stripe42 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Do you get a UNIX workstation?

Submitted by

Fished

on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @04:37PM

Fished writes: "This may be a selfish question, but so far as I can tell it hasn't been asked before. I'm currently a Solaris System Engineer in a Very Large Company. This Very Large Company has predictably standardized on Windows as their corporate desktop. However, they are also of the opinion that nobody needs anything but Windows on their desktop. While this may be true for most employees, as a System Engineer I find that my productivity is much lower when I am forced to use Windows on my desktop. I spend way too much time overcoming the ways in which Windows is just different from UNIX, and not enough time getting my job done. Loading Solaris X86 is not an option, since we are required to use a bunch of software that is Windows only (much of it sloppily written, IE only internal websites, with fun things like ActiveX controls.) VmWare works, but is certainly less than ideal. So, I have two questions. First, if you're a UNIX/Linux systems engineer/administrator in a large company, do they give you a desktop for the platform you manage? Second, have you any tips on justifying your need for a second, UNIX-based desktop to the powers that be? I'm hoping enough people will write in that I can point management at this article to demonstrate that we're not just being picky."

Submission + - Schools across Japan may switch to Linux

Submitted by

Chris Salzberg

on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @12:27AM

Chris Salzberg writes: "Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported late last week that the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to introduce the open-source operating system Linux for use within classrooms across the country in the near future. According to an investigation conducted in the spring of last year, there are currently over 400,000 computers at schools in Japan running on either Windows 98 or Windows Me, systems no longer supported by the software manufacturer Microsoft. The prohibitive cost of replacing these machines with newer models, as well as the rising price of proprietary software, prompted school teachers and administrators to propose the possibility of switching to open-source software as an affordable alternative. A conference held in Tokyo on March 2-3, attended by around 2000 government officials, teachers and education board members from across the country, considered the idea of reclaiming these older computers by switching from unsupported and out-of-date versions of Windows to the operating-system Linux, which can be freely downloaded from the Internet. A teacher from a high-school in Fukuoka Prefecture explained: "Having to always install the latest software is costly, and it makes things very difficult for us. From now on, I want to actively move toward the use of free open-source software." (continue reading at gyaku.jp)"

Submission + - What Bosses should know: software requirements

Submitted by

Esther Schindler

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @08:19PM

Esther Schindler writes: "CIO.com asked developers to name the ONE thing that they wished the CIO understood about software requirements. The summary is several pages long, but it pulls no punches: from the role of requirements, to defining who creates the requirements (and in how much detail), to the need to shake the boss to get him to understand that requirements change, to paying attention to the process. It's all here, in Five Things CIOs Should Know About Software Requirements, with a few dozen developer's voices loud and clear. For instance, one developer comments, "The CIO has to realize that if there is no bad news, there is something very wrong. Smiling people nodding 'Yes' in meetings is not a sign of great intelligence at work.""

Submission + - LinuxBIOS with X Server Inside

Submitted by

acassis

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @07:04PM

acassis writes: "LinuxBIOS is a BIOS replacement. You can use it to start Linux from Hard Disk or even using Linux inside BIOS flash. This work show LinuxBIOS with Linux and graphic mode inside the BIOS flash. There is used a tiny X Server known as Kdrive (formely tinyx). The graphic mode and window manager (MatchBox) starts in 8s.
See yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzRsXKm_NQ
More info about this system: http://www.linuxabordo.com.br/wiki/index.php?title =LinuxBIOS_Graphical"

Submission + - Third Level Domain Legal Issues

Submitted by

MikeB

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @06:36PM

MikeB writes: "This is my first post ever, so please excuse any etiquette errors. I have a question for the lawyer types.

My company is looking into third level domain names (i.e. XXXXX.website.com), and has raised the issue of using trademarked (or otherwise legally protected) names in that third level slot. Our intent is to use the model numbers of the hardware that our software works on in the thid level area to specify a landing page for each model. Since those model names/numbers are owned by a separate company, does that open us up to legal ramifications if that company decided to press charges? I checked with Network Solutions (www.networksolutions.com) and they told me that there were no legal ramifications, but I wanted to check with the larger community.

So the main question: Do we open ourselves up to legal attacks by using the aforementioned names in the third level domain slot of our company's website? Thank you for any help you guys can give."

Submission + - What does it take to survive the Slashdot effect?

Submitted by

Dave

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @06:26PM

Dave writes: "How much hardware, bandwidth, etc. does it take for a server to survive the Slashdot effect? Is the Fark or Digg effect worse than Slashdot? Is there a guaranteed way to avoid these effects?"

Submission + - Asterisk 1.4.1 Released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:37PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Asterisk and Zaptel development teams have released Asterisk 1.4.1. This release contains a very large number of bug fixes, including a fix for the recently discovered security vulnerability. Because of the security vulnerability fix present in this version, all users of Asterisk 1.4 are urged to update as soon as they can schedule it.

