Slashdot

couchslug writes "I went looking for drivers for a friend and found this proof that Microsoft can make use of older Windows versions more difficult." http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01080344&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=59270&lang=en "As of July 2007, HP will no longer be able to offer driver downloads or replacement driver CD ordering for Windows 98, 98 Second Edition (SE), or Windows Millennium (Me) for your HP printer, all-in-one, camera, or scanner. Microsoft has stopped providing and supporting certain files related specifically to Windows 98 SE, and this change affects all technology companies. HP, along with other technology companies, is no longer able to use selected components in support of Windows 98SE, which has an impact on our software strategy for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows Me. HP will continue to provide other selected HP software and applications that do not depend on Windows 98 SE components for the foreseeable future.""

More than a year after claiming to have found a way to take over a Macintosh computer using a flaw in the system's wireless card, David Maynor has finally published details of his exploit. Maynor had been under a nondisclosure agreement, which had previously prevented him from publishing details of the hack, but the NDA is over now and by going public with the information, Maynor hopes to help other Apple researchers with new documentation on things like Wi-Fi debugging and the Mac OS X kernel core dumping facility.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1809081490;fp;4;fpid;16

Snowraver1 writes "Occationally after downloading files from the Internet I'll notice that the file downloaded is a .rar file within a .rar file. The first "layer" of raring is not password protected, but the .rar file that gets extracted from the first archive is password protected. What I'm left with is a password protected .rar file and anger. My question to everyone here is: What is the best way to crack a password protected .rar file? I have seen some crappy shareware brute force type programs, but I was thinking something more like RainbowCrack. Is there a way to extract the password hash value from the .rar archive and use RainbowCrack to crack it?"

Geminus writes "Yahoo news reports that on Friday the 14th SCO finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. SCO CEO Daryl McBride blames Linux. Apparently, NOVELL's impending $25,000,000 award will finally sink this lead laden ship out of existence. Since we all saw it coming, anyone want their money back for buying a SCO license?"

AdmiralDouglas writes "Apparently some 600 people or more have gotten sick from 'inhaling gasses' near a crater in a remote location in Peru. The crater is presumed to be a meteorite crash site. Authorities are looking into what could be causing the illnesses. They don't believe it's radiation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7001897.stm"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7001897.stm

Surely I'm not the only one who noticed that OpenOffice.org has announced the release of version 2.3. From the website: "Available for download now, OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an extensive array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it. Plus: It is only with 2.3 that users can make full use of our growing extensions library." You can download it but be kind and use a P2P client instead, such as bittorrent.

IdaAshley writes "What if you could allow users to craft their own filesystem setup without being constrained by the sysadmin-dictated structure? Well now you can with mount propagation. This article provides a step-by-step guide for Linux system administrators to allow users to export part of their own filesystem tree and import other users' exported filesystem trees into their tree."

SCO Group CEO Darl McBride says competition from the open source Linux operating system was a major reason why the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday.

In a court filing in support of SCO's bankruptcy petition, McBride noted that SCO's sales of Unix-based products "have been declining over the past several years." The slump, McBride said, "has been primarily attributable to significant competition from alternative operating systems, including Linux."

McBride listed IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems as distributors of Linux or other software that is "aggressively taking market share away from Unix."

An anonymous reader writes "Control Engineering has an article about how the railroad companies are using high-speed 3D scanning at 30 mph to detect defects in railroad track. Up until now, amazingly, people have been walking the track to judge the condition of it."
http://www.controleng.com/article/CA6475616.html

Stony Stevenson writes "iTNews is running an article about the consequences of the EU's ruling against Microsoft. The article discusses how the outcome of the case could force players like Intel, Apple, and others to share or open their technology to outsiders.

From the article: "Several looming European cases may now draw from the decision on Microsoft. The same section of the treaty that got Microsoft into trouble, a section that talks about "abuse of a dominant position within the common market," also spurred on-going formal probes of both Intel and memory chipmaker Rambus.

"This decision will make it difficult for a company with high market share to expand the functionality of its software or other products when sold in Europe," Nicholas Economides, an economics professor at New York University, said.

Meanwhile, the European Union will hold anti-trust hearings later this week to investigate whether Apple and major record labels are engaging in unfair pricing practices for digital media. That concern arises partially out of Apple's dominance in digital media sales, where some have complained that Apple creates its own vendor lock-in by not allowing any other media devices but the iPod to work with iTunes."

muzzatait writes "There are currently only three Radiohead songs available on iTunes, all as part of soundtracks and compilations. But head over to 7digital, and you'll find all of Radiohead's albums plus some early singles, available in the 320 Kbps, DRM-free MP3 format."
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/09/radiohead-blows.html

Lucas123 writes "SWEEPS-10 is less than a million miles from its sun, which means a year on that planet is only 10 hours long, while a year on HD209458b is only 3.5 Earth-days long. Solar winds on that planet are removing 10,000 tons of material every second. Upsilon Andromeda b is tidally locked to its sun like the Moon is to Earth, so one side of the planet is always facing its star making one side as hot as lava and the other side frozen. There are also free-floating planets have no sun at all, but float aimlessly through space."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588333/

over at linux.com: Linux on cell phones: the trend is up By Murry Shohat on September 17, 2007 (9:00:00 PM) This summer, in a perfect storm of activity, the cell phone suddenly became a full-fledged wireless computer. Those prime-time TV commercials promoting the iPhone downplay the telephone application to emphasize data-rich Internet media capabilities — email, Web surfing, GPS navigation, music, photos, and video — all on a cell phone. Hard on Apple's heels, a blitz of new handhelds is beginning to vie for attention, led by Motorola's US launch of the Linux-based RAZR2 V8, now taking place. Has Linux become a contending competitive platform, pushing open source to the front of the stage in this market?