Overkill Nbuta - Slashdot User

Submission + - Acer buying Gateway for $710 million

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27, 2007 @10:32AM

An anonymous reader writes: Acer plans to acquire Gateway in a deal worth $710 million that Acer says will make it the world's third-largest PC vendor. Acer's acquisition deal with Gateway also derails rival Lenovo Group's plans to acquire Packard Bell. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/082707-bulle tin-acer-to-acquire-gateway.html

Submission + - Mars Phoenix Spacecraft Corrects Course (space.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:36PM

Raver32 writes: "NASA's Mars-bound Phoenix lander completed its first and biggest course correction planned during the spacecraft's journey. The second of the remaining five planned adjustments prior to landing is scheduled for mid-October. "These first two together take out the bias intentionally put in at launch," said Brian Portock, Phoenix navigation team chief at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Phoenix blasted off Earth aboard a Delta 2 rocket on Aug. 4 and now careens through space at 74,200 mph (33,180 meters per second)-a speed necessary to cover the 422 millions miles (679 million kilometers) between Earth and Mars by May 25, 2008."

Submission + - Some Gmail accounts quietly jump to 10GB?

Submitted by MikeMulligan on Thursday August 09, 2007 @01:02PM

MikeMulligan writes: Last week I actually started getting worried that at 80%, I'd soon fill my gmail's >2GB capacity. Today I logged in to find I'm only using about 25% of my 9030MB! I searched the google blogs and other sites, but found only references to google's paid premium google apps accounts that provide 10GB of storage. Is it just me? Is this permanent? And why isn't there more news about it? At 10gb, that destroys most other free email services out there (again), and competes with other paid-for services (*cough* Apple).

Submission + - NeoJoomla - A new Template released : WeddingTime (neojoomla.com)

Submitted by

Olivia

on Thursday July 19, 2007 @11:08AM

Olivia writes: "The summer is often sign of love and of wedding, this month the template club is dressed to kill and proposes you WeddingTime, an elegant and ornamented design which adapt perfectly with the sites of ceremonial scale such as weddings, communions, baptisms or births. Like all our others templates, this last make it possible to personalize its color and its width, as well as the type of posting (flash or HTML) and the titles of the heading."

Submission + - Engineers and scientists as political leaders

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19, 2007 @11:04AM

An anonymous reader writes: The outgoing President of India, Abdul Kalam, is an oddity in the political world. He has a great deal of brains as well as hardcore geek credentials. Abudl Kalam studied Aero Engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology and later contributed to the design, development and management of India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle. A technological visionary he has the kind of background that I would love to see in a political leader. While the President of India is a largely ceremonial position, its the Indian Prime Minister (currently an Economist) who has the power, its still remarkable that a geek can ascend to such a position of political prominence. Is there any hope for America that something similar will one day ensue? Will we someday have a geek as the Vice-President or a viable Presidential candidate? Can America put aside its prejudice of anti-intellectualism and support somebody with a strong background in science and/or technology? If not, do you see this harming America's competitiveness in the future?

Submission + - Microsoft caught using pirated software in XP (urbandictionary.com) 2

Submitted by Ariastis on Tuesday June 26, 2007 @10:56PM

Ariastis writes: Microsoft have been bust yet again. They have been using a cracked version of Sound Forge to create files that are inside the Windows Tour folder. (Tested on XP) Reading the lat bits of the file in Notepad reveals the cracker info. These files have been made with Sound Forge 4.5 (The cracked version) first cracked by a cracker called "Deepz0ne".

Submission + - Israeli researchers map the whole Internet

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26, 2007 @12:53PM

An anonymous reader writes: Israeli researchers have created a topographical map of the Internet by enlisting more than 5,600 volunteers across 97 countries who agreed to download a program that tracks how Internet nodes interact with each other. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=alphadogg s

Submission + - What to do with lots of old computers? 3

Submitted by talentless geek on Thursday June 21, 2007 @12:40PM

talentless geek writes: I recently started a new Network Admin job and came to discover that I have no fewer than 60 old Pentium 2s and Pentium 3s that are doing nothing. It seems to me there has to be something better than filling up land (i.e. take them to the dump) that all these machines can do. I looked into a few donations sites, but I'm not even sure they would take computers this old. I've thought about building a cluster or 2, but I can't come up with any reason why i would want to do that other than the coolness factor (although, the coolness factor is a pretty good reason...). So, i guess my question is, what would you do with 60 really old computers?

Submission + - ATT/Cingular block Google411 1

Submitted by

mcraig88

on Thursday June 21, 2007 @12:22PM

mcraig88 writes: "Hello everyone...

In case any of you didn't know this, Google has a voice operated directory assistance service. I have been trying to use this from my Cell phone and have been receiving a "Network is busy" message, instead of getting through. I have been able to call from Work, home, and other non-cingular cell phones just fine.

On a whim, I called Cingular's customer service, and they confirmed that they are blocking Google's service. "Google is a competitor, so we have blocked their phone number"

This is absolutely ridiculous. I can't think of another time that a Phone/Cell company has ticked me off so bad.

