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User: cskrat

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  1. Re:Same with 1080p on Users Want Matte LCDs While Glossy Screens Dominate · · Score: 1

    1080 is 16 / 9 ratio, 1200 is 16 / 10. The pixels are the same shape on both, they just give you more of them by making the screen physically taller on the 1200.

  2. Re:A Cunning Plan on Confirmed: Microsoft Says It Will Open Source VB 6 · · Score: 2

    If that's the plan, we can expect to see Bob opened up soon as well.

  3. Re:Well crap on Samsung HD Unit Bought By Seagate · · Score: 2

    What does the 'I' in RAID stand for again?

  4. Re:And the downside here is... on SSDs Cause Crisis For Digital Forensics · · Score: 2

    Most geeks that would try to leverage something like that to get laid will still fail at getting to the getting laid part.
    Most girls that would dangle that sort of carrot know that teasing is just as effective as giving where geeks are concerned.

  5. Re:Can this be real? on Man Pays $200,000 To Save Fake Online Girlfriend · · Score: 1

    And we're currently talking about wages in Canada.

  6. Re:Seamless on Internet Groups To Stream Live IPv4/6 Announcement · · Score: 1

    try ::1

  7. Audio on Internet Groups To Stream Live IPv4/6 Announcement · · Score: 1

    Can somebody tell them to kill the buzz on the audio?

  8. Re:Piracy != Theft on Man Tunnels Into GameStop, Steals Games · · Score: 4, Funny

    Eye patches are just for pirates that don't know how to treat a parrot.

  9. Go back to the origins of the OS on Advice On Teaching Linux To CS Freshmen? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't spend a lot of time in the start teaching them about Gnome or KDE. That will just give them the impression that Linux is fundamentally the same as Windows or OSX (Yes, I know OSX is BSD based but one of it's prime selling points is that the user doesn't have to think about what's under the hood). The danger in starting with the GUI is that they'll get the impression that the GUI is the OS and all the /etc, /bin and /var stuff exists to support the GUI when the opposite is more true.

    Give them all a user account with shell only (no X) on some headless machine somewhere and make them do their work there. Have it be a different distro than what their desktop machines are; in your case I'd recommend CentOS as being different enough to understand that there can and will be some variation between two different "Linux" machines in the real world. Teach them to actually do work on a machine that they have no physical access to and make sure they "understand" (rather than simply "know") that physical access to a machine is not required to do real work on that machine. Make them do their work in vim or emacs and turn it in by dropping tarballs into a shared directory.

    Somewhere about 3/4 into the semester, bring them over to the GUI and show them a IDE like netbeans (free, easy to use and supports a decent variety of languages). Spend your GUI time teaching them that on *nix the GUI exists primarily to support tools that exist in the CLI.

    On the last week that isn't review, give them access to a Solaris and a HP-UX machine and give them an assignment to do on both machines that is similar (but not quite identical) to something you gave them just before the GUI switch.

    Possible first assignment: (notes in parenthesis are for you and not to be included in the actual assignment)
    1. Create a directory named "assignment-01" in your home folder. (introduce mkdir)
    2. Within "assignment-01" create the following sub-directories "pets", "color", "os" (introduce cd)
    3. In the os directory create a text file named "home" with one line naming the OS you use at home. ex. "Windows 7", "OSX Snow Leopard", "Amiga OS", etc. (introduce vim)
    4. In the color directory create a small HTML web page named "color.html" complete with well formed <html>,<head> and <body> tags. In the body of this page name your favorite color and make it display in that color. If your favorite color is white or too light to read on a white background, change the background color to black or lie about you favorite color and pick a new one. (multi line editing, interpreting requirements, that warm fuzzy feeling of making something "real"; check for opening and closing tags on html elements, mention in class bonus points if they include a DOCTYPE and/or a page title but do not list in the written assignment)
    5. In the pets directory create a Comma Separated Value, CSV, file with one line per pet in your home. The column should be as follows {Pets name, type of pet [cat, dog, goldfish, etc.], latin name for species}. All columns should be wrapped in double quotes. If you have less than 3 pets, create imaginary pets until you have at least 3. (create machine readable text files)
    6. In the assignment-01 directory, create a text file named "hello" with one line reading "Hello, World" (necessary for a later step)
    7. create a tar zip file with the name cs101-{username}-01.tar.gz of the assignment-01 directory and copy the resulting file to /home/cs101/assignments/ . Replace {username} with you username on this machine. (introduce `tar czf`, introduce cp)
    8. Move hello from your assignment directory to your home directory. (introduce mv)
    9. Since you're on Linux now you need to let go of your old OS. Delete the os subdirectory and it's contents. ( introduce `rm -r` )
    10. Make sure your instructor can review your work by making the assignment-01 directory readable but not writable to the cs101 group. (chmod, ls -l and maybe chgrp)

  10. Deployment nightmare on Swedish Firm Proposes City Buildings On Rails · · Score: 1

    The Rails framework may be nice to develop on but deployment sucks compared to PHP.

