brassman - Slashdot User

Submission + - CompUSA closing stores. (macworld.com)

Submitted by N0N0B4dD0g on Saturday December 08, 2007 @01:18AM

N0N0B4dD0g writes: Macworld reports that computer and electronics retailer CompUSA announced on Friday that it would start winding down its retail operations after being acquired by an investment firm, which is looking to sell the company's business and assets.

Submission + - CompUSA to Close All Stores 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 07, 2007 @08:24PM

An anonymous reader writes: Mexican telephone and retail magnate Carlos Slim, in a rare defeat, will exit the U.S. consumer electronics market, shutting the last 100 CompUSA Inc. stores after sinking about $2 billion into the business. Gordon Brothers Group, a Boston-based retail store liquidator, will oversee a piecemeal sale of the Dallas-based business, the company said in a statement. Financial terms were not disclosed. Stores will remain open through year-end under the supervision of Gordon Brothers, which will also negotiate the sale of real estate and other assets. Two law firms were hired to represent creditors, CompUSA said.

Submission + - Prolific hacker, Jun-ichiro "itojun" Hagin

Submitted by raddan on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @11:15PM

raddan writes: Jun-ichiro "itojun" Itoh Hagino passed away on October 29, 2007 at the age of 37. Details are light, but there's a brief thread going over at undeadly. itojun was probably best known for his work on the KAME IPv6 stack which will benefit us for years to come. itojun, you will be missed!

Submission + - replace a freeway bridge in one night (canada.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 11, 2007 @11:46PM

An anonymous reader writes: In Ottawa tonight a freeway bridge is being ripped out and replaced in one night. A replacement section of the bridge was built in a nearby park, and will be hauled in place with heavy lift equipment, with a projected downtime for the major freeway of less than 24 hours. There is a webcam to watch the progress.

Submission + - 2 killed in SpaceShipTwo motor test explosion (cnn.com)

Submitted by RZG on Thursday July 26, 2007 @09:31PM

RZG writes: Two people were killed and 4 were injured during a "cold fire test" of the motor for SpaceShipTwo. This obviously is a setback for Virgin Galactic and the non-government space community in general. "Aerial video of the blast aftermath showed a charred and twisted flatbed trailer attached to a truck cab with a large silver tank next to it. Large pieces of debris appeared to be strewn for hundreds of yards from the center."

Submission + - Web hosting with a (free-speech) backbone (dedicatedhostingguide.net)

Submitted by schwaang on Thursday July 26, 2007 @07:38PM

schwaang writes: Slashdot readers will recall tales of woe like these where web hosting services shut down websites at the slightest controversy over their content, prompting the EFF to tell GoDaddy to get a backbone.

Now from Jimmy Atkinson of Dedicated Hosting Guide comes Free Speech Hosting: 11 Web Hosts That Won't Dump You at the First Sign of Controversy.

Some cater to adult sites, others to political dissent, but all to free speech in some form or other. As Voltaire supposedly said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Submission + - Merely "cloaking" data may be incriminatin

Submitted by n0g on Thursday July 26, 2007 @04:09PM

n0g writes: In a recent submission to Bugtraq, Larry Gill of Guidance Software refutes (successfully or not, you decide) some bug reports for the forensic analysis product EnCase® Forensic Edition. The refutation is interesting, but one comment raises an important privacy issue: When talking about perps creating "loops" in NTFS directories to hide data, Gill says, "The purposeful hiding of data by the subject of an investigation is in itself important evidence and there are many scenarios where intentional data cloaking provides incriminating evidence, even if the perpetrator is successful in cloaking the data itself."

That begs the question, if one "cloaks" data by encrypting it, say, exactly what incriminating evidence does that provide? And how important is that evidence compared to the absence of anything else found that was incriminating? If you find an encrypted hard drive on my system, that doesn't mean there's pr0n in there, that's just to hold my bank records. No, seriously.

