may the force be with you

Last Monday, Boingo agreed to send http://wifi-hotspot.wirelessinternetcoverage.com their entire wifi hotspot database. They came through. Since then, the wirelessinternetcoverage.com guys have been working 24/7 to get all the "thousand points of light" in their new Google Maps Hack. It's done. The beta bugs pointed out by Peter Rojas at Engadget are gone. Now, you can bird's eye WarDrive instead of ascii search for the nearest hotspot in a town where none of the streets are familiar." And stockmaster writes "At last week's Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Tim O'Reilly extended his theme that Google Map hacks like Chicago Crime and Craigslist Jobs (which are called "mash-ups") represent a new future where hackers "remix" web services to create new capabilities. This inspired me to create Greasemap, a GPL Firefox plugin that injects a Google map into any page. Notably, it was a 7 hour project which I started when Google released their new API, and demoed the next day on the stage of the conference."

source:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/1927234&tid=217&tid=1

"The Data Compression News Blog reports that on July 14th 2005, the name "MP3" celebrates its tenth anniversary. On this day back in 1995, the researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS decided to use ".mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987, in 1992 it was considered far ahead of its times, then MP3 became the generally accepted acronym for the ISO standard IS 11172-3 "MPEG Audio Layer 3" and no other coding method so far (2005) could uncrown MP3 as the popular standard for digital music on the computer and on the Internet."

source:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/1952249&tid=141&tid=1

IBM's newest chip is the dual core PowerPC 970MP, a version of the PowerPC 970FX found in Apple's G5 Power Macs. The company envisions selling the processor for use in entry-level servers as well as in clusters of high-performance computers.

When Apple announced it was making the switch to Intel chips by the end of next year, some observers cast IBM as the odd developer out. But chip experts say the company's research path does not depend on Apple's computers.

Last week, Big Blue announced the release of two new PowerPC chips, one a dual-core processor and the other a low-power version.

IBM made no mention of the chips being used in personal computers, although Apple CEO Steve Jobs has indicated his firm will launch new Macs using IBM technologies before the switch to Intel. Even so, IBM clearly is starting to eye more lucrative markets inside and outside the PC industry.

No PCs

IBM's newest chip is the dual core PowerPC 970MP, a version of the PowerPC 970FX found in Apple's G5 Power Macs. The company envisions selling the processor for use in entry-level servers as well as in clusters of high-performance computers.

The 970MP essentially doubles the performance of the 970FX -- available in speeds from 1.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz -- and enables power-saving features such the reduction of voltage and frequency on both cores or the option to reduce or shut down power on one core while the other works.

IBM also said it would launch a low-power version of the PowerPC 970FX designed to run on less than 20 watts of power. The device is slated for products in the embedded-systems market, such asprinters

or small consumer-electronics devices.

In both announcements, IBM refrained from including personal computers in its short list of possible end products for the processors.

Firsts and Fastest

Mac fans have put up surprisingly little resistance to the idea that Intel chips would run

OS X software. Many welcomed the idea. Several analysts have acknowledged that IBM's PowerPC chips have been and are superior to Intel's.

Of course, one reason Apple switched is because it said IBM could not keep up with Intel's power-consumption technologies. Big Blue asserts it is capable of making chips that use less power for mobile PCs.

Still, as in any breakup, the "their loss" sentiment is not lost on IBM. Certainly, Apple sees an opportunity with Intel. But IBM continues the same chip development that allowed Apple to claim several firsts and fastests. Now, Big Blue will plow its research efforts into processors for game consoles and other consumer products that might one day knock the PC down a rung.

China Watch

"[Game consoles] are more than a niche; it's their strategy," said

IDC chip analyst Shane Rau. "Given the way the supply chain works, chip makers are able to set the direction of device categories," he noted.

Large firms like Sony , Microsoft and Comcast are betting that a home-entertainment device, evolved from a game console or set-top box, will replace many of the PC's functions. IBM plans to be inside these new systems.

In addition to this, Rau sees a lucrative avenue for IBM in China, where the marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with PowerPC chips presents some intriguing possibilities.