    They should stick with Zend Framework.

  11. It's a shame... on Apple Support Company Sues Customer For Complaint · · Score: 0

    that he can't just hook up a loaner monitor to his computer while he sends in for a RMA replacement.

  12. Re:But we made up in ... on Progress In Algorithms Beats Moore's Law · · Score: 1

    I get a similar effect by using a Dvorak keyboard layout at work (keycaps still in qwerty). Great fun when a coworker tries to enter a password on my keyboard.

  13. Re:A giant centralized list for... on FTC Proposes Do Not Track List For the Web · · Score: 1

    Would adding a drop rule in iptables count as not honoring this 24h cleaning time that you speak of? Technically that would be a permanent record of someone that "opted out" of leaving any kind of record.

  14. Re:Standard GUI? on FTC Proposes Do Not Track List For the Web · · Score: 1

    What would they be enforcing specifically?

    First off, let me remind everyone that cookies left in your browser's cookie cache can only be read by the domain that gave them to you. So maps.google.com can read cookies issued by mail.google.com but www.amazon.com cannot read or in any way know about cookies issued from www.newegg.com. Cookies were designed that way for the exact reason of protecting privacy. Additionally, cookies that you receive on sites that you have not logged in to are not linked to your name, your street address, your email address or some secret serial number stamped on the back of your CPU; they are random numbers like you get at the DMV to know your place in line. Until you deliberately give a website some piece of identifying information by actually typing it in yourself, they know absolutely nothing about who you are.

    Would "opting out" mean that anonymous users (ones that have not signed in to or otherwise given personal details to a website) can't receive session id cookies? That would mean that shopping at Newegg, Amazon, eBay and etc. would require a user to give actual personal details to the website before using any sort of shopping cart feature. Trying to work around that with any sort of ajax, HTTP/POST or HTTP/GET tricks would still be "tracking" per se and would be similarly banned.

    Would "opting out" mean that the web server cannot log IP addresses? That would be a free pass for every damned script kiddie in every corner of the world to openly attack US web servers. If they have the "opt out" flag up then logging the IP to create firewall rules or report them to the authorities would be implicit admission of breaking the "opt out" rules. As a sysadmin it would also mean that I can't use Apache logs like this:
    173.201.18.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:11:33:00 -0500] "GET /ne
    173.201.18.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:11:33:02 -0500] "POST /w
    209.220.104.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:12:04:09 -0500] "GET /n
    209.220.104.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:12:04:10 -0500] "POST /
    10.209.187.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:14:23:54 -0500] "POST /wp
    184.154.62.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:14:23:54 -0500] "GET http
    216.113.191.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:15:44:59 -0500] "POST /s
    220.181.7.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:15:46:50 -0500] "GET /robo
    184.154.62.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:16:01:49 -0500] "GET http
    187.87.203.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:16:12:25 -0500] "GET /ne
    187.87.203.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:16:12:42 -0500] "POST /w
    119.63.198.xxx - - [01/Dec/2010:17:16:24 -0500] "HEAD /w
    to figure out if things like 404 errors are coming from links on my site or some stale link on someone else's.

    I could go on, but I'm not.

    Getting our panties in a twist over "tracking" is idiotic. Most people like it when businesses remember them. I like it when a bartender knows that I like dark beers and recommends I try something based on that knowledge. I like it when I walk into a convenience store and the cashier has my brand of cigarettes on the counter before I'm even finished saying "hello". I like it when my bus driver knows to wait at the downtown station an extra 5 min because he knows that I'll be arriving there on another bus about the same time he's scheduled to depart.

    How is tracking like this in real life, with your real face attached to your real body good while tracking your web browser is bad?

    If anyone want's to legislate or ban anything, how about banning the sale of privileged information collected during signup? You could even leave off any language that would make it specific to the internet and have it protect your grocery store club card records from being sold off to the highest bidder the way that the Florida DMV just recently sold off the personal information of everyone with a FL driver's license.

  15. Re:Booooo!! on FTC Proposes Do Not Track List For the Web · · Score: 1

    Technically the Earth, Sun and all other massive bodies in this solar system all orbit each other simultaneously. But the sun is the most massive so it gets to be close to the center of the system.

    Ditto for our solar system and every other solar system in the Milky Way.

