Slashdot Mirror

icantblvitsnotbutter writes "With Mandrake Linux 9.1 right around the corner, it's OSNews first out of the gates with a review of this desktop-oriented distro's latest release. The review is actually pretty bland, skimming the surface to linger on some of Eugenia's pet peeves. Having used 9.1 in a production environment since beta 3, I can say that the improvements to the installation and the signature Mandrake tools are much-appreciated. Don't forget that Mandrake Club members get their own set of mirrors, as well as being eligible for extras like the voting process that selected the packages for the 9.1 release." Update: 03/25 18:29 GMT by T : anyweb also points out a review of Red Hat Linux 9 on the same site, writing "an informative article -- well I had to say that, I wrote it ;-)"

Scott McChesney asks: "Where I live seems to be filled with Gamers but there are almost no places that rent console games. This got me thinking about opening one of my own but I have no clue about the licensing of such a thing. X-Box games all say on the back that buying the game does not give you the ability to rent it. I'm wondering what one has to do to be able to legally rent out video games?"

Tonetheman writes "Here is a neat link that will let you take a 3D tour of the linux kernel source code tree. The MPEG shows how the differeny parts of the source tree are linked... sort of if you have a good imagination. Cool stuff though!"

MoeMoe writes "Well I was just watching Cartoon Network and it looks like Trigun will begin airing in just a couple of weeks. The CN website gives a brief description here" Trigun is among my favorite anime series. It gets a little crazy by the end, but for the most part it's pretty lighthearted fun, with some great action. CN sure seems to love the Anime Sci Fi Westerns. I wonder if they'll carry some of the fluffier stuff besides Tenchi. Love Hina would be a fun choice. Or Excel Saga.

orangerobot writes "ViewSonic has released an interesting new box that turns any VGA monitor into an HDTV video display with support for standards up to 1080i. At $399 it's a little on the pricey side, but according to the review from EnvyNews, the unit performs pretty well." Like the review, I can't figure out what the target market for this is, but it's still a cool device.

RJ Mansfield writes "MSNBC is running a story on users attempting to con their cable companies being connned. The high-cost filter being sold on Ebay and through email Spam to bypass Pay-Per-View (PPV) digital cable systems is a readily available filter that only temporarily blocks the PPV charges. Users are getting shocked when the cable company then bills the cable user for all of the ordered PPV."

orangerobot writes "The latest issue of Fast Company has an article about how Google has managed to survive beyond its peers and develop a culture of openness and innovation. The article also mentions Google memes and spin-offs such as: Googlewhack, Googlebombing, Googleshare, Googlism and Google Smackdown."

orangerobot writes "Tim Bray, one of the co-authors of the original XML 1.0 specification has a new entry on his website explaining why he's been feeling unsatisified lately with XML and says his last experience writing code for handling XML was 'irritating, time-consuming, and error-prone.' XML has always a divided response among the technical community. The anti-XML community has several sites stating their positions."

Econolinecrush writes "If even exotic water-cooling isn't enough for your processor cooling needs, there's always vapor-phase cooling. The Tech Report has an interesting review of Asetek's latest Vapochill system, an admittedly pricey cooling option, but one that manages to fight off condensation while keeping even high-end processors running at sub-zero temperatures. A little extreme? Sure, but it's undeniably cool nonetheless." I haven't seen a cooling system this intense since my organic chemistry labs.

theBrownfury writes "Mozilla 1.3 is out and about. New to this version are features like image auto sizing, bayesian junk-mail filtering, dynamic profile switching, about:config for a pretty view into all of Mozilla's "secret" settings, an initial version of Midas for rich text editing, and a lot of other fixes for performance, standards compliance and site compatability. Also with 1.3 Mozilla is now applying machine learning to improve the autocomplete feature. Mozilla 1.3 is now the official stable release from mozilla.org. Users of all previous versions should upgrade to 1.3 for the latest in features and stability. More info at the 1.3 release page and discussions at mozillaZine.org."

sietekk writes "The video game industry told a federal appeals court on Wednesday that it has the same rights to free speech as moviemakers and publishers and urged the court to overturn a local government ban on the sale of violent video games to minors. Appearing before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for the Interactive Digital Software Association, which represents the video game industry, argued that a lower court ruling upholding St. Louis County's restrictions on game sales should be overturned as unconstitutional."

