getagrip - Slashdot User

Submission + - Open Source v Sharepoint: The trouble with bundles (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by superapecommando on Wednesday March 31, 2010 @10:18AM

superapecommando writes: "So if I can summarise this, would I be right in saying that Sharepoint does an awful lot of things adequately whereas your Open Source offerings do fewer things really well?" Thus spake a delegate at a recent 'Sharepoint' conference at which I was presenting an alternative Open Source e-learning stack which included Alfresco, Moodle and Mahara. “Right on” I thought, then “double right on” when MS's chief Sharepoint bloggist weakly nodded assent!
Naturally enough I was inclined to agree with him.
And, after all as he pointed out at the meeting, Sharepoint 2010 is very much better than SP 2007, much quicker and a lot more stuff works properly now...a complete rewrite apparently and there are a host of third party software packages that will make all of the features work just fine!
My head was spinning a little by now. Admittedly I am not a Sharepoint expert but my counterpart presenters were. How do they cope with the sheer complexity of the features, the third party fixes and the extras?
To borrow a phrase from the vernacular “bundles do my head in”

Comment Interesting Book on the Subject (Score 1) 483

by getagrip on Thursday November 05, 2009 @03:34PM (#29998386) Attached to: Computer Failure Causes Gridlock In MD County

"Intelligent Transport Systems: Cases and Poliies" by Roger Stough on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=fs-SYjIS88oC&lpg=PA110&ots=HcpCMSKdgw&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Comment Re:I live there (Score 1) 483

by getagrip on Thursday November 05, 2009 @03:12PM (#29998070) Attached to: Computer Failure Causes Gridlock In MD County

Rockville Pike can be faster to travel on in morning and evening rush hour than nearby 12 lane Interstate 270. When the synchronization is working it works very well. Of course, during the day, all the shoppers driving on the Rockville Pike just turn it into an extended parking lot no matter what the traffic signals are doing.

Submission + - New attack breaks WPA WiFi crypto in 1 minute (threatpost.com)

Submitted by

Trailrunner7

on Thursday August 27, 2009 @11:30AM

Trailrunner7 writes: "First it was WEP, then TKIP and now WPA. A pair of Japanese researchers have developed a new technique for decrypting wireless packets encrypted with WPA , the most common wireless encryption protocol, in about a minute. The attack is an improvement on an existing technique and makes it simple for attackers to sniff and then crack supposedly secure wireless traffic. Threatpost.com reports: "The attack builds on the work done earlier by another pair of researchers who found a way to break the WPA encryption protocol that is used on many WiFi routers. Known as the Beck-Tews attack, the method involved making minor changes to packets encrypted with TKIP, a predecessor to WPA, and then sending the packets back to the access point. The vulnerability was in the way that the checksum was used. However, the attack required a significant amount of time to execute, as much as 15 minutes, making it somewhat impractical to execute in the real world. The newer attack, developed by Toshihiro Ohigashi and Masakatu Morii, improves on the Beck-Tews attack and lowers the amount of time needed to execute it to about one minute.""

Submission + - we're in the midst of a literacy revolution(Wired)

Submitted by

Mike Sauter

on Thursday August 27, 2009 @10:06AM

Mike Sauter writes: ""Andrea Lunsford... is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples--everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring. "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it--and pushing our literacy in bold new directions." http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson"

Submission + - Rumors Of Upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Submitted by Ninjakicks on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @09:22AM

Ninjakicks writes: Rumors of a new World of Warcraft series that is on the horizon, have hinted at the potential that game developer Blizzard Entertainment will take an iterative approach to the game's current engine. Rather than venturing into an altogether new content or world, Cataclysm will reportedly update the existing world of Azeroth, open new dungeons and areas--some of which have been closed since WoW launched nearly five years ago--and will reportedly allow travel to underwater zones. While the as-yet-unconfirmed rumors have some fans crying foul, anyone even slightly familiar with Warcraft's lore knows there are plenty of areas in Azeroth that have never been unlocked.

Submission + - Sync You Music Library Across Multiple Machines 2

Submitted by

OneShirtChris

on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @09:19AM

OneShirtChris writes: "I'm an audiofile, more specifically a metalhead, and I have an extensive library of small bands, demos, EPs, and many big albums as well (all legally purchased of course). I'm wondering if there is an easy way to sync my library across all of my machines. I run Vista Ultimate 64-bit at home (for gaming, don't judge me), Gentoo amd64 at work, and Mac OSX Intel on travel. Rsync is out of the question because my work blocks it. What would the slashdot crowd recommend in a solution?"

Submission + - i4i Says OpenOffice Does Not Infringe Like MS Word (gcn.com) 2

Submitted by

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @08:22AM

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "With all the armchair lawyers and pundits out there, it's interesting to see that i4i believes that OpenOffice does not infringe upon their patent. As you may remember, i4i's patent is the one that lead to a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling, using, encouraging the use of, testing, marketing or supporting any copies of Microsoft Word which can open files containing custom XML, subject to a bit of leniency for supporting infringing copies already sold and with respect to removing the feature in future versions. Lest anyone think that the ODF will win over OOXML because of this, keep in mind that Microsoft has its own broad XML document patent, which issued just two weeks ago (and filed in December 2004), and they're telling the Supreme Court to apply the Bilski ruling narrowly, so that it doesn't invalidate patents like theirs (and i4i's). After all, Microsoft can afford $280 million infringement fines in ways that most companies and individuals cannot. Then again, given that Microsoft's new patent has only two independent claims (claim #1 and claim #12), and both of those claims 'comprise' something using an 'XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features', maybe they wouldn't be that hard to work around if you just make sure any otherwise infringing format is only associated with an application that doesn't have a rich set of features."

