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Cloud

Ask Slashdot: How Do I Scrub Pirated Music From My Collection? 758

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the forgive-me-father-for-i-have-sinned dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I tried out Google Music, and I liked it. Google made me swear that I won't upload any 'illegal' tracks, and apparently people fear Apple's iCloud turning into a honeypot for the RIAA. My music collection comprises about 90% 'legal' tracks now — legal meaning tracks that I paid for — but I still have some old MP3s kicking around from the original Napster. Moreover, I have a lot of MP3s that I downloaded because I was too lazy to rip the CD version that I own. I wanted to find a tool to scan my music to identify files that may be flagged as having been pirated by these cloud services; I thought such a tool would be free and easy to find. After all, my intent is to search my own computer for pirated music and to delete it — something that the RIAA wants the government to force you to do. But endless re-phrasing on Google leads to nothing but instructions for how to obtain pirated music. Does such a tool exist or does the RIAA seriously expect me to sift through 60 GB of music, remember which are pirated, and delete them by hand?"
Microsoft

Time To Dump XP? 1213

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the wasn't-that-ship-date dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Gartner is saying it's time to plan your migration now (if you havent already done it). I for one know my company still has loads of users still on XP, citing training costs (time and money) rather than software license fees. Is my company alone in wanting to stay in the 1990s or is Windows 7 the way forward?"
The Courts

Spanish Judges Liken File Sharing To Lending Books 352

Posted by kdawson
from the publishers-don't-like-that-either dept.
Dan Fuhry writes "A three-judge panel in the Provincial Court of Madrid has closed a case that has been running since 2005, ruling that the accused are not guilty of any copyright infringement on the grounds that their BitTorrent tracker did not distribute any copyrighted material, and they did not generate any profit from their site: '[t]he judges noted that all this takes places between many users all at once without any of them receiving any financial reward.' This implies that the judges are sympathetic to file sharers. The ruling essentially says that file sharing is the digital equivalent of lending or sharing books or other media. Maybe it's time for all them rowdy pirates to move to Spain."
Programming

For Automated Testing, Better Alternatives To DOS Batch Files? 426

Posted by timothy
from the run-them-under-wine dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I am working on a project that would allow our customers to test out sending different PCL commands to LAN printers. My initial thought was that a DOS batch file will allow users to select some simple options, send the tests to printers, and even generate a small web page which, when launched from the batch file, will provide email feedback on the tool. This all worked. To spice it up I added some ANSI color commands to the menus, though the implementation of that may prove tricky without resorting to .COM files or forcing the load of the ansi.sys via the command.com shortcut. And this implementation goes against my initial idea that I want the entire thing to be contained in a standalone batch file. My questions are: Is there a better option for this? Are DOS Batch files too 1990s to be taken seriously in 2010? The application needs to (1) be simple (2) be easy to update (3) be able to send PCL commands to LAN-attached printers and (4) allow email feedback. I don't know what other programming language would allow this and be as simple. I tend to think that I have found the best tool for the job but if you have another idea let me know. Call me crazy but I love DOS."
Science

Your Computer Or iPad Could Be Disrupting Sleep 351

Posted by kdawson
from the bright-idea dept.
Crash McBang sends in a CNN report on electronics and sleeplessness and asks, "So, what do Slashdotters do to get a good night's rest?" "More than ever, consumer electronics — particularly laptops, smartphones, and Apple's new iPad — are shining bright light into our eyes until just moments before we doze off. Now there's growing concern that these glowing gadgets may actually fool our brains into thinking it's daytime. Exposure can disturb sleep patterns and exacerbate insomnia, some sleep researchers said in interviews. ... Unlike paper books or e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle, which does not emit its own light, the iPad's screen shines light directly into the reader's eyes from a relatively close distance. That makes the iPad and laptops more likely to disrupt sleep patterns than, say, a television sitting across the bedroom or a lamp that illuminates a paper book, both of which shoot far less light straight into the eye, researchers said."
The Internet

Pope Rails Against the Internet and Transparency 840

Posted by kdawson
from the lots-to-be-opaque-about dept.
tcd004 writes "At a conference on digital media at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI attacked the idea of transparency in the Internet age, warning that digital transparency exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves and increases the 'dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism,' which can lead to 'multiple forms of degradation and humiliation' of the essence of a person, and to the 'pollution of the spirit.' All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide-open communication environment being demanded by the Internet age."

Comment: Re:As usual (Score 1) 269

by Criffer (#31920460) Attached to: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks

Real world trials generally don't use placebos. Instead, the control is the best treatment currently available. After all, you're usually not interested in whether some drug works better than sugar, but whether it's worth using it instead of or in addition to some currently available treatment. So the control group get the best treatment they could have got if they were not in the study, while the experimental group may or may not fare better.

Comment: H.261 (Score 1) 183

by Criffer (#31801300) Attached to: Google Funds Ogg Theora For Mobile

We already have an unpatented, royalty-free, unencumbered, lowest-common-denominator video codec for use on the internet: H.261.

H.323 specifies it as the lowest common denominator for video-over-IP, so all video phones already support it, including hardware implementations. It was published in 1990 - twenty years ago - so it is as patent-free as you can get. And it's published by the ITU, so the specification is freely available.

Earth

Pumping Sunlight Into Homes 182

Posted by kdawson
from the doctor-my-eyes dept.
ByronScott sends a snippet from Inhabitat that begins "What if you could light your entire building using no electricity or artificial lights – but just the natural light from our favorite star, the Sun? Enter the Sundolier, a powerful sunlight transport system that's like putting a solar robot on your roof to pump sunlight indoors. The manufacturer claims a single Sundolier unit can provide enough light to illuminate a 1,000-2,500 sq. ft. area [93-232 sq. m] without any other sources." The company's website is a bit thin on details, such as what happens on cloudy days, or how many days of sunlight per year on average are needed for the device to perform acceptably.

My mind is making ashtrays in Dayton ...