Running a Website from Your Prison Cell 478

Posted by timothy from the or-your-redwood-tree dept.
Eh-Wire writes "Although prisoners Internet access is highly restricted, this hasn't prevented many inmates from getting around the restrictions with the judicious use of phone and snail-mail privileges to network with friends, relatives, activists, and associates to provide content to their websites. Some use their websites to badger witnesses and prosecuters, while others plead their case or phish for pen-pals. Some have successfully challenged their convictions through their websites, which complicates efforts by authorities to silence them. Websites domiciled outside of the respective jurisdictions further complicate the issue. Yahoo News has additional commentary on this controversial subject."
GUI

Programming Language for Corporate UI Research? 115

Posted by Cliff from the best-language-for-the-job dept.
Daniel Wigdor asks: "I'm a PhD candidate doing an internship at a major American UI research lab. They distribute an input/output hardware device to research labs, along with a Java API for the development of 'concept pieces' (here's an example from a university). Java was chosen because it was simple, and seemed, at the time, to be the language of choice for UI researchers in both the corporate and academic worlds. There is now pressure to switch from Java to C#, since they don't have the resources to maintain an SDK for both. We're not at all concerned with system performance, since this is only for concept-development: it's really just about accessibility for newcomers to the hardware. Given that, what would the community advise by way of a choice between Java and C#?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Promoting Webcomics? 69

Posted by Cliff from the spread-teh-funneh dept.
krf asks: "Have any other Slashdot readers ever tried to get a webcomic off the ground? What promotional tricks have you used? I've been doing my strip for a couple of months now. Traffic is good, but not great. I think that most of my visitors are friends or people who heard of the site via word-of-mouth. I'm looking for ways to bring the strip to a larger audience. I've submitted links to most of the big webcomics pages, but a lot of the 'top 100'ish lists seem pretty tacky - kind of like linking pyramid schemes. I've paid for some very targeted advertising, but not many people click on ads any more. I've even tried getting in to local print outlets, with very limited success. I enjoy writing and drawing the strip, but it's always nice to know that other people are reading it. I'd appreciate any advice Slashdot readers might have to offer."
Data Storage

Short Lifetimes of Optical Drives? 369

Posted by Cliff
lpq asks: "I have various optical disc readers from standard DVD players (apart from a computer), and both CD and DVD readers on one or more computers. My home stereo DVD's have been problematic for a while. One of them won't even take a DVD cleaner disk as it doesn't 'recognize' it as a playable disc, even though it plays discs that my other DVD player won't play. Usually, between the two of them, I can play most discs, but occasionally some discs, purchased new, won't play on either of them. Heaven forbid if it is an older or used DVD which have even more problems (some of my DVDs are approaching old age at an age of around 5 years). However, this is more about my computer's optical drives, including the CD readers. Both CD readers on two different computers have 'died' and are not able to read program disks. Am I specifically plagued by bad luck or do others go through CD/DVD drives so quickly?"
Games

Genre-Defining Games? 231

Posted by Zonk from the because-who-doesn't-love-maniac-mansion? dept.
Gamasutra has up responses from its frequent feature, the question of the Week. This week's question was a call for the best of the best. "For any genre of your choice, what is the game that defines that genre for you?" From the article: "For the RPG, simply Final Fantasy 6. It has the best story, greatest variety of characters, tons of different music, and added many secret areas. It was the first game to truly to define a real experience of an RPG to the player. -Anonymous" What games would you refer to as Genre Defining?
Communications

Free ASL Computer Technology Resources? 21

Posted by Cliff from the let-your-fingers-do-the-talking dept.
AceCaseOR asks: "I work in the computer lab at a community college. In the past I've worked with students who are deaf or mute, and, as I didn't know American Sign Language, I've had to resort to using pen and paper, with occasional gesture. As right now my mother is learning American Sign language, I'm learning some myself. I'm looking for free resources on computer terminology for American Sign Language. Any assistance that can be offered would be appreciated."
Graphics