eugene ts wong asks: "There have been a quite a few stories lately of governments cutting budgets and seriously examining the use of Linux in their offices. I'm getting the strong impression that the majority of government desktops will become Linux desktops. Is this true? As of right now, how many US state governments and Canadian provincial governments -do not- use Linux for their work stations? As of right now, how many -do not- intend on installing Linux? I think that knowing this is important so that we can direct our attention to the appropriate governments, in hopes of helping them to make the correct choice."

spot35 writes "Maybe the gaming industry isn't as healthy as I thought. Peter Moluneux has gone on record stating that creating a successful video game is too expensive for the smaller developers. According to this BBC article he suggests that the government helps the smaller developers to keep them afloat. This other article gives a very brief profile of the man."

roman_mir writes "Wired reports that a 16 year old teenager had a hole in his heart (a nail gun accident,) which was repaired by injecting stem cells directly into his heart. What is interesting is that the stem cells were taken from the boy's own blood."

Tzaquiel asks: "I've recently gotten involved with a local computer recycling operation. We see quite a variety of machines pass through our hands, from the foolish corporate Pentium III discards to individual donations of Ataris and 286s. Some do end up scrapped for recycling, but most of the machines are tested, refurbished, and given (OS-less, for now) to various charities who find homes for them. I've shown off Linux in-shop on various machines, and the reaction has been positive. But we move a lot of boxes, some very old. Installing Debian on every one of these is not possible (due to time constraints, and end-user confusion) and neither is imaging the hard drive with a properly tweaked distro (hardware variance). Does there exist a distro on 3-7 floppies that would be suitable for use by the unwashed masses? Proponents of Linux speak often of its being able to draw usability blood from a 386 stone - does there exist a distro that can do this without a massive time commitment for every machine involved? Every distribution I've examined thus far has assumed you either have fairly decent hardware or the time to fool around with things if you don't. What I need is a quick-and-dirty, minimal-expendability, floppy-based graphical word-processing-and-web-browsing affair that is right at home on machines that probably should just be left to die. For all the talk of 'Linux and old hardware will be a blessing upon the third world', I would think something like this wouldn't be so hard to find. Surely, if Microsoft did it with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 a decade ago, it can be done better in Linux now?"

Garp writes "According to the BBC News website, the U.S. has finally decided to join the international Fusion project, Iter, along with China, with the aim of building the worlds first commercially viable Fusion reactor. Fusion is one of the cleanest forms of energy conversion, excluding renewable natural sources, like wind farms, tidal generators, and solar cells."

Slashback tonight brings you updates on TurboTax and your boot sector, NASA's plans beyond the shuttle, Barry Shein on spam, Linux telemetry, and more. Read on for the details!

I'd prefer an apology from the IRS. Rico writes "Intuit have spoken out about the CD-protection methods of their TurboTax software. According to them, the protection is harmless to computers and does not erase data. Despite the huge negative customer feedback, Intuit are still profiting from the product."

Train the dog, then never call the command. Mitch Wagner writes "Barry Shein, subject of this week's /. interview, proposes in "ISP Head Floats Plan To Legalize Spam" that spam is impossible to block, and so instead should be legitimized and regulated, with a central, not-for-profit company charged with collecting fees from spammers and distributing those fees to ISPs that receive the spam. Of course, there have been many other plans for charging spammers to send spam, but those plans mostly have the fees going to the ISP that sends the e-mail, or to the user that receives the mail, rather than the ISP that receives it and has to deliver it to the end-users. I'm the author of the piece I link to in this article."

Make big money as an open source telemetrist! For anyone who missed it in the Science section, there's a great followup to the Linux-based home-brewed weather balloon we recently featured: the OpenTRAC project is looking for help in building an APRS-like protocol. If that's gibberish to you, check out their introduction to the protocol to get an idea of how it's useful. Future experimenters will thank you.

One good deed escapes punishment. Psyiode writes with a link to this story at the Houston Chronicle which begins "Jurors needed only about 15 minutes to acquit a Houston man who was accused of hacking into the Harris County district clerk's wireless computer system in March. One juror, Helen Smith, 62, said she and the other jurors found that Stefan Puffer indeed hacked into the system but they did not believe he caused any damage as the government had alleged."

Puffer was arrested last summer for demonstrating that the county court's wireless LAN wasn't secure, and telling them about it.

Do we need manned spaceflight? Professor_Quail writes "The BBC has a story on NASA's plans for a successor to the Space Shuttle. From the article: Nasa has revealed its first set of mission criteria for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) - the series of space vehicle expected to replace the space shuttle from 2012. The new spacecraft's primary function will be to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and serve as a lifeboat if the station has to be evacuated."

