Communications

Dial-Up Friendly Websites? 55

Posted by Cliff from the drinking-an-ocean-thru-a-straw dept.
rinkjustice asks: "I'm one of those unlucky souls damned to dial-up internet access. I've been trying to make the best of the situation, however: I use the stripped-down Slashdot homepage, and my kids are slowly acclimatising to dial-up friendly gaming fare ala Games.com, Yahoo! Games instead of bandwidth clotting MMORPG's like RuneScape. What other fun, interesting websites cater to the 56k crowd? Are there any websites specifically 'optimized' for a lo-bandwidth audience?"
Data Storage

Terabyte Storage Solutions? 574

Posted by Cliff from the large-arrays-of-fat-disks dept.
DeMechman asks: "As many on Slashdot may know, storage is one thing which you can never have enough of. Given the current situation with CD/DVD rot (Personally I can attest to a 10% attrition rate) hard drives in a RAID configuration seem to be a better and more economical solution. If you own more than fifty CD/DVDs, it can be a daunting task to find a file. I am wondering if anyone has found a hardware solution that can inexpensively be set up to handle 10 or more 250GB HDDs in a RAID configuration. Primarily, has any case manufacturer tackled this niche market yet?"
Biotech

Sleeping Problems? 253

Posted by Cliff from the unable-to-count-sheep dept.
hugo_pt asks: "I have had sleep problems for some years, but it always get worse in the Summer. Yesterday I slept one hour, so when I got home at 8PM I thought I'd sleep till 9AM or so. Wrong. It's 1.36AM, and I can't sleep anymore. Instead, I'm reading The Complete FreeBSD, and the urge to sleep is gone. I was wondering how many Slashdot readers suffer from this problem, and what they do to combat it ?"
The Internet

Features of a post-HTTP Internet? 122

Posted by Cliff from the thinking-ahead dept.
Ars-Fartsica asks: "We've been living with HTTP/HTML ("the web") for a quite a while now, long enough to understand its limits for content distribution, data indexing, and link integrity. Automatic indexing, stateful-ness, whole-network views (flyovers), smart caching (P2P), rich metadata (XML), built in encryption, etc are all fresh new directions that could yield incredible experiences. Any ideas on how you would develop a post-HTTP/HTML internet?"

NIST Proposes Abandoning DES 205

Posted by michael from the thanks-for-all-your-hard-work dept.
Mr. Manometer writes "With little fan-fare, NIST proposed yesterday to withdraw the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) for the Data Encryption Standard (DES) with a Federal Register notice (pdf). NIST is encouraging federal agencies to use the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) instead since they feel that DES is 'now vulnerable to key exhaustion using massive parallel computations.' We all knew this day would come as computers got faster & cheaper... and this should put more pressure on folks to use stronger encryption techniques with is a good thing." Some would argue that DES has been insufficient for some time now.
Hardware

Abused, But Working Hardware Stories? 1352

Posted by simoniker from the hurt-me-good dept.
RPI Geek writes "Everyone's heard the stories about people who, knowingly or unknowingly, abuse their computers. Personally, I've had a faulty power supply literally burn a hole through the motherboard, with the only ill effects being a dead PCI slot and USB ports. I'm curious as to what kind of abuse fellow /.ers have done or seen done to electronics while the hardware still worked afterwards. Soldered a broken keyboard PCB back together so that it worked fine? Taken sticks of RAM out of a running computer to see when it would notice? Overclocked a 386... to 386MHz? I'm interested in hearing any stories about abused-but-working hardware."

Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds 407

Posted by Roblimo from the closing-in-on-100-million-words dept.
Wikipedia is an excellent project, and Slashdot readers' questions for Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were just as excellent -- as are Jimmy Wales' answers to 12 of the highest-moderated questions you submitted.
Slashdot.org

Reading Slashdot From Strange Locations 1006

Posted by simoniker from the back-of-a-volkswagen dept.
aarrieta writes "I was thinking about the location of Slashdotters around the world. Many of us read /. from our houses/offices/schools. But I guess there are people reading Slashdot from non-traditional places/sites (an oil platform in the middle of the sea, Antarctica, the ISS, etc?) But what's the strangest place you've ever read Slashdot from, or the most remote place you're currently reading it from?"
Biotech

The Internet Meets the Neural Net 394

Posted by michael from the where-can-i-find-out-how-to-inject-signals-into-my-head dept.
orangesquid writes "OpenEEG is a system for getting data from your brain to your computer. Recently, work was resumed on scEEG, a soundcard-based system which may one day make home EEG systems very cheap (they currently cost a few hundred US$ to put together; there are, though, some potential cheaper alternatives). But, what research is being done into getting data from your computer to your brain? There have been some systems that inject optical signals into your eyes, but, what about direct neural interfacing? It seems EMF and light are one option; playing with neurotransmitters may be another. What do /.'ers foresee coming in this field? What research have you seen being done? Particularly, is any of this to the point where homemade, low-cost systems are feasible? Where can I find out how to inject signals into my head? Combining this with openEEG might lead to some exciting new levels of Internet addiction."

