TEB_78 - Slashdot User

Do Software Versions Really Matter? 693

Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 15, 2008 @05:45PM from the blame-patrick-volkerding dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a rather large software company and I am currently working on a completely new product. So new in fact, that the official name has not even been decided. I had assumed that the version number for this product would be 1.0 (at most). However recently I learned that the Product Managers want to release this NEW product with a version number somewhere between 5.0 and 8.0 because 'there is a stigma about buying 1.0 products. People assume it's no good.' This latest Dilbert-esque comedy routine nearly sent me over the edge. So to gauge my sanity against that of the upper Product Management, I ask the community: Do version numbers play a role in software decisions, or have product version numbers lost all credibility and meaning? Would the community feel comfortable buying version '6.3' software (and paying tens of thousands of dollars for it) knowing that it was the first release of the product?"

Linux Now an Equal Flash Player 437

Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 15, 2008 @04:12PM from the cheek-by-jowl dept.

nerdyH writes "As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated '98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops,' it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future." Handily enough, Real Networks released this summer RealPlayer 11 for Linux, the first release for which they've included a .deb package, and offers nightly builds of their Helix player, for which Linux is one of the supported platforms.

Microsoft's New Programming Language, "M" 334

Posted by timothy on Saturday October 11, 2008 @06:54PM from the well-it-sounds-delicious dept.

Anthony_Cargile writes "Microsoft announced Friday their new 'M' language, designed especially for building textual domain-specific languages and software models with XAML. Microsoft will also announce Quadrant, for building and viewing models visually, and a repository for storing and combining models using a SQL Server database. While some say the language is simply their 'D' language renamed to a further letter down the alphabet, the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows."

Huge Credit Fraud Ring Sends Europeans' Data To Pakistan 166

Posted by timothy on Saturday October 11, 2008 @04:32PM from the we-keep-our-biggest-credit-thieves-in-d.c. dept.

marshotel excerpts from a story at the Wall Street Journal: "European law-enforcement officials uncovered a highly sophisticated credit-card fraud ring that funnels account data to Pakistan from hundreds of grocery-store card machines across Europe, according to U.S. intelligence officials and other people familiar with the case. Specialists say the theft technology is the most advanced they have seen, and a person close to British law enforcement said it has affected big retailers including a British unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tesco Ltd."

Comment Re:A lot less than meets the eye (Score 1) 356

by TEB_78 on Thursday March 23, 2006 @10:40AM (#14980135) Attached to: Region-free PS3

I've a region free DVD player and that can be set to output the picture in NTSC,PAL or auto. My TV does not care if it receives a PAL or a NTSC signal, it handles both. I have both zone 2 and zone 1 DVDs and it has never been a issue for me.

And even if not all TVs handle both the PS3 could easily reformat the output picture based on some system setting like my DVD player can.

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