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Red Hat Software

Submission + - Is open source a viable option for Businesses? (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "In an economic downturn, where budgets are being cut, is it sensible to use open source software as opposed to commercial software? Personally I think that the average CIO would take a lot of persuasion to tell their company that they are going to go with software that doesn't come with support, manuals, etc (before you ask it — yes I know people will write them — but that isn't necessarily the same). Has anyone out there done this? Is anyone using the open source software? More to the point, is it cheaper — surely the maintenance costs that you pay will be cancelled out in open source by the additional people resources?"
Spam

Submission + - Spam actually works (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "I didn't quite know what to write about this, apart from "Freaking hell". Of course I swore instead of that first word. Apparently some scientists have run some spam through the Storm network and discovered that even though they only got 28 sales out of several million messages, they would still make a £4.5k profit a day. Surely scientists should be finding ways of preventing it rather than proving it works so that more people do it. And who the hell are these 28 idiots?"

Comment Not Just the US (Score 4, Interesting) 68

To be fair, Yahoo will have to cope with all those people outside the US (yeah, I know - we don't count) who are looking for detailed analysis of the result that they just can't get on TV.

I don't know why you'd be checking Yahoo! news though. Surely you'd opt for one of the news organisations that has a history of journalism (eg BBC or Reuters).

Maybe it is just me.
Movies

Submission + - James Bond Gadgets (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "Given that the new James Bond film is just about to be released today, this is quite a nice summary of James Bond gadgets from past films. Tomorrow Never Dies was on telly last night and I was commenting on how the mobile phone that controlled the BMW was awesome, why they haven't done it in real life is beyond me (although there'd probably be a few accidents if they ever did). Ridiculous to think that in 1963 the gadget of choice for Bond was a pager though."
Space

Submission + - A Planetary Survival Guide (newscientist.com)

whencanistop writes: "New Scientist have looked into what is going to happen to the sun in the next few (ok, several billion) years and how that will impact the earth. I know none of us will still be here , but thinking about climate change now could help us come up with a plan for the future, even if that means moving the earth out to a radius nearer that of Mars to avoid the seas evaporating. It beats putting billions of people into a spaceship and terraforming Mars into something new, although this is starting to sound a little bit like the hitch hikers guide the galaxy now."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Web Analytics Wednesdays

We've just had a 'web analytics wednesday' here in London and it was really well attended (over 170 people). It's an event normally in the downstairs room of a bar in London where a group of people who work in web analytics get together and have a drink. Oh, and someone usually gets up and gives a bit of a talk about something they've been doing (it was
Security

FBI Warns of Sweeping Global Threat To US Cybersecurity 134

GovIT Geek writes "The FBI's newly appointed chief of cyber security warned today that 'a couple dozen' countries are eager to hack US government, corporate, and military networks. While he refused to provide country-specific details, FBI Cyber Division Chief Shawn Henry told reporters at a roundtable that cooperation with foreign law enforcement is one of the Bureau's highest priorities and added the United States has had incredible success fostering overseas partnerships."
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Are Intelligent people are more attractive? (newscientist.com)

whencanistop writes: "New Scientist is reporting on a study that shows that women like men who look and act intelligently. Whilst the headline is a bit sensationalist and I'm not a lonely man, it did remind me of a time when I was on the tube recently with some female friends. I was sitting next to an attractive, young lady and we got a bit of banter going about when the Victoria line was closing for the evening. She then pulled out a copy of New Scientist and started reading it. I should have got talking to her, but instead I smiled and giggled to my friends like a schoolboy (they didn't realise what was going on) before we got off at the next stop. Clearly intelligence is nothing without a cracking first line."
Databases

Submission + - CERN, the big bang and impact on the IT industry (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "ComputerWeekly have put together a nice short guide (with lots of links) of what is going on at CERN. They've got a nice slant though on what this big bang experiment is going to mean for the IT Industry. Interesting slant on the worlds largest grid and the database clustering technology that they are using. They have also picked up on the amusing rap video by CERN's scientists that hase been wandering around Youtube."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - IT Superheroes (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "Are you an IT Superhero? ComputerWeekly are trying to debunk the myth that IT professionals are geeks, so they are trying to get people to nominate their friends (or themselves) to be the new superhero of IT. I suppose this will come back to the last time we talked about this on Slashdot when there was a new Microsoft heroes cartoons. This time though, lets have some superhero names. Personally I am known as Hitbox guru in the office, but I feel that this is a level down from a real superhero."
The Internet

Submission + - UK Government to snoop on internet traffic (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "It looks like the Home Office (part of the UK government) is going to pass through a law stating that it can monitor all ISP traffic. This will mean that it will know everything that anyone does in the country that involves passing information through the internet. Whilst the benefits of this will be that it will be able to spot terrorists (presumably by searching for overuse of key phrases in emails/instant messaging as well as the websites they are looking at) and paedophiles, the downside has got to be what else they are going to use it for: eg picking up illegal file sharers (music, video, games, etc). Surely this is a bit of an infringement of your human rights."
The Internet

Submission + - WWW takes too long to say (newscientist.com)

whencanistop writes: "The guys at New Scientist have noticed that 'www' takes too long to say. The double u, double u, double u bit at the start is three of the longest letters in the alphabet (in English). I've taken to not saying them at all and just starting at the domain name, but I find I have to repeat myself often because people miss it the first time because they aren't expecting it straight away. Any suggestions for alternatives? We used to have a right hand up rule for sarcasm, should something similar be out there for when you are saying website addresses."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft wants to buy AOL (and hence Bebo) (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "Interesting news of Microsoft thinking about switching its acquisition strategy from Yahoo! to AOL. More interestingly this will give it Bebo as a social networking group and give it direct competition from MySpace owners News Corp. It would probably sit quite well with their online population of teenie boppers as well. Would that force Google's hand into buying Facebook?"
IBM

Submission + - Virtual offices finally here (computerweekly.com)

whencanistop writes: "IBM and Second life have come together to make it so that avatars can move easily between Second Life and OpenSim (an open source toolkit for developing virtual platforms). This should finally mean that we are coming to a point where if we need meetings with people in the office, we can just trundle into a virtual world. What with rising transport costs from oil prices, this could mean the start of home working. Before you know it, every company will have its own virtual world for meetings and everyone will work at home on their laptop through wireless connections. Well I can dream, can't I?"

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