Cody Taylor

ubergamer1337 writes “Next semester I will be participating in a college study abroad program known as Semester at Sea. The gist of it is that over four months 600ish students sail around the world on a converted cruise ship, visiting diverse port cities while taking classes when we are between ports. Debates about its educational merit aside, my internet options while I will be at sea will be severely limited. We get just 100 minutes of internet access for the entire voyage, and once thats gone the only internet access we have is a university email address, which is limited to messages under a megabyte with no attachments. I have been pondering different ways to staying in contact with friends and family back at home without running to an internet cafe in every port, and I have already decided that I want to set up a blog that can be updated by email, but I wanted to ask the collective wisdom of Slashdot if anyone knows of any other ways to transmit more then just your standard message through email. Some things I would be particularity interested in being able to figure out would be a way to send photos (encode them as text?), and a way to get Wikipedia pages etc. emailed to me.”

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Led by the NSA, an industry group has published a list of the 25 most dangerous software programming errors.Two of these bugs led to more than 1.5 million Web site breaches last year. Often, these Web breaches were used by online attackers to then launch more attacks against people who surfed the hacked sites…

mytrip sends a reminder that starting today, visitors to the US from 35 visa-waiver countries will be required to register online with the Department of Homeland Security in advance. The DHS is asking people to go online for the ESTA program 72 hours before traveling, but they can register any amount of time ahead. Approval, once granted, is good for 2 years. DHS says that most applications are approved in 4 seconds. If an application is rejected, the traveler will have to go to a US embassy and get a visa. CNet reports that information from applications will be retained for 12 years, and eventually up to 75 years.

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theodp writes “PC Magazine’s John C. Dvorak offers his curmudgeonly take on the 30th anniversary of the spreadsheet, which Dvorak blames for elevating once lowly bean counters to the executive suite and enabling them to make some truly horrible decisions. But even if you believe that VisiCalc was the root-of-all-evil, as Dvorak claims, your geek side still has to admire it for the programming tour-de-force that it was, implemented in 32KB memory using the look-Ma-no-multiply-or-divide instruction set of the 1MHz 8-bit 6502 processor that powered the Apple II.” On the brighter side, one of my favorite things about Visicalc is the widely repeated story that it was snuck into businesses on Apple machines bought under the guise of word processors, but covertly used for accounting instead.

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Dozer writes “With the Windows 7 public beta out, Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the release. There’s praise for Windows 7’s UI changes and polish as well much-needed changes to UAC, but also a warning that those who have problems with Vista won’t like Windows 7 much better. ‘If you couldn’t stand Vista’s UI (whether it’s because you didn’t like Explorer, Aero, Control Panel, UAC, or anything else), Windows 7 is unlikely to do much to help, as it builds on the same UI. If Vista’s hardware demands were too steep, Windows 7 will likely cause you the same grief, as its hardware demands match. And if Vista didn’t work with a program or device you need to use, Windows 7 will offer no salvation, as its compatibility is virtually identical.'”

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twitter writes “Ever wonder why schools still use Windows? Boycott Novell has extracted the details from 2002 Microsoft email presented in the Comes vrs Microsoft case and other leaks. What emerges is Microsoft’s desperate battle to ‘never lose to Linux.’ At stake for Microsoft is more than a billion dollars of annual revenue, vital user conditioning and governmental lock in that excludes competition, and software freedom for the rest of us. Education and Government Incentives [EDGI] and “Microsoft Unlimited Potential” are programs that allows vendors to sell Windows at zero cost. Microsoft’s nightmare scenario has already been realized in Indiana and other places. Windows is not really competitive and schools that switch save tens of millions of dollars. Because software is about as expensive as the hardware in these deals, the world could save up to 0 million each year by dumping Microsoft. Now that the cat is out of the bag, it’s hard to see what Microsoft can do other than what they did to Peter Quinn.”

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