cohort - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Well, duh. (Score 1) 362

by cohort on Thursday November 22, 2007 @08:37PM (#21449975) Attached to: Worry Over VZW, Sprint Phones' 911 Alarm

Verizon cited that they were following a specific FCC rule. According to that FCC rule, there just needs to be some indicator that it's in emergency mode. Examples include an audible or visible cue. My Nokia (with a different provider) replaced all visible indicators but signal strength and battery from the display with a big, bold 'EMERGENCY MODE' indicator.

Submission + - Stealthy Windows update raises serious concerns

Submitted by UniversalVM on Saturday September 15, 2007 @02:29PM

UniversalVM writes: What is the single biggest issue that bothers open source advocates about proprietary software? It is probably the ability of the vendor to pull stunts like this. Windows has stealthily updated components of the operating system using its update service. The update will not be flagged even if you have set up your update to notify you and only execute if permitted.
The weak explanation seems to be a great exercise in circular logic "Had we failed to update the service automatically, users would not have been able to successfully check for updates and, in turn, users would not have had updates installed automatically or received expected notifications." News.com is reporting that all of the updated files on both XP and Vista appears to be in windows update itself. This is information that was independently uncovered by users and still not released by Microsoft.
More interestingly could this be construed as a hacking of Windows users' systems? Does the EULA specify that Microsoft has the right to silently break into my machine, change components of the operating system and ignore any settings that explicitly prohibit this sort of behavior? Seems like a good argument could be made for Microsoft breaking into a system without the users' permission.

The GIMP UI Redesign 549

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday September 15, 2007 @10:08AM from the new-coat-of-wax dept.

sekra writes "The GIMP UI Redesign Team has created a blog to collect ideas for a new design of the most popular image manipulation program. Everyone is free to submit suggestions to be published in the blog. Will a new GUI finally get more users to choose The GIMP as their program of choice?"

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