Mike Gleason - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Photoshop Elements (Score 1) 403

by Mike Gleason on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @02:39PM (#37182158) Attached to: The GIMP Now Has a Working Single-Window Mode

In PSE, the crop tool's rectangle can be rotated before you finish. Go to a corner of the rectangle and wait for the cursor to change into a rotate cursor. Another nice feature is to set the aspect ratio before cropping, so you can resize the cropping rectangle and have it constrained to, say, 6x4. I presume gimp can do that, too.

An Early Look At Civilization V 286

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday March 11, 2010 @07:02AM from the new-and-shiny dept.

c0mpliant writes "IGN and Gamespot have each released a preview of the recently announced and eagerly awaited Civilization V. Apart from the obvious new hexagon shape of tiles and improved graphics, the articles go on to outline some of the major changes in the game, such as updated AI, new 'flavors' to world leaders, and a potentially game-changing, one-unit-per-tile system. No more will the stack of doom come to your city's doorsteps. Some features which will not be returning are religion and espionage. The removal of these two have sparked a frenzy of discussion on fan-related forums."

Comment Try a pivoting monitor in "tallscreen" mode. (Score 5, Informative) 503

by Mike Gleason on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @02:50PM (#27664823) Attached to: My primary computer has N screens, with N being ...

If you do a lot of writing/coding, reading PDFs, etc., something that is really nice to have is a monitor that can be pivoted 90 degrees, so you can view a full 8.5x11" (or A4) document at 100% or better magnification (at 1200x1920 or 1050x1680, for example). Even a 1920x1200 widescreen monitor tends to make viewing a full sheet cumbersome.

Even better is one tallscreen monitor in the center of your workspace and one or two widescreen monitors flanking it.

At Newegg, you can find tallscreen-capable monitors by searching for "Stand Adjustments : Height, Pivot, Swivel, Tilt" when browsing LCD monitors.

Amazon Launches "Frustration-Free Packaging" 353

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 03, 2008 @09:11PM from the save-the-earth-and-keep-more-of-your-fingers dept.

mallumax notes Amazon's new Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. Over several years the retailer hopes to convince many of its suppliers to offer consumer-friendlier packaging. It's starting with just 19 products from Mattel, Fisher-Price, Microsoft, and Transcend. Until this program spreads to more products, better get one of these (ThinkGeek and Slashdot share a corporate overlord). From Amazon's announcement: "The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box. Amazon works directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used."

Wayland, a New X Server For Linux 487

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 03, 2008 @06:47PM from the at-least-it's-not-called-Y dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has a new article out on Wayland: A New X Server For Linux. One of Red Hat's engineers has started writing a new X11 server around today's needs and to eliminate the cruft that has been in this critical piece of free software for more than a decade. This new server is called Wayland and it is designed with newer hardware features like kernel mode-setting and a kernel memory manager for graphics. Wayland is also dramatically simpler to target for in development. A compositing manager is embedded into the Wayland server and ensures 'every frame is perfect' according to the project's leader."

Looking At Changes In the Newest GCC 54

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 30, 2008 @02:32PM from the keeping-abreast dept.

cyberpead writes "With GCC 4 comes a new optimization framework (and new intermediate code representation), new target and language support, and a variety of new attributes and options. Get to know the major new features and their benefits in this article."

ACLU Creates Map of US "Constitution-Free Zone" 979

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 24, 2008 @03:42PM from the stay-well-inland dept.

trackpick points out a recent ACLU initiative to publicize a recent expansion of authority claimed by the Border Patrol to stop and search individuals up to 100 miles from any US border. They have created a map of what they call the US Constitution-Free Zone. "Using data provided by the US Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This 'Constitution-Free Zone' includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.'"

Alternatives to Daylight Saving Time? 755

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:21PM from the even-ben-franklin-made-some-whoppers dept.

Wellington Grey writes "Daylight saving time almost upon us. The arguments about its possible benefits and drawbacks come up twice every year. Does it save energy or lives? Possibly, but it does definitely cause a great deal of inconvenience. My question is this: what do you think would be the best possible system to replace DST with? What is the best way for humans to deal with the inconsistent amount of light over the year and still foster coordination over disparate time zones?"

Why RAID 5 Stops Working In 2009 803

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @07:03PM from the back-'em-up-rawhide dept.

