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I have been in direct contact with eGovOS too, but mentioning Openchallenge here as well cannot harm. We are trying to make this work for public authorities as well - the more the merrier :). We have already got some positive feedback:

I congratulate you with the practical and inspiring approach taken by Openchallenge. It is interesting that this scheme both stimulates the release of open source software and is also operated by people within the open source community itself. Perhaps such a "challenge posting" scheme is also of interest for public authorities to promote open source development." -- Erkki Liikanen European Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society

...just contact us to discuss more and get things going :)

I have been in direct contact with eGovOS too, but mentioning Openchallenge here as well cannot harm. We are trying to make this work for public authorities as well - the more the merrier :). We have already got some positive feedback:

I congratulate you with the practical and inspiring approach taken by Openchallenge. It is interesting that this scheme both stimulates the release of open source software and is also operated by people within the open source community itself. Perhaps such a "challenge posting" scheme is also of interest for public authorities to promote open source development." -- Erkki Liikanen European Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society

...just contact us to discuss more and get things going :)

I really don't see what all the fuss about tabbed browsing is about; It really just does the same thing as opening a new window in IE (I have more ram than I know what to do with when just surfing the net).

I do like the idea of blocking pop up windows and other adds but I had problems accessing one of my favorite sites (tv.yahoo.com) and quickly got tired of having to open IE when Mozilla didn't work.

I am willing to give Mozilla another try but do I really have to uninstall 1.2 to upgrade to 1.2.1 on windows?

Do you know a good site for Mozilla newbies?

No this is not a troll, I really am just starting to use Mozilla, and not impressed with tabbed browsing.

Here's a free insider tip, here's another.. do something to get noticed. A CV with something concrete in it looks much better than one without.

Here is an analysis of the Slashdot effect and how to prepare for it.

Finally this is NOT not off-topic :) Here's an analysis of the slashdot effect. In the UFO files case, I believe the effect will be tens of times powerful in terms of distinct visitors than the case I analyzed and hundreds of times stronger in sense of data transferred, as they are probably going to serve fat media. I believe they will go down.

ziproxy is a forwarding (non-caching) proxy that gzips text and HTML files, and reduces the size of images by converting them to low quality JPEGs. It is intended to increase the speed for dial-up Internet connections. Most browsers support gzipped content, so Web pages appear as normal, but as they are only a fraction of their original page size, pages are much quicker to load. Even for browsers that don't support it, hints how to overcome it using SSH port forwarding are included. Images are reduced in size by an average of one third, with only marginal visible image quality loss. It should be used with inetd/xinetd, but if you can't use them, a simple replacement "netd" is provided.

I have to plug Openchallenge as this is one key part of the message to the schools & teachers: if you have some specific need for educational software - submit it to Openchallenge - maybe it builds enough effort for making that software a reality. I believe there is lots of "niche" software needed in education too - atleast I remember crafting a few pieces of software for my mom who was a teacher - there just was not the software for these purposes, and it was possible for me (with no magic skills) to craft it during a few evenings, when I was around 14-16 years old.

I have to plug Openchallenge as this is one key part of the message to the schools & teachers: if you have some specific need for educational software - submit it to Openchallenge - maybe it builds enough effort for making that software a reality. I believe there is lots of "niche" software needed in education too - atleast I remember crafting a few pieces of software for my mom who was a teacher - there just was not the software for these purposes, and it was possible for me (with no magic skills) to craft it during a few evenings, when I was around 14-16 years old.

Then, I should ofcourse plug this Openchallenge submission about Learning e-mail classifier:The use of a naive bayesian algorithm in automatically filtering spam and classifying e-mail has been discussed and also implemented in the past. Implement an automatic e-mail classifier system which works together with an IMAP server. The system should: a) constantly refine the database used to classify messages either by periodically re-analyzing the IMAP folders or by tracking each incoming message and periodically checking to which folder the user actually moves each message. b) assign each incoming message an extra header item which contains the path of the IMAP folder where the message belongs according to the classification algorithm.