"The PC is already a general-purpose device," he offered. "Watch for China, where IBM launched its chip technology licensing program Power.org."

source:http://www.cio-today.com/news/After-Apple--IBM-Remains-Focused/story.xhtml?story_id=03000108J7ZU

"Pretty much every form element has been conquered by CSS so far, letting us create stylish, integrated forms to tie in closely with our site designs for that UI polish graphics artists love to have. Radio Buttons and Check Boxes, however, have resisted most attempts to style them consistently, accessibly and elegantly- perhaps because nobody cares enough to come up with the solution. However, these elusive form elements have finally been conquered with a simple combination of CSS and Javascript and a little HTML wrapper. The solution is easy and quick to implement, is accessible (working with tab and space) and elegantly degrades where CSS and/or XHTML is not available."

source:http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/1351239&tid=156&tid=8

"Inventgeek.com has a new article entitled "A practical guide to DIY Home Projection". The guide covers the basic theory behind projection and provides a step by step guide for a "Practical" DIY LCD Projector. Although this topic has been covered before, the perspective they offer is refreshing."

source:http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/1313232&tid=196&tid=222

It’s something universally recognized with computers, and something I’ve come to loathe with a passion. Even though it’s changed over the years, it’s still mostly the same. I speak of none other than the floppy disk. We all know about it. That little black disk we’d have to dig out back in grade school every time the teacher gave us an assignment to do on the computer. The floppy disk was well intended, but its usefulness is now gone. Now, over 30 years later, the floppy disk needs to go for good.

It’s hard to think about how far we’ve come with our big storage numbers today, with the original floppy disk being eight inches and only holding 80 kilobytes. The floppy disk has at least decreased in physical size and increased in capacity. That doesn’t account for much though. Floppy disks are 3 ½ inches in size and only hold 1.44 Megs of data. Floppy disks might not even be so bad if they could just hold more. But with the size of different programs and files today, 1.44 Megs just doesn’t cut it. A single song on average is about 3 Megs. I know people have, numerous times, tried to do an assignment of some sort or had some important file they had to move, only to try and upload it to the floppy and it’s just too big. This is frustrating for sure.

Floppies themselves aren’t very friendly in the way of physical storage either. With what’s available today, there’s really no need to have some of their size holding so little information. Who really wants to carry a bunch of square discs around with them all the time? Certainly not me, and probably not most people if they had the chance. The actual drives for the floppy disk also take up room in the computer. That in itself may not be any big deal, but the space probably could go to something a little more useful. Companies like Dell have at least begun to make floppy drives optional, and external floppy drives are also now options for those users without floppy drives and would like to have one.

If all of this isn’t bad enough, floppies are slow. Maybe it’s kind of hard to complain about them being slow, since there’s so little you can put on them and speed doesn’t make much of a difference. But when using other storage means, there’s a significant difference that can be seen. Floppies aren’t always fun to use either. We’ve all had those moments where we or someone else has pulled the disk out of the drive while waiting for the slow little floppy drive light to go off. Or even worse, we get to a computer to use a floppy in, only to find it won’t work unless it’s formatted and all the data gets erased. My desktop computer for some reason refuses to use the transparent rainbow colored floppy disks for some reason unless it formats them first, but it will normally use a black floppy disk just fine. Then if it does format them, it slows down the computer in the process, and sometimes the format doesn’t even work in the end.

Years ago, maybe all of this was acceptable, and understandably so. But today, technology has advanced so fast that it has left the floppy disk in the dust. Compared to the paltry 1.44 Meg disks, we can carry huge sizes on drives small enough to fit comfortably onto our key chains. These are things I love: USB drives. I have one on my keychain myself. With the most recent and future Windows operating systems, most USB devices are recognized automatically, so there’s generally no problem getting the USB drives to work on a computer (although Windows 95 and 98 would require the downloading of drivers). USB drives are exceptionally faster than floppy disks by far, and come in sizes of 128, 256, and 512 Megs. For those who really need space, they’re offered in 1 and 2 Gigs. If that’s not quite enough, 3 and 4 Gigs are also offered, but they’re far too expensive at the moment.

In the last couple of months, I have had three other people buy a USB drive after I explained and demonstrated mine. I have also advocated my desire to see an end to the floppy. There have been numerous occasions where my floppy drive has come in handy (which ultimately led to the other people making their own purchases). In one instance, the floppy disks were not working to move Yearbook files from computer to computer shortly after I graduated high school and was trying to finish the yearbook. I decided to try my USB drive, and not only did it move them, but it did so significantly faster. In college Anatomy and Physiology class during the first part of summer, we were let into the library when it wasn’t open to study some slides. Floppy disks were $1 each, and since the library wasn’t technically open, no one could buy any yet and would have to wait until later. My USB drive helped me out and I had the Power Point slides to take home with me.

