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+-   win7 runs better than XP.....just barely-> on Friday November 20, @05:48PM gadget junkie

Submitted by gadget junkie on Friday November 20, @05:48PM
windows
gadget junkie writes "An interesting Article by Extremetech does a quick and dirty comparison between Windows 7, Vista, and good ole Windows XP. none of the tests are real life tests, and the hardware was dated, but "[...]For the most part, these tests don't show Windows 7 soundly trouncing XP. But for an operating system that's far richer in features and more advanced in interface, Windows 7 is quite close to the older OS and tops it in several tests. Most impressive among Windows 7's wins were its JavaScript and shutdown time results."
One phrase was rather defensive, tough:"For gamers, the results are pretty much a wash between XP and Windows 7. In any case, power gamers are far more likely to be buying for a new high-end machines and not upgrading an old XP system."
Now, I am not a big geek, but I DO play games .My quad core intel runs on XP, and you'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers; and many other people I know choose hardware sellers on one big service they offer: they do the downgrade from Vista or Win 7 to XP.
I do not have the time and resources to buy a win7 machine for inhouse testing, expecially the user experience: what's the score for slashdotters on this one?"
Link to Original Source
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Comments: 1 +-   Best Practise for Infrastructure Upgrade? on Friday November 20, @06:12AM Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20, @06:12AM
it
An anonymous reader writes "I was put in charge of an aging IT infrastructure that needs a serious overhaul. Current services include the usual suspects, e.g. www, ftp, email, dns, firewall, dhcp — and some more. In most cases, each service runs on its own hardware, some of them for the last seven years straight. The machines still can (mostly) handle the load that ~150 people in multiple offices put on them, but there's hardly any fallback if any of the services dies or an office is disconnected. Now, as the hardware must be replaced, I'd like to buff things up a bit: distributed instances of services (at least one instance per office) and a fallback/load-balancing scheme (either to an instance in another office or a duplicated one within the same). Services running on virtualized servers hosted by a single reasonably sized machine per office (plus one for testing and a spare) seem to recommend themselves. What's you experience with virtualization of services and implementing fallback/load-balancing schemes? What's Best Practise for an update like this? I'm interested in your success stories, anecdotes but also pointers and (book) references. Thanks!"
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Comments: 4 +-   Windows 7 seems to hate real LANs on Wednesday November 18, @01:39PM jakie

Submitted by jakie on Wednesday November 18, @01:39PM
jakie writes "Windows 7 really tries to make things better for the average user — as long as he or she does not try to set up a static-IP LAN without default gateway and DNS. This leads to Windows crippling this network's connectivity by categorizing it as "Unidentified" and it's location as "Public", which it does not even let you change. This — in my eyes — is a very poor design decision and has already caused much grief in the Windows community. Microsoft also does not seem to acknowledge the problem. Does any persistent solution exist for this problem?"
Read More... 4 comments submission

Comments: 3 +-   Best tool for managing your bookmarks? on Thursday November 12, @05:56AM next_exit

Submitted by next_exit on Thursday November 12, @05:56AM
next_exit writes "Almost every day, I use my home computer, my laptop, a university computer and my work computer. Over the last few years, I have compiled quite a list of bookmarks on each of the different machines. I am having a harder time remembering on which list or computer I have a bookmark saved. It would be nice to be able to have one location where my bookmarks are. Possibly with the ability to categorize them? Or a way to synchronize the different computers. To slightly mis-quote StonyCreekBare in his question on 'Best tool for remembering passwords', What does the Slashdot crowd like in "bookmark manager" tools?"
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Comments: 15 +-   What's the best tool for remembering passwords? on Tuesday November 10, @11:17AM StonyCreekBare

Submitted by StonyCreekBare on Tuesday November 10, @11:17AM
security
StonyCreekBare writes "Lately I've been re-thinking my personal security practices. Somehow having my Firefox "fill in" passwords automatically for me when I go to my bank's site seems sub-optimal should my laptop be stolen. Keeping passwords for all the varied sites on the computer in a plain-text file seems unwise as well. Keeping them in my brain is a prescription for disaster, as my brain is increasingly leaky. A paper notepad likewise has it's disadvantages.

