Saying No To Promotions Away From Tech? 410

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @02:18PM from the and-none-of-my-ties-fit dept.

lunchlady55 writes "I have been happily working for my current employer for five years. After moving up the ranks within my department from Intern to Technical Lead, a new manager essentially told me that I have to move into a different role, oriented toward 'administrative duties and management.' We are a 24x7 shop, and will now be required to work five 8-hour days rather than four 10-hour days and be on call during the other two days of the week. Every week. Including holidays. My question is: have any Slashdotters been forced into a non-technical role, and how did it work out? Has anyone said 'No thanks' to this kind of promotion and managed to keep their jobs?"

Microsoft Denies It Built Backdoor Into Windows 7 450

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 19, 2009 @06:16PM from the how-are-your-wife's-bruises? dept.

CWmike writes "Microsoft has denied that it has built a backdoor into Windows 7, a concern that surfaced yesterday after a senior National Security Agency (NSA) official testified before Congress that the agency had worked on the operating system. 'Microsoft has not and will not put "backdoors" into Windows,' a company spokeswoman said, reacting to a Computerworld story Wednesday. On Monday, Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security that the agency had partnered with the developer during the creation of Windows 7 'to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide.' Thursday's categorical denial by Microsoft was accompanied by further explanation of exactly how the NSA participated in the making of Windows 7. 'The work being discussed here is purely in conjunction with our Security Compliance Management Toolkit,' said the spokeswoman. The company rolled out the Windows 7 version of the toolkit late last month, shortly after it officially launched the operating system."

How Vulnerable Is Our Power Grid? 359

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 11, 2009 @10:35AM from the dc-is-screwed-but-ac-will-be-fine dept.

coreboarder writes "Recently it was divulged that the Brazilian power infrastructure was compromised by hackers. Then it was announced that it was apparently faulty equipment. A downplay to the global public or an honest clarification? Either way, it raises the question: how vulnerable are we, really? With winter and all its icy glory hurtling towards those of us in the northern hemisphere, how open are we to everything from terrorist threats to simple 'pay me or else' schemes?"

Best Tool For Remembering Passwords? 1007

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 10, 2009 @09:30PM from the encrypted-plain-text-file-on-a-stick dept.

StonyCreekBare writes "Lately I've been rethinking my personal security practices. Should my laptop be stolen, having Firefox 'fill in' passwords automatically for me when I go to my bank's site seems sub-optimal. Keeping passwords for all the varied sites on the computer in a plain-text file seems unwise as well. Keeping them in my brain is a prescription for disaster, as my brain is increasingly leaky. A paper notepad likewise has its disadvantages. I have looked at a number of password managers, password 'vaults' and so on. The number of tools out there is a bit overwhelming. Magic Password Generator add-in for Firefox seems competent, but it's tied to Firefox, and I have other places and applications where I want passwords. And I might be accessing my sites from other computers that don't have it installed. The ideal tool in my mind should be something that is independent of any application, browser, or computer; something that is easily carried, but which if lost poses no risk of compromise. What does the Slashdot crowd like in password tools?"

Low-Power Home Linux Server? 697

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday October 25, 2009 @01:11PM from the how-long-can-a-car-battery-power-it dept.

mpol writes "For years I've been using a home server with Linux, but recently I've been having doubts about the electric bill. I'm not touched by the recession yet, but I would like to cut costs, and going from a 100-Watt system to a 30-Watt system would save me 70 bucks a year. The system doesn't need to do much, just apache, imap, ssh and some nfs, but I do prefer to have a full-fledged system, where I can choose what to install on it. I also don't really care if it's a low-power Via or an ARM processor as long as it's cheap. I'm aiming for $300 or less for a full system, which I could then earn back in about four years through power savings. I've been reading about the Western Digital Mybook World Edition, which has an ARM processor but isn't that easy to install Debian on. A Mac Mini draws about 85 Watts, so that isn't an option either. Something a bit more than turn-key would be fine, but preferably not a complete hack-job. Adding a temporary CR-ROM or DVD-ROM, or a USB disk with an iso to install from would be nice. Any Slashdotters run nice and cheap low-power Linux systems? What can you recommend?"

