Lenolium - Slashdot User

Submission + - New brushless generator for wind turbines (physorg.com)

Submitted by

sterlingda

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @01:00AM

sterlingda writes: "A research team from the University of Cambridge have developed a new generator technology for the wind turbine industry to the point of commercial exploitation, for application in a wide spectrum of wind turbines ranging from multi-megawatt systems for wind farms down to domestic micro turbines."

Submission + - Fly Air Asia? Not Me. (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Rich

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @12:54AM

Rich writes: "A true tale of a cut-price airline that have taken crap service and 'no-frills' to resounding lows. This is one passenger's account of how an airline screwed up and just kept on screwing him until he snapped. Air Asia's Entirely Unofficial, Unsanctioned and Unwelcome Blog. Scathing sky satire ... http://airasiaannus.blogspot.com/"

Submission + - A new version of Gmail is launched

Submitted by

freakxx

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @12:47AM

freakxx writes: "A new version of Gmail is in action today. Look of the main GUI is same as before but contact management has become better now — a three column view showing contact groups, contact entries and corresponding contact information simultaneously in different columns. However, if a conversation has large number of messages, the scrolling is not as smooth as before. I think, only contact management system was needing a touch, nothing else. "Old Gmail + New Contact Management = Better than this New Version of Gmail"."

Submission + - Universal Wi-Fi adapter for digital cameras (wifinetnews.com)

Submitted by

Glenn Fleishman

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @12:44AM

Glenn Fleishman writes: "eyeFi has finally announced their Wi-Fi adapter for digital cameras. At $100, the 2 GB SD card features a full-fledged processing system that operates independent of the camera; no firmware is needed in the camera for the adapter to transfer images over a local network. eyeFi's system lets you configure the adapter to connect to one or more Wi-Fi networks (with or without encryption), while you set up photo-sharing and social-networking logins on their site. You can configure the card, whenever the camera is powered up and within range of a network it's set to use, to upload photos, which are then automatically posted to whichever services you specify. Photos are uploaded at full resolution, and resized only for services that won't accept larger sizes."

Submission + - no more gamestop warranty for xbox 360 (dailytech.com)

Submitted by s1lv3rb33l3 on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @12:38AM

s1lv3rb33l3 writes: apparently not even doubling the cost of the warranty can make it viable for gamestop to keep covering this console. corporate policy now states that no more company warranties will be offered for the xbox 360. guess it was too expensive to replace one-third of the machines.

Submission + - Skype on a mobile? Why? (itwire.com)

Submitted by

WirePosted

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @12:05AM

WirePosted writes: "As a regular Skype user who thinks the service is wonderful, my first question on hearing the news that mobile carrier 3 is going to release a Skype phone, was why bother?"

Submission + - Microsoft Ajax Library Essentials

Submitted by Darren Kopp on Monday October 29, 2007 @11:44PM

Darren Kopp writes: Microsoft AJAX Library Essentials

Microsoft AJAX Library Essentials, by Bogdan Brinzarea and Cristian Darie, introduces the reader to the Microsoft AJAX script library. The term AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML, and represents a more unobtrusive way for internet browsers to interact with back end servers, however, as the authors show, the Microsoft AJAX library goes much further and makes web development a lot less painful for developers.

The book starts off with a brief history of the web but very quickly delves into some basic javascript. The authors do a good job of covering the basics of javascript, the Document Object Model (DOM) and the XMLHttpRequest object. These three elements are the core elements of AJAX. While the authors do cover all the core features of each of these elements, I would say that they assume that the reader has had some experience with javascript and the DOM. If the reader has not, I would suggest reading an introduction to javascript and the DOM.

After the reader has their feet wet with the basics of AJAX, the authors delve right into some more advanced javascript topics including Object Oriented javascript, closures, and anonymous methods. Now don't get worried, the authors do a good job of explaining these topics, however again, it is cursory coverage and assume that the reader has had previous experience with javascript.

Finally, the authors get to the Microsoft Ajax Library. The book covers all of the core features that the framework enables you to do in javascript which includes events, inheritance with objects, enumerations, and more. The tutorials throughout this introduction are simple, but comprehensively documented.

At it's core, the book gives a good introduction to the framework, though I feel that it drew to a conclusion much to quickly. The book is only 230 pages long, with 80 of those pages being the history of AJAX and the introduction to javascript. All of the topics covered are covered well, but again, I would have liked to see more about the Microsoft AJAX Library. However, the last 40 or so pages of the book are a class reference for the Microsoft AJAX Library, making this a valuable desktop reference.

One thing that I did not like about the book was how it handled source. I personally like to see colored formatting of source, but at a minimum source code should have a different background than other text on the page, where this book just had a monospace font to set aside source code. This just made it a bit harder to navigate the source.

All in all, the book is a good introduction to javascript and the way that the Microsoft AJAX Library adds functionality to web pages. Although the library was developed to give a consistent feel to the .NET framework, this library can be used by all web developers. Also, although in the book when the authors refer to server-side methods in ASP.NET terms, this is not Microsoft web server specific technology, and could easily be implemented on a LAMP (Linux,Apache,MySql,PHP) stack.

Submission + - PS3 enters DARPA Urban Challenge (terrasoftsolutions.com)

Submitted by billdar on Monday October 29, 2007 @10:57PM

billdar writes: Terrasoft Solutions posted an article on their development of a stereo vision object detection system built upon Sony's PS3 for Axion Racing's entry into the DARPA Urban Challenge. The PS3 running Yellow Dog Linux replaced one of the on-board Dell servers to process the realtime stereoscopic sensor data. The whole system was developed and integrated onto the vehicle in ten days. So far, Spirit has been making the competition's highlight reels.

