Networking

Video Conferencing Behind a Firewall? 42

Posted by Cliff from the seeking-an-option-that-use-less-ports dept.
JShadow21 asks: "I work at a research lab at a hospital. We want to collaborate with colleagues across the pond via video conferencing however the firewall here is very restrictive. There are way too many ports that needed to be opened for H.323 to work so the IT guys won't do that. What alternatives are there? I was considering using an SSH proxy in order to use Netmeeting, or else possibly a web based solution."
Microsoft

Play Random Sounds for E-Mail Notifications? 156

Posted by Cliff from the eschew-audio-boredom dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I, like many of my fellow Outlook-using geek friends, like to set funny sounds to be played when a new message arrives ('Leeroy Jenkins' is the one I have set now). However, we have always wanted to be able to have random sounds be played when a new message arrives, rather than the same sound over and over. I've searched high and low, and I was hoping Slashdot could suggest/write a program that can randomly play sound files from a specified folder when a new message arrives. Any ideas?"
Software

Software QA and Load Testing Solutions? 23

Posted by Cliff from the stress-it-until-it-breaks dept.
tekiegreg asks: "I've been asked by the boss to evaluate Load Testing and QA solutions for use by our company. Google Searches have yielded TestComplete and Mercury's solutions. However prices are very steep. Has anything in the Open Source world even come close to this level of functionality in a testing suite? Searches of Sourceforge and Freshmeat reveal nil. Are there any other solutions that people have tried, out there?"
Programming

Open Source Geographical Profiling? 15

Posted by Cliff from the crime-investigation-by-computer dept.
elander asks: "I've been searching for a while for anything to do with geographical profiling, specifically systems that narrow the search area in the hunt for serial criminals (burglars, robbers, rapists etc). So far, the only system I've found is Rigel, a commercial software package, only available through leasing from ECRI. I wonder, aren't there any Open Source alternatives? I'm about to (hopefully, last round of approvals is under way) build a crime scene information system for a Swedish police authority, based on Open Source, and I'd like to be able to offer something along these lines as a future extension."
Operating Systems

What is Mainframe Culture? 691

Posted by Cliff from the finding-common-ground dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "A couple years ago Joel Spolsky wrote an interesting critique of Eric S. Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming wherein Joel provides an interesting (as usual) discussion on the cultural differences between Windows and Unix programmers. As a *nix nerd in my fifth year managing mainframe developers, I need some insight into mainframe programmers. What are the differences between Windows, Unix, and mainframe programmers? What do we all need to know to get along in each other's worlds?"
Desktops (Apple)

Will You Stick with Apple, After the Switch? 362

Posted by Cliff from the ode-to-the-ppc dept.
caseykoons writes "While I understand the /. crowd is likely to be biased, I am curious. Has Apple's decision to switch to Intel Chips lost the company some of its old supporters? I have used Macs since I grew up, was a loyal 'Mac Evangelist' back in the '90's, but the company's decision and the recent connection to Trust Computing have had me wondering if I will stick with the old Apple from now on. What are your thoughts?"
Programming

Freelance Programming Sites? 50

Posted by Cliff from the when-you-are-too-busy-to-DIY dept.
CarrotLord asks: "I have some small, fairly well-defined programming projects that I need done, but I don't have time to do them myself. So, I've been looking into sites like Get a Freelancer and ScriptLance. Does anybody have any experience of these types of sites? Specifically, I'd like to hear your recommendations and advice, as well as your experiences. My concerns include: getting very poor quality work; communication and language barriers and also losing control over the work that I've paid for -- if I'm paying for some work, I want it licensed on my own terms."
Software

Open Source Collaborative and Presentation Tools? 28

Posted by Cliff from the everone-on-the-same-page dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I've been asked to discuss collaboration tools at un upcoming meeting. Things like Groove, DocuShare, and WebEx all have significant costs associated with them, so I'm curious to know what everyone on Slashdot is using (if anything). What kind of software would you use to enable simultaneous document editing with version control, or to sync presentations across participant browsers for an online meeting, etc?"
Technology

