Slashdot Mirror

Doug Muth writes "According to this article over on DSL Reports, yet another spyware author, iDownload, has been sending out cease and desist letters to sites that classify their iSearch toolbar as Spyware. Some research reveals that yes, iSearch really does take over users' computers. A search on Spyware Guide also turns up a writeup on iSearch."

Slashback is back, with a boatload of updates, clarifications, and corrections to make previous Slashdot stories make more sense. This week, there are bits on BitKeeper, Microsoft's update policy when it comes to illegally copied versions of Windows, a change in schedule for an upcoming games panel, and more. Read on for the details.

The real requirements for Longhorn, at least at this juncture. Cryoknight writes "It seems that Longhorn will run on almost anything that's a P4 or better, judging by this article from C|Net News. You only need a 64mb graphics card to run the slickest version..."

(That's in contrast with earlier reports that the average Longhorn system would be hefty indeed; of course, listed minimums and recommendations are often worlds apart.)

How many bits could Mandrake chuck if Mandrake could chuck bits? Shipud writes "Speaking of AMD beating Intel, Mandrake have just released their v.10 for AMD64. Claiming to be on the average 20% faster, and compatible with 32-bit applications." As usual, it's never a good time to buy a computer.

The War Of The Word, Part II Random Guru 42 writes "Chris Pratley, whose earlier blog entry was the source of much discussion [referring to this Slashdot post of April 27], has just recently replied to everyone's feedback both here and as comments on that earlier entry."

Gentoo Community Reaches Out to Daniel Robbins nporter writes "Slashdot reported the news that Daniel Robbins has stepped down as chief architect of Gentoo Linux. It was revealed that due to his commitment to Gentoo he racked up a hefty personal debt of $20,000. The Gentoo Community is showing its appreciation to its founder in droves by placing donations to the Gentoo Store, proceeds of which will go toward paying down Robbins' debt. I count over a thousand dollars (and growing rapidly) has already been donated, just based upon posts to the forums. It's great to see Linux users coming together like this to show support for someone who has contributed so much to the Linux community."

Bitkeeper redux, redux. gosand writes "Part two of the two-part interview with Bitkeeper author Larry McVoy is up at Newsforge. (Part 1 was posted here yesterday). They essentially talk about why and how BK fits into the kernel development model. There are only two questions, one answered by Larry, and one answered by Linus. Maybe that is because BK makes them 2.5x as efficient, and they can answer everything in just one answer each. :-)"

MS Clarifies: No SP2 For Pirated XP Copies PingXao writes "Unlike earlier reports, this eWeek story says MS will not be allowing pirated versions of Windows XP to install SP2. They plan to release the update within a couple of months as everybody knows, but what's interesting is this quote from a MS spokesperson that supposedly explains their reasons for this approach: "... using genuine software is an important part of keeping systems secure and running smoothly because it means continued access to the latest security enhancements and product updates." Not that I blame them for not providing assistance to people who violate their copyrights, but I wonder if they actually paid someone to come up with that insightful explanation. Something like "We don't provide updates to pirates" would have done the trick. Why cloud the issue with talk about secure this and security that when the basis for the policy has absolutely nothing to do with security?"

Games panel at Smithsonian - update tripmaster writes "For those slashdotters that tried to get a ticket but were foiled by the smaller venue, the panel on games with Shigeru Miyamoto, Richard Garfield and Doug Church being held Sunday, May 16th at the Smithsonian in Washington DC has been moved to a bigger space. Miyamoto should be showing the same highlights of his latest game as premiered at E3. Questions from the audience will be collected and posed to the speakers -- a rare chance to ask query some of games' most visionary and influential creators."

Off again, on again. Doug Muth writes "According to this piece on Yahoo, the restraining order which was issued against SpamCop on May 10th has been dissolved by the judge who further remarked that, 'the TRO [entered May 10] was not a determination of the merits of the case.'"

Doug Muth writes: "Earlier today, I came across an old document on Lars Wirzenius's website titled Linux Anecdotes, which tells about the side of Linux that we never knew. An excerpt: 'At one point, Linus had implemented device files in /dev, and wanted to dial up the university computer and debug his terminal emulation code again. So he starts his terminal emulator program and tells it to use /dev/hda. That should have been /dev/ttyS1. Oops. Now his master boot record started with "ATDT" and the university modem pool phone number. I think he implemented permission checking the following day. '"

Doug Muth writes: "I found this advertisement over on Dennis Ritchie's Web site. It's an advertisement for a UNIX system back from 1981 when VAX-11 and PDP-11 systems were still being used. I wonder if Ritchie ever thought UNIX would get this popular?"

