Slashdot Mirror

eldavojohn writes "Recently, the city government of Tokyo has requested that political speeches to be pulled from YouTube, claiming that it gave certain hopefuls an advantage over others for Sunday's election. You may recall YouTube being in trouble with more than a few countries in the past. 'Japanese election law limits the broadcasting of speeches, which are aired only on public broadcaster NHK. Soon after the race kicked off last month, the speech by one fringe candidate, street musician Koichi Toyama, 36, has become a popular attraction on YouTube due to his eccentric, confrontational approach.' Is it fair that some government officials are being viewed more on YouTube than others or is it simply leveling the playing field for anyone with a message since it costs very little to put a video on YouTube?"

rprins writes "In what is perhaps a reaction to recent Homeland Security demands, a strategic report by ICANN suggests that it should take on the model of a private international organization (PDF). That would make ICANN immune from US law and regulations. However, it's unlikely that the Bush administration would grant ICANN these privileges. So the organization might opt to relocate to Switzerland where such privileges are easier to attain."

TekkaDon writes "According to computer and component manufacturers, Vista is not the hotcake that they were hoping for. Take Acer's president, Gianfranco Lanci, who has just said that 'PC makers are really not counting on Vista to drive high demands for the industry.' Or Samsung Electronics, who now says that DRAM demand has not matched anyone's predictions based on Vista's now failed projections, something that is being echoed by the industry as a whole. This seem to agree with Ars Technica article on the 20 million Vista copies sold as a 'huge success' by Microsoft, which can be accounted for by the natural growth of PC sales over the years."

An anonymous reader writes "At an ICANN meeting in Lisbon, the US Department of Homeland Security made it clear that it has requested the master key for the DNS root zone. The key will play an important role in the new DNSSec security extension, because it will make spoofing IP-addresses impossible. By forcing the IANA to hand out a copy of the master key, the US government will be the only institution that is able to spoof IP addresses and be able to break into computers connected to the Internet without much effort. There's a further complication, of course, because even 'if the IANA retains the key ... the US government still reserves the right to oversee ICANN/IANA. If the keys are then handed over to ICANN/IANA, there would be even less of an incentive [for the U.S.] to give up this role as a monitor. As a result, the DHS's demands will probably only heat up the debate about US dominance of the control of Internet resources.'"

Nintendo has responded to accusations leveled against it earlier this week by GameStop, saying that Wii shortages are due to demand. Nintendo's George Harrison told Next-Gen.biz in a phone interview that "That's not at all the case. We have worldwide territories that are all competing over the available production. The Japan and European markets are doing extremely well with the Wii. People in Japan at NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd.] are making the best decisions that they can about which products get shipped to which market and when." An EU marketing director is also quoted at GamesIndustry.biz responding to criticism about the lack of new Wii titles, as well as the supply shortage. Nintendo's Laurent Fischer asserts that the company has a 'release it when it's ready' attitude, and that they'll release products when they meet the company's standards.

oldwindways writes "The BBC reports that in developing nations where it is prohibitively expensive to install the infrastructure for wired internet connections, drive by wireless updates are becoming a popular solution to the demand for internet access. This sounds great for checking news updates, sports scores, and visiting your regular websites, but somewhat limited if you are trying to do basic research and don't know exactly where your search will take you. It is certainly an innovative solution to some of the problems encountered in tackling the digital divide, but what longterm effects might this model have on the development of a communications infrastructure?"

christian.einfeldt writes "During her successful campaign for California Secretary of State, newly-minted California Elections Czar Debra Bowen spoke repeatedly of the need to use free open source software in voting machines to ensure the integrity of California's elections. Now that Secretary Bowen is acting on that campaign pledge, closed-source voting machine vendor Diebold worries aloud that rejecting its black-box voting machines could snarl California's elections. Diebold's concerns come at the same time that it is suing Massachusetts for declining to purchase those same voting machines." Quoting: "California's elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could [have the result of banishing] ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state. For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with 'red teams' of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes."

eldavojohn writes "124 bands — including R.E.M., Sarah McLachlan, and Pearl Jam — and 24 music labels are sending a clear message to keep Net traffic neutral. The Rock the Net campaign wants all traffic to be equal instead of allowing providers to charge a fee for certain pages to load faster than others. These musicians are the latest to join the Save the Internet campaign, which has the chair of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in its camp. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., spoke at the campaign's kickoff. I think it's obvious that musicians (especially independents and small labels) will find themselves with the short end of the stick if they are asked to pay a fee to have their music streamed as fast as larger bands or even corporations."

