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Submission + - Scientists Predict Big Solar Cycle

Submitted by
Greg Phillips
Greg Phillips writes: "Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/21dec_cycl e24.htm?list964623"
GUI

Submission + - Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In 2002, both KDE and GNOME released their last major revisions; KDE released KDE 3.0 on 3rd April, while GNOME followed shortly after with GNOME 2.0 on 27th June. For the Linux desktop, therefore, 2002 was an important year. Since then, we have continiously been fed point releases which added bits of functionaility and speed improvements, but no major revision has yet seen the light of day. What's going on?
Novell

Submission + - Hubert Mantel Returns to Novell

Submitted by
Krondor
Krondor writes: "Hubert Mantel, SuSe Co-Founder, has confirmed in an interview with Data Manager Online that he has returned to employment with Novell. When asked why he left Novell to begin with, Hubert responded that he was 'burned out' and 'following unpleasant experiences with our investors needed some time off'. Slashdot had reported previously Hubert's departure from Novell approximately one year ago shortly following Novell's acquisition of SuSe and subsequent layoffs. Hubert also provides his opinions on the Novell-Microsoft Agreement, which he characterizes as 'a good thing'."
Data Storage

Submission + - Hans Reiser to sell his company

Submitted by DVega
DVega writes: Due to increasing legal costs, murder suspect Hans Reiser, is seeking to sell his company. His lawyer William DuBois said he is running out of money to pay for his defense. And added "This is a unique opportunity for someone to buy the company for pennies on the dollar. We welcome all vultures." This is a good opportunity to own a filesystem and rename after your own.
Novell

Submission + - MS Actually Distributes SUSE

Submitted by LDAPMAN
LDAPMAN writes: Apparently MS is distributing those SuSe subscriptions. Deutche Bank, Credit Suisse, and AIG apparently like the MS-Novell deal.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/12-20-2006/0004494691&EDATE=

December 20, 2006 10:00 AM ET Three Large Firms Will Run Their Mixed-Source Environments With a Combination of Microsoft and Novell Software REDMOND, Wash. and WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies today became some of the first customers to tap the benefits of the recently announced collaboration between Microsoft Corp. MSFT and Novell Inc. NOVL on interoperability between Microsoft(R) Windows(R) and Linux.* Under three separate customer agreements, Microsoft will deliver to each company SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise subscription certificates, allowing these customers to take advantage of the Microsoft and Novell agreement. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and AIG Technologies, which is a member company of American International Group Inc., highlighted the benefits of interoperability, the patent cooperation agreement and the road map for bidirectional virtualization solutions as the deciding factors in their choice.
Music

Submission + - Creative Commons: Not Just For Software

Submitted by
VE3OGG
VE3OGG writes: "With so many people on Slashdot championing the benefits of GNU GPL, Public Domain, and Creative Commons, including myself, I decided to put together a brief list of media content that made use of those and similar licenses. What I thought would be a brief list, ended up only scratching the surface, and incorporating both amateur and professional quality material. On top of that, there seems to abe a niche for everything from electronic to classical music, and from cartoons to feature-length movies. Of course there are the common ones, people like Cory Doctrow and Elephants Dream, and the Internet Archive's listing of The Grateful Dead, but then there were things such as the CBC programme ""Odd Job Jack", a SciFi CG short film "Blue" and Ourmedia, a website totally dedicated to Creative Commons and like licenses. So I would like to ask Slashdot (and its readers) if they know of any other GNU/GPL, CC, Public Domain, Beer Licenses or similar content that I might have missed."
Music

Submission + - RIAA's new attack on Michelle Santangelo

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "The Big 4 Organized Music cartel's RIAA abandoned its case against Patti Santangelo, instead turning its full attention on Michelle, 20, Bobby, 16, accusing them of being illegal distributors of copyrighted music online, the same charges they'd leveled at Patti, but failed to prove. Accordingly, they'd agreed a discovery schedule with the Santangelo's pro bono lawyer, Jordan Glass. It was slated to be wound up in September, 2007, but now out of the blue is demanding a default judgement, says Recording Industry vs The People."
Microsoft

Submission + - Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

Submitted by
David Gerard
David Gerard writes: "Security researcher Peter Gutmann has released A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, a detailed explanation of just what the protected-content paths in Windows Vista mean to you the consumer: increased hardware cost and even less OS robustness. 'This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry ... The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.'"
Spam