New Motorcycle World Speed Record, 367.382 mph 253

Posted by kdawson on Saturday September 26, 2009 @07:48PM from the mile-and-back dept.

An anonymous reader, apparently a member of the BUB racing team, wrote to let us know that on Thursday, their crew set the new ultimate motorcycle world speed record at 367.382 mph with the BUB Seven Streamliner at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The Seven is powered by a 3 Liter, turbocharged, 16-valve V4 engine that produces a claimed 500 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque at 8500 rpm. The pilot, Chris Carr, hit 380 mph during the run.

New Phoenix BIOS Starts Windows 7 Boot In 1 Second 437

Posted by timothy on Friday September 25, 2009 @08:07AM from the nice-start dept.

suraj.sun excerpts from a tantalizing Engadget post: "Phoenix is showing off a few interesting things at IDF, but the real standout is their new Instant Boot BIOS [video here], a highly optimized UEFI implementation that can start loading an OS in just under a second. Combined with Windows 7's optimized startup procedure, that means you're looking at incredibly short boot times — we saw a retrofitted Dell Adamo hit the Windows desktop in 20 seconds, while a Lenovo T400s with a fast SSD got there in under 10."

COBOL Celebrates 50 Years 277

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 21, 2009 @08:52AM from the cobol-is-for-old-people dept.

oranghutan writes "The language used to power most of the world's ATMs, COBOL, is turning 50. It also runs about 75 per cent of the world's business applications, so COBOL should be celebrated for making it to half a century. In cricketing terms, that's a good knock. The author says: 'COBOL's fate was decided during a meeting of the Short Range Committee, the organization responsible for submitting the first version of the language in 1959. The meeting was convened after a meeting at the Pentagon first laid down the guidelines for the language. Half a century later, Micro Focus published research which showed people still use COBOL at least 10 times throughout the course of an average working day in Australia. Only 18 per cent of those surveyed, however, had ever actually heard of COBOL.'"

Comment Re:Much as I like Slackware... (Score 1) 252

by redirect 'slash' nil on Friday August 28, 2009 @05:47PM (#29236661) Attached to: Slackware 13.0 Released

Let me see. I started using Slackware back in '94. I remember spending whole saturdays switching floppies and praying that none of them had read errors. So that makes more than 15 years of continuous use of Slackware both at home, and in a production environment (for one of the top 20 software company in the world, mind you). I think you can keep your lame patronizing to yourself kiddo, coz it just came around to take a bite right up your ass...

As to more important things to do than spend the 5 minutes it takes to build an initrd in Slack (which is not necessary 95% of the time), I guess that reading explicit readmes and actually experiment with the stuff in order to provide knowledgeable advice is not one of them...

Comment Re:Much as I like Slackware... (Score 2, Interesting) 252

by redirect 'slash' nil on Friday August 28, 2009 @10:47AM (#29230881) Attached to: Slackware 13.0 Released

I think the statement about the generic kernel only refers to installation on nonstandard drives (eg. dmraid with various fakeRAIDs). If you stay in the realm of /dev/hd# /dev/sd# and common controllers interfaces like Compaq Smart Array for instance, you won't need an initrd to boot your kernel.

And if you find the Slackware way (which, IMO is the most generic approach) cumbersome, pray explain how to boot an nVidia MediaShield fakeRAID RAID5 partition without an initrd for instance, as I would be very interested to hear it. I recently had to do the latter, and I found that using initrd with good old Slack was a breeze, since Slackware leaves everything you need at your fingertips, along with a *detailed* README of how to do it. Didn't even have to google to figure out how to craft an initrd.

