Comment Re:Raise the white flag, Steve? (Score 1) 315
There's a beta version of Angry Birds on the Android Market right now. I've just downloaded it.
Comment Re:Four Square (Score 1) 220
All the cool programmers drink at the Foo Bar
Whatev, static void. The #- is where it's at.
I went there last Friday, and it was rather empty.
Submission + - The Hidden Security Risk of Geotags (nytimes.com)
pickens writes: The NY Times reports that security experts and privacy advocates have begun warning consumers about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smartphones and digital cameras. By looking at geotags of uploaded photos "you can easily find out where people live, what kind of things they have in their house and also when they are going to be away," says one security expert. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online. "I'd say very few people know about geotag capabilities,” says Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, “and consent is sort of a slippery slope when the only way you can turn off the function on your smartphone is through an invisible menu that no one really knows about.”
Comment Re:What about RackSpace (Score 1) 3
The thing is that any comparison you can make without knowing the use case will simply be inaccurate. I'm sure that a regular webhost that charges a fixed amount for a decent bit of space and bandwidth will be the most economical up to a certain point. If beyond that a dedicated or virtual dedicated server is more interesting than the cloud offering, that depends on what kind of bandwidth is expected, how cpu and disk intensive this site is, and so on.
Simply put you're asking people to make a recommendation based on too little information. What's the use case? Expected number of page views per minute? Things like that matter.
Submission + - BIND to remove DNS Neutrality (circleid.com)
alphatel writes: In a recent post, Paul Vixie, founder of ISC and author of MAPS (the original email RBL), has proposed a new method for BIND which "rates" domains. Opening with "Most new domain names are malicious", DNS queries would be sent to 'cooperating good guys' which can be used to filter out entire blocks of TLDs or country codes. In this new "Response Policy Zone" (DNS RPZ) method, all queries which fail to meet an unknown standard are redirected. As most people are familiar, elsewhere almost always winds up being the DNS host's advertising channel rather than the trash heap. Those fighting for net neutrality have denounced the change but ISC is already publishing a patch and would "like to hear from content providers who want to be listed by ISC as having reputation content available in this format, and also recursive DNS vendors whose platforms can subscribe to reputation feeds in this format. An online registry will follow."
Submission + - Appelbaum detained at U.S. border, questioned abou (cnet.com)
suraj.sun writes: Appelbaum detained at U.S. border, questioned about Wikileaks
A security researcher involved with the Wikileaks Web site — Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based programmer for the online privacy protection project called Tor — was detained by U.S. agents at the border for three hours and questioned about the controversial whistleblower project as he entered the country on Thursday to attend a hacker conference. He was also approached by two FBI agents at the Defcon conference after his presentation on Saturday afternoon about the Tor Project.
Appelbaum, a U.S. citizen, arrived at the Newark, New Jersey, airport from Holland flight Thursday morning, was taken into a room, frisked and his bag was searched.
Officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Army then told him he was not under arrest but was being detained. They asked questions about Wikileaks, asked for his opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and asked where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is, but he declined to comment without a lawyer present, according to the sources. He was not permitted to make a phone call, they said.
After about three hours, Appelbaum was given his laptop back but the agents kept his three mobile phones, sources said.
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20012253-245.html
A security researcher involved with the Wikileaks Web site — Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based programmer for the online privacy protection project called Tor — was detained by U.S. agents at the border for three hours and questioned about the controversial whistleblower project as he entered the country on Thursday to attend a hacker conference. He was also approached by two FBI agents at the Defcon conference after his presentation on Saturday afternoon about the Tor Project.
Appelbaum, a U.S. citizen, arrived at the Newark, New Jersey, airport from Holland flight Thursday morning, was taken into a room, frisked and his bag was searched.
Officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Army then told him he was not under arrest but was being detained. They asked questions about Wikileaks, asked for his opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and asked where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is, but he declined to comment without a lawyer present, according to the sources. He was not permitted to make a phone call, they said.
After about three hours, Appelbaum was given his laptop back but the agents kept his three mobile phones, sources said.
