Businesses

Worst Web Hosting experience? 101

Posted by Cliff from the anecdotes-of-warning dept.
Tim asks: "I have just come through an experience with a web hosting company. Basically, a script on the server was compromised, because of incorrect security settings on the server, and used as a zombie phishing mailer script. My account was suspended for phishing, and through the course of several tickets, it was made clear that I had nothing to do with the phishing. Still throughout the entire ordeal, they refused to give me any of my files, saying that they could not be released now, or ever for 'legal evidence reasons.' So, here I am without a database (I should have backed up!), and without several files I was working on. What is your worst web hosting experience, and how have you dealt with it?"
Upgrades

Value (Price/Quality) for Computer Upgrades? 60

Posted by Cliff from the hardware-hacker-resources dept.
Sierpinski asks: "I am currently researching a new video card, and seeing that PCI-Express has pretty much taken the industry by storm, I have not been able to find a relatively recent (late-model so to speak) AGP card. If I get a PCI-Express card, I'll need to upgrade my board. If I upgrade my board, I doubt my CPU (slot 462) will still be usable. As much as price is a factor, compatibility is as well. I've run into problems in the past where X memory wouldn't work in Y boards, etc. Does anyone have a spec list of the main components (board, CPU, memory, video card) that are recent (ie 6800GT PCI-Express), and work well together?"
Communications

PC FM Tuner Streamed Over a LAN? 67

Posted by Cliff from the better-quality-sounds dept.
ooglek asks: "FM radio seems to be falling out of favor, with many stations putting their streams online. Unfortunately, many choose bad codecs and low bandwidth feeds, which make them practically unappealing. There seem to be a fair number of PCI-based TV Tuner cards that come with a built in FM receiver, and I'm interested in what it might take to stream my local FM stations to the Windows, Unix and Mac boxes in my house over my LAN, as well as my TiVo and Slim Devices SqueezeBox. Is this merely a pipe-dream?"
Businesses

Is a Specialized Education in VLIS Valuable? 18

Posted by Cliff from the worth-studying dept.
neg ebx asks: "Carnegie Mellon University recently started a masters program that revolves around managing very large information systems (VLIS): 'Very Large Information Systems(VLIS) are large repositories of data that can be found in industry, government, military, academic, and scientific settings. They take the form of internet content providers, business transactions, text, video, financial transactions, genomic data, health care management, scientific data sets, etc. Currently, digital librarians manage the information, while responsibilities for operating a VLIS falls to various system administrators, system architects, and database administrators. This diffusion of responsibility results in inconsistent interfaces, a heterogeneous collection of systems that may not interoperate effectively, and a general disjointedness and inefficiency.' If you where going to hire someone to manage your information systems would you see a benefit in them having a specialized education as opposed to 3 or 4 years of experience?"
Security

Are Hotlinked Images Now a Liability? 57

Posted by Cliff from the watch-out-for-evil-avatars dept.
ConcernedImage asks: "I work for a company that has a strong online community, with a full set of message boards that currently allow external image hotlinking. With the new WMF exploit out there, all it takes is one user to link to a bad image, and suddenly it's -our- web site inflicting the computers of others (at least, as far as our users are concerned). Is allowing hotlinked images a legal liability now? What steps are other online communities taking to protect themselves and their users against this?"
Software

Getting Around PDF Rights Restrictions? 21

Posted by Cliff from the users-have-rights-too dept.
RedBear asks: "It is common these days for government agencies to offer official forms online as fillable PDF forms. What is not so common is for them to offer 'rights-enabled' versions of these PDF forms that can be filled, saved locally and changed using free the Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF software. I'm sure many of you have experienced this phenomenon: You take the time to fill in a PDF form online and then discover that the only way to retain your changes is to print it. What cross-platform methods exist to allow common users to save filled PDF forms in a way that will allow easy future editing, without costing hundreds of dollars? FOSS software is of course preferable, and cross-platform between at least Mac and Windows is essential."
Communications