Microsoft's Channel9 Adds Ink to Forums? 23

Posted by Cliff from the show-the-world-your-horrible-handwriting dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Microsoft's Channel9 forums now support handwritten and hand-drawn comments. The ink comments are displayed as GIF images so anyone can see them, but to add your own message you must use IE and either a Tablet PC or have the Tablet PC SDK installed. Apparently Microsoft is going to make the source code available for the new feature so other sites can add ink support too. Will we be seeing more ink enabled forums in the future, or is Channel9's ink a novelty that will soon be forgotten?"
DRM

TiVo to Mac Users: Buzz Off 52

Posted by pudge from the no-you-buzz-off dept.
jamie writes "Though TiVo's website still claims it's 'working hard to make the TiVoToGo feature' work on Macs, its CFO just admitted otherwise. Bringing your recordings to your Mac to watch, he said, seems unlikely 'unless we find a way to record it under the current platform, and I don't think that will happen in the next few years.' Translation: no DRM, no content. Fortunately for Mac users, there are alternatives..."
Mozilla

Does Adblock Violate A Social Contract? 1043

Posted by Zonk from the do-your-part-citizen dept.
almondjoy writes "Newsforge is currently running a story on Firefox extensions where the author states the following regarding use of the AdBlock extension: 'If you use this tool ... there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a 'social contract' between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing' Would you be volating a social contract hitting the 30sec skip button on Tivo? Or putting a strip of paper across the bottom of our TV screen to block out those super annoying scrolling banners? I have found that using the combination of AdBlock and FlashBlock extensions in Firefox has greatly enhanced my browsing experience. Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?"

AACS Specifications Released 486

Posted by CowboyNeal from the meet-the-new-css dept.
An anonymous reader writes "AACS, the proposed key management scheme for HD DVD, has finally released preliminary (ver 0.9) specifications. The specs look like CSS on steroids: they use AES instead of proprietary crypto, but other than that they're basically the same. The main difference appears to be that AACS can revoke an entire player model if a hack appears against it, which I guess sucks if you own that kind of player."
Security

Network Penetration Scans and Executive Reaction? 434

Posted by Cliff from the mountains-back-to-molehills dept.
LazloToth asks: "I'm sure some of you have had this happen: your company pays the big bucks for a 3rd-party security audit and, when it comes back, you get called on the carpet for all the supposed 'holes' in your network. When you see the report, you recognize that it comes from a well-known open-source security scanner, and that the 'holes' in question are so obscure as to be meaningless. I told our risk management VP that to fix every item cited - - many of which were false positives or completely out of context - - would be next to impossible for our small IT staff, and that some of the fixes, if implemented, might have deleterious effects on an otherwise smoothly running operation. How do you handle these 3rd-party security people who make mountains out of every molehill?"
Windows

Improving the Windows XP User Interface? 265

Posted by Cliff from the tweaked-to-your-heart's-desire dept.
Pimpin' Up Windows asks: "Many of us are forced to live with Windows XP for our day-to-day computing needs - at work, home or school - and longingly look to the not only beautiful, but functional and efficient, Mac OS X 'Aqua' user interface. Apart from just themes, what would be Slashdot reader's suggestions for improving the user interface of XP? What changes, add-ons and other improvements could further enhance its usability?"
Music

Which Lossless Audio Codec, and Why? 131

Posted by Cliff from the preservation-of-melodic-bits dept.
deadsquid puts forth a worthy follow up question to last week's query on audio codecs: "I'm about to re-rip my entire CD collection for the fourth time. I don't want to do it again, so have decided to invest in a small(ish) array and use a lossless codec to create a reference set of my music. From the reference, I plan on transcoding to a variety of bitrates (depending on where the final product will end up) and whichever format of the week suits the device(s) the transcoded content will ultimately sit on. I don't particularly care about encoding time, but would like something that transcodes nicely to MP3, WMA, OGG, and other formats in a reasonable length of time. I would like to ensure that track metadata is maintained in the reference, and is easily transferable when transcoded. I also want something that's not proprietary to an individual's or small group's whims. I'm thinking FLAC, but was wondering if other people had better experiences with other codecs. If you were to use a lossless encoding format, which would you use, and why?"

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