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Wireless Networking

Submission + - Wireless Flash Drive?

Submitted by AshDotOrg
AshDotOrg writes: i can't stop thinking about how much easier it would be if my USB flash drive was wireless. No more leaving it behind at friend's or in my work machine, i could just simply wear it and never take it off (evar!). Looking around for one i can only find a little info on the subject, and most of that around 2 years old. Surely someone has produced a wireless flash drive by now? Haven't they? Please tell me they have...
Businesses

Submission + - Finding Telecommuting Friendly Orgs

Submitted by Overworked and Under-employed
Overworked and Under-employed writes: I'm looking for a 100% remote (i.e. telecommuting) job in the Linux admin or FOSS development spheres. Contract work would be best, but direct hire is acceptable, too. I have 10 years IT and programming experience, 7 with Linux administration, but a lot of it is private consulting and small start-ups (No 100 server support jobs).

I have literally spent weeks scouring Google and come up with very few prospects. Most large job banks don't even let you search telecommute only jobs and are filled with "work at home" Spam, while the small ones have no jobs.

Does anyone have experience with telecommuting friendly companies or know where to find them? Help would be greatly appreciated.
Businesses

Submission + - Getting hired with a criminal record.

Submitted by 24601
24601 writes: Hello fellow Slashdot nerds. This is a very hard question to ask, but I figured you guys would probably have the best advice. I am finding myself in my young, soon to be post college career with a brand new criminal record. To make matter's worse, it's for a sex crime (was mislead by someone about their age. Nothing violent or involving children). Yes I will have to register, be on probation for quite a while, and currently reside in a certain very conservative state in the south famous for a certain cartoon mouse. I completely accept the stupidity of what I have done and very much want to grow and move on past it. I'm a graphical artist by trade, but with a lot of web design experience as well. Also have a good deal of IT experience, was thinking of getting a certification in something. What I want to know, however, is how hard is it to get a job in the tech industry with this kind of Scarlet Letter? I have every intention of being upfront and honest about my past with any potential employer, and making every effort to communicate my regret for my past, the fact that I'm not a threat to anyone, and my desire to prove myself. Are more technical employers willing to look past such things and give you a chance? Is there any advice people can give me on properly presenting this issue, and finding understanding employers? thanks!
Quickies

Submission + - What's your ultimate laptop bag? (successminders.com) 1

Submitted by
jacobcaz
jacobcaz writes: "I've been on a quest for the holy grail of a laptop bag/daypack. Right now I would be stashing a Dell D820, but would eventually like to migrate to a MacBook 15". I've been carrying a Wenger backpack which has a ton of room, but is heavy when empty and lets me load way too much into it to carry around.

What laptop back do you love and consider the ultimate bag? I would like to hear from people who are using backpacks or slings, or shoulder bags that let you carry your laptop in a vertical orientation."
Toys

Submission + - Entry Level Astronomy 2

Submitted by
brobak
brobak writes: "I'm getting ready to move into a new home on a couple of acres of rural property a significant distance from any large source of light pollution. I've always been interested in astronomy in general, and I was thinking that putting my dark skies to use by picking up decent telescope and learning a bit about the skies over my head. I have been doing a decent amount of web research, but I thought that the Slashdot community would be the perfect place to get opinions on entry level equipment, websites, and books.

The overall budget for this project is going to be around $1,000, and observations will be made from the back of my home primarily. I am particularly interested in the subject of astrophotography, but I understand that may be outside the scope of the initial budget. I would welcome any and all of your comments and suggestions for getting started in this fascinating hobby.

PS — I've already signed up for my local astronomy clubs next monthly meeting."
Databases

Submission + - Advanced PDF management?

Submitted by chrysrobyn
chrysrobyn writes: I find myself in the situation where I must store hundreds or possibly thousands of pieces of paper for later review and classification. I can't spend the time now to properly organize them (that definition may even change later anyway), or even seperate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I would like to feed it all to a sheet feeding scanner (I see them in Fry's for a few hundred dollars; some even come with free laser scanners), dump to PDF, then be able to reorder pages, drag pages to new PDF files, trash individual pages, etc. Duplicating a page would be a bonus. PDF is appealing because of the storage of the original sheet plus the OCR is generally good enough for searching.