Or do you have other plans? Finally, rufo writes "For those of you brave enough to weather the elements and meet your fellow geek, don't forget that the Slashdot Meetup is this Thursday at 7PM your local time zone. I've been to a couple and there's some rather interesting characters that show up, and the conversations are quite engaging. Highly recommended if you have nothing better to do on a Thursday evening." Hmmm, must check to see if there's one around Knoxville ...

TheTheologian writes "In his InfoWorld column, Chad Dickerson says 'there is a level of quiet discomfort between the "scripting" versus "programming" factions in some corporate development environments in which I have participated. In some instances, executive-level technology management has held scripting languages in disdain as not being "real" languages for day-to-day problem solving, which has discouraged highly talented scripters on staff from practicing their craft. In such an environment, scripters are relegated to the lower ranks ... ' He goes on to say that some companies will assign Java and C++ programmers tasks that take them weeks but could be done by Perl or Python programmers in a few hours. Is it true that some companies are so overcome with code bias they'd assign weeks of unnecessary work rather than give it to the scripting untouchables?"

The Llama King asks: "Like a good netizen, I do my part to report spam. But most Internet providers merely respond with a canned e-mail and it's hard to tell whether action was taken - or when. I know a lot of abuse desks are overwhelmed and spammers can get a free ride if they pick their targets carefully. Occasionally I'll get a personalized response, and even notification that a spammer's access and/or Web site has been nuked - but that's rare, and seems to be getting rarer. What ISPs are best at responding to spam complaints in a timely fashion, both in terms of killing e-mail accounts and shutting down sites that have been spamvertised?"

lwbecker2 asks: "Warren Harrison has written a thought-provoking editorial piece on The Software Developer as Movie Icon. He explores the fact that new entrants to Computer Science curriculum are typically clueless about what 'real' developers actually do. While researching the issue of why this is the case, he determined that some potential CS degree seekers are forming opinions from portrayals in movies and cinema. He describes what he asserts to be inaccurate portrayals of developers in War Games, TRON, and The Net, and asks for input and opinions on 'the impact of the cinema and television on new software developers' expectations, as well as learn of any films that do a better job of portraying our profession...' I am sure Slashdot readers have some input on this, and I am curious if people believe _any_ movie has acurately portrayed software developers?"

MeatWad writes "Sony has announced the SJ33 Palm OS 4 model with a high res color screen and mp3 player for $299. At the same time the FCC has leaked info on the next Palm OS 5 Clie with bluetooth and an integrated keyboard called the TG50. Sony can sure crank out the cool gadgets."

egglayingmammalophile writes "Cute, webfooted, duck beaked, cold blooded, egg laying, electrosensitive and venomous, it didn't seem possible that they could get any weirder. But now the platypus is also good for you."

caelyx asks: "I've got to evaluate various IDS solutions for use on a gigabit network. While I've had experience using and configuring snort, I haven't used many of the commercial solutions (Dragon, RealSecure, ManHunt, etc). I guess I'm mostly concerned with signature quality and depth, the power of the analysis console(s) and a robust engine that won't drop packets on a busy network. What experiences have Slashdot readers had with various NIDS or hybrid NIDS/HIDS solutions? Suggestions?" Ask Slashdot last touched this topic in this discussion, but it didn't focus on the needs for a Gigabit network. How well do the solutions mentioned therein perform on such a high end network?

Kevin writes "This story is a follow up to yesterday's part 1 (hence the name) on the changes in Perl 6. Damian Conway (design team member): "There will be some learning involved, but it isn't like learning an entirely new language," he said. "It's more like adding a few new words to your vocabulary." It seems the perl intrepreter is getting overhauled as well."

Kevin writes "This story highlights some of the features being included in Perl 6. "There will be substantial changes in the move from Perl 5 to Perl 6. We've been hamstrung for a while by the need to maintain backward compatibility all the way back to Perl 1. There are some things we want to remove, because they seemed like good ideas when they were introduced but they're more trouble than [they're worth] now."

Anonymous Hero writes "Finally after millions of years (and zillions of hiccups) New Scientist gives us an explanation for this most annoying and least obvious of adaptations!"

ditogi writes "The Harvard Political Review did a quick interview with the lord of darkness himself, Jack Valenti. He gives his thoughts on government mandated copy prevention, fair use, and lobbying. In response to his famous 'VCR is [to the movie industry]...as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.' quote, he responds, 'I wasn't opposed to the VCR.' And what does he think of his current job? 'I think lobbying is really an honest profession.'" My favorite quote: "In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless." Update: 02/05 20:05 GMT by T : Derek Slater writes "I'm the author of the Valenti article you guys linked to. I've made some brief comments about it on my site, and figured I'd send them along."

