zentogo wonders: "As I stroll through the local recycle shops in my little Japanese City, I see boxes of used KEITAI-- Japanese Cell Phones. Most of them only a two or three years old, with more technology and features than any affordable phone in the USA, and they actually work! See, Japanese people cycle to new technology, especially phones, very quickly, and it is almost impossible for them not to. Take my own personal example: after one year with the telecom KDDI, I was given a free phone. It had more features than my previous one, and was much lighter, so when I was offered the deal I changed on the spot! So I wonder, what can be done with all these old phones? Can they be recycled for parts or even software? Can they be adapted to another type of technology? It would seem to be a big waste of decent hardware if something interesting couldn't be done with them."

Node and Edge asks: "Many interesting problem domains involve some form of graph-based or graph-like information: network activity visualizations; social software; workflow management; P2P software development; and version control with branching, just to name a few. It is notoriously difficult for people to visualize a graph structure - unless it happens to be a strictly hierarchical tree-like structure, such as what we know from file-system explorers. Now, with all of that said, what graph libraries can you recommend? The following criteria apply, though they're not absolute: Java or Java bindings; simple to use for simple applications; and polished, extensible UI components. I'm familiar with JGraph, JUNG, Prefuse, OpenJGraph, Tigris GEF, Eclipse GEF, Graphviz, but have not had a chance to evaluate them all. Have you used any of these extensively? If so, can you provide any constructive advice? If not, can you recommend something else, ?"

Pieroxy asks: "As an administrator of various websites, I am always eager to know about my audience. Without going through the hassle of setting up polls and other information gathering systems, the http headers (and connection) are the primary obvious source of information available. However, getting meaningful information out of a User-Agent string or out of an IP address can be trickier than it looks. There are some websites out there that seems to provide some of this information (User-Agent detection, User-Agent explanation, IP localization, or even an IP-to-country mapping), but none seems to be either free, in a usable form or even complete. Would anyone have pointers for free code/service that can help match a User-Agent String with an OS and a browser? A service/code that would match an IP address with a geographic region? Anything else that one can use to try and have a clearer view of its audience?"

malcomvetter asks: "I need a command line FTP client that supports 'Implicit SSL', sports some kind of scripting interface, and runs on Win32. Any suggestions? So far, I have only found GUI versions such as FileZilla." I remember once needing a scripting FTP client long ago. It took me a long time, but I finally found one that had a workable but unintuitive interface. Have scripting FTP clients become more prevalent or is your best bet using something flexible with network bindings (like Python or Perl) to get the job done?

Beans asks: "I have a couple classical music CD's which I listen to at work, and use for putting the baby to sleep. I can never find the correct volume, I can't hear soft spots, so I turn it up, only to have a rising crescendo rouse the baby, or at work, have co-workers glace over. What is a good way to normalize them (read on for what I mean by normalize)? All of the normalizing software I have seen uses the entire song for the window of normalzing. Basically makes determines a static value required to get the average volume of the song to the user defined level, then applies that value to the entire song. What I need is something that normalizes over a sliding window, or say 5 seconds, or whatever. In effect making soft spots louder, and crescendo's quieter. Not the way the music was intended to be heard, but perfect for music-at-work, or putting kids to sleep. Does anyone know of any software that does this? On a side note, I work for a Seismic processing company, and we do stuff like this all the time on Seismic waves, not sound waves. If I can't find any canned software to do this, I may modify some of our code to work with WAV files, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel."

sub7 asks: "That time of the year is upon as again: Tax Season. Those of us living in the U.S. are busy fumbling with various forms with awkward names and meaningless garble on them. Being a lazy BOFH, I went to H & R Block to see how much it would cost for them to prepare and file my taxes. They estimated -at least- $175, if not more! I knew it was cheaper to buy some software to handle my taxes. So I headed down to my local office supply conglomerate and picked up Turbo Tax 2004 Premier for $69.99. Being an OSS user for nearly 6 years I have never even considered an OSS tax solution product (probably because I ph34r t4x s34s0n!). So I turn to Slashdot to ask: Are there any projects equivalent to Turbo Tax or the other tax products out there for the OSS community?"

Deviant asks: "I just bought a new Dell Axim X30 with 802.11b and Bluetooth. It was a bit of an impulse buy and now I find myself trying to find out what I can do with it and what software is 'must have' for the platform. I work in IT for a bank where I have wireless available in the office and I am also a part-time education student. I got it primarily for basic PDA things like a calendar, a To-do list, e-mail/IM, taking notes, and am looking forward to getting a few good games for it. I guess my question is to Slashdot readers with MS Windows Mobile based PDAs: What software do you use daily that makes your PDA worth while for you? What uses are there for this that I may not have thought of?"

