Doctor Slams Hospital's "Please" Policy 572

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 03, 2010 @01:07AM from the paging-doctor-manners dept.

Administrators at England's Worthing Hospital are insisting that doctors say the magic word when writing orders for blood tests on weekends. If a doctor refuses to write "please" on the order, the test will be refused. From the article: "However, a doctor at the hospital said on condition of anonymity that he sees the policy as a money-saving measure that could prove dangerous for patients. 'I was shocked to come in on Sunday and find none of my bloods had been done from the night before because I'd not written "please,"' the doctor said. 'I had no results to guide treatment of patients. Myself and a senior nurse had to take the bloods ourselves, which added hours to our 12-hour shifts. This system puts patients' lives at risk. Doctors are wasting time doing the job of the technicians.'"

4G iPhone Misplacer Invited To Germany For Beer 164

Posted by samzenpus on Friday April 23, 2010 @10:44AM from the beer-makes-things-better dept.

eldavojohn writes "You may recall the hapless engineer who left a fairly sensitive iPhone at a bar recently. Well, in a PR stunt, Lufthansa has invited him to visit Germany on their dime after citing his latest Facebook status, 'I underestimated how good German beer is' as well as his obvious passion for German beer and culture. It's not clear if Gray Powell has decided to 'pick up where he last left off' (as the letter puts it). I know what my decision would be."

PS3 Hacked? 296

Posted by Soulskill on Monday January 25, 2010 @07:35AM from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.

Several readers have sent word that George Hotz (a.k.a. geohot), the hacker best known for unlocking Apple's iPhone, says he has now hacked the PlayStation 3. From his blog post: "I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip. 3 years, 2 months, 11 days...that's a pretty secure system. ... As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG."

SOE Also Making a New Star Wars MMOG? 49

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 04, 2009 @10:45PM from the empire-strikes-back dept.

Hand Solo writes 'Ten Ton Hammer has an inside scoop on SOE making a new browser-based MMOG based on Star Wars. Rumor is that it will be run on the Free Realms platform. This is generating a lot of buzz around the net. Quoting: 'Former and current Star Wars Galaxies players can still remember the sting of the 'New Game Experience' that changed the face of that game for everyone. SOE has repeatedly said that they have learned from their mistakes, and plan to not repeat them. If SOE isn't expressly targeting the hardcore segment this time around, they (unlike BioWare) won't have quite the same initial level of expectations to deal with. Don't let us give you the impression that SOE plans to take on BioWare, and their highly anticipated MMOG debut, The Old Republic, particularly given the engine the game is rumored to be based on. More plausible is that it will be based off the Clone Wars CGI animated film, offering a more stylized approach to the universe. "

Comment Workstation Names (Score 1) 688

by v0lrath on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @08:38AM (#29104153) Attached to: Suitable Naming Conventions For Workstations?

This depends on your environment.

If you have mulitple sites, something like this:
AAA-BBB-NNNN-C

A=Location
B=Optional letters.(probably not needed)
N=Numbers, starting at 1. You can get a feel for the age of the machine at a site based on the #.
C=Machine type, W= workstation, L=Laptop, S=Server, etc.

Typically this would leave you with:
CHI-0021-L
CHI-0099-W
TEX-0198-W
TEX-0199-S
Odds are the 0021 machine should be replaced at some point.

For a single site, if you have the policy of machines being reimaged when being reassigned, you can use names. I am not a huge fan of names on machines.

JSmith-0019-W
MSmith-0020-W
MSmith-0078-L

There are many options, but really the key here is to simplify. What do you need. What do you want. What gives you the best value add. All these are factors only you would know. To answer your question. "Do the management tools in use make a difference in how workstations are named?". These tools can make a huge difference. Generally an inventory management tool will allow you to associate all this important data to the machine outside of the machine name, to the point the name becomes irrelevant. If you can sort a list based on warranty date, location, user, memory installed, CPU speed, it doesn't really matter what the name is.

The Mice That Didn't Make It 202

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 06, 2009 @04:09PM from the does-anything-beat-a-logitech-marble-mouse? dept.

Harry writes "For every blockbuster of the mouse world (such as Microsoft and Logitech's big sellers) there have been countless mice that flopped, or never made it to market. Mice shaped like pyramids; mice shaped like Mickey; mice that doubled as numeric keypads or phones. Even one that sat on your steering wheel. I've rounded up some evocative patent drawings on twenty notable examples."

