Comment I live in Northern VA (near Washington) (Score 1) 163
...and I don't read the paper nor the website (much). Don't think it will affect me (much)
Comment Re:Thanks Steve - replay of 20 years ago (Score 1) 584
A replay of 20-25 years ago. I remember in 1990 - 1991 you had the "friendly" Mac vs. the "command line" hell of the PC. However, it never seemed that there was an easily accessible tool to develop software on the Mac, and it seemed for every Mac used in the computing / business world, there were 4 PC's.
Jump 20 years into the future, and you have the Andriod vs. the iOS. The biggest turnoff of iOS devices is the fact that as a developer, you have to pay Apple $100 a year to work on their platform, and "register" with them. What if I just wanted to recreationally write my own code? For me, the choice is clear. IMHO I think Apple, with its "closed architecture", will lose out to Android (and/or other) platforms. Even with Microsoft's mobile platform, I don't see this level of heavy handed control.
Comment Re:Mirrors (Score 1) 189
Thank you - from those in the US who are annoyed with bogus takedown notices
GoogleSharing, Now With No Trust Required 152
An anonymous reader writes "GoogleSharing, the popular Google anonymizing service created by well known privacy advocate and security researcher Moxie Marlinspike, has released a major new version today. The biggest change is leveraging Google's SSL search option to provide an anonymizing service which doesn't require you to trust either Google or GoogleSharing. This means that anyone who wishes to opt out of Google's data collection practices can now do so without having to trust the operator of the anonymizing service."
Take This GUI and Shove It 617
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia speaks out against the overemphasis on GUIs in today's admin tools, saying that GUIs are fine and necessary in many cases, but only after a complete CLI is in place, and that they cannot interfere with the use of the CLI, only complement it. Otherwise, the GUI simply makes easy things easy and hard things much harder. He writes, 'If you have to make significant, identical changes to a bunch of Linux servers, is it easier to log into them one-by-one and run through a GUI or text-menu tool, or write a quick shell script that hits each box and either makes the changes or simply pulls down a few new config files and restarts some services? And it's not just about conservation of effort — it's also about accuracy. If you write a script, you're certain that the changes made will be identical on each box. If you're doing them all by hand, you aren't.'"
Comcast Warns Customers Suspected of Bot Infection 196
eldavojohn writes "Comcast is pushing a new program nationwide that warns customers if they might have a bot infection. It puts a semitransparent overlay on the top of the website you're viewing, warning you that you may have a bot installed if the provider detects botnet traffic from your residence. Of course, if you have multiple machines running behind a router or modem then you're going to have a difficult time pinning down which machine might have the infection."
Monkey Island Creator Slams Corporate Control Over Game Publishing 298
An anonymous reader writes "Ron Gilbert, co-creator of classic games Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1 and 2, and many more, has spoken out against corporate censorship — the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control. Although his insightful rant applies to a number of corporations (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Comcast are mentioned), most of the direct examples single out Apple. Quoting: 'Apple has maintained an almost North Koreanish dictatorial control over the devices, becoming the arbitrator over what is good and bad, what is allowed and not allowed. They don't have this control over the Mac because it is a real computer and an open device, but they can do this with the iPhone because we (as consumers) were convinced by the cell phone carriers that they needed this control to protect their networks (in the same way they wouldn't let us own our own telephones in the '70s) and Apple was happy to jump on that ship because they could finally control everything that went on the device and we bought it into it. Apple apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of the device. I say that's a load of crap.'" He also mentions Adidas dropping out of iAds because they couldn't accept Apple's excessive creative control, and a photography app that was rejected because it used the volume buttons as trigger."
OLPC Gets $5.6M Grant To Develop Tablet With Marvell 100
tugfoigel writes "According to Xconomy, 'The One Laptop per Child Foundation and Santa Clara, CA-based semiconductor maker Marvell have cemented a partnership announced last spring, with Marvell agreeing to provide OLPC with $5.6 million to fund development of its next generation tablet computer. Nicholas Negroponte says the deal, signed in the past week or so but not previously announced, runs through 2011. "Their money is a grant to the OLPC Foundation to develop a tablet or tablets based on their chip," he says. The OLPC tablet ... is known as the XO 3 because it represents the third-generation of the XO laptop currently sold by OLPC (the foundation scrapped plans for its e-book-like XO 2 computer and is moving straight to the tablet). ... The deal, he says, means the tablet's development is "fully funded."'"
Comment Harford County AG just doesn't get it (Score 1) 485
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/25195725/detail.html
Apparently he still thinks that a police officer can have a private converstion with another person in the middle of the street. Just makes no sense, WTF?
Comment Ken C will not receive my vote next time around (Score 1) 293
Northern Virginia has some of the worst traffic in this country. He is wasting my tax dollars with this witch hunt. Good bye.
Comment Re:AT&T just doesn't get the big picture (Score 1) 393
Agreed. I was thinking about getting the iphone when my contract with VZN expired, but since they are AT&T wireless, I probably won't switch.
I would really like to see AT&T's reasoning for its reversal of the telecommute option. If it makes sense (i.e., security, re-evaluation, etc.), then I would cut them a break. If it is just an arbitrary decision, then I think a boycott is in order.
