Slashback: Facebook Un-Ban, Exploding Laptop, FFXI II

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including, Kent State Facebook ban reversed, exploding laptop old news to Dell, XM moves to dismiss RIAA suit, J2EE death greatly exaggerated, and Square's next MMOG not FFXI II -- Read on for details.

Kent State Facebook ban reversed. Corvaith writes "Just a few days after it was originally noted that Kent State University had banned athletes from posting on Facebook, the Kent Stater announced that the ban was reversed. From the article: 'The athletic department had previously expressed concern about athletes' personal information being available to the public, allowing for possible stalking situations. They were also concerned about athletes displaying inappropriate information on their profiles.' But, in the end, they 'had a change of heart after reviewing the privacy measures available on Facebook.' Athletes must now lock their profiles to friends only."

Exploding laptop old news to Dell? Anonymous writes "CRN is reporting that Dell had about a dozen reports of burned laptops before they announced last year's battery recall. The recall was launched in response to a exploding laptop caught on film at a Japanese conference. Dozens more cases popped up with apparently severe overheating, melted cases, etc., according to the report."

XM moves to dismiss RIAA suit. mikesd81 writes "Apparently, XM is asking a judge to dismiss a a copy right law suit brought by the recording industry. The law suit is over the ipod-like device that can store up to 50 hours of music. XM Satellite said the 1992 Home Recording Audio act protects it from being sued over its $400 handheld device. From the article: 'In a court filing, XM Satellite said the 1992 protections represent Congress' efforts to insure that the powerful recording industry would not be able to restrict the right of consumers to record songs that are broadcast over the radio or stifle innovation by chilling the development and use of the latest recording technologies.'"

J2EE death greatly exaggerated. Peter writes "A recent Burton Group report has stated that the Java Enterprise Edition platform is 'dying due to its complexity and lack of suitability for SOA.' Major vendors supporting JEE have responded with rebuttals, stating that the complexity has arisen due to customer needs and that it is well positioned for companies to build SOA solutions on."

Square's next MMOG not FFXI II. Despite some of the rumblings around the net, it appears that the next MMOG to come out of Square will not be a sequel to the popular FFXI. While Square may have shot down this rumor, the question still remains, what MMO are they working on?

XM??

[Khyber (864651)]

I hope sincerely that XM gets it's suit dismissed. For one, it's a subscription service, I've already paid for it, why not be able to listen to songs I may have missed out on, even though I paid for that capability? Secondly, doesn't the RIAA also get a cut of XM's subscription revenue? Why the fuck should they be complaining? They're getting money. Oh, I forgot, this is the RIAA - greed is the motivating factor, here. They think they're not getting ENOUGH, even though they've already agreed to some contract signed with XM. Someone EMP the hell out of any facility affiliated with the RIAA and put them out of our misery forever, already.

Re:XM??

[Durrok (912509)]

RIAA will die out, no doubt about that. They are aging dinosaurs in a changing climate with no will to change. The RIAA has an advantage the dinosaurs didn't however. The dinosaurs were helpless to change their environment and died out, letting new creatures evolve and prosper in their absence. The RIAA has the ability to forcibly change the "climate" thus killing off everything else while leaving them to prosper.

Only time will tell...

P.S: Sorry for all the analogies, won't happen again. ;)

Re:XM??

[Ohreally_factor (593551)]

I don't mind analogies, so long as they're car analogies. I couldn't make head or tail from your dinosaur analogy. Er, make that, I couldn't make hood or trunk.

Re:XM??

[Svet-Am (413146)]

I'm a Sirius customer. If the RIAA is "so up in arms" about potential copyright infringment from XM's device, why aren't they suing over the Sirius S50? The S50 also allows you to tote MP3s and record Sirius broadcasts. This seems to me like XM pissed of the RIAA somehow and the RIAA is just trying to extract a pound of flesh as "punishment."

Re:XM??

[by Anonymous Coward]

According to today's Wash post, Sirius agreed to pay the RIAA $15 per device. XM asked for the same deal and was sued instead.

Re:XM??

[Spinn12 (989688)]

We keep asking the same questions over and over about the RIAA. The facts remain - their adgenda is to make as much money as possible, and to stretch the definition of their areas of jurisdiction to do so. It's obvious to all of us on the outside that the RIAA, MPAA and the like all need a revamp of their business models, but you can akin their behavior to intolerance, racism and the like. Now before I get the flaming trolls being shot from catapults, let me explain - Every generation, we see improvement

Square and MMOs

[Durrok (912509)]

Square's next MMOG not FFXI II.

Thank God. While I did play some of the MMOFF and enjoyed it this is not what Square does best. I hope they return to their roots and release a game with innovative game elements and a great story line. Oh, and for the love of God, NO DANCE SPHERES.

