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Programming

Submission + - Linux reversible debugger achieves 2.0 release

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: UndoDB is a debugger for Linux that can step programs backwards as well as forwards. A powerful concept, but it has only now gained support for programs that use threads and signals. Jacob Rideout, a KDE developer, says of his experience using UndoDB: "I found the idea of [the] product amazing and a boon to my productivity ... I already have been able to fix a deadlock that was driving me crazy for a week in only 10 minutes". Full story on linuxdevices.com. The software isn't open source, but it can be used for free (as in beer) for non-commercial use.
Security

Submission + - OpenBSD: Now 2 remote holes in more than 10 years

Submitted by
Saint Aardvark
Saint Aardvark writes: "CoreLabs released an advisory today about a remote hole in OpenBSD. The vulnerability, which affects versions 3.1, 3.6, 3.8, 3.9, 4.0 and the upcoming 4.1 release (for code obtained prior to Feb 26th; the upcoming CD is fine), comes from the way OpenBSD's IPv6 code handles mbufs. Theo's terse announcement is an interesting counterpoint to Core Security's timetable, which details their efforts to convince the OpenBSD team of the flaw's seriousness. The workaround is to block IPv6. Discussion continues on Undeadly.org, and a short discussion of the flaw's details can be found here."
Graphics

Submission + - No more JPEG?

Submitted by
Critical Facilities
Critical Facilities writes: "According to this story: Microsoft Corp. will soon submit a new photo format to an international standards organization that it says offers higher quality images with better compression, the company said on Thursday.
While light on the details, this is an interesting development that begs the question, is this another attempt to gain a proprietary foothold. That is, if this turns out to be true and catches on (and that's a big IF), would that mean yet another reason people would "need" Windows?"
Software

Submission + - UK Conservatives want Open Source

Submitted by
aileanmacraith
aileanmacraith writes: "According to an article on the BBC, the Tories want to switch the UK Government to open-source software. They claim that it will save 5% of the IT expenditure and open up competition. From the article:

'[Shadow Chancellor George] Osborne said that despite a government report in 2004 saying there would be "significant savings" in hardware and software if open source software was used, many government departments had not implemented it. "The problem is that the cultural change has not taken place in government,"'.
"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft blasts IBM in open letter

Submitted by carlmenezes
carlmenezes writes: Arstechnica has an article on Microsoft's open letter to IBM that adds fresh ammunition to the battle of words between those who support Microsoft's Open XML and OpenOffice.org's OpenDocument file formats. Microsoft has strong words for IBM, which it accuses of deliberately trying to sabotage Microsoft's attempt to get Open XML certified as a standard by the ECMA. In the letter, general managers Tom Robertson and Jean Paol write: "When ODF was under consideration, Microsoft made no effort to slow down the process because we recognized customers' interest in the standardization of document formats." In contrast, the authors charge that IBM "led a global campaign" urging that governments and other organizations demand that International Standards Organization (ISO) reject Open XML outright.
Could MS actually be getting a taste of their own medicine?
Censorship

Submission + - Avoidance of the e-word in medical research

Submitted by Ra Zen
Ra Zen writes: An essay published in this week's PloS Biology (http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request =get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0050030) highlights the non-use of the word "evolution" in medical journal articles dealing with antimicrobial resistance. From the article, "the increase in resistance of human pathogens to antimicrobial agents is one of the best-documented examples of evolution in action... In spite of the importance of antimicrobial resistance, we show that the actual word 'evolution' is rarely used in the papers describing this research." The authors go on to show that the use of the word evolution in research articles is directly correlated to the use of the word in popular media describing those findings. This has created a minor stir among the Intelligent Design crowd, who regard this as "pro-evolutionary propaganda," as evidenced by the post on William Dembski's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dembski) blog Uncommon Descent (http://www.uncommondescent.com/archives/2072).
User Journal

Journal SPAM: '...something I have never witnessed before on this scale' 14

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

Carl Bernstein:

"Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and presidency.
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia is not failing

Submitted by gadfium
gadfium writes: Wikipedia is not failing is a reply to the essay "Wikipedia is failing" covered by Slashdot a couple of days ago. The essay evaluates Wikipedia's success or failure according to the criteria of overall size, organization, ease of navigation, breadth of coverage, depth of coverage, timeliness, readability, biases, and reliability in comparison to existing encyclopedias, especially Britannica.
Software

Submission + - Benchmark: VirtualBox vs. Qemu vs. VMware-player

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Recently InnoTek, a company from southern Germany, released their virtualization software "VirtualBox" under GPL. Due this piece of software is based on qemu I thought about performing a benchmark to compare those two open source vmware competitors. As some people requested, I added the VMware-Player to this article to make a direct comparison of those 2 opensource projects with this freeware tool. Full article here
Censorship

Submission + - Google censors blog posts for NZ Government

Submitted by ESarge
ESarge writes: Google has removed some posts from a blog at the request of the New Zealand Government. The blog, CYFSWatch, purports to name and shame the actions of social workers working for Child, Youth & Family Service (CYFS), the national child protection agency. The blog has been controversial because it asks people to post addresses and personal details of individual social workers. For editor only: I suggest that the URL not be posted. The blog is at http://cyfswatch.blogspot.com/. Actual post is at http://cyfswatch.blogspot.com/2007/02/google-moves -on-behalf-of-new-zealand.html. This is being reported on Radio New Zealand National — the equivalent of NPR.
Media

Submission + - Scientific Journals Say Access Equals Censorship

Submitted by
bcrowell
bcrowell writes: "Nature is reporting on e-mails leaked from the Association of American Publishers, which considers itself "under siege" because of NIH and congressional efforts to get all NIH-funded scientific papers posted for free on PubMed Central. The AAP has hired a PR firm, which is advising them to spread the message that "Public access equals government censorship," and that traditional for-profit print publishing is the same thing as peer peer review."
Windows

Inside the Windows Vista Kernel 298

Posted by kdawson from the deep-tech dept.
Reader trparky recommends an article on Technet (which, be warned, is rather chaotically formatted). Mark Russinovich, whose company Winternals Software was recently bought by Microsoft, has published the first of a series of articles on what's new in the Vista kernel. Russinovich writes: "In this issue, I'll look at changes in the areas of processes and threads, and in I/O. Future installments will cover memory management, startup and shutdown, reliability and recovery, and security. The scope of this article comprises changes to the Windows Vista kernel only, specifically Ntoskrnl.exe and its closely associated components. Please remember that there are many other significant changes in Windows Vista that fall outside the kernel proper and therefore won't be covered."

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And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones

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