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Education

Submission + - Creating Mailers to educate laymen about FLOSS?

Submitted by
ScorpFromHell
ScorpFromHell writes: "As part of a series of activities of a FLOSS (Free/Libre & Open Source Software) based voluntary group to help propagate higher quality of education & discourage software piracy in the rural as well as urban areas of India, we came to a conclusion that the best way to garner more volunteers for our group would be educate the 40K + employees in our organization about FLOSS & its merits in general & in Education in particular.

That is when one of our colleagues who doesn't understand a bit of FLOSS but organizes a group that successfully helps many orphanages & old ages homes suggested us to first create awareness about FLOSS. He is a person who has garnered support from a huge percentage of the employees and knows their pulse unlike us 'nerds'. :)

His suggestion is to start a mail campaign within the organization that would explain the basics of FLOSS & then about its various benefits and finally how is it useful in education & why is it bad to pirate software, especially software like windows 98! Catch is that it should contain ateast 40% images he says. People don't want to read a lot he says & I believe him, because he uses images himself to reach out to the organization for more volunteers & contributions.

Am looking forward for ideas, suggestions & resources which we could use to create the mailers. Have you ever created such campaigns to educate laymen about FLOSS & its benefits?"
Data Storage

Submission + - Dell Plans to Acquire EqualLogic (techluver.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "Dell has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire EqualLogic, a leading provider of high-performance iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions uniquely optimized for virtualization. The acquisition will strengthen Dell's product and channel leadership in simplifying and virtualizing IT for customers globally. iSCSI SAN technology represents the fastest growing part of the storage business. "Our customers will be dealing with the largest increase in data we have seen in our history over the next few years," said Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell. "Leading the iSCSI revolution will help Dell accelerate IT simplification and virtualization and will drive the Dell value proposition into more areas of the enterprise storage business," Mr. Dell said. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/05/dell-plans-to-acquire-equallogic/ )"
Education

Submission + - Cheap Linux Laptops Challenge OLPC (itworld.com)

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "Analysts warn that falling prices of commercial Linux-based laptops may lure buyers away from One Laptop Per Child's (OLPC's) XO laptop, which will cost $200 when it launches Nov. 12. 'People like the standard stuff, and if you can get it for nearly the same price, why go with the de-featured product?' says Roger Kay, founder and president with Endpoint Technologies Associates.

Responding to questions about price competition, Walter Bender, president of software and content at OLPC said, 'OLPC's goal is to get connected laptops to kids, not particular connected laptops to kids. If the commercial sector will provide those tools, more power to them.'"
Education

Submission + - Tips for a techie entering social work (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
ScorpFromHell
ScorpFromHell writes: "I have been dabbling with FLOSS (the L is for the Europeans) for about 9-10 years now and am an ardent supporter of it.

Driven by a few reports I read while doing some research for my blog post "Satyagrah for Swatantra Software in India", I have decided to start a corps of FLOSS enthusiasts within my employer's organization who would help the rural & urban poor of India via ICT & FLOSS to educate the children & make them self dependant.

We are called "Prajña : Cognizant FLOSS Corps". Prajña, in Sanskrit, stands for wisdom, intelligence which we try to impart & also comes closest to the translation of Cognizant. Cognizant, btw, is my employer & this corps is also aimed at contributing efforts to fulfil our Corporate Social Responsibility.

There are groups who are involved in feeding the kids to keep them alive, but I wanted to make a difference to the future of those kids who will manage to live. I believe that the greatest charity we can do in this day & age is to give somebody a job or teach a job, so that they are self sufficient as well as strive to provide employment to others too. And this self sufficiency is what will provide actual freedom to all our poor.

I have been a techie all along & this is the first time I am entering into social work. What will you suggest a techie newly turned into a social worker/activist?"
Microsoft

Submission + - OOXML won't get fast-track ISO standardization (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by realdodgeman
realdodgeman writes: International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) recently held an internal poll to determine the position that the United States should take on Microsoft's request for Office Open XML (OOXML) approval. With eight votes in favor, seven against, and one abstention, the group was one vote short of the nine votes required for approving OOXLM ISO standardization. This will mean a huge slowdown to the standardization to the OOXML format.
Security

Submission + - Facebook wants to collect users' email passwords

Submitted by ScottSCY
ScottSCY writes: It seems that Facebook has added a new feature that allows users to find friends in their email address books who have accounts on Facebook. The only thing you have to do is provide them your email address (they take gmail, yahoo, msn, aol, and more) and your email account password. They will then retrieve your address book. Clearly this is a huge security issue, but don't worry, Facebook says "Facebook won't email anyone without your permission, and we won't store your email or password." Well that's a relief.
Windows

Submission + - Pirates crack Vista fully

Submitted by
Slinky Sausage
Slinky Sausage writes: "There have been "sort of" cracks for Vista floating around since the code went gold — but now, a piracy group called Pantheon has fully broken the copy protection. Amazingly, they are using functionality Microsoft itself built into the activation system for OEMs to preinstall Windows onto PCs. From APCMag.com which broke the news: "This crack doesn't simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks — it actually makes use of the activation process. It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn't require product activation — apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.""
Security

Submission + - Month of PHP Bugs has started

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The previously announced Month of PHP Bugs has started three days ago here and already lists 8 security vulnerabilities in PHP and PHP related software.

Quote:
"This initiative is an effort to improve the security of PHP. However we will not concentrate on problems in the PHP language that might result in insecure PHP applications, but on security vulnerabilities in the PHP core. During March 2007 old and new security vulnerabilities in the Zend Engine, the PHP core and the PHP extensions will be disclosed on a day by day basis. We will also point out necessary changes in the current vulnerability managment process used by the PHP Security Response Team."
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Project Blackbox the World domination tour.

Submitted by
D10MR
D10MR writes: "It looks like Sun's Project Blackbox is alive and well and on tour across the US. I was able to get a guided tour of the container. Sun's rolling it around the country on the back of a flatbed trailer equiped with generator and chiller unit. There's only 2 1/2 racks worth of real running Sun gear in it, but it's pretty cool to see/hear/feel this thing running while it's riding piggyback on an we've-got-ourselves-a-convoy-18-wheeler, good-buddy. (Scary visions of Burt, Dom, Sally). They even stuck a couple of blade chassis and storage arrays in it.

Ok, so they had the usual marketing and sales droids, but they also had one of their project architects on hand to honestly answer real questions, everything from how do you move the container around, to how the Sunspots work...very cool. It looks like Sun eats their own sausage by using their hardware(sunspots) to realtime monitor their hardware(shake, vibration, temperature and gps position) Lots of stainless steel in the thing, too.

NOTE: If you take the tour, you get a neat Project Blackbox long-sleeve shirt molded into the shape of the truck/container OR you can get a toy trailer/container matching the tour unit. It was pretty cool and totally worth the time to listen and walk through the container. ciao — D10"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Charging Businesses $4K for DST Fix

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Microsoft has slashed the price it's going to charge users on the day light savings time fixes. As you know, the federal law that moves the date for DST goes into effect this month. Although this is 1/10 of the original estimate Microsoft made, it seems a bit pricey for a patch to a product you've already paid for. From the article, "Among the titles in that extended support category are Windows 2000, Exchange Server 2000 and Outlook 2000, the e-mail and calendar client included with Office 2000. For users running that software, Microsoft charges $4,000 per product for DST fixes. For that amount, customers can apply the patches to all systems in their organizations, including branch offices and affiliates, said Sweatt. "All they can't do is redistribute them," he said.""

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