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Comment: Mine's worse... (Score 1) 362

by glhturbo (#37689244) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Standard Software Development Environments?

Well, since you asked ... Here's my daily work environment (Just so you know it's worse somewhere :-) )

- Main application coded in VB 6.0 ("ported" from VB 3.0, so it uses NO "advanced" features of VB 6.0)
- Secondary and "tool" applications coded in C/C++ (but compiled with Visual Studio 6.0)
- Version control: MKS
- Bug Tracking: MKS
- SQA -- Only since 2010, and the product in its current form has basically been around since VB 1.0 (the original version was written in Pascal for an Apple ][!)
- Code reviews: no
- Coding standards: no
- Continuous Integration: WTF is that? :-(
- Unit testing: HA!

The good news is, we're hiring!

Transportation

Just 1 out of 16 Hybrids Pays Back in Gas Savings->

Submitted by thecarchik
thecarchik writes "One of the criticisms of hybrid cars has historically been that there's no payback, especially given the cheap gasoline prices in the U.S.
The extra money you spend on a hybrid isn't returned in gas savings, say critics. Well, that may be true, especially when regular gasoline is averaging $2.77 a gallon this week. But as we often point out, most people don't buy hybrids for payback--they buy them to make a statement about wanting to drive green . Nevertheless, a Canadian study has now looked at the question of hybrid payback in a country whose gasoline is more expensive than ours (roughly $3.70 per gallon this week), with surprising results.

The British Columbia Automobile Association projected the fuel costs of 16 hybrids over five years against their purchase price and financing fees. In a study released in late July, only a single one of the 16 hybrids cost less to buy and run than its gasoline counterpart."
Link to Original Source
Networking

Will Your Home Network Survive After You're Gone?

Submitted by glhturbo
glhturbo writes "I have a small home network that includes a wireless access point, wired and wireless network clients, a shared NAS, and Linux (mine) and Windows (wife and two kids) computers. I also have a Linux-based firewall PC in the mix. I'm a bit concerned that if I get hit by a bus, my non-technically-inclined-wife will have to try to figure this stuff out, especially the NAS, which has ALL of our data on it (pictures, music, etc), but has EXT3 formatted drives. Short of trying to keep some kind of living document for all of this, does anybody have suggestions for "survival plans" and/or "rescue plans" for their data and network in case of incapacitation or death?"
Networking

How to automate a system startup? 1

Submitted by glhturbo
glhturbo writes "I am thinking of using a Linux-based firewall product that runs on a PC, but I do NOT wish to run a PC all night, when nobody is using the network. I can obviously do a cron job to shut the system down, but then, how do I automatically start it up in the morning so that my family can use the Internet without waking me up to start the PC? I thought of a simple timer that would kill electricity after the scheduled shutdown, and restore it sometime later, but with modern PCs, there's no hardwired 'ON' switch, so that won't necessarily restart the computer. Are there systems with BIOS timers that would allow this? Any other ideas?"
Media

Is It Possible To Protect Your Kids Online

Submitted by wiredog
wiredog writes "In light of the multiple daily stories about various online predators, and attempts to Protect The Childrentm from them, a Washington Post writer asks

How much can parents protect their children from increasingly pervasive technology and the many bad things that can come from it? How much should they protect them?

Are the MySpaces and Comcasts and Earthlinks of the world completely blameless? As a parent, is it even possible to completely protect your children in this era?
"
Software

OxygenOffice Professional 2.1 is Downloadable

Submitted by
KAMI
KAMI writes "OxygenOffice Professional 2.1 — Extended, open and free
(formerly known as OpenOffice.org Premium)

Get more. Do more.

OxygenOffice Professional is a free and open source enhancement of official OpenOffice.org. The OxygenOffice Professional Team has modified the source of OpenOffice.org and bundled lot of extras with it. Here are just a few of the extras you get with OxygenOffice Professional:

* Possibility to run Visual Basic for Application (VBA) macros in Calc (for testing)

* Multiple monitor support for Impress
* Improved Calc HTML export
* Enhanced Access support for Base
* Fixed security issues
* Enhanced performance
* Enhanced color-palette

More than 3,200 graphics are included, both clip art and photos. These pictures are integrated into the gallery and can easily be placed into any OxygenOffice document. Several templates and sample documents are included, as well as over 90 fonts. The extras are ingrated by default in the installation of OxygenOffice Professional, but they are optional, so the user can decide what parts to include and what parts to leave out. These extra templates, fonts, and graphics are free for both personal and professional use. Additional tools like OOoWikipedia, which can search the free on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia, are also included. An enhanced help menu, addtional User's Manual, and the enabled extended tips are great to help beginners get started using OxygenOffice Professional.

OxygenOffice Professional is based on OpenOffice.org 2.1 This latest and greatest version has new functions like enhanced PDF management and direct export to LaTex. The OxygenOffice Professional team of internatioanl developers changed the name of the project , (which was formerly known as OpenOffice.org Premium), to simplify things and point out that this project is independent from the OpenOffice.org project. Our team loves and supports the OpenOffice.org project, and did not want to cause any potential confusion.

You can download OxygenOffice Professional 2.1 from here:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?grou p_id=170021

Homepage:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ooop/

Available language versions:
Hungarian (HU), English (EN-US), German (DE), Italian (IT), French (FR), Turkish (TR), Georgian (KA) and a special 5in1 language version with Hungarian, English, German, Italian, French for Windows.

Supported platforms:
Windows (Linux version has delayed)

The modified source code can be downloaded here via SVN:
https://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=170021"
It's funny. Laugh.

Alvin slurp gun used to capture hermaphrodite

Submitted by Damien1972
Damien1972 writes "Researchers used an "Alvin Slurp Gun" to capture a hermaphroditic hagfish from a deep sea hydrothermal vent. It is the first time that a member of the jawless fishes (agnathans) has been captured from a hydrothermal vent site. Joe Jones of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, a scientist involved with the expedition, explained: "The Alvin slurp gun is a vacuum canister attached to the front of Alvin that is connected to a Tygon tube position in the front of Alvin. The specimens are suctioned through the tube and stored in a canister on the front of Alvin. It is usually used for collecting small sessile animals." Video of the capture is available."
It's funny. Laugh.

Another perspective on intellectual property

Submitted by joejor
joejor writes "With so much controversy over intellectual property rights in software development, it may be instructive (or at least entertaining) to look at another human endeavor that suffers from stolen ideas: stand-up comedy. Radar magazine has an article that describes the long history of cribbing and theft in comedy, by big names and small.

Given the nature of stand-up, where source material has to be broadcast from performer to audience, it often happens that one performer will hear another's bits and incorporate the funniest ones into his own act, without attribution. The perspectives of the comedians interviewed range from enlightened to downright hateful (hmm, sounds familiar).

Choice quote from TFA: "People take plagiarism so seriously in all other forms of media, whether it's music, newspapers, books ... But with comedy, it's like, 'You're on your own.'""
Robotics

Robot snowblower lets Pennsylvania man relax

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes "A Pennsylvania man can take it easy while his robot snowblower does all the heavy lifting, er, blowing. It's basically a converted golf cart with a snowblower attachment, gear mods, and a remote-control hack. Is this the "must-have geek do-it-yourself-kit" for geeks in snow country next Christmas? Now if only the guys near Buffalo had a beowulf cluster of these babies last week....
Editor: Change icon to Monty Python Stomping Foot"

She sells cshs by the cshore.