Constantine Evans - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Awesome (Score 2, Interesting) 452

by Constantine Evans on Wednesday June 06, 2007 @10:26AM (#19410439) Attached to: MacBook Pro Gets Santa Rosa Chipset, LED Screen

If you normally use tapping with touchpads, you should note that the touchpad for the MacBook Pro allows right clicking by tapping with two fingers. The touchpad can also detect three-finger taps, but for some reason, OS X ignores them; Ubuntu, on the other hand, allows full use of the touchpad as a three-button mouse, though the driver is currently rather poor. I would actually almost prefer that the laptop not have the one actual mouse button that it does - it generally just gets in the way and generates spurious clicks when there is the slightest hint of shear force on the frame.

Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations 299

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday May 05, 2007 @05:28AM from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.

SteakNShake writes "Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing."

Sun May Be Warming Both Earth and Mars 1050

Posted by Zonk on Saturday March 03, 2007 @11:31PM from the dang-mars-suvs dept.

MCraigW writes "Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes might have a natural — and not a human-induced — cause. Mars, it appears, has also been experiencing milder temperatures in recent years. In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide 'ice caps' near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun."

Novell Gets $348 Million From Microsoft 308

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @12:21AM from the money-is-the-root-of-all dept.

An anonymous reader writes, "Novell has published additional details about its agreements with Microsoft concerning Windows and Linux interoperability and patents. It seems the company is receiving an up-front payment of $348 million from Microsoft, for SLES subscription certificates and for patent cross-licensing. Microsoft will make an upfront payment to Novell of $240 million for SLES subscription 'certificates' that Microsoft can use, resell, or distribute over the term of the agreement. Regarding the patent cooperation agreement, Microsoft will make an up-front net payment to Novell of $108 million, and Novell will make ongoing payments totaling at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft."

Thrust from Microwaves - The Relativity Drive 567

Posted by Zonk on Friday September 22, 2006 @07:41PM from the yay-for-science dept.

dfenstrate writes "The latest New Scientist has an article about an engine that exploits relativity and microwaves to generate thrust. There is a working prototype." From the article: "Roger Shawyer has developed an engine with no moving parts that he believes can replace rockets and make trains, planes and automobiles obsolete ... The device that has sparked their interest is an engine that generates thrust purely from electromagnetic radiation — microwaves to be precise — by exploiting the strange properties of relativity. It has no moving parts, and releases no exhaust or noxious emissions. Potentially, it could pack the punch of a rocket in a box the size of a suitcase. It could one day replace the engines on almost any spacecraft. More advanced versions might allow cars to lift from the ground and hover."

The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time 207

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday August 13, 2006 @03:35PM from the where's-my-compaq dept.

theodp writes "As the IBM PC turns 25, the editors of PC World present their list of The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time (IBM & others) and the rationale behind their picks. What, no IMSAI 8080?" And my favorite compaq luggable is missing too. Clearly this subjective and arbitrary list is subjective and arbitrary!

Has Anyone Seen the Moon Pictures? 474

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:15AM from the we-never-landed-there-anyway dept.

NASA has received a lot of bad press in the last few years. Now in a stunning move to prove how much they have learned from past mistakes, it appears they have lost the magnetic tapes that recorded the first moon walk. They also seem to have misplaced the original recordings of the other five Apollo moon landings. Hopefully nobody has taped an episode of "The OC" over them yet.

Microsoft, Yahoo Finally Merge IM Networks 299

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 13, 2006 @08:29AM from the intarweb-communications-changed-4evr dept.

WinBreak writes "Marketwatch is reporting that, nine months after their announcement, Microsoft and Yahoo! are finally ready to roll out beta IM clients of MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger that will be able to talk to each other." The Windows Live Ideas and Yahoo! Messenger pages have more information; the companies say that the resulting user community will be the world's largest, at around 350 million accounts, and that they'll be using SSL to encrypt the traffic between the systems.

Windows Vista To Make Dual-Boot A Challenge? 442

Posted by Zonk on Thursday April 27, 2006 @06:48PM from the have-to-raise-a-fuss dept.

mustafap writes "UK tech site The Register is reporting on security guru Bruce Schneier's observation that the disk encryption system to be shipped with Vista, BitLocker, will make dual booting other OSs difficult - you will no longer be able to share data between the two." From the article: "This encryption technology also has the effect of frustrating the exchange of data needed in a dual boot system. 'You could look at BitLocker as anti-Linux because it frustrates dual boot,' Schneier told El Reg. Schneier said Vista will bring forward security improvements, but cautioned that technical advances are less important than improvements in how technology is presented to users."

Slashdot Top Deals