World of Mana?

[kninja (121603)]

My japanese isn't nearly good enough to read this, but: World of Mana [square-enix.co.jp] sounds like it might be an MMORPG.

Re:Square and MMOs

[Turn-X Alphonse (789240)]

What square did best was a generic RPG line to make money and then make awesome spin off games. Saddly spin offs from the FF line seem rarer and rarer these days when they're the best part.

Also the next MMORPG should be based on Crystal chronicles, there isn't anyone alive who could tell me CC wouldn't make for an original MMORPG with some intresting elements like having each race focus on different goals. For example you could use people who keep the roads clear and safe for caravans, you'd have to travel

Re:Square and MMOs

[Durrok (912509)]

My apologies AC, I know you are omnipotent (and sure post a lot!) and would never make such a typo. I have played the game and all that dancing that made me not wanting to play it around my friends for fear of my sexuality coming into play came back to haunt me. It is Dress sphere's I meant to say, although I think I'm still justified in keeping the rest of the sentence the way it is.

Facebook Ban

[betterthanducttape (763202)]

Ironically enough, for the last few days Facebook.com would have been a good site to ban. One of their ad banners was loaded with a virus, and it took them quite a while to fix it. It was a trojan with a .wmf extension. Thankfully, my anti-virus caught it as Firefox attempted to auto-download it for some reason (I suspect FlashGot of being that reason).

Re:Facebook Ban

[remembertomorrow (959064)]

http://adblock.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]

No ads, no problems.

Re:Adblock

[DrSkwid (118965)]

http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org] is the one you want; replaces flash content with a play button.

Athletes are representatives...

[a_greer2005 (863926)]

and as such they have a responsibility not to embarass the program or school; if the average student posts trash talk about the arch-rival's star player on FB, it is no problem, if an athelete does it, it could blow up into an NCAA investigation, and worse, loads of bad publicity on Spotscenter.

when you choose to be an athelete and get your schooling comped for the trouble, you take the public persona that comes with it.

Re:Athletes are representatives...

[Detritus (11846)]

when you choose to be an athelete and get your schooling comped for the trouble, you take the public persona that comes with it.

How many student athletes receive full or partial athletic scholarships? You don't give up your rights when you become a student athlete.

J2EE

[zerocool^ (112121)]

I can tell you this: I don't program in Java, but I do have to install and support it as part of my job, and I can't think of a more odd set of install criteria than the Java installers.

For one, we use primarialy redhat-based linux installs for desktop and server, including Fedora, RHEL, and Centos. Sun Java, for reasons that I've never fully understood (something to do with the licensing, and it makes my brain hurt to figure it out) cannot be distributed with Linux distros. Or, that's what I thought, but then I heard that Mepis comes with java installed and working. See? Wierd already. But, at any rate, when you install a RH-based Linux install, you get the gnu java. Since I support University professors, most of them have been using Sun's java, and the GNU has (appearantly) enough querks that they don't like using it (same with the g77 fortran, but that's a different story).

So, at that point, you need to install Java. Which one? Nobody knows. People want to be able to use java plugins in their web browser (more on that in a sec), they want to be able to compile java, and they want to be able to run java apps in some sort of java environment. I think. But which one do you install? Java_jdk, Java_Jre, or Java_j2ee? Some of them include functionality replicated in the others, but there's no like clear-cut FAQ on the java website to tell you which (like, a simple four-column by X row table with the distros across the top and the expected functionality down the left side, and X's or O's, or green and red squares, to indicate which versions include which functionality). If you independantly read the descriptions, it's a LOT of buzzwords, and very short on substance.

Then, there's the "where does it install" question. They distribute as binaries, so you just kind of chmod u+x file; ./file and cross your fingers. Sometimes it's /usr/java/bin/java, sometimes, it's /usr/bin/java, sometimes it's /usr/local/java, sometimes it's /usr/local/bin/java, sometimes it's /opt/SUNWappserver/java/bin/java. Who knows? Good thing all Unix and Linux distro's use exactly the same order in their $PATH and the same file structure and organization. Not to mention, you kind of have to trust that it installs libraries and whatever else in all the correct spots, and is familiar with every linux distro from RHEL to Bob's Discount Linux to create a bazillion symlinks.

Then, you've got to figure out which one to run. "which java" can yeild any one of 50 outputs, and that's if you don't let users set their own shells and rc scripts. Not to mention, you may end up chasing symlinks down for an hour to find the exact binary (/usr/java -> /etc/alternatives/java -> /usr/bin/java -> /usr/local/java/bin/java etc). Oh, and some of the installers are command line and some are X windows required. And I've had trouble with the J2EE 1.4 installer claiming it was out of diskspace on a partition with 60 GB free, aside from all that.

