Comment even less, here (Score 1) 575
On some small pages I have to maintain the rates of IE dropped below 50%.
The highest IE-rate I got on a page for a hotel with 46% and the lowest with 28% on the one for my soaring club.
Submission + - Wine project frustration and forking (winehq.org)
Elektroschock writes: "Wine attempts to implement the Windows API layer on Linux. There are some limitations and an important one is the missing DIB engine, bug 421. Chris Howe comprehends the dissatisfaction of core developers with the abitrary project governance:
Sorry to sound like a stuck record but the Wine website still lists "write a DIB engine" as a requirement, and every time someone does, the patches dissapear down a hole because they're "not right". Someone document what "would be right", or take "write a DIB engine" off the list. I'd love to have a go at documenting it myself, but I don't have the time to reverse engineer it from a few years' worth of rejected solutions.
The latest attempt of Massimo Del Fedel satisfied all requirements set previously for the long standing bug 421 and his optional engine seems to work fine by all Wine quality standards. He seems to be extraordinary stubborn and insusceptible to mobbing. Usually it is extremely frustrating for developers when the goal post is constantly moved. When is the right time that project members should fork when their chief maintainer does not respond anymore or pursues an adverse commercial agenda?"
Comment Missing Option: (Score 1) 320
Rauch, of course. ;-)
Comment Re:Stickers... (Score 1) 993
Better add a Rob Halford autograph, just make sure, you're truest manly metal.
Going Deep Inside Xserve Apple Drive Modules 243
adamengst writes "If you've had an Xserve drive fail, you may have considered saving some money by putting a replacement drive inside its Apple Drive Module. That may be a false economy, though. TidBITS explains why, while pinning Apple down on exactly what goes into Apple Drive Modules and why they cost so much more than bare retail drives."
Comment Not so new Theory (Score 1) 501
I believe the theory about the advanced and standardised britisch canons is not so new.
At least I read a (not so good written) historical novel named "Der Meister des Siebten Siegels" ("The Master of the seventh Seal") about a fictiv (?) Adam Dreyling, developed a new technology to cast canons in higher quality, escaped to england and armed the english fleet.
At least now it seems to be proven.
Superguns Helped Defeat the Spanish Armada 501
Hugh Pickens writes "With the discovery last year of the first wreck of an Elizabethan fighting ship off Alderney in the Channel Islands, thought to date from around 1592, marine archaeologists are revising their ideas on how the English defeated the Spanish Armada. Replicas of two cannon recovered from the Alderney wreck were recreated in a modern foundry, and tests carried out showed that the Elizabethans were throwing shot at almost the speed of sound. Elizabeth's 'supergun,' although relatively small, could hit a target a mile away. At a ship-to-ship fighting distance of about 100 yards, the ball would have sufficient punch to penetrate the oak planks of a galleon, travel across the deck, and emerge out the other side. Tests on cannon recovered from the Alderney wreck also suggest that the ship carried guns of uniform size, firing standard ammunition. 'Elizabeth's navy created the first ever set of uniform cannon, capable of firing the same size shot in a deadly barrage,' says marine archaeologist Mensun Bound from Oxford University, adding that that navy had worked out that a lot of small guns, all the same, all firing at once, were more effective than a few big guns. '[Elizabeth's] navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies, and which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later.'"
Vim 7.2 Released 106
sanguisdex writes "After fifteen months of work: a brand new Vim release! This is a stable version. There are many bug fixes and updated runtime files. The only new feature worth mentioning is support for floating point. Upgrading from a previous version is highly recommended: a few crashing bugs and several security issues were fixed. For the details see the announcement or go directly to the download page."
A Trip Down Distro Memory Lane 238
M-Saunders writes "What did the Linux world look like back in 2000? TuxRadar has republished a distro roundup from Linux Format issue 1, May 2000. Many distros such as SUSE, Mandrake and Red Hat are still around in various incarnations, but a few such as Corel and Definite have fallen by the wayside."
Submission + - Ubuntu Wipes Windows 7 in Benchmarks. (tuxradar.com)
twitter writes: "Recent and controversial benchmarks for Windows 7 leave an important question unanswered, "Is it faster than GNU/Linux?" Here, at last, is a benchmark that pits Ubuntu, Vista and Windows 7 against each other on the same modern hardware. From install time to GUI efficiency, Ubuntu beats Windows and is often twice as fast. Where Windows 7 is competitive, the difference is something the average user would not notice. The average GNU/Linux user is now getting better absolute performance from their computer as well as better value than the average Windows user."
