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+ - Open Source Projects for Beginners->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "Whoever said 'everyone has to start somewhere' has clearly never tried contributing to an open source project — the Linux Kernel development team in particular is known for its savagery. But if you're determined to donate your time and talents, there are some things you can do to get off on the right foot. Of course you should pick something you're interested in and that you use. Check, and double check. You should also research the project, learn about the process for contributing, and do your utmost to avoid asking questions that you can find the answers to. But beyond that there are some hallmarks of beginner-friendly open source projects like Drupal, Python, and LibreOffice — namely, a friendly and active community, training and mentorship programs, and a low barrier to entry."
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+ - Larry Page: You Worry Too Much About Medical Privacy-> 1

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "Yesterday, Larry Page revealed that he'd been suffering from a vocal cord ailment that impaired his ability to speak for more than a year. The positive feedback he got from opening up about it inspired him to tell attendees at Google I/O that we should all be less uptight about keeping our medical records private. As far as Page is concerned, pretty much the only legitimate reason for worry on this score is fear of being denied health insurance. "Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people," he said, perhaps unaware that the Obamacare reforms kicking in next year do exactly that."
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+ - How To Talk Like a CIO->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "Today's CIOs speak business-buzzwords as a second language. And there's a good reason for that. There is a trend among CIOs to distance themselves from being regarded as technologists and to put themselves forward as business strategists. It boils down to one simple rule: Just as you should never be the first to mention compensation in the interview process, you should never be the first to break out the tech jargon in a business setting."
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+ - Inside One Of the World's Largest Data Brokers->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "Contrary to recent reports, data broker Acxiom is not planning to give consumers access to all the information they've collected on us. That would be too great a challenge for the giant company, says spokesperson Alexandra Levy. Privacy blogger Dan Tynan recently spoke with Jennifer Barrett Glasgow, Chief Privacy Officer at Acxiom (she claims to be the very first CPO) about how the company collects information and what they do with it. This should give you some small measure of comfort: 'We don't know that you bought a blue shirt from Lands End. We just know the kinds of products you are interested in. We're trying to get a reasonably complete picture of your household and what the individuals who live there like to do,' says Glasgow."
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+ - US Gov't Can't Track Savings From Data Center Closings->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "The goal of saving $3 billion by closing 1253 data centers is 'very realistic,' says David Powner, director of IT management issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office — except that agencies haven't been able to track cost savings for the initiative. Eighteen months from the 2015 deadline, 'we have no idea how much we've saved the taxpayers,' said Steve O'Keeffe, founder of MeriTalk, an online community for government IT issues. This isn't the first snag in the project. Almost a year ago, Slashdot reported that the project was woefully behind schedule."
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+ - 41% Of San Francisco's Serious Crime Is Gadget Theft-> 1

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "Between November 2012 and April 2013, 579 people in San Francisco had cell phones or tablets stolen from them — making up 41% of what San Francisco police consider "serious" crimes. A quarter of those robberies involved the display of a knife or a gun. On several days in that period, cell phone thefts were the only serious crimes that occured. San Francisco is a particularly gadget-happy place, of course, but similar numbers come from police departments in Washington D.C. and New York. Smartphones are in some ways the perfect thing to steal: they're small, they have a high resale value, and the people using them are often not paying attention to their surroundings."
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+ - In Germany Offensive Autocomplete Is No Laughing Matter->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "We've all had a chuckle over Google's autocomplete results for various search queries. But one German businessman had a less funny experience when he searched for his name on Google.de: The autocomplete suggested search terms where his name was tied with 'Scientology' and 'fraud' (in German, of course). This was back in 2010. In 2012, a German court ruled that the autocomplete terms did not infringe the plaintiff's privacy. Now, a year later, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has overturned that ruling and ordered that Google remove offensive search suggestions when notified."
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+ - Rival Dell Buyout Plans Duke It Out->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "Michael Dell's plan to take the company he founded private, with help from Microsoft, isn't going smoothly. Corporate raider and major Dell stockholder Carl Icahn has presented a rival plan that would shut Michael Dell out. Perhaps predictably, the Dell board isn't sold on Icahn's idea, saying it will leave the company short of cash, even though they haven't been able to fully evaluate it yet."
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Comment: Re:I read the Onion, I thought it was a joke (Score 5, Insightful) 91

by jfruh (#43681145) Attached to: How the Syrian Electronic Army Hacked The Onion

This is wildly incorrect. You could tell form their posts that the Syrians knew exactly what the Onion was and were actually writing Onion-style headlines to promote their point of view. "UN admonishes Syria for getting in way of Jewish missles," that sort of thing.

+ - Why Your Office Building Is Easy To Hack->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "Across the world, thousands of buildings have their internal control systems — heating, cooling, elevators, and more — run by industrial control systems that make them easy to administer. Unfortunately, they're also easy to break into. In many cases, the systems are installed and maintained by third-party companies that don't patch things properly. In the worst case scenario, the systems are connected both to the open internet and the building's tenants own internal networks."
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+ - Is email replaceable?->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "We're all painfully aware of what's wrong with email as a communication tool. And some of us have even gone to great lengths to answer it, manage it, outsource it, or quit it altogether. Meanwhile, plenty of communication and collaboration tools have cropped up that try to offer a better alternative. But can they really replace email? Probably not, as one tech writer discovered when he tried to work productively without email for 7 days, substituting 'text messages and phone calls, Twitter direct messages, Facebook messages, Dispatch.io and Basecamp, Skype and Google Talk chat (the latter piped through imo.im), and Hangout and meeting invitations via Google Calendar'."
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+ - YouTube To Offer Subscription Service This Week->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "Accoding to an email from a Google spokesman, YouTube will be offering a $1.99/month subscription service as early as this week. This service will "bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our creators with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content," though there was no indication of what content will be offered through the service exactly. YouTube has offered rentals for specific videos before but this is the first time the service would go head-to-head with subscription services like Neflix."
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+ - Even The Ad Industry Doesn't Know Who's Tracking You->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "The Internet advertising industry is keen to stave off government privacy rules and opt-in-only browsers by loudly proclaiming its adherence to a self-imposed code of conduct. Yet a little digging shows that even "self-regulated" advertisers link to services that link to other services that nobody's really sure what they do. That's why, for instance, when you visit a page on the Sears website, your web browsing behavior is being collected by a company that sells ringtones and won't return emails asking about their privacy policy."
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+ - Tech Writer (Barely) Survives Week Without Email->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "A bewildering array of communication mediums have arisen over the 15 years, from SMS to Twitter direct messages, and yet despite repeated claims of its imminent demise, e-mail maintains its quiet, no-fuss dominance over how we touch base with each other. Tech writer Kevin Purdy decided to do a week-long e-mail fast to see what he missed and what he didn't. After seven days, 443 missed messages, a lot of anxious opening of browser tabs only to close them again, he came to some conclusions: that e-mail really is quite important, and that he's subscribed to way too many reminder services."
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"I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3 because I couldn't remember the proof." -- Baker, Pure Math 351a

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