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Software

How Do You Deal With Pirated Programs At Work? 958

Posted by Soulskill from the make-them-walk-the-plank dept.
LoneAdminOK writes "I started working for a small company in the middle of January as their IT Manager. I am the first actual 'IT Guy' that they have had; before me it was someone that performed another job within the company and just handled the IT on the side. The problem that I am running into is that most of the software I am finding on the network and on people's computers isn't owned by the company. The person before me would just get it from 'somewhere' and install it on the computers as needed. This is putting me in a bad position when I have to reinstall the program or find it to install on someone else's computer. Often, I am telling people that we don't have it or we have to buy another license, and they get mad at me because the other guy said that we had it. I can't even tell where the versions of Windows Server that they are running came from. The only one I know is legit is the one that is installed on an HP server with the OEM sticker on it. How have any of you handled a situation like this? I don't install 'borrowed programs' in a production environment because I know that if the BSA got wind of this, it would all fall on me when they stormed in."
Space

Colliding Galaxies Reveal Colossal Black Holes 134

Posted by CmdrTaco from the duck-and-cover dept.
Matt_dk writes "New observations made with the Submillimeter Array of telescopes in Hawaii suggest that black holes — thought to exist in many, if not all, galaxies — were common even in the early Universe, when galaxies were just beginning to form. Astronomers have found two very different galaxies in the distant Universe, both with colossal black holes at their hearts, involved in a spectacular collision."

Comment Ubuntu 8.10 and transparent encryption (Score 1) 940

by halfelven (#25329797) Attached to: Tips For Taking Your Laptop Into and Out of the US?

When dealing with the Almighty Government, encryption is not the solution. Stop believing in this myth, they can find their way into your crypt vault, one way or another, if they really want to. And no, cracking the encryption is not their only tool.

With that being said, I am going to install Ubuntu 8.10 on my laptop and all my workstations as soon as it's released at the end of October. It has a very neat feature - it allows you to create a Private folder which is encrypted. You can then move things such as your Firefox files into that folder, and symlink them to the original location. Anything you move into Private gets encrypted. Very nice.

Again, this is not to "protect" my data against Three Letter Agencies, but to prevent snooping from nosy sysadmins at work, to prevent data theft if my laptop gets stolen, etc. It's not perfect, there are ways around it, but it's better than nothing.

As far as the Three Letter Agencies are concerned, I have nothing to hide. That's probably the best policy.
Communications

Alternative Uses For an Old Satellite Dish? 552

Posted by kdawson from the birdbath-for-condors dept.
ya really writes "My family has one of those BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes) sitting in their back yard still. The other day they asked me if I would take it apart for them. Aside from simply recycling it, I was wondering if there are any alternatives for its use. It was one of the last made before DirectTV and Dish took over satellite broadcasting, and even has a digital receiver. I'd say it was made around 1996."
Medicine

Wikipedia To Host Human Gene Repository 73

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hope-i-can-anonymously-edit-it dept.
schliz writes "US scientists are developing a 'Gene Wiki' with the aim of fostering a flexible, organic archive of human genetic information. The project exists within Wikipedia, and is expected to speed up the process of deciphering genome sequences."
Government

Japan Imposes "Fine On Fat" 1271

Posted by timothy from the fat-man-vs.-the-state dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A recently-introduced law in Japan requires all businesses to have mandatory obesity checks (video link) for all their employees and employees' family members over the age of 40, CNN reports. If the employee or family member is deemed obese, and does not lose the extra fat soon, their employer faces large fines. The legislated upper limit for the waistline is 33.5" for men, and 35.5" for women. Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government? By comparison, the average waistline in America in 2005 was 39 inches for men, 37 inches for women."
The Courts

Legal Trouble For Multiple ISPs 303

Posted by Soulskill from the what-goes-around dept.
Ars Technica reports that Comcast has been hit with three new class-action lawsuits due to the company's traffic-shaping practices. "The lawsuits ... ask that Comcast be barred from continuing to violate various state laws, in addition to unspecified damages." Meanwhile, members of the US House Telecommunications Subcommittee have asked Charter Communications' president to stop testing a program which uses Deep Packet Inspection to track the habits of its customers. A number of privacy groups have voiced their support (PDF). As if that weren't enough, it seems the City of Los Angeles is suing Time Warner for fraud and deceptive business practices. The Daily News notes, "... the City Attorney is seeking $2,500 in civil penalties for each violation of the Unfair Competition law as well as an additional $2,500 civil penalty for each violation described in the complaint perpetrated against one or more senior citizens or disabled persons."
Earth

