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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Programming

State of Sound Development On Linux Not So Sorry After All 427

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sounds-like-improvement dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There have been past claims by Adobe and others that development on Linux is a jungle, particularly with regards to audio. However today, the author of the popular 'The Sorry State of Sound in Linux' has posted a follow up showing Adobe's claims to be FUD, as well as being a good update on where OSS and ALSA are holding today, and why PulseAudio isn't a good idea."
Earth

Ocean Currents Proposed As Cause of Magnetic Field 333

Posted by kdawson from the round-and-round-and-round-in-the-circle-game dept.
pjt33 notes a recently published paper proposing that ocean currents could account for Earth's magnetic field. The wrteup appears on the Institute of Physics site; the IOP is co-owner, with the German Physical Society, of the open-access journal in which the paper appears. This reader adds, "The currently predominant theory is that the cause of Earth's magnetic field is molten iron flowing in the outer core. There is at present no direct evidence for either theory." "Professor Gregory Ryskin from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Illinois, US, has defied the long-standing convention by applying equations from magnetohydrodynamics to our oceans' salt water (which conducts electricity) and found that the long-term changes (the secular variation) in the Earth's main magnetic field are possibly induced by our oceans' circulation."
Mozilla

Mozilla To Launch "Build Your Own Browser" 171

Posted by kdawson from the have-it-your-way dept.
angry tapir sends in a piece from Down Under which begins "Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customized browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks. ... Through the Build Your Own Browser program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser, such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals. ... The bulk of enterprises still use Internet Explorer if they mandate a browser for company use, because Microsoft provides provisioning and installation software for IE that makes it easy for enterprises to control browser settings and install across all corporate desktops, said Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish. Mozilla has not historically done this, but something like the Build Your Own Browser program is a good start to encourage enterprises to use Firefox over IE."
The Matrix

SOE Pulls the Plug On The Matrix Online 111

Posted by Soulskill from the i-can-only-show-you-the-door dept.
Yesterday, Sony Online Entertainment representative Daniel Myers announced that The Matrix Online will be shut down on July 31st. The game launched in 2005 after several delays and false starts, and shortly thereafter SOE bought the rights to operate the game from developer Monolith. Now, four years later, the game will join the ranks of closed MMOs. In a forum post, Myers said, "The team will also be whipping up an end-of-the-world event. It won't be quite the same as having over 100 developers in the game as Agents like when we ended beta, but we have 4 years of tricks up our sleeve. It'll be a chance to revisit all the things that make MxO the memorable experience it is. And how could we pull the plug without crushing everyone's RSI just one more time?"
Spam

Opting Out Increases Spam? 481

Posted by timothy from the damned-either-way dept.
J. L. Tympanum writes "I used to ignore spam but recently I have been using the opt-out feature. Now I get more spam than ever, especially of the Nigerian scam (and related) types. The latter has gone from almost none to several a day. Was I a fool for opting out? Is my email address being harvested when I opt out? Has anybody had similar experience?"

Windows 95 Almost Autodetected Floppy Disks 334

Posted by timothy from the be-nearly-nostalgic dept.
bonch writes "Windows 95 almost shipped with a technique for detecting whether a floppy disk was inserted without spinning up the drive. Microsoft's floppy driver developer discovered a sequence of commands that detected a disk without spinup — unfortunately, unspecified behavior in the floppy hardware specification meant that half the drives worked one way and half the other, each giving opposite results for the detection routine. Microsoft considered a dialog prompting the user to insert a disk to 'train' the routine, but the idea was scrapped."

Slashdot Top Deals

Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Close