Chris_Jefferson - Slashdot User

Submission + - Critical .mdb flaw Found - Microsoft may Never fix (beskerming.com) 4

Submitted by

SkiifGeek

on Monday November 19, 2007 @08:51AM

SkiifGeek writes: "When independent security researcher cocoruder found a critical bug with the JET engine, via the .mdb (Access) file format, he reported it to Microsoft, but Microsoft's response came as a surprise to him — it appears that Microsoft are not inclined to fix a critical arbitrary code execution vulnerability with a data technology that is at the heart of a large number of essential business and hobby applications.

Where should vendors be required to draw the line when supporting deprecated file formats and technology? In this case, leaving a serious vulnerability active in a deprecated technology could have serious effects if an exploit were to target it, but it is a matter of finding the right balance of security and usability such that Microsoft's users are not exposed to too great a danger for continuing to use Microsoft products."

Submission + - Wii breaks records in the UK (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by

pluke

on Friday August 31, 2007 @05:54AM

pluke writes: "According to the Daily Telegraph, the Wii has sold 1,000,000 units during 38 weeks in the UK. This makes it the UK's fastest selling console ever, beating the Playstation 2 (50 weeks) and the XBOX 360 (60 weeks). Some industry analysts are also reporting that the Wii has overtaken the XBOX 360 to now become the worlds market leader across console and handheld fields. http://www.vgchartz.com/"

Submission + - Sun releases open source game server

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30, 2007 @10:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: Sun has just released Project Darkstar an open source (GPLv2) application server for developing networked multiplayer game server's in Java. The project is intended to simplify the task of developing a networked multiplayer game by providing libraries that simplify concurrency control and client-server communication. O'Reilly has also released an e-book in their "Short Cuts" series on the game server.

Submission + - Picture scaling error in graphical softwares (4p8.com)

Submitted by

Eric Brasseur

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @12:46PM

Eric Brasseur writes: "Every picture scaling software I could test makes a gross error: the gamma of the picture being scaled is not taken into account. This makes that for example a pixel that should be at 50% brightness can get only 22% brightness. Depending on the kind of picture, the damage can be quite important. I wrote a page to explain the whole: www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html"

Submission + - Should I consider something else than FORTRAN?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @08:01AM

An anonymous reader writes: I'm about to start my PhD in solid state physics. Most of my work will revolve around numerical simulations of lattice systems — Monte Carlo simulations, density functional calculations [iterative solutions of differential equations], etc.
Almost all of the legacy code is written in FORTRAN(95), the systems available are quite ...diverse ( some old Alphas, Opterons, Power5). Furthermore, I want to be able to simply 'write down' my code (consisting mainly of matrix equations) without worrying (much) about operator precedence, pointers, whatever. So, the programming language should fulfil the following requirements:

1) speed
2) portability
3) easy parallelisation
4) sane, safe, easy syntax

FORTRAN claims all of the above with the possible exception of #4, though in my -limited- experience it's not as bad as the old stories tell if one can muster a bit of self-discipline. C fails -for all I know — on #3 and #4 (remember, matrix manipulation).
But of course, my knowledge is rather limited, especially considering other alternatives (assumed existing), so I thought I'd better ask.

Note that I do not care if the language will be regarded as a 'valuable asset' by future employers, as If I would consider a corporate job they'd better hire me for my brain and not for my toolbox.

Submission + - Hackers Insert Nuclear Explosion Into Webcam

Submitted by Ivan_Simic on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @07:57AM

Ivan_Simic writes: Czech hackers managed to get access to a webcam and insert realistic footage of nuclear explosion. The incident was broadcasted on the Czech TV programme Panorama on Sunday and a video is included.

Submission + - Results of Web Programming Contest Published

Submitted by

alvar-f

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @07:50AM

alvar-f writes: "The results and final report of the Plat_Forms international web programming contest were published today. For each of the categories Perl, PHP and Java, three teams of three people each competed to produce a comprehensive "social networking" application in just 30 hours. A short summary of the results: The Perl teams produced the most compact code and their solutions are very easy to extend. One Java team produced by far the most complete solution overall, the other two by far the most incomplete ones. The Java solutions are very hard to extend. The PHP teams used no autogenerated files, resisted SQL injection attempts and created the most similar solutions. There are also some pictures of the teams and you can guess what language they are using ..."

