Slashdot Mirror

TaxSlave writes "Amateur Radio operators in North Carolina and elsewhere in the projected track of Hurricane Isabel are getting ready for action. ARES has been activated in many areas, and hams are recommended to be ready. NC ARES has an information page for the storm and Hurricane Watch Net has a good info page as well. Even outside the major storm area, hams are posted at shelters which are filling up with storm refugees."

CHaN_316 writes "Yahoo is running an article talking about how cell phones from health workers are helping spread dangerous infections in hospitals. 'They found that 12 percent of healthcare providers' cell phones were contaminated with [Acinetobacter baumannii]. The results are disturbing because [it] has the propensity to develop resistance to almost all available antibiotics ... Cell phones provide a large dry surface that allows survival of A. baumannii--it requires no nutrients ... [it] is found in intensive care units, and the mortality rate among infected patients is very high -- between 50 and 60 percent.' The hospital that conducted this research no longer allows the use of cell phones, and are switching to devices that don't require hand contact like pagers." So how long before someone develops a cell phone that can be dunked in alcohol or run through the autoclave to sterilize it?

jafiwam asks: "Recently, the IT department of the company I work for and a 3rd party monitoring and security firm got into a pissing match about how much monitoring is too much. They either got a hold of a customer list from a former employee or walked our IP space to find our web hosting customers. They then proceeded to sell them monitoring services for things such as server up-time, defacement detection, email up-time and DNS testing. While I welcome anything that lets our customers use the internet effectively, their set of monitoring servers filled an entire 18 gig partition full of web server logs (causing the server to crash on a weekend) and choked an email server with 40k some messages that could not be delivered, and they failed to properly brief the hosting customers about what would happen to their log analysis software when faced with 99% traffic from a small set of IPs. These things caused down-time, lost productivity and a damaged reputation. What is appropriate for monitoring a web site and email server? Who should be allowed to monitor? Where should the give and take lie in this situation? I am interested in finding out what admin-on-the-street has to say about this."

"Though I believe they are a reputable company, they are doing some things I do not think are good: checking for the domain names on the TLD servers once per second, downloading various files from the site once per second, and sending email to themselves once per second.

Our first response was to talk to them and explain what we needed them to do, including a list of IPs that we used for customers so they could adjust their monitoring to suit what we thought was reasonable. They chose to ignore the first discussion and continued to abuse the servers. After the email server required a half-day of cleanup, the CTO simply shut them off at the firewalls. Rather than using the contact information they had, they chose to complain to our mutual customers instead. (I should note we do significant monitoring of the servers ourselves, and typically know if something is wrong within minutes of the event.)

Is this typical behavior of monitoring service companies? I know some of them are not reputable at all (due to spamming) however these guys seem to know what they are doing, and yet managed to effectively attack our mail and web servers, as well as doing some things I would not do to the TLD servers. It is hard to feel justified to shutting off someone else's cash-flow, but at the same time we need to defend servers from over zealous monitoring."

NullProg writes "Yesterday I was diagnosed with wrist-drop, and now my right arm/hand is in traction for a spell. It may or may not be related to me sitting behind a keyboard for the last twenty years. How have other programmers dealt with the loss of a hand or even multiple fingers? I moved my mouse to the left of the keyboard and can still type faster than my wife using one hand, but upper case keys are giving me problems. Has anyone experience with the smaller keyboards from Happy Hacking? Do they help one handed people? What editors did you find the most keystroke friendly. Gvim is bearable, is there a better one I can use for single key operations? What other tips do you have for someone in my situation?"

typobox43 writes "Louis Burns of Intel displayed a "high-definition video stream running on a 'mystery' desktop processor." This processor turned out to be the new Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.20 GHz, with an extra 2 Megabytes of cache."

cdneng2 writes "This Yahoo!/Reuters article indicates that more than 70 percent of American kids have played Grand Theft Auto. The study also indicates that those who played are more likely to be in fights. It's a good thing the authors cautioned that this study did not prove a link between game violence and real-life behavior." The Gallup poll editors specifically and sensibly advised: "The data can't demonstrate causality - boys who are more prone to fighting may simply be more attracted to violent video games."

