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Businesses

Submission + - SPAM: The web vs. U.S. Bank

destinyland writes: "Online information is creating problems for U.S. Bancorp. A new federal law lets customers opt-out of high-fee overdraft protection. In October a consumer site published an internal U.S. Bancorp memo, which inspired a Washington customer to confront a local manager who insisted that opting out was impossible. He ultimately received an apology from the bank's CEO — but two days later recorded the bank's tellers again wrongly advising customers that opting out was impossible. Now he's posted the audio recording online, targetting the $50 billion a year banks earn from their "courtesy" overdraft protection."
Link to Original Source
The Media

Submission + - Is Copyrigtht Infringement Stealing? 1

gooman writes: An interesting opinion piece in the L.A. Times today regarding file sharing semantics. It also happens to be one of the Times rare opportunities to "Discuss" the topic, so don't forget to share your thoughts with them. It seems to me that the major media outlets have a lot of catching up to do on this subject.
Government

Submission + - Utah the First Official Police State?

greenbird writes: I'm shocked both sides of political spectrum aren't freaking over this. Modern technology has made it much easier for both the press and public to expose misconduct by public officials. You would think this would be encouraged by any benevolent government as it makes the world a better place for everyone except wrong the doers. Not so in Utah. After a video obtained through a freedom of information act request appeared on YouTube of a Utah State Trooper tasering someone, State Senator Chris Buttars has introduced a bill that would allow the authorities to keep the public from viewing any information relating to police misconduct. Forget about warrantless spying. This isn't a step towards a police state. This is the police state should this bill be passed and the law upheld. It essentially removes any public oversight of police actions. That any politician could introduce such a law and not suffer fatal backlash is terrifying to me. I would think the press would be screaming about this as it would represent a severe restriction on their ability to investigate and report on police misconduct. They're suppose to be the first line of defense against government overstepping it's bounds.
Windows

WGA Under Vista SP1 Is Kinder and Nags More 299

DaMan writes in with a ZDNet blog entry on Windows Genuine Advantage under Vista SP1. It seems that the draconian features present in Vista RTM have been replaced by nag screens and annoyances such as repeatedly changing the desktop background to black. But WGA no longer turns off Aero and ReadyBoost or logs you out after an hour."
The Internet

Submission + - 2 Girls 1 Credit Card? (2girls1cup.com)

milsoRgen writes: "It would appear the venerable 2girls1cup site is no longer up, now it has become a regular pay-for-access site. Apparently no one thought to make mirrors of the original content, as repeated web and torrent searches reveal nothing. Nor has the Way Back Machine at archive.org seen fit to archive such valuable data. No more grossing out your friends. Or grandmother..."
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Sid Meier On Civ Revolution (gamersglobal.com)

milsoRgen writes: "GamersGlobal has an interview with Sid Meier on the latest incarnation of the venerable Civilization franchise. The discussion includes Sid's views on a variety of topics. Including his work life, thoughts on current trends in gaming and of course the thoughts behind the creation of Civ Revolution."

Feed Engadget: Microsoft already trimming Windows 7 features, DirectX 11 on the outs? (engadget.com)

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops


It might be a bit early for us to be talking Windows 7 feature cuts, but that said, isn't it a bit early for Microsoft to be talking Windows 7 feature cuts? If The Inquirer's "reliable sources" are to be believed, Microsoft is giving DirectX 11 the boot from its next version of Windows to keep hardware requirements down -- apparently the DirectX 10 requirements of Vista were enough of that sort of trouble for one decade. Obviously there's no official word on Microsoft at the moment, so we'll reserve judgment for the time being -- and hey, maybe no DirectX 11 wouldn't ruin our year -- but with the endless quantity of features cut from Vista still fresh in our memory, this is certainly not an encouraging sign if true.

[Thanks, Isaac]

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The Internet

Submission + - Amazon erases orders to cover up pricing mistake

The Knife writes: "Amazon secretly canceled orders for a large jazz CD set (at this link: http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Paris-Various-Artists/dp/B00005RSB2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1202591410&sr=8-1 )after it realized thta it had mispriced the item at US$31 instead of its MSRP of US$499. While inventory shortages had caused the online merchant to string customers along for over a month since they placed their orders, it was the realization that the box set was underpriced by US$470 that made Amazon simply erase all records of customers' order in their account history. No emails were sent to customers informing them of the price change or of the order cancellation. Probably because it violates Amazon's highly publicized price guarantee policy. A customer that called to complain and request the CD set at the US$31 price was given a US$20 discount off of his next Amazon order. An insult."
Microsoft

Submission + - Is Microsoft Office Adware? (oooninja.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft Office links to third-party commercial add-ons, includes up-spelling promos, requires cookies for certain functions, and collects technical information. While this is a normal day on the web, should the commercial office suite be judged to a different standard and possibly be considered adware?

Slashdot previously covered Microsoft trying Works as adware.

Media

Submission + - ISO specifies testing DVD lifetime (heise-online.co.uk) 1

juct writes: "The International Standards Organization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) have specified a testing procedure to determine the durability of blank DVDs. This means, that media manufacturers will soon be able to specify the probable lifetime of their DVDs. Full story on heise online"
GUI

Submission + - Web Graphic Design for Geeks

An anonymous reader writes: I'm a competent geek running a one-man-show for a small business. I do everything IT in this company: servers, email, desktop support, manage Ethernet switches, cash registers, inventory database, and the company web site. My boss has asked me to "punch up" the web site to make it more appealing. Although I can hold my own with HTML, PHP and a couple SQL products, graphic design isn't one of my strengths. I'm looking for some advice on how to "pimp my site" a bit, without making it overstimulating for the webophobic. It's also important that it conform to ADA accessibility guidelines.

In particular, I'm looking for:

* books or tutorial web sites that teach the basics of good graphic design — how to make it more appealing without losing the ability to communicate effectively

* suggestions for tools to use to make this more efficient (Windows or Linux are OK)

I'm most interested in hearing from those of you who have graphic design education or experience.
Security

Submission + - Router Hacking Challenge (gnucitizen.org)

An anonymous reader writes: From the GNUCITIZEN Ethical Hacker Outfit:

We want you to hack your router! Yes, You. We want you to hack your router and make your findings public on this very same page, the sla.ckers forum or at hackerwebzine[at]gmail[dot]com. The best and most interesting hacks will receive credit, a lot of attention and good media coverage. The challenge is supposed to run from 2nd February until 29th February, though it is something that is yet to be clarified because we know that there is a lot to be found. The reason why we do this is because we want you to help the community to map the current state of embedded devices vulnerabilities. GNUCITIZEN members have been actively involved with finding vulnerabilities in routers in the past. We believe that embedded devices hacking is a huge topic that is yet to be explored in depth. Your submissions will be included in numerous presentations and research materials and will be credited appropriately. The rules are very flexible, every kind of exploit is allowed. From buffer overflows to CSRF issues that plague many routers
Any takers?

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