Slashdot Mirror

slashthedot writes "While it is well known that boys have longer ring fingers as compared to index fingers, now some researchers say that the longer the ring finger ratio to index finger, the better boys are at math. In girls, the shorter the ring finger to index finger ratio, the better is their verbal skills. 'The link, according to the researchers, is that testosterone levels in the womb influence both finger length and brain development.'"

99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes "For some time Mac users have been waiting to see who would bring 3D graphics to a Windows emulation/virtualization solution under OS X. It looks like Parallels is going to be the winner. They have announced an RC of Parallels 3.0, with the final to be available 'in a few weeks.' For anyone else tired of Bootcamp or rebooting to play a Windows game, it look like the solution is finally here; I'm not counting out VMWare entirely. Obviously it will depend on how soon they can catch up, but there is some serious first-mover advantage here for Parallels."

Daengbo writes "I recently sold my old laptop to a friend, and she asked me to keep Ubuntu on it rather than installing Windows for her. To help her with the transition, I wrote two intro lessons for her, but we've hit a stumbling block. The iRivier Clix (4GB) she's been using syncs with Windows Media Player. My research shows that the model has both an MTP for the sync and a UMS mode which acts as a mass storage device. Rhythmbox's 'Scan Removable Media' doesn't pick up anything from the USB mass storage device, and although Syncropated claims to support these types of devices, it doesn't find any supported devices. Unless you use an iPod, this appears to be a real weak point in the Linux desktop. Do you sync your mass storage devices and music players? What do you use?"

Daengbo writes "I recently sold my old laptop to a friend, and she asked me to keep Ubuntu on it rather than installing Windows for her. To help her with the transition, I wrote two intro lessons for her, but we've hit a stumbling block. The iRivier Clix (4GB) she's been using syncs with Windows Media Player. My research shows that the model has both an MTP for the sync and a UMS mode which acts as a mass storage device. Rhythmbox's 'Scan Removable Media' doesn't pick up anything from the USB mass storage device, and although Syncropated claims to support these types of devices, it doesn't find any supported devices. Unless you use an iPod, this appears to be a real weak point in the Linux desktop. Do you sync your mass storage devices and music players? What do you use?"

newtley writes "The University of Ohio was putting a brave face on being #1 on the RIAA hit list, but it now appears they have caved in to RIAA intimidation. Now, 'It appears that many institutions are simply prepared to wash their hands, refusing even to question the tactics of the industry,' let alone giving students meaningful legal assistance, says Ohio lawyer Joe Hazelbaker. He's written to OU associate director of legal affairs Barbara Nalazek saying, 'Ohio University has an obligation to protect the privacy of its students and their records, which includes directory information.' The Recording Industry vs. The People blog is hosting a letter universities whose students being attacked might want to consider."

the_quiet_angeleno writes "I have an article in today's Summer Film Preview issue of Los Angeles CityBeat on Disney's sci-fi classic Tron, which is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year. The piece includes a discussion with Richard Taylor, one of Tron's visual effects supervisors on the film's groundbreaking effects, as well as director Steven Lisberger, on how the narrative incorporates the Jungian concept of individuation. Here's a sample: 'Visual Effects Society member Gene Kozicki, of the L.A.-based visual effects house Rhythm & Hues, believes Tron's legacy was in moving computer-generated visuals into the realm of storytelling. "Research into this type of imagery had been going on for over 15 years, but it was more scientific in nature," Kozicki says, "Once artists began to share their ideas and treat the computer as a tool, it moved away from strict research and towards an art form."

javipas writes "On May 25th, 1977 the first film of the Star Wars Saga was released to theaters. Thirty years later, and celebrations are being held all around the globe. Wired has a series of articles entitled The Empire at 30, and many fans are posting about this particular birthday. For example, you can see the best 30 clips made by fans to celebrate this anniversary. The BBC is chronicling the journey of one man who had never seen Star Wars before. IGN has a rundown on some of the highlights of the Celebration convention, running this weekend."

Gary W. Longsine writes "The Washington Post writes about a Venture Capitalist and blogger, Fred Wilson, who recently declared 'e-mail bankruptcy', wiping out his inbox and starting over because he couldn't keep up. Spam is cited as one reason. There have been several public incidents, some cited in the article, where the flow of email is just too much to keep up. 'If there is a downside to completely turning a back on e-mail, it's not one many former users notice. Stanford computer science professor Donald E. Knuth started using e-mail in 1975 and stopped using it 15 years later. Knuth said he prefers to concentrate on writing books rather than be distracted by the steady stream of communication.' Is email just too hectic a communication form for some people? Is email dead?"

