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Comments: 397 +-   Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer? on Thursday November 05, @03:40PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 05, @03:40PM
from the not-where-the-action-is dept.
communications
An anonymous reader writes 'In comparison to the advanced technology in today's smart phones, the standard home phone is painfully backwards. My current setup is a Panasonic system that has 4 cordless phones over one base station. Setting the time on one phone changes the time on all the phones; however, this is not the case for the phone book. Each entry must be manually copied (pushed) to each handset. Is this as far as home phone technology has come? What I would like is a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units (if not sync with Address Book or Outlook), keep a log of caller IDs, or even forward me new voicemail notifications. Does anyone know if such a system exists?'
Read More... 397 comments story

Comments: 130 +-   On-Demand Video + CMS + Interactive Input For Museum? on Wednesday November 04, @05:55PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 04, @05:55PM
from the free-reign-in-spain dept.
displays
remolacha writes "I've been given the task of tech chief for a biggish art museum (1,300 m^2, or about 13,000 sq ft) in Spain. The museum's designers want 20 'terminals' that will offer on-demand video and interactive content. The terminals' content will change with the exhibits; many will have touchscreens. More interesting forms of input are planned as well (floor sensors, big buttons). It's all on one floor, and the floors are raised, so I can run cabling and set up floor ethernet jacks. Max cable run is 60m / 190ft. The museum may expand to 4 times its projected size once open, by comandeering other floors in the building. To give an idea of where the designers heads are, they were talking about a massive DVD changer in a closet somewhere. I am thinking an intranet running a web server with a CMS and Flash media server, terminals running Firefox in kiosk mode. I'd love to do everything on Linux. Does anyone have experience with a setup like this, better ideas, or advice?"
Read More... 130 comments story

Comments: 145 +-   Computer Activities for Those With Speech and Language Difficulties? on Sunday November 01, @06:02PM

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 01, @06:02PM
from the yr-voice-is-yr-password dept.
medicine
An anonymous reader writes "My girlfriend is training to be a speech and language therapist here in the UK (speech pathologist in the US). A number of clients are guys who enjoy playing computer games, and for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech. The issue is, this can obviously inhibit options for jobs and/or other aspects of life. I was trying to think of fun computer-based activities for those with speech and language difficulties that encourage individuals to speak, and furthermore to speak with greater clarity. Or games/activities that might encourage them to do more speech work. The first options that sprang to mind were the online games with team-speak / team-talk for those with mild difficulties. The sampling / accent issue might force them to speak with greater clarity or wish to have that ability. Obviously, they can just type. Any thoughts?"
Read More... 145 comments story

Comments: 406 +-   What Happened To the Bay Bridge? on Saturday October 31, @01:36PM

Posted by kdawson on Saturday October 31, @01:36PM
from the span-in-the-works dept.
transportation
farnsworth writes "Tony Alfrey has put together a fascinating page with some history, analysis, and possible explanations for what ultimately went wrong with the recent emergency repair of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The bridge has been closed for days and is not scheduled to open for days to come, hugely inconveniencing more than 250,000 people a day. His analysis touches on possibly poor welding, a possibly flawed temporary fix, and the absence of a long-term fix or adequate follow-up by Caltrans, the agency responsible for the bridge. Slashdot is a great engineering community; what other insights do you have on the bridge situation?"
Read More... 406 comments story

Comments: 507 +-   Installing Linux On Old Hardware? on Friday October 30, @05:18PM

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 30, @05:18PM
from the where-are-those-old-telegraph-drivers dept.
linux
cptdondo writes "I've got an old laptop that I've been trying to resurrect. It has a 486MHz CPU, 28 MB of RAM, a 720 MB HD, a 1.44MB floppy drive, and 640x480 VESA video. It does not have a CD drive, USB port, or a network port. It has PCMCIA, and I have a network card for that. My goal is to get a minimal GUI that lets me run a basic browser like Dillo and open a couple of xterms. I've spent the last few days trying to find a Linux distro that will work on that machine. I've done a lot of work on OpenWRT, so naturally I though that would work, but X appears to be broken in the recent builds — I can't get the keyboard to work. (OK, not surprising; OpenWRT is made to run on WiFi Access Point hardware which doesn't have a keyboard...) All of the 'mini' distros come as a live CD; useless on a machine without a CD-ROM. Ditto for the USB images. I'm also finding that the definition of a 'mini' distro has gotten to the point of 'It fits on a 3GB partition and needs 128 MB RAM to run.' Has Linux really become that bloated? Do we really need 2.2 GB of cruft to bring up a simple X session? Is there a distro that provides direct ext2 images instead of live CDs?"
Read More... 507 comments story