Submission + - Microsoft to leaves .net apps out in the cold

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29, 2007 @10:11PM

An anonymous reader writes: Many people have heard of Microsoft's new "Server Core", a stripped down 'lean and mean' install of the new Server 2008 platform. However, few seem to realize that with this edition of the operating system, Microsoft seems to be pulling the rug out from under everyone who uses the .NET Framework. There will be no .NET Framework or Runtime components available for Server Core! That's right, the great and grand .NET platform which Microsoft has touted so heavily for its flexibility, power and security is being left out. Whats better, is that this seems to be as a result of .NET's runtime reliance on Explorer and its inability to be modularized. All those people developing next-gen web services, servers and tools in .NET seem to have been left out in the cold.

http://blogs.technet.com/server_core/archive/2007/06/26/iis-in-server-core.aspx — > IIS included in Server Core — Managed Code and ASP.NET left out

Even Microsoft's own new tools, such as Powershell, won't work as a result. This seems like a confusing move, considering the weight MS has previously thrown behind .NET. It seems funny that Mono can bring .NET to unix, but Microsoft can't seem to bring .NET to windows.

Submission + - Ubuntu may be killing your laptop's hard drive 1

Submitted by wwrmn on Monday October 29, 2007 @09:43PM

wwrmn writes: There's a debate [bugs.launchpad.net] on whether it's the Ubuntu, BIOS, hard drive manufacturer or pick any player's fault, but Ubuntu (and perhaps any OS) may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard-drive due to an aggressive power saving feature/acpi bug/OS configuration. Regardless of where the fault lies or how it's fixed, you might want to take some actions now to try to prevent it.

Submission + - Wikinews interviews Craig Milmine (wikinews.org)

Submitted by

DragonFire1024

on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @04:18AM

DragonFire1024 writes: "http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Liberterianz_discusses_a_free_state_with_Wikinews

Libertarianz party president, Craig Milmine, and the party leader, Bernard Darnton, spoke exclusively to Wikinews journalist Gabriel Pollard about the political philosophy, libertarianism in New Zealand. This article follows on from interviews with republican, Lewis Holden; and monarchist, Noel Cox."

Submission + - Forcing email providers to forward mail

Submitted by phorest on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @03:59AM

phorest writes: Post office forwards. Is e-mail next?

[F]ederal regulators are looking at the issue more closely following a complaint from a former America Online customer who claims an abrupt termination of service devastated her business.
Gail Mortenson, a Washington-based freelance editor, in July filed a six-page petition with the Federal Communications Commission, which opened a 30-day public comment period that ends Oct. 26, followed by another 30-day period for replies.

Mortenson said in her complaint that she lost potential clients because they couldn't reach her, and she requested that Internet service providers, such as Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC, be required to forward e-mail traffic from a closed account to a new e-mail address designated by customers for at least six months.
The company closed Mortenson's account last December soon after the company learned it was actually opened by her son several years earlier when he was a young teenager. The account was still in his name although Mortenson was paying for it.

AOL spokeswoman Anne Bentley wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press that AOL is still investigating the facts of Mortenson's petition, but said it has "strict policies to prevent minors from creating paid AOL member accounts."
She also said the company doesn't believe circumstances related to Mortenson's account "present any issue of public policy."

Mortenson said she wasn't given any warning and lost personal and professional e-mails, documents, contact information and other materials associated with her AOL screen name. She said the action hurt her business at the time and is considering a civil lawsuit against the Dulles, Va.-based company.

Submission + - mobile malware may result from iphone hacking (wordpress.com)

Submitted by on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @03:48AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Recycle Bin points out concerns with latest hacks of the iPhone:

"The fact that this exploit has been received so well by users and tech writers alike confounds me. Why would anyone be celebrating an exploit like this? Do they not realize that if Niacin and Dre have figured out how to malform the bytes of a TIFF file correctly then someone else probably has too? Someone who might not be so friendly? The thought of mobile malware should be troubling to everyone. Imagine for a minute, a worm that dials 911 on your cell phone on loop, or even one that makes a call to a 900 number when your phone is idle. There are serious ramifications with a bug like this, and everyone, not just iPhone users, is at risk until Apple fixes this."

Submission + - 6.56G version of Apples Leopard leaked on Internet

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @12:04AM

Stony Stevenson writes: Apple's Leopard OS was leaked to the masses on file-sharing sites around the Internet on Tuesday, three days before the official launch of the next-generation operating system. Torrent sites around the Internet were offering a 6.56 G versions of the operating system software set for release on Friday by Apple. Earlier versions of Leopard have been leaked to torrent sites as well. In June a beta version that Apple released at its Worldwide Developer Conference was leaked to the torrent sites.

Submission + - Stolen unencrypted laptop contains 159,000 records (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by

DLa Voie

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:14PM

DLa Voie writes: "I received a letter from Administaff yesterday stating my data (SSN and other personally identifiable information) was one of the 159,000 records contained on the unencrypted laptop. The laptop computer, which was reported missing on Oct. 3, contained data that was being compiled "in response to a governmental reporting requirement", according to Administaff. How long will it be before this negligence stops, and what type of action do you suggest when this reoccurring scenario happens?"

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