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Comment Re:No offense... (Score 1) 1117

by Matt867 (#26158429) Attached to: What Restrictions Should Student Laptops Have?
Do you honestly think the school is giving away laptops out of the good of their heart? Sorry, the students are getting these because they will be required to do work on them. That may seem like it's no big deal to you but as an 11th grader with a really stupid/crazy IT admin, we can't even get to Google Images here (or any search engine other than google for that matter). In google, the safesearch is turned all the way up, and still I'de say a good 90% of what we can even see on the search list is blocked by a company called lightspeed. This renders all of the school computers basically useless and nobody wants to even attempt doing their schoolwork on them anymore. I don't have a problem with this so I just don't use the computers because I'm lucky enough to have a high-speed connection at my home. We live in an area with no broadband and pretty much the only fast connection most people can access is at that school. It's really shameful that they let a Christian extremist set up our filter. She has even stated in an email she sent to every teacher in the school that her #1 priority wasn't the students, it was keeping the network safe she was threatening to take away teacher computer privileges for letting kids use flash drives to move their work between computers. To add insult to injury, we have several networked hard drives that the students are no longer able to use because she says it's a "security risk". The teachers have no way around the filters and we can't even use the run command on these things (I use run to open word, paint, etc,. so I don't have to click around). In case I haven't got the point across these computers are WORTHLESS. If they were to give us laptops with the same ridiculous policies, not only would I remove them, I would teach everyone I know how to do the same and tell them to teach everyone they know.

Comment Re:Affecting other ISPs (Score 1) 413

by Matt867 (#25581485) Attached to: Sprint Cuts Cogent Off the Internet
I've also noticed my latency TRIPLE based on pinging Google (from 30ms average to 100ms average). I've been checking my equipment for malfunctions for days and have been unable to find any. I use a small ISP that is not involved with Sprint or Cognet, I hope the FCC gets involved in this.
Microsoft

Submission + - Is Microsoft Office Adware? (oooninja.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft Office links to third-party commercial add-ons, includes up-spelling promos, requires cookies for certain functions, and collects technical information. While this is a normal day on the web, should the commercial office suite be judged to a different standard and possibly be considered adware?

Slashdot previously covered Microsoft trying Works as adware.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Comcast now shuts off people's connections 1

Journal by Cafe Alpha
Comcast now shuts off people's connections as soon as they start up bittorrent. Even if the connection is fully encrypted.

Of course Azarus-Vuze isn't exactly subtle, since it gets all of that other stuff. The first time I tried bittorent tonight, they waited 15 minutes before shutting my connection off. The second time they did it in maybe 5 seconds. And didn't turn it on again for 15 minutes.
Security

95 Of Every 100 Windows PCs Miss Security Updates 126

Posted by timothy from the vested-interests-rational-fears dept.
An anonymous reader writes "From Computerworld today: 'Nearly all Windows computers are likely running at least one unpatched application and about four out of every ten contain 11 or more vulnerable-to-attack programs, a vulnerability tracking company said today.' The new data comes from Secunia's free security-patch scanner the Secunia's PSI. The complete data run-down is available here."

Feed Techdirt: RealNetworks Sues Burst, Seeking Judgment Saying It Doesn't Infringe (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
We've covered the history of Burst.com and its questionable patents before. While the company was recently able to squeeze $10 million out of Apple, following the $60 million it got from Microsoft, speculation had begun on who the next target would be. In fact, apparently a Burst investor had started posting videos to YouTube trying to show how a variety of companies all infringed on Burst's patents. Of course, if we had a sane patent system, most people would look at this to suggest that the concepts in Burst's patents were fairly obvious and never should have received patent protection in the first place -- but that's not how things work these days. Among the companies listed in the videos were Google, AOL, Adobe and RealNetworks. Apparently, that was enough to worry RealNetworks, who has filed for a declaratory judgment in Northern California claiming that it does not infringe on Burst's patents. This was, by the way, the same strategy that Apple took (suing first) almost exactly two years ago. With so much fear of cases getting forced into Marshall, Texas, it's no surprise that those threatened would try to file for declaratory judgments on friendlier grounds. It will be interesting to see if Google, AOL or Adobe follow suit.

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Feed Engadget: Sony's $400 digital noise canceling headphones (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: CES, Portable Audio

The age-old battle between the forces of digital and analog wages on, with Sony's new MDR-NC500D noise canceling headphones claiming to out noise cancel your totally old-fashioned analog pair. We don't really understand the audio alchemy explained in the press release ("the analog audio input signal is converted to a digital signal and sent through a digital equalizer to enhance the mid-range vocals and alleviate the excess bass"?) but if it means we can tune into whatever crappy movie they're playing on the plane while blocking out the roar of the jet engine and maybe even a crying infant or two, then consider our attention gotten when these things start canceling noise in February. For $400, we're expecting nothing less than a miracle.

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Feed Engadget: PSP internal USB mass storage mod ain't pretty, but all the gigabytes are (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming, Storage

PSP modder extraordinaire PvP_LostKnight's latest creation freed his PSP from the shackles of pricey Memory Sticks, at the cost of aesthetics. The internal USB mass storage mod packs a flash drive inside the PSP, and includes a PCB board that allows the drive to act as the USB host, since the PSP only works in USB slave mode. PvP is otherwise short on details, but we're sure PSP-mutilating instructions will be popping up soon enough.

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Feed Engadget: New Line confirms it'll follow in Warner's Blu footsteps (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

As if anyone expected anything different, New Line confirmed with Variety Magazine that it'll follow Warner to the Blu-ray promise land. While this is a no brainer considering the relationship between Warner and New Line, (also owned by Time Warner, just like Engadget) other studios remain up in the air. When, and if, Universal makes the switch as well is any ones guess, but at this point we doubt many would expect otherwise. But, as we've learned in the last few days, anything's possible, but the idea of having one HD format to adopt is something even most members of the red camp can get behind.

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The Courts

Submission + - Wired: RIAA's 'misspeaking' affected verdict

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: David Kravetz of Wired.com, who covered the Capitol v. Thomas trial gavel-to-gavel and in person, writes that the RIAA's recent statement — that SONY BMG's top litigation lawyer "misspoke" during the trial when she said that making a copy from one's own cd is "stealing" — may have caused a major "miscarriage of justice". Wired points out that later on in the trial, during the RIAA's examination of Ms. Thomas, "On the hard drive she [turned] over were thousands of songs Thomas said she ripped from her CDs. The RIAA's Gabriel suggested to jurors that copying one's purchased music was a violation of the Copyright Act. Gabriel, for example, asked Thomas whether she had ever burned CDs, either for herself, or to give away to friends. "Did you get permission from the copyright owners to do that?" Gabriel asked. "No," Thomas responded." Gabriel, the RIAA's lead attorney, apparently misspoke too — prejudicing jurors along the way.
Censorship

Submission + - Mandatory internet filters to protect children (abc.net.au) 5

Submitted by CaptainDefragged
CaptainDefragged writes: Just announced on the Australian ABC News site Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material. ... Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service, and will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.

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