NZheretic writes "According to APCmag, the first cross-platform OpenOffice.org virus — 'SB/Badbunny-A' — was emailed directly to Sophos from the virus developers. The proof-of-concept virus affects Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems and uses different methods on each. It has not yet been seen in the wild. Despite Sun's OpenOffice.org developer Malte Timmermann's claims to the contrary, this kind of embedded scripting attack represents a real threat to OpenOffice.org users. Back in June 2000 when Sun first announced the open sourcing of OpenOffice.org, the twelfth email to the open discussion list put forward a two-part solution for providing OpenOffice users with Safe(r) Scripting using restricted-mode execution by default and access by signed digital certificates. In October 2000 the issue of treating security as an 'add-on' feature rather than as a 'system property' was again raised. Is it time to now introduce such measures to the OpenOffice.org Core to greatly reduce any future risk from scripted infections?"

slashthedot sends us to High Productivity Computing Wire for a look at the effort to beef up computing and communications infrastructure at a number of US universities in preparation for the data deluge anticipated later this year from two experiments coming online at CERN. The collider will smash protons together hoping to catch a glimpse of the subatomic particles that are thought to have last been seen at the Big Bang. From the article: "The world's largest science experiment, a physics experiment designed to determine the nature of matter, will produce a mountain of data. And because the world's physicists cannot move to the mountain, an army of computer research scientists is preparing to move the mountain to the physicists... The CERN collider will begin producing data in November, and from the trillions of collisions of protons it will generate 15 petabytes of data per year... [This] would be the equivalent of all of the information in all of the university libraries in the United States seven times over. It would be the equivalent of 22 Internets, or more than 1,000 Libraries of Congress. And there is no search function."

SlinkySausage writes "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email operation to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to grow its user base rapidly (Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M). There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the dark side of Google's offer. Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."

slashthedot writes "Microsoft caught some Indian retailers selling pirated copies of Windows by sending in a dummy customer to ask for a copy of Windows to be installed on their PC. The dealers claim that they are promoting MS software in this way. One retailer said: 'Since we are are not charging anything extra for installing the software, it means that we are actually not trading in pirated software. For us this is just a sewa (selfless act) that we are offering to our customers. Besides, the pricing of their operating systems is way too high for the Indian markets.'"

godzillopiteco sends timely word that Art. Lebedev Studio is finally going to accept pre-orders for the Optimus Maximus Keyboard — in just under 11 hours at the time this story posts, according to the countdown timer on the site. (Late last year we were primed to pre-order in December 2006.) Read the project's blog for some recent developments.

An anonymous reader writes "Error prone British ISP PlusNet, who you might remember for accidentally deleting 700GB of customer's e-mail last year, have done it again with a major security gaffe. Their webmail service was compromised this week, and spammers got hold of customers' e-mail addresses who they've been happily spamming away ever since. They've since made the decision to close their webmail service, in the ultimate admission of incompetence for the now BT owned ISP. In an e-mail to their customers, Network director Phil Webb goes on to recommend that their customers install security software, along with telling them that they shouldn't call up to complain. One might suggest that they need to practice what they preach."

The rumours have been around for months now, but Tuesday Sony Online Entertainment confirmed that they had purchased Vanguard and Sigil Games Online from its investors. Nearly everyone on the Sigil team was laid off with around 50% of the outfit slated to be hired back, so that work can continue on the Massively Multiplayer Online Game. The game will continue running under the auspices of SOE, as announced by company CEO John Smedley in a forum post on Tuesday. Rumours that Brad McQuaid (keeper of the Vision behind Vanguard) has not seen been in Sigil's offices since last year has only exacerbated fan reaction to this announcement. It remains to be seen if SOE can undo the damage that the last five months have done to the Saga of Heroes community, and the game itself.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Marie Lindor has retained an expert witness of her own to fight the RIAA, and to debunk the testimony and reports of the RIAA's 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson, whose reliability has been challenged by Ms. Lindor in her Brooklyn federal court case, UMG v. Lindor. Ms. Lindor's expert is none other than Prof. Johan Pouwelse, Chairman of the Parallel and Distributed Systems Group of Delft University of Technology. It was Prof. Pouwelse's scathing analysis of the RIAA's MediaSentry 'investigations' (PDF) in a case in the Netherlands that caused the courts in that country to direct the ISPs there not to turn over their subscribers' information (PDF), thus nipping in the bud the RIAA's intended litigation juggernaut in that country."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Marie Lindor has retained an expert witness of her own to fight the RIAA, and to debunk the testimony and reports of the RIAA's 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson, whose reliability has been challenged by Ms. Lindor in her Brooklyn federal court case, UMG v. Lindor. Ms. Lindor's expert is none other than Prof. Johan Pouwelse, Chairman of the Parallel and Distributed Systems Group of Delft University of Technology. It was Prof. Pouwelse's scathing analysis of the RIAA's MediaSentry 'investigations' (PDF) in a case in the Netherlands that caused the courts in that country to direct the ISPs there not to turn over their subscribers' information (PDF), thus nipping in the bud the RIAA's intended litigation juggernaut in that country."

