Mar 13 2009

12 Excellent Tools for Picking a Domain Name

There are plenty of tools out there that can help you ease the burden of checking available domains and suggesting similar names that are related to your searches. In this article, you’ll read about 12 neat web tools that will lend you a hand in finding and choosing domain names.

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Mar 13 2009

US Adults Fail Basic Science Literacy

TaeKwonDood writes “Do you want the bad news first or the good news? The good news is that about 80% of Americans think science knowledge is ‘very important’ to our future. The bad news is most of those people think it’s up to someone else to get knowledgeable. Only 15% actually know how much of the planet is covered in water (47% if you accept a rough approximation of the exact number) and over 40% think dinosaurs and humans cavorted together like in some sort of ‘Land Of The Lost’ episode. What to do? Pres. Obama thinks merit pay for teachers makes sense. Yes, it will enrage the teachers’ union, but it might inspire better people to go into science teaching. It’s either that or accept that almost 50% of Americans won’t know how long it takes the earth to go around the sun.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 13 2009

FBI Is the Worst FOIA Performer

krou writes “The National Security Archive at George Washington University has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award to the FBI for worst freedom of information performance (PDF of the award). Previous winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that ‘The FBI’s reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% “no records” response to public requests.’ The FBI’s explanation, according to the NSA, is that ‘files are indexed only by reference terms that have to be manually applied by individual agents,’ and even then, ‘agents don’t always index all relevant terms.’ Furthermore, ‘unless a requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in Washington.’ Any search will therefore ‘miss any internal or cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation, any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any records created before 1970.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 13 2009

MacBook Modded With Second Monitor Inside Logo

An anonymous reader from the Macmod forum wrote in with this appealing hack: “This is one of the coolest mods I’ve seen all year. Mac Moder EdsJunk submitted this mod to our forums late Thursday night. By cracking open a MacBook he was able to put a second monitor inside of the screen. The end result is sweet. The second monitor can make the Apple logo have any kind of background, like the clown fish, or the flurry screen saver.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 13 2009

Beyond Firewalls — Internet Militarization

angry tapir writes “One of the discussions at the Source Boston Security Showcase has been the militarization of the Internet. Governments looking to silence critics and stymie opposition have added DDOS attacks to their censoring methods, according to Jose Nazario, senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, with international political situations spawning DDOS attacks.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 13 2009

Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" Alpha 6 Released

The Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 6 is the fifth alpha release of Ubuntu 9.04, bringing with it a number of new features to improve daily computing.

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Mar 13 2009

isoHunt Takes on the CRIA in Court

Just a week after the Pirate Bay trial ended, another site finds itself up against the music industry. IsoHunt, one of the leading BitTorrent sites, is fighting out a dispute with the CRIA in court today. Of course, everything can be followed through Twitter.

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Mar 13 2009

Chinese Subvert Censorship With a Popular Pun

Anonymusing writes “In spoken Chinese, ‘grass-mud horse’ sounds virtually identical to an obscenity (hint: it begins with “mother-“) — and as a cartoon character, it has become an amazing phenomenon. Meant as a subversive attack on censors, the alpaca-like mythical creature has led to a cuddly stuffed animal — selling over 180,000 in a few weeks — and a wildly popular YouTube video with children’s voices singing words that are either completely benign or incredibly offensive, depending on how you listen.” Update: 03/13 09:29 GMT by T : Since this story was set up, the originally linked video seems to have been pulled. Searching YouTube reveals that there are some alternatives available, at least for now.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 13 2009

Web App Directory Go2Web20 Gets a Major Upgrade

If you like to research web apps, one of the original directories of Web 20 apps just got a whole lot better. Go2Web20 just launched a major redesign in beta. It is an information aggregator for Websites and apps, collecting data from as many open sources as possible, akin to what you find at Quarkbase and the more recently launched Dataopedia.

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Mar 13 2009

AOL Gets A New CEO: Google’s Tim Armstrong

Google(GOOG) sales chief Tim Armstrong becomes chairman and CEO of the troubled Web property, effective immediately.

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