Recent Comments

So, the project is becoming feature-complete and has good clean code. What next?

I expect we'll start seeing frequent, unnecessary and unwanted (by the users) updates to the GUI soon.

For bonus, maybe they developers will start wedging advertising in the program.

Since they split, is the relationship amicable? Are the projects contributing and benefiting from one another? If not, I guess I'll start recommending LibreOffice vs OpenOffice, though I've been using Open since before it was Open (Star Office). Sounds as if LibreOffice has cleaned up a lot of mess. Is it just coincidence that openSSL was forked as libreSSL as well?

1. Fork project
2. Clean up code
3. Rename project Libre*
4. ???
5. PROFIT!!!

They could and I think they should offer a better desktop version for the masses, but CentOS (I'm not willing to pay for RHEL) works fine for me. I've used Fedora off and on over the years, but in my opinion it breaks too much.

I said SOME Blurays due to the copy protection employed, specifically BD+ discs I own. I was not aware, but it appears libbdplus has been released since December 2013. It looks like MakeMKV is also using BD+. I'm impressed.

Wait, what? The web based (oh 'scuse me, CLOUD! SAAS!!) feature has been planned or promised going on 3 years. I've been waiting for it to be fully cooked so people can get the heck off GApps and self-host their own web office suite.

And now it's been dropped from the latest version? I hope I'm misinterpreting.

They "killed it off" by releasing a pointless expensive confusing incompatible underpowered upgrade. Xbox is none of those things except expensive.

It was detected. This will lead to a more secure system.

So Nintendo can kill it like they killed off the Wii?

That's probably my influence and I do prefer KDE to Gnome. If we get some Gnome fanbois to post articles we can duke it out.But my first choice remains Windowmaker!Gnomeheads: the submit button is at the upper right :)

Steps to watch a Bluray on Linux:

1. Install the Linux version of MakeMKV
2. Put the bluray disk in the drive
3. Press the Go button
4. Open the resulting MKV video file in your favorite video player (VLC, mplayer, etc)

Honestly, it can't really get much easier than this.

Yeah, power consumption is a big one. My old Pentium III was an energy hog by the standards of what I'm running now, and I'm appalled by the P4 desktop I picked up used: seems like the fan is running almost all the time, trying to keep the thing cool. But I'm definitely on the "keep it until it's no longer useful" train, not the "replace it every year with something newer/shinier" train.

I had a PPC Powermac laptop (the awesome one with the silvery keyboard; one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever used and definitely better than the new chicklet keyboards I hate so much) running from when I bought it in 2003 until I dropped it (smashing it) in 2013. That's old for a laptop, but what the hell - it was working great and did everything I needed to do except show me flash video (which is no loss, let's face it). My PIII laptop lasted from 2000 until 2009 I think.

I don't know about butthurt. Remember Microsoft was "technically" first with tablet computing too, but what they thought a tablet should be was a joke: a thick PIII laptop with a turn-around screen and some shitty software in addition to their usual office suite. Apple blew them out of the water by redefining what a tablet should be, and the market rushed to purchase it. Bill Gates' tablets - aimed for hospital workers, for example - were a lumbering pile of steaming fail by comparison.

I agree I mostly agree with the choices Nadella is making. Microsoft is floundering and needs a serious dose of visionary leadership, plus potentially the sacrificing of some of Microsoft's otherwise sacred cows - in order to stay viable. If they're unwilling to let him take out the axe and start swinging, then they are going to be irrelevant. By some accounts, they're already dangerously close to irrelevant in terms of hearts and minds of consumers. Win8 is horse dung - ask anybody who's used it.

Actually, now that you've posted it here: we all probably are. Thanks, pal.

I see I should have been more specific in the title of the poll "¦

That's awesome. I'm going to start doing that on my portable wireless hotspot. Call it "NSA local POA" or "Pedo Wireless" or something. Does anybody else remember the "Sketchy URL shortener?" Great stuff: http://www.shadyurl.com will turn www.pipedot.org into something like http://www.5z8.info/cockdock.gif_r6b0sn_looksjustlikeyourbank

I think the decision will come after the end of year sales numbers are in. This Christmas may determine the fate of the Xbox.

I hadn't thought of that, but ya they do!

Same here. I've been eternally frustrated with Linux, 16 years and still vainly hoping to find one I can live with for everyday... the more new distros I hear about, the more prospects for next time I run a bunch of test installs. And yep, one a week is about enough to cogitate about. If at some point this comes with a thorough in-house review, well, that'll be a bonus!

PS. In things to fix, the RSS feed articles lack a link back to this site.