Submission + - Microsoft: Format War is Over

Submitted by

jeevesbond

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:06PM

jeevesbond writes: "Microsoft Office program manager Brian Jones, whose work has centered around the Open XML document format, now says the so-called format war with OpenDocument is officially over. The winner, he says, is both.

"I think at this point we can really move onto more productive and collaborative discussion and admit that we are no longer in any sort of "file format war."
My translation: Sharepoint (and its tight integration with Office 2007) is what's important now, something FLOSS has no equivalent for."

Submission + - Can the free market develop sustainable energies?

Submitted by

Basile Schaeli

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @09:40AM

Basile Schaeli writes: "Jeff Vail provides an interesting take on why free markets may not solve the world's addiction to energy. From the article:

'Is free-market innovation the best way to develop viable, sustainable energy alternatives?
The free market will ignore solutions that can't turn a profit. Any firm that fails to follow this simple maxim won't be in business for long. The corollary to this maxim is that the free market will ignore any solution that cannot be controlled, either through property interests (enforceable intellectual property, monopoly licenses, etc.) or because economies of scale demand centralized operation. This means that free market innovation is structurally incompatible with a huge portion of the universe of possible energy solutions.'"

Submission + - AnyDVD updated, now removes Blue-Ray DRM

Submitted by

mariushm

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @07:38AM

mariushm writes: "SlySoft has just updated AnyDVD HD, offering users the possibility of watching Blue-Ray media without DRM. This comes after only two weeks from the first release which was able to remove DRM from HD-DVD.

Version 6.1.3.0 has lots of features but probably the most important one is stripping the evil DRM infection from Blu-Ray and restore your fair use rights.

The free upgrade can also remove region encoding, works on Windows XP-64 and Vista-64, and fixes a ton of bugs. You can get the update or a trial copy here."

Submission + - Thousands sign e-petition on rip-off Vista

Submitted by CoolWolf on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @05:31AM

CoolWolf writes: CustomPC News, Monday 26th February 2007
Thousands sign e-petition on rip-off Vista http://www.pcpro.co.uk/custompc/news/106025/thousa nds-sign-epetition-on-ripoff-vista.html

Petition info and link:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to bring pressure on Microsoft to stop them overcharging the UK for its Vista Operating System.
Submitted by Paul Milne — Deadline to sign up by: 20 April 2007 — Signatures: 8,051
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/VistaOvercharge/

Submission + - Windows Vista Needs DST Patch

Submitted by on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:12AM

An anonymous reader writes: Windows Vista and Windows XP may require a HotFix patch to the C Runtime Library MSVCRT.dll as part of the Daylight Savings Time nightmare. Microsoft released a technical bulletin on 3/1/07 detailing the products which require the patch. Unfortunately Microsoft had the Vista Patch on 2/16/07 and the Windows XP patch on 2/19/07 but they decided to hold on to them until 3/1/07. This is the second round of Operating System patches for Windows and Daylight Savings Time. See KB932590 for more details. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932590/en-us. Note that to get the patches, you must call Microsoft and request the patch.

Submission + - Xen trademark stirs up virtualization community

Submitted by

Virtualization Dork

on Friday March 02, 2007 @01:05PM

Virtualization Dork writes: "Virtual Iron and possibly Red Hat have stopped using the word 'Xen' to describe their virtualization offerings, but it's VMware that trademark holder XenSource really wants to protect against. Read more at SearchServerVirtualization.com.

From the article:

"I've been asked by XenSource's lawyers not to say the word that begins with 'X' since they own that word outright," said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer at Virtual Iron Software in Lowell, Mass.

According to Grandinetti, XenSource's lawyers "dropped a bomb" on the Xen community last month when they announced that "you'll have to pay to certify your apps against our test suite, and you'll have to pay us some more to use the name," Grandinetti said.

"

Submission + - Open Graphics Round Table

Submitted by

cranos

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @07:41PM

cranos writes: "In this fortnights episode of Open Source On The Air, I sit down with three Graphic Artists who have based their entire work flow on Free and Open Source Software.

We talk about the state of the current FOSS graphics toolset, how this has affected things like barriers to entry, as well as discussing the growing interaction between the audience and the graphic artists.

You can find the full show here: http://localfoss.org/OSOTA/Episode_16"

Submission + - Microsoft not gaining ground in search

Submitted by klblastone on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @06:25PM

klblastone writes: Despite Microsoft's massive investment in promoting and improving web-based search, the company still has less than ten percent of search engine marketshare. By comparison, Google is hitting about 50 percent, and still growing. Obviously, gimmicks like the interactive Ms. Dewey aren't helping Microsoft compete with Google in the search arena. Microsoft's deep pockets don't seem to be of much use in the highly competitive and dynamic web services market. As the web 2.0 revolution pushes more and more software online where open standards dominate and Microsoft can't leverage its desktop software monopoly, will the company start lose relevance?

Slashdot Top Deals