NewsStream Pick of the litter from my aggregated feeds -- Summarized

April 2005
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PIXEL PERFECT: Getting organized: start with the hard stuff [CNET Reviews 3/28/2005] A journey of a thousand slides begins with but one step. In the first of a series of Pixel Perfect columns, Senior Editor Lori Grunin points you in the right direction to start digitizing and organizing your photos, videos, and film. 4/8/2005 9:35:38 PM    
Create a .NET Agent [Visual Studio Magazine 3/14/2005] Save time with a dynamically configurable job scheduler and notification agent using the .NET Framework. The manager oversees a collection of jobs. Each job has schedulers, notifiers, and a worker. The manager is responsible for checking each of the jobs’ schedulers periodically. When a job is scheduled, an event kicks off the job’s worker. The worker comes back with a result, and notifications may be sent out based on that result. 4/8/2005 9:27:43 PM    
Take the open source development plunge with Mono [TechRepublic.com 3/22/2005] The open source Mono project brings .NET development to non-Windows systems. It supports many features of the .NET Framework, with 2.0 features currently supported or in the process of being supported. It allows you to develop code that is run on Windows systems, in addition to Linux, UNIX, and OS X. Learn more about Mono by installing it and taking it for a test drive. In addition, Mono's specific libraries for developing Linux-based applications (the gnome interface) are a boost for Linux development. 4/8/2005 9:21:24 PM    
Multivendor outsourcing wins some fans, but others not sold. [Computerworld IT Management News 4/8/2005; 6:52:41 PM] Sunoco has signed IT infrastructure services deals with 17 vendors -- an extreme example of best-of-breed outsourcing. The company says it's getting lower prices as a result, but others worry that increased management requirements could offset any contract savings. 4/8/2005 7:36:37 PM    
Yankee Group Slams Linux 'Extremists' [ZDNet News 4/7/2005, 7:59 AM  via Slashdot: 4/8/2005; 6:52:31 PM] The Yankee Group has hit back at critics of its latest survey, which reported that Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is at least as good if not better than Linux, in terms of quality, performance and reliability. Laura DiDio, an analyst at the Yankee Group who has been at the receiving end of much of the criticism from Linux advocates, claimed the radical elements of the community could damage the reputation of open source software. "There's an extremist fringe of Linux loonies who hang out on forums and are disrespectful and threatening because you disagree with them. That can hurt the Linux community." The fanatical side of the Linux community has been highlighted by others in the past. Security analyst Mi2g, states on its Web site, "Any empirical evidence pointing to a high level of online Linux breaches is immediately shot down by religious zealots as if a church had been desecrated. The management of Mi2g has been threatened with damage to reputation and online property unless more is preached in favor of Linux."