Submission + - BitDefender Detects New Social Networking Spam

Submitted by
BitDefender
BitDefender writes: "BitDefender®, an award-winning provider of antivirus software and data security solutions, today warned users about a new wave of spam targeting social networking sites including YouTube. In the attack, certain YouTube features are exploited in order to build a list of users who will receive the spammed message. The portal allows users to exchange messages and invite others to subscribe to certain video channels. These functions are exploited in order to crawl user profiles pages, gather lists of potential victims and send mass e-mail messages to them. "BitDefender believes that Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and MySpace are rapidly becoming the next preferred malware spreading platform," said Daniel Raduta, BitDefender antispam researcher. "Although BitDefender offers top notch protection against spam, we advise all consumers to keep their anti-spam shields activated no matter that sites they are surfing." Media wishing to speak with a BitDefender representative about this new wave of spam or to see screenshots of the spam detected by BitDefender, please contact Peter Gorman at +1 781-404-2427 or via email at BitDefender@topazpartners.com. About BitDefender® BitDefender is a leading European provider of security solutions that satisfy the protection requirements of today's computing environment. The company offers one of the industry's fastest and most effective lines of anti-virus and email security defense, setting new standards for timely threat detection and for simple installation, use and updates. BitDefender delivers effective threat management for over 41 million home and corporate users in more than 100 countries. BitDefender has offices in USA, Germany, Spain and Romania. Further information about BitDefender can be obtained by visiting: http://www.bitdefender.com./"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft License Activation Trouble

Submitted by
Piffer76
Piffer76 writes: "Ok, so I did something dumb. I installed Windows Server 2003 R2 standard on an older machine. When I installed it, I knew that I was going to have to move that license to a newer box in the future. And so the future came and I got a new box to install it on, and installed it all, patched it and made it as ready as it could be except I did not activate it. All other programs in the past that I've dealt with, even Windows XP, I've been able to call tech support and have the license moved or deactivated/reactivated, no problemos. So rather than trying to activate as I know the box right next to it, has the activated license on it, I figured I'd call Microsoft tech support to have the license deactivated so that I can complete the setup. Well, guess what? That's a support call you have to pay for! If you have XP or you are dealing with MS Terminal Services licensing, those are no problem, but a server key is going to cost you to deactivate. A whopping $275... when the OS itself cost me $890 from Dell! And just to get to the person who kept asking for my credit card, it took 1 hour and 20 minutes, 5 transfers and one dropped call! I have to say that this is really REALLY annoying to have to pay such a high cost for such a trivial thing. Altohugh I think this should cost something, as someone at MS actually have to perform a task, $275 is about $250 more than I would like to pay. Ok, now I'll see if my boss can pony up some money. -= Piffer =-"
Businesses

Valve Pens In-Game Ad Deal for Counter-Strike 113

Posted by Zonk from the eat-fresh dept.
Making the (now fondly remembered) Subway Counter-Strike ads a reality, Valve has inked a deal with the content pusher IGA. An article at GamesIndustry states that this may be the biggest in-game ad deal ever, as this still insanely popular title racks up something like '5 billion player-minutes each month' From the article: "'As the world's premier online action game, Counter-Strike's player minutes exceed its closest competitor by more than 100 per cent,' said Doug Lombardi, marketing director for Valve. 'Additionally, Counter-Strike rivals many of the current top ten watched shows on American televisions. For instance, a top ranked, one hour, weekly program garners 20 million viewers and results in approximately 4.8 billion viewer minutes per month. Conversely, Counter-Strike generates over 5 billion player minutes in the same period of time. And, nobody fast-forwards through any part of Counter-Strike,' added Lombardi."
Security

Submission + - Sysadmin 'tried to boobytrap' drug firm database

Submitted by
corbettw
corbettw writes: "According to El Reg, a sysadmin at a drug company set a booby trap on the company's servers when he thought they were going to lay him off. He survived the round(s) of layoffs, but due to shoddy programming his trap never got sprung. He tried setting it off again, but the trap was found before he could put his dastardly plan into action. If he had succeeded, it would have impacted some 70 servers, and potentially millions of records of data on drug testing, including possibly private information on volunteers. The article is unclear on what the long term effect would have been, however. He now faces charges of fraud and computer hacking in Federal court in New Jersey."

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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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