Are There Any Real-Time GPS+Traffic Solutions? 21

Posted by Cliff from the avoiding-the-stop-and-go dept.
Anonymous asks: "I've been wanting to buy a GPS unit for my car, especially since having to drive on the California freeways lately. However, it kills me to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on one of the available units, knowing that right around the corner, I'll see devices that can factor in live traffic data. Or maybe something like this already exists? California does offer ways of downloading their freeway sensor data on the web (this is what sigalert.com uses for their cool maps). For example, this text file is updated frequently with the latest speeds for all the listed sensors. And most GPS units will let you choose between the 'shortest' route and the 'fastest' route. If only we could re-write the algorithm for 'fastest route' to take into effect real-time traffic speeds, check alternate routes, etc. Still, I'd be willing to pay thousands of dollars for a really good GPS+Traffic device that JUST WORKS. Are there any? Are they any good? Are there any on the horizon that you're drooling over?"
Education

Nanotechnology and Society? 134

Posted by Zonk from the what's-going-on? dept.
VoiceOfZule writes "Bringing advanced sci-tech and humanities grad students to teach undergrads about nanotech and its implications is a great idea. I was in this class on Nanotechnology and Society at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring, and a lot of the course materials were just put online along with a preprint paper about the new course, and some of the student research projects. The class was a lot of fun (some nano, some scitech studies, some scifi/future stuff), I learned a lot (about the reality of nanotech and its societal implications beyond the B.S. hype out there), and the world of nano now seems like a good career path to me. Are similar experiences going on across the country? In light of recent worries concerning science and engineering in the US, I hope so."
Databases

Distributed Versus Centralized DB? 47

Posted by Cliff from the updates-without-terrible-bottlenecks dept.
OSXCPA asks: "I am developing a framework for processing accounting information. What kinds of advice would you have for setting up an environment where several (eventually, many) remote data aggregation and processing centers would update a central server 'after hours' to avoid processing delays. For those with ERP experience, I am trying to process transactions locally, instead of generating a batch in the central server, then update and validate the result to the central server, so my remote users can process at full speed all day, and central DB can get caught up later. Remote locations are all self-contained, in that no one will be posting transactions to another remote location. No big iron - this is all networked PC/Mac hardware and a central server (eventually to be a server farm, as needed). Feedback or constructive criticism would be appreciated. Technical advice is great, but I'm also looking for stuff like 'Gee, if I had only known XXX when I set this up, I would have done YYY...'"
Wireless Networking

How Do You Locate That Access Point? 159

Posted by Cliff from the dowsing-wlan dept.
parp asks: "As an IT Manager I'm concerned about unauthorized Access Points being installed, or users who setup wireless computer to computer networks. How do you find the exact location of these devices? I've tried walking around the office with a laptop watching the signal, but the signal monitors that are included with most network drivers are very limited. The signal could be upstairs, downstairs or right around the corner, but I can't find it. Results of web searches I've done just tell you how to find a signal (wardrive), not the source. I'd be interested in any software or hardware device that can locate the device within a few feet."
Graphics

Best Setup for Mapping in Undeveloped Countries? 438

Posted by Cliff from the mapping-the-unmapped dept.
Floodimus asks: "My girlfriend lives and works in West Africa and on my next visit she has asked me to help her do some mapping of uncharted villages. I want to make this study really accurate and useful, so I am thinking about using high tech and low tech resources such as GPS and good old fashioned compasses, but I was wondering what the Slashdot crowd would recommend for GPS hardware (does GPS equipment from the US work over there?), field equipment, mapping software etc. I use both PCs and Macs and would like the software to run on the Mac, but it doesn't have to. What's the best, most rugged stuff you've used? Where are some resources that would help me out?"
The Matrix