How To Enable Mom w/ Encrypted E-Mail? 269

Posted by Cliff from the maintaining-the-illusion dept.
mad.frog asks: "Given the recent revelations of the Bush administration spying on US citizens without warrants -- and their promise to continue doing so -- it's clearly high time for me to switch to encrypted email, after years of being too lazy to bother. The real question is how I can get all (or at least some) of my email contacts to switch as well; clearly, encryption does me no good if the recipient can't decode it. What are my options, and more importantly, what are the options that will be comprehensible and usable by my parents, and in-laws? (Keep in mind that good solutions must include robust Windows and Mac support...)"
Hardware Hacking

A PC Case with External Power Supply? 138

Posted by Cliff from the out-of-the-box-thoughts dept.
aralin asks: "I am building a new home server (web server, email, source code repository, ...) and don't really need that much performance, but would like to make it ultra quiet. I have found some quiet, one platter harddrives and can get a lower-end graphics card without a fan. I underclock the CPU so it never really needs cooling, besides the load on the computer will be quite low, most of the time. What I cannot get around easily is the power supply. They are quite noisy and the quiet ones are really expensive. I'm just not going to put half of my budget on a power supply. Do you know any company that manufactures PC cases with external power supply or do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?"
IBM

IBM iSeries or Windows server? 125

Posted by Cliff from the which-would-you-choose dept.
Rabid Cougar asks: "I am the network administrator for a small manufacturing company. Our current ERP system has outlived its usefulness and we are in the process of selecting another package. Our present ERP system runs on an IBM AS/400, but there are those in the company who believe we should switch to something that only runs on Windows. My position is this: if we can find software that will meet our needs that runs on an IBM iSeries (new name for the AS/400) then we'd be certifiably crazy to move over to the Windows platform. A co-worker insists there are a ton of reasons to avoid the iSeries like the plague. I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but if you were to bet your career on this issue, which side would you choose and why?"
Unix

Linux in a Business - Got Root? 464

Posted by Cliff from the control-your-own-destiny dept.
greenBeard asks: "I work for a government contractor, and have recently convinced them to purchase a Beowulf cluster, and start moving their numeric modelers from Sun to Linux. Like most historically UNIX shops, they don't allow users even low-level SUDO access, to do silly things like change file permissions or ownerships, in a tracked environment. I am an ex-*NIX admin myself ,so I understand their perspective and wish to keep control over the environment, but as a user, I'm frustrated by having to frequently call the help-desk just to get a file ownership changed or a specific package installed. If you're an admin, do you allow your users basic SUDO rights like chmod, cp, mv, etc (assuming all SUDO commands are logged to a remote system)? If no, why don't you? If you allow root access to your knowledgeable users (ie developers with Linux experience), what do you do to keep them 'in line'?"
Communications

Group Video Conferencing? 31

Posted by Cliff from the three's-a-meeting dept.
darhaw asks: "What started out as a simple request has turned into a big deal. I work for a small firm with partners in 4 different cities, and we'd like to do weekly video conferences. There seem to be many different 2 PERSON video conferencing products -- but there are very few GROUP video conferencing products. Is there anything out there? Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated."
OS X

Python IDE for Mac OS X? 113

Posted by Cliff from the fruits-and-snakes dept.
benbranch asks: "I am presently learning the Python programming language. The language itself is brilliant and seems very easy to pick up, however my problem is finding a decent IDE. I use Mac OS X (as Windows is excruciating), and though I love Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) all my work computers are Mac's. Can anyone advise me as too a good open source IDE for Mac? If there are any Python programmers out there using Macs, I would love to hear from you."
Microsoft

