Abu Hurayrah - Slashdot User

Internet, Facebook blackout hits Algeria -> 0

Submitted by alphadogg on Saturday February 12 2011, @11:13PM

alphadogg writes "Reports out of Algeria say the North African country has shut down Internet access and eliminated Facebook accounts as pro-democracy protesters seek to topple the government much as Egyptians did in their nation this week.

The report from The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/algeria/8320772/Algeria-shuts-down-internet-and-Facebook-as-protest-mounts.html of London says some 30,000 riot police were used to disperse crowds in Algiers and that journalists have been targeted by "state-sponsored thugs." Reports of the international hacking group Anonymous blocking an Algerian government website have also surfaced."
Link to Original Source

Internet shut down in Algeria-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2011, @10:38PM

An anonymous reader writes "Just 3 weeks ago, the war raged on in Egypt but now revolution has come to Algeria as its country’s citizens also fight for freedom from President Abdelaziz Boutifleka’s rule. The government has gone ahead and shut down the Internet and even had many activists Facebook accounts deleted."
Link to Original Source

What is the Future of Qt?-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2011, @09:23PM

An anonymous reader writes "Continuing the damage control following the announcement of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership, Nokia has a post on their official blog outlining the future of Qt which includes some (cherry picked) comments from Qt users. Phil from Nokia writes, 'Lots of great questions and comments coming from you all on the future of Qt. One thing is for sure: Qt remains to play an important role in Nokia. We’ll have more Qt-related posts coming this week during Mobile World Congress, but for the time being, the Director of Qt’s ecosystem, Daniel Kihlberg, wrote a post on Qt’s official blog on the future of Qt.'"
Link to Original Source

Gates & Ballmer dumping MSFT shares-> 0

Submitted by walterbyrd on Saturday February 12 2011, @07:57PM

walterbyrd writes "Microsoft Founder and Chairman Bill Gates sold 10 million Microsoft shares earlier this month, for a total of 90 million shares sold over the past year (a value of approximately $2.5 billion). CEO Steve Ballmer also sold nearly 50 million shares in the past week, his first stock selloff in seven years. Gates is still Microsoft's largest shareholder, with nearly 600 million shares. But should other investors be nervous about the accelerated rate of his divestiture?"
Link to Original Source

Why Nokia Is Toast-> 1

Submitted by CWmike on Saturday February 12 2011, @02:03PM

CWmike writes "It's hard to remember now, but there was a time when Finland was at the center of the cell phone universe. No more. Nokia is being killed by complexity. Along comes Microsoft with Windows Phone 7, delivering more complexity. My view is that Microsoft doesn't matter, writes Mike Elgan. Although Windows Phone 7 is a way better operating system than Symbian, Nokia's problem isn't Symbian, and the solution isn't Windows Phone 7. Nokia's problem is that it follows the losing strategies of the other losers in the market, and rejects the only two known winning strategies. There are way too many Nokia phones. This causes either choice paralysis, sending buyers screaming to Apple for relief, or buyer's remorse. Nokia should take the advice Steve Jobs gave to Nike CEO Mark Parker: 'Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.'"
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Open hardware? (Score 1) 152

by Abu Hurayrah on Monday August 30 2010, @10:55PM (#33422822) Attached to: Apertus, the Open Source HD Movie Camera

They can indeed enforce it if they can prove the camera it was shot on originally encodced the video in an MPEG-LA codec.

They would have to also prove that you did not have a license to convert it in the first place. I encourage you to read the (unfortunately rather lengthy) post I referenced in my previous comment where you can see that they have no rights after the video has been encoded.

Comment: Re:Is it just me? (Score 2, Interesting) 152

by Abu Hurayrah on Monday August 30 2010, @05:13PM (#33419900) Attached to: Apertus, the Open Source HD Movie Camera

The homepage for the Apertus project is cinema.elphel.com.

Comment: Re:CODECs? (Score 2, Informative) 152

by Abu Hurayrah on Monday August 30 2010, @04:54PM (#33419662) Attached to: Apertus, the Open Source HD Movie Camera

Details about the JP4 codec can be found here: http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=JP4

Comment: Re:Open hardware? (Score 3, Informative) 152

by Abu Hurayrah on Monday August 30 2010, @04:30PM (#33419238) Attached to: Apertus, the Open Source HD Movie Camera

This is not correct. I am not defending MPEG-LA, but I think it's important that we get the facts straight. Once video has been converted from H.264 to another format, MPEG-LA cannot assert anything over it. This e-mail exchange which I archived on Libre Video explains this point using their own, documented words.

Comment: Re:File Complaints Here (Score 1) 794

by Abu Hurayrah on Monday August 25 2008, @10:42PM (#24746449) Attached to: Linux Not Supported For Democratic Convention Video

Here's my e-mail to them (this is because I support Free Software, not Democrats [or Republicans or anything else political]):

Subject: Unable to view videos on website I was unable to use the DNC website to view the live videos from the convention. I was shown this error message:
We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser. Please try again on a computer with the following: Compatible operating systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or a Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5). Compatible browsers: Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works. You can also keep up with us in Denver on our main web site, www.demconvention.com

I have also attached a screenshot showing the exact error page I get using Firefox 3, the latest version of the most popular free browser. I run the Fedora distribution of the GNU/Linux operation system, version 9, which is very modern and supports all the latest open technologies. However, it seems that the DNC website is using proprietary technology that excludes users of free, noncommercial software. This would make it impossible for a large number of people to access the website. In fact, I discovered that a lot of people are suffering the same problem at the popular technology blog, Slashdot, here: http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/08/25/229210.shtml I hope that the DNC will take steps to provide a more open & accessible technology platform for those interested in following these developments. Thank you in advance!

Disclaimer: I replaced their x2019 apostrophes with the one on the keyboard [']. Easier than trying to figure out how to get it to display here...