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20012253-245.html
Submission + - Verizon Changing Users Router Passwords 2
Kohenkatz writes: "I have Verizon FIOS at home and my Verizon-supplied Actiontec router had the password "password1" that the tech assigned to it when he set it up three years ago. I received an email from Verizon that said "we have identified that your router still had a password of either password1 or admin1 and we have changed it to your serial number." I checked and it actually had been changed. I believe this to be in response to the Black Hat presentation (http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/07/16/122259/Millions-of-Home-Routers-Are-Hackable) about the hackability of home routers. I am upset about this because Verizon should not have any way to get into my router and change the settings, especially because I own the router, not them! I looked in the router's settings and I see port 4567 goes to the router and is labeled "Verizon FIOS Service". Is this port for anything useful other than Verizon changing settings on my router? What security measures does Verizon have to protect that port from unauthorized access?"
Submission + - N.C. judge says online IDs can remain confidential (wral.com)
myth24601 writes: A North Carolina judge has ruled that news organizations do not have to release the identities of commentators to their online news articles.
Submission + - What Can Save Steve Ballmer? (conceivablytech.com)
peterkern writes: Is it just me or is there much more chatter about Steve Ballmer and reasons why he should quit? You typically read about the failed product launches, the Vista disaster and WP7, which is way too late. But there is another angle, which is quite interesting. Ballmer has never grown out of the shadow of Gates and was not able to create his own legacy. Perhaps it takes a rockstar to lead Microsoft and not just a monkey dance. It may be impossible to be CEO of Microsoft without transforming the company entirely. If you think about, you can already feel sorry for the one who will have to succeed Steve Jobs.
Submission + - Wearing Multiple Hats, PR, And Success As An Indie
x4000 writes: I've written a couple of new articles today targeted at new or aspiring indie developers.
The first about the challenges of wearing multiple hats as well as some PR-related stuff. Essentially, many indie developers seem to struggle with balancing the business side of their work with the game-development side of their work. I know I do, and this post breaks down some of why this might be, as well as reasons and goals for overcoming these challenges.
Case in point: by any objective measure, I really messed up the PR for the release of Tidalis. We had far too little PR, and now that awesome reviews are coming in it's still too late for the actual launch of the game. This has led to sales being about ten times lower than my minimum expectation for the game, even though the game has still been very successful compared to most indie games in its first two weeks. It certainly beats the pants off of what AI War did at first, and AI War went on to sell around 30,000 copies of itself and its expansion.
So what does that mean for Tidalis? Is it to be permanently harmed due to the lack of advanced press before initial release? Short answer: No. That certainly wasn't the case for AI War, and the reviews are even more positive for Tidalis than they were for AI War. Longer answer: I wrote a second article about the secrets of Arcen's success as an indie company, which outlines how we took AI War from a complete unknown to a cult classic. It's worked for us, I suspect this is what worked for Dwarf Fortress, and I know this is what worked for the likes of Doodle Jump and similar on the iPhone. And best of all, it's the sort of thing that big companies by and large would never do for their customers.
The first about the challenges of wearing multiple hats as well as some PR-related stuff. Essentially, many indie developers seem to struggle with balancing the business side of their work with the game-development side of their work. I know I do, and this post breaks down some of why this might be, as well as reasons and goals for overcoming these challenges.
Case in point: by any objective measure, I really messed up the PR for the release of Tidalis. We had far too little PR, and now that awesome reviews are coming in it's still too late for the actual launch of the game. This has led to sales being about ten times lower than my minimum expectation for the game, even though the game has still been very successful compared to most indie games in its first two weeks. It certainly beats the pants off of what AI War did at first, and AI War went on to sell around 30,000 copies of itself and its expansion.
So what does that mean for Tidalis? Is it to be permanently harmed due to the lack of advanced press before initial release? Short answer: No. That certainly wasn't the case for AI War, and the reviews are even more positive for Tidalis than they were for AI War. Longer answer: I wrote a second article about the secrets of Arcen's success as an indie company, which outlines how we took AI War from a complete unknown to a cult classic. It's worked for us, I suspect this is what worked for Dwarf Fortress, and I know this is what worked for the likes of Doodle Jump and similar on the iPhone. And best of all, it's the sort of thing that big companies by and large would never do for their customers.
Submission + - Ubuntu CUPS and Samba; a Quick and Clear Guide (www.atws.ca)
trippedn writes: A straight forward guide to understanding and setting up a CUPS print server using Ubuntu or a Debian based distribution. This guide explains the "how" as well as the meaning of why certain configuration choices are set.
