18337420
submission
theodp writes:
It's I-told-you-so time for Slashdot commenter frnic, who smelled a crime last March after reading that New York City had dropped $722 million on its still-under-development CityTime Attendance System. Nine months later, US Attorney Preet Bharara charged "four consultants to the New York City Office of Payroll Administration...for operating a fraudulent scheme that led to the misappropriation of more than $80 million in New York City funds allocated for an information technology project known as 'CityTime.'" Three of the four consultants were also charged — along with a consultant's wife and mother — with using a network of friends-and-family shell corporations to launder the proceeds of the fraud. Dept. of Investigations Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn called it a shame that 'supposed experts hired and paid well to protect the city's interests were exposed as the fox guarding the hen house.'
18334972
submission
ReeceTarbert writes:
If you are curious about FreeBSD but don't have the time or the resources to install it and customize it, VirtualBSD might be right for you: it's a VMware appliance based on FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE that comes with the Xfce 4.6 Desktop Environment and some of the most common applications so it can be used right out of the box. The best part? This is a genuine FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE, which means you can either stick to the desktop or dig around in the knowledge that you are dealing with The Real Thing. If the screenshots whet your appetite why don't you got to the download page and grab the torrent file right away?
18334420
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
Solar maximum is supposed to be occurring, and everything from satellite communications, to your toaster, or radio could be affected. The only problem is that this just isn't happening, and NASA continues to revise down the original prediction. In fact the new prediction for Solar Cycle 24 is a lot smaller and now is pegged at almost 40% of what was predicted. Recently, two scientists at the National Solar Observatory have followed the lead of a prominent Russian scientist, who forecast a dearth of sunspots, and subsequent cooling of Earth for the next several cycles almost five years ago. With Britain currently experiencing the coldest winter in over 300 years, and no new sunspots for the last week, are we heading for a Dalton Minimum, or worse still, yet another Maunder?
18332398
submission
mikejuk writes:
Microsoft Research has used F# and AI to implement a consumer-quality game of Go — arguably the most difficult two-person game to implement.
They have used an interesting approach to the problem of playing the game which is a pragmatic cross between tree search with pruning and machine learning
to spot moves with a "good shape". The whole lot has been packaged into an XNA based 3D story based game.
18328256
submission
ladytwitter writes:
Learn how to use your free time and make money with Twitter.
18014894
submission
letsurock writes:
Ants capability to find the shortest route find the exit of maze with in an hour and to find the second shortest route when the first path was obstructed inspires the researcher for future computation.Link to Original Source
17983038
submission
Devart writes:
Extended Model Design and Runtime Capabilities in LINQ to SQL Compatible ORM Solution from Devart
New version of LINQ to SQL compatible ORM solution with extended functionality and advanced Model-First support and Update model from database functionality.
Devart is glad to announce the release of LinqConnect 2.00, the new version of LINQ to SQL compatible ORM solution with extended functionality and enhanced own visual model designer – Entity Developer.
LinqConnect supports SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. It is developed closely to the Microsoft LINQ to SQL technology, while extending its functionality, thus allowing LINQ to SQL developer to easily get started with LinqConnect. In addition to LINQ to SQL features, LinqConnect provides its own advanced functionality.
LinqConnect continues to improve, and now in version 2.00 it has many new features:
Batch Updates
Now LinqConnect can execute DML statements in batches on SubmitChanges call, which improves performance of update operations.
Table Per Type inheritance
New kind of inheritance hierarchy — Table per Type is supported now in addition to Table Per Hierarchy support.
ASP.NET Dynamic Data
New templates for ASP.NET Dynamic Data projects are now included into LinqConnect package. This allows you to create ASP.NET Dynamic Data applications, using LinqConnect.
PLINQ
LinqConnect 2.00 supports Parallel LINQ, which offers performance improvements for your applications, using LinqConnect.
Visual Studio Debugger Visualizer for DataQuery objects
Now you can view SQL code, generated for your LINQ queries, while debugging your application. Debugger visualizer highlights SQL syntax of your query for better readability.
The important enhancement in LinqConnect 2.00 is the upgraded model designer – Entity Developer, that delivers advanced Model First support and Update model from database functionality:
Model-First
Model-First approach implementation in Entity Developer offers automatic synchronization of mapping and storage part with the conceptual part of the model and easy to use wizards for synchronizing database with the model.
Synchronizing Database with the Model
Entity Developer offers you two options for creating database based on your model. You may either generate a create script, that creates a new database, or use Update to Database Wizard that synchronizes an existing database with the model. This wizard makes only necessary changes to the database and retain the data if possible. Even changes inside entity are detected and resulted in ALTER statements, the table doesn't need to be dropped and created again. The wizard displays the tree of the changed objects and their changes, allowing you to choose which database objects need to be synchronized with the model, specify the renamed objects, etc.
Mapping Synchronization
When automatic mapping synchronization is enabled, changes to the conceptual model are automatically applied to its mapping and storage part. For example, when you add a class to the conceptual part, a corresponding table is created in the storage part, and the class is automatically mapped to this table. Even the most complex conceptual part changes are supported — complex types, many-to-many associations, complex hierarchies. All these changes can be automatically reflected in the storage part. However you may make manual changes to the storage part, and they will be preserved when editing conceptual part.
Updating Model from Database
Update From Database Wizard allows synchronizing your model with the database for Entity Framework and LinqConnect in a fast and convenient way. Unlike standard Visual Studio Update Wizard, Entity Developer Update From Database Wizard tries to preserve manual changes to the model where possible. The wizard detects all the database changes that can affect the model, e.g. created and deleted tables and views, their columns and foreign keys, column datatype changes, created and deleted stored procedures and functions, changes to their parameters etc.
