jonoid - Slashdot User

Comment Re:More bricked computers (Score 2, Insightful) 313

by jonoid on Saturday December 27, 2008 @02:08PM (#26242805) Attached to: Apple OS X 10.5.6 Update Breaks Some MacBook Pros

But it's not actually bricked. It might appear to be bricked, but it wouldn't be wise to make the judgment that it's bricked without at least doing some basic diagnostics such as putting the machine into target disk mode or testing an external display.

Bricking a piece of hardware is relatively difficult for a piece of software to do, even with firmware, because replacing the firmware is usually possible.

Speaking as a bit of a language Nazi (and geek), bricking is one of those terms that should be reserved for extreme cases where the hardware actually IS bricked. Using it for situations where the hardware is recoverable dilutes the meaning and makes it much more difficult to convey when hardware is legitimately bricked.

Comment Re:Flying with firearms. (Score 1) 1123

by jonoid on Friday August 01, 2008 @01:46PM (#24436989) Attached to: DHS Allowed To Take Laptops Indefinitely

Been in the blow machine a few times

What airport do you go to? I'd like to pass through there.

Submission + - Google Filters Torrents From Search Results (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by HiddenL on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @03:27PM

HiddenL writes: According to TorrentFreak.com:

Google has been filtering its search results for years. That's proven very useful for the Chinese government, and of course content owner representatives like the MPAA and RIAA. According to Google, the filtering of torrents from the search results is a response to the DMCA complaints they receive. The owner of SumoTorrent told TorrentFreak that he discovered that A search on Google for sumotorrent now triggers the following message at the bottom of the results page:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
A search for other BitTorrent sites like Torrentspy and Torrentreactor comes up with the same message (note. the sites are still indexed but some results are removed).
Apparently "Do No Evil" includes mass filtering of legitimate content.

Submission + - Remote-control copter to rescue Everest climbers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15, 2007 @06:45PM

An anonymous reader writes: An unpiloted helicopter that will function as an air ambulance on the highest mountain in the world is being developed in New Zealand. Once a stranded climber has been located, the Alpine Wasp communicates with them using an 8.5-metre extendable "proboscis" with a camera and a small speaker attached to its end. The proboscis also has a Kevlar loop on the end capable of supporting any injured person.

Submission + - Microsoft RDS Timeout

Submitted by

AT-Tom

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @06:35PM

AT-Tom writes: "I'm making use of Microsoft's Remote Data Services (RDS), which is a deprecated technology. Nonetheless, I have legacy software that hasn't evolved to something newer yet (such as .Net and Web Services), and — for the moment, at least — I still have to live with one foot in the RDS past. My problem is that I'm encountering a 30-second timeout in some link of the RDS component chain. There is an RDS.RemoteDataSpace.InternetTimeout property that I should be able to control, but it either isn't *really* implemented, or the timeout is occurring elsewhere. When retrieving data over RDS, I use the RDSServer.DataFactory.Query method. This method requires a connection string, which uses ODBC token=value pairs (e.g., "DATA SOURCE=xxx;UID=yyy;PWD=zzz"). Research has revealed several possible timeout tokens that could be incorporated into the connection string, depending on the flavor of ODBC being used (such as "Internet Timeout", "Connection Timeout", etc.). However, none of these has yielded an extension of the 30-second timeout I'm getting. I've also tried modifying various settings in IIS which appeared to have promise. But, alas, no joy. I'm aware that many of these timeout settings I've mentioned are specified in milliseconds, so I'm not blundering by mis-specifying in the wrong units. Just wanted to head off any suggestions on that tack. I have opened a support case with MSDN. Though Microsoft is reluctant to help support deprecated technology, they claim they are trying to find somebody who knows anything about RDS. Either they are paying me lip service, or they can find no RDS expert that remains in their knowledge pool (or nobody will admit to knowing anything about RDS)."

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