ps_inkling - Slashdot User

Submission + - Introduction to Programming the PS3

Submitted by

johnnyb

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:56AM

johnnyb writes: "A new series of articles is out on IBM DeveloperWorks on programming the PS3. The first article is up, discussing the installation of Yellow Dog Linux and first steps in programming the Cell BE Processor on this platform. DISCLAIMER: I wrote the article."

Submission + - FBI Dodges Questions on Polygraph Screening

Submitted by

George Maschke

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:53AM

George Maschke writes: "The FBI's belated response to written questions submitted by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee includes evasive and misleading replies to a number of questions posed regarding the FBI's polygraph program. While these questions are but a fraction of those asked, if the FBI's responses to them are representative of its responses to other questions, the need for stronger Congressional oversight could not be more clear."

Submission + - The Price of Online Gaming

Submitted by on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:42AM

An anonymous reader writes: Game Journal thoughthead has a piece up discussing the benefits and pitfalls of paying to play next-gen consoles online. The piece entitled The Price of Online Gaming covers more then just the aspects of monetary costs, touching on how it has effected other aspects of games. From the Article:
"... since online multiplayer is being pushed by Microsoft, some developers have started neglecting other multiplayer aspects of gameplay, split-screen gaming, particularly 4 player split-screen gaming is becoming increasingly harder to come by, some titles have dropped local multiplayer altogether. Another multiplayer option that I enjoyed is System Link, but again this is becoming increasingly scarce."

MySQL Changes License To Avoid GPLv3 311

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:35AM from the love-that-v2 dept.

munchola writes "MySQL has quietly changed the license it uses for its database to avoid being forced to move to the forthcoming GPLv3. CBRonline is reporting that Kaj Arno, MySQL VP of community relations, revealed the license change on his blog, noting it was made 'in order to make it an option, not an obligation for the company to move to GPLv3.'"

Why Do We Use x86 CPUs? 552

Posted by Cliff on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:13AM from the because-their-cheap dept.

bluefoxlucid asks: "With Apple having now switched to x86 CPUs, I've been wondering for a while why we use the x86 architecture at all. The Power architecture was known for its better performance per clock; and still other RISC architectures such as the various ARM models provide very high performance per clock as well as reduced power usage, opening some potential for low-power laptops. Compilers can also deal with optimization in RISC architectures more easily, since the instruction set is smaller and the possible scheduling arrangements are thus reduced greatly. With Just-in-Time compilation, legacy x86 programs could be painlessly run on ARM/PPC by translating them dynamically at run time, similar to how CIL and Java work. So really, what do you all think about our choice of primary CPU architecture? Are x86 and x86_64 a good choice; or should we have shot for PPC64 or a 64-bit ARM solution?" The problem right now is that if we were going to try to "vote with our wallets" for computing architecture, the only vote would be x86. How long do you see Intel maintaining its dominance in the home PC market?

An Inside Look At eBay's Technology 84

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:54AM from the APIs-for-free dept.

endychavez writes with a CIO Insight profile giving a look inside eBay and its technology platform. The company has 40,000 outside developers working to increase its value and efficiency. From the article: "'They are way ahead of other companies' in terms of supporting developers, says one application builder... 'This a new wave of business,' says [another developer's marketing director]. 'eBay is a supplier, a marketing channel and a competitor. It's a weird arrangement.' ... 'If you can't split it, you can't scale it,' says Eric Billingsley, head of eBay Research Labs. 'We've made ourselves masters of virtualization.' ... eBay is able to publish a new version of its site every two weeks, adding 100,000 lines of code, all while in use."

Submission + - Why Windows Wins and Linux Loses

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:45AM

An anonymous reader writes: Today, you can do everything you want with a Linux desktop, except play the latest games. Even there, Linux is catching up. So, why do only a handful of people run Linux instead of Windows? Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols — not exactly an anti-Linux blogger — offers his top four reasons why Linux lags Windows in adoption, and suggests what is most needed for that situation to change. I'm wondering: what do Slashdot readers think these days? Does Linux still stand a chance of meaningful desktop penetration? Will the release of Vista increase, or decrease, the use of desktop Linux?

Submission + - Ubuntu Revised

Submitted by

vps hosting

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:39AM

vps hosting writes: "Ubuntu was launched in the year 2004 as an option to debian GNU Linux. It basically aimed at taking Debian Code in order for the new version of ubuntu which was going to release every six months. It also uses the Advanced Packaging tool in order to deal with the Linux packages. Many developers aim to maintain the packages.

One of the plans for a branch named Grumpy Groundhog is aimed to be a permanently unstable development and a branch that is supposed to be tested. This directly pulls the source code from different source codes and is planned to allow power users and upstream developers to test up-to-the-minute versions of individual programs as they would appear if packaged and distributed after that. Without the need to build packages among themselves; and also provides early warning of build failures on various architectures. This branch has not yet been made available to the public.

The next plan is Edgy Eft or Ubuntu 6.10 which is an upgrade from the current "Dapper Drake' 6.06 version.

