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Hardware

Bunnie Huang's Novena Open Source Laptop Launches Via Crowd Supply 88

First time accepted submitter ogcricket (3557713) writes with news about a new laptop designed by Andrew Huang and Sean Cross. "Earlier this year, the two Singapore-based engineers fashioned a laptop made almost entirely from open source hardware, hardware whose designs are freely available to the world at large. They called it Project Novena. Anyone could review the designs, looking for bugs and security flaws, and at least in theory, that meant you could be confident the machine was secure from top to bottom, something that’s more desirable than ever in the post-Edward Snowden age....The original idea was simply to encourage others to build their own open source laptops at home. But now the pair are taking the project a step further. Starting today, you can order your own pre-built Novena laptop through the crowd-funding site Crowd Supply, and it will ship out in the coming weeks. Much like Kickstarter, Crowd Supply is place where you can put up money to help fund a company and then get a product in exchange."

Comment Re:To hell with OpenGL and Direct3D (Score 2, Informative) 161

"Odd protocols, like GRE?"
Hmmm .. not a network guy, are you? Should I use a standardized, widely implemented protocol like GRE, or a single-implementation solution like OpenVPN. Don't get me wrong, I love OpenVPN and thing those guys have a fantastic cross-platform solution ... but GRE isn't exactly an "odd protocol".

Comment Re:Have they ever heard of BER/DER? (Score 1) 332

Heh -- I'm not talking about the *implementers* ... just the *protocol designers*. That's why I left out *OpenLDAP* and *OpenSSL*. ;-)

Seriously though - ASN.1 is pretty good for specification, and some of the serializations aren't bad. Fairly compact, flexible ... But don't code it by hand - se a ASN.1 compiler.

Operating Systems

The Great Microkernel Debate Continues 405

ficken writes "The great conversation about micro vs. monolithic kernel is still alive and well. Andy Tanenbaum weighs in with another article about the virtues of microkernels. From the article: 'Over the years there have been endless postings on forums such as Slashdot about how microkernels are slow, how microkernels are hard to program, how they aren't in use commercially, and a lot of other nonsense. Virtually all of these postings have come from people who don't have a clue what a microkernel is or what one can do. I think it would raise the level of discussion if people making such postings would first try a microkernel-based operating system and then make postings like "I tried an OS based on a microkernel and I observed X, Y, and Z first hand." Has a lot more credibility.'"
Education

Submission + - Top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

Lucas123 writes: "Computerworld reporter Mary Brandel spoke with academics and head hunters to compile this list of computer skills that are dying but may not yet have taken their last gasp. As 'Stewart Padveen, Internet entrepreneur and founder of AdPickles Inc., says, "Obsolescence is a relative — not absolute — term in the world of technology.". 'In the early 1990s, it was all the rage to become a Certified NetWare Engineer, especially with Novell Inc. enjoying 90% market share for PC-based servers. '"It seems like it happened overnight. Everyone had Novell, and within a two-year period, they'd all switched to NT," says David Hayes, president of HireMinds LLC in Cambridge, Mass.'"

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