Thwomp writes "I love using my Wii to catch up on my Google Reader feeds and now that activity is officially supported by Google. It's really great to see that the Google Reader team has created an improved user interface optimized for the Wii's Opera browser and Wiimote. You can also try out the Google Reader for Wii in your browser. Google account is mandatory, of course."

Acer500 writes "The One Laptop Per Child project became a reality Thursday in Uruguay, as the 160 children of school number 24 in the humble town of Cardal received their XO computers. The learning tools came directly from the hands of president Tabaré Vazquez. It has become a matter of national pride that Uruguay is the first country to realize the project's goal. The target is that by 2009, every school-age child in Uruguay will have one, and an initial 15 million dollars have already been allocated to the project. From the newspaper articles: 'The happiness of having a PC in their hands, some of them for the first time, had the kids in ecstasy, which didn't wait to turn on their computers, introduce their personal information (required the first time they're turned on), choose the screen colors, and start experimenting with them. What initially made them more enthusiastic was the possibility of taking photographs and filming each others with the included webcams.'" More information below. According to the unofficial blog of the Uruguayan project, named proyecto Ceibal, the infrastructure for wireless is not yet in place but will be provided in the next few days by the national telco ANTEL. No photos of the event have been posted online, but you can see an institutional video on Youtube. One interesting point is that it has not yet been decided that the XO will be the laptop of choice for the entire project. Two other companies want to be considered: Intel, with their Classmate PC, and Israeli-manufactured ITP-C. In a press conference, Intel manager for the southern cone Esteban Galluzzi went as far as to compare the XO to a Pentium II, and stressed that the Classmate is able to run Windows XP. As advisor and local guru Juan Grompone stated, 'who will ultimately benefit from this is education?' This will be an interesting test to see if the OLPC project meets its intended goals of 'learning learning'. Let's hope this project is the means that will foster among some of the children the desire to learn and to tinker."

Knutsi sends us to the Federation of American Scientists' blog Secrecy News for a post on how privatization can affect access to research material. The blog tells how a Harvard researcher on the history of nuclear secrecy was denied access that would have been granted in the past. Some followup is in the comments to this reposting of the FAS story. "Los Alamos National Laboratory will no longer permit historians and other researchers to have access to its archival records because Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the private contractor that now operates the Lab, says it has 'no policy in place' that would allow such access."

TrippTDF writes "Rachel Hyman, an artist and bartender in New York City, maintains a blog where she regularly posts images of fake IDs she confiscates from would-be underage drinkers, along with a description of the confiscation. Recently, one of her posts (Google cache) was taken down when the owner of the fake ID invoked the DMCA against Blogspot. Can one claim a forged document as a copyrighted work of art?"

An anonymous reader writes "When Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodny recently asked What the heck is Web 2.0 anyway? he received a set of responses reminiscent of those garnered by The Register back in 2005, which famously concluded, based on its readers' responses, that Web 2.0 was made up of 12% badger's paws, 6% JavaScript worms, and 26% nothing. Nonetheless, as Social Computing (SoC) widens and deepens its footprint, another Jeremy — Jeremy Geelan — has asked if we are witnessing the death of 'Personal' Computing. SoC, Geelan notes, has already become an academic field of study. But perhaps Social Computing too is just badger's paws?"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Distinguished Harvard University Law School Professor Charles Nesson has called upon Harvard University to fight back against the RIAA and stand up for its students, writing 'Seeking to outsource its enforcement costs, the RIAA asks universities to point fingers at their students, to filter their Internet access, and to pass along notices of claimed copyright infringement. But these responses distort the University's educational mission. ...[W]e should be assisting our students both by explaining the law and by resisting the subpoenas that the RIAA serves upon us. We should be deploying our clinical legal student training programs to defend our targeted students.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA seems to have a problem making things stick in the Windy City. It has once again backed down in BMG v. Thao, after suing a misidentified defendant. Same thing occurred last October in Elektra v. Wilke. In the Thao case, the RIAA based its case on information that the cable modem used to partake in file sharing was registered to Mr. Thao. However, it turned out that Mr. Thao was not even a subscriber (pdf) of the ISP (pdf) at the time of the alleged file-sharing, and therefore did not have possession of the suspect cable modem at that time."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA seems to have a problem making things stick in the Windy City. It has once again backed down in BMG v. Thao, after suing a misidentified defendant. Same thing occurred last October in Elektra v. Wilke. In the Thao case, the RIAA based its case on information that the cable modem used to partake in file sharing was registered to Mr. Thao. However, it turned out that Mr. Thao was not even a subscriber (pdf) of the ISP (pdf) at the time of the alleged file-sharing, and therefore did not have possession of the suspect cable modem at that time."