I have looked at a number of password managers, password "vaults" and so on. The number of tools out there is a bit overwhelming. Magic Password Generator add-in for Firefox seems competent but is tied to Firefox, and I have other places and applications I want passwords. Plus I might be accessing my sites from other computers which do not have it installed.

The ideal tool in my mind should be something that is independent of any application, browser or computer, something that is easily carried, but which if lost poses no risk of compromise.

What does the Slashdot crowd like in Password tools?"
Read More... 15 comments submission

+-   Reporting to executives on Monday November 09, @12:51AM chopsuei3

Submitted by chopsuei3 on Monday November 09, @12:51AM
chopsuei3 writes "As a System Administrator, I am charged with providing more insight into the functioning of the system. What types of reports and information do other System Administrators submit to executives and on what frequency? Measurements such as uptime and average page latency are useful, but our site is relatively stable and we see minimal downtime, so I'm looking for other important and useful information I can report up to better illustrate my efforts. Our system is also unique in that about 70% of the traffic we see is from devices and not human browsers. I am a lone System Administrator in a 20 person company which specializes in web based irrigation management. I also simultaneously perform all IT related tasks in the office, which may also be important to report up to executives on regular basis."
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+-   What use old TiVO hardware? on Saturday November 07, @09:02PM buss_error

Submitted by buss_error on Saturday November 07, @09:02PM
buss_error writes "I have old TiVO hardware that I'd like to reuse — however, I find in searching that the most frequent reply is "Don't cheat TiVO!"
I don't want to cheat TiVO — In fact, I'd like to nuke the drive with a completely open source distro with no TiVO drivers at all.
Some uses I'd find interesting:

A PVR for security cams
A PVR for a drive cam
A unit for weather reporting
FAX/Telephone
Power monitor for the home
Other home automation

Again — I would prefer a completely TiVO free install — this is because I have major issues with TiVO and don't want the slightest
taint if their intellectual property. But since I paid for the hardware, I'd like to wring some use of it rather than simply put it in the landfill.
I won't give it away for some other person to experience my issues with TiVO — I'll throw it away before I'd do that."
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+-   Best open source asset tracking solution? on Saturday November 07, @12:44PM Waynelson

Submitted by Waynelson on Saturday November 07, @12:44PM
Waynelson writes "I've been dealing with terrible commercial closed source asset tracking systems within the military for a while now and just recently i've been given permission to migrate to a new system if we can find something that works. We're looking for an asset tracking program that support taking regular inventories using unique asset ids that are scanned via a hand held device into a flat .csv file. What have you used and would you recommend it?"
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+-   Simple, cost effective multiroom audio? on Saturday November 07, @08:13AM jimicus

Submitted by jimicus on Saturday November 07, @08:13AM
jimicus writes "I'd like a multiroom audio system but I'm thoroughly confused by the options available — and the difference in prices is huge. For instance, Philips have a wireless system which starts at around £280 — and Russound have a product which comes in around £1,000.

I've already got all my music as MP3s and it lives on a NAS box — I don't really want to repeat that process. I also have a perfectly capable amp and speakers in my living room, so I don't really need anything else there.

Whatever I go for has to pass the wife test — so something which requires a separate amp, speakers and PC in each room and requires a keyboard to control is right out.

I don't mind spending a little money but I don't really want to find that every little extra thing adds up to £thousands.

Has anyone else dealt with a similar problem? How did you solve it?"
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Comments: 2 +-   Synchronize data between Linux, OS X, and Windows? on Thursday November 05, @12:23PM aaaaaaargh!

Submitted by aaaaaaargh! on Thursday November 05, @12:23PM
aaaaaaargh! writes "I'm using a laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 for work, a netbook with Ubuntu 9.10 when I'm outside, Mac OS X 10.5 for hobby projects, and Windows XP for gaming. For backups I'm currently using Jungledisk and Apple Timemachine and I use a local svn repository for my work data. Now I need to frequently exchange and synchronize OpenOffice and Latex files and source code in various cross-platform programming languages between one machine and another.