USB Flash Drive Comparison Part 2 — FAT32 Vs. NTFS 198
Dampeal writes "Ok, a little while back I ran a somewhat large USB Flash Drive Comparison with 21 drives compared, today I got part two of that comparison. I've taken the 8gig and 4 gig drives, nine in total, and formatted them FAT32, NTFS and ExFAT and ran all of the tests over again for a comparison of how the file systems work on the drives." Good news — after some exhaustively graphed testing scenarios, the author comes to a nice conclusion for lazy people, writing "[I]n my opinion the all around best choice is FAT32, or the default for most all USB drives out there today, it seems to give us the best average performance overall."
Bordeaux 1.6 For FreeBSD and PC-BSD Released 53
Tom Wickline writes "Steven Edwards of the Bordeaux Technology Group released Bordeaux 1.6 for FreeBSD and PC-BSD today. Bordeaux 1.6 comes with added support for Google's Chrome Web Browser, Google Earth, and Google Picasa. In addition, Cellar support has improved; you can now delete and install into an existing Cellar. There have also been many small bug fixes and tweaks on the backend to improve the speed and reliability of all the supported applications."
Why Not To Shout At Your Disk Array 125
Brendan Gregg of Sun's Fishworks lab has an interesting video demo up at YouTube demonstrating just how bad vibes, if expressed with sufficient volume in front of a rack full of disks, can cause a spike in disk latency. White noise, evidently, doesn't do them much harm. (Maybe they just feel awkward to get yelled at on camera.)
Comment Re:Work on a laptop? (Score 1) 276
> Laptops are not ergonomical.
Maybe this depends on what you're working on--both from hardware and task view:
My ol' PowerBook is a great tool for daily usage (as same as some ThinkPads I've worked with). It's flat enough to not stress the hands when typing, the keyboard is really good and the touchpad is large and relatively one level with the rest of the surface.
For my mostly text-centered tasks I like to have the keyboard and touchpad close together and don't need to move the hand too far, from this point I even prefer it over a classical keyboard/mouse-combination.
And for some advanced graphical works I plug in a wacom.
Maybe this depends on what you're working on--both from hardware and task view:
My ol' PowerBook is a great tool for daily usage (as same as some ThinkPads I've worked with). It's flat enough to not stress the hands when typing, the keyboard is really good and the touchpad is large and relatively one level with the rest of the surface.
For my mostly text-centered tasks I like to have the keyboard and touchpad close together and don't need to move the hand too far, from this point I even prefer it over a classical keyboard/mouse-combination.
And for some advanced graphical works I plug in a wacom.
Submission + - Laptop/Server data synchronization 1
gbr writes: I've been trying to automatically synchronize data between a laptop and a server. When the laptop is connected to the network, I want all writes to automatically propagate across to the server. When the laptop is disconnected I want the laptop user to continue working with the local data. When the laptop is reconnected, I want the data to automatically re-sync.
The issue is, the data on the server may have changed as well, which needs to propagate back to the laptop. The data doesn't contain anything too special, no database tables etc. It does contain binary data such as executables and word processing documents. I've looked at ChironFS, Unison file sync, and drbd. ChironFS needs a manual rebuild if a connection fails, and the user needs to know which machine contains the correct data. Unison requires the user to initiate the synchronization process manually every time, and drbd is just not meant for the job at hand.
How do you automatically, and invisibly to the user (except in the case of conflicts), synchronize between a laptop and a server?
The issue is, the data on the server may have changed as well, which needs to propagate back to the laptop. The data doesn't contain anything too special, no database tables etc. It does contain binary data such as executables and word processing documents. I've looked at ChironFS, Unison file sync, and drbd. ChironFS needs a manual rebuild if a connection fails, and the user needs to know which machine contains the correct data. Unison requires the user to initiate the synchronization process manually every time, and drbd is just not meant for the job at hand.
How do you automatically, and invisibly to the user (except in the case of conflicts), synchronize between a laptop and a server?
