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Submission + - Communicating in a new startup

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An anonymous reader writes: A friend and I are on the verge of starting a small company. It will begin small (around 5 employees and and advisory board) and slowly grow to small/mid-size (around 20 employees plus advisors and consultants). While we expect the employees to normally be located in the same office complex, we foresee a few telecommuting from home or afar and expect much of our advisory board to be spread about the country. In the opinion of the all-knowing slashdot reader, what is the best way to keep everyone in step and available for communication without becoming overbearing? Is on-demand email/phone enough? Should we schedules regular conference calls? Should we utilize IM (and if so, which services shine and which fail)? Along a slightly different line should we adopt and enforce email signing and encryption policies from the beginning? A simpler question, perhaps, is what kinds of communication policies have YOU experienced: what was lacking, what was annoying, and what did you love?

Sony Rootkit may Lead to Regulation 266

Posted by CowboyNeal from the enough-is-enough dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld has a story about DHS officials meeting with Sony to read them the riot act, following the rootkit fiasco. From the story: 'A U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official warned today that if software distributors continue to sell products with dangerous rootkit software, as Sony BMG Music Entertainment recently did, legislation or regulation could follow.'"

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Broadband 572

Posted by CowboyNeal from the luddite-and-lovin'-it dept.
Ant writes "eMarketer has an article on The Yankee Group's analysis on why some Americans aren't feeling the broadband love. It was based on Ipsos Public Affairs. 45% of Americans say it's simply too expensive. 30% say that they just don't want it. 14% say they feel dial-up is adequate for their needs. Less than 10% are not able to get broadband access in their area. Five percent insist broadband is "too complicated". Another 5% aren't even sure why they don't have it..."

A 1.2 Petabyte Hard Drive? 431

Posted by CowboyNeal from the peta-unavailable-for-comment dept.
Angry_Admin writes "Rather than spend millions of dollars for an array of hard drives when you can have all that storage on just one drive? A story at P2P.net US inventor Michael Thomas, owner of Colossal Storage, says he's the first person to solve non-contact optical spintronics which will in turn ultimately result in the creation of 3.5-inch discs with a million times the capacity of any hard drive - 1.2 petabytes of storage, to be exact. According to the article, In the past, data storage has only been able to orient the direction a field of electrons as they move around a molecule, Thomas said. "But now there's a way to rotate or spin the individual electrons that make up, or surround, the molecule," he says. He expects a finished product to be on the market in about four to five years, adding the cost would probably be in the range of $750 each."

Microsoft Hopes Prizes Will Attract New Searchers 195

Posted by CowboyNeal from the scratch-and-win dept.
BertieBaggio writes "Remember the long-running e-mail hoax that had Bill Gates testing an "e-mail tracing program" and offering to pay recipients big bucks if they passed his test e-mail along to all their friends? Well, the offer is true, sort of. Microsoft wants you to use its search engine, and it's got $1 million worth of prizes up for grabs for those who nibble at the offer. Following Yahoo's recent consideration of offering prizes to searchers, is this another tactic to lure users away from Google with candy and other shiny things?"

How Do You Store Your Previously-Written Code? 459

Posted by Cliff from the a-directory-full-o-files dept.
Asmor asks: "I'm a novice programmer who is largely self-taught. It's never been too much trouble for me to reinvent the wheel constantly before, but now as my ambitions get loftier I'm finding that I could really benefit from maintaining some oft-used code that can easily be reused. The problem is, I really don't have any experience with this and I'm not really sure how I should organize things, how the code should be stored, how it should be implemented, etc. I think this is what people mean when they talk about libraries and/or APIs, but not really sure. I'm specifically curious about PHP and JavaScript, but advice for other programming languages is also helpful! How do you store and maintain your most frequently used code?"

Reinventing Gaming Addiction with 360 Achievements 78

Posted by Zonk from the must-play-more-mutant-storm dept.
jayintune writes "An article from 2old2play looks at how the XBox 360 achievement system is bringing out the addictive qualities of console games by adding a whole new level of competition to 'single-player' games. At the same time, the achievements extend the life and replayability of the games. Do you actually get more for your money from a single player Xbox 360 Game then from another console? You be the judge."

