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Comment Re:What Rights? (Score 3, Informative) 219

The problem is this is public money being spent, and they should be willing to divulge this information to clear up any ideas people might get concerning government collusion with a large corporation. They are free to use whomever the please, but the practices they use in determining who to contract with should be a matter of publicly available policy.

They need to protect businesses equally, and if it appears they may be protecting a certain business over others, it does make it look as if there might be a conflict of intrests with the public good.

I am not saying that is the case, just that they should make it clear that it is not the case.

Comment Re:Nobody I know uses open office (Score 1) 336

in other news I know a bunch of people who eat living scorpions for breakfast, they must therefore be much better than captain crunch.

Just because people you know use google docs instead for open office doesn't mean that it is better or more used.

If you are in the apple store and say every computer I see is a mac, would you say noone must use windows anymore?

Comment Re:It's a web app! (Score 1) 336

sometimes its like eating a bowl of sawdust without the milk.

I have had problems with it when it didn't like my browser, and like right now, I have a bad cable splitter in my attic that I have to get to this afternoon so I have no internet at home because of low signal and bad noise.

Comment Re:Why even bother comparing them (Score 1) 336

and the hummer definitely wins cause it could roll over top of a prius without slowing down.
it could also go into areas a prius would just be stuck
of course if you need to get through a space less than like 10 feet wide the hummer is straight out.

This is a false comparison because the apps were meant for different things, and don't really compete, well at least not in my opinion. I have used both, and for different reasons/projects.

Comment Re:Lame response (Score 1) 270

I don't think unions are the answer, maybe what we need is an association like lawyers and doctors have, there would need to be legislation to make sure programmers would have to be members to be hired somewhere....but that could lead to corruption as well and might still bite us in the ass.
probably better to have non-competes made illegal, or force companies to continue your pay until the non-compete is up or they let you out of it.

Comment Re:Lame response (Score 1) 270

you are completely right, especially in an economy like this!
A company should be allowed to do this and it is my fault!
I should turn down the job and my wife and kids should suffer, I am sure there are 50 more jobs gonna open up tomorrow at good companies where they won't make me sign away my rights and try to steal any work I do at home in my own time.
Education

Submission + - Open source in academia

An anonymous reader writes: Having recently been approached to help come up with some guidelines to introduce the open source software model to graduate level computer science students, I decided this is something that could best be answered by the Slashdot community as a whole, as while I am currently myself a student, I'm sure there is a wealth of insight out there that I am missing.

Unfortunately the subject of open source software would not have its own course, and would be part of one that serves as an overview of different 'real world' coding applications, the idea being to give students a feel for things beyond your typical computer science assignments, with open source being covered for four to six weeks.

Are there any suggestions for good open source projects that students could rather quickly get acclimated with and contribute to? How do you go about grading something like open source code contributions? What level of community interaction should be expected of students with no previous open source experience?

For you other students out there, do any of your universities currently offer courses covering open source software, and if so, how is it handled there?
Programming

Submission + - JUnit and GWTTestCase makes Ajax unit testing easy

An anonymous reader writes: Anyone who has developed an Ajax application can testify, testing Ajax isn't exactly easy. In fact, the emergence of Ajax has essentially invalidated a host of test frameworks and tools that weren't designed to test asynchronous Web applications! This article shows you how the Google Web Toolkit actually leverages its Java compatibility to make Ajax applications every bit as testable as their synchronous counterparts.
Privacy

Submission + - Letter casts doubts on Yahoo! China testimony (duihua.org)

Saint Aardvark writes: "A hand-written letter, believed to be from Chinese police, has surfaced that sheds new light on the case of Chinese reporter Shi Tao. The letter "is essentially a standardized search warrant making clear that Chinese law enforcement agencies have the legal authority to collect evidence in criminal cases. This contradicts Yahoo's testimony to Congress in 2006 that they "had no information about the nature of the investigation." "One does not have to be an expert in Chinese law to know that 'state secrets' charges have often been used to punish political dissent in China," says Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and publications for The Dui Hua Foundation. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his reporting on the Tianamen Square massacre."
Wireless Networking

802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved by Working Group 105

[Geeks Are Sexy] writes "Yes folks, the 802.11 Working Group has finally approved Draft 2.0 of the 802.11n spec, bringing us a step closer to its final form. 'With the positive vote from the 802.11n Working Group, the Wi-Fi Alliance will now begin officially certifying equipment as being compliant with Draft 2.0. That's an important step, as official Draft 2.0-compliant gear is guaranteed to be fully compatible with the final 802.11n standard.'"

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