It is now been funded by Mark Shuttleworth through Canonical Ltd. Its target was to ensure support and development for the latest versions.Ubuntu mainly focuses on the usage inclusive of sudo tools which grants permission to take care of Administrative task without any access to log in. It also puts an pressure on access on enhancing globalization. For the version 5.04, UTF-8 has been the default character encoding.

Requirements -

1)256 megabytes of RAM, and
2) 3 gigabytes of hard-disk space.

The requirements are based on GNOME desktop system, which was mainly designed to provide free, simple and intuitive interface at the same time offering a full range of modern desktop applications.

Apart from those, it also brings in with additional productivity software including OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and GIMP raster graphics editor. The latest edition 6.00 is included with that Live CD and installation into single Disk.

The disc boots into a fully loaded desktop, which allows users to see whether their hardware is compatible and experiment with the applications available and installation Ubuntu to the hard disk .

The process preserves documents created on the live desktop and an alternate install disc using the text-mode debian-installer is available for download, an is aimed at people with lower system specifications, administrators installing on many systems, and for complex disk partitioning including the use of LVM or RAID. It also has an additional feature of Ubuntu Calendar, which mainly downloads the new desktop wallpaper every time and uploads it."

Submission + - Ruling: City Contracted Data is Public Property

Submitted by

lar

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:36AM

lar writes: "According to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, data collected by municipal contractors may be considered open records "regardless of their contractual arrangements with the independent contractors and the copyright protection claims." In the case (here), three Wisconsin municipalities had contracted out the collection and maintenance of property assessment information. When an open records request was made, "municipal officials, attorneys and representatives of the firms involved debated who was legally responsible for complying with the request, copyright issues and other matters." Bill Lueders, president of the Freedom of Information Council of Wisconsin, agrees with the ruling: "It's an important ruling because it affirms that municipalities and public officials cannot evade the requirement to comply with the law.""

Submission + - Object oriented scripting language

Submitted by

uwkandiko

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:30AM

uwkandiko writes: "Why do I still have no object oriented language for doing SQL queries? When writing queries in products such as Crystal Reports or SQL Server Reporting Services, I still have to rely on VBScript type commands to do easy If statements. I understand Microsoft is trying some new items inside SQL Server 2005 allowing users to input dlls, but I would prefer just to have the capability built right into SQL. Are there any initiatives to change the SQL syntax to support object oriented programming techniques inside an actual SQL script?"

Submission + - Italy begins censorship against Pedopornography

Submitted by

bitbreaker

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:30AM

bitbreaker writes: "Today Italian Government approved a law that impose ISPs to block pedopornography over the Internet.
All national ISPs are obliged to block their user's connections against Web sites from a special reporting-organization (National Centre against Pedopornography).
At Technical Level, the block should act at Website IP address level: it means all sites with the same IP (shared hosting sites) will be blocked.
Moreover, dynamic IPs sites will not be blocked unless a new report is delivered.
The censorship will be checked at single ISP level every six months.
Italy is not new to Internet censorship: another block is up against unapproved bidding sites.
What's next ?"

U.S. Bars Lab From Testing E-Voting Machines 123

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 04, 2007 @10:14AM from the watching-the-watchers dept.

joshdick writes to point out a NYTimes story on the decertification of Ciber Inc. from testing electronic voting systems. It will come as a surprise to no-one here on Slashdot that experts say the deficiencies of the laboratory suggest that crucial features like the vote-counting software and security against hacking may not have been thoroughly tested on many machines now in use. From the article: "A laboratory that has tested most of the nation's electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests... The federal Election Assistance Commission made this decision last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then... Ciber... says it is fixing its problems and expects to gain certification soon."

Submission + - Analysis of Video Card coolers

Submitted by

ZahnRosen

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @09:38AM

ZahnRosen writes: "Jebo put together a video card cooling article that gives up to date information on all the major techniques to cool a video card, including review of the top coolers. This is an expansive piece that even a noob could love. +1 since its a wiki and you can "fix" it."

Submission + - "Firefox Myths" FUD

Submitted by Tony Redstone on Thursday January 04, 2007 @09:12AM

Tony Redstone writes: I just happened across a link to this Firefox Myths page on a chatboard somewhere and noticed it was full of inaccuracies and false statements regarding Firefox (especially when comparing it to Internet Explorer). My "favourite" is the alleged myth that Firefox has lower system requirements than IE and it goes on to claim that *IE6* works fine on a 486/66 MHz CPU with 16 MB of RAM and 11.5 MB of free disk space on Windows 98. What do other slashdotters' think of these claims?

Submission + - Website tries to meddle with the UK Music Charts

Submitted by greebowarrior on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:37AM

greebowarrior writes: Chartbomb is attempting to mess with the UK Singles chart by taking advantage of the new chart download rules that came into effect on January 1st, by trying to convince their site visitors to buy specific, indie-label and unsigned, songs en-mass, with the hope of it getting to decent chart position.
Visually, the site's a bit ugly, but the idea is good.

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