Via Joystiq, the news on David Jaffe's blog is that Calling All Cars will be released soon via the PlayStation Network. The first downloadable title from one of Sony's AAA developers, this marks the start of what should be a string of high-profile games for the service. The initial post about the game 'going gold' appears to have been taken down but Jaffe reviews the reviews that have been released so far, and gives PS3 owners an idea of what they can expect. "Has it been worth the wait? Reviews are slowly coming in, but IGN is calling it 'Sony's first truly original, must-have title on the PlayStation Network' and claiming it bests just about everything on Xbox Live Arcade. Strong words; we'll see for ourselves [this] week."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the ongoing case of UMG v. Lindor, Ms. Lindor has now moved to exclude the trial testimony of the RIAA's 'expert' witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Jacobson is the CTO and co-founder of Palisade Systems, Inc, and a teacher of internet security at Iowa State, but in his February 23rd deposition testimony she argues he failed to meet the reliability standards prescribed by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The Groklaw and Slashdot communities participated in both the preparation of the deposition questions, and the vetting of the witness's responses."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the ongoing case of UMG v. Lindor, Ms. Lindor has now moved to exclude the trial testimony of the RIAA's 'expert' witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Jacobson is the CTO and co-founder of Palisade Systems, Inc, and a teacher of internet security at Iowa State, but in his February 23rd deposition testimony she argues he failed to meet the reliability standards prescribed by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The Groklaw and Slashdot communities participated in both the preparation of the deposition questions, and the vetting of the witness's responses."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the ongoing case of UMG v. Lindor, Ms. Lindor has now moved to exclude the trial testimony of the RIAA's 'expert' witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Jacobson is the CTO and co-founder of Palisade Systems, Inc, and a teacher of internet security at Iowa State, but in his February 23rd deposition testimony she argues he failed to meet the reliability standards prescribed by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The Groklaw and Slashdot communities participated in both the preparation of the deposition questions, and the vetting of the witness's responses."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the ongoing case of UMG v. Lindor, Ms. Lindor has now moved to exclude the trial testimony of the RIAA's 'expert' witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson. Jacobson is the CTO and co-founder of Palisade Systems, Inc, and a teacher of internet security at Iowa State, but in his February 23rd deposition testimony she argues he failed to meet the reliability standards prescribed by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The Groklaw and Slashdot communities participated in both the preparation of the deposition questions, and the vetting of the witness's responses."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an attempt to change the rules of the game, the RIAA secretly went to a federal district court in Denver with an ex parte application. The goal was to get the judge to rule that the federal Cable Communications Policy Act does not apply to the RIAA's attempts to get subscriber information (pdf) from cable companies. Just to clarify, ex parte means that the application was secret, no one else — neither the ISP nor the subscribers — were given notice that this was going on. They were, in effect, asking the Court to rule that the RIAA does not need to get a court order to be able to force an ISP to disclose confidential subscriber information. The Magistrate Judge declined to rule on the issue (pdf), but did give them the ex parte discovery order they were looking for."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an attempt to change the rules of the game, the RIAA secretly went to a federal district court in Denver with an ex parte application. The goal was to get the judge to rule that the federal Cable Communications Policy Act does not apply to the RIAA's attempts to get subscriber information (pdf) from cable companies. Just to clarify, ex parte means that the application was secret, no one else — neither the ISP nor the subscribers — were given notice that this was going on. They were, in effect, asking the Court to rule that the RIAA does not need to get a court order to be able to force an ISP to disclose confidential subscriber information. The Magistrate Judge declined to rule on the issue (pdf), but did give them the ex parte discovery order they were looking for."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA is now challenging the counterclaims (PDF) in Atlantic v. Andersen, for Electronic Trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Invasion of Privacy, Fraud, Negligent Misrepresentation, the tort of Outrage, Deceptive Business Practices under Oregon Trade Practices Act, and Oregon RICO, first discussed here in October 2005. The RIAA has moved to dismiss the counterclaims (PDF) brought by a disabled single mother in Oregon who lives on Social Security Disability and has never engaged in file sharing, this after unsuccessfully trying to force the face-to-face deposition of Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old daughter. Ms. Andersen's lawyer has filed opposition papers (PDF)."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA is now challenging the counterclaims (PDF) in Atlantic v. Andersen, for Electronic Trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Invasion of Privacy, Fraud, Negligent Misrepresentation, the tort of Outrage, Deceptive Business Practices under Oregon Trade Practices Act, and Oregon RICO, first discussed here in October 2005. The RIAA has moved to dismiss the counterclaims (PDF) brought by a disabled single mother in Oregon who lives on Social Security Disability and has never engaged in file sharing, this after unsuccessfully trying to force the face-to-face deposition of Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old daughter. Ms. Andersen's lawyer has filed opposition papers (PDF)."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA is now challenging the counterclaims (PDF) in Atlantic v. Andersen, for Electronic Trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Invasion of Privacy, Fraud, Negligent Misrepresentation, the tort of Outrage, Deceptive Business Practices under Oregon Trade Practices Act, and Oregon RICO, first discussed here in October 2005. The RIAA has moved to dismiss the counterclaims (PDF) brought by a disabled single mother in Oregon who lives on Social Security Disability and has never engaged in file sharing, this after unsuccessfully trying to force the face-to-face deposition of Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old daughter. Ms. Andersen's lawyer has filed opposition papers (PDF)."

