hellgate - Slashdot User

Submission + - Samba Success in the Enterprise?

Submitted by

gunnk

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @10:11AM

gunnk writes: "We've deployed a Samba server here to replace some aging Novell Netware boxes. It works great: fast, secure, stable. However, we have one VIP that feels that Samba is "amateur" software and that we should be buying Windows servers. I've been searching with little success for large Samba deployments in enterprise environments. Anyone out there care to share stories of places that are happily running large Samba installations for their file servers? Or not so happy, for that matter — better to be informed!"

Submission + - iowaconsumercase archive disappered

Submitted by jbrax on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @07:46AM

jbrax writes: Microsoft's dirty tricks archive seems to have vanished.

The Register: Plaintiffs maintained a website at iowaconsumercase.org, which included daily media updates, full transcripts of the previous day's proceedings, and an archive of some 2,000 exhibits of alleged misdeeds going back to the 1980s.

The website is now password-protected. Microsoft's own archive of exhibits and transcripts has similarly disappeared. Microsoft maintains a comprehensive record of its antitrust proceedings, making Comes a notable absence.

Submission + - Merck HIV vaccine trial begins in South Africa

Submitted by Neme$y$ on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @03:21AM

Neme$y$ writes: The BBC reports that "An international team of researchers, led by experts from the US, will oversee the trial of the vaccine, created by the drug company Merck.". According to CBC News : The study is a "test of concept" trial that will help researchers determine if the vaccine prevents HIV infections, results in lower HIV levels in those who become infected after vaccination or both. "South Africa is an excellent location for this trial due to the high levels of infection coupled with the good clinical infrastructure, including internationally recognized immunology laboratories, a well-established national vaccine initiative and experience in running clinical trials," said James Kublin, M.D., M.P.H., one of study's lead investigators, along with Glenda Gray, MBBCH, FCPaeds (SA), of the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, based at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. A more detailed explanation here.

Submission + - Obesity linked to gut bacterial population

Submitted by

krishn_bhakt

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @01:45AM

krishn_bhakt writes: "Joel Elmquist (The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA), a Physiology Faculty 1000 Member, comments "This is one of the most provocative papers to be published in the field of obesity research in some time. The evidence provided in this paper demonstrates that obese and non-obese mice have alterations in bacterial populations that apparently affect energy availability and utilization and the body weight of the host."

The nature article is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/ab s/nature05414.html ."

Submission + - Neural "extention chord" developed

Submitted by moon_monkey on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @09:04AM

moon_monkey writes: Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a 'neural extention chord' by growing neurons attached to a microchip. The chord is made by gradually moving two batches of neurons apart, as they naturally grow towards one another. This biological 'data cable' could then naturally interface with the brain once implanted, the researchers say.

Submission + - Whatever happened to Aerogel?

Submitted by

BK117

on Sunday January 21, 2007 @12:15AM

BK117 writes: "When I first saw the news releases for this amazing material (in the early 1990's) they said it would revolutionize refrigerators, hot water heaters and many other devices needing lightweight insulation. Well, I have yet to see any consumer-level appliances using aerogels. Why not?"

Submission + - OpenMoko Schedule Announced

Submitted by

levell

on Saturday January 20, 2007 @09:22AM

levell writes: "The schedule for the OpenMoko Open source, Linux based Neo1973 smart phone was posted to the community mailing list by Sean Moss-Pultz this morning. On Feb 11, free phones will be sent to key community developers and the community websites/wiki/bug tracker will be available. Then on March 11 ("official developer launch") we'll be able to buy an OpenMoko for $350 (+p&p) (worldwide from openmoko.com). After allowing some time for innovative, slick software to be created there will be a "Mass market launch" at which point Sean hopes that "your mom and dad will want one too"."

Submission + - KDE on Windows

Submitted by

AlanS2002

on Monday January 15, 2007 @03:05AM

AlanS2002 writes: "This week's KDE Commit Digest tells about an installer for KDE on Windows and the problems the developers encountered setting up a working environment for KDE to run on. Many screenshots included, showing the first applications (such as Konqueror) running natively."