Also, you could also mine your site for smammers like this.

So, my point is that just during last two years the spam problem has exceeded so much that there is enough interest in fighting it seriously. Spam will die.

Actual server log data shows that 61% of Slashdot readers use Windows (among those who visited this Ask Slashdot link). .
22% of Slashdotters use *nix (90% of them Linux) and 6% Macintosh.

Anh Zone
Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born there. (GBS)

Happy to see this :) If you want to remove your cover show your identity, get in contact with me, I would like to write a little article about this for some publications (including the employer's view) to promote this aspect of Openchallenge and open source in general. Find my contact info here.

Instead, you should find a good way to demonstrate your skills (and maybe learn a bit of something new while demonstrating). Maybe you could do that by contributing something significant to an existing open source project - or maybe by taking a challenge and implmeneting someone's idea.

I do think, and based on my experience, employers will contact you - if you can show evidence like this.

Maximum compression-rate with lossless algorithm
Implement a compression algorithm that virtually takes resources for granted and provides ultimate compression rate for "source-like" data. If this is not enough, design a method for automatically detecting the optimal compression rate / bandwidth to optimize the total download/uncompress time. Who downloads and uncompresses the Linux kernel fastest using same bandwidth and identical HW resources?

When you go to Google to find software to fill some specific need, you already know quite clearly how to search. The problem with finding "open data" is that there currently is not any commonly used clear label on such texts, research and articles. I tend to mention that the content is released under the GNU Free Documentation License or FDL when I want to release something to be freely utlized by anyone. One such case is for example the Amazon Discoveries series. Not that it would be any useful for anyone :) This problem is a bit related to the problem of releasing your idea or concept under such license - there does not seem any clear practise how to go on about this :: what to do if your idea might be unique but you do not want to patent it. We have that exact problem with for example the Openchallenge concept submissions. Any ideas on what practises to use in that case would help us out.

It seems that they are either using freedb or something similar. Here's a clip about what the freedb.org's database is:

What is CDDB? The original CDDB is a database to look up CD information using the internet. This is done by a client which calulates a (nearly) unique disc ID and then queries the database. As a result, the client displays the artist, CD-title, tracklist and some additional infos.

Take a look at this DVD artist/title programmer submitted to Openchallenge to see how else you can utilize freedb.org.

Yes, if you invite mindless sheep, it is quite likely that it is reflected in your results. In this case, it turns the whole study into a very good case of black humor :)) From here.

We began recruiting participants in May 2002 by contacting nonprofit groups, such as the Children's Brain Tumor Foundation, and offering a $5 donation for each supporter who completed the study

*** Why not read an analysis of the Slashdot Effect instead :))

Ghostzilla is a browser for surfing the Web when you don't want anyone to physically see what you are doing. It renders Web pages to look indistinguishable from your work screen. You make it disappear instantly with one move of your hand and bring it back with another. Ghostzilla can show Web pages discreetly within literally any application you work with.

and the screen shots.... I'd believe everyone would be better of if you waited atleast some 30 minutes before hitting that download button. Why?

** Here is an analysis of the Slashdot Effect.

** And as it took 5 minutes to download PDF with only marketing jargon, analysis of an Slashdot Effect.

Really, somehow the Intrasonics thing sounds like even more outrageous marketing stunt than for example posting a link to a slashdot effect analysis. Or, if someone from the company is listening, please do provide some real technical specifications on the thing.

I actually have played that game a couple of times, and now you pushed the website down the stairs with the /. effect! What do you expect I will do with my obsession to push people, when I next take the stair down to leave the office :)

** Ohh, this is the perfect chance to plug the analysis of the slashdot effect once more.

I congratulate you with the practical and inspiring approach taken by OpenChallenge. It is interesting that this scheme both stimulates the release of open source software and is also operated by people within the open source community itself. Perhaps such a "challenge posting" scheme is also of interest for public authorities to promote open source development. -- Erkki Liikanen European Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society.