Ravi writes "In recent times, blogs have empowered numerous individuals and groups by allowing them a platform to air their thoughts. This has been made possible because of the development of numerous blogging tools. One which has gained mass appeal in the blogging community is Wordpress. What is exciting about this tool or blog engine is that even a lay person can easily master its use and get his or her blog up and running in no time." Wordpress Complete author Hasin Hayder pages 290 publisher Packt Publishing rating 8 reviewer Ravi ISBN 1904811892 summary A very good book to learn to use Wordpress to ones advantage

Wordpress Complete authored by Hasin Hayder and published by Packt Publishing is a book ideal for any beginning blogger who intends to set up his/her own Wordpress blog. The book is divided into 10 distinct chapters with each chapter describing a particular feature of the Wordpress blog.

I found the book unique in that instead of jumping right into installing and configuring Wordpress, the author takes time to explain the concept of a blog and the different ways in which you can blog. All the blogs irrespective of the blogging engine being used share some common terminology. This is explained in the very first chapter. In the same chapter, the readers are given a bird's eye view of the different blogging engines — both the free ones and those which cost money. The readers are made aware of the pros and cons of each of them.

Installing Wordpress is easy. It is a two step install process. However when you intend to host a Wordpress blog on a remote host, a few factors come into play depending upon what is offered by your web hosting provider. There is more than one way of installing a Wordpress blog on a remote host. This is dealt with clearly in the second chapter.

The third chapter covers choosing and installing themes, the different types of themes and their file composition.

The fourth chapter titled "Blogging your heart out", embarks on an extensive trip explaining the concept of posts and different ways of adding posts in Wordpress such as posting via email. Apart from that, this chapter contains an exhaustive introduction to the rich text editing interface which is the default editor. One also gets to know more about the features common to all blogs such as trackbacks, pinging as well as some Wordpress specific features.

You might wonder why you should buy a Wordpress book when the bulk of the documentation is freely available online. You will find this book to be a very good asset for beginner Wordpress bloggers because the author introduces a wealth of information which will require a lot of digging online to find. For example, the author explains how to put together an image gallery in Wordpress which I was not aware of before I read the book.

Chapter 6 deals with the all important topic of Feeds and Podcasts. There are four different feed formats and Wordpress supports all of them. Feeds are an easy way for the visitors of a site to keep track of the most recent changes in the content of a website.

While the first 6 chapters are targeted at Wordpress users, the remaining 4 chapters are more useful for Wordpress developers. On that note, developing themes form the basis of the 7th chapter. Here the author demonstrates how to build a theme by starting from scratch. Wordpress is essentially an amalgamation of PHP code, CSS and standards compliant HTML and this chapter has a fair sprinkling of code snippets with explanation. After going through the chapter, I was able to get a very good idea of the different files and their content which form the heart of Wordpress.

The next chapter titled "Community Blogging" provides a brief outline of a parallel project of Wordpress which is the Multi-user Wordpress and goes by the name Wordpress MU.

Chapter 9 titled "Developing plug-ins and widgets" is a very interesting chapter with the author explaining the process of creating widgets which are small bits of code incorporating third party functionality.

There is also an exclusive chapter which acts as an administrative reference where a number of problems that Wordpress administrators might face and their possible solutions are listed.

The book takes a reader from the installation to the configuration of every aspect of Wordpress to eventually give some troubleshooting tips. There is no dearth of relevant screenshots. The language used is clear and to the point. The author also provides Web references in many places. In short, I found this book to be an ideal resource for bloggers who wish to host their blog on Wordpress.

Ravi Kumar likes to share his thoughts on all things related to GNU/Linux, Open Source and Free Software on his blog linuxhelp.blogspot.com.

You can purchase Wordpress Complete from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Ravi writes "In recent times, blogs have empowered numerous individuals and groups by allowing them a platform to air their thoughts. This has been made possible because of the development of numerous blogging tools. One which has gained mass appeal in the blogging community is Wordpress. What is exciting about this tool or blog engine is that even a lay person can easily master its use and get his or her blog up and running in no time." Wordpress Complete author Hasin Hayder pages 290 publisher Packt Publishing rating 8 reviewer Ravi ISBN 1904811892 summary A very good book to learn to use Wordpress to ones advantage

Wordpress Complete authored by Hasin Hayder and published by Packt Publishing is a book ideal for any beginning blogger who intends to set up his/her own Wordpress blog. The book is divided into 10 distinct chapters with each chapter describing a particular feature of the Wordpress blog.

