Comment Just as chrome helps Opera, Apple blocks them (Score 2, Informative) 187
Apple Blocking Opera on the Iphone
http://www.osnews.com/comments/20455
(blocking legit apps on the iphone is one of the stupidest things Apple has done in a long time)
Feds Tighten DNS Security On .Gov 140
alphadogg writes "When you file your taxes online, you want to be sure that the Web site you visit — www.irs.gov — is operated by the Internal Revenue Service and not a scam artist. By the end of next year, you can be confident that every U.S. government Web page is being served up by the appropriate agency. That's because the feds have launched the largest-ever rollout of a new authentication mechanism for the Internet's DNS. All federal agencies are deploying DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) on the .gov top-level domain, and some expect that once that rollout is complete, banks and other businesses might be encouraged to follow suit for their sites. DNSSEC prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. The Internet standard prevents spoofing attacks by allowing Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public-key encryption."
Fast-Booting Text-Editor Operating System? 660
cgenman writes "What is the fastest booting operating system out there that is still sufficient for editing text? Quite frequently, I'll need to boot my laptop and edit a few lines of text, or jot down an idea or two. XP loads in roughly 4 minutes to usable, and Ubuntu loads in about 60 seconds. Both feel like an eternity if there isn't a pen and paper around. What is the best operating system that people have found which would load to useable in under 20 seconds, can edit text files in something a little more friendly than VI or EMACS, yet can still access fat32 formatted USB drives? GUIs aren't required, but commands which require arcane foreknowledge or a cheat sheet are out."
Congress May Kill NIH Open Access Research Rules 105
Savuka writes "A policy that mandates public, open access to all National Institutes of Health research is in danger. The House of Representatives is considering legislation that would change the open access policy to make it more publisher-friendly, under the false pretense of protecting copyrights. The Ars author paints the new legislation as somewhat reflective of a turf battle in Congress: 'The Intellectual Property Subcommittee clearly felt that it had been ignored during the original passage of the bill that compelled the NIH's open access policy...' The article concludes: 'Currently, the disruptions wrought by the Internet and expectations of open access are too new for a viable alternative to traditional publishing to have emerged. But it doesn't appear that the NIH policy is making a significant contribution to that disruption, and the benefits of the policy appear likely to be significant. If Congress rolls back that policy in response to disagreements with other countries over film piracy, then it could really be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.'"
Submission + - Royal Society 'Creationism' resigns (bbc.co.uk)
Chris_Keene writes: "The BBC reports that Professor Michael Reiss who recently caused a storm with comments about teaching creationism in schools has resigned from his post as director of education at the Royal Society. Turns out 'creationism should be taught in science classes' was a bit of a misquote. The highly respected Lord Prof Robert Winston said "This is not a good day for the reputation of science or scientists. This individual was arguing that we should engage with and address public misconceptions about science — something that the Royal Society should applaud.""
Submission + - Gov. Palin prefers Yahoo email
bartle writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin regularly uses Yahoo email instead of Alaskan government servers. This became relevant when requests were made for official email and it was learned that most of her email sits on Yahoo servers, out of reach of open records laws.
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Palin also routinely does government business from a Yahoo address, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, rather than her secure official state e-mail address, according to documents already made public. "Whoops!" Palin aide Frank Bailey wrote, after addressing an e-mail to the governor's official state address. "Frank, This is not the Governor's personal account," a secretary reminded him.
Submission + - Congress may kill NIH open access research rules (arstechnica.com)
Savuka writes: A policy that mandates public, open access to all National Institutes of Health research is in danger. The House of Representatives is considering legislation that would change the open access policy to make it more publisher-friendly, under the false pretenses of protecting copyrights. One critic of the current open access policy said it would 'destroy the commercial market' and leave science without a peer-review system. When asked if the NIH could manage peer reviewing, something it already does with grants, Oman had a reasonable answer--not without increasing its budget to cover the cost--but buried it in rhetoric about "a healthy distrust for the hairy snout of government," and his "great confidence in the private sector." Apparently, he does not own stock in Shearson Lehman or AIG.'