I congratulate you with the practical and inspiring approach taken by OpenChallenge. It is interesting that this scheme both stimulates the release of open source software and is also operated by people within the open source community itself. Perhaps such a "challenge posting" scheme is also of interest for public authorities to promote open source development. -- Erkki Liikanen European Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society.

Hopefully this will provide you all with a chance to contribute and help tackle the problems/tasks Kofi Annan stated:
If all countries are to benefit, we need more and better strategic public-private partnerships. That is one of the primary functions of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force, which brings together CEOs, government officials, nongovernmental organizations, technical experts and other information industry leaders.

Ok, I now punched in webpage with a form for entering the data, you can access it here.

Ok, I now punched in webpage with a form for entering the data, you can access it here.

Well, it seems the slashdot effect comes in many flavors. In this case it might a pretty forceful one, as the subject matter is probably of interest to many. Here is an analysis of data gathered from another case - which was quite easy to handle actually.

First, we had to keep CISS-1 simple enough for us to manage. Second, the computational chemistry application has significant resource requirements (e.g., large memory, significant disk space, etc.). Third, we are not interested in "cycle stealing" for CISS-1; the machines that we use will be dedicated to the task at hand. The rest of the FAQ is here.

*** and now to the commercials, for the final time, here is an analysis of the Slashdot effect.

Yes, maybe - but imagine that it took over an half century of space travel to get these guys working together. Ofcourse it is better now that 3 years ago - but just think if for example US and USSR could have co-operated before the USSR space program and the whole country collapsed. We would be much more far away now.

***plug: Here's an analysis of the slashdot effect.

Slashdot, a "News for Nerds" service located somewhere, is disrupting a CourierPost Online by extensive amount of signalling sent over internet. According to the analysis of the slashdot effect, the "signal" level reaches the rate of around 270 signals per minute (it's normally less than 50) and partially blacks out the official content. Making communication between the subscribers and CourierPost Online more difficult. The article seems to suggest that as more slashdot readers go online, more websites will be affected, as the signalling rate will be significantly stronger than before. Insert Joisey-joke here.

Reading an An analysis of the slashdot effect has proved to provide instant help.

s/F/S/. How about meanwhile contributing to a media stunt and reading a Slashdot effect analysis.

This analysis is based on the data gathered after the story 'Donating Time To Goodwill Projects?' was published at the Slashdot.org site on 24th October 2002 around 13:30 GMT -05:00 (US East coast time). What I wanted to find out is: what is the slashdot effect really like, what are visitors like.

Thanks for the comment! A clip from another thread. "Exactly, schools, universities and other organisations like could also benefit - and we are trying to get them informed. If you know any, please feel free to spread the word. Actually, if you read the 'about openchallenge' page you will find a fairy tale tailored for universities. :)"

ps. I am also a father of two :)

Exactly, schools, universities and other organisations like could also benefit - and we are trying to get them informed. If you know any, please feel free to spread the word. Actually, if you read the 'about openchallenge' page you will find a fairy tale tailored for universities. :)

Exactly. Organisations like this is another group we will try to get informed. If you know any that might benefit from openchallenge - please spread the word. For schools, fairy tale written in 'about openchallenge' might provide some hints on how to utilize it.

Exactly. Organisations like this is another group we will try to get informed. If you know any that might benefit from openchallenge - please spread the word. For schools, fairy tale written in 'about openchallenge' might provide some hints on how to utilize it.

for the rest of the readers, we already exchanged emails - and will probably try and find ways for co-operation between VWDN and openchallenge.. :)

This is how Dilbert.com Mission Statement Generator put it::
"It is our job to collaboratively restore low-risk high-yield opportunities and synergistically administrate prospective catalysts for change in order to solve business problems." :)).