I found the book unique in that instead of jumping right into installing and configuring Wordpress, the author takes time to explain the concept of a blog and the different ways in which you can blog. All the blogs irrespective of the blogging engine being used share some common terminology. This is explained in the very first chapter. In the same chapter, the readers are given a bird's eye view of the different blogging engines — both the free ones and those which cost money. The readers are made aware of the pros and cons of each of them.

Installing Wordpress is easy. It is a two step install process. However when you intend to host a Wordpress blog on a remote host, a few factors come into play depending upon what is offered by your web hosting provider. There is more than one way of installing a Wordpress blog on a remote host. This is dealt with clearly in the second chapter.

The third chapter covers choosing and installing themes, the different types of themes and their file composition.

The fourth chapter titled "Blogging your heart out", embarks on an extensive trip explaining the concept of posts and different ways of adding posts in Wordpress such as posting via email. Apart from that, this chapter contains an exhaustive introduction to the rich text editing interface which is the default editor. One also gets to know more about the features common to all blogs such as trackbacks, pinging as well as some Wordpress specific features.

You might wonder why you should buy a Wordpress book when the bulk of the documentation is freely available online. You will find this book to be a very good asset for beginner Wordpress bloggers because the author introduces a wealth of information which will require a lot of digging online to find. For example, the author explains how to put together an image gallery in Wordpress which I was not aware of before I read the book.

Chapter 6 deals with the all important topic of Feeds and Podcasts. There are four different feed formats and Wordpress supports all of them. Feeds are an easy way for the visitors of a site to keep track of the most recent changes in the content of a website.

While the first 6 chapters are targeted at Wordpress users, the remaining 4 chapters are more useful for Wordpress developers. On that note, developing themes form the basis of the 7th chapter. Here the author demonstrates how to build a theme by starting from scratch. Wordpress is essentially an amalgamation of PHP code, CSS and standards compliant HTML and this chapter has a fair sprinkling of code snippets with explanation. After going through the chapter, I was able to get a very good idea of the different files and their content which form the heart of Wordpress.

The next chapter titled "Community Blogging" provides a brief outline of a parallel project of Wordpress which is the Multi-user Wordpress and goes by the name Wordpress MU.

Chapter 9 titled "Developing plug-ins and widgets" is a very interesting chapter with the author explaining the process of creating widgets which are small bits of code incorporating third party functionality.

There is also an exclusive chapter which acts as an administrative reference where a number of problems that Wordpress administrators might face and their possible solutions are listed.

The book takes a reader from the installation to the configuration of every aspect of Wordpress to eventually give some troubleshooting tips. There is no dearth of relevant screenshots. The language used is clear and to the point. The author also provides Web references in many places. In short, I found this book to be an ideal resource for bloggers who wish to host their blog on Wordpress.

Ravi Kumar likes to share his thoughts on all things related to GNU/Linux, Open Source and Free Software on his blog linuxhelp.blogspot.com.

