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Comment Re:Correct User Access (Score 1) 932

by jks (#30085332) Attached to: Easing the Job of Family Tech Support?

But then you get a phone call every time they do want to install something. Better is to install sysresccd on a USB hard drive, configure the system just that once the way the users want it and use partimage to store an image of the computer's hard drive on the USB drive. When they get to trouble, restore the image and you've got a working system again - you could even set up a script to do this. In case of security updates, you of course need to restore the image, do the installation and create a new image, but this is much easier than hunting down all the spyware and whatever garbage the users have installed on the computer.
Google

Submission + - Gmail users howl over Halloween outage (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Gmail has been completely down for a large number of users (including me) for 36 hours straight, though Google refuses to acknowledge any problem. I linked to an early article in the Register about this, which reports that service is down even for many users who paid for the $50 Premier service, and that Google isn't answering its tech support line (which is advertised as being 24/7). Here's a support forum

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=0344ccd8b53d5cd3&hl=en&fid=0344ccd8b53d5cd3000477486340a663

where users from all over (incl. Denmark, Israel, South Africa) are reporting the problem and commiserating. No one from Google seems to be listening — indeed, Google's Apps Status Dashboard

http://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en

still reports "No Issues" with Gmail.

Scott Aaronson, MIT CSAIL
(temporary email address I created: ghh1729@gmail.com
my blog entry about this: http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=428)
Education

Harvard Faculty Adopts Open-Access Requirement 147

Posted by CmdrTaco from the step-in-the-up-direction dept.
Vooch writes "Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy this evening that requires faculty members to allow the university to make their scholarly articles available free online." I may not be smart enough to go to college, but at least I can pretend to have a Harvard eduction. I don't think that will be enough to get a gig as a Simpsons writer.
United States

Submission + - GOP Preparing to Steal the 2008 Election (newyorker.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker reports that Californians vote next year on a radical change to the allotment of their state's electoral college votes. Republican sponsors call themselves Californians for Equal Representation, but if their measure passes, it's more likely than ever that a Republican will win the Presidency without winning the popular vote.
Privacy

Submission + - Ruling by Secret US Court Allegedly Reduces Spying

Submitted by conspirator57
conspirator57 writes: TFA http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-spying2aug02,0,5813563.story?coll=la-home-cente r states that the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (a court that no citizen can establish standing to appear before) has ruled against Executive requests for so-called "basket warrants" as violating the 4th amendment to the Constitution, namely that such warrants do not meet the clearly expressed criteria in the second half of the amendment. To accomplish this they must have looked startlingly like British general warrants which were the original motivation for the 4th amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_(law) for more.

TFA is very sympathetic to the Executive branch, going on to depict ways in which we're all less safe because of this ruling. Personally, I feel safer with more rulings like this one. Just wish the process were a bit more transparent.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Biotech

Submission + - Chernobyl Mushrooms Feeding on Radiation

Submitted by cowtamer
cowtamer writes: According to a National Geographic Article certain fungi can use ionizing radiation to perform "radiosynthesis" using the pigment melanin (the same one in our skin that protects us from UV radiation). It is speculated that this might be useful on long space voyages where energy from the Sun is not readily available.
United States

Submission + - Forensics Expert says Al-Qaeda Images Altered

Submitted by WerewolfOfVulcan
WerewolfOfVulcan writes: Wired reports that researcher Neal Krawetz revealed some veeeeeery interesting things about the Al-Qaeda images that our government loves to show off.

From the article: "Krawetz was also able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward. In the second picture above showing the results of the error level analysis, the light clusters on the image indicate areas of the image that were added or changed. The subtitles and logos in the upper right and lower left corners (IntelCenter is an organization that monitors terrorist activity and As-Sahab is the video production branch of al Qaeda) were all added at the same time, while the banner writing was added at a different time, likely around the same time that al-Zawahiri was added, Krawetz says." Why would Al-Qaeda add an IntelCenter logo to their video? Why would IntelCenter add an Al-Qaeda logo? Methinks we have bigger fish to fry than Gonzo and his fired attorneys... }:-) The article contains links to Krawetz's presentation and the source code he used to analyze the photos.
Microsoft

Submission + - U.S. DOT ban on Vista

Submitted by Fozzyuw
Fozzyuw writes: My company has just sent out a memo stating that no computers are allowed to be purchased or upgraded to Windows Vista, Office 2007, or Internet Explorer. While being my companies web developer, I've upgraded to IE7 some time ago, but only after Multiple IE allowed me to easily install IE6.

This policy memo was initialed due to the recent action by the U.S. Department of Transpertation placing a ban on these new Microsoft Products stating...

"there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."


I think it makes sense for my company to do this. As the old saying goes "If it's not broke, don't fix it". So, are there other companies out there that are enacting a similar kind of policy?
Music

Submission + - HowTo: Save Internet Radio!

Submitted by erktrek
erktrek writes: One of the internet radio sites I listen to had this link to an online petition . In addition if you are feeling particularly perky you can write your Representative directly and tell him or her how you feel about this clusterf___. You must be a US citizen of course..

Here is the text from the petition:

To: Internet Radio Listeners

To my Congressional representatives, and to Congress as a whole,

As a fan of Internet radio, I was alarmed to learn that music royalty rates were recently determined by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which, if enacted, would certainly silence most or all of my favorite online listening services. For most webcasters, this royalty rate represents more than 100% of their total revenues!

The shuttering of the webcasting industry would be a loss for not only independent business owners, but also for musical artists, for copyright owners, and for listeners like me who enjoy the wide variety of choices available via Internet radio.

I respectfully request that Congress look into this matter and initiate action to prevent it. As the CRB rate decision is retroactive to January 1, 2006, please understand that time is of the essence — as the immediate impact of this decision could silence many free Internet radio stations forever.

Sincerely, The Undersigned

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