silk600 - Slashdot User

Submission + - How to recognise a good programmer (inter-sections.net)

Submitted by KDan on Friday January 11, 2008 @04:59AM

KDan writes: How do you recognise good programmer? It's not as easy as it sounds. CV experience is only of limited use here, because great programmers don't always have the "official" experience to demonstrate that they're great. In fact, a lot of that CV experience can be misleading. Yet there are a number of subtle cues that you can get, even from the CV, to figure out whether someone's a great programmer. This article presents those cues in a way that non-programmers should be able to understand and use.

Google Plans to Bid 4.6 Billion on 700MHz Band 148

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 16, 2007 @10:23AM from the dude-you've-been-googed dept.

NickCatal writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google plans to bid $4.6 Billion on the 700 MHz radio spectrum being auctioned off by the FCC. What is most interesting is that they are not planning on partnering with other companies to raise the cash, they are going to spend their own cash and possibly borrow some. With partners such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile in their 'Open Handset Alliance' is this a sign that they are willing to directly compete with the people they courted to join?"

Journal Journal: Microsoft: The Great Moore's Law Compensator 2

Journal by ozmanjusri on Friday November 16, 2007 @10:08AM

We all know each iteration of Windows and Office demands more hardware than previous versions, and most of us are are familiar with Moore's Law, but how closely do Microsoft's increased demands match hardware improvements?

Submission + - High-quality YouTube videos coming soon (webware.com)

Submitted by

mlauzon

on Friday November 16, 2007 @10:07AM

mlauzon writes: "YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference today, confirmed that high-quality YouTube video streams are coming soon. Although YouTube's goal, he said, is to make the site's vast library of content available to everyone, and that requires a fairly low-bitrate stream, the service is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer's Net connection and serves up higher-quality video if viewers want it.

Why wouldn't they? Because the need to buffer the video before it starts playing will change the experience. Hence the experiment, rather than just a rapid rollout of this technology. On stage, he said the current resolution of YouTube videos has been "good enough" for the site untill now.

Chen told me he expects that high-quality YouTube videos will be available to everyone within three months.

Chen also confirmed that in YouTube's internal archive, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was sent. However, he said, a large portion of YouTube videos are pretty poor quality to begin with — 320x240. Streaming them in high-quality mode isn't going to help much."

OLPC Launches Buy One, Give One Free Program 282

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 12, 2007 @09:48AM from the haven't-we-heard-about-this-before dept.

Tha_Big_Guy23 writes "For the first time, and for a limited period only, people in North America will be able to get their hands on the XO, MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte's rugged little laptop that's designed specifically for children. And for each cutting-edge XO purchased in the West, another will be given to a child in a developing country. For $399, customers can order a laptop for themselves; bundled into the price is the cost of delivering a second XO to a child a poor country."

Comment Re:Bots against Bots (Score 1) 135

by silk600 on Monday November 12, 2007 @05:31AM (#21321125) Attached to: Tools To Squash the Botnets

1. It'll increase network traffic to the same amount (if not more) than it will decrease it.

2. It's almost as illegal as creating a malicious virus.

Staged Hack Causes Generator to Self-Destruct 258

Posted by Zonk on Thursday September 27, 2007 @08:45AM from the tick-tick-tick-boom dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It has been revealed that in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security exercise codenamed 'Aurora' conducted in March of this year, researchers were able to cause a power generator to self-destruct remotely via a hack which changed the operating cycle of the generator. 'Government sources said changes are being made to both computer software and physical hardware to protect power generating equipment. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it is conducting inspections to ensure all nuclear plants have made the fix. Industry experts also said the experiment shows large electric systems are vulnerable in ways not previously demonstrated.'"

Submission + - Microsoft "Stealth Update" not harmless at

Submitted by DaMan on Thursday September 27, 2007 @05:14AM

DaMan writes: According to WindowsSecrets.com, the super-secret stealth Update that Microsoft released back in August isn't as harmless as Microsoft claims:

The trouble occurs when users reinstall XP's system files using the repair capability found on genuine XP CD-ROMs. (The feature is not present on "Restore CDs.") The repair option, which is typically employed when XP for some reason becomes unbootable, rolls many aspects of XP back to a pristine state. It wipes out many updates and patches and sets Internet Explorer back to the version that originally shipped with the operating system.

ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 has independently confirmed that this update adversely affects repaired XP installations:

This issue highlights why it is vitally important that Microsoft doesn't release undocumented updates on the sly. Even the best tested update can have unpleasant side-effects, but if patches are documented properly and released in such a way that users (especially IT professionals) know they exist, it offers a necessary starting point for troubleshooting.

Submission + - Novell Linux business spikes since Microsoft deal (idg.com.au)

Submitted by

StonyandCher

on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @07:53PM

StonyandCher writes: "Novell's Linux business has soared 243 percent since last November when the company signed its controversial deal with Microsoft. "The affect on sales year over year, for Novell's first three quarters of our fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31 — our Linux business was up 243 percent year over year," said Justin Steinman, director of marketing at Novell, who, along with executives from both companies, spoke at a program hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council."

An Open Source Security Triple Play 65

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday August 08, 2006 @05:29AM from the wake-me-up-when-things-are-goin-down dept.

Marcus Maciel writes to tell that Linux.com's Joe Barr recently took a look at OSSEC-HIDS, an open source host intrusion detection system. From the article: "According the OOSEC-HIDS Web site, it's more than a host intrusion detection system (IDS). It's also a security event manager and a security information manager, which makes it the security equivalent of a hat trick in hockey, a triple-play in baseball, or a rare triple-double in basketball. OSSEC-HIDS runs on both Windows and Linux/Unix. You can download the latest version along with the project's PGP public key, so you can verify the download." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

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