Databases

MySQL Database Design and Optimization 233

Posted by timothy from the stick-this-in-there dept.
norburym (Mary Norbury-Glaser) writes "As the title suggests, Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization is intended for the range of users between novice and professional. It may seem difficult for one book to suit such a wide readership without losing readers on either end of the spectrum, or perhaps without providing adequate coverage to any particular audience, Apress has done what many other publishers have failed to do by providing an excellent series of 'novice to professional' books. An example of their dedication to detail and perfection is the inclusion of top-notch technical reviewers (Mike Hillyer, in this case, often found haunting Experts Exchange as one of the top MySQL experts) who provide expertise to the series. Authors Jon Stephens and Chad Russell have extensive combined PHP and MySQL experience that shows in the content of this volume. Readers with some MySQL experience who desire a broader range of instruction will gain much from this book. Experienced users will find quite a lot of valuable information that will extend their existing knowledge base. Concepts in design are better learned from the beginning to avoid repeating poor programming mistakes, but it's never too late to learn good practices." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.
Handhelds

Liquid Lenses For Camera Phones 216

Posted by CmdrTaco from the my-camera-is-leaking dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, the Register writes that "camera phones will soon have lenses made from nothing more substantial than a couple of drops of oil and water, but will still be capable of auto focusing, and even zooming in on subjects." The lenses, developed by the French company Varioptic, contain drops of oil and water, acting respectively as conductor and insulator, and sandwiched between two windows. These liquid lenses could replace glass or plastic ones because of several advantages: no moving parts, leading to better reliability; a very small power consumption; very small dimensions (diameter: 8mm; thickness: 2mm); and a very fast response time of 2/100th of a second. You can expect the first camera phones using these liquid lenses as early as Christmas 2005. These lenses might also appear in medical equipment, such as endoscopes, optical networking equipment or surveillance devices. This overview contains other details and references."
The Media

What Do You Look For in a Big Iron Review? 262

Posted by Cliff from the ask-and-he-will-try-and-provide dept.
ValourX writes "We're starting to write more reviews of enterprise-class hardware and software and although we've done pretty well with our reviews, the high-end products are a lot trickier when it comes to testing and evaluation. Obviously it is not possible to build an enterprise-grade 'your neck is on the line' production environment just for writing reviews, but maybe we can do something smaller, just for testing purposes. What do you as an IT professional want to read in a review for a server OS or a high-speed switch, or a big iron server or proprietary workstation? What tests should we run? What results and feature comparisons are going to be most meaningful to you?"
Handhelds

Cellphone Forensic Software Open Sourced 23

Posted by michael from the copying-jason-bourne dept.
Niek writes "The Netherlands Forensic Institute (part of the Dutch Ministry of Justice) has open sourced one of their high-profile software frameworks, TULP2G. With this BSD licensed framework, one can extract and decode all data from GSM SIM cards, e.g. called phone numbers and received SMS messages. This was previously only possible with commercial software. Dutch press release, Powerpoint presentation. Earlier this year, the Dutch government GPLed their online election software."
Portables

IBM Thinkpad -- Sudden Laptop Death Syndrome? 101

Posted by Cliff from the beware-the-hiberante-revive-cycle dept.
Bronz asks: "In one day I went from pondering selling my IBM Thinkpad T20 on eBay to mourning it's inevitable death, and I don't think I'm alone (nor is the T20 is the only fatality). The symptoms are illusive but a pattern may be emerging -- be wary of putting your Thinkpad into a hibernate/sleep state and leaving it connected to AC power. A cursory web search has revealed a smattering of threads detailing the illness. First it won't come out of hibernation and then it simply won't boot at all. One interesting facet of the first thread is that the frequency of posts has been steadily increasing over the past few months and doesn't seem limited to any one particular model." Has anyone else run into this problem with their Thinkpad laptop?
Robotics

In Japan, Old People Talk to Robots 352

Posted by samzenpus from the just-visit-your-grandmother dept.
stupidfoo writes "AFP is reporting that, starting today, "Japan's growing elderly population will be able to buy companionship in the form of a 45-centimeter (18-inch) robot" designed to help them avoid senility. The robot, named Snuggling Ifbot and developed by Dream Supply, will be able to respond to verbal commands. "If a person tells Snuggling Ifbot, "I'm bored today," the robot might respond, "Are you bored? What do you want to do?"". It retails for 576,000 yen (5,600 dollars) and there is no English version currently available but "its makers plan to program the robot in English -- not for export, but to teach the language to Japanese children.""
Robotics

Military Robots Get Machine Guns 665

Posted by samzenpus from the remote-war dept.
javaxman writes "Next spring, the U.S. military is expecting to deploy Talon robots with machine guns. They can also be equiped with rocket launchers. Really, they're remote-controlled 'bots, not true autonomous 'bots, so you can save the Skynet jokes for, um, some day in the not-to-distant future. This is just the first, or maybe second step. As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!"
Wireless Networking

Verizon-Pushed WiFi Bill Becomes Law in PA 397

Posted by timothy from the how-a-bill-becomes-a-law-directors-cut dept.
Cryofan writes "A Wall Street Journal article (via freepress) tells the sad tale of how legislation barring PA municipalities from offering paid telecom services was signed into law. 'Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell said late Tuesday night that he had signed into law a large telecommunications bill placing severe restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer telecommunications services, an item that was heavily lobbied by Verizon Communications Inc. and other big telephone companies in similar legislation across the country.'" (Also mentioned last week.)
Upgrades

