http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:45:57 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/21724/New_Mouse_Reduces_Noise_Pollution_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21724/New_Mouse_Reduces_Noise_Pollution_/ If the title didn't cause you to spit up your morning/afternoon drink of preference, perhaps this will: the mouse is specially designed to reduce noise pollution by 22.5 dB so that the precious ears of your fellow office workers or the kids running about your house won't be disturbed. Protect your eardrums from the menace to society (the mouse, of course) for only $30 US. Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:29:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Humor 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21681/Dreaming_Big_Outlet_Wall/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21681/Dreaming_Big_Outlet_Wall/ Instead of having too many appliances and devices plugged into one outlet, why not reverse the idea? In order to save ourselves from the rat's nest of wires below the entertainment center (or the computer desk), David Friedman, photographer, had the idea to have an entire wall of plugs. Just imagine. No more crowded daisy-chains, no more losing pets and small children to the mess underneath, and just think how jealous the neighbors will be with the new sort of 21st-century art you'd have on your wall-- changeable depending on your current mood, too! Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:39:58 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Humor 5 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21412/2012_The_End_of_the_Internet/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21412/2012_The_End_of_the_Internet/ According to research that's supposed to be published later this year, growing demand for Internet use will soon outstrip the stamina of the infrastructure supporting it, and the Internet will cease to be reliable by 2012. Complete anarchy will ensue, and the world will essentially end along with the Internet we created for it. Perhaps this is what the Mayan prophecies meant? Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:53:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Humor 43 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21134/Determine_Your_Laptop_Using_the_Netbook_Flowchart/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21134/Determine_Your_Laptop_Using_the_Netbook_Flowchart/ Ok, so you just got a new laptop. You've been hearing about this whole "netbook" thing that's all the rage these days, and you wonder: am I cool? Do I have a netbook? You launch the internet (that blue E), and you ask Google "Do I have a netbook?" soon, you'll be swarmed by loads of terms that all seem to mean the same thing: a really small laptop. Enter The Register's netbook flowchart. Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:54:57 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Humor 43 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/20926/Is_it_Windows_7_or_KDE_4_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20926/Is_it_Windows_7_or_KDE_4_/ Is it Windows 7 or KDE 4? In this video, ZDNet takes to Sydney's streets to find out what people think of what they think is a Windows 7 demonstration. Some funny responses by the passers-by in this little nonsense-investigation. Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:31:06 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Humor 28 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News rlem6983 http://www.osnews.com/story/20745/Shouting_at_Your_Computer_May_Just_Make_it_Worse/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20745/Shouting_at_Your_Computer_May_Just_Make_it_Worse/ A recent YouTube video by Sun's Fishworks Lab's Brendan Gregg proves that vibrations (including shouting) will cause hard drives' latency to spike. But then, he only shouted at it angrily. Who's to say that perhaps blasting Mozart in your server room will cause the latency to drop? Perhaps telling each hard drive that he or she is special may even make their capacities grow! Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:25:27 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Humor 4 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News weildish http://www.osnews.com/story/20699/Some_Nerdy_Holiday_Cheer/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20699/Some_Nerdy_Holiday_Cheer/ The folks over at Engadget found some edible nerdiness. You've seen gingerbread men, gingerbread houses, but why not a classic gingerbread Mac?. While you're there, check out the edible laptop, Wii, and Kindle. Sat, 27 Dec 2008 22:43:10 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Humor 0 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News weildish http://www.osnews.com/story/20633/Teacher_Throws_Fit_Linux_Is_NOT_Free_and_Holds_Children_Back/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20633/Teacher_Throws_Fit_Linux_Is_NOT_Free_and_Holds_Children_Back/ A teacher in Austin, TX reprimanded a student for demonstrating Linux to his classmates and distributing free Linux CDs. She then goes on to contact Ken Starks of the HeliOS Project, who provided the CDs, and claim that "putting Linux on these machines is holding our kids back" and "No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful". Although she claims to have used Linux herself in college, she feels that "putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all". On the HeliOS blog, Ken Starks hints that this may be more than just ignorance of the teacher's part. Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:14:58 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Humor 150 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News jawbreaker http://www.osnews.com/story/20166/Comedy_Comparing_Distribution_s_Art_Process/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20166/Comedy_Comparing_Distribution_s_Art_Process/ From OpenSuse's automatic green-finding algorithm, to Fedora's long-winded concept explanations, examining each distribution's art process can tell you a lot about the distribution. Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:37:28 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Amjith Ramanujam) Humor 5 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News computerishcat http://www.osnews.com/story/20134/Most_Interesting_README_File/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20134/Most_Interesting_README_File/ "Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods. He was a lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him. He hoped and hoped for someone to play with." That is an excerpt from the Readme file for gnome-cups-manager. There are more snippets from different programs that might pique your interest. Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:28:54 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Amjith Ramanujam) Humor 33 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/20124/Car_Sale_Scams/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20124/Car_Sale_Scams/ I noticed that craigslist's for sale section now states: OFFERS TO SHIP CARS ARE 100% FRAUDULENT Well, I got a little taste of that this weekend, when I saw a Subaru WRX STi for a suspiciously cheap price. Those with delicate sensibilities may want to skip reading the classy final response from the "seller." I started off emailing a quick question: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:19:27 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Humor 0 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/20112/Quotes_from_Bill_Gates_Steve_Jobs_and_Linus_Torvalds/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20112/Quotes_from_Bill_Gates_Steve_Jobs_and_Linus_Torvalds/ Weekend fun for the OS junkies. A collection of some interesting quotes from the three influential figures in the history of Operating Systems. Some of the quotes are controversial and some of them are just shockingly funny. Personal favorite: Steve Jobs' quote about Bill Gates "He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:08:31 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Amjith Ramanujam) Humor 43 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/19888/Man_Gets_Windows_Vista_to_Work_With_Printer/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19888/Man_Gets_Windows_Vista_to_Work_With_Printer/ You'd think this headline was a joke, but sadly, it's not. It's the real headline of an article posted on SeattlePI.com in the blogs section. The core of the story is that a man couldn't get his printer to work with Windows Vista, and ultimately, with the help of a Microsoft test manager, solved the problem warranting a follow-up article. The comedy here, of course, is in reading what went wrong and wrapping your brain around why engineers didn't forsee such a thing happening. Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:05:39 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Humor 52 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/19787/New_Security_Holes_Discovered/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19787/New_Security_Holes_Discovered/ The serious tech journalists at XKCD have uncovered some major new security holes in some popular Linux distributions. Note: Coincidentally, after fixing some major hardware issues, Focus Shift is back. Mon, 26 May 2008 17:54:04 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Humor 13 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News http://www.osnews.com/story/19552/Torvalds_Gets_Sense_of_Humour/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19552/Torvalds_Gets_Sense_of_Humour/ Linus Torvalds has a sense of humour. "Youtube no workee - Fedora 9 not usable for wife." So begins a bug he filed on Fedora's Bugzilla. "I didn't try a lot of videos, but I couldn't find a single one that actually worked. And what's the internet without the rick-roll? Some just show a light gray background, some give the play buttons etc, but show only a black screen even when the red ball at the bottom moves along. Steps to reproduce: 1. Install current Fedora 9; 2. Rick-roll!; 3. No profit!" Thanks to Fefes Blog and dr_evil in #haiku for pointing this one out. Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:36:11 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Humor 27 http://www.osnews.com/topics/30 News