Hollins writes "Yesterday, SCO filed their latest 10-Q. In it, they claim over fifteen million dollars in revenue from their SCOsource initiative (mostly from Microsoft and Sun) with a decline in revenue from all other sources. A lot of interesting statements are in the 10-Q, including "The success of our SCOsource licensing initiative, at least initially, will depend to a great extent on the perceived strength of our intellectual property and contractual claims and our willingness to enforce our rights. Many, particularly those in the open source community, dispute the allegations of infringement that we have made"."

vex24 writes "Engineers from the Union of Concerned Scientists have unveiled blueprints for a "safer, more fuel efficient" SUV using "off-the-shelf technology". Looks like good stuff if the big automakers decide to pay attention."

Thanks to Yahoo! for hosting Sony's press release announcing the PlayStation 2 hard drive add-on's March 2004 US release. According to the release, the 40gb drive requires the PS2 Network Adaptor to work, will "...come pre-installed with Square Enix's highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), Final Fantasy XI", and will cost $99. Also promised are features such as "...saving CDs to create a personal jukebox, and the ability to download... levels, missions, characters, and much more", and forthcoming Sony-published titles SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs and Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain (the latter now due in February 2004) are confirmed as having downloadable content. A GameSpot report from the Sony Editor's Day confirms the subscription pricing for FFXI: "...the first 30 days will be free and a $12.95 per month fee [from then on]."

Anonymous Coward writes "DevMaster.net has an article by Samuel Ranta-Eskola which offers a detailed explanation of Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) theory for real-time engines, along with various implementation details, complexity anaylsis, optimzations, and rendering. "

frank_adrian314159 writes "Yahoo News is reporting that the DoJ has been using its increased powers under the US PATRIOT Act to pursue common criminals. DoJ Officials have been holding seminars on how to use increased wiretap powers against (non-terrorist) money launderers and drug dealers. One example in the article is the guy running a meth lab who's now up for a life sentence for 'manufacturing chemical weapons' instead of the much shorter sentence he would have been facing under the current drug laws. Wonderful, huh? Who didn't see this coming? Of course, you're a law-abiding citizen, so you have nothing to worry about, right?" Patriot Act II will allow any Federal agent to demand records from anyone who interacts with you, with no judicial oversight whatsoever.

frank_adrian314159 writes "Yahoo News is reporting that the DoJ has been using its increased powers under the US PATRIOT Act to pursue common criminals. DoJ Officials have been holding seminars on how to use increased wiretap powers against (non-terrorist) money launderers and drug dealers. One example in the article is the guy running a meth lab who's now up for a life sentence for 'manufacturing chemical weapons' instead of the much shorter sentence he would have been facing under the current drug laws. Wonderful, huh? Who didn't see this coming? Of course, you're a law-abiding citizen, so you have nothing to worry about, right?" Patriot Act II will allow any Federal agent to demand records from anyone who interacts with you, with no judicial oversight whatsoever.

ikkonoishi writes "The Miami humor columnist Dave Barry in his column here encouraged his readers to exercise their constitutional rights to call a telemarketing firm which had declared the National Do Not Call List unconstitutional. Well it seems to have worked." Needless to say, the targets of the prank were none so keen on being called themselves.

Thanks to GameSpyDaily for the news that Vivendi's Lord Of The Rings game sequel, The Treason Of Isengard, has been cancelled. The PS2/Xbox title, a Surreal-developed follow-up to last year's disappointing Fellowship Of The Ring, was apparently "not going to achieve the strict... standards for our Tolkien games", and so the book-licensed game was axed, despite a number of public showings and the newly-unveiled ability to play as Treebeard. In other LOTR game news, EA has announced the ability to play online for its forthcoming, non-cancelled movie-licensed title, Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King.

NaugaHunter writes "A story on Yahoo asks Should [a] License Be Required to Go Online? It appears to be suggested by Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for Counterpane Internet Security Inc. 'It could be a four-year college degree, a one-month course. It might be a good idea.' The story also details efforts of some schools from simple orientation to threats of fines for spreading viruses, and questions exactly who would be responsible for keeping track of who is and isn't licensed." Not a new idea, but one that's going to keep coming up. Update: 09/13 18:11 GMT by M : Bruce Schneier notes that he isn't in favor of computer licenses.

prostoalex writes "The Attorney General of the State of California has opened up a Web site, dedicated to Microsoft antitrust violations. In 2002 Microsoft received 2 court judgements, one from California and 7 other states, another one from New York and nine other states. If you believe the company has violated the conditions stipulated in either of the statements, visit Microsoft-Antitrust.gov Web site. Notice that the site collects only the complaints related to two final judgements mentioned above."