tcd004 writes "MIT reports that the world is running out of fuel for our nuclear reactors due to production limitations and an aging infrastructure. Nuclear power has gained popularity as a carbon-free energy source in recent years, but Dr. Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at MIT's Center for International Studies, warned that fuel scarcity could drive up prices and kill the industry before it gets back on its feet. Passport has pulled together some interesting numbers: there are 440 reactors currently in operation and 82 new plants under construction. The demand for fuel has driven the price of uranium up more than 40% in the last few months — 900% over the last decade. You can follow the spot price for a pound of uranium. "

IBM debuted a new optical transceiver chipset today that researchers within the company promise will allow users to download data eight times faster than current technology. IBM cited the rising demand for digital media such as movies as the driving force behind the new technology. "IBM says it can meet that need, building its new chipset by making an optical transceiver with standard CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology, and combining that with optical components crafted from exotic materials such as indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. The resulting package is just 3.25mm by 5.25mm in size, small enough to be integrated onto a printed circuit board."

fstyke writes "An article in the Washington Post (anonymous for obvious reasons) describes the trauma the president of a small US IT company faces after receiving a National Security Letter. This is sent by the FBI demanding information (140000+ have been sent between 2003/2005 according to the article). Makes for an interesting read of the side effects of receiving such a letter and its requirements for the recipient to remain silent about even the fact he/she has received it.'The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.'"

necromante asks: "I've been working on different IT positions through my career: support; some networking; DBA; web development; project management; even working on the client side for a little while. However, I don't feel like I am really a specialist on any of those subjects and I feel I need to focus on a particular field. So, I decided to ask for some feedback before making my decision. I understand that this depends everyones tastes, likes and dislikes. However, I would like to have a better idea of which are the available options, and I hope the results of this discussion can benefit other readers. Is there any IT career that I should consider more than the others? Which are the emerging fields? Is there any industry I should focus on in particular? Which careers on IT are actually more in demand and which ones not? Is it a better path to focus on moving into management?"

InfoWorldMike writes "EU commissioner Neelie Kroes has lashed out at Microsoft in comments to European parliamentarians Thursday, saying it is 'unacceptable' that the company continues to gain market share using tactics that were outlawed in the Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against the software vendor. 'Three years later Microsoft still hasn't complied with the main demand imposed by the European antitrust ruling: that the company share interoperability information inside Windows at a reasonable price to allow rival makers of workgroup servers to build products that work properly with PCs running Windows.'"

An anonymous reader writes "We've already seen the University of Wisconsin tell the RIAA to go away, but the University of Nebaska has gone one step further: it's asking the RIAA to pay up for wasting its time with the silly demand to push students into paying up. The spokesperson for the University also notes that since they constantly rotate IP addresses and have no need to hang onto that information for very long, they simply cannot help the RIAA. They have no clue who was attached to which IP address at the time the RIAA is complaining about."

IronWilliamCash writes with a link to a BBC article letting us know some unsurprising news: Massively Multiplayer games are a Billion dollar industry here in the west. They're worth even more in countries like China, South Korea, and Taiwan, but the recognition of the MMOG genre's appeal in Western nations is quite laudable. "Games such as World of Warcraft and worlds like Habbo Hotel are fast becoming "significant platforms" in the converged media world, the report said ... Revenues from subscriptions to MMOGs will hit $1.5bn by 2011. But the growth in MMOGs remains limited compared to developing markets such as video on demand, which is expected to be worth $11.4bn from revenues in four years' time." The article goes on to cover the diversification of the genre and the rise of casual titles in the Massive space.

Reader Actual Reality sends us to Business Week for a tale of the strangest political coalition to be seen in a while — greens, hippies, libertarians, and livestock producers uniting to get ethanol subsidies reduced or killed. The demand for the alternative fuel is driving up corn prices and having big impacts on other parts of the economy. Not many other issues are capable of getting left-leaning economist Paul Krugman and the Cato Institute on the same side.

An anonymous reader writes "I have managed a lot of technical people in my career, and one thing I know: managing geeks is hard. Rewarding, interesting, challenging — and hard. Hard to do well. Dealing with all of the complexities of a modern IT environment is extremely difficult. There is precious little time, even less (skilled) help, and many, many "mission-critical" demands. This book is written for that over-worked, tech-savvy (and perhaps business newbie) IT Manager (and IT Manager wannabee.) It discusses both sides of the IT department equation: both the technical, as well as the business issues. It talks about not only how to write a good SLA but also how to avoid burnout in your employees." Read below for the rest of the review. IT Manager's Handbook 2nd Edition author Bill Holtsnider and Brian D. Jaffe pages 589 publisher Morgan Kaufmann rating 8 reviewer anonymous ISBN 012370488X summary discusses both the technical and business side of being an IT manager