Devistater writes "The official Matrix page has word of the first officially released widescreen Anime episode of the Animatrix for download (in quicktime format). This is the first of 4 free episodes that will be released on the web. A total of 9 episodes will be availible for purchase on DVD within the next few months. The feature-quality anime shorts range in length from 6 minutes to 16 minutes. There's a trailer availible if you want to get a taste for what they will be like."

assaultriflesforfree writes "Here's a little update on quantum entanglement and teleportation from The New York Times (free registration, yay): 'Employing a facet of quantum mechanics that Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," scientists have taken particles of light, destroyed them and then resurrected copies more than a mile away.' I am a little skeptical about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle statements, though. Is this really a form of Star Trek's Heisenberg Compensator?"

chumpieboy writes "A story on Yahoo tells about about the DMA's attempts to stop a national DoNotCall list, essentially claiming that Opt Out is not a viable model for telemarketers. Yet they claim that Opt Out is a viable model for email marketing?"

Nexxpert writes "John Carmack has posted his thoughts on the NV30 vs R300 (featured via www.bluesnews.com. Highlights some of the shortcomings of Nvidia's next step as well as pointing out what they've done right. Interesting read." In particular the arb2 vs nv30 path differences mean that it's not as simple as saying "ATI roX0rs nVidia" or vice versa.(update: sorry bout the misspelling, don't know how I missed that)

Orome asks: "From the point of view of someone who wants to learn 3D Graphics programming, specifically for games, it is currently daunting to see the number of options available. Should I first learn OpenGL to understand the rudiments of 3D graphics programming, or should I try and understand the Direct3D API (which has more to offer but is less easier to understand)? With the DX9.0 SDK available, would it be advisable to jump to the next level and learn how to use the high level shading language? Since shading languages are supposed to be THE next thing in 3D programming would Cg be a better tool to learn since it is cross platform." OpenGL and DirectX are always options, but might there be something a little less daunting for those just starting out?

hackwrench points to this Boston Globe story, writing "Some guy has figured out how to use magnets to disable or enhance part of the brain." And this is on a part of the science spectrum not occupied by Alex Chiu.

PHPee writes ""Learn the concepts and build the applications..." - PHP and MySQL Web Development is a well-written web developer's guide to using these open source products to create dynamic websites quickly and easily. This book covers everything you need to design, build and debug your own website from the ground up. Special attention is paid real-world issues, like database normalization and site security. Overall, a great reference for beginner and more advanced programmers alike." Read on for the rest of his review. PHP and MySQL Web Development author Luke Welling & Laura Thomson pages 896 publisher Sams rating 9/10 reviewer PHPee ISBN 0672317842 summary From hello world to e-commerce in under 900 pages...

The authors of the book (Luke Welling and Laura Thomson) do a great job of introducing new programmers to the world of PHP and MySQL. The book is divided into five sections which take the beginner programmer through many lessons in solid, secure web programming.

Part One Starting with the "PHP Crash Course," the reader quickly learns the syntax and language constructs of PHP. The following five chapters focus on topics such as arrays, string manipulation, writing functions and object-oriented PHP. This provides a solid foundation in PHP before moving on to the intricacies of MySQL. This section is very hands-on, using realistic examples, which could be expanded upon as skills progress.

Part Two The following section focuses on MySQL, starting by explaining the advantages of a relational database vs. a flat file storage system. The book assumes no knowledge of databases, explaining simple terms such as tables, columns, rows, etc. It then progresses on to the fun stuff, like designing databases for the web and normalization.

Particular attention is placed on MySQL's privilege system, including proper use of the GRANT/REVOKE commands to give/take away rights for database users. This section is quite detailed and offers a lot more information than I expected. The various column types and associated keywords are also examined in great detail, providing the reader with a solid understanding of MySQL's main features.

Part Three Part Three of the book examines the issues associated with running an e-commerce site. This section is nicely done, looking at common mistakes and how to avoid them. These include things like server security, data backups, keeping detailed logs and dealing with other threats, such as crackers, denial of service attacks and destruction of data. Authentication methods and encryption schemes are also thoroughly covered.

Part Four This section of the book expands on part one, delving into some more advanced PHP techniques, such as interacting with the file system, using network and protocol functions and generating images on the fly with the gd library.

This section also looks at PHP's powerful session functions, including using sessions with authentication and the use of cookies.