Is the Dell/Microsoft Alliance Fracturing? 390

Posted by Cliff from the holiday-speculation dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Dell has historically been the most loyal of all Microsoft's partners. Even today, it is very difficult to avoid paying the Microsoft tax on most of Dell's desktops and notebooks. Recently, two things have made the news where Dell is not toeing the Microsoft line. First, was the announcement that Dell is trialling shipping desktop and notebook PCs in the UK with Firefox as the default browser, instead of IE (announcement confirmed here). Today we have news that Dell is not going to support HD-DVD, despite reported incentives that recently induced HP to do so. So, what are some theories as to why Dell has lately been less of a friend to Microsoft, and what does this mean for the future? Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?"
The Almighty Buck

Best Tax Programs? 61

Posted by Cliff from the a-yearly-question dept.
inf0c0m asks: "Now that tax season is upon us again, what sort of tax programs should I be trying out? I've done the tried and true Quicken before, but I was hoping something Open Source, or something that comes highly recommended from other Slashdot users. I've also done some independent contract work this past year, so something that is more friendly in that sense would be nice. Any recommendations?"
Businesses

Pushing the Need for Bug Tracking? 113

Posted by Cliff from the persuading-management-for-the-right-tools dept.
NorthwestWolf asks: "I am the sole developer for a medium-sized company. My work consists of developing intranet applications for the production, accounting, shipping and engineering activities at all of our locations. My dilema is that my boss is dead set on the idea that we DO NOT need a bug tracking system, nor does he feel that we have a need for version tracking. As much as I strive to write perfect code...that doesn't happen. Most recently, I asked to install a lightweight piece of bug tracking software that would not tie into the database, and was written in PHP (what our apps are already developed in). This was to be for me, and me alone; although my boss does produce some code and is the reason that I would like version tracking (he has made changes to my code that I was not aware of until I noticed problems with certain functions). So, to those of you who are, or have been in a similiar situation...what are you doing, or what have you done to get critical development tools such as these implemented at work?"
Printer

One-at-a-time Mailing Label Printers? 63

Posted by Cliff from the addressing-singles dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I work at a small law firm, and we are looking for a better way to print mailing labels. Currently, we print out an entire label sheet (30 labels) for each of our regular clients, storing them in binders. For one-offs, we use a typewriter. I'd like to find a label printer for around $250 (or less) to print labels one at a time. The challenge is that all the printers I can find are thermal print. Our fear is that a label may become unreadable due to heat exposure sometime during mailing. Even if label damage due to heat is rare, we cannot afford to take a chance since many of the documents we mail are time-sensitive. Also, we often send documents unfolded in large envelopes, so addressing #10 envelopes through a laser printer isn't enough -- we need labels!"
The Internet

Does Faster Broadband Matter? 442

Posted by Zonk from the as-a-gamer-i'd-have-to-say-yes dept.
tsa writes "There is an interesting piece on Ars Technica discussing the implications of faster broadband services for the users, and for the internet as a whole. From the article: 'Most online activities, like standard websurfing, are not significantly sped up by high-bandwidth connections, and the few that are, such as downloading, are not typically time-sensitive anyway. Many service providers are starting to prioritize their own content at the expense of those from rivals. Many countries have started or are considering blocking Voice-over-IP (VOIP) traffic in order to protect the phone companies from competition.'" How does faster broadband actually impact your Net usage?
Christmas Cheer

How Do You Deal with Depression Around Christmas? 163

Posted by Cliff from the improving-emotional-fortitude dept.
SleepyHappyDoc asks: "Lots of people around the world seem to experience more sadness and depression around the holiday season, than in other times of the year. There could be any number of reasons why this is, but my question is: how do you deal with it? Have you managed to find any coping strategies or activities that make things feel less bleak?"
Technology

Technology Predictions for 2006? 344

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the crystal-ball-that-we-can-look-back-at-and-laugh dept.
OffTheLip writes "As 2006 fast approaches it's time for some to gaze into the crystal ball of technology and predict what will be hot, what will make a difference in our lives or make someone rich and famous. The Mercury News takes a shot at predicting the coming year of technology. No great revelations but it nice to see clean technologies make the list. The list is light on pure technology and big on trends. Perhaps killer apps are not as important as they once were thought to be." What would Slashdot users put in their top 10?

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