phobot - Slashdot User

Universal Design for Web Applications 85

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 27, 2009 @01:02PM from the read-all-about-it dept.

Michael J. Ross writes "Two decades ago, Web usage was limited to a single individual (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) using the only browser in existence (WorldWideWeb) running on a single platform (a NeXT Computer). Nowadays, billions of people access the Web daily, with the ability to choose from over a dozen browsers running on desktop computers, laptops, and a variety of mobile devices, such as cell phones. The number of possible combinations is growing rapidly, and makes it increasingly difficult for Web designers and developers to craft their sites so as to be universally accessible. This is particularly true when accounting for Web users with physical and cognitive disabilities — especially if they do not have access to assistive technologies. The challenges and solutions for anyone creating an accessible website are addressed in Universal Design for Web Applications, authored by Wendy Chisholm and Matt May." Keep reading for the rest of Michael and Laura's review.

The Rootkit Arsenal 79

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday April 15, 2009 @01:53PM from the protect-ya-neck dept.

Nicola Hahn writes "One of the first things I noticed while flipping through this hefty book is the sheer number of topics covered. Perhaps this is a necessity. As the author puts it, rootkits lie "at the intersection of several related disciplines: computer security, forensics, reverse-engineering, system internals, and device drivers." Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that great pains have been taken to cover each subject in sufficient depth and to present ideas in a manner that's both articulate and well organized. This accounts for the book's girth; it weighs in at roughly 900 pages." Keep reading for the rest of Nicola's review.

Submission + - Passenger landed plane with 'focused fear' (cnn.com)

Submitted by

phobot

on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:59PM

phobot writes: "White saved the day after the pilot passed out.

"He was just sitting there. He had his chin on his chest, looking down at his lap, but there's nothing in his lap that he needed to be looking at.
That's when I kind of looked at him for a minute, probably two, three seconds, and I touched him on the shoulder. I said, 'Joe! Joe!, and that's when his head rolled over to the side, and his eyes rolled back in his head, and his arm fell off the armrest ... and I knew if he wasn't gone then, he was in deep distress, but we were in trouble."

The plane's autopilot was on, and the plane was at about 5,000 feet and climbing, White said. Although he was a certified single-engine pilot and had about 130 flying hours, he had no idea how to fly the much larger Super King Air two-engine turboprop plane.

"The only thing I knew how to do up there was talk on the radio," White told WINK. "I've only been up there (in the cockpit) one other time. I made it a point to ask the pilot — not Joe, but another one — 'How do I talk on the radio?' and they showed me what button to push.""

College Police Think Using Linux Is Suspicious Behavior 1079

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:42PM from the so-is-your-mom dept.

FutureDomain writes "The Boston College Campus Police have seized the electronics of a computer science student for allegedly sending an email outing another student. The probable cause? The search warrant application states that he is 'a computer science major' and he uses 'two different operating systems for hiding his illegal activity. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.' The EFF is currently representing him."

UK To Train Pro-West Islamic Groups To Game Google 469

Posted by timothy on Monday April 13, 2009 @05:53AM from the raisins-not-virgins dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The British government's Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a 200-strong Home Office unit created 18 months ago, has said in meetings it wants to 'flood the internet' with 'positive' interpretations of Islam and plans to train government-approved groups in search engine optimization techniques, which it is hoped will boost their profile online and battle radicalization. A Home Office spokesman confirmed search engine optimization training is part of the government's anti-radicalization strategy. 'In order to support mainstream voices, we work with local partners to help develop their communication, representational and leadership skills. This support could include media training, which can help make their voices heard more widely, and support the development of skills which allow communities to be more effective in debate.' However the effectiveness of search engine optimization in reducing traffic to extremist websites has been dismissed by academics. A report produced by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said young Muslims were much more likely to be directed to extremist material online by web forums and offline associates than by Google or other search engines. 'Tweaking the results for supposedly extremist terms would be largely ineffectual, not least because it is unlikely that any but the most callow wannabe terrorist would use a mainstream search engine to find banned material.'"

Grad Student Project Uses Wikis To Stash Data, Miffs Admins 268

Posted by timothy on Monday April 13, 2009 @12:06AM from the going-on-the-beg-forgiveness-principle dept.

Anonymous writes "Two graduate students at the Ivy League's Brown University built a P2P system to use abandoned wiki sites to store data. The students were stealing bandwidth from open MediaWiki sites to send data between users as an alternative to BitTorrent. There was immediate backlash as site operators quickly complained to the University. The project appears to be shutdown, but many of the pages still remain on the web. The project homepage was also taken down and the students posted an apology this afternoon." The same submitter links to two different forum discussions on the project.

Submission + - MS Encarta falls victim to Wikipedia

Submitted by CowardX10 on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @06:24PM

CowardX10 writes: Microsoft's Encarta is discontinuing its online version after failing to compete with Wikipedia. The article parallels this with how Encarta took away a lot of Britannica's business. This is also being covered by The Wall Street Journal.