When I use my cellphone, I usually check local wireless just to see what's around. Twice now I've encountered signals for open wireless named something like "FBI Surveillance Van". If it was seen at a given location all the time (as most are) I'd think it was someone being a smartass, but each time it was only in the neighborhood once.

Often times it's better to junk something than to try to recoup losses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

The question is when to pull the plug and when to feed it more.

Power consumption.
A lot of older stuff draw quite a bit of power.

Microsoft just got seriously butthurt by the fact that they put out smartphones a year or two prior to Apple and fell on their face due to pressures from the carriers (pressures Apple carefully avoided by being willing to walk away from the table having seen the road taken by Microsoft). The last few years of "We swear we can make phones/tablets" has been little more than a juvenile temper tantrum with a price tag of a few billion dollars.

I'm decidedly NOT a proponent of Microsoft and their historically locked down approach to software, but I'm still thrilled to see they're going to move back toward making productivity tools for people in offices. It's the only real area they've been able to truly dominate any and all competition, and frankly, when Linux takes over in cubicle land, I'd like to know it was due to certain hurdles being cleared, rather than that that big competitor completely imploded after hemmorhaging money left and right trying to compete with Apple in the toy industry.

While far too much of the popular media has begun looking at anything that sits plugged into a wall as a legacy system, Microsoft has been utterly foolish to eat it up. Just because housewives can do whatever they do on a computer on their tablet or smartphone doesn't mean the engineer in the cubicle can, and even if they CAN doesn't in any way mean it's remotely as efficient (hell, even laptops have enough drawbacks to ensure that we'll have desktops with us for some time coming).

I guess my point is, I like this guy. I'll like him even more if he steers Microsoft a bit more towards free software and open source in the future (and think that now more than ever would be a great time for it...and they ARE on github now). Even if not though, it's nice to see the enemy getting back on its feet. An epic battle for supremacy just wouldn't be any fun otherwise.

I kind of love that Pipedot is slowly becoming a KDE fanboi site.

;)

Sell it to Nintendo?

Maybe. People and The Media don't pay nearly enough attention to the ongoing unequivocal failure of Windows 8, in every company everywhere (with more than 5 seats at any rate). It is shunned like a viral leper with bad breath and a knapsack full of sewage.

They (and Ballmer) have really gotten a pass on this abject failure. Vista, by comparison, made decent, if grudging inroads. For the record I'm not basing this on any particular data, only experience, so ignore my opinion as you may.

I think that if Red Hat, in particular, made more of an effort (hell, any kind of real effort) to have a saleable usable desktop version, they could get some serious desktop presence. 'Cause companies really like to pay for software, and Redhat's well known in their server rooms already.

I wonder what this means for the Xbox. They've never really made money on the thing and they've failed to make the Xbox One into the big multimedia entertainement device they wanted it to be. I don't think they'll can it (they have to recoup their losses after all), but this might be the last one.

I think our society has gotten to the point where they think everything is useless unless it's new, and that simply isn't the case. I've got a desktop I built in 2004 which I somehow coaxed to accept a 1TB drive and had to replace the PSU. But it runs Linux very well. My other box is from 2009. Why throw either of them away when there is still potential for legit use? The newest tech I bought was my tablet back in 2012. But what do I know...I'm just using a dumb phone.

Ya, perhaps he will be able to turn the company around. I think the whole phone/tablet/mobile OS was a waste and unwelcome effort as well. They seriously just need to focus on their desktop, and fix it's many problems and security holes. If they slimmed that down and secured it well, they would have a real gem to work with. I hate to admit this because I run Linux on everything I use except my desktop at work as I have no choice, but Microsoft does hold the largest share when it comes to what OSs people run. The only thing I can't do on my Linux boxes is run some of my Bluray movies. For an OS that is completely free, Linux has come a long way. Microsoft needs to get its act together, or the majority will leave like I have.

I haven't really been a MS fan for quite sometime, but I like this guy. In my opinion he's making all the right choices, stick with what you do best rather than branch out and neglect your best qualities. The surface and trying to turn windows into a toy mobile OS was a huge mistake. Get rid of the Metro interface and get it back to productivity focused rather than focused on entertainment and turning office workers into advertising targets. My office pays huge gobs of money every year for MS support ON DESKTOPS we don't need a tablet OS crammed down our throats making everyone less productive.

Here's hoping Windows 9 is better. Our higher-ups have said we will not be using windows 8 and are already starting to let people in my office switch to Linux, which is great for me and my team. But, I'm not looking forward to having to running around the building explain to people, that only know how download software from unknown sources on the web and click an icon on the desktop, why the IAmAVirus.exe they just got doesn't work on their stupid box.

