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Comment Any master password support yet? (Score 2, Insightful) 197

This one's a show-stopper for me (and, I suspect, others). Chrome offers to save your passwords but gives absolutely no protection on the saved password database. The discussion threads I've seen about this suggest that the Chrome devs don't even understand why this is such a serious problem. Chrome has a lot to like, but I'll be sticking to Firefox for now.

Comment Re:Build-in function library (Score 1) 831

There is basically zero quality control, anyone can put any module up they want and use any namespace. They don't have to offer ANY documentation

Sure, but since you can check the namespace and browse the docs before you choose to install the module, is that such a problem? I admit the quality control is limited, but there is a review facility which is reasonably well-used -see http://cpanratings.perl.org/.

if they go AWOL and stop maintaining the module, it just stays there, festering

Just like any other open-source project then.

Comment Re:What about cellphones? (Score 1) 438

If you can't live 2 hours without worrying about your children, maybe your children would be better off with parents less paranoiac than you.

Sorry, but that's nonsense.

The only chance my wife & I have these days to go to the cinema is when our son is in daycare. If anything was happen to him while there, they need to call us. If we're not reachable, they could call social services, and how would that look? So we need to be contactable while our son's there.

Having said that, my phone's always on silent when in the cinema, and I would leave the auditorium to take the call should I happen to receive one. That's just common courtesy - something most cinema-goers, parents or not, don't seem to have these days.

Comment Re:Their site... (Score 1) 454

Likewise, with one Exception (Glenn Beck), I've never read a negative review on a book's dust jacket. Authors and publishers are generally more savvy than that, and they are certainly under no obligation to put someone's scatrhing review of their book / movie / car / NAS / whatever on the site.

Actually I remember one other - The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. Quick search for "wasp factory negative reviews" got this:

http://cloggie.org/books/wasp-factory.html

Those familiar with Banks's work will understand the statement he was making by insisting that extremely negative reviews also appeared on this book.

Comment Re:Everything works for me (Score 1) 554

Strange, my Ubuntu latop with an Intel 945GM graphics card drives its internal LVDS plus an external LCD monitor just fine. System -> Preferences -> Display, drag the monitor icons to the arrangement I want, press Apply. Done.

Are you trolling, or are you just talking about a Linux distro more than a couple of years old?

Comment Re:IANACLH (Score 1) 304

Why are you messing around with temporary files in the first place?

$ tar czf - directory | ssh remote "tar xzf -"

or

$ scp -Cr directory remote:

or even better:

$ rsync -az -e ssh directory remote:

OK, so ssh & rsync are not stock Solaris, but then neither is mc.

Networking

Ubuntu Download Speeds Beat Windows XP's 515

narramissic writes "Doing a download speed test of his Time Warner cable connection, James Gaskin discovered something odd, something that he is quick to note isn't a rigorous benchmarked lab test. The discovery: His Ubuntu machine 'returned a rating from the Bandwidth.com test of 22-25mbps over several tests' while the same test done from a Windows XP PC returned a rating of 12-14mbps. The two computers used in the test are 'almost identical: both off-lease Compaq small form factor D515s, part of the very popular corporate desktop D500 family. Both have Pentium 4 processors running at 2GHz. The Ubuntu machine has 768MB of RAM, while the XP box has only 512MB of RAM. Both run Firefox 3 as their browser.' Gaskin's question: Can a little extra RAM make that much difference in Internet download speeds or does Ubuntu handles networking that much faster than Windows XP?"
Image

Dead Goldfish Offered The Vote In Illinois 216

Election officials in northern Chicago want to know why voter registration material was sent to Princess, a dead goldfish. "I am just stunned at the level of people compromising the integrity of the voting process," said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander, a Republican, who said she has spotted problems with nearly 1,000 voter registrations this year. Beth Nudelman, who owned Princess, said the fish may have got on a mailing list because the family once filled in her name when they got a second phone line for a computer. When will we recognize a goldfish's right to vote?
Privacy

Judge Orders TorrentSpy to Turn Over RAM 726

virgil_disgr4ce writes "In an impressive example of the gap of understanding between legal officials and technology, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian 'found that a computer server's RAM, or random-access memory, is a tangible document that can be stored and must be turned over in a lawsuit.' ZDNet, among others, reports on the ruling and its potential for invasion of privacy."
Education

5 Strangest Materials 196

MattSparkes writes to tell us that NewScientist recently posted a quick look at five interesting materials with some very strange properties. There are liquids you can walk on, liquids that will escape containers by creeping up the sides, and magnetic liquids that can easily show you the shape of magnetic fields. The story also offers video links to display some of more amazing properties described.

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