fintler - Slashdot User

Behind the Scenes In Apple Vs. the Record Labels 146

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @01:23PM from the does-steve-wear-turtlenecks-in-private-too dept.

je ne sais quoi writes "The New York Times recently posted an article describing what really happened between Apple and the Record labels that culminated with the January 6th Macworld Keynote by Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller." Essentially they discuss a bit of a swap: Apple allowed variable pricing for songs and the industry allowed DRM free music. And apparently the iTunes homepage is a huge hit making device. Big shock.

Discovery Launch Delayed Due To Engine Issue 62

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @12:40PM from the oh-here's-yer-problem dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The launch of Space Shuttle Discovery was originally slated for February 12th, has now been postponed to February 19th — at the earliest. The change of launch dates were decided by NASA managers during a review of the shuttle's flow control valve in the main engine. The new date is pending further analysis of the flow control valve and everything checking out okay for pre-flight tests. Discovery's STS-119 14-day mission will deliver the station's fourth and final set of solar arrays, completing the orbiting laboratory's truss, or backbone. The arrays will provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station's expanded crew of six in May."

Man Robs Convenience Stores With Klingon "Batleth" 579

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @11:06AM from the build-a-more-awesome-criminal dept.

mnovotny writes "Colorado Springs police are looking for a man who hit two 7-Eleven convenience stores, armed with a Klingon 'Batleth' sword inspired by the Star Trek science fiction series. They did appear more human in the original series."

MS Confirms Six Different Versions of Windows 7 758

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @10:26AM from the totally-learned-that-lesson dept.

darien writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 will be offered in six different editions. In a seeming admission that the numerous versions of Vista were confusing to consumers, the company says that this time its marketing will focus on just two editions — 'Home Premium' and 'Professional.' But the reality is more complex, with different packages offering different subsets of the total range of Windows 7 features."

Hackers Clone Passports In Driveby RFID Heist 251

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @09:48AM from the well-not-exactly dept.

pnorth writes "A hacker has shown how easy it is to clone US passport cards that use RFID by conducting a drive-by test on the streets of San Francisco. Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a $250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car's side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration. During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards. Using the data gleaned it would be relatively simple to make cloned passport cards he said. Paget is best known for having to abandon presenting a paper at the Black Hat security conference in Washington in 2007 after an RFID company threatened him with legal action." Apparently this is a little unfair — he sniffed the data, he didn't actually make a fake passport.

VMware Releases Open Source Virtualization Client 218

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @09:02AM from the not-before-time dept.

ruphus13 writes in with the news that VMware has finally decided to open-source its client for virtual desktops, releasing it under the LGPL. This was in response to intense pressure from the growing number of Linux distros that include virtualization by default. From the post: "The CEO replacement who entered VMware last year was Paul Maritz, a long-time Microsoft executive with intimate familiarity with how Windows swallowed up entire categories of utility software as it grew up by simply wrapping free utilities into the operating system. Paul knows about that, and he had to have seen last year the dual threats to VMware of open source virtualization offerings and virtualization on board in operating systems. The VMware View Open Client allows businesses to host virtualized desktops in the data center, and users can access their desktops from any device. Going with an open source solution like this was VMware's only choice, especially as Microsoft includes Hyper-V virtualization in Windows Server. I'm sure Maritz was very focused on the Microsoft threat, because he used to be behind similar threats. VMware can grab market share with this move, stave off Microsoft's dominance, and offer support and services around its open source offering.'"

Submission + - Work Related Websites Blocked At Work

Submitted by

fintler

on Thursday January 22, 2009 @09:11AM

fintler writes: "I work for a rather large fortune 50 company that does software development and general scientific research worldwide. My job is as a software engineer in a CMMI Lvl 5 facility. This company has a policy of blocking websites. Of course, there are rules applied to block websites that are obviously NSFW. I have no problem with that. It's their network, they can block whatever they think is morally objectionable. The problem is, there's no process to have a website reviewed for being unblocked. There are many sites blocked that are directly relevant to work. For example, some documentation on http://www.w3.org/ is blocked, even though we have a web-tier to maintain and develop. All support tickets placed with the company-wide help desk go unanswered and there doesn't seem to be any process setup to have websites unblocked. Even my managers are frustrated by this. My current solution is to just put off working on things until I can go home and look up something. Some here have tried questionable methods like ssh tunneling, but considering some of the work we do, the network is highly monitored and persistent connections to suspicious IP addresses are monitored (one of my coworkers had some security people interview him for doing exactly this). As someone in my position, how would you handle looking up topics that you need to research for software development?"

NASA Produces Rap Video On Astrobiology 113

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 24, 2008 @08:45AM from the nerds-do-the-darndest-things dept.

An anonymous reader writes "You've seen the Large Hadron Rap by Kate 'Alpinekat' McAlpine. Now a NASA magazine has commissioned an astrobiology rap. Jonathan Chase, aka 'Oort Kuiper', produced a six-minute YouTube rap video on astrobiology, the scientific search for extraterrestrial life. The lyrics include: 'We've been on Earth for many years and we are still producing answers; as time passes, collective knowledge advances.' This epic rap battle sees Alpinekat/CERN on top with over three million views on YouTube compared with about ten thousand for Oort Kuiper/NASA."

Submission + - VCS for a University CS Department (temple.edu)

Submitted by

fintler

on Thursday November 15, 2007 @12:27PM

fintler writes: "I've been slated to create a version control system for my University as an independent study next semester. The system would cater to only Computer Science and Information Science students (about 100-200 people). Can anyone give some advice on what kind of services should be provided and how they should be implemented? I'm currently thinking along the line of having something like a gForge and svn setup. However, I've also been thinking about doing a system using trac that has a bit of a custom "project" creation website. Any advice would be appreciated."

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