Comment R.I.P (Score 1) 1613
Steve Jobs, a very sad day.
It will be interesting to see if Apple's great success and innovation continues now that he's really gone.
Written on my MBP
Comment Patents (Score 1) 245
is there an easy way to get a basic understanding of what the 1023 IBM patents are for, are they mostly algorithm patents or?
Comment Re:It feels old and already seen (Score 1) 413
Rift a more fun game? you must be joking
Comment Re:Why upgrade? (Score 1) 425
Recently I was involved with a medium sized desktop roll out for an insurance company in Australia, they decided to stick with Windows XP & Office 2003 because this combination does everything required, is stable, secure and the users & admins are comfortable with it. They expect to be with this combination for at least 3 years.
Obviously cost savings were a factor, an OS upgrade 7 would lead to an update of office, which would require a new set of standard templates/documents, costly staff training and not to mention the server side of things. Office 2010 conveniently doesn't support Exchange 2003. When considering 5,000+ workstations these things matter.
Microsoft is failing to demonstrate the real benefits of an upgrade to Windows 7? Looking at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features, the main appealing item is 64-bit support, but it's possible to run XP 64-bit. Two features that interest me are the Windows Deployment Tools and the new Windows Search services.
Submission + - Groupon: Not as rosy as it appears (cnn.com)
Rambo Tribble writes: "CNN has put out an article detailing the dubious history of Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon's chairman and largest shareholder. It would seem Mr. Lefkofsky has an extensive history of taking investors' money for himself, then bankrupting the businesses invested in."
Comment Relevant (Score 1) 277
Comment VB6 source code (Score 1) 205
I'd be interested to see the source code for sure
Comment Sydney traffic (Score 1) 79
I got so sick of sitting in traffic for hours that I moved to the city so I can walk to and from work, I've been doing that about 4 years, it's great - however I miss some things from living in the 'burbs - community, large garage, dog....
Comment Re:Where are the wowsers? (Score 1) 82
After the NBN roll out continues across Australia, will it will be technically easier for the government to implement a filter (because NBN Co. controls the network hardware)?
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm To Launch Dec. 7th 431
Blizzard announced today that the third expansion to World of Warcraft, dubbed Cataclysm, is set for launch on December 7th. In addition to upping the level cap to 85 and including several new high level zones, the expansion will revamp the parts of Azeroth that have been around since WoW's initial launch, bringing the 1-60 leveling experience more in line with the improvements Blizzard has made in the expansions. Cataclysm will also give players two new races to play, Goblins and Worgen, who have joined the Horde and the Alliance, respectively.
Submission + - Castle Wolfenstein source code released (about.com) 1
geefau writes: ID Software has released the source code to the game and the add-on, ie along with Wolfenstein — Enemy Territory, Return to Castle Wolfenstein single player and Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer under the GPL license.
Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time" 619
theodp writes "When he gets some free time away from his gigs at startup Milo and The Register, you won't catch Ted Dziuba doing any recreational programming. And he wouldn't want to work for a company that doesn't hire those who don't code in their spare time. 'You know what's more awesome than spending my Saturday afternoon learning Haskell by hacking away at a few Project Euler problems?' asks Dziuba. 'F***, ANYTHING.'"
Swarm — a New Approach To Distributed Computation 80
An anonymous reader writes "Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet, has been working on a new open source project called Swarm. The concept is to allow a computer program to be distributed across multiple computers in a manner almost completely transparent to the programmer. The system observes the program executing and figures out how the workload should be distributed for maximum efficiency. Swarm is implemented in Scala. Its at an early-prototype stage, and Ian has created a good 36 minute video explaining the concept and the current implementation."
Server Failure Destroys Sidekick Users' Backup Data 304
Expanding on the T-Mobile data loss mentioned in an update to an earlier story, reader stigmato writes "T-Mobile's popular Sidekick brand of devices and their users are facing a data loss crisis. According to the T-Mobile community forums, Microsoft/Danger has suffered a catastrophic server failure that has resulted in the loss of all personal data not stored on the phones. They are advising users not to turn off their phones, reset them or let the batteries die in them for fear of losing what data remains on the devices. Microsoft/Danger has stated that they cannot recover the data but are still trying. Already people are clamoring for a lawsuit. Should we continue to trust cloud computing content providers with our personal information? Perhaps they should have used ZFS or btrfs for their servers."
Best Developer's Laptop? 672
s31523 writes "I love my current laptop, but unfortunately on my last trip the primary LCD went bonkers. It's an older Gateway (2 GB RAM Intel Pentium M 2.0 GHz, ATI M7). There are a handful of features I love about it: [1] Hot-swappable drive bay, with several components that can go in: CD/DVD R/W, extra battery, floppy drive, extra hard drive, memory card reader, etc. The extra battery option is especially appreciated — I can go 4-5 hours on battery power. [2] Docking station / port replicator: I like having my home setup with keyboard, network, and dual screens (a necessity). [3] It runs Linux. OK, I'm a wus, I actually have GRUB command three different OS's: Windows 98 (I have really old embedded software compilers that only run on 98, and yes I have tried every trick in the book to make them run on Linux), Windows XP Pro, and Ubuntu. I'm trying to find a replacement setup that offers the same flexibility and a little better performance. I am open to change as well. So, I ask Slashdot: What is your pick for best developer's laptop under $1,200, considering the features above?"
