Slashdot Banner
Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
typodupeerror delete not in
  • Preferences

Slashdot stories can be listened to in audio form via an RSS feed, as read by our own robotic overlord.

Comments: 1 +-   Magento Beginner's Guide on Wednesday November 25, @02:10PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @02:10PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.
books
coder4hire writes "The shopping cart systems that power online stores have evolved from simple homebrew solutions in the CGI era to far more powerful open source packages, such as osCommerce. But even the later systems are frequently criticized as suffering from poorly-written code and inadequate documentation — as well as for being difficult to install and administer, and nearly impossible to enhance with new functionality and improved site styling, at least without hiring outside help. These problems alone would explain the rapidly growing interest in the latest generation of shopping cart systems, such as Magento, purported to be outpacing all others in adoption. In turn, technical publishers are making available books to help developers and site owners get started with this e-commerce alternative, such as Magento: Beginner's Guide, written by William Rice." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.
Read 9909 More Bytes... 1 comments story

Comments: 87 +-   Australian Govt. Proposes Internet "Panic Button" For Kids on Wednesday November 25, @01:22PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 25, @01:22PM
from the panic-panic-panic dept.
internet
CuteSteveJobs writes "Children who feel they are being bullied, harassed or groomed online could call for help instantly using a 'panic button' on their PCs under a plan by the Australian Government's cyber-safety working group. The button shall look like a 'friendly dolphin,' who will connect the child victim instantly to police or child protection groups. Australian Internet Censorship Advocate Hetty 'Save the Children' Johnson says the Internet needs something like 000 or 911. Will this be another scheme wasting taxpayer dollars in lieu of parental supervison, or could it actually work? Are 1 in 4 children really sexually abused by the Internet? Can flaming and trolling be classified as bullying?"
Read More... 87 comments story

Comments: 64 +- Screenshot-sm   Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight on Wednesday November 25, @12:32PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @12:32PM
from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.
toy
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."
Read More... 64 comments story

Comments: 278 +-   Contributors Leaving Wikipedia In Record Numbers on Wednesday November 25, @11:49AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 25, @11:49AM
from the three-phases-of-web-sites dept.
internet
Hugh Pickens writes "CNET reports that the volunteers who create Wikipedia's pages, check facts and adapt the site are abandoning Wikipedia in unprecedented numbers with tens of thousands of editors going “dead” — no longer actively contributing and updating the site — a trend many experts believe could threaten Wikipedia’s future. In the first three months of 2009 the English-language version of Wikipedia suffered a net loss of 49,000 contributors, compared with a loss of about 4,900 during the same period in 2008. “If you don’t have enough people to take care of the project it could vanish quickly," says Felipe Ortega at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid who created a computer system to analyze the editing history of more than three million active Wikipedia contributors in ten different languages. "We’re not in that situation yet. But eventually, if the negative trends follow, we could be in that situation.” Contributors are becoming disenchanted with the process of adding to the site which is becoming increasingly difficult says Andrew Dalby, author of The World and Wikipedia: How We are Editing Reality and a regular editor of the site. “There is an increase of bureaucracy and rules. Wikipedia grew because of the lack of rules. That has been forgotten. The rules are regarded as irritating and useless by many contributors.” Arguments over various articles have also taken their toll. "Many people are getting burnt out when they have to debate about the contents of certain articles again and again," adds Ortega."
Read More... 278 comments story

Comments: 64 +-   STEREO Satellites Spot Solar Flare Tsunami on Wednesday November 25, @11:08AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 25, @11:08AM
from the gonna-need-more-spf dept.
nasa
westtxfun writes "The STEREO satellites recently confirmed the existence of solar mega-tsunamis when they captured height data after a sunspot recently erupted. The scale of this tsunami literally dwarfs the Earth's diameter — it was 62,000 miles high and raced across the surface at 560,000 mph! STEREO A and B orbit 90 degrees apart and luckily, one was overhead while the other saw the eruption on the limb. This gave NASA scientists enough data to confirm the tsunami wasn't a shadow, solving a modern solar mystery. The images are simply stunning, to boot."
Read More... 64 comments story