Part Five This is by far the most exciting section of the book. Here the reader is presented with seven real-world examples that utilize most of the issues presented throughout the book. These practical projects are presented in an easy to follow manner. The basic problem is presented, and then a solution is proposed. The authors take you from start to finish, outlining the database design, necessary files and functions and show you how to tie it all together. They are also very good at pointing out possible enhancements or alterations, hopefully inspiring the reader to develop their skills and create something beyond the scope of the book.

The seven projects are as follows:

• User authentication and personalization
• Shopping cart
• Content management system
• Web-based email service
• Mailing list manager
• Web forums
• Generating personalized documents in PDF format

Each of the projects has a real-life application, and can easily be modified to fit the needs of almost any website. The shopping cart application is quite complete, and could serve as a basic cart as-is. The web-based email service incorporates the IMAP and POP3 protocols in an easy to understand manner. And the web forums project discusses the complexity involved in creating a threaded discussion board. It even refers to slashdot as a "fantastic example of a popular website that uses discussion boards" :)

Other info: There are a few minor typos and errors in the book, but nothing to get angry at the authors about. Most of them are quite negligible, but may still create some frustration for beginners. (For example, they make reference to a function isempty(), which does not exist in PHP. The real function is simply named empty()...) Small errors like this may create some confusion, but the errata listed on the author's website are quite helpful, yet not all-inclusive.

The appendices do a good job of showing you how to install apache, PHP and MySQL to get up and running under both Linux and Windows. The book also comes with a CD that contains a PDF version of the entire text, all code examples, and copies of PHP and MySQL so you can set up your own development environment at home.

Overall The book is targeted toward intermediate to advanced programmers, but I'd suspect it would be more useful to the beginner to intermediate group. However, the book is organized in a way that accommodates beginners and more advanced users. If you have previous programming experience, you can probably skip some of the early chapters and jump straight into the larger projects. It's a handy reference book, nonetheless. This book covers almost everything you need to know to learn how to use PHP and MySQL to create dynamic, database-driven websites in no time at all. It does an excellent job presenting some real life projects, and the emphasis on security and clean code is consistent throughout the entire book.

You can purchase PHP and MySQL Web Development from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

TimWeigel writes "The Japan Times is reporting the results of a study by the United Nations University on the environmental impact of michrochip production. We've already seen the impact of disposal practices, but is the manufacturing more environmentally friendly? Turns out it ain't necessarily so - according to the study, producing and using a 32MB DRAM chip weighing 2 grams requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 g of elemental gases, and 72 g of other chemicals, many of which are hazardous. I'm no environmentalist, but this looks like it might add up to more bad news when you consider that these things are cranked out by the millions each year." Update: 01/26 16:31 GMT by J : Yep, it's a dupe.

Number13 writes "Quicksilver's Master of Orion 3, declared vaporware by Wired magazine, has gone gold! Set to hit the streets on Feb. 25, MOO3 is the the successor to what many consider the best space strategy game series."

kurtkilgor writes "One of the most frustrating things about many areas of science and engineering today is that we know the basics but don't know how to put them together. We know a great deal about how atoms interact, but we aren't so sure about how to combine them to make a 'big picture' of matter. We understand how an individual computer works, but how to build large informational networks with computers is another thing entirely. We know how people act individually, and yet we can't extrapolate the behavior of entire societies from this. I've long been interested in these types of complexity problems, but not a whole lot of material has been available. In particular, Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point left me searching for an explanation for the many curiosities that he presents. Is there a mathematical description of tipping points? Is there a way to find out when and why things tip? How does information spread through society?" Kurtkilgor reviews below Albert-László Barabási's Linked: The New Science of Networking, which attempts to answer these questions. Linked: The New Science of Networks author Albert-L�szl� Barab�si pages 229 publisher Perseus Publishing rating 10 reviewer kurtkilgor ISBN 0738206679 summary An introduction to scale-free networks and their broad applications

It turns out that in the past few years, a decent amount of progress has been made on this front, largely thanks to the Internet. The Internet allows scientists to exchange information and speed up research, but more pertinently it is a test subject for these kinds of large-scale interaction problems. Linked: The New Science of Networks presents both the story of how the science has developed, and what it means. Unlike much popular scientific literature, the author himself is an active participant in the field.

The biggest surprise and most important lesson of the book is that the Internet, cellular biology, society, matter, and an incredible array of other seemingly unrelated things all form a particular type of structure called a scale-free network. These types of networks have only been described in detail recently, and their study promises to be as fundamental and rewarding as, for instance, waves or diffusion. The presence of the same structure in many unrelated situations suggests that there is a deep physical or mathematical principle which governs them.

