Lumpy asks: "Lately there has been a HUGE push by Certified Microsoft Professionals and their companies to call clients and warn them of the dangers of open source. This week I received calls from 4 different customers that they were warned that they are dangerously insecure because they run Open Source Operating systems or Software because 'anyone can read the code and hack you with ease' they are being told. Other colleagues in the area also have noticed this about 3 Microsoft Partners or so they claim have been going out of their way to strike fear of OSS in companies that respond with 'yes we use Open source or Linux' when the sales call comes in. I know this is simply a sales tactic by these companies that will remain nameless, but how do I fix the damage caused by these sales tactics? I have several customers that now want more than my word about the security of the systems that have worked for them flawlessly for over 5-6 years now with minimal expense outside of upgrades and patching for security. Does anyone have a good plan or sources of reliable information that can be used to inform the customer?"

MotorMachineMercenar wonders: "I just took a roadtrip over a long weekend and noticed that I need to lug around too many chargers. I have a charger for my cell phone, Nintendo DS Lite, my two digital cameras and an iPod. Sometimes I will have one for a portable HDD and laptop. In addition I have to carry a plug converter as some of them have been bought overseas. That's up to eight gadgets just to give juice my power-hungry devices, and they take precious space and weight in my bags. Is there any way to limit the number of chargers without gimping my roadwarrior gear? Most devices have more or less fixed batteries, 'smart' chargers and proprietary plugs, but is it possible as DIY, or is there an existing product? I'd like to see a universal charger for which plugs for any current device with the flexibility to add more in the future. What are the limitations and caveats with 240 vs 120, wattage, cutting and connecting cables, and so forth?"

theodp writes "Some say that good managers should not be technical at all. Over at Computerworld, 'C.J. Kelly' takes a contrarian position, arguing that managers should keep their hands on the technology. The ability to tell the difference between fiction and reality, says Kelly, is priceless." From the article: "If you don't know the difference between fiction and reality, you've got a problem. By being technically informed while managing people and projects, no one can blow smoke up my skirt. I can tell the difference between a lame excuse for a delay and a legitimate reason why something can't be done." Where do you fall on this issue? Is it nice to be able to flim-flam the boss once in a while? Or is the valuable input of a boss with a technical background worth the occasional all-nighter?

itwerx asks: "Like most folks these days I have a cell phone and indoor reception problems, especially in my house which is behind a ridge from most of the carriers in my area. So, I'm looking for an indoor wireless repeater (not a plug-in amp). There are a lot of them out there ranging from $300-$3000+, but for every article, forum or newsgroup posting proclaiming the relative merits of this brand or model over another I find another post saying that they suck. A couple of units I'm looking at are the Wi-Ex YX500 series and some of the ones made by Wilson Electronics (not providing direct links so as to avoid boosting their Google ratings). Has anybody here used these, or junked them in favor of something better?"

mugnyte asks: "There are various ways to watch single complaints congeal into a groundswell of 'market issue' (Badware add-ons, Sony root-kit, AOL un-install, etc) via blogs and google numbers, but I'm finding no sites that rate Customer Service on an ongoing basis. I'm looking for something like the home-service-industry Angie's List or perhaps Tom's Hardware guide, but on the topic of Customer Service. Is there anyone doing the hard work to gather and legitimately rate companies by their quality of service?"

MoOsEb0y wonders: "At the company I work at, we have set up a series of SLAs giving a list of things they expect our products to do, that we promise we will deliver. In my particular situation, I have a customer who claims that the product we delivered them was slow and unresponsive. However, when we tested it to try and determine what was wrong, we didn't find anything wrong with it. How do you deal with a customer who is bent on assuming that you are incompetent, and that he or she could never have unreasonable expectations?"

Peterus7 asks: "I posted here a few years back, complaining that I couldn't code worth beans, but I wanted to get into computer science. Well, I'm back- with a psychology degree. However, I hear there's still hope since a lot of system admins and the like have liberal arts degrees. In the mean time, I've been working as a Macintosh digital media tutor, freelance tech support, and an assistant system admin at the campus library. Now that I've graduated, I want to find a job that will accept someone who knows a fair amount about computers, but is pretty much self-taught. Where should I start? Are there any classes I should take?"

RobotWisdom asks: "Is there a wiki somewhere that I haven't found, dedicated to cataloging all the technological innovations imagined by science fiction writers? So that if someone wants to explore a particular class of innovation like weapons, or medical, or transportation, they can (eventually) easily find summaries of all the major thinking on that topic? And if it hasn't been started yet, does anyone have the wherewithal to start it?" If such a thing isn't available in one place, what sites have you found that catalog the technology of specific sci-fi mythologies?

BenEnglishAtHome asks: "One of our remote offices will soon be gutted/rebuilt and our local IT staff managed to fumble the political ball. Our server closet is being reduced to 45 square feet and there will be no more unused desk space that can be occupied by visiting techs. Result? That 45 square feet must house 3 desktop-size servers; 3 UPSs; a fully-adjustable user workstation that includes separate adjustments for work surface height, keyboard height, and keyboard angle as well as a big ergo chair; an area suitable for workstation diagnostics; a good KVM switch; 2 monitors, keyboards, mice, and laptop docking stations that must be simultaneously available; and some amount of small item storage, while still having enough room for a door to swing into the roughly square room. The only bright side is that I can have all the A/C, power, and LAN drops I want. Has anyone managed to find and deploy a freestanding server rack/workstation/furniture system (probably something L-shaped) that can perform this many tasks in such a small space?"

