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Data Storage

Best Filesystem For External Back-Up Drives? 484

Posted by timothy from the just-mirror-to-the-internet dept.
rufey writes "I've recently embarked on a project to rip my DVD and CD collection to a pair of external USB drives. One drive will be used on a daily basis to access the rips of music and DVDs, as well as store backups of all of my other data. The second drive will be a copy of the first drive, to be synced up on a monthly basis and kept at a different location. The USB drives that I purchased for this are 1 TB in size and came pre-formatted with FAT32. While I can access this filesystem from all of my Windows and Linux machines, there are some limitations." Read on for the rest, and offer your advice on the best filesystem for this application.
Microsoft

Microsoft Ordered To Pay $290M, Stop Selling Word 272

Posted by kdawson from the not-a-troll dept.
Cytalk and other readers tipped us to Microsoft's loss in a US appeals court, in a patent case brought by Canadian company i4i. Microsoft must now pay $290M and either stop selling Word (and probably Office) by January 11, or somehow work around the patent by that date. A Seattle PI blog reports that Redmond has a few options left: "In a statement, Microsoft said it was working hard to comply with the injunction. The company also said it is considering further legal options, including possible requests for a new hearing or a writ of certiorari from the US Supreme Court." Update: 12/22 20:47 GMT by KD : Tim Bray has up a blog post explaining why it would be no great loss if Microsoft dropped the "custom XML" feature in dispute.
Update: 12/22 23:04 GMT by KD : Reader adeelarshad82 pointed out a statement released by Microsoft earlier today, which says in part: "We expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date. In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction."

Comment Critical Thinking Fail (Score 2, Insightful) 161

by drijen (#30450034) Attached to: Ads To Offset Cost of Unlocked Google Phone?
Now, I didn't read TFA (who does) but based on the summary, the authors are idiots (water is also wet).
Few buy unlocked phones because the unwashed masses, for the most part, don't know any better.
I have long been of the opinion that it should be unlawful for a cellular company to bundle phones with plans, and tie them to their network.
If people were forced to buy their own cell phone, and have companies forced to service it (I said service, not support) it would solve a lot of problems including:
  • Less cell phone waste. Because a good phone costs > $400, people will take care of them better. Less crap in our landfills, causing cancer etc.
  • Prices on cell phone plans would drop like a rock. No more double dipping on text messages, stupid data rate plans, etc
  • No more stupid kids with a high priced gadget they don't need (you know the ones I'm referring to)
  • Better cell phones, and faster market presence, as manufacturers will suddenly not be beholden to crap telecom companies, that restrict what the phones can actually do, rather than what the telecom wants to allow
  • Because cell phone manufacturers no longer have to deal with stupid restrictions, they can concentrate on innovating new features and better software/hardware

In other words, this article is based on an idea that amounts to ignorant nonsense.
Google

How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google? 533

Posted by Soulskill from the encrypt-your-search-terms dept.
hubert.lepicki writes "I use Google all the time. I keep two GMail tabs open when I'm online (one is private, another is a corporate account), I use Google search, and recently I switched to the Chromium browser. Google's services are fast, easy to use and usually reliable. At the same time, I know Google is tracking everything I do; I can see it in search results or their ads on web pages, which tend to match my interests. After the recent post by Mozilla's community director suggesting Bing has a better privacy policy (a response to questionable comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt), I started to... 'google' ways of keeping my private data safe while browsing and using Google services. The results weren't very helpful, so I ask you, Slashdotters: how do I stay anonymous to Google while using their services?"
Science

How To Build a Quantum Propulsion Machine 392

Posted by kdawson from the magnetoelectric-quantum-wheel dept.
KentuckyFC writes "According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence. It turns out that these waves can have various measurable effects, such as the Casimir-Polder force, which was first measured accurately in 1997. Just how to exploit this force is still not clear. Now, however, a researcher at an Israeli government lab suggests how it could be possible to generate propulsion using the quantum vacuum. The basic idea is that pushing on the electromagnetic fields in the vacuum should generate an equal and opposite force. The suggestion is that this can be done using nanoparticles that interact with the vacuum's electric and magnetic fields, generating the well-known Lorentz force. In most cases, the sum of Lorentz forces adds up to zero. But today's breakthrough is the discovery of various ways to break this symmetry and so use the quantum vacuum to generate a force. The simplest of these is simply to rotate the particles. So the blueprint for a quantum propulsion machine described in the paper is an array of addressable nanoparticles that can be rotated in the required way. Although such a machine will need a source of energy, it generates propulsion without any change in mass. As the research puts it with magesterial understatement, this might have practical implications."
Businesses

