Programming

Simple Windows Development Tools? 255

Posted by Cliff from the no-bloated-IDEs-please dept.
fwc asks: "Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to be able to avoid writing a Windows GUI application, however this good luck is coming to an end. In the next few weeks, I need to write a fairly simple application which will need to display data received from a serial port in a decoded (and graphical) form via a Windows GUI. Unfortunately, my skills in this area are out of date, since I haven't written any GUI apps for close to 10 years. Because this program needs to be fairly small and easy to install, the use of Perl/tk isn't a valid option. What options do I have to build a small application on Windows, without a large learning curve?"

Petabyte Storage Array 185

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the cool-factor dept.
knight13 writes "Engadet is reporting that EMC is rolling out a petabyte RAID array. From the article, "And if you're ready for that level of storage, there's now someplace to get it: EMC has launched its first petabyte array, a version of the company's flagship Symmetrix DMX-3 system that includes nine room-filling cabinets of drives." The price? A mere $4 million."
Businesses

Unlimited Legal Music Downloads for $3.95 a Month? 244

Posted by Cliff from the too-good-to-be-true dept.
fishmasta writes "I'm at a major university studying the music industry, so we get to regularly talk to executives in the major labels. In a recent talk with someone working at Warner Bros, she brought up an idea they want to try where all file sharing is legalized by paying $4-5 a month through an ISP, all downloads are permanent, and you can get them from any source, and do what you want with them. It seems like some in the industry are starting to 'get it.' I was just wondering what Slashdot thinks of this idea. Would you be willing to pay a small fee each month if you could get all the music you want and have no legal liability?"
Businesses

Personal vs. Work/Free Server? 160

Posted by Cliff from the your-property-or-theirs dept.
akutz asks: "I am sure many of you have asked yourselves this question before: do I run my own server, or take advantage of my employer's hardware and/or free online hosts? I recently brought my own personal server online that provides web, e-mail, source control, and directory services for myself. I like the warm snuggly feeling that all my data is on my box and it is mine, mine, mine. However, I have also just burdened myself with maintaining a server when my employer, The University of Texas at Austin, has plenty of servers that I could use for this very purpose. There are also plenty of free services online that do this, such as Gmail and Sourceforge. So the question is, which is better, running your own server or letting someone else do it for you?"
Handhelds

Should Businesses Have Mobile Friendly Websites? 117

Posted by Cliff from the a-website-in-your-pocket dept.
cellPhoneSafe: "A client of ours has asked us to develop a mobile friendly version of their website. Their CEO has a Pocket PC and his browsing experience of his site is not great. However, aside from keeping him happy, is there a business case for a mobile friendly version of his site? Is there actually any volume of web surfers using a Pocket PC, Palm, or other web-capable pocket devices? It's one thing to convince a client of the benefit of supporting Mozilla (else they'll loose 10% of potential customers), but how do the figures stack up for mobile users? To be honest, I'd be surprised if mobile users accounted for more than 1 in a 1000 visitors to a site, so I'd be interested in your experiences. Have you developed a website for mobile users? Were you overwhelmed with new customers? Did these mobile users expect a different service offering to traditional PC users?"

Scientific Brain Linked to Autism 524

Posted by Hemos from the buffer-overflow dept.
squoozer writes "The BBC is reporting that a leading scientist in area of Developmental Psychopathology, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, is indicating that there is good chance that there is a scientific basis to the observed phenomenon that children with highly analytical parents are more likely to be autistic. He believes the genes which make someone analytical may also impair their social and communication skills. A weakness in these areas is the key characteristic of autism."
Education

Suggestions for Scriptable CAI Apps? 48

Posted by Cliff from the non-technical-computerized-learning-tools dept.
Corvus9 asks: "I am involved with a University project for creating a Computer-Assisted Instruction application. Currently, we have teachers writing the content and CS students working on the application, which is currently being developed in Flash. However, we would like to make something that would allow teachers and non-CS students to create their own applications. Can Slashdot readers suggest some kind of authoring system that would satisfy this? Commercial and open-source applications are acceptable."
Data Storage

Fibre Channel Storage? 119

Posted by Cliff
Dave Robertson asks: "Fibre channel storage has been filtering down from the rarefied heights of big business and is now beginning to be a sensible option for smaller enterprises and institutions. An illuminating example of this is Apple's Xserve Raid which has set a new low price point for this type of storage - with some compromises, naturally. Fibre channel switches and host bus adapters have also fallen in price but generally, storage arrays such as those from Infortrend or EMC are still aimed at the medium to high-end enterprise market and are priced accordingly. These units are expensive in part because they aim to have very high availability and are therefore well-engineered and provide dual redundant everything." This brings us to the question: Is it possible to build your own Fibre Channnel storage array?
Windows

