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Source: Slashdot
Posted by CmdrTaco on February 11, 2010
FrankPoole writes "CRN takes a look at the past five years of Microsoft's acquisition history, which totals $13 billion and more than 7,000 new employees, and highlights 10 deals and how they've affected the software giant. While some larger acquisitions stand out for better or worse, such as Danger and aQuantive, there are some smaller, blink-and-you'll-miss-it deals that have proved pivotal for Microsoft's push into new areas such as virtualization. And Microsoft's recent acquisition track record may lend credence to the heavy criticism levied against the company by former employees like Dick Brass."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google launching 1Gbps ISP service to select markets at 'competitive prices'
Source: Engadget
Posted by Nilay Patel on February 10, 2010
P.S.- Remember when Google bought all that fiber back in like 2005 and sparked all those rumors of a "GoogleNet"? It's probably unrelated, but at least there's a name to kick around.
[Thanks, Kevin]
Continue reading Google launching 1Gbps ISP service to select markets at 'competitive prices'
Google launching 1Gbps ISP service to select markets at 'competitive prices' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Essay: Too Many Angles on Suffering?
Source: Journerdism | Will Sullivan's Stompin' ground for journalists and nerds.
Posted by (author unknown) on February 8, 2010
At one point there were almost certainly too many photographers in Haiti. But which point? This question is scarcely new. It attends every war, every conflict; each famine, disaster and political upheaval. “I think it goes without saying that I believe it important that photographers are there to document the event,” said Uriel Sinai, a photographer for Getty Images, who was there. Few would disagree. But the scope of coverage in Haiti seems to exist on a different scale. Ron Haviv of the VII agency said that in times of crisis, Haiti is a “haven for photographers.” “Amazing story, people and images are there,” said Mr. Haviv, who has been traveling to Haiti for 20 years and made pictures there after the earthquake. “Being so accessible and inexpensive has always led to an abundance — and sometimes overabundance — of photographers during the various coups, insurrections and natural disasters.
10 More Sites for Free and Legal Torrents
Source: NewTeeVee
Posted by Janko Roettgers on February 5, 2010
People tend to equate BitTorrent with piracy, and we’re not going to pretend that there isn’t a lot of loot out there on torrent sites. However, there’s also plenty of opportunity to download lots of legal goodies, from free documentaries to Creative Commons-licensed music to indie feature films hoping for some P2P buzz.
It’s been three years since we first published a post titled Ten Sites For Free And Legal Torrents. Unfortunately, a few of the sites mentioned in our original post have since folded, but others have come up to replace them, which is why we decided to update our list of legal torrent goodness with new links and additional information.
Mininova used to be one of the biggest torrent directories on the Internet until it was forced to shut down all unauthorized content due to a copyright infringement lawsuit late last year. However, Mininova is still serving access to close to 10,000 legitimate torrents, including HD space mission footage from NASA, documentaries from public broadcasters and user-generated animation shorts. Mininova still clocks about 300,000 downloads per day.
Legaltorrents.com, which will soon rebrand as Clearbits.net, offers access to around a thousand torrents, ranging from indie movies to podcasts to documentaries, as well as a ton of music. Legaltorrents told us that they’re currently facilitating the download of 10-20 Terabytes of content per month. All files are centrally seeded, so your torrent client won’t idle out on you.
Limecast is a podcast directory operated by the makers of Limewire. Users can opt to stream or download clips right within their browser, or access torrent files for episodes of popular podcasts like GeekBrief.TV, Diggnation or the Ricky Gervais Podcast. Not all the feeds seem to be up to date, but the site is still pretty neat.
Legit Torrents is aggregating legally available torrents from various sources, with the content including the NIN concert DVD Another Version of the Truth and the Michael Moore film Slacker Uprising.
The Miro Guide is a content repository for the open source video player Miro, which comes with a built-in BitTorrent client. Some of the content included in the Miro Guide, like TorrentFreak TV, is distributed via BitTorrent, but you’ll still need Miro to download the files.
Public Domain Torrents is a slightly older site with the occasional database error, but that only seems to be fitting for the subject matter. The site features hundreds of torrents for movies with expired copyright. In other words: Pretty old stuff. Or classics, depending on your point of view.
YouTorrent is a search engine that aims to only index authorized content available through various BitTorrent sites, and it claims to currently index more than 80,000 torrents.
Jamendo is a music site offering access to more than 30,000 Creative Commons-licensed albums. All music is available for free via direct download and BitTorrent.
Gameupdates.org features a few thousand torrents specifically tailored towards the gaming community, but we’re not just talking patches and demo relases: The site also offers access to a few hundred trailers, previews and in some cases even full-featured films promoting games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
LinuxTracker finally does what it says: It tracks Linux distributions, making it possible to download all major flavors of Linux as well as quite a few lesser-known distributions.
Image courtesy of Flickr user nrkbeta.
Related GigaOM Pro Research: Are Torrents a Tool for Predicting the Future? (subscription required)
5 Computer Hardware Review Sites For The PC Enthusiast
Source: MakeUseOf.com
Posted by Mike Fagan on January 31, 2010
Whether you are looking into building a new computer or just like to keep up with the latest in computer hardware, the internet provides a whole smörgåsbord of options when it comes to computer hardware reviews. Here, you will see some of the better, more reliable sites on the internet.