Building a Miniature Magnetic Earth 150

Posted by CmdrTaco from the don't-bring-your-laptop-near-there dept.
Doofus writes "There was an interesting story on NPR this morning about a geophysicist who has constructed a miniature earth to model the earth's dynamo effects. Dan Lathrop, a geophysicist at the University of Maryland, has constructed a 10-foot diameter stainless steel sphere. He intends to fill the sphere with molten sodium and spin the sphere to examine the propensity for the system to generate its own magnetic field. The article includes both video, in which Lathrop spins up the sphere, and audio, including the conversion of magnetic wave functions in prior experiments into audible sound: literally the music of the spheres."
Media

Toshiba Going After Blu-ray? 532

Posted by CmdrTaco from the deja-what-now dept.
Swifty Nifty has an adventure submitted a link to a story about Toshiba's new High Def Disc Format. No, I'm not kidding — apparently Blu-ray has a new contender. This seems to be intended as a DVD backwards-compatible format, but there's not a lot of detail.
Communications

Comcast Proposes Self Regulation and P2P Bill of Rights 343

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-conflict-of-interests-here dept.
Torodung writes "In a recent move, Comcast has proposed a 'P2P Bill of Rights,' joining the ranks of every great monopoly when threatened by government regulation for alleged misbehavior. They have instead proposed comprehensive industry self-regulation and cooperation with major P2P software vendors as a lesser evil: 'Comcast is looking to further position itself as proactively — and responsibly — addressing the issue of managing peer-to-peer traffic that traverses its network, announcing Tuesday it will lead an industry-wide effort to create a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" for users and Internet service providers.'"
The Gimp

First Looks at The Gimp 2.5 446

Posted by CmdrTaco from the like-a-fine-wine dept.
desmondhaynes writes "The GIMP team announced today the first release from the 2.5 development series. It is true that this version is unstable, but a little bird told me to give it a try and see what's it capable of. First of all, let me tell you that its interface is quite redesigned and I think that some users will have problems adjusting with it, but that's just my two cents. On the other hand, version 2.5.0 of The GIMP includes some hot new features, like the integration of GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) which will finally get support for higher color depths, more colorspaces and eventually non-destructive editing."
The Media

IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth 619

Posted by CmdrTaco from the also-roswell-and-jfk-and-high-fructose-corn-syrup dept.
buzzardsbay writes "For the past few years, we've heard a number of analysts and high-profile IT industry executives, Bill Gates and Craig Barrett among them, promoting the idea that there's an ever-present shortage of skilled IT workers to fill the industry's demand. But now there's growing evidence suggesting the "shortage" is simply a self-serving myth. "It seems like every three years you've got one group or another saying, the world is going to come to an end there is going to be a shortage and so on," says Vivek Wadhwa, a professor for Duke University's Master of Engineering Management Program and a former technology CEO himself. "This whole concept of shortages is bogus, it shows a lack of understanding of the labor pool in the USA.""
Education

Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution 1049

Posted by Zonk from the legislating-science-is-a-challenge dept.
Helical writes "In an attempt to defy the newly approved state science standards, Florida Senator Rhonda Storms has proposed a bill that would allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution. Her bill states that 'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' The bill's main focus is on protecting teachers who want to adopt alternative teaching plans from sanction, and to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."
Democrats

Obama Announces for President, Boosts Broadband 846

Posted by kdawson from the ethanol-and-fat-pipes-for-all dept.
Arlen writes "As many as 17,000 people (according to police estimates) watched Senator Barack Obama officially announce his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois today. He mentioned several things that will interest readers of Slashdot. The Senator said he wanted to free America from 'the tyranny of oil' and went on to promote alternative energy sources such as ethanol — a popular stance in the Midwest where he announced, because of all the corn farmers. He also talked about using science and technology to help those with chronic diseases, which is likely to have been an allusion to his staunch support for stem cell research. Perhaps most of interest to readers here is the following statement halfway through Obama's speech: 'Let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America. We can do that.' Like nearly everything in his speech, this was met with robust applause from the crowd. You can watch a video of the entire speech at Obama's website."

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