Pricing and Availability
A Single license costs $249.95. To learn more about LinqConnect 2.00 please visit the Devart site: www.devart.com/linqconnect/
Please, feel free to download and try LinqConnect 2.00 from http://www.devart.com/linqconnect/download.html
Users are welcome to write any comments and suggestions about 2.00 on its support page — http://www.devart.com/linqconnect/support.html
About Devart
Devart is a software development company with 11 years of experience on the software market and over 20 thousands of devoted users.
We specialize in providing comprehensive development and management tools as well as native connectivity solutions for the most popular databases, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, InterBase, Firebird, and SQLite.
For additional information about Devart, visit www.devart.com/company/
17858656
submission
theodp writes:
Next week is Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), which 'seeks to raise public awareness of the critical role computer science education has in preparing students for 21st Century careers and the transformative role computing plays in today's society.' But if you're interested in getting kids excited about a career in computers, do them a favor and have them skip the dry, politically correct Welcome Students section of the CSEdWeek official website and instead have them read this entry on AnnMaria's Blog, in which 50-something statistician/educator/entrepreneur Dr. AnnMaria De Mars offers a more passionate pitch for a Life in Computing: 'I have a truly great life and it revolves around computers. I spend most of my working hours sitting in front of a computer doing things I could never have imagined thirty years ago...I still make more in an hour now than I used to in a week. I get paid this because whether you want it using Linux or Windows or on a Mac, I can get it done ...Many of the people I knew growing up ended in jail, on welfare or dead before they got to my age. I didn't take an eight-month course at some institute — I spent 40 hours or more in front of a computer for decades of my life and it paid off. And I was HAPPY doing it...If you're really, really good with computers, it doesn't matter if you are male, female, black, white, over fifty, an immigrant, overweight, shy, gay, once slept with the dean's wife or a hundred other things. You'll have work. That doesn't mean you won't have to sometimes deal with idiots, or get laid off or quit, get fired for sleeping with the dean's wife or have to learn a new programming language or operating system because the one you knew is no longer in demand.' Not your father's Career Day speech, but it does the job. So, how would you make the case for a life in computing?
17820438
submission
figlet writes:
The giant of course management software, Blackboard (if you are at a university or college, likely this is what is being used for online course management) just lost a software patent battle (6988138) with one of its smaller rivals, Desire2Learn. While a good thing in general, this is particularly good for a number of Open Source course management systems, like Moodle, Sakai, OLAT, etc who now don't have to worry about software patent trolls (or at least not this patent) and can focus on making their particular software better.
Previously on slashdot:
— 2009 Blackboard Patent Invalidated By Appellate Court
— 2008 Blackboard Wins Patent Suit Against Desire2Learn
— 2007 Blackboard's "Pledge" Not to Sue Open Source Software
Historical links:
— 2009 Appellate Court Overturns Blackboard Patent; Blackboard To Press On
— 2007 Patent Office Orders Re-Examination of Blackboard Patent
— 2006 US Patent Office Strikes Again: Awards Broad Patent to Blackboard
17734810
submission
rtfa-troll writes:
Even with the pre-Christmas buying rush, the Register writes that Microsoft is already desperately offering a new buy one get one free offers similar to the ones they gave for the KIN.. According to the register article, "Windows Phone 7 devices can't even manage two per cent of the fortnight's sales.". These aren't official Microsoft figures, they come from online shopping sites, but since Microsoft official sales figures seem subject to manipulation (also discussed on /.) this is may be one of the better guesses we will get at the success of Windows 7 until well into next year. Also this strongly backs up other reports of deeply disappointing phone sales. Even Microsoft supporters have been wondering for a while whether it's time for Ballmer to go? If the sales reports are true then it looks like he may be pushed before he jumps.
17730040
submission
Zmee writes:
I am looking to build a 2D application for personal use and I will need to use a canvas to paint custom objects. I am trying to determine what foundation to use and have not located a good side-by-side comparison of the various flavors. For reference, I need the final application to work in Windows; Linux is preferred, but not required. I have looked at WPF, Qt, OpenGL, Tcl/Tk, Java's AWT, and others. I have little preference as to the language itself, but each of the tutorials appear to require significant time investment. As such, I am looking to see what the community uses and what seems to work for people prior to making that investment.
17729262
submission
theflea912 writes:
It's not only the Apple store that has "submission problems". The KIK Messaging app has brought BBM functionality (knowing when somebody is responding, knowing if they even read your message, etc) to all of the major mobile platforms. It quickly was picked up, getting to 1 million registrations just 15 days after the release of the app, now currently at 2.5 million users. However, on November 24, RIM withdrew KIK Messenger from App World. But that wasn't enough — they revoked the push functionality and even went as far as disabling the SDK codes. This not only seems like a blatant attempt to stifle innovation, but just downright abusive, anti-competitive practices.
http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/11/rim-blackberry-kik/
17666138
submission
Velcroman1 writes:
Dog owners, this will confirm what you always thought. And cat owners, prepare to extend your claws: scientists at Oxford University claim canines are smarter than felines. And the reason, according to the researchers, is that dogs are more social animals and therefore have bigger brains than the more solitary-inclined cats. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, charted the evolutionary history of various mammals’ brains over 60 million years and found a link between the size of an animal’s brain in relation to its body and how socially active it was.
