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Comment Windows 8 is usable to me (not great, but usable) (Score 1) 1110

by joeyadams (#42355853) Attached to: 30 Days Is Too Long: Animated Rant About Windows 8
I ran the Windows 8 upgrade assistant, and had a much better experience:
  • * It presented the option to download the CD, which I took.
  • * The install CD lets you do a nuke-from-orbit reinstall of the system.
  • * While the installer runs, it shows you "the new way to use Windows" (i.e. how to get to the charms bar)

Also, knowing a few shortcuts will save you a lot of pain:

  • * You can use Alt+F4 to close Metro apps, and Alt+F4 on the desktop to shut down / sleep / hibernate / etc.
  • * You can search apps, settings, etc. by hitting the Windows key, then typing your search (though you still have to click the category to see the results).

For completeness, a a few bad things about Windows 8:

  • * If you set up a Windows Live-backed account (the default), it asks for an awful lot of personal information. Worse, you need an internet connection to log in to your computer. This problem is easy to fix: reinstall the system, and set up a local account instead.
  • * The control panels (not one, mind you) break continuity big time. If you open the charms bar from the Start screen and click control panel, you get a Metro-styled interface, but only a limited set of options. If you do the same thing from the Desktop, you get a desktop interface with more options. If you click one of the "advanced" links, it takes you to one of the original settings programs that have been around since '95.

I find Windows 8 to be usable. Not great, but at least usable.

Submission + - University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department (forbes.com) 2

Submitted by DustyShadow
DustyShadow writes: The University of Florida announced this past week that it was dropping its computer science department, which will allow it to save about $1.7 million. The school is eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely, and moving the tattered remnants into other departments. Students at UF have already organized protests, and have created a website dedicated to saving the CS department. Several distinguished computer scientists have written to the president of UF to express their concerns, in very blunt terms. Prof. Zvi Galil, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech, is “amazed, shocked, and angered.” Prof. S.N. Maheshwari, former Dean of Engineering at IIT Delhi, calls this move “outrageously wrong.” Computer scientist Carl de Boor, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and winner of the 2003 National Medal of Science, asked the UF president “What were you thinking?”
Education

Submission + - Should Slashdot Participate in the Reddit Blackout (reddit.com) 1

Submitted by Stoopiduk
Stoopiduk writes: Reddit is planning a Blackout January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC) to protest against and educate about SOPA. Should Slashdot show solidarity and contribute to the day of action/education? Does the slashdot readership agree with SOPA?

Comment Re:Open the Door Jeopardy (Score 1) 147

by joeyadams (#38362934) Attached to: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Alex Trebek: Very good ... 'His death and subsequent disagreement of heir resulted in the Battle of Hastings.' *Ken Jennings rings in, opens the door and steps through it*
Ken Jennings: Um ... uh ... um ... I knew it a second ago.

Short-term memory? It's more like he'd forget the question... err, answer.

Submission + - France Outlaws Hashed Passwords (bbc.co.uk) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Storing passwords as hashes instead of plain text is now illegal in France, according to a draconian new data retention law. According to the BBC, "[t]he law obliges a range of e-commerce sites, video and music services and webmail providers to keep a host of data on customers. This includes users' full names, postal addresses, telephone numbers and passwords. The data must be handed over to the authorities if demanded." If the law survives a pending legal challenge by Google, Ebay and others, it may well keep some major services out of the country entirely.
Privacy

Submission + - Hackers Steal Kroger's Customer List (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery retailer with more than 338,000 associates, notified customers today of breach of the database that stores its customers' names and email addresses.

The company said incident occurred at Epsilon, the third-party vendor Kroger uses to manage its customer email database.

This breach follows several other similar breaches from email service providers including The American Honda Motor Co., MacDonald’s, and Walgreens.
Mars

Submission + - Was There a Natural Nuclear Blast on Mars? (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Ever wonder why the red planet is red?

About 180 million years ago, a planet-shattering yet naturally occurring nuclear reaction may have wiped out everything on Mars, sending a shockwave that turned the planet into dry sand.

Even more incredible: A natural nuclear reaction could have occurred on our own planet — and could happen again, said Dr. John Brandenburg, a senior propulsion scientist at Orbital Technologies Corp.

"The Martian surface is covered with a thin layer of radioactive substances including uranium, thorium and radioactive potassium — and this pattern radiates from a hot spot [on Mars],” Brandenburg said.
BSD

Submission + - pcc 1.0.0 released (ludd.ltu.se)

Submitted by joeyadams
joeyadams writes: Pcc, a BSD-licensed C99 compiler that aims to be "small, simple, fast and understandable", has finally made it to version 1.0. As OpenBSD-founder Theo de Raadt said way back in 2007, "This is just an attempt to see if something better [than GCC] can show up.".

Pcc is based on the Portable C Compiler written by Stephen C. Johnson in the mid-1970s, and is now being maintained by Anders Magnusson.
Japan

Submission + - Radiation Fiound In Groundwater At Fukushima Plant (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Radioactive material has been found in the groundwater near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Several news outlets noted that groundwater contamination was found in concentrations 10,000 times higher than the government standards. The substance is iodine-131, which decays quickly. It was found nearly 50 feet (15 meters) below one of the reactors, according to a statement from Tokyo Electric Power Corp. Thus far the groundwater has not entered any water supplies, officials said.

The Japanese Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency said that it was reserving judgment on the measurements, however, because TEPCO had made errors before. Earlier this week the company reported radiation levels millions of times greater than allowable limits, but revised that figure downward after it was discovered that the measurements were wrong.

Comment Backup vs Archive (Score 2) 135

by joeyadams (#35684538) Attached to: It's World Backup Day

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: the fundamental theorem of backups is:

Backups != Archives

When you create a backup (as opposed to an archive), do not rely on the backup to hold files you don't currently need. If you do, you'll amass several "backups" that you can't get rid of because they contain files you might need. Instead, put files you're tired of looking at in an *archive*.

This definition of "backup" implies that it is almost completely safe to destroy an old backup to make room for a new one. Or, better yet:

(cd "$HOME"; rsync -av --exclude-from="$HOME/list-of-huge-files" "$HOME" "/media/backup-disk/homedir")

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