b100dian - Slashdot User

Submission + - Microsoft to patent in-game stalking (newscientisttech.com)

Submitted by

b100dian

on Friday June 15, 2007 @08:20AM

b100dian writes: "From NewScientist:

As spectator sports go, video games are no match for the football terraces or the racing stands. But Microsoft hopes to change that by giving its video games a "dynamic spectator mode", in which the footage is streamed to a third party who becomes a virtual observer but takes no part in the action.
Read the full dynamic spectator mode patent application.

Question: can you mention at least one existing game that already has this?"

Journal SPAM: Atlantis Launch 2

Journal by stoolpigeon on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:30PM

Earlier in the day there were quite a few clouds. We drove through some showers around 16:00 or so - but by 19:00 things were looking very nice. I had taken my daughter out to dinner, and the schedule was kind of tight. We left the restaurant, and out of habit, I went to hop on the 528 and head home. This was a mistake. Even though the launch was 30 minutes and over 50 miles away, the toll-road was a parking lot. I weaseled my way to the first available exit and carved a new route home.

Submission + - Dell Suddenly Discontinues E1405/640m Laptop

Submitted by halcyon1234 on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:14PM

halcyon1234 writes: As of sometime last night, Dell stopped offering the E1405/640m model. Shopping carts containing the 640m were deleted, and all links to the popular, portable laptop no longer work. Sales reps say the product either at the end of life. Some customer service reps admit that Dell is no longer able to purchase the parts needed to build the 640m, but they have not been specific as to which suppliers or parts. A replacement model is expected sometime in the coming weeks. Until then, anyone who has ordered a 640m, or is looking to have their 640m serviced, is out of luck.

Submission + - Buying a new laptop - Apple with BootCamp or PC?

Submitted by on Friday June 08, 2007 @08:31AM

An anonymous reader writes: So here's the deal — I've finally decided (cheap as I am) that it's time for a new notebook. However, it's been such a long time since I actually purchased one (I usually, as many of you probably do, just get by with whatever I can garbage-pick and squeeze another year out of) that I don't really know what the best way to go is. The low-end MacBook is no slouch and provides a fast processor, good expandability and features in an appealing package at a good price. However, I've also been looking at some of Dell's mid-range business offerings (the D620 in particular) and I can't decide. With the MacBook, I can run Boot Camp and have the best of both worlds — or so it seems — for a lower price. The question really comes down to this: have any of you made this same half-hearted switch, and if so — what problems have you encountered? Does the Mac really run well under Windows? Does it even matter? I await your replies.

Submission + - New Pidgin pixmaps

Submitted by on Friday April 27, 2007 @06:54AM

An anonymous reader writes: Well, these days the Pidgin (former Gaim) team has come up with some new images to represent the IM app we all know and love. My anonymous opinion is that they suck... badly. What does the slashdot crowd think? Is it to late to help the Pidgin developers with some cool and web twooish ideas?

Submission + - OneTeam, Mozilla/XUL Instant Messaging Client

Submitted by

HumanTorch

on Wednesday January 31, 2007 @07:11AM

HumanTorch writes: "A new Mozilla/XUL based IM Client has been announced. There have been several trials in the past, but the development team seems to be serious in building the "Firefox of Instant Messaging" by leveraging a plugin development community. The client also aims at corporate Instant Messaging, with features targetting productivity, by providing control on who and when people can interrupt you.

What do you feel would be the killer feature in a new corporate oriented IM client ?"

Submission + - Microsoft e-mails show Mac OS X Envy

Submitted by MCSEBear on Wednesday January 31, 2007 @03:07AM

MCSEBear writes: Information Week reports that Microsoft e-mails submitted as evidence in the state of Iowa's anti-trust case show definite OS X envy among Microsoft execs.

In 2004 after Apple demonstrated details of Mac OS X Tiger: "Lenn Pryor, former director of Microsoft's platform evangelism, said Spotlight, the new Mac OS X 10.4 search tool that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs highlighted at the conference, was "amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn-land today." Pryor now works for Skype.

[Jim] Allchin agreed. "I don't believe we will have search this fast," he wrote in an e-mailed reply June 30, 2004."

