. The workaround is to type NFP first in all caps, then go back and type the first part of the URL. Have you discovered any bugs so far?
Submission + - Mainstream Video Games Developed for Linux
1mck writes: With all of the attention on how great Linux is over other operating systems with regards to stability, updating, and maintaining it, I have to ask why aren't mainstream video games being developed for Linux? I have talked with hardcore gamers/geeks, and the only reason that they have Windows on their computers is because they can't play the video games that they have purchased, such as Battlefield 2142, Unreal Tournament 2004 on Linux unless it is using emulation software such as Wine, etc.
Submission + - Fighting Patent Trolls
jonsharpie writes: As time goes by I receive by divine intervention (*cough*) ideas that could change technology! What process would I need to follow to document these ideas and concepts and release these to the public? I personally don't have intentions of developing some of these ideas but rather want to make sure that patent trolls don't get to them first! Is there a public repository that currently exists?
Submission + - How to get started in OSS?
Anonymous Coward writes: "I know this probably gets asked a lot, but a lazy search of Slashdot did not reveal a quick answer. How does a young and relatively inexperienced programmer get started helping out on an open source software project? Are there good projects to cut your teeth on and learn the ropes before going on to more obscure projects?"
Submission + - Is Windows 98 still usable?
Merry Mace writes: I have a friend with an older but still quite usable system. Last summer I cleaned up the machine and installed Ubuntu. My friend just told me of a few problems they're having and asked (begged) me to reinstall Windows 98. The question is: Can I ethically install an operating system that I know has some unresolved security flaws?
Submission + - Job Application Ethics
ruffnsc writes: I have just started looking for for a job in a new city. Lots of the postings I see say that preference is given to applicants that are local. I have a friend that lives the area that is willing to let me use their address for my resume and other provided information. I feel that in the tech industry my location shouldn't matter as much. I can schedule an interview and fly out as necessary. I realize that I wouldn't get reimbursed for expenses but I'm not worried about that.
What are the community's thoughts?
Submission + - What Happened To Cheat Codes On Game Consoles?
RCTrucker7 writes: "NOTE: I only selected "XBox (Games)" as my Topic, because I couldn't find a Topic that entailed video games in general, or as a whole, and I currently own and play on an X-Box 360.
My Video Game Background; I'm a 37 year old male, who now plays games on the X-Box 360 and PC, but started out with an "Intellivision" as my first video game system.
My Question; Back when the PS1 came out and carried thru to the PS2 (I didn't have or play on the first X-Box or any of Nintendo's systems after the NES), it was quite common, especially in games that had "attributes" associated with your character ( say, Strength, Agility, and Speed for a Sports Game) or items that had fluctuating values associated with them (say, the number of bullets left in your clip, the number of health points left, or being invulnerable for a FPS game) to have codes put in place by the developers of a game, that either automatically changed the associated value, or allowed you to change it to your own desired level. For example, maybe you would push Up then Down on the Directional Pad, then hit Triangle, Square, Circle, X, X, Circle, Square, Triangle in a FPS game, and that would unlock all the weapons that were available in the game, with unlimited ammo for all of them too. Or you'd do some other sequence and that would allow you to fully jack up all the stats of your player in a football game. Then along came "outside" codes, via third-party hardware, such as the Game Shark and Code Breaker. These typically gave you all the developer codes and then some. But it seemed that even with these devices, games still had the tried-n-true developer codes in them. If you couldn't figure them out, then you could always buy "the book" or ask your video game playing God friend what the codes were. Then came along sites such as GameFaqs, where you could look up a game title, hit the "Cheats/Codes" link for it, and have the "keys to the kingdom" for your chosen game. It was great. But now, especially since I've been on the X-Box 360, I've noticed that when I hit that "Cheats/Codes" link for a game, all I get are "Unlockables" and what accomplishment/task/quest/etc needs to be done to unlock it. This is not including the "Achievements" for an X-Box 360 game. To me these are not Cheats or Codes. These are things already included in the game which "open" as part of the expected normal playing of the game. What happened to my "Up/Down/Up/Down/B/X/B/Y" developer code to give me unlimited ammo in "Rainbow Six: Vegas"? Or my "Left/Right/X/Y/X/Right/Left" developer code to give me "99" in all the stats of my SuperStar in Madden NFL '07? What happened to my beloved codes? I've only seen a couple of games in this "Next-Gen" of gaming that have them; "Saints Row" comes to mind as an excellent example. You pull out your in-game cell phone; enter a certain phone number and BAM! Unlimited Ammo. Call another number and BAM! Free cash in my pocket. So what happened? Where did all the codes go? Was there some secret developer summit that no one knows about, where they all decided that "From now on...there will be...NO...MORE...In-Game...CODES!!!"?"