And people complain about Microsoft's anti-competitive practices!

Try it for your self if you have a Cingular cell phone.

Google's web page about new service: http://labs.google.com/goog411/

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone. (Except ATT/Cingular)"

Submission + - Server Room Follies ..

Submitted by

rs232

on Thursday June 21, 2007 @12:21PM

rs232 writes: ""One of the most memorable server rooms we compromised pertained to an organization that had remote locations across a large geographic area"

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=126 823&WT.svl=column1_1"

Submission + - Time for the "Slashdot Party"? 2

Submitted by

evil_aar0n

on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:11AM

evil_aar0n writes: "(I didn't see a "Your Rights On-line" topic, so I went with Slashdot.org.)

Is it time to form a "Slashdot Party"? It's clear we can't sit idly by and do nothing while career politicians, at the behest of their corporate masters — see recent story re: Google and their nascent lobbying efforts — run this country, and the rest of the world, into the gutter, all in the name of greed.

I've read Slashdot for years and one thing that continually amazes me is the breadth and depth of knowledge contained within this community. It's a shame — almost criminal — not to organize and harness this staggering accumulation of brain-power (don't let the compliments go to your head, though). I think we, the Slashdot crowd, could actually solve some of the problems in this world. It's just one technical issue after another, right? Just a day at work for us.

Some questions I have:

How would we do this? How would we organize our "nerd forum" into a political force?

Would it kill Slashdot as we know it? I think not. We're already somewhat fractious and disjoint in our opinions, anyway; that's what makes the site interesting. We just mod people down when they get a little too "out there." In fact, I suspect it would make us stronger: our opinions would actually carry some weight.

As a localized political entity, should we allow people from other parts of the world to contribute? Actually, as we, as a society, become more and more global, the boundaries between countries become blurry. Certainly, the actions of one country are less and less contained to just that country. I think, since all of us have to live with the consequences, we should all be given a say. How 'bout we leave it open for debate?"

Submission + - T.I.E. Fighter tracking the Space Shuttle Atlantis

Submitted by

farrellj

on Tuesday June 19, 2007 @02:56PM

farrellj writes: "The NY Times has a photo of the space shuttle Atlantis here which seems to show a Star Wars T.I.E. Fighter behind the shuttle. You can see it in the picture just above the right OMS pod. Has the Empire found our planet?!?!?"

Submission + - Ubuntu on the $99 decTOP (AMD PIC) (jsco.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19, 2007 @08:18AM

An anonymous reader writes: The old news is that the AMD PIC has been reincarnated as the $99 decTOP. The new news is that I actually bought one, took it apart, put it back together again, and installed Linux on it (Ubuntu and Xubuntu). This page walks you through the installation process. The result is a reasonably usable machine—certainly enough to get your mom on the internet. The decTOP comes with 128MB of RAM and a 10GB HDD, both of which can be upgraded easily.

Submission + - Free, Secure VPN solution

Submitted by BrianCaulkins on Monday June 18, 2007 @02:42PM

BrianCaulkins writes: I'm a Windows user who would like to use a VPN solution to access my home network for when I'm on the road. I've looked into a few open source solutions such as openVPN but some people are saying it's not very secure because it's a SSL VPN. Are there any suggestions for what I could use for a free, secure VPN solution?

Submission + - Help. American Idol is going after me. (gk2gk.com)

Submitted by

Geek 2 Geek

on Monday June 18, 2007 @01:46PM

Geek 2 Geek writes: "Hi, I was referred to slashdot as a place where I might get help for a problem I'm having. A while ago, I devised a contest for my web site — Geek 2 Geek. It is a "talent" show for geeks in which they submit humorous videos. I called it "Geek Idol". We received a letter from a law firm representing American Idol regarding our contest contest. A complete copy of the letter can be seen at www.gk2gk.com/topten/template20.asp . They express the concern that "... your use of GEEK IDOL will most likely cause confusion, mistake, and/or deception among the consuming public regarding the source or sponsorship of your services, and will give the false impression that your services are associated with ... 'American Idol' in violation of our client's rights. They also say that "... since AMERICAN IDOL is a famous mark, ... your use of GEEK IDOL would also constitute dilution of our client's marks and unfair competion. If we do not withdraw our use of "GEEK IDOL", they say they will seek remedies including, "without limitation, immediate and permanent injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, and an award for attorney's fees and costs incurred in obtaining such remedies. I asked our members whether anyone who read about the contest got the impression that it was somehow affiliated with American Idol. Of course, no one would, it was described in a humorous, satirical way, for one thing. The word "IDOL" is hardly a new word. And, having seen the American Idol show a few times, I don't see that anybody who performs as a "geek" will win their contest, although, I guess, Clay Aiken started out that way, but it was bred out of him by the time he was a finalist. Are there any lawyers out there? Any advice from anyone as to how we should respond? Thanks."

Slashdot Top Deals