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Journal Journal: Ring My "Dell"!

Journal by notripe on Monday April 02, 2007 @04:47PM

For a while now, we have been looking for a good laptop. My husband is in IT, so he is a little picky about what kind of machines we keep in the house. Recently, we used Dell's "Live Chat" option to investigate what kinds of machines they are offering and what sort of deals they have going on right now. Read the rest of this entry at NOtripe.Com

Submission + - Students sue anti-plagiarism service

Submitted by jazzbazzfazz on Thursday March 29, 2007 @12:12PM

jazzbazzfazz writes: It seems that some students in Virginia are not happy with the anti-plagiarism service Turnitin. The company checks prose submitted by its customers for signs that it has been copied in whole or part by comparing it to a large database of works that it maintains. Trouble is, it also adds the submitted prose to its files and stores it for use by the company in future scans, which the students feel is illegal use of their copyrighted materials. I think they've got an excellent case, especially since they seem to have prepared for this eventuality: they're A-students, never been accused of plagiarism, and they formally copyrighted their papers prior to their submission to Turnitin. Anyone out there know there copyright laws?

Submission + - Dep. of Energy Rejects Future Corn Fuel

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @12:07PM

eldavojohn writes: "The United States' Department of Energy is stating that corn based fuel is not the future. From the article, "I'm not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview. Output of U.S. ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, is expected to jump in 2007 from 5.6 billion gallons per year to 8 billion gpy, as nearly 80 bio-refineries sprout up." In related news, Fidel Castro is blasting the production of corn fuel as a blatant waste of food that would otherwise feed 3 billion people who will die of hunger."

Submission + - How Microsoft can make Zune a success

Submitted by jcatcw on Thursday March 29, 2007 @11:57AM

jcatcw writes: Zune had potential, but 5 months in it barely get passing grades. There are five things MS must change. 1) The built-in Wi-Fi, aka "the social," was a bad idea. 2) Tell newbies what is can do. 3) Create a low-end, flash-based player. 4) Push subscriptions. 5) Make it sexy.

Secure Programming Exams Launched 85

Posted by kdawson on Thursday March 29, 2007 @11:45AM from the overflowing-with-knowledge dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The SANS Software Security Institute, in conjunction with organizations such as Siemens, Symantec, Juniper, OWASP, and Virginia Tech, has announced a program for testing whether programmers know how to write secure code. The Secure Programming Skills Assessment is split into separate language families (C/C++, Java/J2EE, Perl/PHP, and ASP/.NET). Director of research Alan Paller says 'This assessment and certification program will help programmers learn what they don't know, and help organizations identify programmers who have solid security skills.' The pilot exam will be held in Washington DC in August, followed by a global rollout."

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