Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Software

Submission + - Spring Cleaning: Gadgets You Should Get Rid of (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times has an article about which gadgets the average user should keep and which ones they should get rid of. Personally, I think it's one of the worst articles ever — get rid of USB sticks because you can transfer everything you need to online? Yeah sure, let me just throw out my 8gig stick that weighs less than an ounce for no reason. Stupid. But it does raise the question for Slashdot users: what spring cleaning would we all ACTUALLY benefit from, both hardware and software-wise?
The Internet

Submission + - Microsoft, Google partner on next-gen networking (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Microsoft and Google are putting aside their differences to create a new foundation that will define next-generation networking standards with a new approach called Software-Defined Networking. The project originates from Stanford and UC-Berkeley, and in addition to Microsoft and Google is being led by Facebook, Verizon, Yahoo and Deutsche Telekom. Google is chairing the organization and says that, using a software interface called OpenFlow, "Software-Defined Networking will allow networks to evolve and improve more quickly than they can today.""

Comment Palm Pre doesn't need to be hacked.` (Score 1) 274

by Tanispyre (#35597968) Attached to: My phone is ...
This is one of the things I love most about the Palm Pre. The developer mode allows you to install any program, or alternative kernels and the instructions to turn it on are in the user manuals. You can download a kernel that will overclock the CPU to 1 GHz. I overclocked my Pre and have not had any problems with it. The best part of this is the code to access this mode is: upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart You can also access using the code webos20090606 from the manuals, but the old Konami code is much easier to remember. I hope they keep this feature in the Pre 3 and other WebOS devices.
Japan

Submission + - Can Japan Send In Robots To Fix Nuclear Reactors? (ieee.org)

Submitted by iztaru
iztaru writes: When it comes to robots, Japan is a superpower, with some of the world's most advanced robotic systems and the highest levels of industrial automation. So it makes sense to ask: Why can't Japan use robots to fix the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Dai-1 nuclear power plant?
Security

Submission + - HBGary CEO Speaks Out on Anonymous Hack (threatpost.com) 1

Submitted by Gunkerty Jeb
Gunkerty Jeb writes: HBGary CEO, Greg Hoglund speaks out about the Anonymous hack, or lack there of. In a two part interview, he blames a Google call center and his own corporate futility, while deriding Anonymous for what he calls "cyber-thuggery," and claiming Anonymous is not what they say, but rather a small collection of criminal hackers and and propaganda peddling pseudo-journalists.
Google

Submission + - Yahoo Rolls Out Search To Challenge Google (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by jhernik
jhernik writes: Yahoo Search Direct predictive-search technology is geared to help searchers find answers, not links, faster

Yahoo on 23 March launched Search Direct, a feature that retrieves immediate search results to rival the Google Instant predictive-search technology.

Like Google Instant, Search Direct brings users search results as they type characters, and before they complete a query, hit the search button, or go to a search results page.

The idea is to shave several seconds off all search queries, coaxing users to search more and, ideally for Yahoo, see and click on more ads.
Idle

Submission + - iPhone 4 survives 1,000 foot fall from plane (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by
tekgoblin
tekgoblin writes: "U.S. Air Force Combat controller Ron Walker had lost his iPhone 4 from his aircraft during flight. He works as a Jump Master which is where he would ensure the airplane was in the correct position when he sends parachute jumpers out. The plane was moving at 150 mph and while looking out the door of the plane to find necessary ground landmarks his pocket opened and his iPhone flew out. When he noticed his phone fell he though all was lost."
Science

Submission + - Journey to the mantle of the Earth by 2020 (cosmosmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A half-century after the first attempt to drill through the ocean crust into the Earth’s mantle, a new campaign armed with improved technology is underway that could reach the mantle by the end of the decade, researchers say.
NASA

Submission + - Astronomers Find The Coldest Star Ever (ibtimes.com) 3

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Astronomers may have found the coldest star in the universe, a brown dwarf 75 light years from Earth.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, Kevin Luhman and John Bochanski of Penn State University and Adam Burgasser of the University of California, San Diego, discovered what looks like a faint companion to a white dwarf star called WD 0806-661. The companion orbits at a distance of 2,500 astronomical units, or about 374 billion kilometers, far enough that light takes a full 11 days to get between them.

The scientists looked at the age of the white dwarf, and came up with a figure of about 1.5 billion years. They then estimated the mass of the companion, and used the data from Spitzer, which sees in the infrared part of the spectrum. From that, they got a temperature of about 300 degrees Kelvin, or 27 degrees C.
Books

Submission + - Book Review: Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I have been reading Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook by Sarath Lakshman, published by Packt, for a while. While most people I know learn shell scripts themselves, I was looking to refresh my concepts a little as well as have a reference lying around on the table for fast access. Here is my review of the book.