You can purchase Wordpress Complete from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge Lee R. West in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has rejected the arguments made by the RIAA in support of its 'reconsideration' motion in Capitol v. Foster as 'disingenuous' and 'not true,' and accused the RIAA of 'questionable motives.' The decision (PDF) reaffirmed Judge West's earlier decision that defendant Debbie Foster is entitled to be reimbursed for her attorneys fees." Read more for NewYorkCountryLawyer's summary of the smackdown.
The Court, among other things, emphasized the Supreme Court's holding in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. that "because copyright law ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works, it is peculiarly important that the boundaries of copyright law be demarcated as clearly as possible. Thus, a defendant seeking to advance meritorious copyright defenses should be encouraged to litigate them to the same extent that plaintiffs are encouraged to litigate meritorious infringement claims." Judge West also noted that he had found the RIAA's claims against the defendant to be "untested and marginal" and its "motives to be questionable in light of the facts of the case"; that the RIAA's primary argument for its motion — that the earlier decision had failed to list the "Fogerty factors" — was belied by unpublished opinions in which the RIAA had itself been involved; that the RIAA's argument that it could have proved a case against Ms. Foster had it not dropped the case was "disingenuous"; and that the RIAA's factual statements about the settlement history of the case were "not true." This is the same case in which an amicus brief had been filed by the ACLU, Public Citizen, EFF, AALL, and ACLU-Oklahoma in support of the attorneys fees motion, the RIAA questioned the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's lawyer's fees and was then ordered to turn over its own attorneys billing records, which ruling it complied with only reluctantly.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge Lee R. West in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has rejected the arguments made by the RIAA in support of its 'reconsideration' motion in Capitol v. Foster as 'disingenuous' and 'not true,' and accused the RIAA of 'questionable motives.' The decision (PDF) reaffirmed Judge West's earlier decision that defendant Debbie Foster is entitled to be reimbursed for her attorneys fees." Read more for NewYorkCountryLawyer's summary of the smackdown.
The Court, among other things, emphasized the Supreme Court's holding in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. that "because copyright law ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works, it is peculiarly important that the boundaries of copyright law be demarcated as clearly as possible. Thus, a defendant seeking to advance meritorious copyright defenses should be encouraged to litigate them to the same extent that plaintiffs are encouraged to litigate meritorious infringement claims." Judge West also noted that he had found the RIAA's claims against the defendant to be "untested and marginal" and its "motives to be questionable in light of the facts of the case"; that the RIAA's primary argument for its motion — that the earlier decision had failed to list the "Fogerty factors" — was belied by unpublished opinions in which the RIAA had itself been involved; that the RIAA's argument that it could have proved a case against Ms. Foster had it not dropped the case was "disingenuous"; and that the RIAA's factual statements about the settlement history of the case were "not true." This is the same case in which an amicus brief had been filed by the ACLU, Public Citizen, EFF, AALL, and ACLU-Oklahoma in support of the attorneys fees motion, the RIAA questioned the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's lawyer's fees and was then ordered to turn over its own attorneys billing records, which ruling it complied with only reluctantly.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge Lee R. West in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has rejected the arguments made by the RIAA in support of its 'reconsideration' motion in Capitol v. Foster as 'disingenuous' and 'not true,' and accused the RIAA of 'questionable motives.' The decision (PDF) reaffirmed Judge West's earlier decision that defendant Debbie Foster is entitled to be reimbursed for her attorneys fees." Read more for NewYorkCountryLawyer's summary of the smackdown.
The Court, among other things, emphasized the Supreme Court's holding in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. that "because copyright law ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works, it is peculiarly important that the boundaries of copyright law be demarcated as clearly as possible. Thus, a defendant seeking to advance meritorious copyright defenses should be encouraged to litigate them to the same extent that plaintiffs are encouraged to litigate meritorious infringement claims." Judge West also noted that he had found the RIAA's claims against the defendant to be "untested and marginal" and its "motives to be questionable in light of the facts of the case"; that the RIAA's primary argument for its motion — that the earlier decision had failed to list the "Fogerty factors" — was belied by unpublished opinions in which the RIAA had itself been involved; that the RIAA's argument that it could have proved a case against Ms. Foster had it not dropped the case was "disingenuous"; and that the RIAA's factual statements about the settlement history of the case were "not true." This is the same case in which an amicus brief had been filed by the ACLU, Public Citizen, EFF, AALL, and ACLU-Oklahoma in support of the attorneys fees motion, the RIAA questioned the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's lawyer's fees and was then ordered to turn over its own attorneys billing records, which ruling it complied with only reluctantly.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge Lee R. West in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has rejected the arguments made by the RIAA in support of its 'reconsideration' motion in Capitol v. Foster as 'disingenuous' and 'not true,' and accused the RIAA of 'questionable motives.' The decision (PDF) reaffirmed Judge West's earlier decision that defendant Debbie Foster is entitled to be reimbursed for her attorneys fees." Read more for NewYorkCountryLawyer's summary of the smackdown.
The Court, among other things, emphasized the Supreme Court's holding in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. that "because copyright law ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works, it is peculiarly important that the boundaries of copyright law be demarcated as clearly as possible. Thus, a defendant seeking to advance meritorious copyright defenses should be encouraged to litigate them to the same extent that plaintiffs are encouraged to litigate meritorious infringement claims." Judge West also noted that he had found the RIAA's claims against the defendant to be "untested and marginal" and its "motives to be questionable in light of the facts of the case"; that the RIAA's primary argument for its motion — that the earlier decision had failed to list the "Fogerty factors" — was belied by unpublished opinions in which the RIAA had itself been involved; that the RIAA's argument that it could have proved a case against Ms. Foster had it not dropped the case was "disingenuous"; and that the RIAA's factual statements about the settlement history of the case were "not true." This is the same case in which an amicus brief had been filed by the ACLU, Public Citizen, EFF, AALL, and ACLU-Oklahoma in support of the attorneys fees motion, the RIAA questioned the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's lawyer's fees and was then ordered to turn over its own attorneys billing records, which ruling it complied with only reluctantly.

RockoTDF writes "A court in texas has ruled that an open WAP is not a sufficient defense against child pornography charges, a ruling which could carry over to p2p users. In addition, it appears that an open WAP could be seen as probable cause by law enforcement."

Oddscurity writes "According to The Inquirer someone managed to write a wrapper allowing DirectX 10 applications to run on platforms other than Vista. The Alky Project claims to have reverse-engineered Geometry Shader code, allowing Windows games to run on Windows XP, MacOSX and Linux. The Inquirer is understandably cautious about these claims, urging readers to investigate the releases themselves to ascertain whether or not it's a hoax."

