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Comment Re:Port it to Qt, please! GTK+ is awful! (Score 1) 134

by dringess (#48949355) Attached to: Inkscape Version 0.91 Released

It "works" under Windows and OS X, but if by "working" you mean it runs but is generally unusable. I haven't been able to ever get it working properly under OS X. It didn't even get to the point where it showed a UI, the last time I tried it.

I've been using it on OS X for several years - it's clearly not a native OS X app, but works just fine. And for me personally, the new version is really excellent since I have a lot of old Corel Draw/WMF (yuck) files floating around.
Ruby

Submission + - Ruby on Rails SQL Injection Flaw has Serious Real-Life Consequences

Submitted by
vikingpower
vikingpower writes: "As a previous Slashdot story already reported, Ruby on Rails was recently reported to suffer from a major SQL injection flaw. This has prompted the Dutch government to take the one and only national site for citizens' digital identification offline ( link in Dutch ), here is the English-language placeholder page for the now-offline site. This means that 16 million Dutch citizens can not authenticate themselves anymore with government instances, and that those same government instances can not communicate anything to those same citizens anymore."

Comment Slanted Summary (Big Surprise) (Score 1, Interesting) 417

by dringess (#37234076) Attached to: Schmidt: G+ 'Identity Service,' Not Social Network
Pretty slanted summary. By "identity service", I interpret Schmidt as meaning that they prefer people use their own real identity because that makes it a better service for users. As we see on Slashdot, comments posted by anonymous cowards are only occasionally worth much. And the "bait" comment is completely fabricated.
Image

The Geek Atlas 145

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
brothke writes "A recent search on Amazon for travel guides returned over 30,000 results. Most of these are standard travel guides to popular tourist destinations which advise the reader to go to the typical tourist sites. The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive is a radically different travel guide. Rather than recommending the usual trite destinations, which are often glorified souvenir stores, the book takes the reader to places that make science real and exciting, and hopefully those who exit such places are more knowledgeable than when they went in." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.
Programming

Submission + - Staying afloat in a sea of iPhone apps (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Burnsy
Burnsy writes: During all the hype of Apple celebrating its 1.5 billion iPhone App Store downloads, some good advice on how to be successful and stand out in the App Store came out. One story describes how developers are increasingly coming up with various strategies to make a splash, employing everything from temporary discounts to guerilla marketing tactics. On the other hand, some successful developers, such as the creator of the Flight Control app, which has been the number one selling app in 20 countries, talk about the pitfalls of Apple's approval process for the App Store. They say it can take a developer up to three months to get an application approved and distributed on the App Store and that maybe the iPhone bubble is soon to burst.
Handhelds

Submission + - SPAM: Kindle Pricing, Business Models and Source Code

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "A trifecta of Kindle-related news surfaced this week, with Jeff Bezos speaking at Wired's 'Disruptive by Design' conference on topics including Kindle pricing and business models. And yesterday, reports blogger Peter Smith, 'there was a flurry of blogging activity yesterday stating that Amazon had released the Kindle source code. Once everyone caught their breath, it became apparent that the files in question were just some open source libraries that Amazon had modified (they're being good open source citizens and releasing mods they've made to open source code — good for them!), not the complete source code.' Now, back to the Kindle pricing: According to a post at Wired, Bezos said Amazon opted to sell the Kindle for 'something akin to the actual cost for hardware,' rather than subsidizing the hardware costs and requiring a monthly subscription or requiring the buyer to purchase a certain number of books per month because 'fees and minimum purchase requirements create friction.' Smith has a different take: 'If I'm buying a Kindle from Amazon that enables me to buy books from Amazon, I'm broadcasting a desire to buy Kindle books. I would welcome some subsidization of the hardware since I'm going to be buying content anyway. No, I really think Amazon priced the Kindle the way they did because they thought they could get away with doing so (and they were right, it would seem).' Meanwhile, over at the New York Times, Bezos said 'that he sees Kindle-the-device and Kindle-the-book-format as two separate business models, and that the Kindle iPhone App won't be the last software reader to appear.'"
Link to Original Source
Microsoft

Microsoft To Open Retail Stores 535

Posted by kdawson from the world-class-shopping-experience dept.
chaz373 writes "CNET reports that Microsoft is going retail. In the 'Beyond Binary' blog Ina Fried reports, 'After years of brushing off the notion, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will open up its own line of retail stores. Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.'"
Space

Submission + - Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? 3

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. "We're talking about initiating communication with other civilizations, but we know nothing of their goals, capabilities, or intent," says SETI researcher John Billingham. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action. Billingham urges a broad, interdisciplinary discussion of Active SETI. "At the very least we ought to talk about it first, and not just SETI people. We have a responsibility to the future well-being and survival of humankind.""

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