s390 - Slashdot User

Linux turns 20 today-> 0

Submitted by illiteratehack on Thursday August 25, @07:15AM

illiteratehack writes "The kernel that is found running smartphones, desktops, laptops, servers and high performance clusters turns 20 years old today. The Inquirer looks back at the growing pains of what has undoubtedly become one of the most important contributions to the IT industry in the past 50 years. In just 20 years it has become hard not to find a system running Linux and that is something that the FOSS community should all be proud of."
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IBM says energy efficiency will be key to exascale-> 0

Submitted by illiteratehack on Thursday August 18 2011, @04:03PM

illiteratehack writes "IBM's Dr Irving Wladawsky-Berger gave an insightful speech into just how Big Blue worked with Linux since 1999. He touched on many topics including Deep Blue and its younger brother Watson, and walked through how Linux is present in just about every major computing task going. However his comments about the challenge to hit exascale revolved around Linux. According to Dr Wladawsky-Berger, Linux has a massive role to play in keeping the power efficiency of any exascale cluster at reasonable levels.

The war on power management at the ultra high-end may trickle down to better power management for Linux running on laptops too."
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Linux FUD: The Greatest Hits-> 0

Submitted by

jfruhlinger

on Thursday August 18 2011, @12:58PM

jfruhlinger writes "Linux is a cancer! SCO is unstoppable! The GPL consumes everything it touches! These and other bits of FUD have been thrown at Linux over the years, and it's a tribute to the ecosystem's survival that we can laugh about them now. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin outlined history's greatest instances of Linux FUD in his LinuxCon keynote. (He also provided a list of "This is the year of the Linux desktop" quotes going back to 2005.)"
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Review of IBM's original personal computer dug up-> 0

Submitted by illiteratehack on Friday August 12 2011, @10:43AM

illiteratehack writes "V3 managed to dig up the original review of IBM's Personal Computer Model 5150, the machine that popularised personal computing. There's some great comments such as the article's author not being sure if IBM would sell the PC outside the US and the inclusion of a "very high quality 11.5-inch" display. TFA shows that while the PC may have changed a lot on the inside, the way it was reviewed hasn't changed much in 30 years."
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An original review of the first IBM PC from 1981-> 0

Submitted by girlmad on Friday August 12 2011, @05:34AM

girlmad writes "This is an interesting find from the archives. Strange to hear that IBM wasn't sure about shipping the PC outside the US as it might not be successful and fun comparing the specs with today's machines."
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Top 10 tips for getting best out of Mac OS X Lion-> 0

Submitted by girlmad on Tuesday August 09 2011, @06:47AM

girlmad writes "I've been using one of the new Macbook Airs for about a week now, and this is a handy guide from V3 Labs to some of the nifty features I haven't tried out yet."
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Skype decides to release iPad application-> 0

Submitted by illiteratehack on Tuesday August 02 2011, @09:44AM

illiteratehack writes "Skype, after initially removing its iPad application in order to "ensure the best possible Skype experience", the firm has decided the time was, in fact, right for Apple's iPad users to get their hands on a Skype client made specifically for the iPad.

Skype says that the large screen of the iPad 2 is perfect for video callsand claim there are a number of "iPad optimised features". Will Android tablets get the same level of optimisation?"
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Appearance of hacker leader Louise Boat revealed-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 22 2011, @06:21AM

An anonymous reader writes "Details of Louise Boat, the alleged leader of Anonymous, have been published for the first time, potentially exposing the hacker ring."
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2011

2009

DirectX 11 benchmark launched-> 0

Submitted by s390 on Monday October 26 2009, @03:41PM

s390 writes "Enthusiasts, start your engines. The first DirectX 11 benchmark app has arrived and it’s "Heaven". Call it Russia's Unigine beats the competition to the punch. “Heaven” is the app that'll let you measure performance on DirectX 11-specific features such as Hardware Tesselation, SM 5.0, DirectCompute and it even brings along support for ATI’s Eyefinity tech. ... We'll just call it ATIMark for now."
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Best Buy freaking out over unionized geeks-> 0

Submitted by

LemmingOverlord

on Wednesday September 09 2009, @11:00AM

LemmingOverlord writes "Couldn't let this one slip by us. I know unions are always hard to digest, but the idea that the Geek Squad at Best Buy are going "union"... priceless...

Found this on Semi accurate.com (http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/09/09/best-buys-geek-squad-votes-union/)

"IT LOOKS LIKE the old saying, "management gets the union it deserves" is coming to pass at Best Buy, or at least beginning to in parts of its Geek Squad division. We hear that some of them just voted by an overwhelming margin to go union.

While unions range across the board in quality, the smaller ones in particular tend to do a lot to protect their members and keep abusive management at bay. Having several friends who worked at Best Buy's Geek Squad (GS) division, I can say that many of the stories floating around about long hours, low pay, and lack of training are nothing new. The company sorely needs a union.

In the Pacific Northwest, a group of Best Buy workers, specifically one chunk of the Geek Squad, apparently got so fed up with mistreatment that they just voted to go union. We hear that Best Buy's management, both locally and at headquarters, is absolutely livid over it. Their worst nightmare is that word about this vote will spread, prompting more locales to unionize.

Can you imagine how much management bonuses would have to fall in order to pay workers a fair wage and train them properly? The horror! If you look at how well it reacted the last time the notion was floated, it just shows that Best Buy's management cares — just not about its employees.

Friends on the inside tell us that Best Buy prefers to promote Geek Squad personnel from sales to technical because it finds it easier to teach a sales droid to follow a trouble-shooting flowchart — especially if it has lots of pictures and not too many big words — than to indoctrinate a seasoned, knowledgable technician to upsell bling and push expensive extended warrantees.

See why it is afraid of unions? Standards, training, fair wages, fair hours, and in general, being good to employees could wreak havoc on Best Buy top management's stock options for several quarters.

From what we understand, Best Buy management is desperately trying to keep a lid on this 'problem' and wants to keep it from 'snowballing'. One brave soul described management as "freaked out".

If you too are worried about whether management at Best Buy will have to wait another quarter to get that new V12 Mercedes, please don't spread the news. In fact, don't tell anyone how scared it is of unionization and how Geek Squad workers in the Northwest voted by more than 75% to unionize.

If this spreads, a little more of Best Buy's wealth might be distributed to the people who actually generate it. How anti-capitalist is that?S|A""
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s390 (33540)

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SAT 800 verbal, 780 math. National Merit Scholarship Finalist. Mountaineering Instructor and Leader, Mazamas. BA, Philosophy, Reed College, thesis "Kant's Practical Logic". Formerly a mainframe Systems Programmer, later an IT Management Consultant with Arthur Young, a National Technology Practice of Ernst & Young, and IBM Global Services.