Comments: 279 +-   Moving Decimal Bug Loses Money on Wednesday November 25, @10:13AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 25, @10:13AM
from the test-your-code-people dept.
humor
mario.m7 writes "Poste Italiane, the Italian postal service, suffered yesterday from an abnormal computation in ATM and credit card operations, since the decimal comma was not taken into account. The whole sum was therefore multiplied by 100, resulting in a 115,00 Euro transaction being debited as 11.500 Euro! Thousands of accounts are deep in the red and locked (link pumped through translator), so that no more operations are possible. Poste Italiane is gradually recovering the problem, fixing the error and re-crediting the sum debited in excess. Consumer associations have offered support to clients in case this lasts longer and causes damage."
Read More... 279 comments story

Comments: 199 +-   Wikileaks Publishes 500,000 9/11 Pager Messages on Wednesday November 25, @09:39AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 25, @09:39AM
from the hindsight-and-voyeurism dept.
cellphones
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks is preparing to release 500,000 intercepted pager messages from a 24-hour period encompassing the September 11 terrorist attacks. The messages show emergency services springing into action and computer systems sending automated messages as buildings collapse. Wikileaks implies this data came from an organised collection effort."
Read More... 199 comments story

Comments: 130 +-   Where Are Your Contact Lens Displays? on Wednesday November 25, @08:55AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 25, @08:55AM
from the we'll-use-them-as-huds-in-our-flying-cars dept.
displays
destinyland writes "'We already see a future in which the humble contact lens becomes a real platform, like the iPhone is today,' argues researcher Babak Parvis, 'with lots of developers contributing their ideas and inventions.' He provides an update on the contact lens with transparent circuitry that's being developed at the University of Washington. (Its components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs which form images in front of the eye such as charts and photographs). They've already developed a lens-with-LED prototype that's powered by 330 microwatts of wireless radio-frequency power, and believe the lenses could also be used as biosensors to deliver body chemistry readings (including blood sugar levels). But 'What we've done so far barely hints at what will soon be possible with this technology,' says Dr. Parviz."
Read More... 130 comments story

Comments: 142 +-   Senators Ask EC To Let Oracle-Sun Deal Go Through on Wednesday November 25, @08:14AM

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 25, @08:14AM
from the sun-is-setting-fast dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The European Union has managed to do something that US Presidents often find difficult: to make 59 US Senators from both sides of the aisle agree on something. A group led by John Kerry (D) and Orrin Hatch (R) has sent a letter to the European Union, asking it to wrap up the investigation of the Oracle-Sun merger and let the deal go through. Interestingly, the letter emphasizes the damage the delay and uncertainty are doing to Sun." The article paraphrases a Gartner analyst, who points out that the Senators' letter "comes from a US point of view and doesn't take into account how the EU operates."
Read More... 142 comments story

Comments: 238 +-   Ubuntu Reaching Out To 16,000 Anime Lovers on Wednesday November 25, @05:11AM

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 25, @05:11AM
from the place-holder dept.
anime
shadowmage13 writes "After months of planning, I am happy to announce finally that the Ubuntu Massachusetts Local Community Team will be preparing a booth at the upcoming 2010 Anime Boston convention. We need support from the community to secure a booth and print materials, including copies of the Ubunchu! manga. I really believe the Anime fandom is a perfect match for Ubuntu, as they are by nature very much in line with open source and remix culture."
Read More... 238 comments story
 

Developers

Poll Firefox's Awesome Bar...
Lives Up To Its Name
Is Sometimes Useful
Gets In the Way More Than Helps
Is Turned Off
Conflicts With My Porn Habit
Facilitates My Porn Habit
I Never Use Firefox
Once Saved Me From Harming Myself Or Others
[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:402 | Votes:26598

Slashdot Login

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Recent reviews from Slashdot readers:

Submitting a review for consideration is easy; please first read Slashdot's book review guidelines. Updated: 2008114 by samzenpus

Search
Imagine the pieces as a set of disconnected events

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.