   Eric's choice of the commments from Slashdot: 4/8/2005 7:27:30 PM    
Students adopt new generation of music downloads [The Globe And Mail 4/8/2005; 11:52:08 AM] In the search for on-line customers, entertainment companies are aggressively pursuing college students, who cannot remember life before the Internet. Thousands of students at U.S. colleges are among the earliest customers of a new generation of legal downloading services approved by the largest music labels and Hollywood studios. So important is this university market that Sony BMG, the world's largest label, has paid the entire bill at some schools during trial semesters. Colleges are in fierce competition to enroll top students and fill empty dorm rooms, so they pitch music downloading to prospective students: "Who's got music downloading and who's got the most comfortable mattresses really matters." Students appear enthusiastic, despite some early kinks that can keep them from loading songs onto iPods. 4/8/2005 7:03:55 PM    
10 Documents You Shouldn't Live Without. [The Motley Fool 4/8/2005; 10:53:36 AM] We may have long meant to get around to it, but it's just hard to find the time, you know? Truth be told, there are a lot of documents that we all should have. Don't get caught without these vital sheets of paper. 4/8/2005 6:55:02 PM    
New Batteries: Twice the Life [PCWorld April 2005 via Gizmodo 4/8/2005; 11:52:23 AM] Move over, alkalines: In PC World tests, new Panasonic Oxyride disposable batteries delivered more than twice the performance of high-end alkalines for the same price. Oxyrides face some competition in the disposable arena from long-lived AA and AAA lithium disposable batteries, which makers say last about five times longer than alkaline batteries. But these batteries also cost about three times as much as alkalines. There's one slight catch: At least for now, you can get the batteries only from Panasonic; the company has no plans at present to license its technology to others. 4/8/2005 6:40:06 PM    
Old Star Reignites its Flame. [Universe Today 4/8/2005; 2:53:47 PM] "Sakurai's Object" is a white dwarf star that surprised astronomers when if flared brightly in 1996. They originally thought it was a common nova explosion, but further observations have uncovered that the star has actually reignited its stellar furnace. Computer simulations predicted that it could be possible for leftover hydrogen to sink into the star and drive a new flash of hydrogen fusion. If the simulation is correct, the star will stay bright until around the year 2200. 4/8/2005 6:39:54 PM    
Microsoft Encarta Adopting Wikiesque Process [Slashdot: 4/8/2005; 2:52:55 PM] The MSN Encarta program manager announced that readers of Microsoft's encyclopedia articles can now edit articles in a Wikipedia-like fashion. Once submitted, edits are reviewed by Encarta staff members for accuracy, readability, and proofreading before being incorporated into the article." From the post: "To support this program, we’ve hired some new research editors. Their job will be to help you out with things like fact-checking, syntax, and editorial style. Every writer can use a good editor, and we see no reason that community contributors deserve any less." This won't be a big surprise, but "Your submissions to Encarta must be your own work" and "you grant Microsoft permission to use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission." 4/8/2005 5:46:49 PM    
Spammer Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail [Slashdot: 4/8/2005; 4:52:06 PM]   Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, NC now has the dubious honor of being the first spammer sentenced to jail for the felony of spamming. Virginia judge Thomas Horne sentenced Jaynes to 9 years in prison based on a jury recommendation after he was convicted of sending out 10 million e-mails a day. Jaynes, who sent out much of his spam using the name "Gaven Stubberfield", has held a position on the SpamHaus Registry of Known Spam Operations for a long time. Unfortunately the sentence has been postponed while the case is being appealed. 
Forbes Commentary on the sentence: Judge Horne said that because the law targeting bulk e-mail distribution is new and raises constitutional questions, it was appropriate to defer the prison time until appeals courts rule. 4/8/2005 5:35:40 PM    
How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else) [via Boing Boing 4/8/2005; 1:53:51 AM Cory Doctorow] EFF has released a guide to blogging anonymously, with "basic measures people can take to keep their blogs anonymous and explores what the law says about discussing work-related issues online. Some advice is common sense; for example, don't post a picture of yourself if you want to stay anonymous. But for bloggers who want strong guarantees of privacy, EFF suggests using technologies like Tor or Anonymizer to prevent your blog-hosting company from logging your computer's unique Internet Protocol (IP) address. Bloggers who fear they could be fired for blogging are also given an introduction to laws that prevent an employer from punishing them for speaking out online."
"While your right to free speech is protected by the First Amendment, this protection does not shield you from the consequences of what you say. The First Amendment protects speech from being censored by the government; it does not regulate what private parties (such as most employers) do. In states with "at will" employment laws like California, employers can fire you at any time, for any reason. And no state has laws that specifically protect bloggers from discrimination, on the job or otherwise. One way to make sure your blog doesn't earn you a pink slip is to make sure that you write about certain protected topics. Most states have laws designed to prevent employers from firing people who talk openly about their politics outside of work, for example. Be warned that laws like this do vary widely from state to state, and many are untested when it comes to blogging." 4/8/2005 5:23:31 PM    
Microsoft Writes Open Source Child Porn Buster [Slashdot: 4/8/2005; 9:53:21 AM] Microsoft and Canadian authorities on Thursday launched a software program designed to help police worldwide hunt down child porn traffickers. Police departments can use it free of charge; the software is open source." From the article: "The open source program was developed by Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Toronto police, with the help of the Department of Homeland Security, Scotland Yard and Interpol.

Eric's Comment: Amusingly enough, the Slashdot comment crowd spouts the usual rabid anti-MS paranoia, ignoring the porn part completely. This is a standalone application, offered free to anybody who can use it, to solve a worldwide problem. What else but Open Source makes sense? As another famous Canadian once said, "Get a life!" More details from Microsoft: Working Together for Child Safety; Globe and Mail: Police, Microsoft team up against child porn 4/8/2005 10:43:42 AM    

Creating an Autosuggest Textbox with JavaScript, Part 2. [WebReference News 4/8/2005; 7:53:54 AM] In the first part of this series, you learned how to create type ahead functionality in a textbox, which presents the user with a single suggestion for what they've already typed. This article builds upon that functionality by adding a dropdown list of multiple suggestions. To do so, you'll extend the autosuggest control and suggestion provider class definitions.

[Eric] See also:

4/8/2005 10:29:02 AM    
Creating a quick Windows XP SP2 slipstream CD. [TechRepublic.com 4/8/2005; 3:52:08 AM] In order to avoid having to reinstall SP2, you can create a quick Windows XP SP2 slipstream CD using your original XP CD, the network installation version of SP2, and a special command. Here's how. 4/8/2005 10:17:14 AM    
When does it become a standard?. [Scripting News 4/8/2005; 8:52:04 AM] Turn to page 3 of this interview with Tim Bray, one of the eleven designers of XML. Asked why there is no version 27.5 of XML, he gives a common sense answer, that XML is frozen, and isn't going to change. Of course, it couldn't be any other way. He says: "XML was frozen and published in February 1998. As it came toward the end and it became obvious -- well, not obvious, but likely anyhow -- that this was going to get a lot of momentum, we were besieged by requests for extra features of one kind or another. We basically lied and told the world, we would do all that stuff in version 2. You have to shoot the engineers and ship at some point, right? I think there will never be an XML version 2. There is an XML version 1.1, but it's controversial and not widely supported." If XML weren't frozen, it wouldn't have been possible to build XML-RPC, RSS, SOAP or OPML on top of it. While XML is not perfect, it certainly is good enough. 4/8/2005 10:14:42 AM    

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