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Comment Re:...should we be outraged? (Score 4, Insightful) 286

by Red Cape (#29701109) Attached to: Is Valve's Steam Anti-Competitive?
No physical media involved, it makes a copy of your folder so you can keep all your games/maps/etc. From there, you can move the backup anywhere. If your drive fails, well, you'll lose your personal game files if u didn't copy your backup somewhere else. But with Steam, you can download the entire game again unlimited times. The only restriction is that you can only be logged into Steam on one computer at a time. This is makes it hard to share accounts with people, which is expected. Personally, I think Steam is extremely useful. Like many others have said, if you don't like the distributor, distribute your game with someone else. Valve doesn't have a monopoly on online distribution, they just happen to be good at it.
Education

We Rent Movies, So Why Not Textbooks? 398

Posted by Soulskill from the or-food dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Using Netflix as a business model, Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra founded Chegg, shorthand for 'chicken and egg,' to gather books from sellers at the end of a semester and renting — or sometimes selling — them to other students at the start of a new one. Chegg began renting books in 2007, before it owned any, so when an order came in, its employees would surf the Web to find a cheap copy. They would buy the book using Rashid's American Express card and have it shipped to the student. Eventually, Chegg automated the system. 'People thought we were crazy,' Rashid said. Now, as Chegg prepares for its third academic year in the textbook rental business, the business is growing rapidly. Jim Safka, a former chief executive of Match.com and Ask.com who was recently recruited to run Chegg, said the company's revenue in 2008 was more than $10 million, and this year, Chegg surpassed that in January alone."

U.S. Government Prepares For Vista 87

Posted by Zonk from the battening-down-the-hatches dept.
IO ERROR writes "Patrick Svenburg, program manager for Windows Client Solutions in Microsoft Federal, answered questions from government IT managers today about the upcoming Windows Vista release. Many of the questions were about BitLocker, Microsoft's new drive encryption technology, as well as other security questions, upgrading from Windows XP, IPv6 deployment and more. Svenburg is a member of the Windows Vista Launch Team and is leading early adoption efforts for Windows Vista within the Federal community, according to Government Computer News."

Mahir To Borat, I Sue You! 275

Posted by CmdrTaco from the my-wife-she-is-dead-now-is-ok-i-have-new-wife dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The mockumentary Borat bears more than a passing resemblance to late '90s net celeb Mahir Cagri of ikissyou.org, and he's not amused. Steven Leckart of Wired magazine gives him the third degree."

Saddam Hussein Sentenced to Death 1003

Posted by CmdrTaco from the right-before-the-election-even dept.
indraneil writes "Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death along with his half brother. Three Baath party officials charged with Hussein in the killings of 148 Shiite civilians have been sentenced to 15 years in prison, while a fourth has been cleared. He is to be hanged inside 30 days from now. Saddam Hussein has been given 10 days to appeal against the decision. His lawyer has warned to a bloodbath if the sentence is carried out."

New Zero-Day Vulnerability In Windows 231

Posted by Zonk from the worst-day-of-the-week dept.
Jimmy T writes "Microsoft and Secunia are warning about the discovery of a new 'Zero-day' vulnerability affecting all Microsoft based operating systems except Windows 2003. Both companies states that the vulnerability is currently being exploited by malicious websites. One attack vector is through Internet Explorer 6/7 — so be aware where you surf to."

IE Sends Cake to Firefox 2 Team 362

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wish-it-was-a-cheesecake dept.
GDI Lord writes "The Microsoft Internet Explorer Team sent the Firefox team a cake for the release of Firefox 2! "P.S.: No, it was not poisoned" " That they know of anyway.

HL2 Episode 2 Not Until Spring 2007 78

Posted by Zonk from the long-time-between-dates-with-alyx dept.
eToyChest has an article up entitled Half-Life 2 Bite-Sized Contempt. The author registers his dissatisfaction with the state of episodic content so far on Steam. While he liked Episode One, the projected released date early next year makes it hard to be excited. From the article: "Episodic content could really take off if done correctly, something which so far hasn't been the case. Episodes need to be of decent quality, arrive in a timely manner, and be made available for an attractive price. Then you will create a slam-dunk impulse-buy environment that solidifies the marketplace as a viable one — think iTunes Music Store for games."

The First Quad SLI Benchmarks 109

Posted by Zonk from the oggle-drool-drool-oggle dept.
An anonymous reader writes "X-bit labs have a preview of NVIDIA's Quad SLI system based on two GeForce 7900 GX2 cards. On each GeForce 7900 GX2 is allocated 512 MB of on-board memory, which is connected through a special bridge chip with 16X PCIe lanes to the other daughter card and the system. The two GPUs on the card work in SLI mode. The core and memory are clocked lower than a single GPU card at 550 MHz and 1.2GHz (DDR). For Quad SLI, NVIDIA has introduced a new mode of SLI, AFR of SFR where each card alternately renders a frame split between the two GPUs of one card after the other. The GX2 cards are benched (when possible) at resolution of 2560 by 1600 with 32X SLI AA and compared to a Crossfire x1900 XTX system on a variety of games."

Windows Vista To Make Dual-Boot A Challenge? 442

Posted by Zonk 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."

What Would You Demand From Your IT Department? 671

Posted by Cliff from the minimum-level-of-service dept.
ZombieLine asks: "The IT department at my company (approximately some 500 people) is showing signs of incompetence, and has been ignoring knowledgeable user input for about a year. Additionally, they haven't been able to sell needed changes to senior management. Unacceptable server down time, maxed network storage, and no backups systems have hit the bottom line, and those on top are starting to notice. We users are staging a revolt to make IT more responsive to users by creating a group from the company divisions and IT to discuss needs and solutions. What would you put in our charter?" What services and responsibilities would you demand out of your IT department?

Hidden Treasures in OpenOffice 2.0's Chart Tool 188

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the added-excitement-for-that-big-deadline dept.
Jane Walker writes "Take a tour of the multi-layered charting tools of OpenOffice 2.0's Charting Wizard, as you learn to create, edit and master the art of making a polished chart." From the article: "The chart features in OpenOffice are like a mystery-lover's dream vacation: a huge, mysterious old house with lots of long halls, secret bookcases, dark closets and creaky doors that, when you peer behind them, reveal wonderful secrets."

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