blamanj writes "Apple Computer, which once got into hot water with the Beatles Apple record label, has been sued once again by the same group. Apple Records says iTunes and the iPod violate the previous agreement." Apple's broke their agreement in the past when speakers were first used with their computers to play music.

wampl3r writes " Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens deliver a great response to SCO's recent Letter to the Open Source Community. Their response does a good job of presenting many of the finer points we have been arguing about around here, but it's nice to see them in such a formal, well-thought-out letter." Munchola adds "Meanwhile, ComputerWire, from where McBride misquoted Perens in the first place, sets the record straight: 'In his statement McBride appears to have attributed a ComputerWire paraphrase as a quote from Perens.'" stefan points to this response to McBride's letter from Kevin Bedell, LinuxWorld Magazine's Editor. Below, find one reader's idea about the "stolen lines" SCO claims are in the Linux kernel, and one expert's claim that SCO might not know some of its own source code very well.

VikingBrad writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on Dr Warwick Toomey of The Unix Heritage Society claiming that SCO may not know the origin of code in System V, including claims that there is a lot of BSD software in Sys V."

Alex writes "I wondered where the 100k+ lines of copied code in the linux kernel would come from in comparison to the SCO Unixware stuff. Then a thought popped up in my head: what if they just compared linewise? All those empty lines in the code would have the same content. But how many empty lines are in the Linux Kernel Code? This small shell script counts them for you:

emptylines=0; function parse_dir () { for file in $1/*; do if [ -d "$file" ]; then parse_dir $file; else while read line; do if [ "$line" = "" ]; then emptylines=$[$emptylines+1]; echo $emptylines; fi; done

Kernel 2.4.22, yet cleaned of the code which SCO claimed was stolen, has still 733140 empty lines, probably copied and pasted by the bad, bad kernel developers from the good, good SCO guys..."

milaf writes "Surprisingly many people have absolutely wrong ideas about Web Services. I think that the hype and perceived simplicity of everything having to do with the Web are to blame. Well, that, and the wide-spread 'confidence through ignorance' among us." Read on for milaf's review of the O'Reilly-published Java Web Services in a Nutshell, which he says displaces hype with good information. Java web services in a nutshell author Kim Topley pages 642 publisher O'Reilly rating 9/10 reviewer Alex ISBN 0596003994 summary Excellent book on Web Services for Java developers, related standards and technologies

I expected this book to be similar to other "Nutshell" books that I like and am familiar with: a very accurate and concise description of the domain, followed by a huge API reference. Well, I was pleasantly surprised: this book reads more like a tutorial, yet it is a reference in the sense that you can easily read its parts independently, and its index is quite useful and complete.

The book covers all technologies necessary for defining, implementing, and deploying Web Services for both client and server sides:

• WSDL (Web Services Definition Language), the XML-based interface definition language (and more); CORBA folks: this is your IDL for the Web Services platform, only not as easily read or understood. Not to worry: there are GUI-based editors for this thing, many of them are free. Plus the book explains WSDL format and structure in a great detail.
• JAXR, a client-side interface for extraction of business and service information from the compliant Web Service registries.
• JAX-RPC (two chapters: basic and advanced); at the application level this technology is similar to CORBA using Java.
• JAXM, a high level standard-based generic interface to messaging that is implemented by a messaging provider. It offers the benefits of asynchronous messaging, robust message delivery, and message profiles (use of SOAP message headers).
• SAAJ is a low-level Java interface to SOAP; under the hood some of the mentioned technologies use it.

For each of these technologies the author dedicates enormous effort to showing intricate but very relevant technical details without obscuring the big picture. There is a necessary but not overwhelming amount of Java code and XML. You will be able to reuse the examples since they are very clear.

The book has a chapter on Web Services tools and configuration files. This is a very helpful chapter: the business of defining deployment descriptors by hand is a messy job; presence of this chapter makes the job a bit easier. A small but helpful API reference may be found at the end of the volume.

If you need to understand the details of how to build, implement, and deploy Web Services, you will not be disappointed. There is absolutely no hype in this book! Considering the topic, nowadays this alone is an achievement.

