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Comment Re:Not all megabytes cost the same (Score 1) 205

by csboyer (#34442022) Attached to: The Odd Variations On 3G Per-Megabyte Pricing
Eh, when you deal with the PHY layer (its a cell network) packets get a bit more confusing. They typically have to interleave pilot symbols (split up packets) into the data in order to demodulate with a better error rate and they tend to keep packets short in order to fast resource allocation amongst multiple users. Short packets help to keep the latency down. How TCP does things ignores how all the lower MAC/PHY (optical networks, cellular, microwave, etc) layers shuffle bits around. tl;dr wireless comm is complicated.

Comment Qt is pretty simple.... (Score 2, Interesting) 135

by csboyer (#34167224) Attached to: Nokia Reasserts Control Over Symbian OS
Developing for Qt is pretty straight forward. . . . in two or three days of playing around with Qt creator I was able to setup simple UI's that are not very symbianish (bizillion sub menus) at all for symbian^3. There are a bucket load of examples on Qts website/forums and the community is pretty helpful. As IDEs goes, its pretty good. Anyways, most of the developers for android and iPhone are trash (I expect the same for Qt at some point). They are just mediocre programmers (most phone apps are trivial) getting on the next big wave. This sort of business and market do not attract high quality engineers as its not really interesting.
Software

Submission + - Subversion is pointles - Linus said (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A few weeks ago Linus Torvalds gave a speech at Google, talking about Source Code Management and GIT. Despite of the big number of Subversion developers hired by G$ (some of them were even present at the speech) Linus made really strong assertion: "Subversion has been the most pointless project ever started". But Linus folk didn't stop there he continued with really "nice" sentences like:

- "Subversion used to say CVS done right: with that slogan there is nowhere you can go. There is no way to do cvs right"

- "If you like using cvs, you should be in some kind of mental institution or somewhere else"

- "Get rid of perforce, it is sad, but it is so, so true"

He just talked wonders about his great version control system (GIT), which he said he "wrote in a couple of weeks". Well, I believe it is true: we wrote it in two weeks, and it only took two years to make it usable for the rest of the world... But it seems Linus was all about strong opinions that day: "not everybody can write something right the first time, just me".

Well, if you want to watch Linus being more rude than ever, find the whole story here
Security

Submission + - World's smallest hardware firewall?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An Israeli startup has squeezed a complete hardware firewall into a USB key. The "Yoggie Pico" from Yoggie Systems runs Linux 2.6 along with 13 security applications on a 520MHz PXA270, a powerful Intel processor typically used in high-end smartphones. The Pico works in conjunction with Windows XP or Vista drivers that hijack traffic at network layers 2-3, below the TCP/IP stack, and route it to USB, where the Yoggie analyzes and filters traffic at close-to-100Mbps wireline speeds. The device will hit big-box retailers in the U.S. this month.
Programming

Submission + - A Windows-Based Packaging Mechanism

Submitted by
FishWithAHammer
FishWithAHammer writes: "As part of my Google Summer of Code project, I'm working with WinLibre to develop a vaguely Debian-esque software download system for Free/open source software on the Windows platform. My reasoning is that open-source software suffers from poor presentation. Most computer laymen, even those aware of open source software, often don't have any idea how to go looking for it — their Google-fu is lacking — but would use it were it easier to access. What I have proposed is both a Debian-style packaging mechanism (capable of using Windows Installer MSIs or not, as the user wishes) and a software "catalog" that takes the best aspects of Synaptic and Linspire's Click-N-Run system. Seamless, simple installation and removal of programs in as straightforward a way as apt-get (there will be a command-line tool as well). I'm posting to Slashdot to get the ideas of you lot who, while you may not be the target audience, can certainly provide insights that can be of value.

There are areas that I'm personally not familiar with, and while I have done some research I would like the opinions of Slashdotters on some others. While at first I intend to set it up so that WinLibre (and I) run only one repository, I am curious as to how this sort of tool could be most useful to network administrators. Customizable repositories will be available; the code will be under the GPL, after all, so it'd be a little hard for them not to be available.

