Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Operating Systems

FreeBSD 6.4 Released 64

Posted by timothy from the unsung-but-nicely-free dept.
hmallett writes "FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE, the fifth release from the 6-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, is now available. In addition to being hosted at many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."
Space

Submission + - 500-fold growth in space comms squeezes SETI@home (networkworld.com) 3

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The longest-running search for radio signals from alien civilizations is receiving 500 times more data from an upgraded telescope and better frequency coverage than project planners anticipated, meaning the SETI@home project is in dire need of more desktop computers to help crunch the data. New, more sensitive receivers on the world's largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and better frequency coverage are generating 500 times more data for the project than before, project leaders said in a release. SETI@home software has been upgraded to deal with this new data as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) enters a new era and offers a new opportunity for those who want to help find other civilizations in the universe. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/23469"
NASA

Submission + - Stern Measures Keep NASA's Kepler Mission on Track 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "NASA's new Space Science Division Director, Dr. S. Alan Stern, appears to be making headway in keeping in space projects like the Kepler Mission at their original budgeted cost creating anguish among researchers and contractors along the way. The New York Times reports that Stern's plan is to hold projects responsible for overruns forcing mission leaders to trim parts of their projects, streamline procedures or find other sources of financing. "The mission that makes the mess is responsible for cleaning it up," Stern says. Because of management problems, technical issues and other difficulties on the Kepler Mission, the price tag for Kepler went up 20% to $550 million and the launch slipped from the original 2006 target date to 2008. When the Kepler team asked for another $42 million, Stern's team threatened to open the project to new bids so other researchers could take it over using the equipment that had already been built. The Kepler group came back with a solution that included cutting back the duration of the four-year mission by six months and scaling back preflight testing. "When they came to believe I was serious and had my boss's backing they took it seriously," says Stern. "They quickly found a way to erase that bill.""
Databases

Submission + - MySQL's Threat to Commercial Databases (cnn.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "The odds are high that you've heard of the most popular open source database, MySQL. Financial columnists like CNN/Fortune author David Kirkpatrick are starting to notice it too and recognize it as a serious threat to ... well, every other commercial database out there. Sun CEO Scott McNealy said "If you want to save money, make the default database MySQL. It's free ... if Yahoo and Google can run their entire operations on MySQL, then certainly there's a huge chunk of your operations that could run on it as well." With press like that and the performance to back it up, is MySQL going to ruin commercial databases created by Oracle, IBM & Microsoft?"
Google

Submission + - GMail security failure criples my business

Submitted by
David Airey
David Airey writes: "What would you do if a criminal stole something very personal, and very valuable from you? What if they were able to target your business and criple your income? You wouldn't be too happy now, would you? What if you also discovered that this was happening because of a Google security infection that can affect every GMail user on the planet? That's what has just happened to me, and here I'm going to tell you my story. I will detail everything I know about the web pirates who are threatening my livelihood, and tell you what you need to know in order to avoid the same thing happening to you. Read the full story on my blog: http://www.davidairey.co.uk/google-gmail-security-hijack/ The New York Times have already linked to my story in their technology section, and a major Scottish newspaper has just sent a photographer to my apartment for tomorrow's press. I thought you'd be interested in this too."
OS X

Submission + - Ease of Use: Why Leopard Trumps Windows (osweekly.com)

Submitted by techish
techish writes: OSWeekly.com author Brandon Watts compared the easy of use factor for Vista and Leopard and declared Leopard the hands down winner. "Oddly enough, one of the endearing things about Leopard is made clear as soon as the installation process is underway and then completed. Yes, before you even use Leopard for the first time, you'll love something about it, and for all of you Windows users out there, you may need to sit down for what I'm about to say: the install is simple and there's no activation.
Movies

Submission + - Hasbro tries to quash uproar over GI Joe movie (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "In an attempt to put out a wildfire that threatens to grow into a full -blown conflagration, Hasbro today tried to put down rumors that the upcoming GI Joe movie will water down the US Marine-based action figure into a international light-weight based in Brussels. Specifically the uproar comes over the GI Joe movie that Paramount is developing for release next year. It seems that Paramount and Hasbro, which makes GI Joe, have gotten a little nervous about marketing a film with such obvious ties to the US Military, particularly when that military is involved in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumors floated that the film was going to bastardize the GI Joe franchise to the "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity", (GIJOE). Joe would be a multinational force dude rather than a mean Marine. But the outrage over that potential wholesale change is palpable. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21564"
OS X

Submission + - Why don't mac computers work well with NAS?

