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Comment Re:Bad Childish Design (Score 2, Insightful) 113

by kaytodaizzik (#22761042) Attached to: A New Concept in Supercomputers
When the state-of-the-art in aftermarket case design is neon glow and case windows, can we really expect more that this from a system integrator? I'm of the opinion (to be taken with a grain of salt) they should have made it silver and glass with smooth curves, like a circa-1960s flying saucer. At least that way having the guts exposed would be cute, instead of garish.

Feed British gov't to hit up Apple, Sony for crime-resistant gadgets (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Here's a new angle on curbing the thievery that's spiked England's petty crime rates up in recent years: don't try to solve society's ills with progressive social programs to make sure youth get and stay on the right track; or ensure greater levels of police protection; just make sure companies like Apple and Sony build anti-theft countermeasures into their gadgets. At least that's the plan backed British Home Secretary John Reid, who is calling for a summit to develop innovative new methods to keep thugs from swiping shiny new toys from the hard-working hands of legit buyers. We're sure Apple and Sony can both come up with some interesting new shutdown / lockoff / phone-home features (that might also compromise end-user privacy), but nothin' says lovin' like bureaucrats solving society's ills by trying their hands at consumer electronics design.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
The Internet

UK Voters Want To Vote Online 288

Posted by Zonk from the vote-early-vote-often dept.
InternetVoting writes "A recent UK research survey by NTL:Telewest Business found that nearly half of the younger respondents would be more likely to vote online. This year the UK government has authorized 13 local election pilots including Internet voting. ntl:Telewest Business estimates 10 million UK households have broadband and 4,789 local libraries offer public access. In the US political parties are beginning to test the Internet voting waters with the Michigan Democratic Party to offer Internet voting in their 2008 Presidential Caucus. There were some notable differences in generational interest: 'The YouGov poll of almost 2,300 people, carried out on behalf of NTL:Telewest's business unit, found that younger voters were even more positive about the idea of alternatives to the trusty ballot box. 57 per cent of 18-34 year olds liked the idea of evoting, but only a third of the over 55s were as keen.' Given security and privacy concerns in the states, how likely is this to appeal to US voters? "
Microsoft

Submission + - Hands on: Show Office 2007 who's the boss

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: Microsoft knows how you like your Office Suite. You will like Ribbons as they are given. Well, if not, Computerworld reviews some third-party packages that allow you to customize the interface. Classic Menu gives you an Office-2003-like set of menus. It'll help you navigate old menu structures to find favorite commands, but don't expect to use all the familiar keyboard shortcuts. ToolbarToggle lets you customize the menus. However, Classic Menu has two advantages over ToolbarToggle: It's available for PowerPoint today, and it includes Office 2007 commands on its menus, a modification you can't make to ToolbarToggle menus. RibbonCustomizer works within the Ribbon's own constraints to let you change the display of icons and commands on existing tabs or any new ones you create.

Feed Windows Mobile 6 update for T-Mobile Dash leaked (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones

Frankly we're a bit surprised it's taken as long as it has for the T-Mobile Dash Windows Mobile 6 upgrade to get leaked. Nothing much to see here if you're at all familiar with WM6 "Standard" (what we common folk are still calling Smartphone), but if you're not willing to brick-risk it, apparently the official update will hit the streets this Friday, the 4th.

[Via Gadgets On The Go and Jamerican]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Google

Google's Stomach Pangs - Adjusting to DoubleClick 98

Posted by Zonk from the hard-to-digest dept.
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net is reporting on some trouble Google is having integrating DoubleClick into their family of products. External problems, like antitrust allegations and privacy concerns, are bad enough. The worst problems might come from within, though, as a division within DoubleClick was essentially created to game the very systems the Google search engine is founded on. '"Google is treading in dangerous waters right now," writes Ross Dunn of WebProNews.com. Google's search results "are supposed to be unbiased and highly relevant," but with Performics, "Google is put into the conflicted position of trying to generate profits by providing result-oriented organic ranking services for its own unbiased organic search results." The worry, in other words, is that Google's search results could be compromised by operating a division with an interest in skewing those results in favor of clients.' The article goes on to say how this Performics division is likely to be sold off to make sure everything stays above board."

