Aehgts - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google Earth Flight Simulator (insidedesign.info)

Submitted by

insidedesign

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @02:16AM

insidedesign writes: "It has been recently discovered by Marco that the newest version of Google Earth includes a Flight Simulator. Though simple in comparison to the full-blow flight simulators available out there, the one available in Google Earth is fun and addictive. Getting started is easy and you can be playing in no time. Simply ensure that you have the newest version of Google Earth, which can be obtained from the Google Earth website, and press CTRL+ALT+A on your keyboard. A dialog will then appear, giving you option of plane (F16 or SR22) and airport. If you own a joystick, have no fear because they are supported! It has even been reported that force feedback is also supported. The game's controls are sensitive so it takes some getting used to. You can see all the available controls here on Google's Flight Controls Help Doc. If you want a quick overview, check out this YouTube video. Good luck flying!"

Submission + - Sky outsources e-mail to Google (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01, 2007 @02:01AM

An anonymous reader writes: Rupert Murdoch owned UK Satellite TV provider Sky has been investing hugely over the last year to rollout a LLU based DSL broadband service, enabling the apparently magical "triple play" that will allow them to compete with the cable guys and incumbent telco BT. They seem to have trumped BT's tie up with Yahoo! by announcing to customers in e-mails this week that they will be outsourcing their e-mail to Google, becoming the latest high profile ISP customer for the Google Apps service, adding 716,000 potential customers to the platform. No news on the financials of the deal have been forthcoming — or in fact, on who is paying who!

Submission + - The truth why Apple is successful in what they do (businesstock.net)

Submitted by

shadowzrevo

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @01:34AM

shadowzrevo writes: "The 'Apple empire' once almost collapsed, and it is the iPod brand which brought Apple back to life. Now, Apple company is alive and well, not to mention that it is also very successful in its recent product; such as the iPod, iMac, and the iPhone. However, have you ever wondered how Apple came back with such a big hit? And have you ever wondered why apple is so successful in what they do? Well, it's all about you, and how they treated you!

http://www.businesstock.net/2007/08/31/why-apple-w as-so-successful-in-what-they-do/"

Submission + - Theo de Raadt Explains License Modification (undeadly.org)

Submitted by

Ray Lai

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @01:33AM

Ray Lai writes: "Theo de Raadt explains the legal ramifications of changing code licenses:

It is illegal to modify a license unless you are the owner/author, because it is a legal document. If there are multiple owners/authors, they must all agree. A person who receives the file under two licenses can use the file in either way.... but if they distribute the file (modified or unmodified!), they must distribute it with the existing license intact, because the licenses we all use have statements which say that the license may not be removed.

"

Submission + - How to setup apache high availability cluster? (opensourcedevelopment.net)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @01:24AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "This is how to setup the apache high availability cluster in debian with NFS as data storage, In this setup you can add many servers in cluster."

Submission + - UK Performers & YouTube Reach Royalty Deal (monstersandcritics.com)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @01:11AM

eldavojohn writes: "YouTube has agreed to pay a blanket fee to the MCPS-PRS Alliance to license more than ten million works of music. While there's no mention of what this flat fee is, it will be interesting to see if this is just a deal too good to pass up or an admission of need to license works from YouTube. It also remains to be seen if licensing these songs will cascade to the users and the content they own on YouTube."

Submission + - File Sharing advances

Submitted by sykesm on Saturday September 01, 2007 @12:47AM

sykesm writes: BBC has an interesting article "I was doing research back in 1999 looking at an obscure website called Slashdot," he said. "It was a technology-related news website controlled by volunteers and it actually worked. A few people would post bad things but 99% of users were nice." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6971904.stm The team has created a peer-to-peer system called Tribler in which selfless sharers earn faster upload and download speeds but leechers are penalised.

Submission + - Antique Viking Technology (smh.com.au)

Submitted by sea_stuart on Saturday September 01, 2007 @12:42AM

sea_stuart writes: COMPARED with the latest electronic wizardry, they are fossils from the age of the techno-dinosaurs. Yet the bank of computers that would look at home in black-and-white episodes of Doctor Who cannot be junked. Housed at the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, outside Canberra, the 1970s hardware is now our world's only means of chatting with two robot pioneers exploring the solar system's outer limits. Today Voyager 1 is humanity's most remote object, 15.5 billion kilometres from the sun. Voyager 2 is 12.5 billion kilometres from it. Both continue beaming home reports, but now they are space-age antiques. "The Voyager technology is so outmoded," said Tidbinbilla's spokesman, Glen Nagle, "we have had to maintain heritage equipment to talk to them." http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/thirty-years-tr acking-faint-whispers-from-space/2007/08/31/118806 7368154.html

Submission + - Theo de Raadt Responds to Linux Licensing Issues (undeadly.org) 1

Submitted by

bsdphx

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @12:35AM

bsdphx writes: "Theo has been known as "difficult," but this response to the recent relicensing controversy is thoughtful and well penned. Through this whole process I've learned some new things about both GPL and BSD licensing, and especially about combining the two."