    It might also hold true for the whole of the universe but I'm not sure how many times we'll circle the drain before we meet the big bang's evil twin, the big squeeze.

  16. Apples to Apples (or Beta to Beta) on Firefox 4's JavaScript Now Faster Than Chrome's · · Score: 1

    Comparing Chrome 8.0.552.11 dev to Firefox 4.0b6 on Sun Spider.

    Chrome: 335.6ms +/- 2.8%
    Firefox: 543.6ms +/- 2.4%

    System: AMD Phenom II 965 w/ 4GB RAM on Win7 Ultimate.

  17. Re:The industry can take all the time it needs on WD Launches 3 Terabyte HD · · Score: 1

    Recorded media (both analog and digital forms of photographs, audio and video) are as much a part of our cultural heritage as paintings and sculptures from previous eras.

    Losing the last copy of a TV show or movie is not much different from losing the last copy of a book. It isn't just the great works that deserve archival, since future generations can learn about the state of society from both low budget movies and merchant ledgers.

    And to more directly answer the question in your first sentence, I think it's unfortunate that several of the early episodes of Doctor Who were lost for the purpose of saving warehouse space.

  18. Re:don't bother on How Can an Old-School Coder Regain His Chops? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Java isn't that tough. If he were to find a local college willing to let him audit or, if necessary, pay for just a Java class then it would probably be a worthwhile investment. If he has experience with procedural languages and programming then a good Java course would let him catch up with OOP design.

    I think Java still makes a good poster child for OOP design and is more portable and accessible than C# or any other .NET language.

  19. Re:Come to Verizon! on Verizon CEO Says "We Will Hunt Heavy Users Down" · · Score: 1

    They're rolling out their bandwidth meter to more areas now. Last month I hit about 350GB without getting a call.

  20. Re:not enough data on Toyota Accelerator Data Skewed Toward Elderly · · Score: 4, Informative

    The e-brake is just a mechanical application of the rear brakes. The rear brakes are also controlled by the brake pedal so if you've faded your brakes by riding them, you're not going to magically get some new stopping power with the handbrake.

  21. Re:hi neighbor! on Auto-Scanning the Names People Choose For Their Wireless APs · · Score: 1

    Skip the default password search and just get http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

  22. Re:Best SSID on Auto-Scanning the Names People Choose For Their Wireless APs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Doesn't matter what the key is if it's using WEP. That's barely a couple minutes of number crunching for a cheap when it was new 3 years ago laptop. Seriously, it takes longer for a seasoned chain smoker to finish a Marb 72.

    WPA-TKIP has been shown to have exploitable weaknesses so it will likely be cracked and then trivialized soon as well (if it hasn't been already). WAP-AES is reasonably secure at the moment but I wouldn't be surprised if that falls within the next few years as well.

    Encryption is, and always has been, an arms race.

  23. Re:Blue print company on Digitizing and Geocoding Old Maps? · · Score: 1

    Except that, from the poster's description, these maps are in no condition to survive any sort of feed mechanism.

    My layman's recommendation would be to follow Wilschon's advice above and use a digital camera to digitize them. You'll probably want to rig a mount system that will allow you to move the camera on a parallel plane to whatever surface you have the map on.

    Depending on how accurate you want the digitization to be, you'll probably want to use much better lenses that are built in to a typical snapshot camera. You should solicit the advice of a photography expert to find out what lens setup would work best for capturing images of a flat plane at .3 to .6 meters with no distortion and consistent focus.

  24. Re:Down or DDoS? on Ubisoft's Authentication Servers Go Down · · Score: 1

    With or without using a car analogy?

  25. Buy your own modem. on Comcast Shoots For New Image, Rebranding As Xfinity · · Score: 1

    Comcast works well if you buy your own modem. This allows you to actually pick one based on specifications/reviews and they will generally last long enough to save you money on rental fees.

    With the exception of a brief interval on Knology, I've used Comcast internet service since they bought out the AT&T @Home service that I was on.

    With Comcast, I haven't had any real issues with service reliability or customer support. At least not since I decided to skip the rental modem lottery and buy my own from Newegg. Prior to buying my own modem, I had a service tech out 2-3 times per month to tell me that there was nothing wrong with the installation that would cause me to lose my connection several times a day.

    With Knology, however, I had nothing but terrible service and horrendous customer support. Comcast seems to be willing to invest the time and expense in maintaining and upgrading their networks, both the local systems and the national backbone. Knology in my area, however, has a very flaky local network ( to the point that customer service tried to convince me that 25% packet loss is normal and acceptable ) and that local network connects to the rest of the internet with an extremely oversubscribed link.