Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Mozilla

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272

Posted by kdawson from the hot-bits dept.
supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3. Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."
Mozilla

Submission + - Chrome and Firefox 3.5 Memory Usage (dotnetperls.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This experiment graphs the memory usage of Chrome and Firefox 3.5 over a series of 150 web page loads using an automated script. Firefox 3.5 shows the lowest memory usage in all categories, including average memory usage, maximum memory usage, and final memory usage. Chrome shows over 1 GB of memory due to its process architecture. Safari 4 and Opera show memory usage degradation over time while Chrome and Firefox 3.5 are more reliable in freeing memory to the OS. http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago

Submitted by evw
evw writes: The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required, or google the url and click from Google) that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago. He is on track to return to work at the end of June. William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states. There are no residency requirements for transplants. Also in the Mercury News.

Comment Performance has always had its premium. (Score 5, Interesting) 403

by MarchTheMonth (#28373389) Attached to: Why a Hard Disk Is a Better Bargain Than an SSD

Higher performing parts have always carried a higher price. However, there is a need for higher performance, and clearly the market shows that the demand is there for the price, I'm looking at you servers and computer enthusiasts.

I have a 300GB velociraptor in my computer, and I have been eye'ing the SSD's for some time, but they just haven't hit the price point for me yet to justify purchasing them yet.

In fact, I feel like an oddity, I work for a small IT firm, and when I asked my boss why a customer's computer had a raid0 of 250'sGB (where we had to replace them both with a new 500GB) why did he just get a velociraptor in the first place, he simply stated that it was cheaper to get 2 250GB hard drives at $60 than it was to get 1 300GB velociraptor.

Now, the only thing that may change the landscape from all this is that SSDs are built on silicon, which is subject to Moore's Law, and we've witnessed how cheap thumb drives and other flash media drives are, there's definitely a real possibility that in time SSD's will be faster AND cheaper than HDDs.
The Internet

Internet Giving Rise To "Citizen Spies" 93

Posted by Soulskill from the bond-dot-jamesbond-dot-com dept.
reporter writes "According to a startling report by the Wall Street Journal, the Internet has empowered ordinary people to be part-time intelligence officers, uncovering secrets like military facilities and prison camps across the landscape of North Korea. The report states, '[Curtis] Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. "It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin. More than 35,000 people have downloaded Mr. Melvin's file, North Korea Uncovered. It has grown to include thousands of tags in categories such as "nuclear issues" (alleged reactors, missile storage), dams (more than 1,200 countrywide) and restaurants (47). Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies.'"
Education

Judge Says Boston Student's Laptop Was Seized Illegally 190

Posted by Soulskill from the score-one-for-the-good-guys dept.
You may remember a case we discussed this April in which a Boston College student's computers and other electronics were seized after he allegedly sent an email outing another student as gay. The search warrant made sure to note the student's ever-so-suspicious use of "two different operating systems," one of which was "a black screen with a white font which he uses prompt commands on." Now, the EFF reports that a Massachusetts judge has thrown out the search warrant and declared the search and seizure illegal. Quoting: "In her order Thursday, Justice Margot Botsford rejected the Commonwealth's theory that sending a hoax email might be unlawful under a Massachusetts computer crime statute barring the 'unauthorized access' to a computer, concluding that there could be no violation of what was only a 'hypothetical internet use policy.' Thursday's decision now stands as the highest state court opinion to reject the dangerous theory that terms of service violations constitute computer 'hacking' crimes. Justice Botsford further found that details offered by police as corroboration of other alleged offenses were insufficient and did not establish probable cause for the search." The court order (PDF) is available for viewing, and the EFF has broken down the significant arguments against the Commonwealth's claims.
Games

FileFront Reopens Its Doors 25

Posted by Soulskill from the flip-flopping-file-foisters dept.
boarder8925 writes "FileFront, who announced on March 24th that they would be shutting down, has been given new life. The original owners of the website bought it back from Ziff Davis Media, who shut down FileFront because it had become financially unviable. 'We're happy to announce to the gaming community that as of today, April 1st, 2009, FileFront is a completely independent company again and is no longer part of Ziff Davis Media. All previously suspended services should be active and working again. We thank Ziff Davis Media for their cooperation and willingness to keep the site and community alive.' They repeatedly state that this is not an April Fool's Day joke, and indeed the site appears to be up and running as usual."

