Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Sci-Fi

Submission + - SF Author Jack Williamson, 1908-2006

Submitted by
FredKiesche
FredKiesche writes: "Jack Williamson, a pioneering science fiction author who invented the term "terraforming", passed away today. Stephen Haffner, of Haffner Press, just sent me this e-mail:

Folks:

Betty Williamson has sent a message today to friends and relatives that Jack Williamson has passed away.

Betty writes:

Hello dear friends and family,

This is to let you know that our beloved Jack Williamson died this afternoon at 3:22 p.m. He was in his study, surrounded by people he loved who loved him. It could not have been better.

Jack consented to a memorial service because I told him there were a lot of people who would want to get together to share wonderful memories. We will let all of you know when that is set.

Thank you for your friendship and love to Jack. He will be missed by all of us, but he was very ready to die. He has told me many, many times, "I have lived a wonderful life and I will die with no regrets."

***

Jack was wonderfully kind and generous to me since I began publishing books of his works in 1998, and I will miss him and his geniality more than I can express.

Stephen Haffner"
Novell

Submission + - Novell's Mono 1.2 supports WinForms

Submitted by smbarbour
smbarbour writes: The Mono project (the open-source .NET compatibility library acquired by Novell when Ximian was purchased) has released version 1.2 which now includes support for WinForms. For a more detailed summary, please see the Ars Technica article regarding this.

Also, the Mono project supports Visual Basic.NET, so developers that use VB.NET now have the possibility of directly porting applications to Linux.
Announcements

Submission + - VMware reveals new product features at VMworld

Submitted by
Nirav Mehta
Nirav Mehta writes: "VMworld 2006 this week, the biggest yet with over 7,000 attendees, was virtualisation market leader VMware's third annual convention. Although product news from VMware was not as thick on the ground as previous years, we managed to scoop up some snippets, including the feature set from the next version of Workstation, aimed at test and development environments, and ACE 2.0. http://www.techworld.com/opsys/features/index.cfm? featureid=2957"
Novell

Submission + - Novell release FAQ on Novell/Microsof agreement

Submitted by
mcgrof
mcgrof writes: "If you are like me, you were probably huffing and puffing about the new Novell/Microsoft deal, wondering "what the heck were they thinking!?". Novell has just released an FAQ on the Novell-Microsoft agreement which clears the most common concerns they've received over the last week. Essentially, no they don't violate the GPL, no there was no law suit that led up to this, and no its not the deal is not about patent infringements on GPL software. Interestingly the deal is about protecting Microsoft from suing Novell's customers from using Novell's software and violating patents. The same goes the other way around. There are more questions answered so go check it out if you want more."
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft releases Windows Vista security guide

Submitted by
[Geeks Are Sexy]
[Geeks Are Sexy] writes: "Earlier this week, Microsoft has published the first version of its Windows Vista Security Guide. Here's an excerpt from the intro of the guide itself: "In addition to the solutions that the Windows Vista Security Guide prescribes, the guide includes tools, step-by-step procedures, recommendations, and processes that significantly streamline the deployment process. Not only does the guide provide you with effective security setting guidance, it also provides a reproducible method that you can use to apply the guidance to both test and production environments.""
United States

Submission + - Use Google Maps to Track 10,000 US Nuclear Weapon

Submitted by
Jon Coifman
Jon Coifman writes: "Nuclear physicists at the Natural Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org) have posted an interactive Google Earth map tracking the location of more than 10,000 nuclear weapons still in the US arsenal. You can zoom in, and fly from one to another. NONE of these locations is a secret. What's new is the accounting, and the cool visuals. The map was done in conjunction with an article in the new Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn= nd06norris The URL for the release on the map and article is here: http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/061109.asp Direct link to the map is here: http://www.nrdc.org/media/docs/061109.kmz (But you need to load Google Earth on your machine first.)"
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA's outrageous fines questioned in court

Submitted by Mika
Mika writes: arlier this year, a victim of a RIAA lawsuit questioned how constitutional the organisation's $750 per-song-uploaded claim was. A judge has now ruled that this is worth looking into and will be included in the case. The defendants provided a research paper and substantial evidence that questioned the legality of the RIAA's unreasonably large fines to back up their case.
Privacy

Submission + - Dilemma - do I tell an ISP about a privacy issue?

Submitted by
tttonyyy
tttonyyy writes: "Here's my dilemma. An ISP I was with nearly a decade ago still allows me to pick up pop3 mail from my old account. Recently it has come to my attention that they've got a new subscriber with the same name as myself, and given him my old e-mail address.

Either the pop3 server is allowing access to the mailbox with two different passwords (anyone here care to explain how that could happen?) or they issued the new subscriber with my old pop3 password, because I can still pick up my e-mail.

This is bad for many reasons — I can read his e-mail without him knowing. I can also potentially request passwords to any site he subscribes to online.

The reason I've not got straight on the phone to the ISP is simple — he can do the same with old accounts I've forgotten about. And, in fact, he has done, upon discovering that Amazon/MSN passport won't let him register with his email address because an account already existed. Fortunately no credit card details were on file at Amazon, not that they would still be valid if they were. I'd quite like to lurk in case some others I've forgotten about turn up.

I should point out here that the UK-based ISP in question is big, with nearly three million subscribers — so this must be happening to other people without them knowing. How many people discard their old ISP supplied e-mail addresses without thinking about them being re-issued? This is surely a very good reason to buy and maintain your own domain and hosting, as I do now.

Do I tell the ISP? Do I tell the new subscriber? Would I get into trouble for accessing my old pop3 account?

So, dear slashdotters, any advice would be greatly appreciated!"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Device disables car when payments are missed

Submitted by zero_offset
zero_offset writes: A device called On Time, designed and sold by Payment Protection Systems, is designed to disable a car's ignition system if the buyer misses the loan payment due-date. Several days leading up to the due-date, numeric indicators light up to warn the driver that the deadline is approaching. The company also offers a GPS-locator option. Apparently the On Time device has been in production since 1999. It is primarily marketed to used car dealerships who cater to higher-credit-risk buyers. The device has appeared in the news several times in the past year (for example, stories in Billings Gazette, St. Petersburg Times, and The Arizona Republic), suggesting its popularity with dealers is on the rise. The part which caught my attention was this: despite the relative simplicity of vehicle ignition systems, the PPS website claims that removal of the device is "virtually impossible," but other than citing a mysterious wireless signal sent from an "untraceable location" there is no further explanation of how it actually works.

(p.s. Slashdot really needs an "Automotive" section or topic.)

Slashdot Top Deals

"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein

Close