kognate - Slashdot User

Submission + - Top Reasons Why Google Enterprise Apps Will Fail

Submitted by

seanj

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @02:50AM

seanj writes: "OSWeekly gives a number of reasons why Google will probably fail with its enterprise applications. "To Google fans, I can see where this may be seen as spectacular news. But to the skeptics, such as myself, I believe it's going to prove difficult at best. Why the harsh outlook? Because this has been part of the Microsoft domain for so long that I don't believe that IT managers are ready to make the leap of faith that Google needs to kick start things with. Then again, Google could be closer than I initially thought..."

Submission + - The Incredible Shrinking Engine

Submitted by Somnus on Monday March 12, 2007 @09:12PM

Somnus writes: In the latest issue of MIT's Technology Review , researchers describe how they can dramatically boost engine output and efficiency by preventing pre-ignition, or 'knock:'

... Both turbocharging and direct injection are preexisting technologies, and neither looks particularly impressive ... by combining them, and augmenting them with a novel way to use a small amount of ethanol, Cohn and his colleagues have created a design that they believe could triple the power of a test engine ...
Why didn't I think of this?

Submission + - Merrill Lynch: 30% of U.S. Households to Own Wii b

Submitted by

njkid1

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:56AM

njkid1 writes: "According to a report in the Financial Times, the Wii's sales momentum is so strong that some analysts have upgraded their long-term outlooks for the console. Nintendo's new console just came off a very strong performance in January, easily selling more consoles than either the Xbox 360 or Sony's PS3. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1530 9&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000022"

Submission + - HDCP prevents PC from playing 1080p on TV

Submitted by

motherball

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:02AM

motherball writes: "Will hardware manufacturers and the movie industry stop at nothing to fight the consumer? An article in EDN mentions that newer TVs deliberately do not include the common HDMI connector but instead have the HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content-protection) connector which is intended to make it impossible to hook up your PC to your TV and render 1080p! Who stands to gain from this? Doesn't the consumer (I hate that word) have any rights?"

Submission + - Solar power cheaper than fossil fuels?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @08:39PM

An anonymous reader writes: This article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/m oney/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml lite on technical details, argues that solar power may be cheaper than fossil fuels in 5 to 10 years thanks to new materials that are significantly lighter and easier to produce than traditional solar panels

Submission + - HP voids warrenty if linux is installed

Submitted by ShadowHywind on Monday February 19, 2007 @08:58PM

ShadowHywind writes: Having Hardware failures, I decided to call the HP tech support for help. They asked If i Had any other operating System installed, other then Windows. Because I duel boot, I said yes, I have linux and windows installed. He then quickly stated that If you install another operating system other then Windows, It will void your warranty. I quickly hung up the phone hoping that he wouldn't create a file sense i am working on month 4 of 3 years of my warranty. Is it right for a company to void a warranty just because you decide to install something other then windows?

Submission + - JetBlue's Windows Infrastructure Crashes

Submitted by hawks5999 on Monday February 19, 2007 @06:28AM

hawks5999 writes: JetBlue's reservation and communication systems have been down for 5 days leaving thousands of passengers stranded and stockholders seeing red. It was almost exactly 4 years ago that JetBlue trumpeted it's reliance on Windows to help it see black. From a 2003 news.com article:

So we marched down the road of the Windows platform. We don't have any Unix; we don't have an AS/400; we don't have any mainframes — we don't have anything outside of Windows. There has been tremendous cost savings. ...everything's Windows. Every technician that works on a server works on a Windows server. Every technician working on a desktop works on a Windows desktop. That's quite a bit easier than other flavors of desktops or OS/2 or whatever else is out there.
I guess they didn't look at redundancy or reliability in their cost equation...

Submission + - Journalist arrested for taking photo of CT Governo

Submitted by reub2000 on Monday February 19, 2007 @12:38AM

reub2000 writes: Journalist Ken Krayeske was arrested for taking a photograph of Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell during a parade. Krayeske a pacifist, was on a list of "potential troublemakers" and his photo had been sent to cops on the parade route.

Submission + - Hosting Provider Builds Own Power Substation

Submitted by

1sockchuck

on Monday January 29, 2007 @06:26PM

1sockchuck writes: "With data centers using more and more power, Sacramento managed hosting provider RagingWire wanted to ensure that its customers wouldn't run out of juice. So the company built its own 69kV power substation on its property, which will supply its data center with up to 46 megawatts — enough to power about 25,000 single-family homes. Concerns about the availability of electricity for data center prompted a Silicon Valley "power summit" last month. Is this a sign of things to come?"