Feed Sharp's AQUOS DV-ACV52 HD DVR handles DVD, HDV, and VHS (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Sharp's HD DVR lineup has been steadily (albeit quietly) growing for a few years now, and while the company did loose five new offerings in the AQUOS DVR arena earlier this year, the multi-faceted DV-ACV52 has the stage all to itself now. Besides packing a built-in digital TV tuner, 250GB hard drive, and HDMI outputs, this convergence device allows playback and dubbing on a variety of formats including VHS, DVD, or DV / HDV via the i.Link FireWire connector. Other niceties include composite / S-Video outs, optical audio output, and the ability to record one OTA broadcast to the HDD while another goes straight to VHS / DVD. Sadly, we don't envision this Japanese-bound unit ever gracing US shores, but it will be making smiles across the sea next month for around $925.

[Via MediaMentalism]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Books

Submission + - Book Review: Linux Appliance Design

Submitted by
s1axter
s1axter writes: "A week and a half ago I received Linux Appliance Design by Bob Smith, John Hardin, Graham Phillips and Bill Pierce, published by No Starch Press. This is one of No Starch's latest titles and was released in the beginning of April. As a hardware/embedded systems guy I was really eager to get my hands on the book. For those who don't know what the book is about, it's about making an application specific utility, an electronic tool or "appliance" that can be used for a specific task. The book defines an appliance as "A device designed to primarily perform a single function" and that's exactly what they do.

The book revolves around Laddie, an example alarm system for a building. The book includes a complete explanation of the system, what design features it uses, and a LiveCD with the final application for your hacking pleasure.

I have to say, Linux Appliance Design is well written and very, very thorough. This is not a beginner text, the authors focus on Linux programmers who understand C and Linux systems and want to take it a step further than conventional software. If you think this is a book for you, you ought to better be a C/Linux guru, or dust off those old textbooks and brush up on your stuff before you pick it up.

When a friend asked me what was in the book I gave him the response, "Everything you need to make a sweet daemon with any interface you want". This is exactly what Linux Appliance Design is, a library in a book. Nostarch.com has a chapter list for the text (http://nostarch.com/appliance_toc.htm) so you can see what I mean.

The layout for the text is well organized and starts where every project should, architecture and design. Personally I felt the authors were beating the dead horse after a couple of pages when everything kept coming back to separating interface from implementation, but hey, it's an important point that a lot of people seem to miss.

An interesting chapter is the explanation of the Run-time-access library the authors developed. Modeled from PostgreSQL, the RTA lib is an impressive solution that allows for daemon communication and configuration from any language that can talk to a database. This library is released under the GPL and can be downloaded from the companion site of the book http://linuxappliancedesign.com./ The RTA is also used for the rest of the book, so don't skip it or you'll have no idea what they are talking about.

The text is not only an explanation of the Laddie system using the RTA, it is an all encompassing design text, which I really like. There are chapters dedicated to building different frontend UIs for the system and communication protocol discussion. This is what transforms the text from book into library. Each chapter can almost stand on its own as an application of that language or program. I was quite impressed with the web interface chapter and how the authors compared web servers and designed a system, and also with the framebuffer chapter on how to make a cool graphical interface.

A common theme for all the chapters is the structure. The authors discuss and design each element they use in the system before looking at one program or daemon. For anyone who has written or read development reports the format is very similar; explain what you designed, why you chose those components, why you passed on others, how the systems works and finally what you would do different next time. This format kind of reminded me lab reports in school, cover all question you think your professor audience might ask.

Overall Linux Appliance Design is a well written, detailed and through book with a lot of information. I would recommend this title mainly to someone who is interested in daemon development or server design however it can be read by anyone who wants to see a full project develop cycle.

s1axter is the main poster for Geeksinside.com
Geeksinside.com is a DIY, hardware hacking, technology blog that showcases links, reviews and project"

Custom Charts w/ Perl and GD 112

Posted by CmdrTaco from the make-a-pac-man-pie-chart-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This article describes techniques you can use to create new levels of usefulness in your dynamically generated charts with Perl and GD. Cook up some automatically generated graphs for your organizational meetings or live enterprise directory data. Annotate the charts with readable text that delivers more information than the standard pie chart. Using the power of GD and Perl, you can link various data and images together to create sophisticated charts that will help bring visual interest to your applications."

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