Canadian Music Industry Drills Dentists 555

Posted by michael from the double-root-canal dept.
hereisnowhy writes "CBC reports that the tranquil music that wafts through many dental offices to soothe patients and mask the sounds of the drill may soon be silenced. The music industry is putting the bite on dentists -- demanding that they pay for the right to play it. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada would also like to extend this policy to 'coffee shops, clothing stores, lounges, elevators -- even radio tunes that people hear on the telephone while on hold.' Are any composers and authors actually in favour of this, or just the publishers?"
Security

What Do You Think of Online Vigilantes? 273

Posted by Cliff from the digital-justice-or-online-nuisance dept.
gwoodrow asks: "I'm a member of the (primarily) Mac community Spymac. I originally joined for the 1 gb of email, but eventually found myself joining in on discussions in the forum. Today, I received an email from a supposedly anonymous Spymac member ("supposedly" because the smart guy didn't mask his IP). Basically, it said that he or she had harvested 10,000 member screen names/email addresses from Spymac's pages and that this, paired with the ability to view individual member's profiles, created a major problem because of the extent of information so readily available. The email this person sent out and the forum discussion that follow are available here. All cracks and personal opinion about Spymac aside, what do Slashdot members think of online 'vigilante' justice?"
Handhelds

GPS and Portability? 43

Posted by Cliff from the universal-data-transferability dept.
curious george asks: "I've always loved knowing exactly where I am in the world and it's becoming easier with the mainstream application of GPS receivers and other integrated technologies available on the consumer and prosumer market. However, finding those awesome accessories that seamlessly integrate with the laptop, mobile phone, or PDA are incredibly difficult. Does Slashdot know of any gadgets that can add the GPS capabilities found in most new vehicles to the mobile geek? Infrared, Bluetooth, USB, and other methods are abound, but what about compatibility between the Mac, Windows, Linux, and Symbian operating systems?"
Data Storage

Where are the High-Capacity SCSI Drives? 138

Posted by Cliff from the has-ATA-surpassed-SCSI dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Storage technology has really exploded in recent years, giving us ATA drives up to and exceeding 200-250 GB per drive. Why is it that SCSI drive technology has remained stagnant? I can't find a SCSI drive exceeding about a 146 GB capacity. Instead, businesses (and some individuals) wanting greater storage capacities are required to buy more drives which takes up more space, generates more heat, provides more points of failure, uses more electricity, etc. Why is this so?"
Biotech

Experiences with Laser Eye Surgery? 1104

Posted by Cliff from the is-it-worth-the-risk-to-your-retinas dept.
GodLessOne asks: "I am about to get my hands on a reasonable lump of cash and I am working on my list of ways to make it an ex-lump of cash. All of the normal geek things appear on the list, but one item that I keep considering is corrective laser eye surgery. Would anyone care to share their real world experiences? I worry that the people selling it are the only ones saying how wonderful it is, and what percentage of people show a marked improvement afterward. Are there any stories out there relating how bad it can be if it goes wrong?"
Microsoft

Are Widespread 'Microsoft-alike' Replacements Feasible? 37

Posted by Cliff from the duplicating-the-entire-line-for-'compatibility' dept.
Dr.Dubious DDQ asks: "With all the recent Microsoft(r) news, I see a lot of the usual complaining about Microsoft's unfair 'embrace and extend' practices. I do my own fair share of this, but I'd much rather actually *do* something about it.At the risk of prompting cries of 'No! That will only make them stronger!', I find myself asking: How possible is it to 'transparently' replace Microsoft-brand services with other (preferably, but not necessarily, Open Source) services (rather than flatly demanding migration away from all things MS)? Or put the other way around, what tweaks would have to be made to existing, standard services to make them 'bug-for-bug compatible' with MS versions, particularly OUTSIDE of the context of SMB/Samba, which is an already-obvious example?" While there are definite reasons why such an effort may be worthwhile, it is also possible that Microsoft could attempt to make legal attacks at such projects...even though they are designed with software interoperability in mind. Precedents in support of this idea do exist, such as: ReactOS and even standard Open Source openings like Gnumeric.

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