Long story: My father in law passed away a few years ago, and he was the kind of guy who did everything on his own, at his own pace, and to nobody else's rules. Since his passing, my wife and I have wasted hundreds of hours (maybe more), trying to clean up and move on. Lawyers and a CPA have been involved, and without getting into the really long version, there is a whole lot we should really keep for our own purposes in the future (digital copies are okay, originals can be properly disposed of). Papers the professionals didn't require are vastly disorganized, occasionally sorted by year.
I don't do windows. Mac is preferred, but I personally have more experience with Linux. I've looked at DEVONthink, but it doesn't have the ability to trade pages between PDFs. I like Yep's tag feature, and can instantly come up with a dozen uses for that, but again, I can't organize an individual page somewhere. Adobe itself seems very intent on individual documents, not assisting with a database of them, or organizing between them.
Has the Slashdot audience seen anything like this?
Utilities (Apple)

Submission + - Driving a Mac with the keyboard?

Submitted by
gauauu
gauauu writes: "I have been a long-time Windows user, first out of convenience, but now because I have learned how to quickly and easily get around the GUI using the keyboard with the help of Autohotkey, Launchy, and a few other tricks. But now, based on the recommendations from so many of my geek friends, I am finally getting around to checking out Apple's OSX.

What's driving me crazy, though, is how everything seems to force you to use the mouse. Are there hidden ways of efficiently navigating their UI through the keyboard? Or are there other (free, in either sense) utilities that make it easier to get around without always having to grab the mouse? And "Just use the terminal" isn't the answer I'm looking for. While I don't fear a command-line interface, there are quite a few things that are more efficient with a keyboard-driven GUI. Are there any mouse-haters out there using macs that can help?"
Businesses

Submission + - Netflix Cuts Rates, Provides Worse Service

Submitted by Nom du Keyboard
Nom du Keyboard writes: About three weeks ago I got an unexpected e-mail from Netflix. My one movie at a time plan was now going to cost me $1 less per month. What could I say, but Great! Since then, I've noticed a significant service degradation. My movies come and go from a local depot in my town. Previously I could drop a movie in the mail on day 1. They receive it on Day 2, turn it around and send me the top available movie in my queue, which was nearly always my top next choice, and I have it in my mailbox in Day 3 for watching. I could watch up to two movies a week this way. I know this schedule because I get e-mails when my returned movie is received by Netflix, and when they send out the next one. My experience since the price reduction has been: First return: They received my movie, waited an extra day, and then sent me my second choice although the first choice was listed as available. Second return: They sent it out the same day, but it was my fourth choice, the three choices above it being listed as available now, and none of them new releases. My third return: Again they inserted an extra day into the cycle (e.g. received my movie Tuesday, but didn't send out my next movie until Wednesday), although this time I got my top queue choice. This never happened even once in the last 6 months that I've had their service. I'm clearly getting less service for less money that I didn't ask for. Are other Netflix users seeing this?
Spam

Submission + - Spammers spamming using our addresses

Submitted by
Vesty
Vesty writes: "I recently enabled a catchall on our domain while our company transitioned to a new website. I didn't want emails going astray etc while things changed over... Recently I've noticed that on the catchall I get a LOT of 'delivery failure' and similar emails, that are all being returned to the same non active alias. After a bit of digging I discovered that about half a dozen different companies spam has been being sent using an alias at our domain as their from address. I've been slowly attempting to call each of the companies, most are extremely shady, occasionally I get a real person that supposedly knows nothing about it. It seems to me that each of these companies has farmed out there 'advertising' to the same third party that is using our address as their from address. I'm sure this has happened to other people, what can we do to stop it? With the amount of spam these fools send I'm worried that any email from our domain will automatically be treated as spam... Anyone have any suggestions? Are they breaking any laws?"
The Internet

Submission + - Why is Texas offline?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I haven't been able to get any solid details on this, but according to an AT&T rep I spoke to Tuesday, their MPLS network in Texas had gone down that day for several hours. You read that right. Apparently, any AT&T subscriber in Texas with T1 and up apparently lost connectivity for several hours. As far as I know it was unplanned and only affected AT&T networks. Now it seems to have happened again today, and again there isn't a much information, but my traces don't get as far as they did yesterday.