This book has 20 chapters that discuss both the concepts and the details about critical IT tasks. The first ten chapters discuss the Business of Being an IT Manager: What is an IT Manager?, Managing Your IT Team, Staffing your IT Team, Project Management, Changing Companies, Budgeting, Vendors and Their Products, IT Compliance and Controls. The second ten chapters discuss The Technology of being an IT Manager: Getting Started with the Technical Environment, Operations, Physical Plant, Networking, Security, Software and Operating Systems, Enterprise Applications, Storage and Backup, User Support Services, Websites, User Equipment, Disaster Recovery.

Back in the day, IT was a relatively well-defined activity. Not a lot of people knew about it, it was complex but pretty isolated, and there was precious little "interaction" (interference) with the business side of an organization. When I started managing, there was the technical side and everything else. Now things are very different. IT Managers not only need to have the latest patches installed on the network but they also need to know the five standards steps in project management. They have to know to write a disaster recovery plan as well as what the relative value of a certification is, what phishing is as well as what not to ask in a job interview.

The concepts discussed in this book are relatively classic; the principles of project management, implementing physical security or estimating costs for a budget are not new areas. The authors discuss these topics with a lot of hands-on detail, specific information that a manager can grab quickly. This book let me read ten pages on "Change Management," for example. I knew what change management was, but I needed more that a buzzword before I met with my boss. This book gave me enough detail to talk about it.

From the preface: "We wrote the book for new IT managers and future IT managers. Much of the material in this book will be familiar to experienced IT managers — those people who have been managing IT departments since the space program in the 1960s. But for many individuals, the late 1990s and early 2000s have brought a radical change in responsibilities with little or no help along with it." While that is not me, that is a lot of people I know and have worked with. They got shoved into management because they knew what a "service pack" was and the previous IT manager had left. One minute they were connecting CAT 5 cables and the next minute they are in a ten-person meeting trying to explain why the department needs two new server racks, and two more servers, and two more service techs and three more fill-in-the-blank.

It can be a challenge to make text about operating systems interesting, but I liked their comparison of the Linux/open source and/or Windows discussion. They point out the strengths and weaknesses of each. There are Pro/Con tables scattered throughout the book that I like a lot. Give me the facts, and I'll make up my own mind.

I don't want to say I could not put the book down, because I could. It's designed to let me. I can jump in, get the data I need ("What does ILM stand for again, and what is it?") and jump out. With a fourteen page, two-column Index, a Glossary and each of the chapters ending with both websites and book citations, I can find the stuff I need quickly.

Most individuals in IT today could benefit from a book like this. No one knows everything, and most people don't even know the range of what they are supposed to know. This is a good book for the current IT manager — there are going to be some topics that they are not familiar with, such as the details of Compliance. It is also a good book for a person that wants to or thinks they want to be an IT Manager. He or she can read through this book and determine, if these are the kinds of issues they want to deal with daily.

You can purchase IT Manager's Handbook 2nd Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Cadence writes "The DMCA is being used a lot recently to demand takedowns of all sorts of content on the Internet. But how many of those DMCA-fueled demands are abusive? Lately, some victims of takedown demands have begun to fight back with the help of the EFF, including some against Viacom: 'Finally, a Viacom executive admitted last month that less than 60 of his company's 100,000 takedown requests to YouTube were invalid. John Palfrey of Harvard's Berkman Center wonders what rights those 60 people have? We may find out. The EFF called for people who had videos pulled inappropriately to contact the group, though the EFF tells The National Law Journal that it cannot comment on its future legal plans. One of the reasons companies misuse the DMCA and cease-and-desist copyright letters is that the tools can quickly accomplish what they want to have happen; stuff they don't like goes bye-bye in a hurry. When the alternative is moving slowly through the court system, letters look like an excellent alternative.'"

Anonymous writes "Mark Shuttleworth says Linux users may need to stop being so fussy when putting demands on OEMs for pre-installed Linux PCs. CRN finds a response to Shuttleworth that seems to be both amusing and telling at the same time."

narramissic writes "In response to overwhelming user demand for Linux, Dell has posted a survey on a company blog that asks 'PC users to choose between Linux flavors such as Fedora and Ubuntu, and to pick more general choices such as notebooks versus desktops, high-end models versus value models and telephone-based support versus community-based support.' Votes will be collected through March 23, and Dell plans to use the feedback to begin selling Linux-based consumer PCs." The poll is pretty minimal. Wonder how much it will really guide Dell's choices.