Then, you have to get it so the plugins run in the web browser. How do you do this? Well, you .... google. There's a file somewhere called libjavaplugin_oji.so, but it could be anywhere. Then you've got to find your firefox or mozilla installation, which could also be anywhere depending on whether you're using the default install, whether the user has run updates, whether the version is a self-compiled version, and what linux distro you're using. Then you have to symlink the object into the plugins folder. What? Come on. You've got to be kidding. There's not a "Download this 4 meg file and stick it here" option? Nope, it relys on 1500 libraries. Oh, and every time you run a full update that also catches firefox, it's going to break (thanks yum). And when you need to update java? Good luck. Here's hoping there's a binary update that knows what it's doing.

ON TOP OF THAT, on o

Re:J2EE

[Mr. Shiny And New (525071)]

1. Sounds like you're using Fedora or Redhat. You might want to look at Jpackage. It lets you re-package the SUN Java so that it fits into Fedora's weird java world. Works well, at least on the latest 1.4 and 1.5 JDKs.

2. Here's what you need to know about the different versions. JDK/Java SDK is for development. Comes with Javac. You need this for J2EE and for development. JRE is included in the JDK or is available as a standalone download. The JRE is the runtime env, it only includes the VM. J2EE is a specification, you almost never want the J2EE install from Sun since, by itself, it doesn't give you anything. You need an application server, such as Websphere, Geronimo, JBoss, Weblogic, etc. The application server includes the J2EE libraries. It does not always include a JDK.

3. You can always do what I do when you install the sun JDK: move the whole directory so that it is where you want it. AFAIK on Linux it doesn't install any files outside of its directory. Install as many JDKs as you like, then have your users set the JAVA_HOME env variable and add $JAVA_HOME/bin to the path.

As for why you couldn't find documentation for this... I'm not sure if there is any, I thought this stuff was common knowledge in the Java world (but if you don't devel in java, I guess you can't be expected to know this).

Re:J2EE

[zerocool^ (112121)]

Also, I dropped this: </i>. Can you pick it up for me?

----

Yeah, exactly. You've hit on all the major points.

I will look into that redhat thing. THAT would save a lot of headaches. I don't particularly like redhat, and they do some things a bit wonky, but at least it's relatively consistant. Also, the suggestion about $JAVA_HOME is brilliant, I can't believe I haven't thought of it. I'm probably going to do that tomorrow.

If you go back and read:

JDK/Java SDK is for development. Comes with Javac.

Re:J2EE

[kevin_conaway (585204)]

I'll do my best to address your concerns

So, at that point, you need to install Java. Which one? Nobody knows. People want to be able to use java plugins in their web browser (more on that in a sec), they want to be able to compile java, and they want to be able to run java apps in some sort of java environment. I think. But which one do you install? Java_jdk, Java_Jre, or Java_j2ee?

• JDK: Java Development Kit. Use this to DEVELOP Java software. This comes with a compiler and other Development tools

really?

[revery (456516)]

Just a few days after it was originally noted that Kent State University had banned athletes from posting on Facebook, the Kent Stater announced that the ban was reversed.

Really? So now you lose your scholarship if you don't use Facebook? Or is it just really late and my mind is working way too literally? ;)

--
This is a joke. I am joking. You have been joked with.

Oh, really...

[ivan256 (17499)]

CRN is reporting that Dell had about a dozen reports of burned laptops before they announced last year's battery recall.

I'm not surprised, since there is a good chance that out of the thousands and thousands of laptops they sell, a couple bad batteries could be a fluke, and you need a bigger sample to see a trend... It's hard to fault them for this unless you make money off page impressions...

On the other hand, if this were an Apple story it would have made the front page as it's own story, and would be parroted across the web. Funny how that stuff goes.

PMG DELL KNEW!!

[StikyPad (445176)]

So a company waited for problems to show up more than once before issuing a complete product recall. Why is this news? One or two could be a quirk, and "dozens," vague as it is, sounds about right.

What's that smell?

[I am Jack's username (528712)]

Dude: A new laptop built by my company is switched on and the battery overheats. The system fan fails. The laptop explodes and burns with the hard disk trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptops in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of explosions, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Lady switching off her laptop: Are there a lot of these kinds of explosions?
Dude: You wouldn't believe.
Shocked lady: Which computer company do you work for?
Dude: A major one.

Re: Kent Sate Athletics

[nxtw (866177)]

It's the 3rd biggest university in Ohio with 34,491 students and its main campus is the 115th biggest campus in the nation. They have seven regional satellite campuses.

I think they're plenty big enough to have sports teams.

Re:Say NO to RMS

[Millenniumman (924859)]

I wanted to suggest everybody to stop using the term "GNU/Linux" and using "Linux"

I think everyone else is way ahead of you.

Is there another operating system for the Linux kernel?