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Movies

Submission + - MPAA says 2006 was great, whats the P2P fuss?

Jared Moya writes: "According to a new MPAA press release, 2006 was a great time to be in the movie biz, with the highest profit margins in years. Their "bullish year," as they refer to it, thereby heaps a ton of skepticism upon all of their claims that illegal P2P and file-sharing services will be the death knell of their industry. It's eerily reminiscent of a study done back in June of 2005 by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf called "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales — An Empirical Analysis" that effectively argued that contrary to the claims of the recording industry illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on music sales. Is the movie industry full of "bull" as well?"
Slashdot.org

Submission + - Aust. Students Can Get Office at 95% Off Retail

tora201 writes: Microsoft Australia is offering university students in that country Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition for just $75 Australian dollars, a 95% discount off the usual retail price. Alternatively students can buy a one year renewable licence at just $25, or download a trial version that can be later activated. Eligibility is determined through a valid Australian university e-mail address with payment made via credit card. See http://www.itsnotcheating.com.au/
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft complains about limiting choices

inode_buddha writes: "Microsoft is accusing IBM of a large-scale campaign to limit users choices in Office formats. The article goes on to explain that IBM is pushing ODF via several standards bodies, while Microsoft tries to fast-track OOXML through the ECMA.

Microsoft seems to feel that the competition is unfair, according to TFA at El Reg, including quotes from a letter at MS InterOp. Pot, meet Kettle?"
Supercomputing

Submission + - First quantum computer demoed, plays sudoku

prostoalex writes: "Canadian company D-Wave Systems is getting some technology press buzz after successfully demonstrating their quantum computer that the company plans to rent out. Scientific American has more of technical description of how the quantum computer works as well as possible areas of application: "The quantum computer was given three problems to solve: searching for molecular structures that match a target molecule, creating a complicated seating plan, and filling in Sudoku puzzles." There are also some videos from the demo."
Education

Submission + - Substitute teacher gets 40 years for porn popups

alphamugwump writes: Substitute teacher Julie Amero faces up to 40 years in prison for exposing kids to porn using a classroom computer.
From the Arstechnica article:

Amero was substituting for a middle-school English class and asked the regular teacher permission to use the computer to e-mail her husband. The teacher granted her permission, and asked her not to log him out of the computer. Amero, the self-professed techno-noob, then left the room to use the restroom, and upon her return says that she found several students gathered around the machine looking at a web site. A series of unfortunate events occurred from this point on, resulting in a slew of pornographic pop-ups appearing on the screen. The onslaught continued despite Amero's attempts to close the windows.

According to The Register

When the students told their parents what had happened, they told the administration, who vowed that Julie would never work in the classroom again. But they went further. The 40-year-old substitute teacher was arrested, indicted, tried and here is the kicker on January 5, 2007, she was convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child (Conn. Gen. Stat. 53-21). Indeed, she was originally charged with exposing 10 children in the seventh grade class to the materials on the internet, but six of the charges were dropped.

I guess "Ambush Porn" really is dangerous.
Announcements

Submission + - Disability groups on OpenDocument Format v1.1

peterkorn writes: "In the person of Curtis Chong, president of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science, the "Voice of Nation's Blind" have spoken: "OpenDocument is no longer a thing to be feared." With the release of OpenDocument v1.1 as an OASIS standard, the accessibility issues raised by the members of the OASIS ODF accessibility subcommittee have been fully addressed. See my blog entry for the details, and lots of other quotes about the release of OpenDocument v1.1. (full disclosure: I'm co-chair of the OASIS ODF accessibility subcommittee, and have been involved in Sun's ODF and StarOffice/OpenOffice.org accessibility work, among other things)"
Graphics

Submission + - Confusion re GIMP, XDarwin, X11, Xfree86-Help!

InfoRaptor writes: "I have a G4 with OS 10.2.5 (pre-Panther) and I want to run GIMP 2.2 for Mac on it. According to the GIMP.app website, I need X11 installed on my computer to do this.

The URL http://gimp-app.sourceforge.net/ describes Gimp.app as:

"A self contained application bundle of the
GNU Image Manipulation Program for OS X.

Gimp-2.2.11.dmg (Universal)

Gimp.app requires Apple's X11 which is included
in the "Optional Installs" package on the OS X
install disk."

I downloaded Gimp.app

Then I go to the Apple Computer Develope at website http://developer.apple.com/opensource/tools/runnin gx11.html for X11 info. It states:

"Note: Installing X11 on pre-Panther systems requires manually installing XFree86 and XDarwin.app from the Sourceforge "XonX" project. "

I downloaded X11.app

Now, according to Apple, I need to install XFree86 and XDarwin.app.
They give a Sourceforge XonX URL
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx.

This gives me gives several links. Choosing the URL http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=18034
gives a page with a download link for XFree86 4.3.0 in .dmg format.

A search of SourceForge gives no results for XDarwin.app or XDarwin

More searching give these URL's

(1)
http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/newdocs/mac004/mac004. php3#xdar

(2) http://www.dartmouth.edu/comp/support/library/rese arch/connect/mac/osx/xdarwin/install.html

(3)
http://www.xdarwin.org/download/

URL (2) sends me to the Darwin download page (URL #3). I see a dialog asking me I enter my email to get instructions. It also has a title "Download and Install XFree86 4.4". I enter my E-mail.

Here is where things get confusing. The XDarwin site implies that by downloading and XFree86 4.4, you'll get XDarwin. However, Apple
says: "Installing X11 on pre-Panther systems requires manually installing XFree86 and XDarwin.app "

What gives? All I want is to run GIMP on my computer. That's all.

