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Comment Re:OP here (Score 1) 254

Do Evernote and thebrain/personalbrain have an "offline" mode? That is, can I keep things nicely organised locally instead of having to upload to the cloud? Evernote seems to suggest this is the case but at a very cursory perusal both seem to stop short of actually saying "you can use this to organise the files on your hard drive".

You can have local only, as well as synchronized Evernote notebooks.
The notes are search-able and files are embedded in the notes as attachments of a sort. It is not a file system organizer - it is more of a document database.

Comment Re:Does a good one actually exist? (Score 1) 254

(One person has already mentioned Evernote, but that's a "cloud-based" application for some unknown reason, and I would have privacy concerns.)

Evernote notebooks don't have to be synchronized to the cloud, you can have local-only notebooks if you have sensitive data. Just make sure to back it up; I use their script engine to perform regular dumps to a network backup location.

Space

Why Some Supermassive Black Holes Have Big Jets 111

astroengine writes "Some of the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies have powerful jets blasting from their poles, and others have weak jets, but many don't have jets at all. Why is this the case? In new simulations carried out by astronomers at NASA and MIT, it would appear that the way in which the black hole spins relative to its accretion disk may be a contributing factor. Strangely enough, the results indicate that if the black hole rotates in the opposite direction to its accretion disk, the most powerful jets form. The region between the black hole event horizon and the accretion disk still baffles scientists, so these simulations are very speculative, but the results seem to match what radio astronomers are seeing in the cores of active galaxies. Perhaps it's time to fire up that event horizon telescope!"
Mozilla

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272

supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3. Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."
Programming

The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89

igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."
Microsoft

Celebrate Your Next Birthday At the Microsoft Store 301

theodp writes "Chuck E. Cheese, meet Bill H. Gates. A leaked PowerPoint posted at Gizmodo provides a glimpse of what Microsoft's retail shops may look like, noting that you'll even be able to pay to celebrate your birthday there. Some of the stores that were profiled for ideas were Nike, Nokia, Sony, Apple, and AT&T. Microsoft's take on the Genius Bar is the Answers Bar (aka Guru Bar, Windows Bar)."
Data Storage

Forensics Tool Finds Headerless Encrypted Files 374

gurps_npc writes "Forensics Innovations claims to have for sale a product that detects headerless encrypted files, such as TrueCrypt Dynamic files. It does not decrypt the file, just tells you that it is in fact an encrypted file. It works by detecting hidden patterns that don't exist in a random file. It does not mention steganography, but if their claim is true, it seems that it should be capable of detecting stenographic information as well."
Government

Submission + - Virginia Says Slashdot Users May Be Terrorists 6

megamerican writes: A leaked document from a Virginia Fusion Center titled 2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment lists Slashdot users and other websites alongside Al-Qaeda, HAMAS, "Lone-Wolf Extremists" and many others as potential terrorists. Slashdot and other websites have been labeled under the ominous sounding title of Anonymous:


A "loose coalition of Internet denizens", Anonymous consists largely of users from multiple internet sites such as 4chan, 711chan, 420chan, Something Awful, Fark, Encyclopedia Dramatica, Slashdot, IRC channels, and YouTube. Other social networking sites are also utilized to mobilize physical protests. Anonymous has no leader and is reliant on the collective power of individuals acting in such a way that benefits the movement.

According to the Report, cell phones, digital music players are signs that you may be a terrorist. It lists podcasting as a cause for concern citing a recent ban by Australia. Citizens for a legitimate government, where the document was leaked to has a write-up here.

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