Comments: 822 +-   How To Enter Equations Quickly In Class? on Thursday October 29, @03:36PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 29, @03:36PM
from the napkins-and-a-digital-camera dept.
inputdev
AdmiralXyz writes "I'm a university student, and I like to take notes on my (non-tablet) computer whenever possible, so it's easier to sort, categorize, and search through them later. Trouble is, I'm going into higher and higher math classes, and typing "f_X(x) = integral(-infinity, infinity, f(x,y) dy)" just isn't cutting it anymore: I need a way to get real-looking equations into my notes. I'm not particular about the details, the only requirement is that I need to keep up with the lecture, so it has to be fast, fast, fast. Straight LaTeX is way too slow, and Microsoft's Equation Editor isn't even worth mentioning. The platform is not a concern (I'm on a MacBook Pro and can run either Windows or Ubuntu in a virtual box if need be), but the less of a hit to battery life, the better. I've looked at several dedicated equation editing programs, but none of them, or their reviews, make any mention of speed. I've even thought about investing in a low-end Wacom tablet (does anyone know if there are ultra-cheap graphics tablets designed for non-artists?), but I figured I'd see if anyone at Slashdot has a better solution."
Read More... 822 comments story

Comments: 780 +-   Moving Away From the IT Field? on Wednesday October 28, @12:23AM

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday October 28, @12:23AM
from the life-on-the-other-side dept.
it
irving47 writes 'With the economy the way it is, it's a little iffy to even think about switching careers completely, but lately, I've gotten more and more fed up with trying to keep up with the technical demands of companies and customers that are financially and even verbally unappreciative. While I might be good at it, and the money is adequate, I'm curious to hear from Slashdotters who have gone cold-turkey from their IT/Networking careers to something once foreign to them. How did you deal with the income difference, if any? Do you find yourself dealing with people more, and if so, how did that work out?'
Read More... 780 comments story

Comments: 465 +-   Reliability of PC Flash SSDs? on Tuesday October 27, @11:15AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 27, @11:15AM
from the failure-is-failure dept.
storage
An anonymous reader writes "SATA and IDE flash solid-state disks are all the rage these days — faster and, allegedly, more reliable than traditional spinning-rust disks. My organization dipped its toe in the flash-disk waters, buying a handful for some PC and Linux boxes. Out of 8 drives from various manufacturers, 3 have failed in the space of four months! Some are reporting bad blocks, others just crapped out and stopped responding entirely. (And no, this isn't a wear-leveling issue, nor were these machines in particularly harsh environmental conditions, nor were all failed drives from the same manufacturer.) So I ask you, the readers of Slashdot: what has your experience been like with basic, consumer-grade SATA or IDE flash drives? Are they failing for you too, or are we just unlucky? It's starting to remind me of the claims about long-lifetime compact fluorescent light bulbs that, in reality, have turned out to be BS!"
Read More... 465 comments story

Comments: 697 +-   Low-Power Home Linux Server? on Sunday October 25, @12:11PM

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday October 25, @12:11PM
from the how-long-can-a-car-battery-power-it dept.
power
mpol writes "For years I've been using a home server with Linux, but recently I've been having doubts about the electric bill. I'm not touched by the recession yet, but I would like to cut costs, and going from a 100-Watt system to a 30-Watt system would save me 70 bucks a year. The system doesn't need to do much, just apache, imap, ssh and some nfs, but I do prefer to have a full-fledged system, where I can choose what to install on it. I also don't really care if it's a low-power Via or an ARM processor as long as it's cheap. I'm aiming for $300 or less for a full system, which I could then earn back in about four years through power savings. I've been reading about the Western Digital Mybook World Edition, which has an ARM processor but isn't that easy to install Debian on. A Mac Mini draws about 85 Watts, so that isn't an option either. Something a bit more than turn-key would be fine, but preferably not a complete hack-job. Adding a temporary CR-ROM or DVD-ROM, or a USB disk with an iso to install from would be nice. Any Slashdotters run nice and cheap low-power Linux systems? What can you recommend?"
Read More... 697 comments story

Comments: 157 +-   Impressing Security Upon End-Users Visually? on Saturday October 24, @10:22AM

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 24, @10:22AM
from the shake-your-fist-and-glare dept.
security
get quad writes "I continually have to remind our end-users to be vigilant about the usual web security hazards, such as not clicking links in the occasional spam email that passes through our filters, avoiding suspicious websites, why some websites aren't entirely safe or appropriate for the work environment (Facebook apps, MySpace, remote access apps, proxies, etc), and the myriad other things an end-user can do to get into trouble. What I'm hoping to find are video or flash examples (mind you, in layman's terms) of what Web-based exploits/zero-day threats are capable of, how they can happen, and the harm they can ultimately cause — rather than posting links to technical docs the users will never bother to read. Getting the point across in a purely visual and less technical manner seems much more effective. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this type of training?"
Read More... 157 comments story
 
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