There really is very little reason to use floppy disks anymore. Devices such as USB drives are not only more convenient, faster, and more spacious than floppies, but they’re also inexpensive. A good USB drive will only run about $15-50 depending on what brand and type of size of USB drive you get. Some models even offer encryption. What’s not to like? Do yourself a favor: Dump your floppies, go to Wal-Mart or any computer store, and buy a USB drive. There’s no reason not to. When floppies fade into computer history and everyone else tries to make the transition to a new storage format, you’ll be glad you have one. You can even impress a few of your non-computer-savvy friends and maybe even get them to purchase one. I believe we will soon arrive at the end of a floppy era… a very floppy era…

source:http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=98

The Internet Archive was created in 1996 as the institutional memory of the online world, storing snapshots of ever-changing Web sites and collecting other multimedia artifacts. Now the nonprofit archive is on the defensive in a legal case that represents a strange turn in the debate over copyrights in the digital age.

Beyond its utility for Internet historians, the Web page database, searchable with a form called the Wayback Machine, is also routinely used by intellectual property lawyers to help learn, for example, when and how a trademark might have been historically used or violated.

That is what brought the Philadelphia law firm of Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey to the Wayback Machine two years ago. The firm was defending Health Advocate, a company in suburban Philadelphia that helps patients resolve health care and insurance disputes, against a trademark action brought by a similarly named competitor.

In preparing the case, representatives of Earley Follmer used the Wayback Machine to turn up old Web pages - some dating to 1999 - originally posted by the plaintiff, Healthcare Advocates of Philadelphia.

Last week Healthcare Advocates sued both the Harding Earley firm and the Internet Archive, saying the access to its old Web pages, stored in the Internet Archive's database, was unauthorized and illegal.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Philadelphia, seeks unspecified damages for copyright infringement and violations of two federal laws: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

"The firm at issue professes to be expert in Internet law and intellectual property law," said Scott S. Christie, a lawyer at the Newark firm of McCarter & English, which is representing Healthcare Advocates. "You would think, of anyone, they would know better."

But John Earley, a member of the firm being sued, said he was not surprised by the action, because Healthcare Advocates had tried to amend similar charges to its original suit against Health Advocate, but the judge denied the motion. Mr. Earley called the action baseless, adding: "It's a rather strange one, too, because Wayback is used every day in trademark law. It's a common tool."

The Internet Archive uses Web-crawling "bot" programs to make copies of publicly accessible sites on a periodic, automated basis. Those copies are then stored on the archive's servers for later recall using the Wayback Machine.

The archive's repository now has approximately one petabyte - roughly one million gigabytes - worth of historical Web site content, much of which would have been lost as Web site owners deleted, changed and otherwise updated their sites.

The suit contends, however, that representatives of Harding Earley should not have been able to view the old Healthcare Advocates Web pages - even though they now reside on the archive's servers - because the company, shortly after filing its suit against Health Advocate, had placed a text file on its own servers designed to tell the Wayback Machine to block public access to the historical versions of the site.

Under popular Web convention, such a file - known as robots.txt - dictates what parts of a site can be examined for indexing in search engines or storage in archives.

Most search engines program their Web crawlers to recognize a robots.txt file, and follow its commands. The Internet Archive goes a step further, allowing Web site administrators to use the robots.txt file to control the archiving of current content, as well as block access to any older versions already stored in the archive's database before a robots.txt file was put in place.

But on at least two dates in July 2003, the suit states, Web logs at Healthcare Advocates indicated that someone at Harding Earley, using the Wayback Machine, made hundreds of rapid-fire requests for the old versions of the Web site. In most cases, the robot.txt blocked the request. But in 92 instances, the suit states, it appears to have failed, allowing access to the archived pages.

In so doing, the suit claims, the law firm violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the circumventing of "technological measures" designed to protect copyrighted materials. The suit further contends that among other violations, the firm violated copyright by gathering, storing and transmitting the archived pages as part of the earlier trademark litigation.

The Internet Archive, meanwhile, is accused of breach of contract and fiduciary duty, negligence and other charges for failing to honor the robots.txt file and allowing the archived pages to be viewed.

Brewster Kahle, the director and a founder of the Internet Archive, was unavailable for comment, and no one at the archive was willing to talk about the case - although Beatrice Murch, Mr. Kahle's assistant and a development coordinator, said the organization had not yet been formally served with the suit.

