Lopton - Slashdot User

Submission + - Navy Wants Dolphins to Patrol Nuclear Sub Base

Submitted by

NewsCloud

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @08:46PM

NewsCloud writes: "Many Seattle residents don't realize they live across the water from a major nuclear submarine base, one which the Navy hopes to begin patrolling with sea lions and dolphins (like the ones that escaped after Hurricane Katrina). Aside from ethical concerns, Puget Sound is home to the endangered killer whale (technically a dolphin but apparently not interested in mercenary work) and its waters are often too cold (40F) for the softer warm water military dolphins. Ironically, we might end up with sea lions defending our country inside Puget Sound, while being shot with rubber bullets nearby to protect endangered salmon runs. Meanwhile, California has reinitiated lawsuits against the Navy for continued use of sonar suspected of harming wild mammals."

Submission + - Remotely attack Windows thru your cursor?

Submitted by millerjl on Thursday March 29, 2007 @07:28PM

millerjl writes: Welcome to the brave new world where animated cursors can execute remote code in windows. Microsoft released Security Advisory 935423 today announcing the issue. Oh, there is no patch at this time. Microsoft's official recommendation at this time: "Do not visit untrusted websites or view unsolicited email". And yes, Vista along with all the rest are vulnerable according to this SecurityFocus article.

Submission + - Mexico displays giant electronic teaching sceens

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29, 2007 @07:06PM

An anonymous reader writes: It what is believed to be the most ambitious project of its kind in the world. In a program called Enciclomedia, giant electronic screens have been attached to the walls of about 165,000 Mexican classrooms. Some five million 10 & 11 year-olds now receive all their education through these screens. From maths to music, from geography to geometry, black and white boards have given way to electronic screens. During a biology lesson we watch as pupil after pupil comes to the screen to piece together the human body... electronically. One boy taps his finger on the screen and brings up the human heart. He then slides his finger across the screen, taking the heart with him and places it where he thinks it belongs on the body located on the other side of the screen.

Submission + - Popular HD DVD Disc Hits a Snag

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29, 2007 @05:55PM

An anonymous reader writes: Following weeks of headlines touting strong sales for Blu-ray discs, rival next-gen format HD DVD looked like it had its own success story in the making with this week's HD DVD release of the cult hit 'Children of Men.' The disc recieved a stellar review at High-Def Digest, and went on to out-sell the most popular Blu-ray discs on Amazon. But now comes word of apparent incompatibility issues with the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, with some (but not all) consumers reporting that even multiple returns of the disc are unplayable on the format's leading playback device.

Submission + - Massive Yahoo Groups Glitch Bombards Inboxes

Submitted by

Talaria

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @05:32PM

Talaria writes: "What appears to be a massive internal glitch in the Yahoo Groups system has caused users' inboxes to be overloaded, and left Yahoo Groups owners and moderators dealing with complaints and dozens of copies of every administrative request. According to reports, Yahoo users' inboxes have been filled beyond storage capacity, with no relief in sight. No word yet from Yahoo on the cause of the problem or when it will be fixed. Ironically, Yahoo just announced that starting in May, all users will have unlimited storage capacity for email."

Journal Journal: OpenOffice 2.2

Journal by Odiseo70 on Thursday March 29, 2007 @04:59PM

At OpenOffice's web site we can get the new release of the suite. Bug fixing and new features, specially for Base and Calc are now present, including the ability to import Excel Sheets with Pivot tables from external data, among other thing, according to the release notes.

Submission + - Intel Users Have Lower IQs Than AMD

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29, 2007 @04:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: In a recent survey conducted by Moritech RAD, a study of over 5,000 computer users concluded that people who use Intel powered computers have a lower IQ than their AMD counterparts. The study took place over a six month period and involved computer users with Intel and AMD powered computers of various specifications. The test subjects were asked to complete a series of written and hands on tests covering basic computer skills up to more advanced tasks. The survey found that over 69% of people with Intel powered computers had greater learning difficulties and found computer related tasks more difficult compared with 31% of AMD. http://www.maxitmag.com/loose-wires/articles/intel -users-less-intelligent-than-amd.html

Submission + - Fortune 1000 Companies Sending Spam, Phishing

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29, 2007 @04:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: TheRegister takes a look at spam touting everything from Viagra to phishing sites being blasted out of Fortune 1000 networks. Oracle was found to have a machine pushing out a PayPal phishing scam, and BestBuy had a system sending thousands of spams a month. The Washington Post's Security Fix blog also is tracking this story, finding stock spam being pumped from ExxonMobile and from American Electric Power, among others. Another machine at IndyMac Bank was the source of spam touting generic prescription drugs. From the story: "...an IT engineer with American Electric Power, said the stock spam came from a bot-infected computer belonging to a contractor at one of its power generator plants."