Submission + - Vista Voice Commands Could Be Run From Afar

Submitted by andreamer on Wednesday January 31, 2007 @01:37AM

andreamer writes: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?&p=416

It's possible to record Vista voice commands and put them to automatically play on a website, and if someone navigates to that website, the commands are accepted as valid and will run on your computer. While it seems like anyone with half a brain would just turn off the sound, it's still amusing that they didn't think to have it filter out sounds coming from the computer itself.

Journal Journal: PDF to become an open, ISO standard

Journal by LWGLIN on Monday January 29, 2007 @06:24AM

This is great news: "Adobe Systems Inc. on Jan. 29 announced that it has released the full PDF (Portable Document Format) 1.7 specification to AIIM, the Association for Information and Image Management. AIIM, in turn, will start working on making PDF an ISO standard."
Now I won't have to start endless discussions with people not liking PDF because it is 'proprietary', an argument that IMHO made no sense because Adobe has alwa

Journal Journal: Adobe to release PDF specification to AIIM/ISO

Journal by nickull on Monday January 29, 2007 @01:08AM

Adobe announced it will release the entire PDF specification (current version 1.7 at http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/pdfconversations) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) via AIIM. P

XFCE Adds Icons, Switches to Thunar in v4.4 83

Posted by timothy on Monday January 22, 2007 @10:17AM from the longtime-companion dept.

b100dian points out yesterday's release of XFCE 4.4, writing "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE is really evolving. Besides adding desktop icons, introducing Thunar (in lieu of xffm) and MousePad, applications that are as simple as they are effective, and Terminal, which has built-in support for desktop composition (supported by the window manager out-of-the-box), it also introduced (finally!) a shortcut for the pop-up menu (you can see in the tour that Ctrl-Esc is bound to this menu). Congratulations for the lightest and slickest window manager ever:)" I've been using Thunar a lot lately (mostly under Gnome) because the renaming feature is powerful but reasonably intuitive -- very handy for cleaning up digicam photo names.

Submission + - XFCE 4.4 released

Submitted by

b100dian

on Monday January 22, 2007 @05:20AM

b100dian writes: "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE is really evolving.
Besides adding desktop icons, introducing Thunar (en lieu of xffm) and MousePad, applications that are as simple as effective, Terminal that has built-in support for desktop composition (which is supported by the window manager out-of-the-box), it also introduced (finally!!) shortcut for the pop-up menu (you can see in the tour that Ctrl-Esc is binded to this menu)!!.
Congratulations for the lightest and slickest window manager ever:)"

Submission + - UN Univ. Report Confirms Open Source Superior

Submitted by

Edoko

on Sunday January 21, 2007 @02:39PM

Edoko writes: "Open source software is a viable, and economic alternative to Microsoft, according to a report published by United Nations University."

The report is here: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/pb/unu_pb_20 06_01.pdf

Among the many recommendations is that "All Member States and other stakeholders should have the right to access public information made available in electronic format by the organizations and no one should be obliged to acquire a particular type of software in order to exercise such a right"

Also: "The Secretary- General should take the necessary measures to establish a data repository of UNESCO Free & Open Source Software Portal"

A summary is reported by the BBC here: http://http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/627065 7.stm"

Submission + - What is the best notebook for programmer?

Submitted by javaObject on Saturday January 20, 2007 @10:58PM

javaObject writes: I am going to pass my 2.5 year-old IBM T42 (Pentium M, 14") notebook to my wife soon. That means I can spend some money to get a new notebook ;) I am a programmer. And have been pretty happy with my T42. I really like it for the following reasons:

. keyboard layout
. big "backspace", "\", "enter" key
. ThinkPad System Update (find updates for drivers and ThinkPad-related software automatically)
. the ports layout
. the business-look of the notebook (yeah, I am an uncool kind of guy)
. non-wide screen

What is the criteria for you Slashdotters-programmers' notebook ? And fellow Slashdotters, what do you think is the best notebook for programmers?

Submission + - Language Tools

Submitted by creolophus on Saturday January 20, 2007 @07:27PM

creolophus writes: I am a college student and I am looking for language tools which will help me with my writing, by giving me useful feedback (on my grammar, usage, etc). I will be writing mostly English prose with very little technical content.

So far, I have been using only Microsoft Word's spelling and grammar checkers, and they don't provide any feedback.

Do you know (or) have you been using any such tools?

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