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Microsoft

Submission + - M$ Shakes Down Old Folks and Charities. (news.com.au)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "From the bait and switch dept.

MICROSOFT will charge the Australian Aged Care Industry IT Council $70 million over the next 18 months as it forces users to pay full commercial rates for previously discounted software. Is this M$'s way to make up for falling traditional software sales?

Aged care providers are shocked by Microsoft's decision to revoke their not-for-profit status, which gave them access to its products at a heavily discounted rate.

A Microsoft spokesman said a recent review had uncovered "a number of ineligible entities, including a range of commercial organisations, that were using Academic Volume Licensing programs" under the belief they qualified.

At least three projects were put on hold by Aged Care. Never trust important business to a software license that may be revoked at any time."
It's funny. Laugh.

Lame Duck Challenge Ends With Free Codeweavers Software For All 433

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the well-that-didn't-end-as-planned dept.
gzipped_tar writes to tell us that The Codeweavers "Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge" has ended in surprise and free software all day Tuesday (October 28, 2008) at the Codeweavers site. A while back Codeweavers gave President Bush a challenge to meet one of several goals before he left office. One of these goals was to lower gas prices in the Twin Cities below $2.79 a gallon, which has since transpired. "How was I to know that President Bush would take my challenge so seriously? And, give the man credit, I didn't think there was *any* way he could pull it off. But engineering a total market meltdown - wow - that was pure genius. I clearly underestimated the man. I'm ashamed that I goaded him into this and take full responsibility for the collapse of any savings you might have. Please accept our free software as my way of apologizing for the global calamity we now find ourselves embroiled in."
PHP

PHP Gets Namespace Separators, With a Twist 523

Posted by Soulskill from the or-maybe-more-of-a-slant dept.
jeevesbond writes "PHP is finally getting support for namespaces. However, after a couple hours of conversation, the developers picked '\' as the separator, instead of the more popular '::'. Fredrik Holmström points out some problems with this approach. The criteria for selection were ease of typing and parsing, how hard it was to make a typo, IDE compatibility, and the number of characters."

Comment Take it slow and step by step (Score 1) 295

by dysfunct (#24993405) Attached to: Server Optimization For Newbies?
First off, RTFM. CentOS is pretty much a RedHat clone, and their documentation is great and easy to understand.

Some general hints in no specific order:

- Go through all files in /etc/sysconfig, learn what they're doing and configure them as needed.
- Run chkconfig --list, find out what each and every one of those services do and enable/disable them as required.
- Don't plug in the network cable before you've done a rough setup of iptables. There's even a console based GUI for that.
- Never, never ever use easy passwords like root:root123, test:blah and similar. Believe me, if your sshd is accessible from the outside you *will* have a Brazilian script kiddie on it within minutes.
- After installing a service like apache or ntpd immediately find the config files and read through and try to understand all of them. Getting everything only half-working is of no use.
- Take your time and don't let anybody stress you about getting that server ready for production. Once there's stuff running on it any oversight will cost you.
- Do *not* optimize for performance. The server's probably fast enough as it is. Unless you know exactly what you're doing you'll probably only screw up and/or waste your time by optimizing a server that has a load of 0.02 anyway.
- Before moving to configure a different piece of software test everything as well as possible. Try logging in to your new ftpd as anonymous and start a warez archive. See if apache leaks configuration information. Use your mail server as anonymous relay.
- Learn whatever you can about the server itself. Install vendor-provided administration utilities and try to set up system event logging and notifications.
- Run yum update (or even upgrade) *before* going into production.
- Trust most default values of packages you've installed, but don't trust them blindly. If in doubt, read the man page or documentation.
- Most security stuff will be adequate out-of-the-box. Take precautions but don't be too paranoid. Trying to implement your own perfect security measures without knowing enough about the details, modifying perfectly good default PAM settings and similar will probably only decrease security.
- Don't forget why you're running a Linux distribution and not Linux From Scratch. Their packages, configuration subsystem, file paths, init scripts and so on are probably not according to the way you would have done it but customizing everything will only cause you tons of additional work down the road. Only customize when you have a good reason, no way around it or need to deploy your own setup to many servers.
- Last but not least, play with it as long as possible. Toying around and with and exploring a non-production server without breaking too much will teach you more real-life experience than any book could provide.

Physics Nerds Rap About the LHC 91

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rock-you-in-the-head dept.
Engadget has pointed out a small band of people even we can consider nerdy that decided to cut loose and demo CERN's fancy new toy, the Large Hadron Collider. The resulting music video is certainly enough to "rock you in the head," and maybe even enough to cause a rip in space-time. Between Alpinekat and Dr Spatzo, I think my iPod just got a new entry.
Robotics

Ultra-Light Micro Air Vehicles 143

Posted by samzenpus from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Dutch engineers have built the third generation of the DelFly autonomous air vehicle. The DelFly Micro made its first public flight earlier today in Delft. This micro air vehicle weighs only 3 grams and has a wingspan of 10 centimeters. This very small remote-controlled aircraft carries a 0.4 gram camera. The DelFly Micro, which looks like a dragonfly, can fly for 3 minutes at a maximum speed of 5 meters/second. It could be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas."
Space

Galaxy Zoo Produces a Rare Specimen 188

Posted by kdawson from the hanny's-voorwerp dept.
We discussed the Galaxy Zoo project soon after it launched last summer. Science News is now following developments about an odd celestial object that is fueling a lot of excitement among astronomers around the world. In August, a Dutch schoolteacher named Hanny, in the process of characterizing galaxy images, noticed a peculiar object and posted a query about it on the Galaxy Zoo blog. She called it a "Voorwerp," which Science News says is Dutch for "thing" but which Google translates as "subject." Hanny's Voorwerp emits mostly green light (the earlier report said blue). The best guess astronomers have now is that the Voorwerp is emitting "ghost light," i.e. it is "lit by the ultraviolet light and X-rays from a quasar that has vanished in the last 100,000 years," to quote astronomer Bill Keel. "As far as we can tell, it's an unprecedented thing," Keel added. Researchers are scrambling to book time on the Hubble and other major telescopes to get a closer look.

