Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Re:What idealistic state? (Score 1) 470

by kainino (#34998136) Attached to: LibreOffice 3.3 Released Today

The main problems are with weird 'features' MS added (outside of the specification), probably as intentional feature bloat to thwart other office suites importing the files. OO/LO is perfect, I believe, with Word 2000 and older .docs, while slightly lacking in some of those newer 'features.'

Word 2004, though, as I have discovered, has a horribly broken implementation of the .doc format. Any OO/LO-saved .doc will lose all of its formatting in 2004. I call this a Word 2004 bug (and it may have been fixed—my teacher may have an old version; I don't know), because it works fine with 2003, 2007, and 2008, and I know OO/LO follows the standard.
Displays

Apple Files Patent For Display Mouse 156

Posted by timothy from the mickey-caught-flashing dept.
astrodoom writes "AppleInsider has posted a story detailing a new patent application by Apple that hints at the possibility of adding a touchscreen to the company's magic mouse. At a basic level this could mean things like customizable colors or artwork displayed on the user's mouse, but the possibilities extend much further to fully customizable mouse layouts and program controls. Apple Insider comments on the possibilities: 'The display on the mouse would change according to what the user may be doing on their Mac. As an example, the application describes displaying a number of icons for quickly selectable options when a user is running Apple's Pages word processing application. Switching over to the spreadsheet software, Numbers would reconfigure the buttons on the screen to allow for commands in that respective application.'"
Google

Google To Push WebM With IE9, Safari Plugins 413

Posted by timothy from the first-one's-free dept.
surveyork writes with this "new chapter in the browser wars: 'Google in a defense of its decision to pull H.264 from Chrome's HTML5 revealed that it will put out WebM plugins for Internet Explorer 9 and Safari. Expecting no official support from Apple or Microsoft, Google plans to develop extensions that would load its self-owned video codec. No timetable was given.' So Google gets started with their plan for world-wide WebM domination. They'll provide WebM plugins for the browsers of the H.264-only league, so in practice, all major browsers will have WebM support — one way or the other. Machiavellian move?"
Privacy

Pot Grower's Privacy Challenged 477

Posted by samzenpus from the show-me-the-stash dept.
damaged_sectors writes "A map marking what are supposed to be secret locations of 60 warehouses and other buildings where medical marijuana is grown in Boulder has accidentally been made public by the city. Officials say an 'oversight' led them to publish the map on the city's Web site. Kathy Haddock, Boulder's senior assistant city attorney who advises the council on medical marijuana issues, said Thursday that the map would be removed from the city's Web site. No conspiracy here folks. In other news the council will decide at its Jan. 18 meeting whether Boulder should circumvent the open records act exemption for cultivation centers by requiring applicants for medical marijuana business licenses to waive their right to privacy. The council could force all growing centers to sign such a waiver as a condition of receiving a city-issued business license. While the risk this would make it easier for Federal authorities to raid grow-ops might not concern council members and others opposed to medical marijuana — I have to wonder what sort of mentality thinks exposing growers to the very real risk of armed robbery by criminals is justifiable."

Comment Re:Shocking news: (Score 1) 387

by kainino (#34718994) Attached to: PC Gamers Crush Console Brethren
Depending on your hub and controllers, it may be an underpowering issue. If your hub isn't externally powered you might want to consider getting one that is (one with a power adapter). If you have multiple ports directly on your computer, you can test this theory by plugging a few controllers in directly and seeing if they work.
Movies

Tron: Legacy — Too Much Imagination Required? 429

Posted by Soulskill from the who-needs-it-when-we-have-cgi dept.
MoldySpore writes "Stepping back from the positive and negative reviews of the new Tron sequel, Tron: Legacy (which has so far amassed over $111,000,000 world-wide), something occurred to me after seeing the movie and reading the numerous reviews. It seems many of the reviews, and perhaps the reviewers themselves, can be split into two categories: those who saw the original Tron when it came out and can put the new movie in context, and those who either watched Tron recently to prepare for the sequel or never saw it and jumped right into the new movie." Read on for the rest of MoldySpore's thoughts.

