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User: amcnabb

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  1. Community Oriented on Web Development with TurboGears and Python · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The article was interesting, but I disagree with their claim that, "TurboGears is more community-driven than Django because it was built with pre-existing, open source components." From everything I've seen, Django has a strong community behind it. I don't think I've ever seen an open-source project whose maintainer is as helpful to users and contributors than Adrian Holovaty is. He's extremely respectful and responds quickly to bug reports and suggestions. In addition to its clean, unified feel, the community is one of the main reasons I was attracted to Django.

  2. On Seagate's product page: on Seagate Announces 750GB Hard Drives · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check out the Seagate Barracuda for more info.

  3. Um... on Seeking Prior Art Before Filing Patent? · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Hire a patent lawyer?

    Isn't that what they're for?

  4. Dell has gone downhill on White Box, Or Big Names for Lower-End Servers? · · Score: 1

    Just because it has a "name brand" like Dell doesn't mean it's any good. I've been highly unimpressed with their hardware. Just this last week I saw a brand new Dell server in which the hard drives had a plastic cover that made air flow impossible. At another place in the case, there was a fan whose intake was a closed plastic area. Hot hard drives and placebo fans don't improve server quality.

    Whether you do it yourself or buy a name-brand system, make sure that the case is well-designed and that the components are high quality.

  5. Flexible Music Collection on OGG Capable Car Stereos? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even if you get a car stereo that supports ogg, you haven't solved the problem. The real issue is that even though ogg is a better format, not everything supports it. I decided on a solution a year ago.

    I have reencoded all of my CDs as FLAC. It takes some time, but it was well worth it. I use a script out there on the Internet called oggify.pl to generate mp3s and oggs. When I can use ogg, I take my ogg files, and when I can't, I use mp3s.

  6. Re:Full text on SpecOps Labs offers $10,000 to Emulator Developers · · Score: 3, Funny

    2. System is stable.

    Wait. Do you want this to emulate Windows XP, or do you want it to be stable? :)

  7. Re:Legal Defense Fund on SCO Names 1st Lawsuit Target: AutoZone [Updated] · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone out there setting up a legal defense fund so we can chip in to help these guys fight the good fight? If we don't help out SCO targets today, any of us could be next.

    Correction: Any of us who used to use SCO Unix and is migrating to Linux could be next. If you don't have a contract with SCO and aren't a distributor of Unix or Linux, i.e., if you are normal end user, there is nothing they could possibly get you for.

    Besides, if the allegations aren't true, and no SCO libraries are being used, it should be easy to prove and this case will be dropped very quickly (at least quick for the judicial system).

  8. The Standards on Favorite Hidden Google Features? · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not sure if I know of any that aren't pretty much common knowledge. Anyway, it's fun to search for "answer to life the universe and everything". I also like the calculator function: just enter "2 + 2". The ability to search for "definition any-word-you-want" is nice, too.

    But of course, the best hidden feature is the ability to search for "litigious b******s" and to have the most relevant link appear first. In fact, you can leave off the word "litigious" and it still works, now that so many people have put links with that phrase on their web pages.

  9. Microsoft survival on What's the Hardiest Hardware You've Seen? · · Score: 2, Funny

    I saw a machine once that had Windows running on it for 5 years, and it survived it! After I installed Linux on it it worked like a charm.

  10. Re:Fluxbox? or any other *Box? XFce? on Window Managers For Small Screens? · · Score: 1

    Waimea is a great Blackbox based Window Manager. It has tons of features, like anti-aliased fonts and transparency, and it is amazingly configurable.

  11. Re:Privacy Invading Software on Rules for Teenage Internet Access? · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Is there any slashdotter that didn't look at porn in their teenager years ?

    For those who didn't: I don't believe you.


    I didn't, and I know I'm not the only one. Whether or not you want to believe us is your own choice. I find it sad that parts of our society are so devoid of virtue that they deny its existence. Now, I'm not trying to damn or judge anyone for mistakes they've made, but it's pathetic that so many call evil good and good evil.

    For those of you who think that there's nothing wrong with pr0n, here's one thing (of many) to think about. Dirty images and thoughts cause you to value women only for sexual reasons and leads to the treatment of women as objects. If you are married or eventually plan to be married, wouldn't you want to be clean of addiction to pr0n and immoral thoughts so that your wife can trust that you value her as a person and love her for who she is and not just for her body?

  12. OSS Linux Distributions on Mandrake 9.2 ISOs Available · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mandrake 9.2 is one of the few remaining 100%-OSS major Linux distributions.

    Whatever happened to Gentoo, Debian, and Fedora? The only major distribution that isn't completely open source is SuSe.

  13. Re:As if... on Security FUD On Linux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Meanwhile, the rational, quiet people whose opinions aren't voiced in boisterous +5 posts all the time just watch from the sidelines, shake their heads, and use the right tool for the job, whatever that may be.

    Are you implying that Windows is the right tool for the job? For any job? Whoa.

    For non-techies, Apple is the way to go. For corporate and/or programming environments, Linux/UNIX is the way to go. Not much room for Microsoft in the middle.