Web Services technology is not the "Web Stuff," it is not related to browsing the WWW, and it does not pertain to the services offered by the WWW vendors (unless Web Services is what they sell). It is a fast-growing technology for programming in the distributed computing environment. Judging by the hype and money being spent on it by the leading powerhouses, it is going to be very prolific and important technology in the near future. Want to know more? -- Read the book!

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

Murdock037 writes "It looks like the RIAA has rushed to settle with 12-year-old Brianna LaHara, after serving her with a lawsuit on Monday. It looks like her single mother will be paying a $2,000 fine to the RIAA for her daughter's song-swapping, which they had thought was legal. Said Brianna: 'I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love.' What a relief this must be for the Rolling Stones."

richdun writes "Here is a study done by an independent research firm which claims that under certain circumstances, it is cheaper to develop applications and enterprise solutions for Windows than for Linux. They cite costs from more education, time developing, etc. Of course, the story is quick to state that the whole study was funded and commissioned by our favorite Redmond, WA based software giant. "

c1ay writes "In an article at the ScienceDaily News it is reported that two researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered a new property of carbon nanotubes, ideal photon emission. "The emission bandwidth is as narrow as you can get at room temperature," says Lukas Novotny, professor of optics at Rochester and co-author of the study. Such a narrow and steady emission can make such fields as quantum cryptography and single-molecule sensors a practical reality. RSA and Elliptic Curve wouldn't stand a chance against this unbreakable encryption."

Thanks to GameSpot for their story announcing that Electronic Arts' Madden franchise will sponsor a pre-game show on TV network ESPN, in which the hosts "...will use footage of EA Sports' Madden NFL 2004 game... as a visual aid in helping to explain and illustrate NFL strategy and matchups." However, as the article points out, "EA Sports' sponsorship of an ESPN show calls into question Sega's current exclusive multiyear licensing deal with the sports network, announced last year" - and amusingly, this Yahoo article points out "ESPN.com's new games Web site, ESPN Gamer, gave 'Madden' a higher review than 'ESPN NFL Football'."

circletimessquare writes "Yahoo!/Washington Post is reporting that the RIAA is suing 261 fileswappers whom they consider to be 'major offenders' in illegally trading music online. Remember to visit the EFF when full lawsuit details are released, and see if you're one of the unlucky few." Details of the amnesty program reported last week were also released, with the RIAA announcing it "...would require file sharers to admit in writing that they illegally traded music online and vow in a legally binding, notarized document, never to do it again."

mgcsinc writes "The original Human Genome Project completed its sequencing of the human genome with billions of dollars; the current cost is around $50 million. Now, geneticists are hoping that within 10 to 15 years of development in the practices of the field, they can lower this cost to a mere $1,000. This Yahoo article details these intended developments, and the world we can expect, in terms of genetics, in the future."

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo News is reporting on a new bill in Congress: '... a proposed bill that would prevent wholesale copying of school guides, news archives and other databases which do not enjoy copyright protection.'" The idea of database protection legislation has been kicking around for a long time. It's a bad idea, but it would make a lot of money for a few companies, so they keep pushing it, and no doubt will eventually get it passed.

ewhac writes "Without admitting wrongdoing, Microsoft today agreed to pay $23,250,000 to Be, Inc., to settle anti-trust claims against the software giant. The payout is anticipated to be used to complete the orderly dissolution of the company. Shortly after announcing sale of key assets to Palm, Be, Inc., filed suit against Microsoft in February 2002, alleging destruction of its business via illegal exclusionary and anti-competitive business practices."

CHaN_316 writes "Yahoo is running a story called 'Is Java Finished?' It provides a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses of J2EE and contrasts them with .NET. Classic arguments are brought up like Java being great for portability while .NET ties you down to Microsoft products, etc. It's interesting that they bring up the Java Community Process, and how it is a rather slow moving procedure that is causing Java to become stagnant."

Mister Dre writes "Apparently, the RIAA is planning to offer amnesty to file sharers who promise to delete copyrighted material from their computers. To take advantage, of course, you 'have to send a completed, notarized amnesty form to the RIAA, with a copy of a photo ID.'" Hey RIAA, how about I just stop sharing files, and we call it even? I know I own most of the CDs for the files I listen to, but I stopped buying those too so you'll know where I stand.