Voorwerp
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA assessed $107,834 in attorneys fees (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Tanya Andersen, the disabled single mom from Oregon who's been fighting the RIAA since 2005, has just been awarded $107,834 in attorneys fees against the record companies. This eclipses the $68,685 awarded in Capitol v. Foster and will no doubt inspire many more RIAA targets to fight back, and encourage many more lawyers to take these cases on. Jon Newton of p2pnet.net, who has been covering the Tanya Andersen case from Day 1, writes that "RIAA nemesis Tanya Andersen has achieved another milestone victory. She fought Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG's RIAA to a standstill, forcing it to drop its spurious file sharing case against her, and now an Oregon court has awarded her close to $108,000 in fees and costs.....[L]awyers representing RIAA victims....[wi]ll be able to proceed with counterclaims bolstered by the knowledge they'll be paid their work.""
Censorship

Microsoft IM Blocking YouTube Links 364

Posted by kdawson from the walled-playground dept.
A number of readers are sending word that the blogosphere and Twittersphere are alight with reports of Microsoft's new block on messages containing YouTube URLs. Both MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger reportedly implement the block. One blogger sniffed the network to discover that such messages receive a NAK from Microsoft's servers. Microsoft has been blocking messages by keyword, as an anti-phishing measure, for some time, but *.youtube.com would not seem to provoke much worry about phishing. Instead, as B.E.T.A Daily speculates, "This block seems to be related to the recent launch of Messenger TV in 20 countries which allows for sharing video clips from MSN Video on Messenger." Hard to get away with in an arena where you don't enjoy a monopoly.
Businesses

Is Microsoft just Screwing with Yahoo's Mind? 209

Posted by Zonk from the inserting-the-nano-probes dept.
The Narrative Fallacy writes "This week Cringely offers up a speculative piece asserting that Microsoft might not really care if its bid to buy Yahoo succeeds or not — Bill Gates just wants to disrupt Yahoo and poach the company's employees. 'Microsoft's offer for Yahoo has thrown that company and several others into a tizzy. Yahoo can't be getting much work done, that's for sure ... Redmond's real goal may be simply to poach people from Yahoo, and this deal could help them do just that.' Cringley says there is plenty of precedent for Microsoft's behavior — Microsoft's bids for Borland and for Intuit back in the 1990s sent both companies into a tailspin. 'A failed Microsoft bid, even one involving a termination fee, could lead to horrific results for the company. Remember that Yahoo is staggering here while Intuit was at the top of its market and its game.'"
Encryption

BitTorrent Devs Introduce Comcast-Proof Encryption 334

Posted by Zonk from the crafty-devs dept.
Dean Garfield writes "An article at TorrentFreak notes that several BitTorrent developers have proposed a new protocol extension with the ability to bypass the BitTorrent interfering techniques used by Comcast and other ISPs. 'This new form of encryption will be implemented in BitTorrent clients including uTorrent, so Comcast subscribers are free to share again. The goal of this new type of encryption (or obfuscation) is to prevent ISPs from blocking or disrupting BitTorrent traffic connections that span between the receiver of a tracker response and any peer IP-port appearing in that tracker response, according to the proposal.'"

Duke Nukem Forever 'Confirmed' For Late 2008 344

Posted by Zonk from the funny-weird-not-funny-ha-ha dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Dallas newspaper is claiming that the long-in-development title Duke Nukem Forever is headed for retail release in late 2008. Unfortunately, game creator 3D Realms says that's not exactly what they meant. 'What the modest Texas newspaper actually seems to suggest is that 3D Realms is "on target" to release the mythical sequel sometime this year, though company president Scott Miller adds, "we may miss the mark by a month or two" (wink, wink). Miller also hinted that "hitting the big three" (in this case, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3) is the obvious development strategy, but he continued to stress that 3D Realms has not "formally announced any platforms for DNF."'"
Communications

Submission + - Egypt: Undersea Cable Break Not Caused by Ships.

Submitted by Fantastic Lad
Fantastic Lad writes: According the the Egyptian Government, there were no ships involved in the recent, high profile undersea internet cable breaks.
CAIRO — Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt's communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports. The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.
Networking

Submission + - Fourth cable cut, ship anchor stories in question

Submitted by spazmonkey
Cellphones

Apple Can't Afford iPhone's Carrier Exclusivity 371

Posted by Zonk from the we-like-even-meaningless-choices dept.
WirePosted writes with an ITWire article about the problems that Apple's AT&T exclusivity deal could pose in the coming years. Initially the company needed AT&T's commitment to the project, to ensure features like visual voicemail would work. With the iPhone a hit even at its current high price that no longer seems to be the case. Can Apple afford to stick to an exclusive carrier in the future? If for no other reason than consumer choice? "iPhones are being sold unlocked in the markets of Asia where you can't get them with a carrier plan, but they're also being bought and unlocked in the US and Europe. The message is that many and probably most iPhone buyers would like to be given a choice of carrier when they buy their iPhone. Some would be prepared to pay more as they do with other smartphones and buy their iPhone unattached to any subsidized carrier contract. The point is many consumers feel no loyalty to carriers and resent being forced to choose one."

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