Isn't that the point of a business as a profit-seeking venture?

I think the nature of the engineering is what's at fault - the design of the cell tower model lends itself too easily to this sort of thing, and though I'm not working in the industry, I suspect it would be nearly impossible to fix.

A motherboard that properly implements VT-d

Or:

• Things you lose
• Things you forget
• This scanner never works right

Il y a une logique derrii¨re ce "Je ne sais pas"?

An Illudium Q-36 exploding space modulator. I'm going to blow up the Earth. It obstructs my view of Venus.

And... now I am on a watch list.

I think it's more commonly divided into

You have

• Physical item that must be used (ie a key)

You are

• Biometrics (fingerprints, eyeballs, etc)

You know

• A password

Less pixels is the wave of the future! It's like the big crunch of tech--we're going back to CRTs baby! Everybody's doing it!

Little purchase? A big bottle of $1 seltzer. Big purchase? Probably going to buy a new computer. 2010 macbook is no longer really cutting it for game development.

Same so I'll probably buy/replace whatever breaks first.

Je ne sais pas...

Yep, same here. Either that or a new GPS, the old one died a few days ago.

... and people call me crazy for carrying around a carrier pigeon all the time.

I also got enough kindling wood to make a small fire in case I need to use smoke signals for some broad- or multicasting.

I know my T400 is going to die, and I've taken great care of it. I just wish I could compile on a Core 2 Duo like I could on an i7.

This. I have a very nice 24" HP IPS 1920x1200 monitor right now, but my next purchase will be a 4k IPS monitor. Next year, maybe.

I'd even be happy if my phone had encrypted text communication out of the box. It's quite sad how far behind mobile is in security.

Floppy hat, wire, and lots of good music on *gasp* audio CDs!!!


Do other people still buy CDs? I do, because I want something tangible.

visit to chiropractor

Indeed. Biometric login supporters always get this wrong and is one of my personal pet peeves. Fingerprints and retina scans are not passwords! In terms of login, you can narrow information sources into two simple categories.

Things you have

• Name (or username)
• Email address
• Fingerprint
• Retina Scan
• Simple ID Card

This first list is mainly public information that nearly anyone can obtain (or guess) to use as a unique identifier. Nothing on this list should ever be used as a "password substitute."

Things you know

• Password (or PIN)
• Shared secret

This second list is secret information that is not public or easily obtainable. These are the things that could be used as a password.

To improve security, simply include an element from each list. A common example is: withdrawing cash from an ATM requires both a card and a PIN.

I have more storage that I can think of using, if I stay focused and delete already-seen (rented ripped DVD-to-x264-HQ that I return same day or later) movies that are not-so-great -- I tend to keep the good ones for watching again. Yes, no porn (stored) here...
My todo shopping list:
1-More memory for all pcs
2-More memory for all pcs
4-Another motherboard/cpu if it can't cope with items above
8-Another notebook if items above can't fit
64-Another screen - the ones I have are good enough, but...
128-New networking AP - my current one is 802.11g and 100mbps, not so slow to my needs, but 1gpbs and N would be nice.
256-A smartphone that is not the budget-oriented dual-sim that I have and is good enough.

- yes, there is a gap for other things I can't think of now :)

Last I looked (and I might be wrong, IANACellTowerEngineer), the software wouldn't matter. This is about the "nearest tower" being replaced with a virtually identical tower for a MITM attack. They're not only legal (for now), they're a hardware commodity. How do you think people get cell service inside a big metal office building? They put the hardware up at the location. It's even available as a rentable device - having a big event in the middle of nowhere and want cell access? Get a truck to come by and put up a mobile cell tower. The LEO version just happens to have a "oh, and also record everything that's going through this tower while you're transmitting" function, plus some software that lets them sort out the massive pile of unrelated data they've just sucked out of the air.

No, what we need is device-level end-to-end in-call encryption. Quite a few projects are working on this or have already implemented it; this is a known vulnerability that corporations and TLAs already attempt to address. (After all, if they can "sting" normal citizens, they need to make sure some foreign spy isn't doing it to them.) Encrypted phone calls are certainly possible, though expensive when I last looked into it, and were common years ago. Of course, that doesn't save you from the location triangulation problem - but then, better not to use cellphones at all if you're worried about being physically found.

Is this just now coming to people's attention somehow? Or have I missed something new about this story? This is a nice writeup, though, kudos for that. I guess it's good that the issue is getting more attention no matter what - this sort of thing needs to end.