I'm also interested in the ideas of those who might be in a position to roll together packages. I intend to package a number of open-source language interpreters with the core software to allow special pre- and post-install scripts, as well as removal scripts. C#Script, Perl, and Python are definites, as is a Cygwin sh interpreter. We will have some program requirements — chief among them that no registry changes may be made by the program — but some of them, I fear, will require some flexibility; some programs really do require a way to edit the registry, for example, and I am considering offering some sort of tracked way to make registry changes so they can be rolled back on uninstallation of the program.

I'd love to hear what Slashdotters think of this. Think of it as a wishlist, but you don't get any damn ponies.

Ed Ropple (FishWithAHammer)"
Microsoft

Submission + - New Zealand rejects Office for Macs.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NZPA is reporting that the New Zealand Ministry of Education has declined to renew a licensing deal for MS Office on 25,000 Macintosh computers in the countries schools. The Education Minister, Steve Maharey, has even gone to suggest schools use free alternative NeoOffice. However a school Principal has spoken out against the decision, claiming the NeoOffice website warned users to expect problems and bugs, saying: "That's not the sort of software we should be expecting kids in New Zealand to be using."
Software

Submission + - Is parallel programming just too hard?

Submitted by pcause
pcause writes: There has been a lot of talk recently about the need for programmers to shift paradigms and begin building more parallel applications and systems. The need to do this and the hardware and systems to support it have been around for a while, but we haven't seen a lot of progress. The article says that gaming systems have made progress, but MMOGs are typically years late and I'll bet part of the problem is trying to be more parallel/distributed.

Since this discussion has been going on for over a decade with little progress in terms of widespread change, one has to ask is parallel programming just too difficult for most programmers? Are the tools inadequate or perhaps is it that it is very difficult to think about parallel systems. Maybe it is a fundamental human limit. Will we really see progress in the next 10 years that matches the progress of the silicon?
The Courts

Submission + - Storing Music for Personal Use Online is Illegal

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: In a court case of JASRAC vs. Image City, The Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling that says Image City's MYUTA service is guilty of copyright infringement. MYUTA is an online music storage service that allows users to upload music from their own CDs etc. to a central server from which they can download to their cellphones to listen to. Music uploaded to the central server is accessible only by the user who uploaded it and can only be downloaded to their cellphone. Despite the music only being stored for personal use, the ruling reasoned that the act of uploading music to a central server owned by a company is the equivalent of distributing music to that company. This has implications for other services such as Yahoo! Briefcase which could mean Yahoo! is gulity of copyright infringement if any of its users store music in their account for personal use. Google's translation can have a go at the original Japanese article.
Censorship

Submission + - Top 25 censored stories of 2007

Submitted by Vexorian
Vexorian writes: Is there direct or indirect censorship in the media towards delicate but important topics? Project censored lists 25 stories that did not seem to get the required attention by the media: From the article: "Throughout 2005 and 2006, a large underground debate raged regarding the future of the Internet. More recently referred to as "network neutrality," the issue has become a tug of war with cable companies on the one hand and consumers and Internet service providers on the other. Yet despite important legislative proposals and Supreme Court decisions throughout 2005, the issue was almost completely ignored in the headlines until 2006.1 And, except for occasional coverage on CNBC's Kudlow & Kramer, mainstream television remains hands-off to this day".
Security

Submission + - Simple Comm Technique Beats Quantum Crypto

Submitted by
Atario
Atario writes: "Spying is big business, and avoiding being spied on an even bigger one. So imagine if someone came up with a simple, cheap way of encrypting messages that is almost impossible to hack into?

American computer engineer Laszlo Kish at Texas A&M University in College Station claims to have done just that. He says the thermal properties of a simple wire can be exploited to create a secure communications channel, one that outperforms quantum cryptography keys."

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