Now I go to http://www.dartmouth.edu/comp/support/library/rese arch/connect/mac/osx/xdarwin/install.html.

They say:

"Fink is easy to install. Point your browser at the following URL:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/

The above page will have you download a simple disk image file (.dmg) and offers simple instructions on how to install it. Once you have Fink installed, installing XDarwin is easy.

XDarwin
Mac OS X's default graphical user interface (GUI) is called Aqua. However, it is possible to run other GUIs such as Window Maker, GNOME, or KDE. All of these GUIs depend on an implementation of the X Window System, which was originally developed at MIT. XFree86 is an open source implementation of X that we will use.

XDarwin can be thought of as XFree86 with two additional libraries. Thus, to install XDarwin from source you need to download the XFree86 source along with the Xprog.tgz tarball (which provides dynamic libraries that XDarwin needs) and the Xquartz.tgz tarball (which is required if you want to run X and Aqua simultaneously, i.e. rootless).

Instead of installing XDarwin from source (and risking the problems that were discussed above), we will simply install the Fink xfree86-rootless package. To do this we type:

> sudo apt-get install xfree86-rootless

After executing the above command Fink will go and get a copy of an XDarwin binary package and install it on your computer. The apt-get install command should look familiar given the discussion above and xfree86-rootless is simply the name of the package. The sudo command is a way to delegate administrator, or root power to the command that it is is followed by it. Only those in administrator's group can use sudo, which comes from OS X's BSD heritage. Fink should be run with the sudo command since only the administrator should be able to install software. For further information on Fink see the Fink Documentation.

When the package is finished installing, try running XDarwin. In the Mac OS X Finder, double-click on the XDarwin icon, or open a terminal window and type "startx — -quartz". Your screen will be temporarily blanked by XDarwin.

If this is your first time running XDarwin you should be sent back to the Mac OS X desktop. Where you should see that there is a button in the XFree86 window on the desktop, which will be labeled "Show X11". If you click this button, X11 will take over your screen and display things according to your .xinitrc file. We'll cover the details of this file later. To return to the Mac OS X desktop, press command-option-A. To return to X, select the XDarwin icon in the Dock. To quit X Windows click on XDarwin in the Dock and quit as you would any other application.

X might not look like much at first all it provides is the display and management of graphical information. This is because it is not a window manager. A window manager is a separate program that controls the window frames (title bar, close button, etc.) on top of X. We will install the 'Window Maker' window manger next.

Window Maker
Window Maker is a window manager that will run on top of X. It is the window manager of choice to be demonstrated in this document because it is indirectly related to Apple in the following respects:

      1. Mac OS X is based on an operating system called NeXTStep.

      2. NeXTStep comes from a company called NeXT that Steve Jobs started in 1986 and which Apple bought 1997.

      3. Window Maker was originally designed to provide support for GNUstep, which reproduces the look, feel, and API of NeXTStep, which formed the basis for Cocoa.

We will use the Fink windowmaker Package. To install it, simply type:

> sudo apt-get install windowmaker

When apt is done installing the windowmaker package, you should configure your .xinitrc file to run Window Maker. An .xinitrc file is a file that sits in your home directory that is executed when X starts. For more information on .xinitrc see this. Use your favorite text editor so that the following becomes the last line of your .xinitrc:

exec /sw/bin/wmaker

The above line tells X to execute the command wmaker, which starts Window Maker. The /sw/bin/ directory is where Fink will install this command.

Now that we have a window manager installed we can start XDarwin. As mentioned before, go to the Mac OS X Finder, and double-click on the XDarwin icon, or open a terminal window and type "startx — -quartz". Window Maker should then start. For documentation on how to use it, see the Window Maker Website.

If you want to change the look of Window Maker you can go to freshmeat.net and download a collection of Window Maker themes. If Window Maker and X installed you can also make use of some great free software, such as The Gimp and AbiWord. All you have to do is use Fink to apt-get them!"

So according to this Web page, it is best for a newbie like me to download Fink and let Fink install the various packages.

What gives? What do I download?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Outlaws 3rd Party IM Clients

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."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft claims IBM is blocking OOXML

walterbyrd writes: ""Microsoft is accusing rival IBM of orchestrating a campaign to block efforts to standardize Office document formats." Of course, when Microsoft says "standardize" they mean Microsoft standards. Funny thing is: why blame IBM for ODF? I thought Sun had more to do with ODF than IBM. Seems like Microsoft is forever immating Apple, and paranoid of IBM."
The Courts

Submission + - Judge Dismisses Suit Against MySpace

zoltamatron writes: The Texas lawsuit filed by four families against MySpace was dismissed today. The families alleged that MySpace was at fault for their daughters being sexually assaulted by men they had met online. U.S. district judge Sam Sparks wrote in his decision, "If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace,"
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Open Source Wii Modchip To Come in Two Weeks

MBrichacek writes: "Wiip is a hardware mod for the Wii system that will allow the user to boot backup discs. This mod works by utilizing a cheap and simple micro controller that communicates with the serial port of the Wii's hybrid DVD drive and overrides certain parts of the media's data stream. The most important part of this project, is that it is open source! This chip will be much cheaper than other chips costing only $20. For the extra geeky among us, the instructions will be posted so that you can make one yourself for under $10 in parts."
Space

Power Generating Spacesuits 145

Maggie McKee writes "Piezoelectric sensors could help power future space missions. Astronauts' spacesuits may one day be covered in motion-sensitive proteins that could generate power from the astronauts' movement, according to futuristic research being conducted by a new lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Such 'power skins' could also be used to coat future human bases on Mars, where they could produce energy from the Martian wind. Eventually, the biologically derived suits might even be able to heal themselves."

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