Lally Singh recommends a ZDNet piece predicting the imminent demise of RAID 5, noting that increasing storage and non-decreasing probability of disk failure will collide in a year or so. This reader adds, "Apparently, RAID 6 isn't far behind. I'll keep the ZFS plug short. Go ZFS. There, that was it." "Disk drive capacities double every 18-24 months. We have 1 TB drives now, and in 2009 we'll have 2 TB drives. With a 7-drive RAID 5 disk failure, you'll have 6 remaining 2 TB drives. As the RAID controller is busily reading through those 6 disks to reconstruct the data from the failed drive, it is almost certain it will see an [unrecoverable read error]. So the read fails ... The message 'we can't read this RAID volume' travels up the chain of command until an error message is presented on the screen. 12 TB of your carefully protected — you thought! — data is gone. Oh, you didn't back it up to tape? Bummer!"

Damning Report On Sequoia E-Voting Machine Security 200

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @06:15PM from the worse-than-you-thought dept.

TechDirt notes the publication of the New Jersey voting machine study, the attempted suppression of which we have been discussing for a while now. The paper that the Princeton and Lehigh University researchers are releasing, as permitted by the Court, is "the same as the Court's redacted version, but with a few introductory paragraphs about the court case, Gusciora v. Corzine." What's new is the release of a 90-minute evidentiary video — the researchers have asked the court for permission to release a shorter version that hits the high points, as the high-res video is about 1 GB in size. See TechDirt's article for the report's executive summary listing eight ways the AVC Advantage 9.00 voting machine can be subverted.

Gamer Plays Over 30 Warcraft Characters 189

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 16, 2008 @03:42PM from the please-go-outside dept.

If your significant other complains that you play too much World of Warcraft, just show them this article about a user named "Prepared." He plays an amazing 36 World of Warcraft accounts on 11 different computers at the same time. He is his own raid group. "It costs me exactly $5711 in subscription costs per year with 36 accounts on the 6 month pay schedule," he writes. "Not bad considering I'm looking at it like it's a hobby and there are more expensive hobbies out there than World of Warcraft."

Small Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth 397

Posted by kdawson on Monday October 06, 2008 @08:11PM from the big-kaboom dept.

musatov writes "There's talk on The Minor Planet Mailing List about a small asteroid approaching Earth with a 99.8% probability of colliding. The entrance to the Earth's atmosphere will take place October 7 at 0246 UTC (2:35 after this story goes live) over northern Sudan, releasing the energy of about a kiloton of TNT. The asteroid is assumed to be 3-4 meters in size; it is expected to burn up completely in the atmosphere, causing no harm. As a powerful bolide, it may put on quite a show in the sky. For those advanced enough in astronomy to observe, check the MPEC 2008-T50 and MPEC 2008-T64 circulars. NASA's JPL Small Body Database has a 3D orbit view. The story has been already picked up by CNN and NASA."

Artists Strive To Wrest Rights From Music Industry 287

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 06, 2008 @05:58PM from the industry-jenga dept.

eldavojohn writes "The funny thing about the RIAA & BPI is that the artists are just as tired as the fans with how online music is being handled. So they're trying something new called the Featured Artists' Coalition. FAC's site states in their charter: 'We believe that all music artistes should control their destiny because ultimately it is their art and endeavors that create the pleasure and emotion enjoyed by so many.' As digital releases are increasing, the artists aren't seeing any more money. With the advent of online distribution, are the traditional music industry functions of promotion, samples, radio, and marketing now nothing but costly overhead for the artists? From Iron Maiden to Kate Nash to Radiohead, some big names are backing this new organization."

Feed Phones on a Plane: FCC still says no (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @08:32PM

Hurrah!

The FCC today called time on discussions to unban the use of cell phones onboard planes, prompting mass rejoicing from America's airline passengers.

Feed New Technology For Manufacturing Flexible Solar Cells (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @08:12PM

The University of Delaware's Institute of Energy Conversion has developed new technology for the manufacture of flexible solar cells, which could reduce the costs associated with the use of photovoltaic energy while at the same time expanding possible applications. The system, in which there has been commercial interest, enables the more efficient manufacture of the flexible solar cells in long sheets using roll-to-roll reactors, much like newsprint speeding through a press.

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