Cringely on Blockbuster-iPod Video Distro Plan 218

Posted by CowboyNeal from the in-a-perfect-world dept.
MrPerfekt writes "In this week's Cringely column, another one of his hypothesizing sessions actually seems plausible. Blockbuster's retail outlets make good sense for Apple to partner with them for video iPod content distribution. From the article: 'Take your Video-out iPod to Blockbuster, drop it in a kiosk dock then download from the local xServe your choice of 50,000 movies. You can rent the movie or buy it and you can even choose the resolution, which may or may not affect the final price. Take the iPod home, drop it in the dock attached to your TV and watch the movie. H.264 decoding takes place in the iPod in hardware.'"

Olympic Medalist was Spyware King 336

Posted by CowboyNeal from the other-biathlons dept.
Remy writes "Seems that Australian gold medal mogulist Dale Begg-Smith is also a spyware entrepreneur. According to a report at Spam Kings, Begg-Smith has supported himself in style as president of a company responsible for generating 20,000,000 pop-ups per day, thanks to drive-by installs of spyware. I know the concept of Olympians being amateurs is outdated, but shouldn't they be barred from competition for this sort of thing?"

Build a Homemade Media Center PC 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the one-way-to-do-it dept.
DigitalDame2 writes "PC Magazine's Loyd Case explains how to build a Media Center PC of your own, how to choose the parts for a custom project, and tips for the Motherboard." I imagine you guys might have some other opinions on what parts and tools to use for the task...

Online Communities Have Positive Effect 32

Posted by Zonk from the guilds-represent dept.
eToychest has the results from a three year study, showing the effect of online gaming communities. Overall, the study found, such communities have beneficial results. From the article: "'Our study shows that the online gaming communities are complex and highly developed, acting as training grounds for the transition from school to work' Nic continues: 'When playing, gamers are undergoing a complex process of work related learning - learning how to cope with work scenarios - which is far removed from the traditionally held negative view of gaming. Put simply, these games have a central - and positive - role to play in the development and education of young people.'"

$10k Bounty for Critical Windows Flaws 138

Posted by CmdrTaco from the rolling-in-the-benjamins dept.
An anonymous reader writes "iDefense, a Verisign company, is offering $10,000 to any researchers who find and report to it information on a previously unknown Windows flaw for which Microsoft later issues a "critical" advisory, according to a story over at Washingtonpost.com. Not really surprising, considering that Russian hacking groups are now paying thousands of dollars for exploits that attack unpatched holes in Windows. From the article: "Details of the flaw must be submitted exclusively to iDefense by March 31. There is no limit on the number of prizes that can be paid: if five researchers find and report five different Windows flaws for which Microsoft later issues critical advisories, all five will get paid...iDefense will change the focus of the challenge with each quarter -- the next challenge may focus on another vendor, or it may just center on particular class of vulnerabilities.""

China Cracks Down on Internet Cafes 39

Posted by Zonk from the take-it-elsewhere-buddy dept.
China has increased restrictions on internet game cafes. They've clamped down on anti-government slogans or displays and are now barring teenagers from them completely. Gamasutra reports: "'With the development of the Internet, there has been some harmful and illegal content,' said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. 'The Chinese government has adopted some management measures so as to limit the immoral and harmful content, especially for young people.' Chinese regulation of Internet content has become controversial in recent weeks due to popular search engine Google's acquiescence to Chinese censorship of its results in exchange for official license to operate in the country."

MS Unveils Office 2007, Multiple Versions 298

Posted by Zonk from the new-clippy-friends dept.
rfunches writes "MSNBC reports that Microsoft's next version of Office, now known as Office 2007 (previously code-named Office 12), will continue targeting the corporate audience through multiple versions of Office 2007. Versions announced include 'Office Professional Plus 2007' and 'Office Enterprise 2007.' From the article: '[Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007] will integrate capabilities of SharePoint, a collaboration program and Web portal that is designed to run over corporate networks and the Internet...and also incorporate Microsoft Office Communicator, a corporate instant messaging service.'"

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