First of all, let me remark by saying that shell scripting is something learned more on a need basis than as a tool to solve the main problem. People would seldom write shell scripts as standalone programs (exceptions exist). However, what makes shell scripting invaluable to know is the fact that knowing some tricks can save several minutes, or hours, of work by automating and simplifying certain tasks, generally (but not restricted to) file management and data processing. Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook does go quite far in pursuing this goal, and is appropriate for both beginners who are looking to gain dexterity in shell scripting, as well as intermediate users who wish to polish their skills. The book also can double up as a quick reference, though I would argue that the "Advanced Bash Scripting Guide" would suit that more.

At the outset, the author clarifies that the focus will be on Bash. This, people may or may not like, but the fact that bash has become ubiquitous in terms of the available shells on Unix-like systems today, starting out with bash is not a bad thing to do. Besides, learning other shell scripting languages while knowing bash isn't too hard, since the paradigm remains the same.

Let's go through the books from the aspects I found most relevant.

Organization

The book is organized into chapters based more on utility than scripting concepts themselves, although the language aspects are brought onto the reader gradually. For instance, the examples in the first chapter focus more on the basic data elements (variables, arrays, functions etc.) as well as operators (for numbers, files etc.), and all the examples demonstrate simple usage of these concepts, and he further chapters build upon these in a gradual manner.

At the same time, if he reader has some familiarity with shell scripting and needs to only refresh or learn a certain concept, he/she needs to just read the relevant chapter. It is not too difficult to grasp the examples of the later chapters, provided some basic shell knowledge is assumed.

Content and Presentation

A positive trait in the presentation of this book is that it is all based on practical everyday examples which, with minor adaptation, can be used by many for their own daily tasks. For instance, there are several examples which describe searching for and processing files, which, I'd imagine, many users would want to do on a regular basis. Thus, providing realistic examples allows the book to double its utility. The language and approach used is simple and conversational, and the presentation is very clear, with each idea being described as a problem statement followed by a "How to do it" section with the actual code, and ending with a discussion of the nitty-gritties of the code. It is easy to go for a quick scan for those in a hurry, while those who with to read in more detail will not be disappointed either.

The book also covers a wide array of applications. For instance, there are examples on automating fetching web pages and processing them, demonstrations of parsing and simplifying and even some queries around databases wrapped around in shell. It also spans to utilities and tasks connected to statistics, backups, compression, version control and many more.

Breadth and Depth

The book goes into a fair amount of detail in terms of describing the shell scripting concept under consideration. The examples used go into a fair amount of detail in order to describe to the user all the aspects involved in the method or command being used. The concepts described are fairly complete, and would be sufficient for the reader to use immediately or with just a little bit of fine tuning. In terms of breadth, the book covers most of the features of shell scripting while also describing the various facilities the shell provides access to in a Unix-like environment. Thus, the book does not disappoint in this front either.

In summary...

In summary, probably the only thing I'd have liked to see more of is some emphasis on how to write more efficient shell scripts. Granted, most of the shell scripts described in the book are very simple and succinct, but a some words on how loops can be made better, or how to spot situations where pipes are not needed to solve a problem etc. might have been a nice addition. Some explanation of differences with dash, tcsh, zsh etc. might also have been nice, since a lot of users have different default shells. But all this isn't going to prevent me from giving this book a high rating, since it delivers quite well on the promises it makes at the beginning.

This is definitely a good book to have near your desk, and kudos to the author for having taken the effort to put it together. I would highly recommend it to the beginner and occasional shell user for a thorough read, and to an intermediate to have on his/her desk for borrowing the cool scripting ideas and applications the author has written in this book.
Security

Submission + - Does RSA SecurID have a US authorized back door? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Does the RSA SecurID two-token authentication system include a back door that was built in at the request of the U.S. government in exchange for letting RSA export SecurID? Does the RSA SecurID two-token authentication system include a back door that was built in at the request of the U.S. government in exchange for letting RSA export SecurID?"
Firefox

Submission + - What To Expect In Firefox 5 & Firefox 6? (digitizor.com) 1

Submitted by
dkd903
dkd903 writes: "Firefox 5 will have features such as a better Account Manager, Simple Sharing UI, Animation & support for 64 Bit Windows. Whereas Firefox 6 will have Support for built in Web Applications, FasterCache, Apple Macintosh OSX 10.7 System integration and Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet integration!"
AMD

Submission + - Does AMD's Wolfe Hiring Indicate A Smartphone Push (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw
Blacklaw writes: AMD has announced that it has chosen Mike Wolfe to be the company's new chief information officer, possibly indicating the company's desire to join Intel in an assault on ARM. Wolfe, named as the CIO by interim chief executive Thomas Seifert today, comes to AMD from Motorola and Freescale Semiconductor — both companies heavily involved in the mobile and tablet markets, and both heavy users of intellectual property licensed from British low-power chip design giant ARM.

Slashdot Top Deals

E = MC ** 2 +- 3db

Close