nursegirl - Slashdot User

Submission + - Privacy breach in passport applications in Canada (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

Joanna Karczmarek

on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @02:52PM

Joanna Karczmarek writes: "Passport applicant finds massive privacy breach while filling out their on-line form at the Government of Canada passport website. From the article: "A security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the personal information — including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licence numbers — of people applying for new passports." And it did not require any know-how: "The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser." Ooops!"

Comment Re:Management != Techies (Score 1) 345

by nursegirl on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @11:54AM (#21572273) Attached to: Large Tech Companies Moving Beyond the Cubicle

Douglas Coupland said it best

"Doors sure are important to nerds."

When companies start to forget this, they might still have staff, but most really techie techies verge on adult ADHD or into the autism spectrum. Not having a door to close can keep one out of flow state semi-permanently.

Submission + - Alabama school to be first in US to get XO laptop (al.com)

Submitted by

CountryGeek

on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @09:47AM

CountryGeek writes: "Birmingham city schools will be the first in the nation to receive laptop computers designed for children in third-world countries under an agreement completed over the weekend, Mayor Larry Langford announced Monday. Langford signed a purchase agreement for 15,000 laptops from One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit foundation whose goal is to provide every child in the world with access to technology."

Submission + - British Village Requests Removal from GPS Maps (nytimes.com) 6

Submitted by

longacre

on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @02:29AM

longacre writes: "The tiny village of Barrow Gurney, England has asked GPS map publisher Tele Atlas to remove them from the company's maps. The reason: truck drivers using GPS navigation devices are being directed to drive through the town despite the roads being too narrow for sidewalks, and causing numerous accidents. At the root of the problem lies the fact that the navigation maps used by trucks are the same as those used by passenger cars, which don't contain data on road width or no truck zones. Tele Atlas says they will release truck-appropriate databases at some point, but until then they advise local governments to make use of a technology dating back to the Romans: road signs."

Submission + - Klausner sues iPhone for $360M over voicemail

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @01:27AM

Stony Stevenson writes: Klausner Technologies said on Monday the company had filed a $360 million suit against Apple and AT&T over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes. New York-based Klausner said the lawsuit also names Comcast, Cablevision Systems and eBay's Skype as infringing its patent for "visual voicemail." The plaintiff seeks an additional US$300 million from the three. The suit alleges asserts that the defendants' Internet-based voicemail products and services violate a Klausner patent. It seeks damages and future royalties estimated at $300 million, according to the press release.

Submission + - Novell goes public with Microsoft Linux deal

Submitted by

InfoWorldMike

on Friday May 25, 2007 @09:52PM

InfoWorldMike writes: "On the back of defending the agreement this week, Novell did as promised and published details of its landmark November 2006 Linux partnership agreements with Microsoft. Linux advocates are expected to scour the documents for signs of how the agreement may affect Linux and whether anything in it will put Microsoft or Novell in potential violation of the upcoming version 3 of the GNU General Public license (GPL). The GPL is used in licensing many components of the Linux operating system. Open-source advocate Bruce Perens said he would be looking to see exactly what Novell was given through the deal and whether there is any requirement for the Linux vendor to defend Microsoft's patent claims. "What I'm actually looking for is, to what extent was there a violation of faith?" he said."

Submission + - All of Earth's species to be cataloged on Web

Submitted by

Matt

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @04:31PM

Matt writes: "In a whale-sized project, the world's scientists plan to compile everything they know about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open to everyone.

The effort, called the Encyclopedia of Life, will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. Its first pages of information will be shown Wednesday in Washington where the massive effort is being announced by some of the world's leading institutions. The project will take about 10 years to finish."

Submission + - Diving deeper into Linux

Submitted by teh moges on Thursday April 19, 2007 @01:10AM

teh moges writes: From an administrator point of view, I know a lot about MS Windows, where files are stored, where settings are, which registry keys to edit, how to change drivers and so on. I made the initial switch to Linux a year ago, and now that I feel capable with using Linux from an end user's point of view, and when things go wrong, I can fix them, thanks to Google. I now want to now start to get deeper into it. Are there any great resources, such as websites, wikis or books for someone that wants to find out exactly how Linux works and how to fix and modify it?

Submission + - The Math of Text Readability

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:01PM

An anonymous reader writes: Wired magazine has an article that explains The Law of Optical Volumes, a formula for spacing the letters on a printed page that results in maximum readability. Wired's new logo (did anyone notice?) obeys the law. Unfortunately, Web fonts don't allow custom kerning pairs, so you can't work the same magic online as in print. Could this be why some people still prefer newspapers and magazines to the Web?

Submission + - Ontario proposes cyber-bullying law for schools

Submitted by nursegirl on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @05:44PM

nursegirl writes: A proposal to change Ontario's education act has been announced today. The proposal adds both physical bullying and cyber-bullying to the list of behaviours that can get a student suspended or expelled. Posting comments, pictures or videos attacking other students or teachers outside of school hours will carry the risk of school punishment, if the incident is believed to have an "impact on school climate".

Feed Google treads on Powerpoint turf (com.com)

From feed by cnetfeed on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @05:13PM

In his keynote address at Web 2.0 Expo, CEO Eric Schmidt shows off new Docs & Spreadsheets feature that lets users create presentations.

Submission + - Google Docs and Spreadsheets Expanding

Submitted by

dhinckley

on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @03:56PM

dhinckley writes: "Google announced today that they will indeed be adding Presentation software to their Docs and Spreadsheets package. With the announcement they revealed that they have purchased Tonic Systems to help them with the new Presentation software and hope to have it ready by sometime this summer. Google's office package is starting to look a bit more comparable to Microsoft Office."

Submission + - Jim Gray is Missing

Submitted by

K-Man

on Monday January 29, 2007 @09:06PM

K-Man writes: "Jim Gray, Turing Award winner and developer of many fundamental database technologies, was reported missing at sea after a short solo sailing trip to the Farallon Islands near San Francisco. The Coast Guard is still searching for his vessel, and there have been no distress calls or signals of any kind."

Submission + - OS Comparisons from the BBC

Submitted by igb on Monday January 29, 2007 @09:34AM

igb writes: The BBC are covering the launch of Vista. Last week they asked people to submit descriptions of the benefits of their chosen operating systems, and today they've posted responses from two Vista users, a Linux user and an OSX user. There's nothing earthshattering, but it's interesting to see the operating systems compared on a level playing field, and nice that the BBC is given equal time to alternatives.

Submission + - Internet to revolutionize TV in 5 years: Gates

Submitted by

adamlazz

on Saturday January 27, 2007 @07:57PM

adamlazz writes: "With an explosion of online video content on sites like YouTube and Google Video, Bill Gates believes that the Internet will revoloutionize the television within the next 5 years. "I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," Gates told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum.
From the article:

The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set. In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said.
"

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