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Graphics

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best Laptop With Decent Linux Graphics Support? 4

Submitted by jcreus
jcreus writes: After struggling for some years with Nvidia cards (the laptop from which I am writing this has two graphic cards, an Intel one and Nvidia one, and is a holy mess [I still haven't been able to use the Nvidia card]) and, encouraged by Torvalds' middle finger speech, I've decided to ditch Nvidia for something better. I am expecting to buy another laptop and, this time, I'd like to get it right from the start. It would be interesting if it had decent graphics support and, in general, were Linux friendly. While I know Dell has released a Ubuntu laptop, it's way off-budget. My plan is to install Ubuntu, Kubuntu (or even Debian), with dual boot unfortunately required. Thanks in advance, Slashdot!

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Good, yet uncommon, gift for a friend?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I, having the title of alpha geek in my classroom (15 yo), was asked by a female friend of mine whether "buying" a star for someone was legit. (It is for a friend of her whom I know & I am also friends with her.) I obviously replied no, no official body would recognize it and it is (imho) a waste of money.

So, Slashdot, ideas for a (birthday) gift for someone? I guess it's not a requirement, but I think it should be better if it was not one of the common gifts (yet cheap, we're young!). (On the other hand, I know how to program, so don't exclude gifts which require a (computer) program or something [weird scenario, I know]).
Wikipedia

Submission + - Wiki Loves Monuments 2012: Wikipedia photo contest (wikilovesmonuments.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo contest around cultural heritage monuments in September. Starting from the Netherlands in 2010 and organized on a European level in 2011, it goes global in 2012.

Everybody can participate and take photos of cultural heritage. In every participating country you can win awards, and the best photos in each country continues to the international jury – which will select the best monument photos in 2012.

There are some maps that help to find monuments near to you: United States, Canada and 30+ more.

Would you like to help Wikipedia improve its contents? Join the contest now!
Google

Google Now Searches JavaScript 114

Posted by timothy from the watch-for-the-scriptview-vans dept.
mikejuk writes "Google has been improving the way that its Googlebot searches dynamic web pages for some time — but it seems to be causing some added interest just at the moment. In the past Google has encouraged developers to avoid using JavaScript to deliver content or links to content because of the difficulty of indexing dynamic content. Over time, however, the Googlebot has incorporated ways of searching content that is provided via JavaScript. Now it seems that it has got so good at the task Google is asking us to allow the Googlebot to scan the JavaScript used by our sites. Working with JavaScript means that the Googlebot has to actually download and run the scripts and this is more complicated than you might think. This has led to speculation of whether or not it might be possible to include JavaScript on a site that could use the Google cloud to compute something. For example, imagine that you set up a JavaScript program to compute the n-digits of Pi, or a BitCoin miner, and had the result formed into a custom URL — which the Googlebot would then try to access as part of its crawl. By looking at, say, the query part of the URL in the log you might be able to get back a useful result."

Comment Re:Python (Score 5, Informative) 525

Hi. Teenager here. I learnt how to program when I was about 11 (or maybe 10), self-taught. My best recommendation: let him learn how to program by himself. What I did was, and I've done such a thing for all programming languages (8, I think) I know: first, go to the first tutorial you see on the Internet. I believe I used Wikibooks (Python). And, then, leave the tutorial after knowing just the basic I/O and simple statements. Then, give yourself a project. For example, I created one which solved me the maths homework. Something you find useful. And, while doing that, one must learn more features of the language. In case you have doubts, be self-sufficient: just f*cking google it, and results will appear (learning how to google is probably a priority before programming languages!).

So, what you said is true. Don't spend money on programming books. Let him learn by himself.

On the other hand, regarding programming languages, I've always loved Python. Simple syntax, easy to introduce to new programmers, no pointers, great power... Furthermore, while Python keeps being my favorite, maybe, for "the current times", he would find JavaScript (+HTML+CSS) closer, for he would be able to create his own websites and that's something you often feel proud of ;). Also, it seems now everything has to be JavaScript-based...

Google

Submission + - Google Maps Introduces 8-Bit Quest Maps (google.com)

Submitted by AbsoluteXyro
AbsoluteXyro writes: Today users of Google Maps will notice a new mapping option — "Quest" — alongside the usual "Map" and "Satellite" views. Quest view renders the planet in a retro 8-bit fantasy video game style, including renders of famous landmarks such as the White House and the Eiffel Tower. Even Pegman gets in on the game, now taking on the appearance of a sword wielding 8-bit adventurer, allowing you to witness Street View through 8-bit eyes. Basically, imagine a fully functioning Google Maps on an NES.
Open Source

Submission + - Ruby Creator Wins Free Software Award (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: The 2011 Award for the Advancement of Free Software was presented to Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of the Ruby programming language, at a ceremony held during the LibrePlanet 2012 conference.
Software

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you back up? (Today is World Backup Day) (extremetech.com) 2

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Today is World Backup Day! The premise is that you back up your computers on March 31, so that you're not an April Fool if your hard drive crashes tomorrow. How do Slashdot users back up? RAID? Multiple RAIDs? If you're in LA, on a fault line, do you keep a redundant copy of your data in another geographic region?"

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