coyotecult - Slashdot User

Submission + - Copyright Royalty Board Terminates Internet Radio

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02, 2007 @11:00PM

An anonymous reader writes: News of the new Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) rates retroactive to January 1st 2006 have leaked out today. The new rates amount to well over the total revenues of all internet radio stations. If the new rates are allowed to stand, every United States based webcaster will immediately owe more in back licensing fees to SoundExchange than the combined total of all revenues they have ever received. More details are on Kurt Hanson's website here: http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/030207/inde x.shtml

Submission + - Analog TV cards banned by FCC as of yesterday

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Friday March 02, 2007 @08:05PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Beginning yesterday, the FCC requirement went in to effect that 'All TV receiving devices sold must possess the capability of supporting digital television signals.' NVidia has already discontinued their fairly new and very popular DualTV MCE (http://www.nvidia.com/page/dualtvmce.html) card, and soon all Non-ATSC cards will be gone from shelves and available only on Ebay."

Submission + - Redhat Challenge seeks Biz Graduate Student Ideas

Submitted by noopm on Friday March 02, 2007 @12:34PM

noopm writes: Redhat has announced the Redhat Challenge, a "contest for graduate students in Business/Design Schools to formulate a group concept plan in response to a business challenge question". The Red Hat Challenge is posed as "an open invitation to create an innovative solution to a Red Hat business problem and provide the Company with original, cutting-edge ideas to shape its future business model".
Is this sort of bounty based problem solving the new trend in the Open Source Industry? (This seems like the B-School version of the Google Summer of Code initiative). Notably, the contest is open to an international crowd including the United States, Canada, China, India and lots of European and other Asian countries. The winning team gets to walk away with USD 20,000. Registration is open online till March 25th at their website. Official rules here.

Submission + - Recommended Reading for Software Engineers

Submitted by

Tokimasa

on Friday March 02, 2007 @12:01PM

Tokimasa writes: "Over the past few months, I've been gathering the "recommended reading" for software engineers that I've found across Slashdot and some other sites. So far, here is my collection, ordered by author:

Brooks, Frederick P. The Mythical Man-Month.
DeMarco, Tom and Lister, Timothy. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition).
DeMarch, Tom and Lister, Timothy. Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects.
Hunt, Andrew and Thomas, David. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master.
Johnson, Jeff. GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers.
McCarthy, Jim and McCarthy, Michele. Dynamics of Software Development.
McConnell, Steve. Code Complete (Second Edition).
McConnell, Steve. Rapid Development.
Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things.
Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral & The Bazaar.
Weigers, Karl E. Software Requirements (Second Edition).

First, would you recommend any other "must-have" or "should-have" books? Second, what order do you recommend reading the books in to get the most out of them (ie — do any books build on content in another book)?"

Submission + - Rice is people?

Submitted by f1055man on Friday March 02, 2007 @12:00PM

f1055man writes: The Washington Post reports that the "USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/03/01/AR2007030101495.html

The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds. The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and granola bars.

Despite the benefits, some consider the project risky.

But critics are assailing the effort, saying gene-altered plants inevitably migrate out of their home plots. In this case, they said, that could result in pharmacologically active proteins showing up in the food of unsuspecting consumers.

Anheuser-Busch (the nation's largest rice buyer) has prevented the application of gene-altered rice due to concerns customers would not accept GM beer. Should they use their influence to shut this down too?

Submission + - Needed: Simple Business Management Software

Submitted by

justinchudgar

on Friday March 02, 2007 @11:59AM

justinchudgar writes: "I'm starting to work as an independent IT consultant; and, I have pretty much switched to Linux on my systems. Overall, I am very happy with the transition away from proprietary software; but, I need a software package to manage the dirty details of my business. For me, that is basically tracking my time and creating invoices/statements for clients and then receiving payments against them. I do not resell hardware as a line of business; and, I do not (yet) have employees which makes it easier for now. What I want is:

integration with standard calendaring packages so that billable time can be entered via a browser anywhere and be accessible to the AR package

handle different bill rates for different service classes

generate invoices and statements without much manual labor

track account balances and service charges

have the capability to integrate credit card payment processing

not require endless hours of HOWTO or manpage slogging to get up and running

While I can muddle through with OO.org documents and spreadsheets + evolution calendar; this is not very efficient or clean. I have searched around the web, read innumerable articles, blogs and tried a bunch of stuff. Yet, I have yet to find a nice simple and user friendly package for my needs.

Compiere/Adempiere are overkill for what I need, and the personal finance apps that I managed to find are not good at doing things like handling multiple bill-rates and tracking receivables. I know that it is possible to get SlowBooks running with CrossOver or Wine, but, I have had so much misery with Intuit products in my clients offices that I will not allow them in mine.

I would really appreciate learning what open-source or commercial Linux apps you have seen working well for professional services firms that you run or serve. Thanks!"

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