Submission + - Vista upgrade requires old OS currently installed

Submitted by

edmicman

on Sunday January 28, 2007 @07:31PM

edmicman writes: "No clean install for you! Ars is reporting that Vista upgrades will require the old OS to be currently installed; no longer can you do a "clean" install from a Vista upgrade disc, pop in the old XP disc to prove it's an upgrade, and go on your merry way.

Upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Premium, and Starter Edition will not install on any PC unless Windows XP or Windows 2000 is already on the machine in question. In years previous, upgrade versions of Windows could be installed on any PC. If a PC did not have an older version of Windows installed, users could provide an older installation CD of Windows for verification. After dropping a qualifying CD in the CD-ROM drive, the installation routine would verify the disc and you'd be on your way. With this approach, one could use an "upgrade" copy of Windows to lay a new Windows install on a computer.
I was already waiting before trying out Vista, but as a computer enthusiast I've usually gone the way of buying the "upgrade" version, and doing the clean install from that. Now I'm expected to purchase the full version of Vista? How often has a standing upgrade from one version of Windows to another actually worked?"

Journal Journal: Microsoft Theatened to "Whack" Dell Over Linux in 2002

Journal by twitter on Sunday January 28, 2007 @03:00AM

The Register , and others are reporting 2002 email presented in the ongoing Iowa Microsoft antitrust trial, where ex

Submission + - MySQL changes license to avoid GPLv3

Submitted by munchola on Thursday January 04, 2007 @08:02AM

munchola writes: MySQL has quietly changed the license it uses for its database to avoid being forced to move to the forthcoming GPL v3. CBRonline is reporting that Kaj Arno, MySQL VP of community relations, revealed the license change on his blog, noting it was made "in order to make it an option, not an obligation for the company to move to GPLv3".

Submission + - BitThief BT Client Downloads Without Uploading

Submitted by

Smaran

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @06:52AM

Smaran writes: "BitThief is a BitTorrent client developed in Zurich, Switzerland that manages to download torrents without uploading at all. It constantly pretends to be a newly arrived peer that doesn't have any bits to upload. It also doesn't prioritise bits and takes whatever it can get. Torrentfreak writes that such a client could be extremely harmful to BitTorrent swarms and hopes that it will be quickly banned from trackers. Since it's written in Java, it can be launched on any platform."

Submission + - David Harris giving up Pegasus Mail (PMail)

Submitted by

Daniel

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @05:56AM

Daniel writes: "David Harris of Pegasus Mail (PMail) has announced that he is giving up development of his famous Mail Client that has accompanied so many from Netware times to now. He has spoken out in favour of Open Source in the past but has not dared to take that route because he wanted to continue make a living out of selling Pegasus mail support (and manuals in former times). So, what do we conclude? Freeware is being killed by Open Source? Is Thunderbird the villain here?"

Submission + - Vista DRM: Longest Suicide Note in History

Submitted by enos on Sunday December 24, 2006 @02:41AM

enos writes: Peter Gutmann describes the consequences of Vista's DRM including the intentional crippling of functionality, unnecessary burdens on hardware manufacturers as well as unintended side effects. For example, Vista automatically and silently reduces the quality of audio and video on untrusted devices when "premium" content is present. This can have life threatening consequences when used in medical imaging where the compression artifacts can be misinterpreted.

Submission + - VBulletin abuse of power?

Submitted by

Anthony Boyd

on Sunday December 24, 2006 @01:30AM

Anthony Boyd writes: "A representative for the VBulletin software product has revoked the license from a site simply because he found the material objectionable. He initally claimed it was due to violation of law until people started quoting the law to him. Then he said they revoked the license because it violated some "morality" clause in the VBulletin license — but people looking at it are unable to find such a clause. What do you think? Was this capricious or reasonable? Is it justified in law? As a VBulletin customer, how secure do you feel about your license?"

Slashdot Top Deals