A few things must be considered when looking at computer hardware review sites. First, quality. Are the reviews useful and balanced? Second, quantity. How much of the current hardware does the site review? Third, method.
Does the review give evidence like benchmarks and comparisons, or does the reviewer go on their feelings?
Most people’s first instinct would be to just Google the name of a component when they want to see what people think of a it. This method works fine if you just testing the waters or you already know which sites know what they are talking about and which don’t. However, if you don’t have a component in mind and are just starting out, or are new to the computer hardware review world and don’t know which sites have good reviews; this list should get you started.
Let’s get to it.
Tom’s Hardware Reviews
Tom’s Hardware Reviews is a UK-based review site. I have relied on them many times to get good, honest reviews. Their site is offered in a bunch of languages, making it a great resource for non-English speakers.
The reviews are thorough and give a good feel for the hardware. Reviews provide technical specs, benchmarks, and nice comparisons with alternatives.
On top of what you’d expect, Tom’s Hardware Reviews also has a number of features useful to someone just starting out looking at hardware. Some examples are monthly looks at best values in several areas including CPUs and Graphics Cards.
Overall, Tom’s site is nice, but does have some shortcomings. Although everything is nicely organized on the site, it is sometimes difficult to find exactly what you are looking for. A search doesn’t always bring up an exact component and a little digging is required. I find this to be an uncommon issue, but felt it should be mentioned.
Overclockers Club
Overclockers Club is another great resource. Like Tom’s, the site provides reviews of all sorts of computer hardware, but also has some nice guides for a beginner overclocker. You can access the guides by clicking “Guides” in the top navigation bar.
Overclockers Club is laid out in a very fluid way, making finding an article easy as pie. If you just click “Reviews” at the top, you are given a list of reviews in chronological order.
If you are looking for a particular piece of hardware, you can just search for it and it comes right up with what you’re looking for.
The reviews are quite good. They provide a lot benchmarks and explain them in context.
They give a nice feel for all aspects of a component, even down to how they look and feel physically.
Overclockers Club does not suffer from the issue I found with Tom’s. Searches always seem to return just what I am looking for.
HardOCP
HardOCP is another great computer hardware review site. What I like about this site is it’s overall layout. Instead of a traditional navigation bar, the site has a drop down menu with the links to the other sections of the site.
This helps keep the page nice looking and uncluttered.
The reviews on the site are well done, providing great information on all sorts of computer hardware, including harder to find things like water cooling systems. They even have a very goofy “Miscellaneous” section which provides reviews of anything from solid state drives to eyeglasses.
Another nice feature of the articles is a good level of humor that keeps you entertained while reading what could quickly become a very dry topic.
Some reviews do not provide as many benchmarks as I would like to see. For this reason, I wouldn’t rely on just HardOCP for my reviews, but definitely use it as a great supplement.
Legion Hardware
Yet another great review site, Legion Hardware should be a stop on the path of anyone looking into computer hardware. This site has a lot going for it, including the best organization style of any site I have seen as of yet.
First, when you click “Hardware” at the top, you are brought to a page that lists the different sections very clearly.
Then, when you navigate to the type of hardware your looking for; all of the reviews are listed in such a way so that finding a particular card is extremely simple.
The articles can be sorted in a bunch of different ways, making it even easier to get to the particular article you are looking for.
The reviews on Legion Hardware are of superb quality, providing a good number of benchmarks and describing all aspects of a piece of hardware. Also, they have a good database of articles, so it should not be hard to find what you are looking for on their site.
Hardware Canucks
The last review site I will list is Hardware Canucks, a Canadian-based site. This site has a large number of review sections, even including things like consumer electronics.
The reviews are quite good, providing a lot of benchmarks, which are always good when looking to buy hardware.
The search feature works very well, bringing up exactly what you are looking for without any hassle.
A built in “Price Compare” feature is also good and helps differentiate Hardware Canucks from other review sites.
Of course, these are not the be-all-end-all of review sites. Everyone has their personal favorite website for one reason or another. All of these sites are great both for a beginner, just getting into hardware, or a seasoned veteran trying to keep up with the latest technology.
Know any other great review sites? Let us know in the comments below.
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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5 Financial Tasks For Baby Boomers
Source: The Consumerist
Posted by Phil Villarreal on January 18, 2010
MSN Money offers financial goal-setting advice for Baby Boomers that can just as easily be applied to any other stage of life.
One goal is the freedom to let you enjoy your life while still maintaining your career:
Seek career freedom. This is one of my big goals -- to find a job that allows me to work anytime, anywhere. I like my current job, but it requires me to be in my office five days a week. When my children graduate from high school in a couple of years, I want the freedom to be able to live in a warm climate during the winter and a cool climate during the summer. I'd like to be able to work from home, if not every day, at least most days.
And with career freedom, I'll enjoy what I do more and likely work longer (which helps with retirement). I've written about this idea before -- “Slow-motion retirement: A new way to look at the rest of your life.” So I'm planning now financially to be able to take on work that gives me this freedom. This basically means I'm tackling my debt (see Goal No. 1 above). With little or no debt, I'll have the freedom to either work for myself or take some job that gives me the freedom I'm looking for.
Other tasks from the story: Get out of debt, maximize retirement savings and plan for major unforeseen expenses.
What are your financial goals, and how have they changed as you've aged?
5 goals every baby boomer should set [MSN Money]