Submission + - MacFUSE: write to NTFS partitions from OS X

Submitted by

Beiden Baeren

on Monday January 15, 2007 @02:01AM

Beiden Baeren writes: "After an announcement at MacWorld, Amit Singh from Google has released the code for MacFUSE http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/. While FUSE has been available to Linux users for a while, MacFUSE means that OS X users have now support for a variety of filesystems:

Windows NTFS includes write support

FTP includes write support

WebDAV

SSHFS

BeagleFS

etc... (PicasaFS, GoogleFS)

While installing and configuring the software requires use of the command line and compiling from source, users are quickly stepping forward to provide more user-friendly installation packages such as this one by Jeff McCune of The Ohio State University's mathematics department. Personally, as a switcher to Mac from Windows, I find the ability to write to Windows NTFS invaluable, but MacFUSE provides significantly more than this. Thanks to Amit Singh and his team!"

Submission + - Carmack Blasts Vista, Questions Direct X 10.

Submitted by

222

on Friday January 12, 2007 @10:57PM

222 writes: "Apparently id's John Carmack is also having trouble finding a reason to upgrade to Vista. ""Nothing is going to help a new game by going to a new operating system. There were some clear wins going from Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really aren't any for Vista," Carmack told Game Informer." He also seems to feel that Direct X 10 is more of a gimmick than anything. "They're artificially doing that by tying DX10 [DirectX 10] so close it, which is really nothing about the OS. It's a hardware-interface spec. It's an artificial thing that they're doing there." With this coming from an industry leader, will you be upgrading?"

Submission + - Why blurring sensitive information is a bad idea

Submitted by

Rub3X

on Sunday January 07, 2007 @03:18AM

Rub3X writes: "For the most part this is all fine with peoples' faces as there isn't a convenient way to reverse the blur back into a photo so detailed that you can recognize the photo. So that's good if that is what you intended. However, many people also resort to blurring sensitive numbers and text. I'll illustrate why that is a BAD idea."

Submission + - scientific basis for race: genome Hamming distance

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06, 2007 @06:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: Physics professor describes how genetic clustering corresponds to racial identity. Individual genetic data, when plotted in an abstract genome space, tends to cluster into groups corresponding to traditional continental ethnic groups (Europeans, Africans, Asians, etc.). Race is more than a matter of pigmentation or other superficial traits: it determines the likelihood an individual is carrying a particular gene variant.

Submission + - Map of the Internet

Submitted by

Wellington Grey

on Monday December 11, 2006 @03:43AM

Wellington Grey writes: "Author of the popular webcomic xkcd has put up a hand made map of the internet as today's comic. He also has an interesting blog entry detailing some of the work that went into it, such a pinging servers and creating a method of fractal mapping to display related regions as contiguous sections on the grid."

Submission + - The Environmental Cost of Your MMORPG Avatar

Submitted by

markmcb

on Sunday December 10, 2006 @01:08PM

markmcb writes: "Taking into consideration that people in developing countries use less than 2400 kWh a day; your MMORPG avatar may be consuming more energy to exist than a real person. Given the vast array of servers that must keep avatars in the newest games like Second Life alive, an MMORPG Avatar's Eco-Footprint is large, very large. Some math from the article, 'If the average PC uses 120 watts, and a server uses 200 watts, plus 50 more for air-conditioning, then (4,000 servers x 250 watts x 24 hours) + (12,500 avatars x 120 watts x 24 hours) = 60,000,000 watt-hours or 60,000 kilowatt-hours. That gives a per-capita usage of 60,000 / 12,500 = 4.8 kWh. Over a year's time that equates to 1752 kWh per avatar.'"

Submission + - Giant tent to be built in Astana, Kazakhstan

Submitted by aitsu on Sunday December 10, 2006 @05:02AM

aitsu writes: The BBC reports :"Kazakhstan has unveiled a new architectural project for its capital Astana — a giant transparent tent that will contain an indoor city. The 150m-high (500ft) dome, designed by UK architect Norman Foster, will be built in just over a year...Underneath, in an area larger than 10 football stadiums, will be a city with squares and cobbled streets, canals, shopping centres and golf courses.The idea is to recreate summer, so that when the outside temperature is -30C, the residents of the Kazakh capital can play outdoor tennis, take boat rides or sip coffee on the pavement cafes."

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