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Comment What we're doing... (Score 1) 268

by physman_wiu (#38469176) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Ideal High School Computer Lab?
We're renovating (well adding) a computer room this year. What we're doing is making the whole room modular. The desks will have metal plates that the PCs (AIOs) will mount on. The tiling on the floor will allow for the desks to be moved into any sort of grid arrangement that will fit in the classroom, and then posts will secure the desks to the floor. The server is in a separate room and the PCs connect through the network through wi-fi. Also each student is able to log on to the system using their NFC student cards. The desk themselves allow for either standing or sitting since the monitors can be angled back and brought down or up if needed. The entire room will be covered in white boards as well, allowing for brainstorming anywhere in the room. This is great to allow students to brainstorm in groups around the room, then go back to the PCs to do their work. We will also have a 5 foot touch wall for interactive demonstrations and teaching. The desks power system will be piggy backed, so we don't spend too much money on setting up plugs everywhere.
Security

A Good Reason To Go Full-Time SSL For Gmail 530

Posted by timothy from the oh-that-hurts dept.
Ashik Ratnani writes with this snippet from Hungry Hackers: "A tool that automatically steals IDs of non-encrypted sessions and breaks into Google Mail accounts has been presented at the Defcon hackers' conference in Las Vegas. Last week, Google introduced a new feature in Gmail that allows users to permanently switch on SSL and use it for every action involving Gmail, not just authentication. Users who did not turn it on now have a serious reason to do so, as Mike Perry, the reverse engineer from San Francisco who developed the tool, is planning to release it in two weeks."
The Media

Did NBC Alter the Olympics' Opening Ceremony? 499

Posted by timothy from the for-those-with-the-stomach-for-pageantry dept.
techmuse writes "Viewing the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony online at NBC's Olympics website, you can see that the order in which the countries were presented was very different from the actual order of the countries in the ceremony, as listed at Wikipedia. NBC skipped roughly 100 countries ahead, then jumped back and forth, apparently delaying the appearance of the United States in its home market until later in the broadcast. (In fact, the US team was shown on the infield before they were shown marching!) NBC did not acknowledge this in its broadcast. Is NBC altering the reality of the broadcast to boost ratings? Was this true only online, or also in the live broadcast?"
The Courts

RIAA Foiled By "Innocent Infringement" Defense 220

Posted by timothy from the country-lawyer-my-butt dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interesting development in a Texas case against a college-age defendant who was 16 at the time of the infringement, the Judge has denied the RIAA's summary judgment motion and ordered a trial of the damages — even though the defendant admitted copyright infringement using Kazaa — based on the 'innocent infringement' defense, which could reduce the statutory damages to $200 per song file. Relying on BMG v. Gonzalez (PDF), the reasoning of which I have criticized on the 'innocent infringement' issue, the RIAA argued that Ms. Harper does not qualify for the 'innocent infringement' defense, since CD versions of the songs, sold in stores, have copyright notices on them. In its 15-page decision (PDF) the Harper court rejected that contention, holding that 'a question remains as to whether Defendant knew the warnings on compact discs were applicable in this KaZaA setting,' since 'In this case, there were no compact discs with warnings.' Finding that there was a factual issue as to what the defendant knew or didn't know at the time of the infringement, the Court ordered a trial of the damages unless the RIAA agrees to accept $200 — rather than the $750-plus it seeks — per infringed song."
Communications

Google Has All My Data – How Do I Back It Up? 215

Posted by timothy from the widespread-problem dept.
shadeshope writes "Slowly but surely Google has taken over my computing life. How can I back it up? Bit by bit with their mantra, hip image and brilliant services, Google has gained my trust and all my data. I am doing almost all of my computing in the cloud. Google Reader, Calender, Email, Docs and Notes have become my tools of choice; even to the point where my day book, research notes, etc., are all on Google's servers. It was just so easy, enabling me to effortlessly work from multiple computers, operating systems and locations. I know, I know, this is foolish — all my eggs are firmly in one basket. It has crept up on me. As a long-time computer user and committed pessimist, I have used many schemes over the years to ensure my data is safe. Now I have ceded all control to Google. How can I regain some control and back this all up? Is there a one-touch solution that will take all my data from the various online apps and archive it on my home server?"
Power

McCain Backs Nuclear Power 1563

Posted by CmdrTaco from the all-it-takes-is-peak-oil dept.
bagsc writes "Senator John McCain set out another branch of his energy policy agenda today, with a key point: 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030." So it finally appears that this discussion is back on the table. I'm curious how Nevada feels about this, as well as the Obama campaign. All it took was $4/gallon gas I guess. When it hits $5, I figure one of the campaigns will start to promote Perpetual Motion.
Movies

Netflix To Eliminate Profiles Feature 508

Posted by samzenpus from the no-profile-for-you dept.
Donald Burr of Borg writes "One of my favorite features of Netflix, the video-rental-by-mail service, is 'profiles.' Profiles lets you create 'sub-accounts' for your friends/family, so that they can share in the video rental love. Each profile gets his/her own Netflix queue that he/she can manage with their own login/password. You can divide up how many movies get sent to you vs. the other profiles under your account. E.g. if you have a 6-out-at-once plan, you can choose to get 3 movies at a time, and have 3 other profiles each receive 1 movie. Unfortunately, the fun stops September 1, at which point Netflix is, for unknown reasons, going to terminate this feature. Why? To '...help us to continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.' Improvement indeed."

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