Jennifer Leonard asks: "I'm in desperate need of securing a way to record my Skype phone calls at broadcast quality. I just purchased a Plantronics Audio.85 headset with noise-reduction mic and 32-bit DSP ('enhances the audio signal for superior stereo sound and speech recognition') and used it for a phone conversation that's intended to be played for a radio show. What I got was totally unacceptable: the audio quality is horrible! There's a constant droney hiss sound over the entire track, which just ruins the interview. Unfortunately, my radio station doesn't have the capacity to do pre-recorded phone interviews. This is why I've had to go about doing it on my own. So far, what I've tried...sucks. Does anyone know how I can get broadcast quality audio by way of recorded Skype conversations?"

It Can't Be All Bad asks: "I've been working as a programmer for a few years now, and I really love the work. I'm trying to think ahead of possible ways to leverage my skills into more specific areas where programmers are welcome and can find work. Areas like bio and chemical informatics appear very interesting ,but for the most part they seem to be for chem/bio majors with masters degrees. My biggest problem is that I'm self taught with only about a years worth of college experience. At this point in my life (with a family, kids, and bills), going back to school just isn't an option anymore. I wanted to know if anyone has had any success utilizing their development skills in specific fields that don't require masters degrees, and what areas I could be overlooking. Like most people here, I just want to be a part of exciting projects with some sort of purpose behind them."

curly_dan asks: "Can readers recommend any software packages suitable for a mid-sized hotel (100 rooms + restaurant + bar + function rooms) to use for checking guests in/out, billing, housekeeping, reservations, financial accounting and all other necessary functions for a busy hotel? Their existing system (which I don't want to name) is clunky, fails often, and the telephone support team seem unable to use or configure their own product and are frequently rude to the hotel staff. I'm interested in hearing the experiences on the software packages those of you in this business have encountered."

Paul Carver writes "Smarthome has been advertising Insteon for a while now, but I haven't bought any of it, yet. I've accumulated a fair amount of X10 products over the years, including Smarthome branded signal boosters, signal couplers, noise blockers, and troubleshooting tools. Even so, I'm pretty much fed up with X10. Nothing I've bought has succeeded in making my X10 system more than 'just barely acceptable' and 'better than nothing but not by much'. A Google search for Insteon doesn't turn up much other than their own advertisements and a couple of vaguely positive but not detailed reviews. Is this new technology going to take off? What's the community's consensus on home automation?"

sirfunk asks: "I am a student and part-time system admin for a few local businesses. Most of the businesses I work for do not have me come in regularly, I'm sort of on a on-call, fix-it-when-it-breaks schedule. I'm wondering if anyone out there has come across a personal ticket-tracking system, that would allow my businesses to submit tickets with their problems and priority. The primary requirement would be that the user interface (for my businesses) would be very simple. I've checked out Bugzilla and Trac both of them look way overcomplicated for my needs. Any ideas?"

tdbp asks: "My startup company has just released its first product, but since it is made up of geeks without a clue about marketing strategies, and we are looking for suggestions on how to launch a product with spam-free methods of searching for possible customers. The product is a dual-licensed development tool, so the main targets are C/C++programmers and system integrators. Our plan is to build a community of developers around the GPL version of our product, and to use this base of users to promote the product to people of higher rank with more decisional power, who could eventually buy a commercial license or support service. Do you think this is a reasonable business model? Do you have any suggestions on how to promote the tool or find companies interested in it?"

tetraminoe asks: "Spread Firefox has a story about a student at the University of Florida running for student government promising to promote open source on campus. His platform includes expanding F/OSS on campus, using open file formats, etc. Is this the first time 'free culture' has become an electoral issue? Has anyone else made open source an issue at their university?"

DMBeiler asks: "I'm a first year computer-science student, with a lot of computing background. I learned C++ in the curriculum here, but am also familiar with Perl, PHP, and know my way around Linux. I consider myself adept enough to pick up a working knowledge of a language fairly quickly. As an underclassman, with little formal training, do any jobs/internships exist for me, say, over the summer? What do I need to bring to the table to be considered for even a menial position, these days?"

gnujoshua asks: "My company would like to expand the use of its Wiki to include source code and API documentation. It would be nice to have auto-generated, syntax highlighted, and well documented source code, integrated nicely into the Wiki. Ideally, changes to source could be made right in the Wiki, barring permissions, and furthermore, it would be nice to see if it compiles against the library as well. What recommendations does Slashdot have for Wikis and scripts that could be used effectively to this end?"

PktLoss asks: "I recently got hit with a worm/trojan, it was my own fault, I got sloppy. Anyways, once I got hit with the virus it was time to get rid of it. It had infected my system while my A/V program was running, so I presumed it was rather new. I already knew a bunch about it: it was a Messenger Worm; it killed regedit, msconfig or taskmanager upon being run; and it turned off viewing hidden/system files, in Explorer. This information in hand, I thought I would have an easy time figuring out what it was, and hopefully locating a dedicated cleaner, I was wrong. In my mind I envision a page with an advanced search allowing you to give it the information you have (attack vector/type, symptoms, etc) one at a time, each new piece of information cutting down the list of possibilities. Does such a page exist? If not why not?"

crazyharry asks: "I have recently been hired to be a system administrator to a bunch of system administrators. Aside from my personal experience, which is probably biased, I would like to know from the disproportionately large number of IT people here: if you, as a system administrator, were forced to have a system administrator, what would you expect of that role? How would you want your business machines (not the ones you admin, but your daily use machines) managed, if they were not up to this point? This is a mixed environment (Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix), so feel free to assume I've already heard the 'leave me the FSCK alone' comments. What other issues are probably going to crop up, if you have been in a similar situation?"