Yes, I know that I cannot fix the hunger problem by this approach. Also, I am too much a sissy to take real action of going in there to help. One excuse is that I want to stay safely at home with the kids :) Anyway, if we with openchallenge can give any contribution - it enables the local time to concentrate on other matters. Also, it might be possible to complete projects that were impossible before. Also, if you would make a contribution safely from your home, doing what you can do best (coding) - maybe the step of actually going there gets smaller when you are already more familiar with the work done there. Also, keep in mind that to fix the hunger problem, something needs to be fundamentally changed. Shipping in food and other resources is crucial but it only fixes the instant problem.

but has it ever occured to you that your properties of hard work and endurance which have given you the lifestyle that you enjoy wouldn't mean squat if your country dissolved into a bloody civil war?

You are the master of your own destiny for now, only because there are many people in your country who would die to preserve the free and open system which supports your market.

Take that away and life becomes a lottery. It won't matter if you are an elite business person or a crack guerilla sniper- in times of civil disorder people suffer, and suffer, and suffer no matter how hard they try. And I don't mean having to do something mildly degrading like sit around with objectionable people who are richer than you. I mean being so hungry that people can count your ribs and knowing that your high IQ can't turn stone into bread unless those people in the hills stop shooting long enough to plant a lousy vegetable patch. Even the people who are ostensibly in control of the whole war find themselves locked into the conflict and unable to see a way out that doesn't get them killed.

In afghanistan, there used to be kabul university (est 1932 by some french and turkish guys) complete with schools of medicine, pharmacy, economics etc... Then the taliban sent the country back to the stone age, with the exception of a pile of the imported tanks. What happened to all the educated, hard working people? they had crap lives and then died. Some of them wound up in other countries, where their hard work and life savings bought them a cell in a processing camp.

Anyway, bottom line: if you really feel bad about donating your time to help people like yourself except that they suddenly woke up one day to find out that terrorists had killed their government, just consider openchallenge as a competition instead. It says so on the website linked in the main article. Here's a list of winners and the cool stuff they won demonstrating how elite they were.

Wouldn't you like to have another feather in your cap? Another free GPS module to show off to your friends?

And if one day you were to find out that your country had dissolved into war or your economy had imploded into a gooey mess of corruption, wouldn't you be comforted by the hope that somewhere out there there might be smart, talented people who care about other human beings in real dire straits and for whatever reason use their powers and skills to help.

Anyone notice that for the last openchallenge there were only two entries in three months? How is this local team going to be able to effectively use their own time when they can't count on the work they have "delegated" abroad being completed? Timing of component completion is essential when implementing a large project.

It is interesting to see where we are in say after 10 more years.

The good part is that you can submit a better one. You must have a need for some software that you have always wanted but are not capable of producing yourself?

Some of these might have actually got a pull from /. in getting the award. How about pulling one of these open source challenges as well? There seems to be a lot of interest for a Linux API for the Synaptic cPad for example - still it missing.

Some of these might have actually got a pull from /. in getting the award. How about pulling one of these open source challenges as well? There seems to be a lot of interest for a Linux API for the Synaptic cPad for example - still it missing.

I don't know if it works, but this is a try to do it in a way that it could benefit everyone (individuals, non-profit organisations and companies) at the same time. Basicly, the same thing that open source in general does, but from a little different aproach.

So, if there is any teachers reading this article, I invite you to visit the challenge list regularly to see if there is anything your students could do as their coursework. Instead a solution for a theoretical task, your students could also solve someone's real problem and have it published under open source.

So, if there is any teachers reading this article, I invite you to visit the challenge list regularly to see if there is anything your students could do as their coursework. Instead a solution for a theoretical task, your students could also solve someone's real problem and have it published under open source.

Here is a good substitute for the competition :)

Actually, this is so interesting that I will try and approach Hasbro about whether they could publish the complete specs for the hardware on board(or if someone from Hasbro reads this, publish it here). Then, if we get the specs, I will publish a "R2D2 new brains challenge", at this site.