  Options range from putting everything online (but Jungledisk disks seem to be too slow for anything else than backup), storing my data on external medias like USB sticks or SD cards, or working with copies by synchronizing folders over the network. I don't want to give my data away to some server outside without strong encryption (controlled by me, including the source code) and external media like USB sticks are a bit too fragile according to my taste. The solution should be reliable, relatively failsafe, as simple as possible, and allow me to continue to use Jungledisk for backup.

So what would you recommend?"
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+-   computer activities for speech difficulties-> on Sunday November 01, @12:49PM Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01, @12:49PM
An anonymous reader writes "computer based activities for those with speech and language difficulties

My girlfriend is training to be a speech and language therapist here in the UK (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 it can obviously inhibit options for jobs/other aspects of life etc. 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?
Cant wait for the Beavis and Butt-head type comments about fun computer based "activities" :)
thanks for your time
Hugh Jars :)"
Link to Original Source
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Comments: 1 +-   Documentation Naming Conventions on Thursday October 29, @02:50PM realsilly

Submitted by realsilly on Thursday October 29, @02:50PM
realsilly writes "I am a requirements analyst, and I often find myself in companies where they either have an extremely rigid naming convention and structure for storing documents or there is no structure in place at all. I find myself in the latter of the two situations, where I'm trying to come up with an easy to use and implement naming convention that will be followed by those who don't name things formally. I am avoiding using numbers and dates within document names and in many cases, I have much of my early documentation on internal wiki pages. I'm looking for some best practices ideas from the Slashdot community."
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+-   Sci-Fi Reading for an E-Commerce College Course? on Tuesday October 27, @12:54PM Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27, @12:54PM
An anonymous reader writes "My friend will be teaching an e-commerce class at a four-year college starting in the spring. He wants to present not just existing business models (Amazon, eBay, iTunes), but also help students to think about the future — what might be hot in ten, twenty, thirty years. To that end, he's looking to draw from science fiction literature — today's fiction could be the inspiration for tomorrow's billion-dollar idea. Any suggestions for books that he should assign? What sci-fi works have the most intriguing (put plausible) technology and consumer products? The more variety, the better; some kind of anthology would be ideal."
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Comments: 2 +-   Ask Slashdot: Reliability of PC Flash SSDs? on Monday October 26, @10:16PM Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26, @10:16PM
An anonymous reader writes "SATA and IDE flash solid-state disks (SSDs) 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!"
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Comments: 6 +-   How to Enter Equations Quickly In Class? on Thursday October 22, @06:53PM AdmiralXyz

Submitted by AdmiralXyz on Thursday October 22, @06:53PM
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."
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Comments: 1 +-   Impressing security upon end-users visually? on Thursday October 22, @06:00PM get quad

Submitted by get quad on Thursday October 22, @06:00PM
security
get quad writes "I continually have to remind our end-users to be vigilant about the usual safeguards such as clicking links in the occasional spam email which passes through filters, visiting suspicious websites, why some websites aren't entirely safe or appropriate for the work environment (facebook apps, myspace, remote access apps, proxies, etc), amongst the myriad of 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 they will never bother to read. Getting the point across in a purely visual and less technical manner which has some gravitas at the same time seems much more effective; suggestions and links much appreciated."
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Comments: 1 +-   Does SORBS matter anymore?-> on Tuesday October 20, @10:13PM palegray.net

Submitted by palegray.net on Tuesday October 20, @10:13PM
spam
palegray.net writes "As an employee of a well-known VPS provider, I've been observing another employee's efforts to deal with irresponsible behavior on the part of SORBS, a well-known blacklist provider. Although their mission of providing a resource that system administrators can use to gauge the likelihood of spam originating from a particular IP or netblock is admirable, we've encountered consistent issues related to their assertions with a newly assigned block from ARIN. Jed puts it best:

We recently received a large allocation of IP addresses from ARIN and, to our chagrin, the block is listed on SORBS's list as dynamic IP space — a whole /20 worth of addresses. It has been listed since April and we received it in May. What this means is that to incoming mail servers, all of our customers in this block appear like home customers with a cable or DSL connection (who should not be sending mail).