Thanks to Yahoo! for hosting the press release announcing Eidos Interactive's return to full-year profitability, despite the disappointing critical reception for the latest Tomb Raider title, as Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, TimeSplitters 2 and Championship Manager 4 "each sold circa one million units during the year." Eidos comment on Lara's transfer to developers Crystal Dynamics as bringing a "fresh look and feel" to the franchise. Elsewhere, the massive-selling Championship Manager soccer sim franchise will no longer be developed by creators Sports Interactive, raising questions of "how Eidos will manage to deliver anything up to CM's standard" for the 2004/2005 version, and Eidos won't be publishing TimeSplitters 3, since developers Free Radical own the rights to it.

beggs writes "BusinessWeek, InfoWorld and the EE Times Online all have stories about SCO's plans to send out license invoices to Linux vendors for 'Unix license fees for Linux.' The experts advice: Wait and see what happens with the court cases before you pay." RowLowy points to ZDnet's story, which says that "SCO will pursue commercial Linux users who have discussed their Linux work publicly ... However, it won't take action until it's done more research on those businesses." JayR writes to say that Michael Dell recently told a gathering of Dell investors that Dell Computer will offer no protection from SCO lawsuits to customers who buy Linux-based systems from Dell. Keep score: an anonymous reader points out that SCO executives are still selling off their stock. Total proceeds in August of over $600,000. Senior Vice President Reginald Broughton tops the list with over $300,000."

beggs writes "BusinessWeek, InfoWorld and the EE Times Online all have stories about SCO's plans to send out license invoices to Linux vendors for 'Unix license fees for Linux.' The experts advice: Wait and see what happens with the court cases before you pay." RowLowy points to ZDnet's story, which says that "SCO will pursue commercial Linux users who have discussed their Linux work publicly ... However, it won't take action until it's done more research on those businesses." JayR writes to say that Michael Dell recently told a gathering of Dell investors that Dell Computer will offer no protection from SCO lawsuits to customers who buy Linux-based systems from Dell. Keep score: an anonymous reader points out that SCO executives are still selling off their stock. Total proceeds in August of over $600,000. Senior Vice President Reginald Broughton tops the list with over $300,000."

Thanks to several readers for pointing out the Take Two/Rockstar press release announcing a GTA3/GTA:Vice City 'double pack', due on November 4th for Xbox, and October 22nd for PlayStation 2, ending a myriad of rumors regarding when the massively popular title would appear on Microsoft's console. In related news, Take Two also announced positive financial results and the acquisition of struggling publisher TDK Mediactive for $22.7 million, largely for their "portfolio of mass-market titles based on popular licensed brands."

Thanks to several readers for pointing out the Take Two/Rockstar press release announcing a GTA3/GTA:Vice City 'double pack', due on November 4th for Xbox, and October 22nd for PlayStation 2, ending a myriad of rumors regarding when the massively popular title would appear on Microsoft's console. In related news, Take Two also announced positive financial results and the acquisition of struggling publisher TDK Mediactive for $22.7 million, largely for their "portfolio of mass-market titles based on popular licensed brands."

Thanks to several readers for pointing out the Take Two/Rockstar press release announcing a GTA3/GTA:Vice City 'double pack', due on November 4th for Xbox, and October 22nd for PlayStation 2, ending a myriad of rumors regarding when the massively popular title would appear on Microsoft's console. In related news, Take Two also announced positive financial results and the acquisition of struggling publisher TDK Mediactive for $22.7 million, largely for their "portfolio of mass-market titles based on popular licensed brands."

stizoked asks: "Although we both have full time jobs, my wife and I have been doing a little web design/development on the side for some extra cash. Since we've started, we've built up a nice little client list, one big enough for us to consider getting a little more serious about pursuing it as a business. Does anyone have any advice or experience that we can use to dodge young and stupid mistakes? Any advice on some open source project management software or other software that makes running a small business a little easier?"

sinjayde writes "Yahoo!/Reuters is reporting that Toyota has released a car for sale in Japan that is able to park itself: 'Toyota's new hybrid gasoline-electric Prius sedan uses electrically operated power steering and sensors that help guide the car when reversing into parking spaces.'" No need to rely on the reverse parking formula anymore?

sinjayde writes "Yahoo!/Reuters is reporting that Toyota has released a car for sale in Japan that is able to park itself: 'Toyota's new hybrid gasoline-electric Prius sedan uses electrically operated power steering and sensors that help guide the car when reversing into parking spaces.'" No need to rely on the reverse parking formula anymore?