Feed Language Fluency and Alzheimers (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday January 12, 2007 @08:12PM

A new Canadian study shows bilingualism may delay the onset of dementia. In Wired Science.

Submission + - The New Age of Javascript Graphics

Submitted by

on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:46PM

An anonymous reader writes: whenpenguinsattack is running an interesting list containing javascript applications showing off the power of the new [canvas] element. This element can be found on the latest Firefox/Mozilla, Opera and Safari browsers. It comes as no surprise to me that IE is not able to run most of them. My favourites: Canvascape 3D and jsMSX Emulator, which exercise the javascript/canvas engines to the maximum. With the upcoming javascript JIT compiler in Mozilla 2.0 speeding up these applications 100-fold, is javascript to become the mainstream general use language, and browsers the mainstream application environments?

Submission + - Protien in HIV functions as resistor

Submitted by

TwilightXaos

on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:34PM

TwilightXaos writes: "Leor Weinberger and Thomas Shenk, two researchers at Princeton, have discovered a new model for how the HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) enters and exits dormancy. They claim it functions as a resistor, this is in contrast to other types of regulation models found in other viruses and animals. From the abstract:

Here we show that a dissipative feedback resistor, composed of enzymatic interconversion of the transactivator, converts transactivation circuits into excitable systems that generate transient pulses of expression, which decay to zero. We use HIV-1 as a model system and analyze single-cell expression kinetics to explore whether the HIV-1 transactivator of transcription (Tat) uses a resistor to shut off transactivation. The Tat feedback circuit was found to lack bi-stability and Tat self-cooperativity but exhibited a pulse of activity upon transactivation, all in agreement with the feedback resistor model.

The research could lead to an effective treatment of the HIV virus, and has the possibility of increasing understanding of other viruses like herpes.
Additionally hindu.com has a article on the findings."

Submission + - Undersea cable repair via 19th century technology

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: Workers are relying on 19th century technology to fix a very 21st century problem — disruption of the Internet traffic that tech-savvy Asia relies on. "No electronics involved," said John Walters, general manager of Global Marine, one of the firms engaged in the repairs. "It's an old and traditional technique. After arriving at the scene they survey the ocean bottom to assess whether the contour has changed, and the degree of sediment movement. Then the traditional tools are brought out. A rope with a grapnel on the end is played out, down into the depths, and towed over the sea floor until tension registers on a graph on the ship, indicating contact has been made with the cable. Today's fibre optic cables are just 21 millimetres in diameter. The grapnel is a metal tool about 18 by 24 inches (46 by 61 centimetres) which includes a cutter, like a fine razor blade, and a grabbing tool. As tension increases and the cable is slowly pulled up, it is cut, grabbed, and half of it is hoisted to the surface. Dropping the grapnel, dragging the sea bed and recovering the cable can take about 16 hours, Walters said. "It is a tried and tested method." Once the severed half of the cable is on board the boat, debris is cleared from the damaged end, it is tested, sealed and the end boiled off. Then it is attached to a buoy on the water surface while the process is repeated for the second half of the cable before both halves are spliced together and dropped back to the ocean floor. Even before the Boxing Day earthquake, Global Marine had faced a busy year, with about 20 repairs after damage from fishermen or anchors. All those ruptures were fixed using the old grapnel method, he said.

Journal Journal: "Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forward"

Journal by flaming error on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:21PM

Reuters reports that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says conditions are closer to doomsday than the used to be:

When it was created by the magazine's staff in 1947, it was initially set at seven minutes to midnight and has moved 17 times since then.

Submission + - Call Mangement/Trouble ticket software

Submitted by aussiedood on Friday January 12, 2007 @07:10PM

aussiedood writes: I've been running a small business providing PC support services to home users (think Geek Squad) for almost a year now and I am getting to the point where I need to bring on some extra techs. To this point it has just been me, so scheduling calls etc. has been a doddle. My question for the slashdot community (those who run a similar business in particular) is, what do you use to schedule calls and manage the day-to-day running of the business? I would prefer to use FOSS if possible, but recommendations of commercial tools are also welcome.

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