Obviously, as a hosting company we assign a static to each VPS we provision. Our IP allocations are is in no way dynamic; customers may request an IP address change, but we don't receive many such requests. We always ask for justification, and the requests we approve are typically performed on a "one time only" basis. Jed continues:

I approached SORBS about the issue via their automatic contact system. It has been nearly two weeks since their "bot" replied to me and informed me that most of the block was not eligible for delisting due to the naming convention in our reverse DNS PTRs. We use:

liXXX-YYY.members.linode.com

What's wrong with that? It "looks" dynamic, they say.

Despite our attempts to reach out to SORBS, explain our position, and get our IP space delisted, we've being told that we must change our reverse DNS naming scheme across our entire network to be considered for delisting. Needless to say, we consider this a ridiculous proposition.

Our primary concern is that mail administrators are using SORBS to blindly drop mail based on the false "dynamic IP" assertion. Although we would consider such a practice to be irresponsible from an administrator's standpoint, this is an issue that's been raised by some of our customers, and we're concerned about the effect it may be having on their ability to deliver legitimate mail. We've always taken an aggressive stance against anything resembling spammy behavior on our network; we're all I.T. veterans, we all despise spam, and we promptly handle any reports of abuse related to our network. It's distressing to see this situation going unresolved. What advice do members of the Slashdot community have on this topic?"
Link to Original Source

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Comments: 5 +-   How to deal with a know-all jerk programmer? on Tuesday October 20, @09:44PM boxlight

Submitted by boxlight on Tuesday October 20, @09:44PM
boxlight writes "I am working with a know all jerk programmer who can't keep his nose out of everyone's business. For example, he's responsible for the object-persistence layer only, but he's always mouthing off to everyone about how they are "supposed" to be doing their work (UI programmers, application server guys, DBAs, and so on) when he's not in charge of anything. Basically he's micro-managing everyone when he's not even the manager!

At one time or another everyone on the team has complained about him, and because I work very closely with him people often come to me to ask me what his problem is.

Whenever anyone confronts the guy he flies completely off the handle. It's like he has a screw loose and is unable to accept other people's ways of doing things; it's always an all-or-nothing approach with him; he either gets his way, or he gives a reluctant eye-roll and a "whatever", only to bring up the issue again in a week or so until, ultimately, the other person give in just to shut him up.

The other unfortunate piece of this is he's always in the boss's office doing a song and dance about how hard he's working and how wonderful he is at solving so many complex problems. So he appears to have the boss's ear. Like, when the boss wants to take the temperature of the project, he goes to this guy.

So far I've managed to keep my cool and keep the peace by pretty much giving in on things he wants; . But I feel like there's an anger in me that's simmering under the surface and I'm afraid one of these days I'm going to freak out on him and them *I'm* going to look like the source of the problem to the boss. I don't want to get into daily shouting matches, and I really don't want to lower myself to his level and start sucking up to the boss for perceived credibility either.

Also, I don't want to quit because everyone else at the company are great to work with and the project is fun and the money is good.

So my question for Slashdot is, how do I deal with this??? Please help!"
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Comments: 1 +-   What desktop search engine for a shared volume? on Monday October 19, @02:02PM kriston

Submitted by kriston on Monday October 19, @02:02PM
windows
kriston writes "Searching data on a shared volume is tedious. If I try to use a Windows desktop search engine on a volume with hundreds of gigabytes the indexing process takes days and the search results are slow and unsatisfying. I'm thinking of an agent that runs on the server that regularly indexes and talks to the desktop machines running the search interface. How do you integrate your desktop search application with your remote file server without forcing each desktop to index the hundred gigabyte volume on its own?"
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Comments: 1 +-   What is your job title? on Friday October 16, @04:31AM chetbox

Submitted by chetbox on Friday October 16, @04:31AM
chetbox writes "I imagine a lot of the Slashdot crowd are software engineers, programmers or something along those lines, but what do you write on your CV/résumé and your email signature? Do you use the word "engineer", "programmer", "developer", "architect" or something else? What job title do you use? How do you make sure it describes your work and, more importantly, your worth without sounding pretentious?

I have my own projects which I plan, design and implement; I work on existing projects, mostly programming new features and tidying up; I also do some research and testing of new ideas, which may later turn into products. (None have yet: I haven't been working here long.) What could my job title be?"
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