Solutions for Serving Lots of .torrents? 53

Posted by Cliff from the legal-suprnova dept.
torpor asks: "For 10 years now my friends and I have managed to form a loose musicians collective with the purpose of putting our totally free music/art online for free access. Lately, we've been discussing the approach we can take to utilize BitTorrent to do our file distribution, with the idea being that we can use it to cut our bandwidth costs from that of a single server, and 'spread the bandwidth' among us for hosting files. However, we've found that serving a large number of torrent feeds from one server is not quite so easy as it sounds, as it appears we have to have a single instance -per file- of the torrent server. What solutions are available for Bittorrent-like distribution of media files? We're a small group of budding stars, and we want our tunes out there in the free world. Are we limited to continuing to serve things by HTTP, or are there easy/simple ways of starting a large-quantity of torrent feeds which, perhaps in our fervour, we're overlooking?"
Unix

FrontPage Server Extensions for Unix? 45

Posted by Cliff from the avoid-vendor-lockin dept.
beetle496 asks: "Okay, so I didn't research my choice of ISP adequately. Despite running Apache 2.0 on Red Hat, the only option for dynamic content they support is FrontPage Server Extensions. I am quite comfortable with X/HTML and CSS, and am okay with JavaScript. I am annoyed enough that I would buy FrontPage, were it available for my preferred platform. I've performed the customary MSDN and Google searches. The best I came up with was a page on FrontPage UNIX Server Extensions, which sounds exactly on target, but didn't help me. Can anyone point me toward a resource on writing HTML code to make use of FPSE (aka, webbot) -- without using FrontPage?"
Software

A Simple, Family-Oriented CMS? 66

Posted by Cliff from the a-home-for-your-clan-on-the-'net dept.
jbarr asks: "I would like to host a private, family-oriented Content Management System (CMS) that would allow geographically-separated family members to easily share online things like photos, comments, stories, calendars, etc. I would like it to have friendly yet secure front-end and have an easy interface that wouldn't intimidate the less-than computer-savvy. I could always just install and tweak PHP-Nuke and create a family-friendly theme, but is there something else that you would suggest? I would prefer an Open Source solution, as my host is Linux-based."
Networking

Setting up a Small Office Network? 88

Posted by Cliff from the for-those-new-to-it dept.
A not-so-anonymous Anonymous Coward asks: "I am embarking on a startup with some business contacts. I'm the only tech-guy in the group so I'll be the one to set up the network for our small office of 5-7 people. I've spent the last 15 years immersed in the development end of things (numerical analysis software and parallel computing codes). The downside of this is that I'm quite naive when it comes to networking: there's always been someone else taking care of revision control, backups, security, servers, etc., even purchasing stuff and running cable. What advice would you give someone who isn't afraid to roll up his sleeves, but is starting from ground zero on setting up a small office network? Can you recommend any books that are up-to-date and practical (e.g. "howto")?"
Education

Improving Education? 1514

Posted by Cliff from the education-by-slashdot dept.
Shepherd Book asks: "Not long ago there was a spirited discussion, in the usual Slashdot style, about education, touched off by an article about the value of homework. Even more recently, there was a discussion about the value of grammar. This inspires the following Ask Slashdot question: What, in your opinion, would make primary and secondary education as good as possible? I have no experience of education outside the US, but I can say confidently that public education in my country sucks. And it may always suck. However, what can we do to make it suck less?"
Space

'Where-To' Guide for Shuttle Launch? 48

Posted by Cliff from the 3-2-1-lift-off dept.
jacobcaz asks: "Hello! I will be heading to Florida this week and I'm hoping to get a chance to see the shuttle launch. I'm curious what tips you all might have for out-of-towners to get a chance to see the launch? How close to try to get, places to go where we won't be stuck in traffic for 24 hours, how early to leave, and so forth. Thanks!"
Graphics

Post Undergrad Comp. Graphics Studies in the U.S.? 55

Posted by Cliff from the where-to-go-after-that-first-degree dept.
AliParr asks: "Having just completed my first degree, BSc Hons Visualization at Teesside University in England, I am considering continuing on to Post-Graduate study. While courses in the United Kingdom are fine, I have always fancied studying abroad, or more specifically, in the states. Finding a course/university seems an overwhelming process however and I'm struggling to know where to start. My interests are Computer Science and Graphics based, with my first degree centering on C++/OpenGL/DirectX and general graphics algorithms. I was wondering if fellow Slashdot readers could give guide me as to the best places to look, and maybe shed some light on their experiences."

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