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Businesses

Submission + - Abit to Close Its Doors Forever on Dec 31, 2008 (xbitlabs.com) 1

Submitted by ki1obyte
ki1obyte writes: Earlier this year, Abit, once leading-edge maker of computer mainboards and other components, was slated to shut down motherboard production by the end of 2008 and focus on consumer electronics devices. X-bit labs reports that Abit will cease to exist entirely starting the first of January, 2009, as the owner of the brand — Universal Scientific Industrial — is in the process of restructuring and cutting down the costs.
Displays

Submission + - LED's, energy savers or environmental disaster? 1

Submitted by LM741N
LM741N writes: Gallium Arsenide has now been listed as a carcinogen. http://www.oehha.org/prop65/prop65_list/Newlist.html Given the increasing usage of gallium arsenide, the main constituent in LED's, and their recent championing as more efficient light sources in recent news stories and Slashdot, there may be significant environmental concerns as related to their disposal. Morover, workers in industries using the substance may be at risk of cancer as well. Thus arguments that LEDs are more environmentally friendly than fluorescent lights containing mercury may be totally specious.
Mozilla

Submission + - Comments sought on proposed mobile Firefox UIs (windowsfordevices.com)

Submitted by
jangel
jangel writes: "The Mozilla Foundation has released prototype user interfaces (UIs) for its upcoming mobile version of Firefox, and is seeking comments. While not final, these UIs could easily be incorporated in the final product, according to a blog post by Mozilla developer and project lead Doug Turner."
Security

Journal SPAM: 5-Year-Old Boy Detained as US National Security Threat 1

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

It's a case of a mistaken identity for a 5-year-old boy from Normandy Park. He had trouble boarding a plane because someone with the same name is wanted by the federal government. "When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk. They also had to frisk her again to make sure the little Dilling
Space

Submission + - Universe running out of time (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by RenHoek
RenHoek writes: With heat death, the big crunch and quite a few other nasty ways in which the universe could see its demise, we can now add "running out of time" to the list. A team of scientists came up with a new theory that would solve the problem of the elusive dark energy that seems to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. They figure that the universe is not speeding up but we are, in relation to the outer regions of space, slowing down. Tests with the upcoming Large Hadron Collider will give more insight if we're going to end up frozen in time.
Patents

Submission + - Amazon Goes Web 2.0 Wild to Defend 1-Click Patent

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Six years ago, Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly urged the masses to give-patent-reform-a-chance as Richard Stallman called for an Amazon boycott. On Monday, the pair will reunite to kick off O'Reilly's new Amazon-sponsored Web 2.0 Expo with A Conversation with Jeff Bezos. Be interesting if the conversation turned to Amazon's ongoing battle against an actor's effort to topple Bezos' 1-Click patent, which The Register notes included dumping 58 lbs. of paperwork on the patent examiner, including dozens of articles from the oh-so-Web-2.0 Wikipedia, which the USPTO had already deemed an un acceptable source of information ('From a legal point of view, a Wiki citation is toilet paper,' quipped patent expert Greg Aharonian)."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Bootable IDE ports disappearing- why & how to

Submitted by
wattsup
wattsup writes: "It seems that bootable IDE ports are disappearing on newer motherboards.

I recently purchased an MSI G965M-FI motherboard for a system upgrade. Overall the board is pretty good with lots of features, but it had one "unexpected feature" that I didn't know about when I bought it. The PATA100 IDE port won't allow you to install an operating system from a CD-ROM attached to it.

While its on their website, MSI doesn't tell you this on the retail packaging, until you break the seal on the static wrap and look at the motherboard. There, with a tiny label placed over the IDE connector they inform you "This IDE does not support OS installation in hard drive".

This made my out-of-box experience rather maddening, as I had to get a USB based CD-ROM to install a fresh copy of XP. This seems like a pretty lame way to save money, disabling functionality on an IDE port that's included. Some research shows me that other manufacturers are doing the same thing. Why?

My question is; Does anybody know if this is an issue that can be fixed by upgrading the BIOS, or is this hard-wired in the IDE controller?"
Google

Submission + - Google Perks Are Great, But They All Mean Business

Submitted by
megazoid81
megazoid81 writes: "Google was recently named the best place to work according to the widely read annual Forbes survey, in its first appearance on the list. The plethora of perks at Google does make you wonder though what kind of hours the company expects its employees to keep. In the context of Google's perks, this article explains two kinds of workers: segmentors and integrators. Segmentors want to maintain a strict separation between work and home while integrators don't mind mixing the two. The piece posits that segmentors might actually mind too many perks at their workplace and find their commitment eroding. Does Google have a disproportionate number of integrators in its workforce? What kind of worker are you — segmentor or integrator? Any cultural differences between the U.S. and Europe in this regard?"

Comment Check out the win98 cd (Score 1) 7

by crazy_clyde (#787409) Attached to: Using Microsoft Internet Sharing on Heterogenous Networks?
ICS starts a DHCP server and a DNS server on the interface you designate as the HOME side of your connection and assigns the ip address for that interface to be 192.168.0.1 by default. So as long as your internal ip addresses all either fall into the same net as the HOME interface or they use dhcp, it doesn't matter what operating system you're running.

Check the \tools\mtsutil\ics directory on the win982nd CD. It includes some inf files for disabling and re-enabling the servers based on your needs.

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