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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Software

Submission + - Fallback plan for Google Apps

Submitted by mallumax
mallumax writes: A lot of small businesses use Google apps to simplify the IT administration and to take adavantage of the excellent web interface. My company is one among them.Right now, we are completely dependent on google for our email. In light of recent Gmail outages, it has become increasingly necessary to have a backup/fallback plan in place. We have around 60 employees and our mail volume is moderate. Setting up an email server is well within our capability. Considering all this, what are our fallback options ?
Government

Submission + - DHS: "Taser bracelet for every airline passeng (washingtontimes.com) 1

Submitted by
Bert de Jong
Bert de Jong writes: "The Washington Times is reporting about a new gadget of the Department of Homeland Security.

Forget Kafka, Dilbert really is a joke, and even on April 1st no one would believe this.

A (euphemistically named) "Safety Bracelet" is soon to replace your flight ticket and boarding pass, if the federal authorities have their way.
This wouldn't be very spectacular, hadn't a few clever techies at the DHS thought of some particular nifty features for this device:
It will have your personal data stored in it electronically, it will have a GPS-tracker so your whereabouts can always be known, and it will sport a taser, to painfully completely immobilise you for several minutes if the airline crew deems you a security threat.

Have a look at the promotion video here (3'20 is where the interesting bit starts.)

The idea is you'll be wearing it from checkin to disembarking.

I wonder how the UCLA finds about this.. shocking I guess"
The Courts

Submission + - SCO's Darl McBride Lies Under Oath (arstechnica.com) 4

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Here's a short update on the recent Novell Vs SCO case we've been following. Our good friend Darl McBride made some interesting comments in court yesterday. He stated (under oath): "many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers ... We have evidence System V is in Linux ... When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on 'How to Program UNIX' but when you go to the Linux section and look for 'How to Program Linux' you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist. Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them]." This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and did not correspond with what SCO Senior Vice President Chrs Sontag just finished testifying earlier that day. Mmmmmm, that's some good perjury!"
Announcements

Submission + - Linus announcing the 2.6.25 Linux kernel (reviewk.com)

Submitted by
LinuxWatch
LinuxWatch writes: "It's been long promised, but there it is now," began Linux creator Linus Torvalds, announcing the 2.6.25 Linux kernel. He continued, "special thanks to Ingo who found and fixed a nasty-looking regression that turned out to not be a regression at all, but an old bug that just had not been triggering as reliably before. That said, that was just the last particular regression fix I was holding things up for, and it's not like there weren't a lot of other fixes too, they just didn't end up being the final things that triggered my particular worries." Linus added... Read more"
Programming

Submission + - Q: Who Really Creates Linux? A: The Enterprise (linux-watch.com) 1

Submitted by
sjvn
sjvn writes: "Some people are still under the delusion that Linux is written by unwashed hackers living in their parents' basements whose only social life is playing D&D and having flame wars over IRC (Internet Relay Chat) about whether vi or EMACS better and debating Picard versus Kirk. Nothing, nothing could be further from the truth according to the Linux Foundation's latest survey."
Music

Submission + - Deutsche Grammophon offering DRM-free downloads (deutschegrammophon.com)

Submitted by C3c6e6
C3c6e6 writes: Deutsche Grammophon, one of world's leading record labels for classical music, has launched today an online-shop where people can download high-quality (320Kbps) versions of 2400 classical recordings, including 600 albums that are currently out of print. The idea is apparently to make the entire catalog of probably the oldest surviving record label (founded in 1898) available online.

It's nice to see that yet another record company is steering clear of DRM.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Demands Patent for Saying 'Goodbye' 7

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Demonstrating its commitment to high-quality U.S. patents, Microsoft has submitted a just-published patent application to the USPTO for Automatic Goodbye Messages. By automatically sending messages like 'Have a great afternoon!', 'Sorry, I have got to go!', 'Have a terrific day!', 'Ciao, Harry!', or even a simple 'Bye!' at the end of an IM session, Microsoft explains, one avoids insulting a converser with whom a conversation is ended. Hopefully the USPTO will give this one the quick buh-bye it deserves."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Is Gentoo in crisis?

Submitted by
TheCoop1984
TheCoop1984 writes: "A recent article on distrowatch, and an extended thread on the gentoo forums, have pointed out that gentoo is not what it used to be. Daniel Robbins came back and went again after only a few days, developer turnover is as high as ever, personal attacks on the mailing lists are common, and people are generally not happy about the current state of affairs. Is gentoo rotting from the inside, and can anything be done about it?"

Wii to Launch Nov. 19th for $250 495

Posted by Zonk from the right-price-right-on dept.
PygmySurfer writes "According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nintendo is going to announce today that the Wii will go on sale on November 19th in North and South America, at a cost of $250. It will come bundled with Wii Sports and channels for such things as viewing photos, as well as news and weather. Finally, Wii will also make it possible to browse the web on your television. Nintendo will also announce that 25-30 games will be published this year, as well as about 30 classic games available on the virtual console, costing about $5-10."

Google Pages Reviewed 164

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-the-tool-for-you dept.
Tam Hanna writes "We got access to a Google Pages review account. Get the full scoop on what Google Pages can do." The gist of it is that "Google Pages Is Not For You." It's for your mom ;)

Slashdot Top Deals

The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.

Close