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Hardware

Computer/Tech Flea Markets? 254

Posted by timothy from the the-bazaar-for-the-bazaar dept.
Spamlent Green asks: "The recent 'Cashing In On Antique Computers' thread, and the PBS Flea Market documentary made me all misty-eyed for the MIT Swap Fest. I moved from Cambridge to D.C. last year, and haven't been able to find anything like it down here, and I don't mean those bogus 'Comptuer Show and Sale and Monster Truck Rally' events advertised constantly on cheapo UHF stations. So I was curious -- do any DC-MD-No.VA-area Slashdot-ers know of events like this down here -- or anywhere else in the country for that matter? They must be out there ..."
The Internet

Fight Virus With Virus? 697

Posted by Hemos from the cleaning-up-the-mess dept.
Insanik writes "I am not an expert with internet worms like Code Red. However, I am curious if it would be possible to create a friendly worm/virus/whatever that would fight the original by using the same security holes. For instance, I read that Code Red II opens a back door. Why not have another virus that exploited the back door, closed it, then started sending itself to other servers for a certain period of time? " The submittor raises an interesting question - is this possible? I would guess so, in theory. And while we're working on Code Red, can we send a large man to the home of my latest Sircam senders and politely "ask" them to stop clicking on virii?
Encryption

What Encryption Do People In The Know Use? 59

Posted by Hemos from the gnupg dept.
A reader writes "What do cypherpunks in the know recommend for the paranoid types. I'm wondering because of the rising amount of protests. I look and most of these people seem clueless when using the net. Paranoia runs rampant (try taping a protest), yet they use stuff like real, which has been known to violate privacy. So my question is, what would slashdot readers recommend for people who have privacy they actually wish to protect? Are there any good laymen level papers on this?"
The Almighty Buck

What Makes a City Appealing to High-Tech Workers? 116

Posted by michael from the city-I-live-in,-the-city-of-angels dept.
WGR writes "The City of Ottawa, Canada is starting to re-write its Official Plan, the "charter" for a city. [A few weeks ago] we had a 5 day Smart Growth Summit that was webcast online with discussion groups and web interactivity. Ottawa is fairly strong in the high-tech sector as it is, with NortelNetworks and JDS-Uniphase having their biggest presence here and had over a $1 billion of venture capital last year. But how do you keep a livable city when you expect to have a 50% population increase in 10 years? One idea came from Dr. Richard Florida from Carnegie-Mellon University. He said that "knowledge workers" want to go to places that have the 3 T's, "Technology, Talent and Tolerance". That is, where there already is a lot of technology, where there is a rich artistic and entertainment sector, lots of educational opportunities, where there are a lot of people with similar interests and where there are people from many diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. But not necessarily low city taxes. Do you agree, and what would be your ideal city to work in?"
Linux

Old Distributions? 37

Posted by michael from the always-keep-backups dept.
rsd writes: "I have been searching the web for a few days looking for old rpm based distributions ISOs for a study with libc5. All I could find so far is some loose packages, but not a downloadable ISO image. For RedHat 4.2 and older, Conectiva Linux 1.0, ... it is impossible to find. So I ask myself is there a centralized place taking care of this, for public use and even preservation of the Linux History and evolution? We have lots of places with ISO images, like linuxiso, however these sites just keep with recent distributions."
Hardware Hacking

3COM's Ergo Audrey Hacked 134

Posted by timothy from the nifty-tiny-cheap-pick-any-three dept.
It looks like the 3COM Ergo Audrey hacking scene is finally taking off. A guy named Sowbug has hacked the 3COM Ergo Audrey to shell. He has pictures of it here(1) and here(2). Another site has opened to cover this hack, here(3). And of course the Linux Hacker messageboards are covering it quite a bit.
Hardware

Which Laptop To Buy? 732

Posted by Hemos from the where-to-drop-your-cash dept.
Misha writes: "In this day and age, it seems that the advertisement offers for desktop systems have slowed down in term of features. Everyone has agreed that AGP, DVD, >1GHz, etc. is what everyone will want. This does not seem to be the case with laptops. Every year, they manage to cram a bigger resolution screen, more system and graphical memory, more battery life into a less-than-two-inch thick plactic box. So, what are everyone's preferences as far as laptops go? What kind of features are most important? How does price enter the equation? Which one is best for the money? And especially, can you get a decent machine for under $1000?" I've been using the IBM Thinkpad T20 for the last year or so, and love the machine -- with the exception of the WinModem *sigh*. What else is everyone using?
Spam

