Tag: advertising

Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr Released

An anonymous reader writes with this announcement: “Ubuntu Linux version 14.04 LTS (code named “Trusty Tahr”) has been released and available for download. This updated version includes the Linux kernel v3.13.0-24.46, Python 3.4, Xen 4.4, Libreoffice 4.2.3, MySQL 5.6/MariaDB 5.5, Apache 2.4, PHP 5.5, improvements to AppArmor allow more fine-grained control over application, and more. The latest release of Ubuntu Server is heavily focused on supporting cloud and scale-out computing platforms such as OpenStack, Docker, and more. As part of the wider Ubuntu 14.04 release efforts the Ubuntu Touch team is proud to make the latest and greatest touch experience available to our enthusiast users and developers. You can install Ubuntu on Nexus 4 Phone (mako), Nexus 7 (2013) Tablet (flo), and Nexus 10 Tablet (manta) by following these instructions. On a hardware front, ARM multiplatform support has been added, enabling you to build a single ARM kernel image that can boot across multiple hardware platforms. Additionally, the ARM64 and Power architectures are now fully supported. See detailed release note for more information here and a quick upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu is possible over the network.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr Released

Apache OpenOffice Reaches 100 Million Downloads. Now What?

We’re thankfully long past the days when an emailed Word document was useless without a copy of Microsoft Word, and that’s in large part thanks to the success of the OpenOffice family of word processors. “Family, ” because the OpenOffice name has been attached to several branches of a codebase that’s gone through some serious evolution over the years, starting from its roots in closed-source StarOffice, acquired and open-sourced by Sun to become OpenOffice.org. The same software has led (via some hamfisted moves by Oracle after its acquisition of Sun) to the also-excellent LibreOffice. OpenOffice.org’s direct descendant is Apache OpenOffice, and an anonymous reader writes with this excellent news from that project: “The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 170 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today that Apache OpenOffice has been downloaded 100 million times. Over 100 million downloads, over 750 extensions, over 2, 800 templates. But what does the community at Apache need to do to get the next 100 million?” If you want to play along, you can get the latest version of OpenOffice from SourceForge (Slashdot’s corporate cousin). I wonder how many government offices — the U.S. Federal government has long been Microsoft’s biggest customer — couldn’t get along just fine with an open source word processor, even considering all the proprietary-format documents they’re stuck with for now. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apache OpenOffice Reaches 100 Million Downloads. Now What?

How to Contact Executive Customer Service and Get Your Problem Solved

We’ve all been there: You call customer service, get bounced around, transferred, and dropped. Or worse, your issue never gets resolved even after you talk to someone. You probably know you can escalate to a manager, or even higher, to “executive” support. But at that level, there’s an art to getting what you want. Here’s what you need to know. Read more…

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How to Contact Executive Customer Service and Get Your Problem Solved

Here’s a Map of the 47 Percent of America Where No One Lives

As anyone who’s driven through Middle America knows, it feels like there’s very few places in the U.S. that don’t have at least a few inhabitants. But as a map by cartographer Nik Freeman proves, there are still some amber waves of grain and fruited plains that remain. Emphasis on some. Read more…

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Here’s a Map of the 47 Percent of America Where No One Lives

The Science Behind Making the Fastest Possible Pinewood Derby Car

You wouldn’t think that a four-wheeled car would go faster if one of its wheels didn’t touch the ground. Or if its axles were bent. Or if it was designed to grind against a wall. But you’d be wrong, and here’s the science to prove it. Read more…

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The Science Behind Making the Fastest Possible Pinewood Derby Car

Today a software update is being rolled out to Roku 3 players that adds support for its universal se

Today a software update is being rolled out to Roku 3 players that adds support for its universal search feature to the iOS and Android apps. This feature allows users to hunt for any actor, TV show, or movie and find it on all of the streaming services that carry it, right from the mobile app. Read more…

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Today a software update is being rolled out to Roku 3 players that adds support for its universal se

Paper Microscope Magnifies Objects 2100 Times and Costs Less Than $1

ananyo writes: “If ever a technology were ripe for disruption, it is the microscope. Microscopes are expensive and need to be serviced and maintained. Unfortunately, one important use of them is in poor-world laboratories and clinics, for identifying pathogens, and such places often have small budgets and lack suitably trained technicians. Now Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University, has designed a microscope made almost entirely of paper, which is so cheap that the question of servicing it goes out of the window. Individual Foldscopes are printed on A4 sheets of paper (ideally polymer-coated for durability). A pattern of perforations on the sheet marks out the ‘scope’s components, which are colour-coded in a way intended to assist the user in the task of assembly. The Foldscope’s non-paper components, a poppy-seed-sized spherical lens made of borosilicate or corundum, a light-emitting diode (LED), a watch battery, a switch and some copper tape to complete the electrical circuit, are pressed into or bonded onto the paper. (The lenses are actually bits of abrasive grit intended to roll around in tumblers that smooth-off metal parts.) A high-resolution version of this costs less than a dollar, and offers a magnification of up to 2, 100 times and a resolving power of less than a micron. A lower-spec version (up to 400x magnification) costs less than 60 cents.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Paper Microscope Magnifies Objects 2100 Times and Costs Less Than $1

See Which Folders Are Taking Up Space in Windows 8.1 Settings

Among the other new features in Windows 8.1’s latest update , Microsoft has also added a small rundown of what’s taking up space in your home folder and Recycle Bin. Read more…

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See Which Folders Are Taking Up Space in Windows 8.1 Settings

Microsoft’s Office Online–the free, web-based version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote–is he

Microsoft’s Office Online —the free, web-based version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote—is headed for the Chrome Web Store as a series of apps. Read more…

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Microsoft’s Office Online–the free, web-based version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote–is he

IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative’s Debt

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes “Just in time for the April 15 IRS filing deadline comes news from the Washington Post that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers expecting refunds are instead getting letters informing them of tax debts they never knew about: often a debt incurred by their parents. The government is confiscating their checks, sometimes over debts 20—30 years old. For example, when Mary Grice was 4 (in 1960), her father died … ‘Until the kids turned 18, her mother received survivor benefits from Social Security … Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family in 1977. … Four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. … “It was a shock, ” says Grice, 58. “What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can’t prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus.”‘ The Treasury Department has intercepted … $75 million from debts delinquent for more than 10 years according to the department’s debt management service. ‘The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative’s Debt