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Linux Business

Submission + - World of Goo ported to Linux (2dboy.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Lovers of both games and Free Open Source Software will be pleased to see that the popular World of Goo has been released for Linux. Designed by a small team of two ex-Electronic Arts developers, Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, who used their entire combined savings of $10,000.00 USD to create the gooey game aimed at guiding goo balls to salvation. The developers built their goey world with open-source technologies such as Simple DirectMedia Layer, Open Dynamics Engine for physics simulation, and TinyXML for configuration and animation files. Subversion and Mantis Bug Tracker were used for work coordination. Blogger Ken Starks points out that the release of this popular game for Linux could be a big step toward ending the chicken-and-egg problem of a dearth of good games that run natively under Linux."

Comment Damnit! I just got one, too (Score 1) 154

by Bill Kendrick (#26553499) Attached to: Unboxing a 1984 Atari Peripheral, 25 Years Later

I just bought one of these from B&C ComputerVision. It was also new-in-box, and is a very cool little device. My 2yo son likes having me draw things (usually octopuses) on our big TV. No Wacom drivers or X11 config to mess with. Don't even need to wait for it to boot up. Just click the power switch and you're drawing about 2 seconds later. :) (My brother had a Koala Pad for his C=64, and I was jealous... it wasn't compatible with my Atari. I'd have had to convince my parents to buy me the Atari flavor.)
Security

1 In 3 Windows PCs Still Vulnerable To Worm Attack 242

Posted by kdawson from the so-patch-already dept.
CWmike writes "The worm that has infected several million Windows PCs, Downadup or 'Conficker,' is having a field day because nearly a third of all systems remain unpatched 80 days after Microsoft rolled out an emergency fix, security firm Qualys said. Downadup surged dramatically this week and has infected an estimated 3.5 million PCs so far, according to Finnish security company F-Secure Corp. The worm exploits a bug in the Windows Server service used in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008. Qualys' CTO said, 'These slow [corporate] patch cycles are simply not acceptable. They lead directly to these high infection rates.'" This is indicative of why some are calling for Microsoft to rethink Patch Tuesday, as reader buzzardsbay pointed out.
Space

Milky Way Heavier Than Thought, and Spinning Faster 285

Posted by kdawson from the bulking-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Milky Way is spinning much faster and has 50 per cent more mass than previously believed. This means the Milky Way is equivalent in size to our neighbor Andromeda — instead of being the little sister in the local galaxy group, as had been believed. One implication of this new finding is that we may collide with Andromeda sooner than we had thought, in 2 or 3 billion years instead of 5."

Comment Club Drive on Atari Jaguar did it 14 years ago (Score 1) 507

by Bill Kendrick (#26284001) Attached to: Avoiding Wasted Time With <em>Prince of Persia</em>

I started playing Club Drive on the Atari Jaguar (pretty crappy game-wise, but interesting enough, and it really entertains my 2 year old son). It has a Rewind feature where you can rewind the action at any point. (It also auto-rewinds to bring you back onto the road if you fall off a cliff and into the ocean, in the San Francisco world, for example.) This game was from 1994. "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" came 9 years later.

Sorry, the Atari fanboy in me is showing.
Programming

How Do I Get Open Source Programs Written For Me? 285

Posted by kdawson
An anonymous reader writes "I am a biomedical researcher interested in having general-purpose, scientific programs developed and released as open source. Interface design and reusability of the code are of primary importance to me. For my purpose, Cocoa applications relying on Core Data seem to be the best way to get the job done quickly. While I have some programming experience, I have few connections to the industrial world. So my question to Slashdot readers is: how do I find someone (individual or business) to write high-quality programs? Are there reputable contractors experienced in Cocoa? What sort of rates should I expect, to use as a starting point in negotiations? Would a requirement that programs are released as open source make it more or less difficult to find someone to do the job?"
Windows

Microsoft Discontinues Windows 3.x 384

Posted by kdawson from the an-application-has-expectedly-quit dept.
rugatero writes "The BBC reports that, as of last Saturday, Microsoft is no longer issuing licenses for the 18-year-old Windows 3.x. Many here may well be surprised to learn that anyone still has use for the antiquated software, but it seems to have found a home in a number of embedded systems — including cash registers and the in-flight entertainment systems on some long-haul passenger jets (Virgin and Qantas are cited). Considering Linux's credentials as an embedded OS, this news could very well indicate the possibility of more migrations in the pipeline."
Space

Soyuz With Richard Garriott Successfully Launched 56

Posted by Soulskill from the lord-british-in-space dept.
Toren Altair writes "Soyuz TMA-13 with ISS Expedition Crew 18 and Richard Garriott successfully launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:01 UT (3:01 EDT). The Soyuz capsule will dock to the ISS in two days. Garriott will return to Earth with Expedition 17 crew members, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko on October 23." With the extra attention on this launch, the Russians have gone out of their way to say that the return of the Soyuz vehicle will be safe, after a couple of different malfunctions in the past year. Garriott is in space partly for recreation, and partly as a promotion for his latest MMO, Tabula Rasa. He took with him a hard drive filled with information about humanity, as well as DNA sequences from Tabula Rasa players and various celebrities (including Stephen Colbert and Stephen Hawking) to 'preserve' that data in case of a disaster on Earth. Garriott will also spend time running and participating in experiments. Coverage of the Soyuz mission is ongoing at NASATV.
Programming

Submission + - Tux Paint gains plug-in support (tuxpaint.org)

Submitted by
Bill Kendrick
Bill Kendrick writes: "This week a new release of Tux Paint shipped. (For those not yet familiar, it's an open source drawing program for kids, which runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.) This time around, all of the so-called 'Magic' effects (blur, mirror-image, smudge, etc.) were stripped out of the main code base and turned into plug-ins that are loaded at runtime. Along with Pango-based text rendering and new input methods for Thai and Traditional Chinese (and the previous version's addition of Japanese and Korean input methods and SVG vector graphics support), this paint program "for kids 3 and up" just might be on its way to becoming a contender with the likes of Gimp and Photoshop! Aside from making it easier for us to develop new Magic tools, we are hoping that the new plug-in feature will used by high school students to learn the basics of graphics programming."

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