Company Trains the Autistic To Test Software 419

Posted by samzenpus from the you-got-99-problems-but-a-glitch-aint-one dept.
Aspiritech, a Chicago based non-profit company, has launched a program to train high-functioning autistic people as testers for software development companies. The company says autistics have a talent for spotting imperfections, and thrive on predictable, monotonous work. Aspiritech is not the first company to explore the idea of treating this handicap as a resource. Specialisterne, a Danish company founded in 2004, also trains autistics. They hire their workforce out as hourly consultants to do data entry, assembly line jobs and work that many would find tedious and repetitive.
Censorship

Iran Slows Internet Access Before Student Protests 289

Posted by timothy from the oh-y'know-the-usual dept.
RiffRafff writes "Iran is at it again, pre-emptively slowing or cutting Internet access before anticipated student protests." From the article: "Seeking to deny the protesters a chance to reassert their voice, authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl in the capital, Tehran. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was completely shut down — a tactic that was also used before last month's demonstration. The government has not publicly acknowledged it is behind the outages, but Iran's Internet service providers say the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch."
Government

Two Senators Call For ACTA Transparency 214

Posted by kdawson from the we-got-more-senators-than-that dept.
angry tapir writes "Two US senators have asked President Barack Obama's administration to allow the public to review and comment on a controversial international copyright treaty being negotiated largely in secret. The public has a right to know what's being negotiated in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Senators Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and Bernard Sanders, a Vermont Independent, argue in the letter."
Censorship

NIMF To Close Its Doors 68

Posted by Soulskill from the but-where-will-nicodemus-go dept.
eldavojohn writes "One of the driving forces behind the ESRB toughening its ratings is closing its doors on December 31st, 2009. The National Institute on Media and the Family was funded by Fairview Health Services, and simply could no longer justify the yearly $750,000 price tag given today's economic climate. NIMF's reign of nagging has been pretty consistent since 1996, and was often indirectly featured on Slashdot. Don't worry, president and founder Dr. David Walsh promises to keep writing and giving speeches ... and imploring us all to think of the children."

Comment Re:It's shocking how little... (Score 1) 199

by drijen (#29381809) Attached to: How Much Is Your Online Identity Worth?

The writer understands anything. IT IS GOOD THAT CRIMINALS DO NOT PLACE A HIGH VALUE ON OUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION. That basically means that the info is not all that dangerous. It means criminals are afraid of getting caught if they use it, so why spend all that much for it. If the criminals were sure they could get away with it and all they needed was the info, that information would go for a lot higher.

This is not true, and a very silly conclusion.

In reality, credit cards are worth very little, because they are a dime a dozen (pun intended). Furthermore, the amount of profit that can be gained from a credit card number is very small compared to the amount of profit gained, by say...a World Of Warcraft account, or an SSN for actual identity fraud.

Why would you take a $2,000 credit line on a card, when you can take a $100,000 mortgage in someone else name?

In the future, please remember: "A conclusion is the place where you stopped thinking."

Comment Re:Sadly, I don't agree. (Score 3, Insightful) 691

by drijen (#28533909) Attached to: The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software

Parent poster is full of crap.

 

Make no mistake: if Linux were as widely used as Windows, there would be bugs galore to be a-cleaning in Linux land.

 
This is the same as stating: "If linux had the number of users that microsoft windows had, it would be victim to the same number of viruses, malware, and general script kiddies" which is complete bullshit.

 
I'm sick of hearing this argument, only a complete tool would believe it. *Nix systems are inherently more secure, due to its security model (file permissions, groups, no admin rights, etc), and to the fact that it literally forces you to not be a complete moron (security wise) while using it. Furthermore, because of the variety of software that can be installed on each box, only the most common programs (apache, nginx, ssl, ssh, etc) would be effective targets to attack, limiting the areas an admin needs to cover.

 
Due to the above, there are only certain attacks that would be effective to a *Nix system. Off the top of my head, this leaves: privilege escalation, man-in-the-middle, and social engineering (a problem everywhere, regardless of OS).

 
 
In short, a Linux machine that is run by a competent administrator is MUCH more difficult to infect or attack than a Windows machine, and the parent is a moron.

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