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Comment Re:BSD loses support from Open Source (Score 1) 149

There is always the new package manager if you don't need any special options and are fine with binaries:
http://wiki.freebsd.org/pkgng
https://mebsd.com/make-build-your-freebsd-word/pkgng-first-look-at-freebsds-new-package-manager.html

It easily rivals apt-get but I still stick with the regular ports system because I need to compile several packages (other than the dependancies) myself for the different options not available with binaries and I've never found compiling from source anywhere near as simple on linux distributions as it is on FreeBSD.

Music

Music While Programming? 1019

BubbaDoom writes "In our cubicle-ville, we have programmers intermixed with accounting, customer support and marketing. As programmers, it is our habit to put on our headphones and listen to our portable music players to drown out all of the noise from everyone else. The boss recently sent an email just to the programmers demanding that we do not use our music players at work because he thinks it distracts us from our jobs and causes us to make mistakes. Of course, we've explained to him that prattle from the other people is much, much more distracting, but he insists his policy is the right one. What is the Slashdot community's experience with music at work for programmers?"

Comment TortoiseSVN (Score 4, Insightful) 268

I am a bit jealous of some Git features, but the place I work -- and me for my personal projects -- use SVN for one big reason: TortoiseSVN. It is a great interface to version control and not everyone (probably the majority) who needs to contribute is a programmer, or has any idea about command line interfaces, ssh, branching, merging, etc.

I am aware of TortoiseGit, but it has not reached a stable release, so it is not up for consideration in a serious environment.

There are other things to keep in mind too; SVN is much more tailored to our repo structure than Git, so that's a big plus for SVN -- at least for us.

Biotech

Gene Therapy Causes Blind Woman To Grow New Fovea 86

Al writes "A woman with a rare, inherited form of blindness is now able to read, thanks to a gene therapy that caused a new fovea — the part of the retina that is most densely populated with photoreceptors — to grow in her eye. The patient suffers from Leber congenital amaurosis, meaning an abnormal protein makes her photoreceptors have a severely impaired sensitivity to light. She received the experimental treatment twelve months ago when physicians injected a gene encoding a functional copy of the protein into a small part of one eye — about eight-to-nine millimeters in diameter. Along with two other patients receiving the same treatment, her eyesight improved after just a few weeks. Now the physicians report that this patient seems to have developed a new fovea, exactly where she received the injection. Because the woman has been effectively blind since birth, the results suggest that the brain is able to adapt to new visual stimuli remarkably quickly."
Books

Good PDF Reader Device With Internet Browsing? 167

ranjix writes "I need a handheld device which would allow me to read ebooks and/or browse the internet while actively and intensely laying in the hammock (and Yes, I do have a hammock in my mom's basement). I'll try to sum up the basic requirements: (good) PDF reader (and ebooks of whatever sort), WiFi connectivity and Internet browser, screen minimum 4.5", readable in sunlight, etc, fairly responsive, at least 4-5 hours battery. Obviously I looked at the usual suspects: Kindle/Amazon tries to grab one into the proprietary formats and their own network (while other ebook readers don't really browse the internet), laptops/netbooks are pretty hard to hold, and the UMPC arena seems a hodge-podge of 'to be released' (Viliv S5? Aigo whatever?) with 'seriously expensive' (Sony, OQO) or plain 'we recommend you don't buy' (Samsung Q1Ex). Is there anything else I could use in the given circumstances?"
The Internet

XHTML 2 Cancelled 222

Jake Lazaroff writes "According to the W3 News Archive, the charter for the XHTML2 Working Group — set to expire on December 31st, 2009 — will not be renewed. What does this mean? XHTML2 will never be a W3C recommendation, so get on the HTML 5 bandwagon now. According to the XHTML FAQ, however, the W3C does 'plan for the XML serialization of HTML to remain compatible with XML.' Looks like with HTML 5, we'll get the best of both worlds."
Government

Canada Considering Online Voting In Elections 324

ehud42 writes "Slashdot readers generally agree that voting machines such as those from Diebold are a bad idea. Well, what about online voting? That is what the Vancouver Sun is reporting. Given that voter turnout in our most recent election was the worst on record, Elections Canada is kicking around the idea of allowing voters to register online, update registration information online, and maybe even vote online."
Privacy

Emigrating To a Freer Country? 1359

puroresu writes "I currently reside in the UK. In recent years I've seen privacy, free expression and civil liberties steadily eroded, and I can't see anything changing for the better any time soon. With people being banned from the UK for expressing (admittedly reprehensible) opinions, the continuing efforts to implement mandatory ID cards and the prospect of a Conservative government in the near future, I'm seriously considering emigrating to a less restrictive country. Which countries would you recommend in terms of freedom and privacy? Distance is not an issue, though a reasonable level of stability and provision of public services would be a bonus."

What Free IDE Do You Use? 1055

postermmxvicom writes "I program only occasionally and mostly for personal interest. I went to update my favorite free IDE, Dev C++, yesterday and noticed that it had not been updated since 2005! I went looking for other free IDEs and came across Code::Blocks and Visual Studio Express. I work from a Windows machine, use C++, and make mostly console apps; but have written a few Windows apps and D3D or OpenGL apps. I wanted to know what free IDEs you use and recommend. What do you like about them? What features do they lack? What about them irritate you (and what do you do to work around these annoyances)? For instance, when I used Visual C++ 6.0 in college, there was an error in getline that had to be fixed, and the code indenting in DevC++ needed to be tweaked to suit my liking."
Books

What Can I Do About Book Pirates? 987

peterwayner writes "Six of the top ten links on a Google search for one of my books point to a pirate site when I type in 'wayner data compression textbook.' Others search strings actually locate pages that are selling legit copies including digital editions for the Kindle. I've started looking around for suggestions. Any thoughts from the Slashdot crowd? The free copies aren't boosting sales for my books. Do I (1) get another job, (2) sue people, or (3) invent some magic spell? Is society going to be able to support people who synthesize knowledge or will we need to rely on the Wikipedia for everything? I'm open to suggestions."

Comment Re:Hmmm (Score 1) 376

What happens when they go out of business and the authorization servers for the game go offline and they never released a patch to remove the DRM? I don't know about you but I still play some of my games from 10-12+ years ago were both the publisher and developer are long gone.

Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet 1010

pkluss noted Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft making the proclamation that "Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today."

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