Comment Re:Amazing Article (Score 1) 96

by MarchTheMonth (#27264807) Attached to: AnandTech Gives the Skinny On Recent SSD Offerings

I've always liked Anand's articles primarily because he's not afraid to be frank and say something that's bad is bad. He doesn't sugar coat. Sometimes, when a product launches, he reviews it, and he says it doesn't live up to the hype, or X thing is missing/wrong/etc, I get bummed, but he does quite well at putting it all into perspective.

At the same time, I "feel" this giddy-nerd-joy when he writes about something that is ground-breaking or game-changing (RV770, Nehalem, etc). Take a look at this article, it's about how the RV770 came to be, and if you liked the SSD article and the back story, you'll surely be impressed by this one: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3469
Microsoft

Microsoft Accused of Squandering Billions On R&D 580

Posted by kdawson from the billion-here-billion-there dept.
Julie188 writes "Even as Microsoft celebrates its 10,000th patent, angry shareholders are starting to speak out against what they say is the squandering of billions of dollars on pointless R&D projects. The 10,000th patent covers a technology that allows a device to associate data with objects placed on its surface, and is likely eventually to become part of the Surface table PC. But shareholders are fed up with the $8 billion annually spent. Said one, 'I believe Bill Gates is a charlatan because what he has said, implied, promised to shareholders and stakeholders and all of these visionary things that he mumbles and jumbles about and doesn't make reality of. MS is spending billions of dollars on R&D. Where is the return on investment?' In contrast, Apple had almost the same revenue gains as Microsoft while spending one-tenth as much."
Windows

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Expected Tomorrow 149

Posted by timothy from the tomorrow's-tomorrow's-yesterday dept.
arcticstoat writes "After dishing out a few copies of the beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to select customers in October, Microsoft has now decided to let the general public get their hands on the beta of the service pack, starting from tomorrow. The beta of the service pack will be made available via Microsoft's Customer Preview Program on 4 December, and it includes all the updates since Service Pack 1, as well as a few other bits and pieces. Most notably, Microsoft says that Service Pack 2 'improves performance for Wi-Fi connection after resuming from sleep mode,' and adds the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, ID strings for VIA's Nano CPU and support for the exFAT file system for large flash devices."

Comment Speed limiter won't really do much for teens. (Score 1) 1224

by MarchTheMonth (#25281617) Attached to: Ford To Introduce Restrictive Car Keys For Parents

I'm 24 and I more than vividly remember my young teen years in my car. 2001 wolfsburg Jetta, I bought it off the lot with 10 miles on it. The car itself is only 150hp, still even kinda measly by today's standards, but although I did my fair share of speeding, I'd have to say the biggest thing that I should have been limited on (even if it would have limited my fun) was the acceleration. Acceleration is what gets you in trouble, making a fool grabbing attention.

The 80mph limit wouldn't have stopped either any of my tickets either (before or after turning 18).

There is a far easier method to go through tho, parents buy their kids grandma cars. Although, I guess by the time I'll be having kids, my car will be a grandma car, so how does this little paradox work?
News

Hikers May Have Found Fossett Items 219

Posted by samzenpus from the amelia-earhart-club dept.
An Anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting 'A weathered sweat shirt, cash and a pilot license with Fossett's name were found Tuesday near Mammoth Lakes, police Chief Randy Schienle said.' The license did not have a photo. '"We're not certain that it belongs to Steve Fossett, but it certainly has his name on the ID," Schienle said.'"
Security

"Back Door" Cheating Scandal Rocks Online Poker 427

Posted by kdawson from the know-when-to-hold-'em dept.
AcidAUS sends us the story of an online poker cheating ring that netted an estimated $10M for its perpetrators over almost 4 years. The article spotlights the role of an Australian player who first performed the statistical analyses that demonstrated that cheating had to be going on. "In two separate cases, Michael Josem, from Chatswood, analyzed detailed hand history data from Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and uncovered that certain player accounts won money at a rate too fast to be legitimate. His findings led to an internal investigation by the parent company that owns both sites. It found rogue employees had defrauded players over three years via a security hole that allowed the cheats to see other player's secret (or hole) cards." The (Mohawk) Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which licenses the two poker companies, has released its preliminary report. MSNBC reporting from a couple of weeks back gives deep background on the scandal.

Slashdot Top Deals

To do nothing is to be nothing.

Close