  14. I see on major weakness. on Artistic Freedom Vouchers Proposed · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In the article he said that under the current system a minority of the artists are making a majority of the money. I think that under the proposed system this would not be solved and might be even worse. There is a small number of artists that most people consider their favorites, and people would tend to elect for their money to go to them rather than going to all of the people they listen to. So the most popular artists would still make tons, and few people would send money to the little guys. The proposed system of intermediaries might help a little, but I still think that come April 15, most people would just write down the first name that they think of.

  15. Re:June? on McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest · · Score: 1

    And secondly, is this the Andrew McNabb?

    I'm the Andrew McNabb, just not the novel writer you referenced. I consider Slashdot comments more glorious than mere novels.

  16. Re:Interesting... NOT... on McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest · · Score: 1

    The right questions weren't even asked...

    I think everyone would agree that there were a lot of weak questions, and even more importantly, there were a lot of questions that he was able to dodge because of the frequent changing of topics.

    We should keep in mind that this was an unplanned and unexpected event. Darl was passing us in his [expensive] car, slowed down, said a few words, and then turned around, parked, and started chatting with us. You really can't expect an unprepared group to ask all of the perfect questions in that sort of a setting.

    And more importantly, remember that this was in June, which was before anybody knew a lot of the details that have come out over the last few months. Nobody had seen the code (with the "Greek" comments), IBM and Redhat hadn't countersued yet, and they hadn't come out with the licensing scheme yet.

    So, what made the interview interesting? To me, it was interesting to see Darl's attitude. He played the victim, he waved a folder holding code in our faces, and he tried to be our buddy. There were also some interesting comments about SCO's intentions.

    As other people have said, everytime McBride opens his mouth he hurts SCO's case.

  17. Re:Spanked on McBride Interview from Utah SCO Protest · · Score: 1

    You have to remember that it wasn't a single protester. There were about a dozen of them, and sometimes they cut each other off.

    Best of all was "Angry Protester"--I haven't seen him before or since, but I will never forget his facial expression with the veins bulging with every question.

    But yes, McBride really talks a lot more than he thinks.

  18. SpamAssassin on What's in Your Spam-Fighting Arsenal? · · Score: 1

    SpamAssassin is great because it does almost all of those things. My setup filters for regexes, checks some databases on the web for relays and for registered spam messages, manages an auto-whitelist, and does wonderful Bayesian filtering.

    I've had the same setup for several months, and I only have about 1 to 2 mistakes a month. A mix of various techniques is really the only way to go.

  19. Re:With any luck... on ACCC Asks SCO To Explain Themselves · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It appears that the ACCC is much more competent than the SEC.

    This comment:

    It asked the ACCC to investigate SCO's activities in light of "unsubstantiated claims and extortive legal threats for money" against possibly hundreds of thousands of Australians.

    shows that the ACCC really understands what's going on.

    With all of the complaints I've sent to the SEC (and I'm sure thousands of other Slashdot and Groklaw readers have done the same), I'm surprised that the SEC hasn't done anything yet. But in any case, I don't think the SEC won't be able to sit around idly once IBM is through with SCO.

  20. Accounting at BYU on Living Life in Fast-Forward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently took an introductory accounting class at BYU. The professor had prepared CDROMs with lecture videos. He actually paid licensing fees to a company that produces media speed-up software for Windows, because he wants students to watch the videos at a higher speed (I just used mplayer -speed 2 instead). He repeatedly emphasized how much a better experience it is when you watch the lectures faster.

  21. Re:Most outrageous is... on IT's Most Outrageous Markups? · · Score: 1

    some times their resellers and channel partners sell the same products for 200% less.

    Um...

    200% less means that they pay you the same amount that you would normally pay them. Are you trying to say that Sun charges 200% more than them (which would mean that they charge 67% less than Sun)?

  22. Dvorak one-handed on Programming for the Single-Handed · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know that there is a left-handed Dvorak and a right-handed Dvorak keyboard mapping (in addition to the more common two-handed Dvorak layout). It would take a little learning, but it's probably the most efficient solution.

  23. DNA huggers on GM Yeast Produces Human Protein · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of people seem to think that anything genetically engineered is automatically bad. Obviously we need to be careful when it comes to ecosystems, etc., but the DNA-huggers don't see many of the wonderful things that can come through genetic engineering. The advance described in this article is really amazing.

    Any treatments that involve human proteins will be benefited by this technique, including antibodies and hormones, as mentioned in the article.

    Science can't solve all problems, but it's always exciting to see advances like this which will make a big difference in real people's lives.

  24. Re:Remote management w/ SSH. on InfoWorld on Switching to Linux · · Score: 3, Informative

    You mentioned how some things fail when you do

    ssh remotehost service xyz restart

    Be aware that some programs (such as ping) will die if they don't have a terminal to input from/output to. One handy thing you can do is to run the following:

    ssh -t remotehost command

    which will allocate a pseudo-terminal. I can't promise it will work for your situation, but I've found that it has solved similar problems for me.

  25. Re:Post lists on Handling User Grown Machines on a Large Network? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I was in the dorms, we had a really slow network, mainly because it was in the height of file-sharing. I used ntop and other network tools to find out who was using up all of our bandwidth with movie-sharing, and then organized a posse. One time a poor guy opened his door to find 20 of us telling him to be more considerate or else.

    We wouldn't have done anything to him, but network performance went up a little.

    Anyway, I think that the list-posting idea is ten times better than any of the other suggestions I've heard so far.