klubar - Slashdot User

Submission + - 1 in 3 SysAdmins snoop on colleagues (msn.com)

Submitted by

klubar

on Thursday June 19, 2008 @11:46AM

klubar writes: "According to a a recent survey One in three IT staff snoops on colleagues. Survey: Abuses include salary details, personal emails, meeting minutes.

U.S. information security company Cyber-Ark surveyed 300 senior IT professionals, and found that one-third admitted to secretly snooping, while 47 percent said they had accessed information that was not relevant to their role.

Makes you wonder about the other 2 out of 3. Did they lie on the survey or really don't snoop?"

Submission + - Apple accuses teens "reverse shoplifting"

Submitted by klubar on Saturday May 31, 2008 @01:39PM

klubar writes: According to The Register four teens were detained and photographed by an Apple store after they downloaded a third-party application to an iPhone demo unit.

I guess this could be called reverse shoplifting as they left something behind in a store.

Presumably, Apple wants to ensure that their iPhones are pristine for demo. Although Apple denies it, I wonder if these teens claim they are banned for life from Apple stores — if they are really bad, they will never be able to purchase Apple products ever. Stuck with Vista or Linux for life!

Submission + - Hand-held lie detector being deployed for US (msn.com)

Submitted by klubar on Wednesday April 09, 2008 @07:51AM

klubar writes: From the article: New anti-terror weapon: Hand-held lie detector; U.S. troops in Afghanistan first to get new device; 'red' means you're lying

FORT JACKSON, S.C. — The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.

The Defense Department says the portable device isn't perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. "We're not promising perfection — we've been very careful in that," said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. "What we are promising is that, if it's properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing."

— Presumably this device will fall into civilian hands soon. Expect to see it with every police department and PHB. Imagine what it can do for sales people.

Submission + - Sony charges for removing bloatware

Submitted by

klubar

on Friday March 21, 2008 @04:09PM

klubar writes: "Sony (along with other vendors) has offered the option of not getting bloatware for an additional $50. In some ways, Sony is at least being (partially) honest in that they explicitly price the removal. Other vendors hide the cost by wrapping bloatware free versions into specific models (for example, Dell's Vostos and Optiplex) don't have much bloatware, but are not exactly identical to an equivalent model.

They're not be completely honest by implying that they "remove" the bloatware. I'm sure they have a bloatware-free image that they apply before shipping

Does anyone know how much the vendors actually get for installing various trial versions?

Also, there is some danger of one man's bloatware being another's convenience. For example is pre-installing Adobe Acrobat and Flash bloatware or value? How about Google toolbar? And on down the line... IE? iTunes?

And, Macs aren't exactly bloatware free. Quicktime is a trial version with a nag screen to upgrade. Macs come with trial versions of Office (how much does Microsoft pay for that) and Omni outliner.

For more details see: Sony charges $50 to remove laptop bloatware"

Submission + - Flaming iPods in Japan

Submitted by

klubar

on Wednesday March 12, 2008 @11:48AM

klubar writes: "Japan investigates possible iPod defect One of the popular digital music players reportedly shot out sparks

In the exploding laptop category, it looks like we may need to add fire-starting ipods.

The Apple response is probably easy...just buy a new one... ipods are disposable items.

The scoop: is at Japan investigates possible iPod defect"

Submission + - Digital 'smiley face' turns 25 :-) (msn.com) 1

Submitted by

klubar

on Tuesday September 18, 2007 @10:36AM

klubar writes: "Another milestone of online communications has been reached. The smiley turns 25 according Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman who says he was the first to use three keystrokes :-). It's sad that emotional icons, known as emoticons have replaced clear writing to communicate. Soon, we'll all go back to cave paintings (but they will be digital and in high resolution).

The inventor said "But it's always possible that someone else had the same idea — it's a simple and obvious idea, after all.", but at least he didn't try to patent the concept as one would do now."

Submission + - Fortran creator John Backus dies

Submitted by

klubar

on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @03:28PM

klubar writes: "John Backus, whose development of the Fortran programming language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and paved the way for modern software, has died. He was 82.

The development of fortran launched many a computer science career. Although it has been superceeded by more modern languages, Fortan is still dear to many older CS majors. There is probably a surprising amount of Fortan 4 code still kicking around.

See more"

Submission + - Bill Gates on Vista

Submitted by

klubar

on Friday February 02, 2007 @02:23PM

klubar writes: "Newsweek recently interviewed Bill Gates on why Vista makes a difference. His answers on why upgrade, Microsoft future, Vista security and innovation are interesting — and surprisingly well reasoned.

He points out that Microsoft has had a number of major releases since Windows XP (as this is a consumer-oriented interview, he doesn't mention the business releases, like Server 2003, SQL, etc.) He also claims that Vista is highly secure and the underpinning is better than that of the Mac. The interview also addresses who is copying who (always a gray area) with the claim that many of the OSX ideas were develped first at Microsoft. He also claims that "security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.".

As an aside, based on a quick preview of Vista and Office 2007, I'm impressed. Both of them together really makes XP with Office 2003 and the OSX look dated."

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