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Comment Re:Install mac os-x (Score 2, Interesting) 823

by Black-Man (#26223989) Attached to: Configuring a Windows PC For a Senior Citizen?

I steered my 80 year old mother to a Mac... best decision I could have made. Who wants to be on the phone w/ their mother over computer issues? With my mother... it would be all my fault... I would never live it down and the aggravation would never be worth it.

Of course I had to pitch in $... because she is a cheap skate and knows PC's are a couple hundred bucks cheaper and there was no way she was gonna spend extra $ when she didn't have to. Typical of one who lived through the Great Depression I suppose.

Comment Re:Oh No! (Score 1) 338

by Black-Man (#26200503) Attached to: Are Newspapers Doomed?

The problem was these opinion rags were usually penned by anonymous sources - so the public had no idea who actually wrote the piece nor underwritten the rag. Benjamin Franklin excelled at this.

Comment Re:Snarky article (Score 1) 293

by Black-Man (#26138075) Attached to: 100 Years Ago, No Free Broadband Pneumatic Tubes

"who has no particular stake in a local community deciding how that community is best served"

What?!? I don't know where you live, but my local community has a board for cable/broadband service where the providers go to for right-of-way aquisition and other service-related issues.

Educate yourself.
Media

Submission + - Did your Employer Remove Flash for the NCAAs?

Submitted by
fistfullast33l
fistfullast33l writes: "Last week when I logged into Windows on Monday (my IT department reboots our computers every weekend), I was prompted by the Helpdesk to install a new Flash update, for reasons that I don't remember due to the fact I didn't read them. This week, I've noticed that Flash oriented sites have stopped working, including YouTube and ESPN. ESPN is curious and got me thinking. With March Madness raging these next few weeks, is it possible that my IT department decided to uninstall Flash to counter employees watching games? Did you or someone you know have to work on this initiative this year? How many of you had Flash uninstalled or disabled, or even had ESPN or Sports Illustrated or CBS blocked due to the tournament this month?"
Networking

Submission + - Beware Comcast Secret Caps

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Bandwidth limits are the nasty secret of Internet providers, especially on shared neighborhood networks (e.g., cable modems), even though virtually nobody advertises download limits any more. And as the Globe notes, downloadable movies and other gigabyte applications are going to make this more of a problem in the future. The story quotes Comcast as saying 0.01 percent of its 11.5 million residential high-speed Internet customers fall into the "you download so much we've cut off your service" category — but it also notes that Comcast won't say exactly how much is too much. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/14/nebulous_c omcast_cap/ http://granitegeek.area603.com/index.php?op=ViewAr ticle&articleId=833&blogId=6
Businesses

Submission + - Your workforce is getting old! Fix now.

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Your company and its employees are getting older and no one is doing anything to prepare for what that means for your future. That's pretty much the conclusion of a national survey released this week that says more than a quarter of U.S. businesses have failed to plan for the effects of the aging American workforce. What's the big deal? Well the U.S. faces a shortage of millions of workers within the coming decade as baby boomers retire — taking with them years of experience, talent and expertise and leaving fewer new workers available to take their place, according to The National Study of Business Strategy and Workforce Development, conducted by the Boston College Center on Aging and Work. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1245 2"
Programming

Submission + - Rails Clones

Submitted by
Sly
Sly writes: "There is much hype over Ruby On Rails and I am using it with much satisfaction. There has been many clones of Rails from everywhere, with funny names (or not), mostly in PHP (on trax), but also in PERL (on poles) or even Lisp (on lines). Sure, MVC is not really new, but Rails must be really great even for people from other horizons to be honoured with so many copies. I also grant you that finding Rails hosting can be quite painful. I have been told that developing in those Rails clones was tough and very far from even approaching the 'original'. Do you know or use a Rails clone ? What do you think about it ? Which feature do you like best or miss most from any of them ? Features Rails does not have but your choice framework can provide are welcome too ! Opinions from people also skilled with Rails especially welcome."
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Red Hat announces availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, the Company's most significant collaboration with customers to date; unveils plans to model services and partnerships using same open, collaborative philosophy.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - MIT to offer entire course cataloug online FREE.

Submitted by
certain death
certain death writes: "Coming from CNN via Reuters,

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will become by year's end the first U.S. university to offer all of its roughly 1,800 courses free on the Internet, a school official said on Friday.

"We started this project because MIT believes that one of the best ways to advance education around the world is through the Internet," said Anne Margulies, head of online curriculum.

Online students will not be able to earn an MIT degree or have contact with faculty at the university, located across the river from Boston in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

MIT launched its "OpenCourseWare" program in 2003 and already offers hundreds of courses online. A small number of other U.S. schools are following suit. Stanford put some classes on line last year and Bryn Mawr plans to do so soon.

Last month, 1.5 million users went to the MIT course site, sampling offerings like Cognitive Robotics, Inventions and Patents, and Superconducting Magnets.

Most users — 60 percent come from outside the United States — gravitate toward the subjects MIT is best-known for: computer science, physics and mathematics, Margulies said.

Even MIT students who pay thousands of dollars in tuition fees for each course use the free online service to study for exams or sample what courses they may want to take on campus, Margulies said.

I am not sure about everyone on /. but this is an awesome opportunity to take some great classes for free, though the credit does not apply toward a degree, it gives all us Uber geeks who wish they had been able to have some of the professors at MIT in our lesser universities. Computer Science is currently online, as are some other very nice stuff."
Space

Submission + - Cassini Detects Hydrocarbon Seas on Titan

Submitted by qw0ntum
qw0ntum writes: The BBC is reporting that the Cassini probe has potentially detected large bodies of liquid on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. These areas, large enough to be called seas by Terran standards, are probably made up of liquid hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane. While these seas have only been found above 65 degrees latitude, river-like channels have been discovered at all latitudes of Titan's surface. Cassini will make a second fly-by of Titan in May, during which it will make a fly-over of one of these hydrocarbon seas.

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