UnreasonableMan writes to let us know that Robert Bussard, the fusion researcher whose talk at Google was discussed here a few months back, has won continued funding from the Navy. The word on this spread from Kent Brewster at the Speculations blog, who reportedly had the word from Bussard himself. (The link is to another blog that reproduces Brewster's post, because Speculations has no permalink.)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY v. Arellanes, an RIAA case in Sherman, Texas, the Court entered a protective order (PDF) that spells out the following procedure for the RIAA's examination of the defendant's hard drive: (1) RIAA imaging specialist makes mirror image of hard drive; (2) mutually acceptable computer forensics expert makes make two verified bit images, and creates an MD5 or equivalent hash code; (3) one mirror image is held in escrow by the expert, the other given to defendant's lawyer for a 'privilege review'; (4) defendant's lawyer provides plaintiffs' lawyer with a 'privilege log' (list of privileged files); (5) after privilege questions are resolved, the escrowed image — with privileged files deleted — will be turned over to RIAA lawyers, to be held for 'lawyers' eyes only.' The order differs from the earlier order (PDF) entered in the case, in that it (a) permits the RIAA's own imaging person to make the initial mirror image and (b) spells out the details of the method for safeguarding privilege and privacy."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY v. Arellanes, an RIAA case in Sherman, Texas, the Court entered a protective order (PDF) that spells out the following procedure for the RIAA's examination of the defendant's hard drive: (1) RIAA imaging specialist makes mirror image of hard drive; (2) mutually acceptable computer forensics expert makes make two verified bit images, and creates an MD5 or equivalent hash code; (3) one mirror image is held in escrow by the expert, the other given to defendant's lawyer for a 'privilege review'; (4) defendant's lawyer provides plaintiffs' lawyer with a 'privilege log' (list of privileged files); (5) after privilege questions are resolved, the escrowed image — with privileged files deleted — will be turned over to RIAA lawyers, to be held for 'lawyers' eyes only.' The order differs from the earlier order (PDF) entered in the case, in that it (a) permits the RIAA's own imaging person to make the initial mirror image and (b) spells out the details of the method for safeguarding privilege and privacy."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY v. Arellanes, an RIAA case in Sherman, Texas, the Court entered a protective order (PDF) that spells out the following procedure for the RIAA's examination of the defendant's hard drive: (1) RIAA imaging specialist makes mirror image of hard drive; (2) mutually acceptable computer forensics expert makes make two verified bit images, and creates an MD5 or equivalent hash code; (3) one mirror image is held in escrow by the expert, the other given to defendant's lawyer for a 'privilege review'; (4) defendant's lawyer provides plaintiffs' lawyer with a 'privilege log' (list of privileged files); (5) after privilege questions are resolved, the escrowed image — with privileged files deleted — will be turned over to RIAA lawyers, to be held for 'lawyers' eyes only.' The order differs from the earlier order (PDF) entered in the case, in that it (a) permits the RIAA's own imaging person to make the initial mirror image and (b) spells out the details of the method for safeguarding privilege and privacy."

dominique_cimafranca writes "Discover Magazine has an interesting article on mapping the blogosphere, reporting on the work of Matthew Hurst. Hurst put together a 3D map of the blogosphere, with bright spots represent sites with the highest number of links and isolated islands represent closed communities like LiveJournal. The study also identifies other islands like sociopolitical commentary, gadget hounds, sports fans, and, um, porn blogs."

The Beta has been going on for some time now, and for all intents and purposes Lord of the Rings Online has launched. Pre-order players will be able to move their characters to the live game when the title officially lights up on April 24th, and commentators on Massively Multiplayer games have weighed in. Their opinion, generally, is unanimous: buy it. Tobold contributes a full-on review, as does CVG. AFK Gamer doesn't go in for such long-form opinions, but he still has a lot to say. Specifically, Foton comments on the good, the okay, and the bad, as well as a few words on the game's (somewhat out of the ordinary) classes. "[The game is] deep and broad. An MMOG, any MMOG, with its premium box price and its premium subscription prices, needs to offer more activities than: you can kill stuff, and, umm, you can kill other players, and umm, you could check the auctions/trade channel. There's many ways to screw around in this MMOG: Deeds, accomplishments, exploration (easy to outrun higher level mobs), titles, player-made music, engaging quest text, a solid start to the crafting system, MONSTER PLAY!!! There's probably more, but that's all I've tried so far."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a Houston, Texas, case, UMG v. Hightower, the RIAA has served a subpoena on the defendant's son, a high school student, on one day's notice, telling him to be at a lawyer's office at 9:00 a.m. the next day, a school day, for a deposition. The defendant's lawyer objected (PDF)."