Submission + - Microsoft settles to alter Vista for Google (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by

atbarboz

on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @05:07AM

atbarboz writes: "Microsoft Corp. agreed to modify its Vista operating system to resolve Google Inc.'s complaints the program's design hurts competing search software in violation of a 2001 antitrust settlement."

Submission + - 4 little-known solutions for 4 common *ix problems

Submitted by

Dan Stromberg

on Monday June 18, 2007 @02:15AM

Dan Stromberg writes: "AKA '4 shameless plugs'. Below are four programs I wouldn't want to do without that few have heard of:

fallback-reboot — remotely reboot a machine even if it's run out of Virtual Memory

slowdown — 'nice' is good for CPU hungry processes but not for I/O hungry processes; 'slowdown' is good for I/O hungry processes. For example, if a backup or recursive grep is making your system next to unusable, try this

notify-when-up2 — Give a popup, e-mail, and/or cell phone text message when a long process finishes. A simple idea that turns out to be useful frequently if you're a multitasker

env-search — automatically determine which, if any, environment variable is causing an application to work in one account but fail in another on the same computer

"

Submission + - 25% of all Americans are Confused

Submitted by

jd

on Friday June 08, 2007 @07:37PM

jd writes: "A recent survey has shown that 25% of Americans simultaneously believe in literal Creationism and Evolution. Whilst it comes as no surprise that Americans are divided on the issue of Biblical or Darwinian origins, it is seriously perplexing as to how so many can believe completely and passionately in two mutually contradictory theories."

Submission + - Dutch reject USB flash drive tax

Submitted by Sandburd on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @04:35AM

Sandburd writes: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/03/13/dutch_reje ct_levy_on_usb_keys/ Dutch minister Hirsh Balin has rejected calls to levy a copyright tax on flash drives. The tax was proposed by the SONT (Stichting Onderhandelingen Thuiskopievergoeding) claiming that about 20% of the flash drives contains music and otherwise copyrighted materials. However after a heated debate the proposal was rejected by the minister.

Submission + - Linked List Sorting,10 times Faster than MergeSort

Submitted by

virusfree

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @11:57AM

virusfree writes: "Sorting has always been important in computer science. An article has been published about BitFast, a new algorithm (belongs to Hash algorithms family) that can sort a linked list up to 10 times faster than MergeSort Source codes are available to download and test it yourself"

Submission + - Frances Allen wins the Turing Award

Submitted by

ParticleGirl

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @11:18AM

ParticleGirl writes: "For the first time in its 40-year history, the $100,000 ACM Turing Award has been presented to a woman. Frances E. Allen, who worked for IBM from 1957 to 2002 and founded PTRAN in the 80s, won the Ada Lovelace award for women in computing in 2002. This week she was awarded the Turing for pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution. CNN is reporting. One small step for a woman, one giant leap for womankind!"

Submission + - Interview with Linux kernel developer Jens Axboe

Submitted by

AlanS2002

on Saturday February 03, 2007 @02:34PM

AlanS2002 writes: "Jens Axboe has been involved with Linux since 1993. 30 years old, he lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, and works as a Linux Kernel developer for Oracle. His block layer rewrite launched the 2.5 kernel development branch, a layer he continues to maintain and improve. Interested in most anything dealing with IO, he has introduced several new IO schedulers to the kernel, including the default CFQ, or Complete Fair Queuing scheduler. In this interview, Jens talks about how he got interested in Linux, how he became the maintainer of the block layer and other block devices, and what's involved in being a maintainer. He describes his work on IO schedulers, offering an indepth look at the design and current status of the CFQ scheduler, including a peek at what's in store for the future. He conveys his excitement about the new splice IO model, explaining how it came about and how it works. And he discusses the current 2.6 kernel development process, the impact of git, and why the GPL is important to him."

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