narziss - Slashdot User

Submission + - Microsoft to Get $100M Annual Tax Cut and Amnesty (microsofttaxdodge.com) 2

Submitted by reifman on Sunday February 14, 2010 @08:59PM

reifman writes: Despite a $2.8 billion deficit, Washington State's House Bill 3176 would provide Microsoft with a $100 million tax cut annually and possible amnesty on its $1.27 billion Nevada tax dodge. Under current law, all of Microsoft's worldwide licensing revenues of approximately $20.7 billion annually are taxable at .484 percent. Under the new law, only the portion of software licenses sold to Washington state customers would be taxable. Ironically, after slashing Microsoft's tax burden, HB3176 directs the Department of Revenue to crack down on "abusive tax transactions" like those in Nevada — except for a loophole that may provide Microsoft amnesty on its twelve year practice. The bill's lead sponsor is Ross Hunter of Medina, home to Bill Gates and a number of current and former Microsoft billionaires and multi-millionaires, and other areas around Microsoft's corporate campus.

Submission + - Breaking the Squid Barrier (nzherald.co.nz)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14, 2010 @07:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid.

Submission + - 'Iceman' Gets 13 Years for 2nd Hacking Offense

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Sunday February 14, 2010 @06:48PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "Computerworld reports that Max Ray Butler, who used the hacker pseudonym Iceman, has been sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for hacking into financial institutions and stealing credit card account numbers, the longest known sentence ever handed down for hacking charges. This isn't Butler's first time facing a federal hacking sentence. After a promising start as a security consultant who did volunteer work for the FBI, Butler was arrested for writing malicious software that installed a back-door program on computers — including some on federal government networks — that were susceptible to a security hole. Butler served an 18-month prison term for the crime and fell on hard times after his 2002 release. "I was homeless, staying on a friends couch. I couldn't get work," says Butler. In desperation, he turned again to cybercrime and by the time of his arrest in September 2007, he had built the largest marketplace for stolen credit and debit card information in the world. "It is a shame that someone with so much ability chose to use it in a manner that hurt many people," says Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke Dembosky, who prosecuted the case for the federal government. "This sentence sends a message that cyber crime is taken very seriously.""

Submission + - Linux Not Quite Ready for New 4K-sector Drives (osnews.com)

Submitted by Theovon on Sunday February 14, 2010 @11:19AM

Theovon writes: We've seen a few stories recently about the new Western Digital Green drives, including this one on slashdot. According to WD, their new 4096-byte sector drives are problematic for Windows XP users but not Linux or most other OS's. There's an article on OS News that suggests that Linux users should not be complacent about this, because not all the Linux tools like fdisk have caught up. The result is a reduction in write throughput by a factor of 3.3 across the board (a 230% overhead) when 4096-byte clusters are misaligned to 4096-byte physical sectors by one or more 512-byte logical sectors. The author does some benchmarks to demonstrate this. Also, from the comments on the article, it appears that even parted is not ready since by default, it aligns to "cylinder" boundaries, which are not physical cylinder boundaries and are multiples of 63.

Submission + - Australian Judge rules facts cannot be copyrighted

Submitted by nfarrell on Sunday February 14, 2010 @12:30AM

nfarrell writes: Last week, an Australian Judge ruled that copyright laws do not apply to collections of facts, regardless of the amount of effort that was spent collecting them. In this case, the case surrounded the reproduction of entries from the White and Yellow Pages, but the ruling referred to a previous case involving IceTV, which republishes TV guides. Does this mean that other databases of facts, such as financial data, are also legally able to be copied and redistributed? Some analysis here and here

Comment 1st. Identify Requirements (Score 5, Insightful) 260

by narziss on Saturday February 13, 2010 @02:22PM (#31128598) Attached to: UPS Setup For a Small/Mid-Size Company?

It's not about the amount of people, servers, or a fixed time limit to preserve power. First and foremost, you need to identify what the critical systems are that need to be protected. These may include the VM farms, NAS storage, obviously the underlying network infrastructure, and at the very least, some management terminals that can be used in the event of a failure. Once you identify these systems you need to reference the electrical in/output specifications. If possible, you would want to measure the real requirements in production with inline monitors or passive taps. After you have built your requirement set (mind you, you may decide it's better to have a few small UPS vs one very very large one) you need to explore what needs to be up, and for how long, and build yourself a model. There are dozens of UPS manufacturers, and tens of thousands of combinations for any sized company. Once you have an outline of the systems and their individual power requirements, coupled with your own requirements for their availability/protected power, it will be relatively easy to build yourself a good level of protection on a small budget. Mind you these devices (UPS) can often be found on the second hand market due to company refresh, datacenter closures, etc. Many can be easily re-certified by the manufacturer directly or a variety of 3rd party vendors who specialize in this type of infrastructure.

UPS Setup For a Small/Mid-Size Company? 260

Posted by kdawson on Saturday February 13, 2010 @02:12PM from the letting-it-down-gently dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We're a small company employing ~30 people and we are becoming increasingly reliant on virtual servers. Unfortunately, the hosts they are on don't have redundant power supplies because we simply don't have the capacity. We currently have one UPS per rack, which gives us about two minutes. This may have been enough time when they were put in — they've been there for some time — but it isn't really enough time to shut everything down in the event of a failure. Domain Controllers alone may take up to 15 minutes. So I'm looking at upgrading the UPSs to ones that would preferably give us around 15 minutes of breathing space and send an email or text alert when a failure is detected. Something that could trigger shutdowns automatically would also be nice. Of course cost is a key factor too. so given all of the above, what does Slashdot recommend?"

Comment Re:Nothing to do with dark fiber (Score 3, Informative) 97

by narziss on Saturday January 11, 2003 @03:59PM (#5063217) Attached to: Building a TCP/ IP Network Over Dark Fiber?

I'm not sure where you get your information from, but it's responses like this that really bother me. Under FCC guidelines, when a *LEC purchases "Dark-Fiber" they are purchasing an unused pair or unlit fiber between points A-Z; the only equipment between said locations are patch panels and splice huts. And it is SM fiber, 99.9% of the time (When's the last time you saw a bundle of MMF in a manwhole or fiber hut?

The cheapest way to put up a TCP/IP network via dark fiber would probably to be a cheap, used Cisco GE capable ethernet switch with a 5486 (SM/Long Range) GBIC.

If you're going to give advice about telecom, know what you're talking about.

Thanks

Slashdot Top Deals