Examining Software Liability In the Open Source Community 241

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 06, 2009 @03:21PM from the three-letters-starting-f-u-d dept.

snydeq writes "Guidelines from the American Law Institute that seek to hold vendors liable for 'knowingly' shipping buggy software could have dramatic impact on the open source community, as vague language around a 'free software' exemption could put open source developers at litigation risk. Meant to protect open source developers, the 'free software' exemption does not take into account the myriad ways in which vendors receive revenue from software products, according to a joint letter drafted by Microsoft and the Linux Foundation. As such, the guidelines — which, although not binding, are likely to prove influential on future lawsuits, according to attorneys on both sides of the issue — call into question the notion of liability in the open source community, where any number of coders may be responsible for any given defect."

StarCraft II Delayed Until 2010 453

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @05:08PM from the nobody-likes-a-rush dept.

Blizzard has just announced that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty won't be released this year. From their announcement: "Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service. ... As we work to make Battle.net the premier online gaming destination, we'll also continue to polish and refine StarCraft II, and we look forward to delivering a real-time strategy gaming experience worthy of the series' legacy in the first half of 2010."

World's Biggest Alarm Clock Shakes You Out of Bed 100

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 09, 2009 @01:33AM from the up-and-at-them dept.

tugfoigel writes "Built by "Kevin" for a contest, this computer-controlled alarm clock is touted as the world's largest. To be more specific, he 'mounted a large air cylinder to the head of [his] bed and a valve, controlled by a computer, which [he programmed] to wake [him] up in the morning.'"

How To Encourage a Young Teen To Learn Programming? 1095

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 22, 2008 @05:11AM from the electroshock dept.

Anonymous Hacker writes "I'm in a bit of a bind. My young teenage son is starting to get curious about computers, and in particular, programming. Now, I'm a long time kernel hacker (Linux, BSD and UNIX). I have no trouble handling some of the more obscure things in the kernel. But teaching is not something that I'm good at, by any means. Heck, I can't even write useful documentation for non-techies. So my question is: what's the best way to encourage his curiosity and enable him to learn? Now, I know there are folks out there with far better experience in this area than myself. I'd really appreciate any wisdom you can offer. I'd also be especially interested in what younger people think, in particular those who are currently in college or high school. I've shown my son some of the basics of the shell, the filesystem, and even how to do a 'Hello World' program in C. Yet, I have to wonder if this is the really the right approach. This was great when I was first learning things. And it still is for kernel hacking, and other things. But I'm concerned whether this will bore him, now that there's so much more available and much of this world is oriented towards point-n-click. What's the best way to for a young teen to get started in exploring this wonderful world of computers and learning how to program? In a *NIX environment, preferably." Whether or not you have suggestions for generating interest or teaching methods, there was probably something that first piqued your curiosity. It seems like a lot of people get into programming by just wondering how something works or what they can make it do. So, what caught your eye?

First Looks at Microsoft's New "Live Mesh" Platform 208

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @10:58AM from the live-mesh-all-nude dept.

technirvana writes "Microsoft's Live Mesh service launched today as an invite-only 'technology preview.' It is Microsoft's attempt to tie all of our data together. Live Mesh synchronizes data across multiple devices (currently just Windows computers, but theoretically it will extend to mobile and other devices in the future) as well as to a web desktop that exists in the cloud. It can sync data across devices used by a single users, as well as create shared spaces for multiple users." And since it's run by Microsoft, you know you can trust it.

Comment Corel x3 (Score 1) 695

by v0lrath on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @12:50PM (#19398953) Attached to: Alternatives To Adobe's Creative Suite?

I would reccomend, Corel x3

Key points:
Industry accepted product (albeit not widely used)
Outputs RGB/CMYK
Can copy and paste form most apps very well, and import PSD's
Significantly cheaper.
Mostly a Vector app, but can handle raster quite well.

Corel is very similar to CS2, it even has a CS2 interface option so the transition is minimal. The biggest difference in practical application is that corel can do most of what CS2 can do, but it's faster.

What can be done in CS2, can be done better in CS2, but for the same results on many uses, Corel X3 is faster and simpler.

My wife works in a graphic design shop (*so this is secondhand info from many a tirade about how one is better or worse, i prefer CS2) that almost exlusively uses Corel over Photoshop/Illustrator, because it was cheaper. Now that they can afford all the apps, the designers chose Corel because it does the same in 1/4 the time.

Mostly they do, Business cards, Trifolds, Ad's, Corporate identities (including logo development) and various layouts of other media and print.

Not actual experience, but close enough to form an opinion :)