Mozilla Admits Firefox EULA Is Flawed 312
darthcamaro writes "Mozilla has now come around and is taking seriously the concerns of Ubuntu and others about the Firefox EULA, which we discussed vigorously the other day. In fact Mozilla told InternetNews.com that the EULA itself is flawed and will be replaced with something else. Quoting Mozilla Chairperson Mitchell Baker from the article: 'There is a need for something, something to explain the license[.] I'm not sure I would call it a EULA because that has a meaning to many people of adding restrictions to software and we won't be doing that. We'll be having a license agreement much as Red Hat has a license agreement that says the software is available under the GPL and don't use our trademarks et cetera. So we'll have a license agreement but we won't think of it as a EULA.'"
Google Chrome, the Google Browser 807
Philipp Lenssen writes "Google announced their very own browser project called Google Chrome — an announcement in the form of a comic book drawn by Scott McCloud, no less. Google says Google Chrome will be open source, include a new JavaScript virtual machine, include the Google Gears add-on by default, and put the tabs above the address bar (not below), among other things. I've also uploaded Google's comic book with all the details (details given from Google's perspective, anyway... let's see how this holds up). While Google provided the URL www.google.com/chrome there's nothing up there yet."
Firefox SSL-Certificate Debate Rages On 733
BobB-nw points out the ever more raucous debate over the way Firefox 3 handles self-signed certificates. The scary browser warnings have affected a number of legitimate sites (such as Google AdWords and LinkedIn) that didn't renew certs in time. Lauren Weinstein loudly called attention to the problem early in July. "If you visit a website with either an expired or a self-signed SSL certificate, Firefox 3 will not show that page at all. Instead it will display an error message... To get past this error page, users have to go through four different steps before they can access the website, which from a usability standpoint is far from ideal. This way of handling websites with expired or self-signed SSL certificates is bound to scare away a lot of inexperienced users, no matter how legitimate the website is."
Microsoft Blesses LGPL, Joins Apache Foundation 425
Penguinisto writes "According to a somewhat jaw-dropping story in The Register, it appears that Microsoft has performed a trifecta of geek-scaring feats: They have joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Platinum member(at $100K USD a year), submitted LGPL-licensed patches for ADOdb, and have pledged to expand their Open Specifications Promise by adding to the list more than 100 protocols for interoperability between its Windows Server and the Windows client. While I sincerely doubt they'll release Vista under a GPL license anytime soon, this is certainly an unexpected series of moves on their part, and could possibly lead to more OSS (as opposed to 'Shared Source') interactivity between what is arguably Linux' greatest adversary and the Open Source community." (We mentioned the announced support for the Apache Foundation earlier today, as well.)
Obama Losing Voters Over FISA Support 1489
Corrupt writes "I've admired Obama, but I never confused him with a genuine progressive leader. Today I don't admire him at all. His collapse on FISA is unforgivable. The only thing Obama has going for him this week is that McCain is matching him misstep for misstep."
Submission + - Microsoft Live book/academic search to close (msdn.com)
Chris_Keene writes: "The Live Search blog announces that the Live.com Book and Academic Search are to close. Book search in particular has had much coverage (such as these examples), and often seemed like a race with Google. The Live blog says "we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users", and goes on "strategy to focus on verticals with high commercial intent, such as travel, and offer users cash back on their purchases from our advertisers"."
How To Move Your Linux Systems To ext4 304
LinucksGirl writes "Ext4 is the latest in a long line of Linux file systems, and it's likely to be as important and popular as its predecessors. As a Linux system administrator, you should be aware of the advantages, disadvantages, and basic steps for migrating to ext4. This article explains when to adopt ext4, how to adapt traditional file system maintenance tool usage to ext4, and how to get the most out of the file system."
For CS Majors, How Important Is the "Where?" 991
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a high school senior who is trying to pick a college to attend. I've been accepted by two comparably selective schools. One is a highly regarded tech school, and the other is a highly regarded liberal arts institution. I prefer the liberal arts college, but the computer science program is small, graduating about a dozen students a year. The course load is heavily theory based; programming languages are taught in later years.
How much would the tech school vs. non tech school matter? Are CS majors from non-tech school considered inferior? What would an HR department think? What would you think if you were hiring?"