Submission + - Pi calculated to record 2.5 trillion digits (examiner.com) 6

Submitted by

Joshua

on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @03:57AM

Joshua writes: "Researchers from Japan have calculated Pi to over 2.5 trillion decimals using the T2K Open Supercomputer (which is currently ranked 47th in the world according to a June, 2009 report from Top500.org). This new number more than doubles the previous record of about 1.2 trillion decimals set in 2002 by another Japanese research team. Unfortunately, there still seems to be no pattern."

Submission + - Dell selling ARM based SmartBooks? (pcworld.com)

Submitted by wonkavader on Friday August 14, 2009 @04:34PM

wonkavader writes: According to the Article: "In an effort to expand its Linux offerings, Dell is researching new netbook-type devices and will soon offer netbook Linux OS upgrades, a company official said on Wednesday. ... The company is researching the possibility of offering new Linux-based mobile devices called smartbooks, said Todd Finch, senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco. ... Smartbooks are netbook-type devices that are powered by chips designed by Arm."

I don't think Finch said "ARM" but he apparently did say "SmartBook". Then again, he also said "researching the possibility".

Submission + - Google Wave: 'Like Real-Time E-Mail. On Crack.' (bnet.com) 1

Submitted by

Michael_Curator

on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:27PM

Michael_Curator writes: "Developers are finally getting their hands on the developer preview of Google's Wave, which means we can finally get some first-hand accounts of what it's really like to use, unfiltered by Google's own programmers. Ben Rometsch, a developer with U.K. Web development firm Solid State, blogged that, it's "probably the most advanced 'application in a browser' that I've seen." Wave is like giant Web page onto which users can drag and drop any kind of object, including instant messaging and IRC [Internet Relay Client] clients, e-mail, and wikis, as well as gadgets like maps and video. All conversations, work product and applications are stored on remote servers — presumably forever. "It's like real time email. On crack," he wrote. And unlike the typically minimalist Google UI, "It feels a lot more like a desktop application that just so happens to live in your browser.""

Submission + - Apple backs off DMCA threats against wiki

Submitted by

netbuzz

on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @04:18PM

netbuzz writes: "A wiki operator who was pressured by Apple's legal team into removing anonymous discussions about circumventing the company's music-playback software for iPods and iPhones says he is relieved that Apple has backed off and he'll be able to restore the disputed material. Apple dropped its claims of copyright and DMCA violation against BluWiki only under legal pressure of its own in the form of a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/43762"

Submission + - Registrars still ignoring ICANN rules (tigertech.net)

Submitted by stry_cat on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @03:22PM

stry_cat writes: Over a year ago ICANN moved to clean up mis-behaving registrars like GoDaddy They released this scary sounding advisory. However over a year later problems remain. One company is now publicly complaining. Some of the biggest registrars are slammed for their actions.
"Register.com is one frustrating company. The ICANN policy clearly prohibits blocking a transfer of a domain name that has expired but not yet been deleted. Despite that, a customer trying to transfer a three-day-expired Register.com domain name told us last week that they refused to give him the necessary code to allow him to transfer — unless he pays them to renew it first.
"GoDaddy (and their reseller arm, Wild West Domains) have a different problem. They still block transfers for 60 days after a registrant contact update, even after the ICANN update specifically prohibited doing so. They freely admit it, too. "
"We see a similar problem with many transfers from Network Solutions."

When will ICANN clean up these registrars?

Submission + - PDF exploit in the wild (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

carusoj

on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @03:16PM

carusoj writes: "Symantec Security Response is warning that it has found an Adobe Acrobat PDF file that exploits a known vulnerability. When a user opens the file, it drops malicious code onto the user's system and executes it. Symantec says it is working with Adobe on the issue and encourages users to make sure their antivirus definitions are up to date."

Submission + - Cloud-Sourcing's Long-Term Impact On IT Careers (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @02:56PM

snydeq writes: "InfoWorld provides a reality check on the impact cloud computing will have on IT jobs, the overall effects of which will likely resemble those of outsourcing, automation, and utility computing — in other words, a movement away from the nuts and bolts of technology toward the business end of the organization. This shift from 'blue-collar IT to white-collar IT' will be accompanied by greater demand for IT pros experienced with virtualization and Web scale-out deployments, even among midlevel organizations, and greater emphasis on SaaS integration among in-house development teams, analysts say. And though the large-scale impact of 'cloud-sourcing' is likely a decade away, those not versed in vendor contract management, cloud integration, analytics, and RIA and mobile development may find themselves pushed toward the less technical jobs to come, those that will require days full of conference calls and putting out fires caused by doing business in the cloud."

Slashdot Top Deals