The discovery of this principle is the subject of the first half of the book, which is a sort of detective story that leads from the most primitive concepts of graphs, as pioneered by Euler, to the state of the art. It is very interesting in itself to see how inconsistencies in mathematical models have led people to develop more and more accurate ideas of how such networks function. There is a tiny amount of math in the footnotes available for those who want it, but generally no prior knowledge is required. The author writes with plenty of anecdotes, especially in the beginning starting out with such introductions as this one of Paul Erdos:

"One afternoon in late 1920s Budapest, a seventeen-year-old youth cantered with a weird gait through the streets and stopped in front of an elegant shoe shop that sold custom-made shoes ... After knocking on the store's door-an act that would have seemed just as odd back then as today-he entered, ignoring the saleswoman at the counter, and went up to a fourteen-year-old boy in the back of the shop.

'Give me a four digit number,' he said.

'2,532,' came the wide-eyed boy's reply . . .

'The square of it is 6,441,024,' he continued. 'Sorry, I am getting old and I cannot tell you the cube.'"

For another example of both the writing style and the unusual content, the author humorously describes the discovery of a similarity between Bose-Einstein condensation and economic monopoly:

"Essentially Microsoft takes it all. As a node, it is not just slightly bigger than its next competitor. In the number of its consumers it simply cannot be compared. We all behave like extremely social Bose particles, convenience condensing us into a faceless mass of Windows users. As we purchase new computers and install Windows, we carefully feed and maintain the condensate developed around Microsoft. The operation systems market carries the basic signatures of a network that has undergone Bose-Einstein condensation, displaying clear winner-takes-all behavior."

The rest of the book devotes a chapter to a particular example of a network: epidemics, the Internet, economics, etc. One thing is abundantly clear: the more we know about how these things work, the better we'll be able to curb DDOS attacks, stop disease, and control economic failures. An unlikely example of a scale-free network is the cell. It turns out that the interactions among a cell's proteins can be modeled this way, and if we could only understand it, we would be able to come up with treatments analytically, instead of by trial and error as it is done now.

It seems to me that with a greater understanding of networks, we will be able to finally advance in many fields in which progress is currently stalled. From firefly research to AIDS treatment, this is the Next Big Thing.

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

mtbowen asks: "Our help desk is pretty much a joke. Most people don't bother calling them, they go straight to the developers or whomever they think can actually help them. I am trying to work with the manager of the Help Desk group and give him some ideas of how to improve in some key areas. I would like some opinions on my approach, as well as any comments you feel pertinent to the situation." What kind of processes would you start, in the hopes of improving a Help Desk that isn't providing much help?

"The problems as I seem them are:

1. Credibility - Until the users see them as useful, they aren't. Once there is some confidence that they are competent and helpful, users will stop bypassing them and developers will stop letting users bypass them.
2. Poor Processes - The help desk is supposed to be able to field most basic calls. They should answer all calls related to basic program functionality and system availability. They should know how to bold and underline, change email settings and know whether or not the web server is having problems. This requires cooperation from other groups, and I think everyone is willing to help IF there is a legitimate attempt at improvement.
   
   What would be wrong with using some sort of decision tree (electronic or hardcopy) that walks the Help Desk person through the process of gathering information, determining the problem, and either answering the question or forwarding on tot he appropriate party? They have some sort of knowledge base, but either it is poorly maintained or it is not easy to sue because they don't use it.
   
   I really like the idea of a decision tree type process that could guide them through a trouble call. It would also help new employees become effective faster since the basics are laid out for them. I know this will not catch everything, but it should help answer a lot of the basic questions as well as gather enough information that whomever the call is passed to (also determined by the tree) will have all they need to begin working on the problem.
3. Poor Follow Up - In my experience, follow up is crucial in determining effectives of any service. I think they should implement some sort of follow up procedure to track overall effectiveness and user satisfaction.

Anyone have any other thoughts on how to attack the problem of a help desk that doesn't? Any books, articles, software, etc. would be appreciated."

Slashback updates tonight on sky-diving cars, Microsoft's new code Glasnost (guess who's signed up to see the code?), the fate of the PCI-SIG list, the SCO and Linux licensing brouhaha, music royalties in Finland, and more. Read on for the details.

Not like that un-American GPL. agentZ writes "The first Microsoft government customer to buy access to the Windows source code is Russia according to this CNet story. Interesting to note FAPSI, one of their intelligence agencies, authorized the purchase. Perhaps they're looking for vulnerabilities in the U.S. Government's dependence on Microsoft?"