Submission + - 30 things I've learned from using Linux ... (zdnet.com)

Submitted by BBQ-buster on Thursday August 09, 2007 @07:01PM

BBQ-buster writes: ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has an interesting article called "30 things I've learned from using Linux ..." where a long-time Windows user discusses some of the things that he's learned from dabbling with Linux for a few months.

1. That I don't have to pay money to get my hands on a credible operating system.
2. There are far more Linux distros available that I have time to try them out.
3. Switching to Linux does not mean trouble-free computing.
4. Whenever you ask a Linux user which is the best distro, invariably the answer you'll get is the name of the distro that they're using.
5. In my opinion, the best Linux distro is Ubuntu.
6. No matter how much I like a GUI, and no matter how lazy years of using Windows made me, there's a lot to be said for using a command line.

Overall it's a very positive Linux article that should inspire others to give Linux a go.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Good Lightweight Freenix Desktops

Submitted by that this is not und on Sunday June 17, 2007 @10:19PM

that this is not und writes: My main 'freenix' desktop system is an aging Dell Optiplex GX1 with a P3-450 and 768 M of memory running NetBSD. This used to be a dynamite system in it's day. When I first started experimenting with Linux, my main system was a 486-33 and we all were snapping up used 386-anything systems (386sx-16 comes to mind) to hang more Linux out on our personal networks at home.

A P3-450 should still be a useful system, and I make plenty of good use of it. But I've done so by remaining fairly agnostic in the 'Desktop wars' that go on in the land of software bloat: I don't run a KDE or Gnome-based desktop, I have a years-old well tweaked .fvwm2rc file and use FVWM.

There are limitations in using this for a Window Manager, but none that really impede my use. I run Sylpheed for email, use the Xfe file browser, and (of course) Mozilla SeaMonkey for my main portal to the 'Web.' I don't really do 'K' anything and consider GTK to be a bunch of useful widgets, not something to base my world around.

There are a bunch of Window Managers in the NetBSD packages collection that I haven't tried. I thought it would be an interesting discussion to discuss the alternative classic 'X Window System' window managers (as opposed to the all-and-mighty 'Big Two' Desktop Environments.) Is there any cool stuff being done with Motif, now that it's free? What are the best window managers out there in 2007?

Submission + - Google becoming a force in national campaigns (onthemedia.org)

Submitted by

Reverberant

on Sunday June 17, 2007 @09:28PM

Reverberant writes: "NPR's On the Media ran a segment on Google. While the segment touched about the widely reported story of Google's low privacy ranking, the segment also examined Google's growing influence on national politics by way of YouTube. The correspondents speculate that, in the not-to-distant future, candidates may have to make visits to Google's Mountain View headquarters in the same way that candidates today have sit-downs with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register "

Submission + - Media Cataloging Software

Submitted by Rich0 on Sunday June 17, 2007 @08:53PM

Rich0 writes: I have a growing pile of CDs/DVDs holding hundreds of GB of files. I would like a linux-compatible software solution to cataloging and searching these disks. Lots of solutions exist for music/video, but not so many for files.

Some features I'd like would be the ability to easily scan the disks (pop in disc, software reads disc, software prompts for a name (with something sensible defaulted), software ejects disc, softare tells me what if any label to write/apply to the disc, and software is ready for the next disc).

I've seen one or two packages out there but they usually require lots of manual disk labelling, or their search capabilities are limited. Windows-only software won't be of much use to me.

What are others using to manage their media collections?

Submission + - 5 USB Thumb-Drive Software Tricks

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17, 2007 @08:20PM

An anonymous reader writes: Want to run software off of your thumb-drive without using Sandisk's proprietary U3 platform? Then see Put Your USB Drive To Work: 5 Strategies For Going Mobile. The tips, of middling but useful technical intensity, include where to get robust encryption for your thumb drive for free (hint: Try TrueCrypt); where to find free application suites and individual apps (try the OperaUSB browser); and how to run a standalone operating system off your USB drive. For the latter, the article shows how to use BartPE, a utility that builds a copy of Windows's Preinstallation Environment from an existing Windows install. With tools like this, do you think USB drives are about to finally fulfill their promise as mobile repositories which make the concept of maintaining separate PCs at different locations obsolete?

Submission + - Linux Desktop - Is it an Option for Normal Users? (techsupportalert.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17, 2007 @08:18PM

An anonymous reader writes: Linux has long held the promise of offering normal users an alternative to Windows. With the arrival of the high priced Windows Vista Support Alert subscriber "Briard" decides to put 12 Linux distros to the test. (March 2007)

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