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New Microsoft Mouse Scrolls Both Ways
Library Spoff writes "The BBC are reporting that Microsoft are bringing out a mouse that will use the scroll wheel to tilt as well as roll. The innovation means that users will be able to scroll vertically as well as horizontally without using on-screen navigation bars." How long before I get a trackball embedded in my mouse?
I'm not inclined to believe much of anything the BBC says anymore.
After the whole "scandal" that the British government "sexed up" the Iraq dossier, in which it was the BBC that did the sexing up, and openly doubting the US's claims that they were at the Baghdad airport, the BBC simply doesn't have much credibility anymore.
Slashdot should really find a better "news" source than the BBC nowadays.
Reform The H-1B and L-1 Guest Worker Visa Programs
By the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO
In the current recession--unlike previous economic downturns--a growing number of well-educated and highly skilled U.S. professional and technical workers have found themselves in the long lines of the unemployed. They and their families have not only been battered by the economic trauma of being out of work, but increasingly they are finding themselves victimized by dysfunctional U.S. guest worker policies. For many--particularly workers in high tech--these policies have made a bad situation much worse.
Under current law, employers, especially in high tech, are abusing temporary visa programs to allow hundreds of thousands of guest workers with no rights and no job security to take job opportunities in the United States, when workers in this country are unemployed and even being laid off. There are now more than a million of these workers in the United States under the two largest guest worker programs, H-1B and L-1. Yet neither of these programs connects in any way to the realities of the U.S. labor market and our rising unemployment rate.
Worse, both programs are rife with fraud and abuse and are being used by unscrupulous corporations to displace America's workers and exploit guest workers. Under these programs, guest workers must depend on their employers not only for a job, but also for their legal status. Employers also have the power to renew guest worker visas at their pleasure. This creates an unequal relationship inherently subject to abuse, in which employers have the upper hand to intimidate guest workers who seek better wages and working conditions, seek to join a union or complain of discrimination. Employers can retaliate by threatening to end these guest workers' employment and thus their visas, or by threatening to deny the renewal of visas in the future.
This year, Congress must take action to clean up the problems that plague these programs by implementing urgently needed reforms.
The H-1B Temporary Guest Worker Program
In effect since 1990, the H-1B program originally was designed to permit a modest number of professional and technical guest workers into the United States each year to alleviate spot shortages in our labor market. However, in 1998 and again in 2000--despite AFL-CIO opposition--Congress drastically expanded the program, even as widespread reports of exploitation and abuse of U.S. and H-1B guest workers were surfacing. Later this year, the previous legislation will sunset and thereby reduce the number of visas to the original yearly limit of 65,000 that was in effect prior to 1998. The AFL-CIO supports this reduction, but other reforms are also needed:
To make the program truly "temporary," H-1B visas should be limited to one non-renewable three-year term.
The program must include explicit prohibitions against replacement of U.S. workers and must strictly tie the entry of any and all H-1Bs to U.S. labor market conditions to minimize the impact on all professional workers.
The existing "attestation" system--a sort of honor code whereby employers assert they have searched for qualified U.S. workers and are paying H-1B workers prevailing wages and benefits--should be replaced with real safeguards that protect both domestic and foreign guest workers.
The number of guest workers per company must be limited. Only the primary employer--with a specific, full-time job opening--should be eligible to make application for an H-1B visa. In higher education, the primary employer may make application for job openings consistent with the unique employment terms and conditions in that industry.
H-1B workers must have an independently verified college degree equivalent to a U.S. degree, demonstrated experience in the field for which they are being hired and must have achieved licensure in the occupations that require it.
With the exception
Microsoft are the evil empire and slashdot posters is needing English lessons.
GAO Green Lights Offshoring Study
WashTech News
Washington DC -- The General Accounting Office agreed on Tuesday to study the trend of U.S. companies exporting engineering and technical jobs overseas to cheaper labor markets. Congressmen Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Adam Smith (D-WA) wrote a letter to the GAO Inspector General on July 17th requesting such a study.
"I'm extremely pleased that the GAO agrees that this is a critically important issue that should be thoroughly examined," said Rep. Smith. "I'm very eager to see the study's findings and use them to improve public policy."
Rep. Inslee told WashTech in a written statement: "Clearly, an increasing number of American firms are outsourcing some of their services. Congress needs an accurate assessment of the facts surrounding this practice in order to find viable policy solutions that will enhance competitiveness of American workers and help keep high-tech jobs in our country. I am encouraged that the GAO is willing to take on this project, and I look forward to their recommendations."
This study comes after several months of lobbying by WashTech, and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) calling on members of Congress to request that the GAO to investigate the issue. As part of the lobbying campaign, which began in January of this year, WashTech generated more than 13,000 email and fax letters to congressional representatives from more than 30 states.
The issue of offshore outsourcing of engineering and information technology jobs has also generated increasing U.S. and international news coverage in recent months.
The study will begin looking at this trend, and analyze the impacts on technical and aerospace employees. It will also review the treatment of IT outsourcing in U.S. trade policy and offer recommendations for enhancing U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace.
Just get a proper editor. Long lines should be wrapped in a way that makes that fact recognisable. Emacs, for instance, has been doing this for ages.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Go here, select Send and receive email only, Say you will only use less than an hour a day, only one person using it, never be networked, and its for home use only.
What do microsoft reccomend?
For the types of computer usage you indicated, you may wish to look for the following specifications when shopping for a new PC:*
* 128 MB of RAM or more Learn More
* 1.0 GHz or higher processor Learn More
* 20 GB or more hard drive space Learn More
As sarcastic as the parent is, there is a point. It's not new, nor is it useful otherwise it would have been adopted by now.
I've found a moderate use of the scroll wheel on my mouse to give me severe aching in those particular fingers. I've used mice and keyboards fairly heavily for years and suffered very little RSI. Yet as shortly after adopting a scroll wheel to scroll rather than using scroll bars - and more out of laziness than practicality since a scroll bar gives you more control over the scroll - I've found the pain so bad in my right index and middle fingers (I switched to my middle finger after it became too painful using my index finger) I've had to stop using the scroll wheel altogether.
With the world's dominant technology force behind it, this kind of trackball-on-mouse will probably become ubiquitos. But probably not widely used.
I suspect I'm not unique with my aversion to using the scroll wheel, given the speed with which RSI set in on my fingers. (And I'm a lad, for those of you with dirty minds - so, no, 'that' is not the cause!)
Back to the nice scroll bars for me - which I now prefer for usability reasons since I can easily control the scrolling of a page rather than the guess work that came with using a scroll wheel.
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