Installing Windows with Recent Updates? 223

Posted by Cliff from the a-tailor-for-mine-emperor dept.
MoJo asks: "As a computer technician, I have to re-install Windows often. It takes three attempts to complete Windows Update (get latest update software, validate Windows, download updates). It seems like all this clicking could be scripted somehow, but I can find no-one who has found a way of reducing the whole painful affair to just one or two clicks." Is there a way to build a Windows installation CD that includes the most recent set of updates?
Spam

How Well Do Businesses Respond to Phishing Reports? 90

Posted by Cliff from the is-abuse@-worth-anything dept.
FuzzyDaddy asks: "When I receive a phishing email, which I find has some new or interesting technique, I will usually forward it to the appropriate abuse department. I recently got one concerning 'my' paypal account (surprising, since I don't have one), which I forwarded to abuse@paypal.com. I received an automated reply telling me to 'please direct all customer service inquires through our website.' I didn't have time to do that, so I let it go. Is paypal being irresponsible, here? Have others on Slashdot been satisfied with their attempts to report Phishing?"
Power

Standby TVs Waste Electricity, How About ACPI? 166

Posted by Cliff from the do-computers-waste-more-less-or-about-the-same dept.
twitter asks: "There's power management and there's standby, do you know the difference? The BBC is running story on how much electricity is wasted by TV standby mode. Thanks to the very useful EnergyStar program, I'd be the one in seven who thought they were saving electricity, with the standby button. I've been very happy with APM and hibernation on laptops, and want to do something similar with the desktops I use. What's the state of APM / ACPI Wake-on-LAN for Linux these days?" Slashdot touched on this issue, earlier in the week, but that article was more on TVs, not on computer power saving technologies.
Games

Games That Keep You Coming Back? 601

Posted by Zonk from the over-and-over-and-over-again dept.
The Guardian Gamesblog kicked off a great discussion on their site, talking about games that just keep pulling you back in. Games that, even if you've played through them once, you just have to pick them up again. eToyChest and Kotaku both have related threads. So, what about you? What are some videogames that, even years later, you just have to play through one more time?
Power

Building an Energy Efficient Datacenter? 138

Posted by Cliff from the big-iron-can-be-a-real-hog dept.
asc4 asks: "The company I work for is a webhosting and colocation company. As our power utilization grows, we have begun searching for ways to make our datacenter more efficient. The biggest hit from the utility company comes in the peak usage charge, which penalizes (rather severely) for the highest sustained burst of usage during a billing period. Due to the nature of the colocation business, we can't control how much or when client devices use power, so I'm wondering: is there's something we can do at the datacenter level to help smooth out our power consumption, over the course of a given period of time?"
Biotech

Are Alternative Sleeping Patterns Effective? 260

Posted by Cliff from the making-the-most-of-REM dept.
shmookey asks: "Some people have adopted some unusual sleeping habits, which they believed help them work. The concept is simple: be active for a few hours, sleep for half an hour, wake up and then repeat. This supposedly maximized your effective REM sleeping time and cut back on wasted hours of idleness. Hack-a-day has a nice article and some links on this, which re-ignited my interest. Does anyone on Slashdot actually do this? How do you make it fit in with earning a living? What sacrifices do you have to make to live this kind of lifestyle?" Called polyphasic sleep, or "The Uberman's sleep schedule", this is not something to dive into lightly, as it requires rigid scheduling, and there may be unexpected complications and other issues. Has anyone tried this? What were your experiences?
GNU is Not Unix

Making a Living Building Open Source Software? 66

Posted by Cliff from the tricky-but-doable dept.
asimbaig asks: "When I started my IT Staffing and Placement firm last year, I couldn't find a decent Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or an Open Source alternative. I then found SugarCRM, and was blown away by its power and ease of use. Partly frustrated with the existing vendors and partly inspired by SugarCRM, I decided to write that ATS using LAMP. 6 months and 45k lines of code later, I have just released the preview of industry's first Open Source ATS/HR Management system, called CATS. Now, it will be an interesting experiment to see if I can actually make a living out of it and move away from my IT staffing business. SugarCRM seems to be doing well, so why not?. Is anyone out there making a living from writing Open Source code?"

Slashdot Top Deals