The difference between Chapter 11 and The End. prostoalex writes "In regards to a recent heated discussion on whether tech companies can make it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, XO Communications, the telecom company of the dot-com era, seems to be doing quite well after filing Chapter 11. The article on Internet.com also mentions another company, Covad Communications, picking up customers and more business after filing for Chapter 11."

There's hope in PCI Land. Regarding the Slashdot post of a few days ago about the PCI-SIG ("The End of the Free PCI Device List"), PCI-SIG Chairman Tony Pierce writes

"YourVote.com Supporters:

Thank you for making us aware of your concerns regarding Jim Boemler's online Vendor and Device Lists for the PCI technology.

There has been a misunderstanding between PCI-SIG and Jim - PCI-SIG officers are currently working with Jim to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. We respect Jim Boemler's work and are committed to support the PCI specification efforts industry-wide. We are confident that we will come to an amicable resolution.

We are pleased to see the strong industry support for PCI technologies and value your response to the issues. We understand this site has been a very valuable tool and are working together to find a solution to make sure that the tool is available to the public in some way.

Thank you for your support over the years. We will be sure to keep you informed as we come to resolution in this situation."

This lowers Finland on my list of vacation spots. E-Tray writes "It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids. Previously Teosto enforced a law that taxi drivers have to pay royalties if they play music while a customer is in the backseat."

Would still rather see a statement signed in blood. Error27 writes "Earlier this week, Slashdot linked to a Maureen O'Gara article that claimed SCO was probably going to try charge Linux users $96 per CPU. More than one person thought SCO's denial was, "Awfully ambiguous". Hopefully this article clears up any doubts. Essentially, SCO will continue to charge IBM but not RedHat or SCO's UnitedLinux partners."

Perhaps I can volunteer my dad's Suburbans? Finally, joe jennings writes

"A few months ago you ran a story about the cars my team and I skydived with and crashed into the desert. This is a bit of an update.

Next month, we're going to blow up my Nissan Pathfinder. Its twisted remains will be welded to a steel beam and planted on a plot of land in the mojave desert. We're starting "suv ranch," a tribute to gas guzzlers, a dying trend (we hope).

I intend to thoroughly document the project and will post images and quicktime videos on gaspig.com."

Mike Parsons writes "Andrew and Adam over at Explosive Labs have a nice review up on the Seagate Barracuda V, one of the first production Serial ATA drives. Keep in mind, Generation 1 of Serial ATA was not meant to be a 'incredible performance jump.' Rather, its intended purpose was to make the industry transition seamless to allow time to mature the future generations of SATA. Generation 2 and 3 of SATA show more promise for those interested in performance, as white papers behind them gives you the nice fuzzy feeling for speed!"

mopuxak writes "There's an article featured over at space.com about an ongoing EBay auction to spend a night in Hawaii's Keck Observatory with Astronomer Geoff Marcy. The money is set to go to the non-profit Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP). Looks like they're billing this as Astronomy's version of Lance Bass and the Space Station. How much would YOU pay?"

farrellj writes "Cnet has an excellent article by Whitfield Diffie, who has probably has forgotten more about crypto than 99.9% of us will ever know, explains why secrecy does not equal security. The article also addresses the whole "open source vs proprietary software" security issue. A definite *must read* for anyone concerned about security...and that should be everyone!"

Versaj writes "In a move that may further escalate the growing rift between Apple and Microsoft, Apple openly condemned Microsoft's $1.1bn settlement to in the recent class action lawsuit. Apple interprets the settlement as Microsoft's attempt to thwart competition in the California education market. "Remember: this is a settlement imposed against Microsoft for breaking the law. It should not allow Microsoft to unfairly compete in education, one of the few remaining markets where it doesn't have monopoly power.""

Skuld-Chan writes "I noticed a few days ago that the ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League) formed a working group to promote use of 802.11 protocols on the amateur radio bands."

JMorgan in Seattle writes "TiVo has (finally!) announced support for HDTV. It's a ways off (end of the year), but at least we know that HD TiVo is on the horizon. In two separate press releases, we learn that TiVo will support both standalone and DirecTV hi-def PVRs. TiVo is really on a roll--first Rendezvous support, and now this. Now if only DirecTV would add more HDTV channels..." I've been waiting to get an HDTV receiver for this. Joy.