Submission + - Blackboard Not Playing Nice with Vista on Campuses

Submitted by

scott3778

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @04:22PM

scott3778 writes: "On college campuses, Microsoft's Vista operating system may be in danger of failing courses that use Blackboard, a key software program for communication between teachers and students. Some campuses in the U.S. and elsewhere using Blackboard are discovering that the software and some of its functionality is being hindered as students and teachers begin to update their systems with Microsoft Vista. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2109454,00.as p"

Submission + - AT&T/Cingular Blocks FreeConferenceCall Number

Submitted by

Lambert

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @09:53AM

Lambert writes: "I am an employee of a small start-up and we depend on the freeconferencecall.com service to interface with customers on a weekly business. Obviously this service is one that could be considered "disruptive" for the big telco's like Cingular/ATT, Sprint, and Quest because conference call services traditionally are VERY expensive. Anyway, here's the email that I recieved today: "As we know many of you have seen, the news media and bloggers have been covering the fact that Cingular/AT&T, Sprint and Qwest have been blocking some of our FreeConferenceCall numbers. Our goal with this month's newsletter is to separate fact from fiction, and, more importantly, set the record straight with the answers that you so richly deserve. We have spoken extensively with customers, competitors and lawyers to fully assess the situation and the implications for FreeConferenceCall users. Last week, some of our Cingular and Sprint customers began calling into customer service with issues surrounding their connections to our service. After speaking with Cingular's customer service group, our customers were given numerous, and unfounded, reasons for the call blockage. Reasons cited included fraud, international forwarding, fee disputes and, to our astonishment, that we were blocking our own FreeConferenceCall numbers. We cannot corroborate or justify any of these reasons. FreeConferenceCall would never knowingly impede our customers from using our services. For now, we can tell you that a Cingular spokesperson has gone on record and stated that their terms of service gives them the right to block any number they wish and also said that AT&T's wireless service is "between one person and another person, not between one person and many." Cingular and Sprint have chosen to block service to our shared customers regardless of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules and regulations. Neither carrier has ever directly complained, filed suit or even contacted FreeConferenceCall. The upshot is that carriers are basically telling you that a cell phone is not intended for use on conference calls of any type. As a total commitment to our customers, we have quickly ramped up to help them deal with this issue. If you are experiencing connectivity problems, please call us directly at 877-482-5838. We promise to give you unparalleled technical support and will treat every customer with immediate, personalized attention. We have also created a blog and information center to help customers get details and resources for continuing their communications. You can find articles, links and comments at blog.freeconferencecall.com.""

Submission + - Circuit City and the American Dream job

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29, 2007 @09:35AM

An anonymous reader writes: Circuit City said yesterday that it had fired 3,400 of its highest-paid sales staff and will replace them with lower-paid workers, however the fired workers have a chance to apply for lower-paying positions after a 10-week delay, said the 655-store electronics chain based in Richmond, Va. Circuit City spokesman Jim Babb said: "This is no reflection on job performance,". "We deeply regret the negative impact. Retail is extremely competitive, and if we're going to thrive and operate a successful company for our shoppers, employees and shareholders, we just have to control costs." So work hard, become the best in your field and get fired so they can offer you a new job 10 weeks later at a lower salary. That seems to fit the American Dream?????

Submission + - Thought RTFs were malware free? Think again!

Submitted by stry_cat on Thursday March 29, 2007 @08:58AM

stry_cat writes: Over at http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2528&rss it says:

"...no doubt that you are aware of the huge number of exploits directed toward various Office applications, mainly Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. For quite some time a lot of administrators (us included) told people to convert documents to other (safer) formats, one of them being RTF (Rich Text Format). Although this format is proprietary, the specification is publicly available so a lot of word processors support this format."

However as the article continues, we find that one can still embed stuff. Embedding the right (or is it wrong) stuff can have the unsuspecting user downloading some seriously bad malware. Even worse it is likely your AV software will miss this malware!

The article concludes:

"This was another example of why complex file formats should be avoided. Even if you do scan all files on your e-mail gateway (or web filtering server), as you can see most AV programs would miss this as they would scan only the RTF document. One more time we see how important defense in depth is — in this case you would depend on user's awareness and ultimately on his desktop AV product. "

Submission + - USPS announced Star Wars stamp set

Submitted by

morpheus83

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @07:56AM

morpheus83 writes: "After R2D2 letter boxes USPS continues the saga, as it unveiled 15 new stamps featuring Star Wars characters at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood where the original "Star Wars" movie opened 30 years ago. The 41 cent stamps will be released on May 25, all the 15 stamps will be issued on a single sheet resembling a movie poster."

Submission + - Could KDE 4.0 be the holy grail of Desktops ?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29, 2007 @05:33AM

An anonymous reader writes: This article ponders on whether the upcoming KDE 4.0 could indeed be the holy grail of Desktops. One of the most repeated complaints by a section of Linux enthusiasts is the perceived complexity of KDE when compared with its popular counterpart Gnome. The author of the article wonders whether incorporating the simple but functional File manager Dolphin is a sure sign that the KDE developers are gunning for KDE 4.0 to be everything for all sections of Linux/Unix users be they power users like Linus Torvalds or the grandmas and grandpas.

Submission + - when did you find slashdot?

Submitted by rucs_hack on Thursday March 29, 2007 @04:38AM

rucs_hack writes: I first encountered slashdot during an 'ethics in computer science' lecture in 2002, when the lecturer mentioned it, and a friend stared at me in disbelief when I said I hadn't heard of it. Now it's an essential part of my daily net routine (who doesn't have one of those..).

It took me a few tries to understand the way slashdot works (I'm a bit slow...), I rather stupidly was surprised at the way stories moved off the front page so quickly. I saw a story on speech recognition and went back in a week to find it gone (omg, such a noob).

What about you? How did you find slashdot?

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