Slackware 13.0 Released 252

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 28, 2009 @08:49AM from the fresh-bits dept.

willy everlearn and several other readers let us know that Slackware 13.0 is out. "Wed Aug 26 10:00:38 CDT 2009: Slackware 13.0 x86_64 is released as stable! Thanks to everyone who helped make this release possible — see the RELEASE_NOTES for the credits. The ISOs are off to the replicator. This time it will be a 6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided 32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD. We're taking pre-orders now at store.slackware.com. Please consider picking up a copy to help support the project. Once again, thanks to the entire Slackware community for all the help testing and fixing things and offering suggestions during this development cycle. As always, have fun and enjoy!"

Fable III Announced For 2010 52

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:10PM from the a-boy-and-his-dog-and-his-empire dept.

Flea of Pain writes "Fable III is finally in the works! 'Peter Molyneux revealed that his team is working on Fable III, which will arrive in late 2010, two years after the release of Fable II. The game will give you the primary task of becoming Albion's king and leading the people to happiness and the kingdom to glory. Fable III will be something bold and different, Molyneux promises, stating that story and drama will play a major part in it. New things will be done with the dog and the bread-crumb-trails mechanic, which were present in the second game, and you will be offered complete control of your actions and your people's actions, as you will be the king of Albion. ... [Y]ou will need to balance many things, including poverty and greed, tyranny and compassion or progress and tradition, all in order to keep your subjects happy. Furthermore, you will be able to set taxes and decide how you will rule your subjects. Your spouse, be it a king or a queen, will also point you into various directions over the course of the game. It seems that you will start as a son or daughter of the hero from Fable II and then progress until the halfway point of the game when you will be named king or queen of Albion. This means that you need to keep your save data from Fable II in order for a higher degree of customization.'"

RadioShack To Rebrand As "The Shack"? 629

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 03, 2009 @11:02AM from the a-little-old-place-where-we-can-get-together dept.

Harry writes "Rumor has it that RadioShack is planning to re-brand itself as The Shack later this year, after eighty-eight years under the old name (most of them with a space in between 'Radio' and 'Shack'). I hope it's not true, because I don't think the move would do a thing to make the retailer a better, more successful business." Where will we go to buy soldering irons and those RCA to headphone jack adapters now?

Google CEO Schmidt Leaves Apple Board 128

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 03, 2009 @10:17AM from the slightly-less-billions dept.

Jerod Venema writes "Today, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board of directors, citing conflicts of interest. Apple has released a statement that the company and Schmidt reached a decision to split ties as Google enters new markets that directly compete with Apple's iPhone and Mac operating systems. Schmidt had recused himself of portions of Apple's board meetings when conflicts of interest or anything Google-related arose. But Steve Jobs said Schmidt would have to leave much larger portions of the meetings after Google announced last month that it would enter the operating system sphere."

Comment Re:Short Version (Score 1) 241

by redirect 'slash' nil on Saturday August 01, 2009 @04:53PM (#28911699) Attached to: A Short History of Btrfs

After a certain delay, you, as root, can remove it for good

That's the problem I have with userland based solutions. They require precognition-like ability so that you setup the scripts/cron jobs that will save your life in advance. Unfortunately, when you go around a large number of systems, or, as I mentionned above, use an application UI rather than the commandline for file manipulation, this kind of "I'll do some additional work against the very rare case where I really might need to undelete a file" doesn't really cut it (did I mention I was also lazy?)
What I am saying is, a crude undelete is so simple to implement at the FS level, it should be a part of any modern filesystem, so that lazy bums like myself can get it at the flick of a switch when creating a new FS (mkfs --allow-undelete ...).
But don't worry: I never blame anybody but myself when I inadvertently delete something (which hasn't happened that often, fortunately). I'm just annoyed that, as far as the end user is concerned, some of the native capabilities of filesystems seem to have regressed in the past 20 years. 20 years ago, I could easily undelete a file on my favorite O/S. Today I cannot...

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