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Comment: Thanks (Score 1) 1521

by Denny (#37204414) Attached to: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
Like so many here will no doubt be doing, I just wanted to say 'thanks'. Slashdot was not only my favourite source of news for many years, but also Slash (the 0.3-pre tarball!) was my introduction to coding in Perl, and out of that I built my career. So my sincere thanks for all you did here, and I hope you enjoy whatever you do next.

Comment: Re:It's the carriers, not the technology (Score 1) 113

by Denny (#27515821) Attached to: Can Mobile Broadband Solve the UK Digital Divide?

If you've got the kind of issues described in the article summary, your carriers stink.

Yes, they do. Why do the carriers in .au not stink - is there legislation that stops them getting up to the same kind of crap that the UK ones do? Or is there more room on their backbone networks? Or are they just nicer? :)

The UK has always had ridiculously high bandwidth prices and ridiculously low traffic caps, on all Internet services - I've hosted numerous UK-specific websites on US servers over the last ten years, purely for cost reasons.

Comment: Traffic caps are a problem... (Score 1) 113

by Denny (#27515757) Attached to: Can Mobile Broadband Solve the UK Digital Divide?

My girlfriend has mobile broadband through Vodafone because BT couldn't figure out how to install a line in her property (which didn't stop an engineer claiming he'd done it, and them billing her for most of a year before it all got sorted out - but I digress).

I've been surprised at how good the speed and stability of her connection is, but the traffic cap is crippling. She's a fairly heavy 'net user (she's a freelance web designer, so has to upload new sites and drafts for her clients to see), but she's not a filesharer, and she runs up against her 5GB cap most months. Going over it gets very expensive very quickly.

The worst thing about the cap is that it discourages her from downloading updates for her OS and software... meaning that she's probably more open to virus/worm infections.

Programming

+ - Ecommerce with Catalyst - a post-project analysis

Submitted by
Denny
Denny writes "Perl is Alive has published a 'six months later' analysis of a Perl ecommerce project which used the popular Catalyst framework at its core. It's a well-written look at how, by choosing various components from CPAN, you can build up a complex custom-tailored system without having to write everything end-to-end yourself. The author concludes that they would "undoubtedly" make the same technology decisions again, given the success of this project, and the quality of 'modern' Perl libraries and frameworks which are now available from CPAN."
Sci-Fi

+ - The tech of Star Trek: here today, or on its way->

Submitted by
Harry
Harry writes "J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie is only a month away, and while it may be a promising reimagining of the the Trek universe, there are plenty of ways in which the old Trek universe is reminiscent of our own 21st century. Abrams' film is the eleventh Star Trek movie, so we've compiled a look at eleven technologies from Star Trek that foreshadowed stuff that's actually happening today."
Link to Original Source
The Internet

+ - Worst privacy invasion in the world, by the UK -> 1

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes "A European Union directive, which Britain was instrumental in devising, comes into force which will require all internet service providers to retain information on email traffic, visits to web sites and telephone calls made over the internet, for 12 months.

Police and the security services will be able to access the information to combat crime and terrorism.

Hundreds of public bodies and quangos, including local councils, will also be able to access the data to investigate flytipping and other less serious crimes.

It was previously thought that only the large companies would be required to take part, covering 95 per cent of Britain's internet usage, but a Home Office spokesman has confirmed it will be applied "across the board" to even the smallest company."
Link to Original Source

Thufir's a Harkonnen now.

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