tribaal - Slashdot User

Comment Re:What did he expect? (Score 1) 122

by tribaal on Monday March 30, 2026 @02:34PM (#66069270) Attached to: 'Ads Are Popping Up On the Fridge and It Isn't Going Over Well'

There's nothing wrong with obsolete hardware. As long as it does what is expected of it (cooling, in the fridge example), everything is good. Obsolete software, however, is a whole other ball game. Software needs to be kept up to date, especially with regards to patching vulnerabilities. How long is the typical tablet support period? How long is the typical lifespan of a fridge?

Running obsolete internet-connected-software quickly becomes a liability Add to that the fact that the next version of FridgeOS may not work on your 4-year-old fridge hardware (sometimes for valid technological reasons, but more often artificially-imposed constraints - the good-old planned obsolescence), and that the maker of FridgeKillerApp 3000 (tm) decides that supporting more than one FridgeOS version or two is too costly, and the danger gets real high real fast.

Comment Re:Costco has never allowed freeloading (Score 1) 151

by tribaal on Monday August 12, 2024 @03:30PM (#64699732) Attached to: The Era of Freeloading is Officially Over

In theory, maybe, but in practice (at least at every Costco store I've been to), the greeter never took more that a quick cursory glance from to far away to see if I was really the one in the picture on the card (if I even showed the side with the picture). Never seen the cashier check it carefully either.

Comment Yes - for years (Score 1) 65

by tribaal on Thursday April 09, 2020 @11:23AM (#59925198) Attached to: Has your organization enabled employees to easily work remotely?

Been working from home on occasion for years, too. I heard they had some problems with everyone needing to connect at the same time (Insurance company, about 2000 people, where it had probably been about 10-20 at any given time (my guess, not actual numbers) before, mostly IT). Congratulations to that team! As a side note, I'm SO glad I've decided to switch from old crappy 5 MB/sec ADSL to Gigabit fibre a few months ago!

Comment Re:ktorrent (Score 1) 60

by tribaal on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @10:06AM (#59916946) Attached to: uTorrent is the Most Used BitTorrent Client By Far

I used KTorrent for a long time too, but a had a lot of stability problems, and too often I had to manually remove all the temporary download directories because would not start (especially after a crash), because of a few corrupted internal files (or so it seemed), and re-import every torrents (sometimes I tried to isolate the problematic downloads, but it was time consuming if my list was long) I switched to qBittorrent about months ago and everything is great so far, but I miss a few features of KTorrent.

Australians Set To Pay 50% More For Apps After Apple Price Spike (heraldsun.com.au) 117

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday October 13, 2015 @07:29AM from the more-money dept.

SlappingOysters writes: Within 36-hours the price of Apple apps is set to increase in Australia, Sweden and Indonesia. It will bring the price of buying an app out of alignment with the value of the Australian dollar, and leave the country's Apple fans paying 50% more for their iOS software than their American counterparts. It's unfortunate timing, with the recent launch of the iPhone 6s and the upcoming fourth generation of Apple TV.

Apple Admits iCloud Problem Has Killed iOS 9 'App Slicing' 143

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 24, 2015 @09:58PM from the bug-not-a-feature dept.

Mark Wilson writes: One of the key features of iOS 9 — and one of the reasons 16GB iPhones were not killed — is app slicing. This innocuous-sounding feature reduces the amount of space apps take up on iPhones and iPads... or at least it does when it is working. At the moment Apple has a problem with iCloud which is preventing app slicing from working correctly. The feature works by only downloading the components of an app that are needed to perform specific tasks on a particular device, but at the moment regular, universal apps are delivered by default.

Comment Spoiler in the title (Score 1) 238

by tribaal on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @08:54AM (#37105942) Attached to: Do Spoilers Ruin a Good Story? No, Say Researchers

The 1996 movie "A time to Kill" (which I haven't personally seen btw) is about a trial. The French translation is titled "Non coupable" ("Not guilty", for those who don't know French). I wonder what the verdict will be...

Comment Re:Who the hell would trust this? (Score 1) 164

by tribaal on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:07AM (#32563830) Attached to: Lenovo Trying Face Recognition For Logins On New Laptops

But then, his face won't be recognized by the software anymore. It's a quantum-like situation: you can have one, or the other, but not both at the same time. It's the ultimate authentication system!!!

How To Judge Legal Risk When Making a Game Clone? 270

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 12, 2010 @05:07AM from the ask-a-lawye-oh-wait dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I'm an indie game developer making a clone of a rather obscure old game. Gameplay in my clone is very similar to the old game, and my clone even has a very similar name because I want to attract fans of the original. The original game has no trademark or software patent associated with it, and my clone isn't infringing on the original's copyright in any way (all the programming and artwork is original), but nevertheless I'm still worried about the possibility of running afoul of a look and feel lawsuit or something similar. How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?"

Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience 219

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @07:49PM from the type-A-negative-personality dept.

trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."

Dell Rugged Laptops Not Quite Tough Enough 225

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @11:40AM from the one-good-hit dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Trusted Reviews has put the new Dell XFR rugged laptop through the grinder and it hasn't fared as well as expected. Considering that these guys drove a car over a Panasonic Toughbook, they went pretty easy on the Dell, but it still couldn't take the punishment. It looks like Dell still has a way to go to steal the ball from Panasonic when it comes to all terrain computing."

Rotten Office Fridge Cleanup Sends 7 To Hospital 410

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @02:21PM from the step-away-from-the-handle dept.

bokske writes "An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, after the flagrant fumes prompted someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in. Just another day at the office."

TiVo Announces DVR-SuperAdvance 75

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @05:54PM from the so-next-week dept.

mark0 writes "TiVo has announced the TiVo DVR-SuperAdvance. The PC World review says, 'Familiar TiVo interface; DVR can record not-yet-broadcast programming; potentially useful as a wagering aid,' though, '[it is] expensive; access to programming is limited; footage is displayed in standard definition only.'" Hopefully, TiVo will supply a review unit.

Alpine Legend Revolutionizes Music Game Genre 45

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @01:21PM from the haven't-the-foggiest dept.

Microsoft has announced the upcoming release of Alpine Legend for the Xbox 360. Building upon the established titles of the music game genre, Alpine Legend takes you to the Swiss mountaintops, where you and your friends play up to three Alpenhorns at a time while a fourth yodels along. When you're done playing, you can disassemble the 8-foot horns for easy storage. "Jam with alpine legends like Franz 'The Manz' Lang and Johann Hornbostel. Shake the mountain tops with 100 classic Alphorn tracks including, 'Whose spit is in my horn?' and 'More goat bell (It needs).'"

350,000 Linux (Virtual) Desktops Land In Brazil 109

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 19, 2009 @01:12PM from the rip-helio-gracie dept.

xufem writes "Millions of Brazilian schoolchildren will soon be 'brought up right' running Linux on over 350,000 seats each using PC sharing hardware and software from Userful and KDE. This is world's largest virtual desktop deployment and probably also the world's largest Linux deployment, and seems to have been selected over OLPC by Brazil. Definitely a moment to celebrate — and just in time for Brazilian Carnival which starts tomorrow!"

Slashdot Top Deals