It's Freezing in here asks: "I'm involved in a study to set up a multimedia language laboratory for teaching Japanese. The most difficult aspect that I'm finding is actually locating a good software suite to supplement a Japanese language curriculum. The question of my day is: Can anybody recommend an excellent multimedia software package for teaching Japanese to foreign students (mainly Arab) in a language lab setting? It must scalable as well. I'm specifically looking for a package that includes pronunciation practice, placement testing, intro, middle and advanced levels, and tons of audio/video along with practice questions. As a benchmark, I'm using the Ellis Academic Series package. I'm well aware that most people don't gain fluency in a language by sitting in front of a computer, so please don't pound that issue. I appreciate Slashdot readers' advice. Thanks!"

Brian Mattis writes "CNN is reporting a new antenna system that allows SUV's, minivans and cars to receive DirecTV video and audio programming on the road. Future plans call for internet access as well. This could be a nail in the coffin of Sirius and XM radio."

DumbSwede asks: "I have embarked on a do-it-yourself HDTV project with a NEC 135LC quad-XGA projector purchased on eBay. But I have only found 2 HDTV tuner cards, AccessDTV and WinTV-HD, both far short of quad-XGA resolution (if I am reading the specs right, they max out at SXGA for VGA output). ATI claims to support all DTV resolutions and has quad-XGA resolution with its All-In-Wonder 9700, but has only a standard analog tuner built in. A search of ATI or NVIDA web-sites, give no recommendations on DTV turners to use in conjunction with their products (perhaps either accessdtv or wintv-hd will work). Any details and insights would be appreciated, as two or three days of web searching seems not to have provided me with total solution answers."

"Granted an 8' foot wide front projection system is probably over kill for my bedroom, but the heart wants what the heart wants. For now I have had to be content with XGA and SXGA DVD playback from my 300 Mhz Dell Laptop. So far, the results appear better, than the best HDTV setup I have seen playing progressive scan DVD, so I am anxious to get to the next level, now that HDTV is supposedly finally rolling out in my area.

As an aside, I have noticed that broadcasters are transmitting in a range of resolutions from 480p to 1080i, but all the HDTVs I have seen for sale are 720p or lower (although 720p on 720p looks pretty sweet).

NVIDA mentions the need for a digital TV tuner with compressed transport stream and software decoder. ATI I think needs MST (MPEG Stream Transport)

With the booming market in Graphics boards, one would think they'd be falling over themselves to provide HDTV solution information, but a site search of ATI, only gives HDTV details by way of a press release, and comes up short on how to best get the job done.

The plan is to buy a 2ghz+ system with DVD RW-/+ from Dell with Window XP (I have no desire to be a Linux pioneer on this project), and drop everything in and have it working within a few minutes. Easily converting my back video collection is a high priority with this project (though a AIW9700 would be overkill for this, and perhaps overkill for HDTV as well) and having a decent digital video recorder to time shift both HD and Analog TV shows. I would also like to have multiple monitor outputs so I can web-surf and watch HDTV on my big screen at full res at the same time (without annoying hiccups). I am not a really a gamer (anymore), so again, perhaps the AIW9700 is overkill (as well as being pricey), though it seems to have all the other essential features I crave (though earlier model AIWs should have them as well). With this kind of size and resolution, I may wish to get back into flight simulators again and getting back into gaming is not out of the question."

LoPingHo writes "Scientists have found a ring of stars around our galaxy that has previously been undetected due to the faintness of the stars. The article says that it only amounts to 1% of the galaxies mass, but if they are just now finding those, that means there could be even fainter ones there too. Could this be part of the elusive 'dark matter' talked about so much lately?"

KalvinB asks: "According to The Case for Micropayments, Nielson makes the case that subscriptions fence you in because you either pay nothing and get nothing or pay a large fee. I'm curious as to why a large fee is the only option. Perhaps in 1998 bandwidth was as expensive as gold but five years later I propose A Viable System for Micropayments and how to implement it. The cost can easily be calculated either arbitrarily or by determining the amount of bandwidth the average user uses per month or year. I'm curious as to how viable you think this system is and if you have any ideas for improvement. Mainly in calculating cost and accepting payments. I think the biggest obstacle to micropayments is a complete misunderstanding of the term 'micro.' In the article it's talking about paying several dollars per page at some sites. By my calculations that file better be 5GB or more. It's greed, I think more than anything, that's limiting it's acceptance. Sites don't want to charge a reasonable fee and people think their ISP bill is an all access pass to the Internet. The idea of actually paying for products they use and paying more than the product was produced for is suddenly lost when they go online."