thatguywhoiam - Slashdot User

UK Schools At Risk of Microsoft Lock-In 162

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:51PM from the apple-for-the-teacher dept.

Robert writes "UK schools and colleges that have signed up to Microsoft Corp's academic licensing programs face the significant potential of being locked in to the company's software, according to an interim review by Becta, the UK government agency responsible for technology in education. The report also states that most establishments surveyed do not believe that Microsoft's licensing agreements provide value for money." In a separate report, Becta offered the opinion that schools should avoid Vista for at least another year, since neither Vista nor Office 2007 offers any compelling reasons for schools to upgrade.

Submission + - Networking in Extreme Conditions?

Submitted by

222

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:33PM

222 writes: "Mission: Create an intermediate distribution frame. Difficulty: A few feet away, industrial equipment will be generating roughly 2000 degree heat. Bonus: Keep the network switches inside the IDF from melting.
Does anyone have experience in making IT work in such extreme conditions? Is there an enclosure in existence that can handle this type of abuse? This is essentially what I've been asked to accomplish, and now I'm asking my Slashdot brethren the questions; "Can it be done? Do we have the technology?""

Submission + - WordPress Ultimate Gamer's Pack

Submitted by liwii on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:29PM

liwii writes: The Ultimate Gamer 's Pack is a WordPress plug-in that automatically renders an optimized version of your site when visitors come to your site on a Nintendo Wii, DS-Lite, or Sony PSP.

Submission + - P World Editor Slain At California Home

Submitted by Petersko on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:08PM

Petersko writes: "A senior editor for PC World Magazine was fatally shot in his home in what authorities said Wednesday was a drug-related attack. Rex Farrance, 59, the San Francisco, California-based magazine's senior technical editor, was shot in the chest after four masked men broke into his home Tuesday evening, Pittsburg police said."

Submission + - UK road taxing petition gains support

Submitted by on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:08PM

An anonymous reader writes: A petition against the planned tracking system for UK car drivers is starting to gain support from the public now. The UK government plans to have a black box fitted to every vehicle which would allow a satellite system to track their journey with prices starting from as little as 2p per mile raising to as much as £1.34 per mile. However, such as system could be also be used to track the exact location of the vehicle at any given time and should you accidently creep over the speed limit you could find yourself in receipt of a ticket. A recent cost analysis on the average user showed a non working mum taking her kids to school paid £86 per month which is a massive increase from the current £160 per year.

Submission + - Is it dangerous to share my 802.11b/g?

Submitted by

oiarbovnb

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @11:58AM

oiarbovnb writes: "I recently moved into a new house and it took me a while to get my internet connected. For the first couple of weeks, I connected to an unsecured network one of my neighbors provided (they changed the name of the network, so I think they knew what they were doing, but left it open anyway). Now that I have my own internet (cable-modem), what are the problems with sharing this? I already know that they can read any non-encrypted information, but they cannot view information that is sent via https. I also know that I should install a software firewall and have anti-virus going and all that jazz. I named my network "Free!!! Be Nice!" in the hopes that if my neighbors do use my network, they don't try to hose my system. Karma-security I guess you could call it..."

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