Submission + - States race to be first with windmills in water
milipeter writes: While U.S. lawmakers discuss alternative energy sources, states along the nation's East Coast are racing for the honor, and the benefits, of being the first to place windmills in the water. "We believe that whichever state is first to get in the water with wind power will have the advantage of attracting ancillary industries and jobs," said Amy Kempe, spokesperson for Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri.
Submission + - CORRECTION: for Book Review (NOT News)
truthinquest writes: For Samzunpuss, this is not a new item submittal, but rather a
report of errors in a recent posting.
First off, this review appears under the "News" category, instead of "Book Review". It's also riddled with typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors — too many to list here (and I'd be surprised if you corrected them since they aren't factual errors). There's also no information about the reviewer.
Finally, the usual block of book/review data is absent. As I've submitted corrections before, here's my best attempt at constructing that block of data for this book:
title: Blender 2.49 Scripting
author: Michel Anders
pages: 292
publisher: Packt Publishing
rating: 7/10
reviewer: terrywallwork
ISBN: 978-1-849510-40-0
summary: Extend the power and flexibility of Blender with the help of Python
I inferred the rating based on the reviewers comments about the level of expertise required to utilized the text fully, and also the reviewer's expectations/hopes.
First off, this review appears under the "News" category, instead of "Book Review". It's also riddled with typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors — too many to list here (and I'd be surprised if you corrected them since they aren't factual errors). There's also no information about the reviewer.
Finally, the usual block of book/review data is absent. As I've submitted corrections before, here's my best attempt at constructing that block of data for this book:
title: Blender 2.49 Scripting
author: Michel Anders
pages: 292
publisher: Packt Publishing
rating: 7/10
reviewer: terrywallwork
ISBN: 978-1-849510-40-0
summary: Extend the power and flexibility of Blender with the help of Python
I inferred the rating based on the reviewers comments about the level of expertise required to utilized the text fully, and also the reviewer's expectations/hopes.
Submission + - How to encrypt and backup your hard drive
linjaaho writes: It is easy to back up your files with Dropbox, Mozy or similar service, and it is easy to encrypt your hard disk or some subset of files with Truecrypt or similar. But how to do backup to a remote server *and* store them encrypted on your local hard disk? For tens of megabytes it is easy: just make an encrypted volume with Truecrypt and every evening copy it to a remote server, or use Dropbox to store it.
But how to back up a large set (gigabytes or more) of files, or maybe your whole home directory *and* keep it encrypted on your laptop? It is not possible to copy an encrypted image of to a remote server every day, if it contains for example 50 gigabytes of data.
Such a solution would make it possible to sleep well after — and before — someone steals your laptop.
But how to back up a large set (gigabytes or more) of files, or maybe your whole home directory *and* keep it encrypted on your laptop? It is not possible to copy an encrypted image of to a remote server every day, if it contains for example 50 gigabytes of data.
Such a solution would make it possible to sleep well after — and before — someone steals your laptop.
Submission + - Google SSL Blocked by Schools Across the World (blogspot.com) 2
An anonymous reader writes: Over the past several weeks, the rolling out of Google SSL search has been getting attention here at slashdot, but also some not-so-pleasant obstacles have been in the making much to the frustration of school students and teachers alike. All of this is due to the fact that many content filter vendors have decided to block all google ssl traffic.
While this is being worked on by google to appease these vendors, my question to slashdot is this, "Is it the right of a company to restrict SSL traffic so they can snoop your data, or is it the right of an individual to be entitled to encrypted internet facilities? Also, is the search data you create your data, or your company's?" IANAL but this all seems at odds with the Data Protection Act as some local governments here and here possibly use the very same filtering service for their government employees (as well as the one I work for), and it would also seem to go against the spirit of FIPS (though I appreciate Federal standards are separate from schools in the states).
While this is being worked on by google to appease these vendors, my question to slashdot is this, "Is it the right of a company to restrict SSL traffic so they can snoop your data, or is it the right of an individual to be entitled to encrypted internet facilities? Also, is the search data you create your data, or your company's?" IANAL but this all seems at odds with the Data Protection Act as some local governments here and here possibly use the very same filtering service for their government employees (as well as the one I work for), and it would also seem to go against the spirit of FIPS (though I appreciate Federal standards are separate from schools in the states).