Submitted by
rainman_104
rainman_104 writes: "I've recently succumbed and dumped my Fedora driven laptop in favour of a Macbook. I must say I've been loving it — a laptop with all the goodness of a Mac with the familiarity of Unix. However I'm miffed with the apps. iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Lightroom, Aperture. They all really really suck with NAS. They run slow and Apple recommends you only use those apps with attached storage. I found a small hack to get my music playing off my central server using mt-daapd, but all the other awesome apps, I just can't use from NAS. How have other people dealt with this? With all my movies, music, photos and such, I can't possibly be bothered to duplicate them all across my LAN at home. Should I bite the bullet and store all my stuff locally on my laptop too? What do others do?"
Operating Systems

Submission + - VMS Operating System Turns 30

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Digital Equipment's venerable VMS operating system has just turned 30 years old, and it's living on well past what VAX minicomputer users of the late-1970s would have expected. Today it lives on as HP's OpenVMS, and one version or other of the OS is in surprisingly widespread usage. The InfoWeek story reports that the Deutsche Borse stock exchange in Frankfurt runs on VMS, and the Australian Stock Exchange runs on it. And Open VMS controls the system Amazon uses to manage shipments of 112,000 packages of books and DVDs each day.
Networking

Submission + - BSD community mourns for the loss of IPv6 Samurai (kerneltrap.org)

Submitted by
Mr. kamprettos
Mr. kamprettos writes: "Today is a sad day for *BSD community, as Jun-ichiro "itojun" Itoh Hagino passed away on October 29, 2007 at the age of 37. To those in the BSD communities he was simply Itojun, best known in his role as IPv6 KAME project core researcher. Itojun did the vast majority of the work to get IPv6 into the BSD network stacks. He was also instrumental in moving IPv6 forward in all aspects through his participation in IETF protocol design meetings. Itojun was helpful to everyone around him, and dedicated to his work. He believed and worked toward making technology available to everyone. He will be missed, and always remembered. News about Itojun's death : undeadly , kerneltrap and openbsd-misc"
Biotech

Submission + - Nanotube Vests Could Deflect Bullets (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Conventional kevlar vests and body armor stop bullets by spreading out the bullet's force over a larger area. While this does stop the bullet from penetrating the skin, blunt force trauma can still lead to incapacitation and damage to critical organs. Researchers at the Centre for Advanced Materials Technology, University of Sydney, say that the elasticity of carbon nanotubes may put an end to this by using the energy of the initial impact to rebound the bullets, essentially canceling out the force normally felt by the wearer. From the Telegraph: 'The team tested carbon nanotubes ... by bombarding them with diamond bullets travelling at speeds varying between 1000 and 3500 metres per second, revealing the conditions when the bullet could bounce back. Based on their findings, they calculate that six layers of woven nanotube yarn — about 600 millionths of a metre thick — may protect the wearer from a revolver bullet, so that it bounces off.'"
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Interview with Drew Thaler (storiediapple.it)

Submitted by
nezmar
nezmar writes: "Best known for a recent series of posts on Sun's ZFS filesystems, Drew Thaler has worked on many projects at Infinite Loop in the last decade. We contacted him to ask some questions and the result is an interview in which provided a lot of interesting and background info and tidbits on Apple and its technologies and inner workings."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Examining the (poor) state of Linux on the PS3

Submitted by Steve
Steve writes: HEXUS.gaming's Jo Shields has been investigating the usability of several Linux distributions with PS3 compatibility. However, despite the fact Sony has provided (some level of) support for 3rd party Operating Systems on the PS3, it appears that nobody has yet delivered an easy to use, fully functional solution:

Not a single distro maintained a consistent, high-quality experience from installation to prolonged use. None of them are usable by your grandmother, or in most cases, by you [the PS3 owner]. For the experienced Linux hacker, it's probably possible to beat some sense into these distributions (with Xubuntu probably closest to useful, when combined with the Petitboot boot loader used by openSUSE). But it's not a good choice — simply the least bad.

Slashdot Top Deals

The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.

Close