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Businesses

Submission + - Million Dollar Idea

Submitted by
raxors
raxors writes: "Recently, I came up with the bestest idea in the whole wide web and world, but what do I do with it now? If I wrote it up as a proposal for a company, would they give you a chance to listen? or would they just take it and not give you the credit you deserve? If I try to start a web company, where do I get money and talent (that is committed to an idea that I can't disclose until they commit)? So /. what would YOU do if you have a million dollar idea, but need help and resources to carry it out?"
Security

Submission + - How is the best way to bring an idea to market? (leperkhanz.com)

Submitted by
crhylove
crhylove writes: "I have a very good idea, and could be good for the safety of our country. How do I give the DOD my idea and still make money? Or should I try the private sector first? What process should I go through? Does anybody on slashdot have experience in getting venture capitalists, and initial funding? What's my first step? Should I get a patent? My idea is primarily defensive, rather than offensive, and could also have plenty of value in the private sector on it's own. So please don't get up in arms about me giving good ideas to murderers or anything, thanks. This is an idea to help save our troops, and their loved ones from losing them. It can't actually be used to kill, unless..... hmm... Well, the first generation would definitely solely be defensive, anyway, hopefully by the next generation we can have real elections again, and not worry too much about what "our" government has or doesn't have. At any rate, I have the health, mind, spirit, and pocket book of the American consumer most squarely in mind as well.... And maybe have a cure for this global warming problem too. I'm not kidding. I need investors. Much Love. rhY"
Toys

Submission + - Best toy RC helicopter?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Subject says it all. There seem to be a lot of these toy helicopters popping up everywhere from Chinatown to Future Shop. Having just bought a Micro Mosquito that broke in 5 minutes, I would like to know which model people buy (this is /., face it: you either want one too or you already have one). I know there are more serious RC choppers out there for 300-400$+, with gyros and sturdier build, but let's say I want a sub-100$ unit for indoor use. Any suggestions?

(I think the problem with the Mosquito is that the spacing between the drive motors is about the same as the width of a rotor blade, all that has to happen is for it to fall the wrong way and it chews its own blade off. A better design IMHO would be to place one motor aft and the other at the bow, if such words are used for a chopper.)
Software

Submission + - Is Nagios Losing Out to Zenoss?

Submitted by Netministrator
Netministrator writes: Enterprise Networking Planet just replaced their Nagios system with Zenoss. Charlie Schluting sums it up from ENP, "If you can drop in a replacement for Nagios that also provides so many other wonderful features, there's certainly no reason not to. Be careful; it is certain that you'll be addicted to tweaking on Zenoss once its deployed, so start testing it on a Monday." I used Nagios forever before switching to Zenoss earlier this year and there's a huge difference. I read about Zenoss on Slashdot earlier this year but otherwise wouldn't have ever known about it. I would be curious to know what other open source management software Slashdotter's are using and why? Is there any other new projects that handle inventory, patch management, or configuration?
Networking

Submission + - How reliable is FTP?

Submitted by NetKidoo
NetKidoo writes: Hi Slashdot Community, I am a software engineer. Recently there was an incident at my work regarding FTP. When we release our final work product to our clients the usual procedure is as follows: 1. Test the final work product 2. Upload this to an FTP server 3. Download this from FTP Server 4. Do a validation of this downloaded work product. It happened that one of my colleagues objected to my way of doing this. He was of the opinion that this is redundant effort which I was putting to validate the downloaded work product from FTP server. What does the community feel about this? Though logically it appears there can be nothing wrong with this, Can there be any issues if I do not do this so called 'redundant' validation? I would be very interested to hear from the Geeks of slashdot community. Thanks ~Netkidoo
Programming

Submission + - Choosing a Content Management System

Submitted by
Tokimasa
Tokimasa writes: "I was recently asked to assist in the programming aspect of a website (PHP, Perl, SQL, and the like) while someone else works on the design of the site. However, I'm not sure if a full-blown CMS is required or if writing simple scripts would be of more use. How can I determine if a CMS is necessary, and if it is, how should I go about choosing a CMS to use?"
Education

Submission + - Expensive maths tutoring software

Submitted by
gavinjolly
gavinjolly writes: "My question is what do other SDers use or recommend to ensure their kids understand maths?

We had a visit from a salesman last night for maths tutor software for our kids. The software is called Mathematic Computer Tutor from the Australian Institute of Mathematics (Google Search). It costs a whopping $4950 New Zealand Dollars or US$3,603.59. The licence is one off and for the entire family so it could be reused for three of my children.

The software itself seemed good but not NZ$4,950 worth of good IMHO. Key features of the software I observed included:
  • You can select the level/year
  • Select the Area and Topic. It seemed to cover most of the maths curriculum.
  • Multi user
  • Tracks each users performance in each exercise providing an overall scorecard for User, Year, Area and Topic
  • There is also phone support for the kids to call a tutor


I did a quick search and few sites with comments regarding the software.

My wife quite likes the software but I am sceptical interest by my kids will fade over time. Also, I believe there should be more interaction in learning, not just putting the kids in front of a computer and saying Go for it. I have a maths background (Engineering) and am happy to spend the time with my kids.

$4950 would buy some really good maths books and a top of the line Maths Software (Wolfram.com — Mathematica, graphcalc, livemath, Pacific Tech) and there are a lot of resources out there on the interweb."
Programming

Submission + - How much sleep do you need?

Submitted by
phorm
phorm writes: "I was recently having a discussion with a friend wherein we noticed that, although we had been lacking in sleep lately, we were — in general — feeling somewhat less tired. More specifically for myself, I generally end up feeling more alert in the morning, sometimes with a more steep drop-off towards night.