Submission + - Intel launches new chip logos, rating system (cnet.com)

Submitted by N!NJA on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @06:21PM

N!NJA writes: Intel has revamped its processor badging and rating system. Consumers are the main target, though business systems will get new badging too.

The new badges include a die (the chip minus the packaging) accent in the upper right hand corner, a prominent main brand (e.g., "Core"), and the modifier (e.g., "i7").

Intel has also instituted a star system that rates chips from five stars (best performance in class) to one star (lowest performance). "So when a consumer goes into a Best Buy store they can distinguish between Centrino, Core, Celeron, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder.

Submission + - "We're Linux" Finalists announced (ostatic.com)

Submitted by ruphus13 on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @05:29PM

ruphus13 writes: In an effort to drive more awareness to Linux, the Linux Foundation announced the "We're Linux" contest. Over 90 entries were received, and the finalists are now out. From the article, "The contest was spawned from the idea that other software companies were paying millions of dollars to celebrities for endorsements, while Linux was promoted and shared by enthusiastic, passionate, actual users. Contestants were given a simple directive: tell the Linux Foundation what Linux is for you, why you use it, and why you'd encourage others to do the same. Humor and professional production quality weren't required — it just had to be genuine." Details on the finalists can be found on the Linux Foundation Video site here.

Submission + - Ergonomic, Innovative Laptop Document Holder (sidequik.com)

Submitted by

Johnny Law

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @05:08PM

Johnny Law writes: "My friend invented this "Sidequik" laptop document holder a few years ago and has just recently brought it to market. It's a hinged panel that attaches to the back of a laptop and then can slide out from either side. It has built in clips for inserting paper, and you can also attach or hang notebooks on it. I wish I would have had something like this in graduate school. It would have saved me a lot of time when I typing up research papers. Nothing like this exists. Sure, there are other products, but they are hard to find and they don't work well. This thing really has to be seen to be understood, since nothing like it currently exists, although it is simple enough. Check out the youtube video on the website: http://www.sidequik.com./ Thanks."

Submission + - 6 companies control all the media you're seeing... (youtube.com)

Submitted by

ANewWingman

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:57PM

ANewWingman writes: "Watch this HD film movement call-out from The Wingmen, the group behind the scifi/fantasy cross-platform film project 'Artemis Eternal.' Their focus is confronting media politics via film, all while making a movie. "While we may have a leader, we follow an ideal: that films should be a covenant between filmmaker and audience in which the message is pure, direct, and unfiltered. The specter of commercialism has long hung over the film industry, but of late it has evolved into a fog of bureaucracy and materialism, of plastic cups and bad advertisements. The artist is obscured, and the audience is force-fed cheap ideas devoid of any purpose. There is no truth, no depth, in something so manufactured, and it must end." ...Intelligent exploration of propaganda plus a sick online film "experience" that shows the path a film takes from conception to delivery."

Submission + - Digitally remastered Beatles coming in September

Submitted by mknewman on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:47PM

mknewman writes: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/07/beatles.remastered.catalogue/index.html

Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music have announced that as the date for the release of the entire original Beatles catalogue, digitally remastered.

That includes all 12 Beatles albums in stereo, with track listings and artwork as originally released in the UK. The package will also contain the LP version of "Magical Mystery Tour" (initially released as a double-EP in Britain, though available on CD since 1987) and the collections "Past Masters Vol. I and II" combined as one title

In acknowledgment of the more technologically advanced listeners, each CD will contain, for a limited time, an embedded brief documentary film about the album.

The documentaries contain archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-released studio chat from the Beatles.

Submission + - 48 mb Linux with a XUL interface and 10s boot time 1

Submitted by sandGorgon on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:37PM

sandGorgon writes: A Chinese developer group has released version 0.8.9 of XPud Linux . One of the most innovative features of this distro is the XUL based interface called "Plate" and the mkpud build system which repackages Ubuntu debs into installation images. The distro comes with 3.6a1pre Firefox nightly, Droid fonts, wireless configurator, mplayer Media Player, transmission Bittorrent client and is based on the 2.6.28 kernel with moblin patches for a 10 second boot time.

Submission + - Get yourself arrested for domestic extremism (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: In Britain it is now possible for you to be arrested by highly-trained officers, in an intelligence led operation, for...err, 'domestic extremism'. What is that? We don't know. The police aren't telling us. They are simply using a strange new language which appears to be English but conveys no meaning. Maybe that's the point.

I wondered whether any slashdoters are domestic extremists and if so, maybe they could let us know what it all means.

Comment Pissed-off someone really bad??? (Score 1) 3

by phobot on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:24PM (#27495015) Attached to: WebHostingTalk Hacked Again, Credit Cards Stolen

Sucks that stuff like that happens but maybe that's the way to show the world that the internet is not a place for confidential transactions. One idea is to make like a strict banking only VPN like the piratebay did http://ipredator.se/ and when I mean strict that's like non-stop traffic control and many types of auth plus maybe a PAID only access. That's a win-win deal enterprise gets better security and the internet becomes the informational highway free of profiting goons (except for the spammers but they're cool so it OK)

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