ATI Unveils the X850 Series 41

Posted by Zonk from the because-you-don't-have-enough-things-to-spend-money-on dept.
Duality writes "ATI has announced a new line of PCI Express 3D graphics boards dubbed the X850 Series. There are three new X850 cards being announced today, along with two new X800 cards. The X800 XL (16-pipelines) and X800 (12-pipelines) get a new core built on TSMC's .11 micron manufacturing process and don't require supplemental power. The flagship Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition has been reviewed at HotHardware, and they've got more information on all of the other new Radeons as well. Prices for these new boards range from $249 all the way up to $549. (Other X850 Reviews: TR, Beyond3D, [H])"
Software

BusinessWeek On XORP vs. Cisco 302

Posted by timothy from the commoditization dept.
cornfed writes "BusinessWeek is running this article talking about how XORP will take on Cisco's dominance in the router market. The article speculates that XORP could represent the next 'open-source rebellion.' One can only imagine the fallout within the telecommunications industry if an open-source project like this gained traction-- Cisco would not be the only giant to be slain."
Data Storage

1.6TB In a Shoebox, If You've Got the Money 359

Posted by timothy from the incrementalism dept.
zmcnulty writes "While not exactly a technological marvel in itself, IO Data Device's new 'HDZ-UE1.6TS' exemplifies the recent trend towards demand for higher storage capacities -- it's an external hard drive setup offering a total capacity of 1.6TB. Not much larger than four 3.5" hard drives, the HDZ-UE1.6TS goes to show that any (rich) consumer can now easily have a boatload of storage space. Here's the Japanese press release." (At current conversion rates, this would cost nearly $2,900.)
Wireless Networking

Wireless Hotspot Creation? 45

Posted by Cliff from the wireless-packets-into-plowshares dept.
ezodon asks: "I have been tasked by management to submit a plan on creating a wireless hot-spot in several of our locations. Management would like to be able to charge for the wireless access from our customers. Because of the desire to charge, I have not been able to find any Open Source software, and just a few commercial offerings. I have checked out PublicIP and LessNetworks wireless management software, but neither has a direct billing option. We already have a merchant account and credit card machines at all of our locations. Can anyone in Slashdot land give me some recommendations on how to get this done?"
Handhelds

Associated Press Not Impressed By MyFi 223

Posted by timothy from the like-musical-mannah-except-not dept.
prostoalex writes "Michael Regan from the Associated Press started reviewing MyFi, a portable satellite radio receiver, by treating it as a competitor to iPod, but then admitted the two devices are quite different. For $350 and a $10-a-month subscription the buyer gets access to XM satellite radio stations and ability to record the stream to 128 MB of built-in flash. There's no way to transfer the recorded content to the computer or vice versa. The review recommends waiting for lower price and better features."
Handhelds

Biodegradable Cell Phones Sprout Into Flowers 181

Posted by michael from the don't-get-them-wet dept.
Neurowiz writes "Tired of your cell phone and lusting after the new model with all the geek-gadgets? Worried about the effect that throwing away your cell phones may have on the environment? Worry not! 'Researchers at the University of Warwick's Warwick Manufacturing Group, in conjunction with PVAXX Research & Development Ltd, have devised a novel way to recycle discarded mobile telephones - bury them and watch them transform into the flower of your choice.' What's next? Plant your PC/Mac and watch a house grow?"
Movies

FIA On3 Networked Multimedia System Reviewed 125

Posted by michael from the better-than-coal dept.
Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has reviewed Fia's On3 networked multimedia system. It uses Linux for its OS, supports Samba, audio & video (including Ogg), but the On3 seems to be marred by a lack of some important features. For example, you can't create playlists or autoplaylists (playlists based on rules.) You can only play music sorted in folders, so if your music is sorted by artist and album, you can only listen to each folder at a time. Files are played back in alphanumeric order, so playback order depends on how the tracks are named. The On3 does not handle ID3 tags and track names are simply the name of the file. I'm trying to find a non-microsoft, out-of-the-box solution for a networked media system. Are there any other solutions out there? How do they compare? Are they worth it or does the industry still have a lot of growing to do?"
Portables

Nintendo DS's Compatibility With GBA FlashCards 19

Posted by Zonk from the more-ds-touching dept.
zetasmack writes "I know that since the arrival of the Nintendo DS I (and i'm sure many other /.ers) have been anxiously awaiting some news on dev kits. Well, unfortunately no flash kits are available (to my knowledge) for the DS yet, but the folks at gameboy-advance.net have tested the DS's compatibility with all of the available GBA flash cards. From the article: "At this point there is NO NDS Flash Card or Linker made specificly for backup of Nintendo DS Roms so we have tested the compatibilty of Gameboy Advance Backup devices with the NDS. At this point we looked at the most simple and at the same time the most important things. Can you play Games from "GBA Flash Card name...", and Does the Card & Linker backup set works with Nintendo DS""
Media

Fanless Media Center Box 280

Posted by timothy from the fins-are-always-cool dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I didn't know that Hush Technologies made Media Center PCs, but they do. Here's a review of one of those beautiful fanless machines running media center 2005. Could this be the perfect media center box?" It's certainly perfectly expensive.
Hardware

Half-Life 2 Upgrade Analysis 41

Posted by Zonk from the who-doesn't-like-a-good-upgrade? dept.
RaidRaider writes "Hardware Analysis makes a good effort at answering the question that has been on every enthusiast's mind; what are the specs for a baseline system I need to enjoy Half-Life 2 to the fullest? They take a good hard look at the Steam survey results and work their way up from there, replacing CPUs, graphic cards and add more memory. They back it all up by offering the demos used up for download so you yourself can gauge exactly what kind of upgrade you need."
Robotics

Automata On The March 53

Posted by Hemos from the the-joy-of-playing dept.
OldSchool writes "The Morris Museum (NJ) was recently awarded The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of 700 historic mechanical musical instruments and automata (mechanical figures). The extraordinary collection represents one of the most significant of its kind in the world. There's pictures, demos, and animation of these devices at the museum website."

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