Mr. Earley, the lawyer whose firm is named along with the archive, however, said no breach was ever made. "We wouldn't know how to, in effect, bypass a block." he said.

Even if they had, it is unclear that any laws would have been broken.

"First of all, robots.txt is a voluntary mechanism," said Martijn Koster, a Dutch software engineer and the author of a comprehensive tutorial on the robots.txt convention (robotstxt.org). "It is designed to let Web site owners communicate their wishes to cooperating robots. Robots can ignore robots.txt."

William F. Patry, an intellectual property lawyer with Thelen Reid & Priest in New York and a former Congressional copyright counsel, said that violations of the copyright act and other statutes would be extremely hard to prove in this case.

He said that the robots.txt file is part of an entirely voluntary system, and that no real contract exists between the nonprofit Internet Archive and any of the historical Web sites it preserves.

"The archive here, they were being the good guys," Mr. Patry said, referring to the archive's recognition of robots.txt commands. "They didn't have to do that."

Mr. Patry also noted that despite Healthcare Advocates' desire to prevent people from seeing its old pages now, the archived pages were once posted openly by the company. He asserted that gathering them as part of fending off a lawsuit fell well within the bounds of fair use.

Whatever the circumstances behind the access, Mr. Patry said, the sole result "is that information that they had formerly made publicly available didn't stay hidden."

source:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/technology/13suit.html?ex=1278907200&en=377b4b470d4593e0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I started to build this rack with Mini-ITX boards almost 3 years ago and today it holds four 3U servers with a total of 28 harddrives. I made this site to describe the process of the build."

source:http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/0251205&tid=198&tid=222&tid=137

It's been a hectic day on the security patching front. Microsoft's bulletins for July include patches for three critical vulnerabilities on the same day that Mozilla releases new security updates for Firefox and Thunderbird. Not to be left behind, Apple fixed two Tiger flaws while Oracle issued a critical database server update." (See these separate stories on today's release of Firefox 1.0.5 and the 10.4.2 update from Apple, too.)

source:http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/0210228&tid=172&tid=218

Traipsing around the Internet is the most popular form of loafing on the job. The insurance industry is particularly rife with goofing off, and Missouri is the top state for time-wasters.

Those are among the conclusions of a study on wasted time at work released Monday by compensation specialist Salary.com and Web portal America Online. Through a Web survey involving more than 10,000 employees, the report found that personal Internet surfing ranked as the top method of cooling one's heels at work. It was cited by 44.7 percent of respondents as their primary time-wasting activity, followed by socializing with co-workers (23.4 percent) and conducting personal business (6.8 percent).

The average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per day, not counting lunch, according to the report. That's far more time than the roughly one hour per day employers expect the average employee to waste, the report said. The extra unproductive time adds up to $759 billion annually in salaries for which companies get no apparent benefit, the report said.

"It's interesting to note that the Internet was cited as the leading time-wasting activity. It goes to show how integrated it has become to the daily functions of our personal and professional lives," Samara Jaffe, a director at America Online, said in a statement. "Today, there are so many useful tools and Web sites on the Internet that have enabled people to become more efficient with accomplishing multiple tasks in a shorter amount of time."

Unproductive hours on the job may have something to do with workdays growing longer. Between 1977 and 2002, average work hours increased, according to the Families and Work Institute. A growing number of workers favor time off rather than a raise, according to a study published earlier this year.

Average hours wasted per person, per day, were highest in the insurance industry, at 2.5 hours per day. The public sector (excluding education) was second at 2.4 hours per day, followed by research & development at 2.3 hours a day. The "Software & Internet" industry ranked fifth, at 2.2 hours a day.

Those in Missouri wasted an average of 3.2 hours per day, per person, according to the report. Indiana ranked second at 2.8 hours per day.

More-than-expected time spent goofing off isn't necessarily a bad thing, argued Bill Coleman, senior vice president at Salary.com. "In some cases this extra wasted time might be considered 'creative waste'--time that may well have a positive impact on the company's culture, work environment, and even business results," Coleman said in a statement. "Personal Internet use and casual office conversations often turn into new business ideas or suggestions for gaining operating efficiencies."

source:http://news.com.com/Stop+reading+this+headline+and+get+back+to+work/2100-1022_3-5783552.html?tag=nefd.ac