Open Replacement For MAPS? 20

Posted by timothy from the a-slightly-holy-grail dept.
quackPOT asks: "Is there anyone with an open database similar to the MAPS DUL list? Now that MAPS charges for service, I either have to pay (which ain't gonna happen) or deal with the spam from direct client connections from crappy dial-ups. One of MAPS excuses for charging was the overhead cost of network bandwidth/etc/whatever. Why not distribute mirrors to other networks to reduce the amount of strain on their servers?"
Music

Who'll Be Using Ogg Vorbis Instead Of MP3? 731

Posted by timothy from the every-man-and-his-monkey dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Ogg Vorbis is hitting stable and hopefully will release 1.0 soon. But I'm wondering, who is going to use it? MP3 is very popular on the net and beyond, but it's based on patents. Software patents aren't legal in Europe, but are in other parts of the world. Is Ogg Vorbis making a chance to become the next music-standard for the net and beyond. This mainly because there are no patents broken by this standard. Will it be a standard for the world or one for the books?"
Hardware

Any Alternative Uses For The MySmart Pad? 20

Posted by timothy from the movie-prop-is-too-obvious dept.
TellarHK muses: "Thinking back to the CueCat debacle, and on the topic of 'soon to be abandoned-ware,' has anyone considered mucking about with the MySmart mousepads? I picked up one of these on sale at Best Buy for $5, figuring someone might come out with a way to use the 'Smart' card reader as a tool for other applications. Sure, I know this'll get a lawyer's underwear in a bunch, but I don't recall signing any license stopping me. Maybe someone's come up with a quick and dirty program or routine for it, under either Linux or Windows?" These are also at CompUSA. Smart-card access to the basement? One more layer of security on your workstation? These look like fun, if someone has a driver.
Hardware

Ricochet Modems == Wireless LAN? 185

Posted by michael from the silver-lining dept.
dpease writes: "Metricom, purveyor of Ricochet wireless networking, died today. I understand that, sans infrastructure, a Ricochet wireless modem can call another Ricochet modem, and that modem-to-modem range is nearly a mile. Is the hardware this company leaves behind a viable solution for a really cool, really cheap wireless LAN?"
Education

Research Publications Web Page? 18

Posted by michael from the spreading-the-light dept.
Jabagi writes: "Hi, I am computer engineering undergrad. and my department in the university has given me the job of doing a web site that displays its publications in digital format. So I wanted to ask if anybody knows any good [prefereably university-originated] web pages that have a publication for research pages with an easy to use interface. A very good one in my opinion is from MIT. I would also accept any suggestions to what should be included on such a page [for example, which formats do you prefer the documents to be in, what types of information should be present, etc...]"
Music

Splitting Mp3's 16

Posted by michael from the you-cut-i-choose dept.
caseydk writes: "I'm working on a project that needs to take a single mp3 (a live recording) and play individual sections of it. Preferably, so that the user must only download a portion of the mp3, instead of the whole thing. Unfortunately, most (or all) mp3 splitters that I have found have a gui. I'm looking for something command-line, so that I can just have the server do it during low usage times or (worst case) on the fly. Any suggestions?"
Unix

Straight-forward Print Quota System for *nix? 7

Posted by michael from the and-other-mythical-things dept.
saihung writes: "I pitched a Linux-based file and print queue server to a department at a local university, and they accepted with one caveat: that I also implement print quotas and accounting. The accounting isn't really a big deal, but I've looked high and low and found nothing even approaching comprehensive quota support. Does anyone know of a print quota system for *nix that doesn't amount to "here's a few perl scripts that don't work"?" There are several printing systems under development, but I don't have any idea which would be the easiest to implement a print quota system. Anyone?
The Almighty Buck

Do We Spend More On Linux Or Windows? 468

Posted by timothy from the interesting-comparisons dept.
jmcneal writes with this chin-stroker: "My colleages and I have been debating this for a while at work: 'Do people spend more money on Linux Distributions or on windows?' The limited sampling we have is that users buy distros almost every six months, at full price, at retail outlets. We have only one person who has gone out and purchased Windows at a software outlet, the rest of us only get a new copy when we purchase a new PC, about every 1.5 to 3 years. Is this behaivior common? How much have /.ers spent on distro's vs Windows in the last 2 years?"

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