This represents quite a large chunk of the internet landscape. Since Slashdotters are generally pretty astute when it comes to the tubes, I thought I'd ask if anybody out there knows anything about this, or even what might have caused such a huge outage... twice?

(BTW if it hadn't been for my aircard w/ a different data provider, I couldn't even submit this right now.)
Data Storage

Submission + - Converting old e-mail archives to a common format?

Submitted by enormouse
enormouse writes: I have decades of email stored in various formats: various unix, VAX mail, Lotus Notes/Domino, PROFS, one-off formats, and several PC mail programs, etc. Some I want to keep, some I need to keep. Nothing new, right? Keeping the original applications around isn't a practicable option at this time, and neither is clearing a forest to print it all out. I want to be able to search them, preserve most of the ( html/rich-text) formatting, and obviously attachments. I can cook up converters, but I don't really want to write and maintain an archive system. I am thinking along the lines of an OSS mail or doc management system that I can run in a VM for 5-8 years before I have to move it again. Experiences and suggestions from folks who have gone through this?
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Playing Games With Your Significant Other

Submitted by rabydanimal
rabydanimal writes: I'm sure many a Slashdotter has been vexed by this conundrum: What video games can I play with my significant other? Sure there are hardcore female gamers out there but the fact of the matter is most male gamers have girlfriends and wives that just can't be bothered with space marines, gun fights, and racing sims. Growing up with the NES, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis many people from my generation enjoy simple, classic gaming. My girlfriend is no exception. She enjoys games that she can learn quickly, are challenging and don't involve killing people. I have contemplated buying entirely new game systems (i.e. the Wii) with the hope that at least one game for that system is appealing to her so we can play together. What modern, non-violent games and systems does the Slashdot community recommend for a girlfriend of a gaming nerd?
Programming

Submission + - How much sleep do you need?

Submitted by
phorm
phorm writes: "I was recently having a discussion with a friend wherein we noticed that, although we had been lacking in sleep lately, we were — in general — feeling somewhat less tired. More specifically for myself, I generally end up feeling more alert in the morning, sometimes with a more steep drop-off towards night.

This had led to research over the concept of how much sleep is optimal, and how much is enough. Interestingly, it seems that many who are into heavy fitness schedules (bodybuilders etc) require lesser sleep amounts to maintain an alert state. This would seem to fit with my own observations, in that if I have exercised heavily, I tend to fall into a deeper sleep, within a shorted period of time. However, if I have exercised in a way that has over-strained my body, sometimes extra rest can be required, most likely so that it can "fix" itself.

I have many memories of college wherein intellectual stimulation would also have the same result. Coding would run into the early AM hours, and at some point when my brain was reduced to gelatin I would return home for about 3-6 hours of sleep, and still manage to feel active and refreshed the next day. Coding where I went to bed before my brain gelified might result in tossing-and-turning.

Stimulants, of course, affect either of these situations, but as I'm not much of a caffeine drinker (particularly later in the day), I believe that can be ruled out.

So, how much sleep does a normal slashdotter need before being able to achieve uncaffeinated alertness? What tips and tricks can you recommend to pull a few extra hours out of the day (much like many fitness fanatics do) without sacrificing your health or alertness? How do you trick your body into achieving the almighty "power-nap" or "super-sleep" for quick revitalization?"
Spam

Submission + - Does SPF really work?

Submitted by
Intelopment
Intelopment writes: "My Domain name has recently been used a lot as the REPLY field by some inconsiderate spammer and my ISP has suggested that I consider using the Open SPF service (http://openspf.org/) as a way to stop spammers from using my domain name for their REPLY field. From what I can tell it requires the receiving mail server to actually participate in the SPF service, which is where I get my doubts. Does anyone have any experience with this service? Does it work? Are many ISPs using openSFP?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Journal Journal: Al "Green" Gores Shocking Electric Bill 1

Journal by music2myear
Some interested person called the Nashville (TN) Electrical Service and under the Freedom of Information Act asked for the Academy Award Winning Ex-VP's energy bill. Apparently the publicly dull persona has quite the party life going at home. His usage last year? 221,000 kWh, that's a $30,000 bill, more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone he used 22,619 kWh, more than you or me (even with those massive 1000W PS' ru

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