AP has a decent piece looking at NASA's orbital space plane program, and describing it as a sedan compared to a tractor-trailer. National polls show that public support for the space program continues to be very strong.

cdneng2 writes "Yahoo!/Reuters has an article on the a new official wireless LAN/broadband adapter for the Xbox, details of which were unintentionally leaked on the FCC's website ahead of Microsoft's product unveiling. There's even a picture of the adapter, which has '54 Mbps' printed on it, in a Digitimes.com article." According to this latter story, "The chipset in the MN-740 wireless adapter appears to be supplied by Atheros Communications, possibly its 2.4GHz AR5002AP-G chip, which supports 802.11b/g. The device also features user-configurable 128-bit WEP (wired equivalent privacy) security."

ejbst25 writes "The first wave of the do not call registry sign up ends 8/31. There is plenty of news coverage but they say there is already over 41 million numbers registered."

ejbst25 writes "The first wave of the do not call registry sign up ends 8/31. There is plenty of news coverage but they say there is already over 41 million numbers registered."

Thanks to Yahoo! for their story regarding teenage stepbrothers who randomly fired at cars on a Tennessee freeway, killing one person and wounding another, and told police they were inspired by Grand Theft Auto's sniper mode. According to the piece: "From a wooded area near their home at the Smoky Mountain Country Club, the boys fired a .22-caliber rifle up to 25 times through a break in the trees at cars driving along Interstate 40 about two miles east of Newport. They said they were bored and decided to shoot at tractor-trailer rigs, just like in the video game, 'Grand Theft Auto.'" According to this IOL/Reuters article, "Prosecutor Al Schmutzer told Judge Ben Strand that the boys told authorities they were mimicking the video game by trying to hit the sides of passing trucks."

Thanks to NWAOnline.net for their story regarding a mother facing manslaughter charges which may relate to videogame addiction, following her 3-year-old daughter's death after being left alone in an overheated car. According to the piece, "Authorities said [Mary Christina] Cordell and her boyfriend, Eric Long, 21, may have been so fixated with the interactive game EverQuest that she neglected to pay adequate attention to Brianna's whereabouts on Aug. 8, the day the child died." The article also points out posts to the Spouses Against Everquest mailing-list from Cordell, one of which is controversial, but tragically prescient: "Verant is also an enabler by providing a type of 'entertainment' that requires an inordinary amount of time to do basic functions of the average role playing games... I'm afraid that eventually many more people will be hurt or even killed by this 'service'."

Thanks to NWAOnline.net for their story regarding a mother facing manslaughter charges which may relate to videogame addiction, following her 3-year-old daughter's death after being left alone in an overheated car. According to the piece, "Authorities said [Mary Christina] Cordell and her boyfriend, Eric Long, 21, may have been so fixated with the interactive game EverQuest that she neglected to pay adequate attention to Brianna's whereabouts on Aug. 8, the day the child died." The article also points out posts to the Spouses Against Everquest mailing-list from Cordell, one of which is controversial, but tragically prescient: "Verant is also an enabler by providing a type of 'entertainment' that requires an inordinary amount of time to do basic functions of the average role playing games... I'm afraid that eventually many more people will be hurt or even killed by this 'service'."

aSiTiC writes "Apparently RIAA has obtained some technical experts in their prosecution of file swappers. Currently they are tracking traded mp3 files from the Napster network by matching MD5 hashes. This seems quite interesting but I was under the assumption that identical hashes could be created with identical rips and id3v2 tagging. Now may be the time to update your illegal mp3 file MD5 hash sums."

Thanks to Yahoo! for hosting the Sony press release celebrating the first anniversary of the PlayStation 2 online adaptor, as well as new figures showing "more than 780,000 gamers with online connectivity." By comparison, a recent Taipei Times article says that Microsoft has 500,000 Xbox Live subscribers worldwide. The release stresses the differences between the PS2's 'open' philosophy and Xbox Live's more managed attitude, pointing out: "...the results of the open model approach include more than 20 publishers developing more than 50 titles for the PlayStation 2 platform by the year-end." Sony also trails the PS2 hard drive with regard to Final Fantasy XI, but hint at other uses, saying it "...further demonstrates the company's focus on extending the functionalities and capabilities of the PlayStation 2 for a total living room experience including games, movies and music."

