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SOPA and PIPA So Far 273

Posted by samzenpus
from the getting-the-scoop dept.
Since their inception SOPA and PIPA have raised concerns about blacklisting from online freedom advocates, and tech industry giants. Law professors worry that they could stifle growth and innovation. Other's have warned that the legislation would hurt scientific debate and open discourse on the internet. SOPA and PIPA are not without support however. In fact a wide variety of companies have backed the proposed laws, bringing together an eclectic group. After months of debate, the removal of one of the more controversial provisions, and The White House expressing its own concerns over the law in its current form, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he was shelving SOPA. PIPA however remains, and it is likely that a re-worked version of the House bill will be brought up soon.
Microsoft

Microsoft 'Trustworthy Computing' Turns 10 185

Posted by Soulskill
from the eat-your-cake-at-your-desk dept.
gManZboy writes "Bill Gates fired off his famous Trustworthy Computing memo to Microsoft employees on Jan. 15, 2002, amid a series of high-profile attacks on Windows computers and browsers in the form of worms and viruses like Code Red and 'Anna Kournikova.' The onslaught forced Gates to declare a security emergency within Microsoft, and halt production while the company's 8,500 software engineers sifted through millions of lines of source code to identify and fix vulnerabilities. The hiatus cost Microsoft $100 million. Today, the stakes are much higher. 'TWC Next' will include a focus on cloud services such as Azure, the company says."

Comment: Re:Plugins (Score 5, Informative) 415

by EMR (#37086550) Attached to: Mozilla Firefox 6 Released Ahead of Schedule

This is why they are encouraging extension developers to switch to the Mozilla addons SDK which provides API stability between firefox releases (and is built in in firefox 4.0+ ). the addon SDK also allows for installing plugins without restarting the browser!! YEAH!!!

now, have you tried installing the addon compatibility reporter?

  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/

with that enabled you can forcibly enable addons that claim to not be compatible and test to see if they work. Also it gives you a away to send feedback to the developer that "hey it works" or "no it doesn't". And of course if you haven't contacted the developers of those addons, then that could be why they haven't been updated.

Comment: Booting up before clocking in! (Score 1) 557

by EMR (#37085858) Attached to: The Death of Booting Up

The company I used to work for was trying to mandate that employees boot up their systems before clocking in so they wouldn't have to "pay" for the time it took them to boot their systems. Insane!!!

Me personally I had a linux system that booted up in 20 seconds anyways and of course I rarely ever rebooted it to begin with so had no issues:)

Comment: It's a necessity for me (Score 1) 1002

by EMR (#36145106) Attached to: Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor?

For me it's a necessity. For web development I usually have code editor on left monitor and browser(s) on the right.. Also the right monitor serves as a place for documentation and reference manuals.

At one point my "office" system had 3 monitors.. where the 3rd monitor primarily hosed email.

But I have found the extra screen real-estate greatly improves my productivity. So if companies REALLY want their developers to only have one monitor.. get them a nice 30" cinema screen.. :-D Though it'd be cheaper to just get then 2 or 3 24" monitors.

Comment: High price, and limited devices to play on (Score 1) 1162

by EMR (#35869164) Attached to: Why Has Blu-ray Failed To Catch Hold?

Odds, are it's a combination of the following..

1) higher price
2) limited playability (must have a blu-ray player which you can't get for 30 bucks)
3) requires a "newer TV" and the reality is many have tvs without HDMI (and the copy projection restriction mechanism that rides along)
4) for many it's not all that much extra. (me personally I have a 42" tv and things do look somewhat better, but the biggest thing I notice is subtitles are MUCH crisper in blu-ray., but I have to watch it on THAT tv only)
5) Refusal to purchase as a matter of principle of being PISSED at the movie studios for crippling DVDs..
      - Have you noticed how DVDs now have less and less special features? As an attempt to "encourage" and punish you into buying blu-ray.
6) Can't really play blu-ray on your desktop computers.. and blu-ray is not a standard piece in computers AND software are not available for all platforms even.
7) Netflix and Redbox.
    - Yeah I make frequent use of redbox.. I can "Try before I buy" and sift through all of the CRAP that comes out of hollywood for $1 a pop. And unfortunately there's a lot of crap so people just plain aren't going to spend 25-40 bucks to buy a piece of crap. They'll wait until it's in the $5 bin at wal-mart.

Comment: Old Feature Reintroduced? (Score 1) 323

by EMR (#35455728) Attached to: Google Introduces Domain Blocking To Search

Am I the only one that remembers this ability to block domains from severs YEARS ago that google had and yanked? (As I had experts exchange blocked back then)

All this buzz about a old feature that WAS there and google removed it and is now just adding it back in "reincarnated"

And I'm sure that experts-exchange will probably think about filing something against google for allowing people to block their site:-D

Google

Google Introduces Domain Blocking To Search 323

Posted by Soulskill
from the see-you-later-yahoo-answers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "We recently discussed a new Chrome extension that was introduced to block specified websites from appearing in search results. Now, Google has introduced a new feature that hide results from unwanted domains right from the search page. This is yet another way to find more of what you want on Google by blocking the sites you don't want to see at all in search result. The so-called 'experts exchange' or 'online eHow to guide' would be first on my blocked list." Another neat recent addition was the introduction of Recipe View, which adds depth to food preparation searches.

Comment: Business Cable blocking Port 25? (Score 2) 459

by EMR (#35273026) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is There a War Against Small Mail Servers?

My dad's server is on Business Cable and Port 25 is not blocked and we have had no issues running our mail server on that connection.. Now one thing that we did do to aid in preventing us from being blocked is requesting our 5 IPs setup with reverse DNS entries to our domains instead of the Generic "ISP looking" ones that comcast assigns by default. You should contact Comcast and Verizon to set that up.

Also, make sure when you are testing if port 25 is "open" that you aren't yourself on an ISP that blocks 25 outbound. And make sure you setup port 587 (SMTP submission.. Authenticated SMTP) so that users can send mail from any ISP.

Google

App — the Most Abused Word In Tech? 353

Posted by timothy
from the I-remember-calling-them-programs dept.
Barence writes "PC Pro has a blog exploring the misuse of the word 'app'. Until the iPhone came along, the word 'application' largely meant a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC or Mac. Then Apple took ownership, trimmed it to three letters, and within months the word 'app' became synonymous with small widgets of code for smartphones. Now, Google's pushing the boundaries of the 'app' definition even further. Google Chrome users will have seen a new addition to their browser recently: the Chrome Web Store. Here, you'll find dozens of 'apps' to install and run directly from a handy icon on the browser's home screen. Except, these aren't 'apps' at all. They're websites. Google's idea of 'apps' are what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'bookmarks.' Does the word 'app' mean anything at all any more?"

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