This had led to research over the concept of how much sleep is optimal, and how much is enough. Interestingly, it seems that many who are into heavy fitness schedules (bodybuilders etc) require lesser sleep amounts to maintain an alert state. This would seem to fit with my own observations, in that if I have exercised heavily, I tend to fall into a deeper sleep, within a shorted period of time. However, if I have exercised in a way that has over-strained my body, sometimes extra rest can be required, most likely so that it can "fix" itself.

I have many memories of college wherein intellectual stimulation would also have the same result. Coding would run into the early AM hours, and at some point when my brain was reduced to gelatin I would return home for about 3-6 hours of sleep, and still manage to feel active and refreshed the next day. Coding where I went to bed before my brain gelified might result in tossing-and-turning.

Stimulants, of course, affect either of these situations, but as I'm not much of a caffeine drinker (particularly later in the day), I believe that can be ruled out.

So, how much sleep does a normal slashdotter need before being able to achieve uncaffeinated alertness? What tips and tricks can you recommend to pull a few extra hours out of the day (much like many fitness fanatics do) without sacrificing your health or alertness? How do you trick your body into achieving the almighty "power-nap" or "super-sleep" for quick revitalization?"
Power

Submission + - What happened to this efficient steam generator?

Submitted by c4colorado
c4colorado writes: I have recently been looking into efficient power and heating equipment and ran across this device:
enginion SteamCell (Translated to English from German)

This device apparently runs off of "Fuel oil, gasoline, Diesel, propane, various renewable bio fuels as well as hydrogen" with about 30% increased efficiency and reduced emissions. This device is only the size of a 12v car battery and can produce up to 25kw of thermal energy and is capable of jumping from 5% to 100% output in milliseconds.

I was interested in using this device to possibly power a modern steam-powered vehicle using a Quasiturbine or similar high-efficiency motor/engine. This could be a new avenue of research for "green" vehicles.

The information about this device and the company that designed it has disapeared, there was a great deal of information about it around 2003 but since then there has been no news or information about it.

I wanted to ask the community if anyone knows of the fate of this product, did the company change their name, get bought out by a big oil company with ulterior motives, go out of business because nobody cared, etc?
Operating Systems

Submission + - Are spaces in filenames worth it?

Submitted by innocent_white_lamb
innocent_white_lamb writes: After yet another episode of having a perfectly good script (this one straight out of a book, in fact) fail due to a space in a filename, I was just thinking.... Do you think that the "convenience" of having spaces as allowed characters in a filename outweighs the special processing that having a space in a filename requires when you are trying to do something from the commandline? Even if you're typing a simple command, you still have to use a \ in front of every space in the filename, which adds characters to what you're typing. And in bash scripting you get into little joys like single and double quotes and so on.

In the day of DOS, you had to work at it to get a space into a filename. (And with 8.3 you generally wouldn't want to waste that character even if you could do it easily.)

My Letter to Aunt Sally.txt is indeed somewhat more readable than MyLetterToAuntSally.txt, but is it sufficiently better as to justify the additional special handling it will require if you're trying to deal with it from a commandline?
Operating Systems

Converting Desktops to Thin Clients? 110

Posted by Cliff from the cyclic-nature-of-IT dept.
tfiedler asks: "I manage about 3500 desktop computers and was recently asked by my CIO to begin looking into thin client computing, something like WYSE terminals. I'd like to know, what are some good functional, and more importantly, manageable options to convert existing desktop computers into what would essentially be a Citrix terminal? I was thinking some brand of Linux that starts up an X11 session, starts the Citrix client and connects to our server farm. The user would see a Windows logon, our apps would function as normal and I'd get the benefit of performing a LOT LESS client-side maintenance. Any suggestions?"
iMac

Submission + - Mac's and Disaster Recovery plans?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My current organization is working on a revised DR plan. The systems administration team is pushing for the use of Mac laptops for DR. One such example of a need for it is the event that a virus takes out our windows based network and a non windows OS is needed for recovery. A non windows OS that has full hardware and software support to avoid different vendors passing the buck. Unfortunately we are receiving a lot of push back from management which seems to be caused by a knee-jerk reaction based on the outdated idea that "Mac is for artists, not business". Is anyone out there including Mac's in their DR plan, or for any related reasons? I cannot imagine we are the only people who see a huge boon to using Mac's in security related matters.
Software

Submission + - Best Open Source Automated Testing Tools?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As a software test engineer, I've found that one of the most common client questions involves automated testing. They typically want to know how much of your testing is going to be automated (so that they can presumably get their money's worth out of you and the hardware they bought for you). It's often difficult to tell the customer that there are certain applications for which automated testing (not at the unit level) has only limited appropriateness, and they never want to pay for testing tools. I've visited opensourcetesting.org to try getting an idea of some of the best tools for testing web applications, and gotten some good ideas. Anyone have any favorite OSS load/integration testing automated tools that are easily configurable and usable by a test team with reasonably good (but not expert) Linux skills?
Programming

Submission + - Which language would you use in 3000 AD?

Submitted by
CSLarsen
CSLarsen writes: "You are in the year 3000. At your hands is a computer that:
  • Is infinitely fast
  • Has infinite storage
Which programming language would you use to program it?

If you propose a currently non-existing language, what kind of characteristics would it have?"
Music

Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM 236

Posted by kdawson from the apple-could-do-this dept.
khendron writes "The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site's unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying 'We're seeing the death of DRM.'" Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.

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