Doug Muth asks: "Does anyone have any suggestions for a specific brand of tape drive I should purchase to use under Linux? SCSI tape drives are expensive (plus they require you to get a SCSI adapeter), so I've been looking at some IDE TR-4 tape drives. However, according Red Hat's Hardware Compatibility List, while IDE tape drives are "compatible", Red Hat does not support them." Anyone willing to pass along some helpful suggestions and/or more informaiton on the Red Hat/TR-4 issue?

Doug Muth shares an "article in Wired News about the CTO of a company, Matrixcubed, who is being denied admission to Comdex - because he is 17 and you must be 18 to attend. This is really sad that Comdex is ignoring the realities of the IT industry like this." The profitable company was founded, by the now-17-year-old CTO, three years ago.

Update: 10/22 14:00 by michael : eswierk writes "After reading the Wired article about Mike Lavers being too young for Comdex, I immediately dashed off a email to Comdex imploring them to stop being a Big Dumb Corporation and admit the kid. Who knew I'd get a reply from the VP. I don't normally distribute personal email, but this seems like one worth repeating to those foaming at the mouth.

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 08:56:40 -0400
From: Bill Sell
Subject: Re: Mike Lavers too young for Comdex

Ed, as far as I can tell, Mike never asked anyone in management about attending. This is a case of the Internet gone amok again with a fable and fiction, not fact. Too bad.

Bill Sell
Vice President & General Manager, COMDEX"

I'm not sure I see the foaming, however. According to the original Wired article, COMDEX was contacted and refused to make an exception for their policy, then refused to comment to Wired News. And of course, Sell still hasn't offered to actually let Lavers or any other under-agers attend. Where's the fiction, where's the fable? More than likely, COMDEX's insurance coverage is based upon only adults being present, and would be difficult to change at this late date, which is why they don't want to change their policy now; but that's no excuse for not having anticipated younger attendees in the first place, or for trying to spin it after the fact as an internet fable. COMDEX might do better to solve the problem instead of spinning it.

Doug Muth writes "There is an article on MSNBC's website that talks about a recent bout of spam that seriously bogged down some of the mailservers delaying message delivery for some users by "several hours". Maybe now that they got hit in the face with a spamming incident Congress will finally try to write some decent anti-spam legislation. " Heh - an aide to Rep. Alcee hastings (D-FL) sent out an e-mail to hundreds, potentially thousands of people on an internal mailing list - no BCC or majordomo, so when people hit "Reply All"...well. You can imagine the fun that ensued. The great part is that the letter was apparently recommending a weight loss pill.

Doug Muth writes "There is an article in Wired that talks about a bug in their Pentium III Xeon chips that causes crashes when "when a system is pushed to its highest performance limit", whatever that is supposed to mean. Fortunately, the bug is only present in two specific variations of the chip, the 550 Mhz versions that have either 512 K or 1 Meg of secondary cache. Intel is also working on a bugfix for the problem. " Furthermore, the bug seems to be only present in Intel-brand motherboards, (Sabre). Intel has stopped shipping the board, but not the chip.

Doug Muth writes "On Eric Raymond's website, he has just put a graph depicting the growth of Fetchmail over the last few years. It's rather interesting that the number of participants in the project has only grown linearly - not what one would expect from an open source project. Anyone have ideas as to why this less than expected growth might be?"

Doug Muth writes "According to this article in Wired News, there is a company that is taking bets on which disasters will occur when Y2K comes around. Think a commercial airliner will go down? That's 300-1 odds. Think armageddon will occur? That's 1,000,000-1 odds, though even if you win, I think collecting on that bet would be a bit pointless."

Doug Muth writes "There is an article in Wired about 30 nuclear power plants in the U.S. that still aren't Y2K compliant. The article goes on to explain how the feds have been trying to downplay the severity of the situation, but for some reason the initials TMI seem to come to mind... "

Doug Muth writes "There's an article in Wired News about some of the perks that companies in Silicon Valley offer their employees. Maybe I should start working at Adaptec so I can get tickets for Episode 2 when it comes out... " Charging bays for electric cars, massages, lactation rooms. Its just a bit scary.

Doug Muth writes "There's an article in Wired about Yahoo taking over Geocities and how they now claim to own the intellectual rights to all webpages that users have on there. That's scary, since under this contract, anyone who has a page on Geocities no longer has the rights to what they have created. "