Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Stop crying, start coding. (Score 1) 203

I hate MS, but...
As is acknowledged towards the end of the quote, The first sentence is only true if almost all non-Microsoft products are ignored.
And when did Intel-compatible become an issue? MS holds a far higher share of the AMD-compatible OS market than the Intel-compatible OS market, because Apple don't make an AMD-compatible OS!
Consider the following:

Ford possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world- wide market for Shell-compatible vehicles. Every year for the last decade, Ford's share of the market for Shell-compatible vehicles has stood above ninety percent. For the last couple of years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and analysts project that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. Even if Porsche's vehicles were included in the relevant market, Ford's share would still stand well above eighty percent.

Only true if we ignore all other vehicles, but so what?

We can take the car analogy further by considering radios.
OMG!!! Citroen bundles a non-standard radio with their vehicle! We must sue them into oblivion and force them to unbundle their radio and sell cars without radios, or with a selection of several.

Comment Re:Not to mention (Score 1) 715

Gmail Offline FTW!

I couldn't care less about the source code of services such as Gmail, so long as I have the data.


I think of RMS in the same light as extremist Muslims. I have nothing against Muslims and I'm a big fan of Free software, but extremists are extremists and are just pushing their point too far.
I feel no need to restrict my software usage to what fits RMS's ideals or anyone else's. I have the freedom to use the software I choose to use, be it GPL or no.
Security

A Vision For a World Free of CAPTCHAs 168

An anonymous reader writes "Slate argues that we're going about verifying humans on the Web all wrong: 'As Alan Turing laid out in the 1950 paper that postulated his test, the goal is to determine whether a computer can behave like a human, not perform tasks that a human can. The reason CAPTCHAs have a term limit is that they measure ability, not behavior. ... the random, circuitous way that people interact with Web pages — the scrolling and highlighting and typing and retyping — would be very difficult for a bot to mimic. A system that could capture the way humans interact with forms algorithmically could eventually relieve humans of the need to prove anything altogether.' Seems smart, if an algorithm could actually do that."

Comment Re:Well... (Score 1) 481

make heavy use of the delete option.

Better to make heavy use of the spam option... This tells your email provider that it's spam, so that their spam filters will learn and improve.

But anyway, never click a link in a spam email. Even if the criminals say they'll unsubscribe you if you do. Spammers have a habit of not being entirely scrupulous...
The purpose of the opt out link in a spam email is to tell the spammer that your email address is actively used.
(On a side note, it is also possible for them to detect this automatically when you open the email, if your email client displays images by default. This is why Gmail doesn't display images until you tell it to, unless you whitelist a specific sender.)

Comment Re:From across the pond (Score 1) 321

I quite agree - and I should like add, too, that there are also more English-speaking countries in the world than the the US.
In fact, would you believe it, English is actually the language of England, where we say "the fourteenth of March two-thousand-and-nine.
Actually, I don't know of a language other than USish where the month comes first, though I'm sure they do exist. (Oh, the poor USish - they don't have their own language or even a word to describe people from their country...)

Comment Re:Site seems to break (Score 1) 848

Yes, I they are. I, for example, use OS X. I don't have a PC. I run Vista and XP using Parallels, and would like to download the 7 beta to use in the same way.
And no, I'm not going to make snarky comments about how slow it is. Not me. I'm one of the ones who doesn't see why everyone else hates Vista so much. As I have said before, I consider it to be the first really good OS Microsoft have produced in a long time. (Ever?). As an IT professional, I much prefer supporting Vista to XP or 2000.
I don't choose to run Windows as my primary OS, but I certainly don't bash Microsoft for producing it.

Limiting their download of it to their own browser, however, is... nasty.

Comment Re:What web browsers support the Windows 7 Beta do (Score 1) 848

I was also unable to download it using Firefox (3.0, OS X). As arabagast said, it just reloads the page and then stops. No amount of reloading helps. When I try from IE8b2 on Vista, it installs an activex control. I then had to reload the page, and then it installed the download manager itself. Then after reloading the page several more times (seven or so) it finally actually started the download. Typical MS. There is no reason whatsoever for the download not to work in ANY browser. Doesn't exactly make me think 7 will be good...
Software

Opera Mini Not Rejected From iPhone (Yet) 202

danaris writes in to inform us that John Gruber has done some digging on the reported rejection from the App Store of Opera Mini, and has written up his findings. Some choice excerpts: "My understanding, based on information from informed sources who do not wish to be identified because they were not authorized by their employers, is that Opera has developed an iPhone version of Opera Mini — but they haven't even submitted it to Apple, let alone had it be rejected. ... If what they've done for the iPhone is [to get] a Java ME runtime running on the iPhone — it's clearly outside the bounds of the iPhone SDK Agreement. ... What Opera would need to do to have a version of Opera Mini they could submit to the App Store would be to port the entire client software to the C and Objective-C APIs officially supported on the iPhone. It could well be that even then, Apple would reject it from the App Store on anti-competitive grounds — but contrary to this week's speculation, that has not happened."
The Media

Congress Creates Copyright Cops 533

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not satisfied with pitiful potential penalties of $150,000 for infringing upon a $0.99 song, Congress is proposing new copyright cops in the "'PRO IP' Act of 2007, specifically the creation of the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). They also feel that the authorities need the authority to seize any computers used for infringement and to send copyright cops abroad to help other countries enforce US laws. MPAA boss Dan Glickman praised the bill saying that, 'films left costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year,' though Ars points out that it allegedly costs the studios only $6 billion."
Google

Google Plans Service to Store Users' Data Online 155

achillean wrote this morning with a link to the Wall Street Journal, announcing plans we've all seen coming for a while: an online data storage service from Google. Though the article doesn't come out and call the project 'gDrive' or anything like that, it does indicate the service could be available within the next few months. "Google's push underlines a shift in how businesses and consumers approach computing. They are increasingly using the Web to access applications and files stored in massive computer data centers operated by tech companies such as Salesforce.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google. Such arrangements, made possible by high-speed Internet connections between homes, offices and data centers, aim to ease users' technology headaches and, in some cases, cut their costs."

Feed Engadget: Unboxing the Timex Ironman iControl watch (engadget.com)

Filed under: Portable Audio, Wearables, Wireless


Timex invited us over today to pick up its first contribution to the iPod ecosystem, having just unveiled the iPod-controlling Ironman iControl watch at a Manhattan penthouse suite replete with buff models paid to smile as they casually worked treadmills and exercise bikes all day. We spend far too much time sitting in a chair each day to concern ourselves with devices like this one or the Nike+iPod kit, but a quick demo revealed that you athletic types will probably be pretty pleased with the easy setup, quick response time, and plethora of features offered by the iControl. If we can convince one of our iPod-toting colleagues at Thats Fit! to take this out on a run with them, we'll hit you back with a hands-on. For now, check out the rest of the unboxing pics below...

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Slashdot Top Deals

The best way to accelerate a Macintoy is at 9.8 meters per second per second.

Working...