Thanks to Yahoo!/Reuters for their story about a new Entertainment Software Association poll showing the demographics of gaming. According to the poll, "...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17", and the survey also revealed that "...the average gamer spends 6.5 hours a week playing games... while boys 6 to 17 average 7.3 hours per week of game time." Explicit games are also on the increase, as "13.2 percent carried a "Mature" or "M" rating, up from 9.9 percent in 2001 and under 8 percent in 2000."

m0smithslash writes "Over on Yahoo there is an article, Lizard Spit Drug Controls Diabetes, Cuts Weight which describes how 'Exenatide, an experimental diabetes drug derived from lizard saliva, not only controls patients' blood sugar levels but also cuts their weight.' I always thought it would be cool to have a pet lizard, and a vemonous one would be even better. Maybe I could save a lot of money on medications by just letting it bite me every so often. Of course here would also be a good place to put a plug in for not letting species go extinct."

Adios077 (Ada Shimar) writes "Ok, so I was reluctant when I first picked up and started reading O'Reilly's JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook. After all, I'm fairly proficient in JavaScript already (yes, get in line to hire me!), and if I needed some cool DHTML scripts, I could just visit a good site like Dynamic Drive. However, the book managed to both surprise and impress me, a great combination to have in a book." Find out why by reading the rest of Shimar's review, below. JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook author Danny Goodman pages 576 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 8.5 reviewer Ada Shimar ISBN 0596004672 summary A surprisingly useful JavaScript book, even for people skilled with the language already.

I'll begin my review by making a bold statement -- if you've read and like O'Reilly's Definitive Guides on JavaScript and DHTML, you'll adore this book. I use the word adore very deliberately here, because in my opinion JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook is much easier to love than the gigantic and sometimes monotonous Definitive Guide series. Why, you ask? Let's see -- the book is compact (some 500 pages), concise, and filled with the essence of JavaScript and DHTML as far as what you can create using the language/ technology.

JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook is broken up into 15 chapters, each containing a series of recipes. The chapters are:

1. Strings
2. Numbers and Dates
3. Arrays and Objects
4. Variables, Functions, and Flow Control
5. Browser Feature Detection
6. Managing Browser Windows
7. Managing Multiple Frames
8. Dynamic Forms
9. Managing Events
10. Page Navigation Techniques
11. Managing Style Sheets
12. Visual Effects for Stationary Content
13. Positioning HTML Elements
14. Creating Dynamic Content
15. Dynamic Content Applications

These chapters are used mainly to facilitate the look up of a particular recipe, as each recipe exists and is explained independent of one another. This is consistent with the style of most Cookbooks, and it seems to work well here as well.

If you're a complete novice, you may be wondering at this point the distinction between JavaScript and DHTML. The book doesn't make a conscious effort to differentiate between the two when discussing recipes, and for a good reason. DHTML is basically JavaScript, though the latter draws in your page's HTML and often CSS as well to create something more encompassing.

Ok, on to what's important now -- the recipes themselves. I was expecting a series of flashy, long and tacky JavaScripts you can find in the source of every other site on the web these days, padded with some nonsense accolade like "the web cannot survive without them." Such scripts are mostly counterproductive, and do little to educate a JavaScript learner, let alone a master like myself (hur hur). To my delight, things were the complete opposite. The recipes in JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook are extremely practical, well thought out, and even educational. Discussions like Calculating the Number of Days Between Two Dates, Simulating a Hash Table for Fast Array Lookup, and Transforming XML Data into HTML Tables not only are very useful to the cut-and-paster, they teach even seasoned JavaScripters a thing or two about the language.

The only minor compliant I have with this book is the length of some of the script examples -- they span a little too long to follow effortlessly. The longest script I can recall in the book runs about 5 pages in length. Fortunately, such recipes are few and far in between, and 95 percent of the recipes are extremely short in length and packed with useful information and techniques. For the long scripts, it's easy to see that they exist out of necessity to create and show a fully functional script rather than just to pad pages.

In summary, I walk away from reading JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook with many new tricks up my sleeve, something I had not expected at all. Some good resources online that compliment the reading would be DevEdge's JavaScript Reference and JavaScriptKit's JavaScript tutorials."

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