Comment Re:Not new; irony. (Score 1) 135

by kainino (#34666796) Attached to: Problems With Truncation On the Common Application

It is obviously not just an interface to the paper form. The paper form allows you 150 words. Not 1,000 characters or something similar. If you write in tiny tiny letters, you're still only allowed to use 150 words, even if you could fit 500 in the space allotted.

It is just an interface to the paper form. It's not a very good interface to the paper form. We already know it is buggy :P. And the word counts obviously apply either way; they are nothing to do with paper or online forms.

Comment Not new; irony. (Score 4, Informative) 135

by kainino (#34663608) Attached to: Problems With Truncation On the Common Application
This problem has existed at least since last year (I applied last year) and presumably ever since the invention of the online Common Application. I find it amazingly hilarious and ironic that the problem is only getting publicity in the year in which the Common Application added warnings about the problem to the website. The obvious solution is to use a monospaced font and allow exactly the correct characters on the online form. (Note: some sections of the application already are in monospaced fonts. This should be easy.)

It is not explained why an electronic submission must have such strictly enforced limits.

It is because the form is actually just an online interface to a paper form. The warning tells you to look at the preview of the printed application to check for problems.
Security

With Better Sharing of Intel Comes Danger 287

Posted by timothy from the always-a-tradeoff dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Ellen Nakashima writes in the Washington Post that after the intelligence community came under heavy criticism after 9/11 for having failed to share data, officials sought to make it easier for various agencies to share sensitive information giving intelligence analysts wider access to government secrets but WikiLeaks has proved that there's a downside to better information-sharing. To prevent further breaches, the Pentagon has ordered that a feature that allows material to be copied onto thumb drives or other removable devices be disabled on its classified computer systems and will limit the number of classified systems from which material can be transferred to unclassified systems, as well as require that two people be involved in moving data from classified to unclassified systems. The bottom line is that recent leaks 'have blown a hole' in the framework by which governments guard their secrets. According to British journalist Simon Jenkins 'words on paper can be made secure, electronic archives not.'"
Security

Cryptome Hacked; All Files Deleted 170

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hate-when-that-happens dept.
eldavojohn writes "Over the weekend, the whistle blowing site Cryptome was hacked and vandalized, resulting in all 54,000 files being deleted and two days worth of submissions lost. Cryptome reported that its EarthLink e-mail account was compromised in ways unknown, and once the attacker was inside there, they were able to request a new password from the administration console for Cryptome at their hosting provider, Network Solutions. Once the attacker had that password, they deleted the ~7 GB of data that Cryptome hosted in around 54,000 files. Cryptome was able to eventually restore the site, as they keep backups ready for cases like this and stated that they 'do not trust our ISP, email provider and officials to tell the truth or protect us.'"
Biotech

First 'Malaria-Proof' Mosquito Created 261

Posted by timothy from the what-about-a-really-good-egg-cream dept.
Gisg writes "The University of Arizona team reported that their genetically modified mosquitoes are immune to the malaria-causing parasite, a single-cell organism called Plasmodium. Riehle and his colleagues tested their genetically-altered mosquitoes by feeding them malaria-infested blood. Not even one mosquito became infected with the malaria parasite."

Comment Re:I wonder (Score 1) 411

by kainino (#31840934) Attached to: New MacBook Pros Launched
That Authorized Apple Distributor is a scam, seriously. Take it to just about any other and you'll have it replaced in no time. Maybe even go as far as reporting the place to Apple.

Comment Re:Is that picture supposed to be erotic? (Score 1) 113

by kainino (#31825204) Attached to: Woman Creates 3-D Erotic Book For the Blind

FTFA (don't kill me—I read the article because the picture had no nose or mouth and weird eyes, which had to have a reason):

A male torso from Tactile Mind; the Braille message is informational more than lyrical — he wears a mask, he has a muscular bare chest ...

So, it's not supposed to look or feel like a face.

But it's creepy.

Slashdot Top Deals

Ma Bell is a mean mother!

Close