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Portables

A "Bill of Lights" to Restrict LEDs on Gadgets? 729

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the palm-flower dept.
PetManimal writes "Mike Elgan has had it with useless lights on gadgets and computers. He singles out the Palm Treo and the Dell XPS gaming laptops as being particularly bad with the use of unnecessary lights, and also cites the plethora of LEDs on desktop PCs and peripherals. 'My PC and other computing equipment make my office look like a jet cockpit. I have two LCD monitors, each of which has two indicator lights that flash even when the PC is turned off. The attached sound control has a light on it. My keyboard has multiple lights. The power cord has lights, the printer has lights, and the power button is illuminated. My cable modem and Linksys router flash like crazy all the time. Together, these useless lights create a visual cacophony of blinking, multicolored lights that make me feel like I'm taking part in a NASA stress test for astronaut candidates.' Elgan calls on manufacturers to respect his 'Gadget Bill of Lights' to restrict the use of nag lights and allow users to turn them off. He also says the industry should pay more attention to industrial design when creating new products."
Data Storage

Submission + - Simple file naming protocol?

Submitted by zombieelvis
zombieelvis writes: I've recently starting working for a medium sized post-graduate school that is undergoing a HUGE growth spurt. With these new changes, our departments are starting to share files with one another. However, as we have no protocol for naming these files, we have files being duplicated, deleted, and lost. The problem is getting worse each day and I've been asked to come up with a solution. What type of system do you use to name your word/powerpoint/excel files? What would you recommend if you were in my shoes?
Moon

NASA's New Mission to the Moon 283

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the to-the-moon-alice dept.
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics has a new, in-depth preview of NASA's Orion spacecraft, tracking the complex challenges facing the engineers of the CEV (which NASA chief Michael Griffin called 'Apollo on steroids') as America shifts its focus away from the Space Shuttle and back toward returning to the moon by 2020. After yesterday's long op-ed in the New York Times concerning NASA's about-face, Popular Mechanic's interview with Buzz Aldrin and podcast with Transterrestrial.com's Rand Simberg raise perhaps the most pressing questions here: Is it worth going back to the lunar surface? And will we actually stay there?"
Linux Business

Submission + - Which Embedded Linux Distribution?

Submitted by Abhikhurana
Abhikhurana writes: I work for a company which designs a variety of video surveillance devices (such as MPEG4 video servers). Traditionally, these products have been based on proprietory OSs such as Nucleus and VxWorks. Now we are redesigning a few of our products and I am trying to convince my company to go down the Linux route. Understandably, our management is quite sceptical about that and so I was asked by our CTO to recommend a few RTOSs which have mature Networking stacks and which work well on ARM platform. I know that there are many embedded linux based distributions out there. There are commerical ones such as Montavista, LynuxWorks, free ones such as uclinux, muLinux and some Linux like distros such as Ecos, but which is the most stable and best community supported embedded Linux distribution out there?
Security

Submission + - Should security firms sandbox their executives?

Submitted by
Giorgio Maone
Giorgio Maone writes: "Brian Krebs of the Security Fix Washington Post blog is attending the RSA Conference 2007 in San Francisco and noticed that "the kiosks of Microsoft Windows XP machines set up for attendees to freely access e-mail were running under the all-powerful Administrator account". More amusing, he's been watching executives from the major security firms which happily used those insecure Windows boxes to check their messages or even access their remote desktops. "Had I spent a bit more than 10 seconds at the terminals", he says, "I could have downloaded software that would let me steal user names and passwords from important companies in the information security community". Brrrr..."
Announcements

Submission + - Virgin's new linux based flight entertainment

Submitted by
Udi Falkson
Udi Falkson writes: "Red, the Virgin America In-Flight Entertainment system will provide:
  • 9 inch integrated touch screens at every seat
  • Full QWERTY keyboard/game controller to interact with all applications
  • Live TV provided by Dish Network
  • The world's only In Flight Program guide (IPG) for live television
  • Over 25 Hollywood Pay-per-view movies available completely on-demand
  • Email/SMS/instant messaging/chat rooms, providing an airborne social network
  • An audio experience with over 3,000 mp3 tracks — allowing guests to customize their playlists — as well as 20 radio channels.
  • Open source video games (and a future invitation for savvy linux game developers to participate in Red)
  • All aircraft are equipped with wireless access points and are broadband-ready
  • Ability to order food when you want it directly from your seat, and pay by credit card
They have a quicktime video and more information and you can see the same video with flash on Youtube."

Comment How about choice (Score 1) 325

by rRaminrodt (#17674322) Attached to: Engineering School Grads - Tradesmen or Thinkers?
How about letting some schools do it one way and other schools can do it the other way. There could even be schools that exist somewhere in between on the same spectrum. Then, individuals can choose whatever they think is the most appropriate for them when deciding where to study.

Nah. Lets just force everybody to do it the same way. ;-)

Venus's Surface May Be 1 Billion Years Old 107

Posted by kdawson from the sister-planet dept.
dptalia writes, "For a while scientists have believed that Venus's surface is fairly young, having recently been covered by lava 1 to 3 kilometers deep. However, more study into photos sent back by Magellan seems to show that the cataclysmic volcano theory is wrong. Now scientists are postulating that Venus's surface may be a billion years old and could be probed to determine the history of the planet."

IE7 Released As High-Priority Update 438

Posted by kdawson from the meet-the-new-boss dept.
jimbojw writes, "Internet Explorer 7 was finally released this morning and is available via automatic update or download from Microsoft." And an anonymous reader notes stats on IE7 and FF2 downloads, adding: "Looks like FF2 is already outnumbering FF 1.5, while IE7 is having a hard time to find followers. Will today's release as a high-priority, force-fed update fix this issue?" The sans.org stats site will be updated throughout the day, so perhaps we'll get an indication.
User Journal

Journal Journal: /. Home of the random political non sequitur

Journal by rRaminrodt

Now In Articles!

Am I the only person who reads this site thats sick of the constant political crap? I must be... between inflamatory sigs, jokes that aren't really funny, and the new political section, I'm really tired of the same stuff constantly reguritated here.
User Journal

Journal Journal: grrrrr, stupid moderators

Journal by rRaminrodt

Well, I got a troll mod on my post today... I guess thats what I get for trying to make a joke. I know I don't have a great sense of humor but I thought I was being silly enough for it to be obious... I think this is why I dont post very much on the internet.

Eh, I feel better now thats off my chest. That and if anyone looks at my posting history they might also relise I was trying to be funny and I mustn't have fulled it off. Blech

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