LinuxRulz - Slashdot User

Submission + - Microsoft uses legacy formats to push OOXML (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by kazade84 on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @08:10AM

kazade84 writes: The BBC reports that we will lose access to data stored in legacy formats as we move to newer standards. The National Archives have made a deal with Microsoft to set up virtual machines running old versions of Windows and Office to access the legacy files to prevent them being lost forever.

The report, although interesting, seems like another marketing attempt by Microsoft to push OOXML as a 'standard' format and makes me wonder why these legacy files aren't just converted to ODF?

Submission + - Medal of Honor: Airbourne Trailer (thegamersource.net)

Submitted by

imSavaGe

on Saturday June 30, 2007 @02:55PM

imSavaGe writes: "Really cool trailer for the newest game in the MoH series. Head into open-ended battlefields allowing for multiple strategies to complete your missions. Check it out."

Submission + - Prince - How dare you give away your own music

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30, 2007 @02:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2114557,00 .html
Hat tip: instapundit.com

For those who claim that the Music Industry/RIAA is "only protecting the copyright owner's rights & fighting piracy", here is an example of what they really believe.

Submission + - Using CAPTCHAs to improve OCR (recaptcha.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30, 2007 @12:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: reCAPTCHA is a CMU project that makes CAPTCHAs out of words, from printed text, that stumped the optical character recognition program used by the Internet Archive. Each CAPTCHA is composed of an unrecognizable printed word together with a recognizable printed word, the latter for verification. Both words are distorted. When several users respond in the same way to an unrecognizable printed word, it gets "tagged", presumably for use by a supervised learning algorithm.

Submission + - GPLv3 license marks GNU's decline (thejemreport.com)

Submitted by daemonical on Saturday June 30, 2007 @10:56AM

daemonical writes: I've no doubt that this is the beginning of the end for GNU, and it will prove the strength of the larger free software world. The Free Software Foundation has dumped a load of restrictions on us with GPLv3 and told us that restrictions lead to freedom and that it is good for us. That's a little too Bush administration-like for me. In fact I fully expect someone, somewhere, to claim that I "hate freedom" for speaking out about this abysmal license — that would make the irony complete.

Jem Report

Submission + - One-Laptop-Per-Child - 300 laptops, but no power 1

Submitted by

SK

on Saturday June 30, 2007 @10:55AM

SK writes: "Galadima Primary is the first school in Nigeria where each pupil has his own laptop. The school received a gift of 300 laptops unfortunately it has no electricity to power them."

Submission + - Dealing with recruiters and other opportunities?

Submitted by on Friday June 29, 2007 @06:53PM

An anonymous reader writes: I'm currently in an unstable situation. My job could disappear within the next 15 days or so due to downsizing. So I started looking for a new job. I got more than I asked for and the market seems to be really good at the moment. I'm currently working with one recruiting firm even though I think recruiters can be jackals sometimes. One of the opportunities I interviewed with from the recruiter looks like they're going to bite. I also have another opportunity that also could come through as well but it's one that I found and it could possibly be better. However I won't find out for another two weeks about that opportunity. The recruiter is insisting that I drop all other opportunities if the company he's representing wants to hire me. I for one would like to keep it to see what kind of deal I would get. If I accept the job from the recruiter, give my two week notification and within that two week period I'm given a better offer from the other job that I found. Will I be forced to keep the recruiters job? When do recruiters get paid their fee? Will I be liable in any legal way for the recruiter losing his payday? How do you deal with recruiters who insist that you drop all other opportunities? How would you deal with a situation where you were offered a better deal for a job that wasn't from the recruiter?

Submission + - Web 2.0 'distracts good design'

Submitted by

stevedcc

on Monday May 14, 2007 @08:17AM

stevedcc writes: "The BBC is running a story about web 2.0 and usability, including comments from Jakob Nielsen stating "Hype about Web 2.0 is making web firms neglect the basics of good design".

From the article:

He warned that the rush to make webpages more dynamic often meant users were badly served.

He said sites peppered with personalisation tools were in danger of resembling the "glossy but useless" sites at the height of the dotcom boom.

"

Japanese Government to Move to OSS 128

Posted by Zonk on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:31AM from the a-little-less-time-on-hold dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Linuxworld has up an article on the Japanese government's plan to reduce its reliance on a single IT vendor by moving to open source software. 'Oracle, NEC, IBM, HP, Hitachi and Dell are among 10 IT equipment and software vendors that are forming a consortium to develop and sell Linux-based servers and computers for the Japanese market. The move by the vendors to collaborate on Linux in Japan comes from a edict from the country's government to make Linux and open source a priority for all IT procurements, starting this July.' The government has said explicitly it wants to decrease its reliance on Microsoft as a server operating system platform."

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