Whatistehmatrix asks: "About 5 years ago, when I first found out about KaZaA, it was somewhat 'underground' and had less than 1 million people. I soon discovered there was an unbelievable amount of music open to me. Instead of getting the music I always heard on the radio, I always sought out the music that was previously unavailable to me [Japanese pop & rock, overseas techno, etc]. Well, fast forward to today, and I actively buy CDs from groups I fell in love with from the songs I found on P2P. I was wondering, if any of the Slashdot community used to/still uses P2P programs to try out music that isn't heard on the radio, to expand your tastes in music from different countries & cultures?"

GamblerZG asks: "As many of us probably know, convincing people to run Free Software can sometimes be a tedious task. However, there are a lot of factors that help us in that regard, and, perhaps, the biggest of them is a simple truth: Free Software is free. It's hard to argue with such statement. I know it, because I faced it today, trying to convince my fellow co-worker that it is possible to profit by writing GNU-licensed code. 'How company can make money, if its products are available for free?' That was a valid question indeed, and I could not find any simple answers to respond with. That makes me wonder, whether there are articles on the Internet, which explain and analyze how Open Source business models work? Do you know any ways to prove that such models can be profitable?" It can be done, you can check out a recent interview with an Open Source Entrepreneur on NewsForge for some hints. What other ideas and business plans do you think would be a good match for a business with an Open Source core?

Meostro asks: "I'm looking for the best format to use to distribute arbitrary datasets. Tarballs compressed with gzip seem to be the most common thing out there, with zip coming in a close second. What advanced compression packages are the most widely recognized or available on the widest array of systems? Cross-platform compatibility is my most important goal, followed by compression ratio, decompression time, compression time and extra features (solid archives, support for multiple files, etc.). I'm starting up a free data site to provide test data for anything you can imagine: images for compression and format interpretation, text and audio for language processing, programming language examples to test parsing, and more. I hope this will grow to be a significant (read: multi-gigabyte) archive, so I want to start off right with my distribution format. Right now the plan is data.tar.bz2, but i'm open to anything that will give me better compression as long as it's available for Linux, Windows and Mac."

crazy_speeder asks: "I'm looking for programming tools for the whole development cycle, including documentation. The project I'm working on will use C++ and Java. What has been your experience using tools like C++ Builder, Netbeans, Eclipse, JBuilder, Doxygen, ClearQuest, Rational Rose, g++, and any compiler, debugger, or IDE that you may have used. I need tools that will handle auto documentation, unit testing, design, file editing, and the like. As far as platform goes, Linux is the target OS while Linux or Solaris will be the host OS."

grag asks: "My workplace has started a migration to a unified authentication system using Microsoft's Active Directory, and Apple's Open Directory. We need to know if it is possible to place a Microsoft Active Directory server underneath a master Open Directory server in the hierarchy. The Microsoft server provides services only to our Accounting Department, and it seems to us that it should integrate to the Mac Server since all of our other departments use the Mac Server. Our network consists of fifty Macs connected to an Xserve running Mac OS X Server 10.3.6 Unlimited Client License. In addition, we have on a separate subnet five Windows boxes connected to a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server with a five-client license. Should I pursue this question or give up and place the Microsoft Server at the top of the hierarchy?"

thorar asks: "I'm willing to move to another flat in town (or to restructure the one I'm currently living in). I'd like to create a detailed map of the apartment to study alternatives without much pencil and paper, possibly with appropriate furniture and 3D rendering. I'm not an expert in Studio Max nor similar softwares. I'd like something as simple as IKEA Kitchen Planner, but all Google serches lead to some software suite that looks unprofessional or Windows95-stylish. What would you use?" There are numerous commercial alternatives for such an application, but is there anything like this available via Open Source?

VeryCleverHandle asks: "I have held a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science for about two years now, and I want to further my education, and increase my marketability. I am wondering what kind of degree makes a good pair for my existing one. At first, I thought of a Master's, but in my searches for a job, I've rarely (read: never) seen a Masters degree required. I am also researching what kind of degrees others, who have obtained their Bachelor's, received to help complement their education. So I ask you, Slashdot: Which degree(s) do YOU think will go well with a Computer Science Bachelors?"

harryk asks: "There seems to have been a fair amount of talk about new jobs, telecommuting, and fair pay recently, so I pose this question: Would you forfeit some or all of a potential raise to work from home? My company is notoroisly bad about giving decent raises so I have been contemplating offering an alternative to receiving a raise, or a reduced raise with an expense reimbursement for telecommuting? What are your thoughts?"

dwija asks: "I just got a new job where I just sit in one place all day and work for 12 hours at a stretch. This goes on for 4 days a week and I get 3 days off. The journey to and from my office takes up about 3 hours of my day. I am a little worried now cause i am becoming really weak and I am not as healthy as I used to be. I want to ask others on Slashdot about the kinds of weird times in which they work and what they do to take care of their health and stress."

Mr. Ghost asks: "My friends and I have recently been in the market for a good new boardgame or other tabletop game. We have worked through the gamut of games like Axis & Allies, Supremacy, and War! Age of Imperialism. More recently we have been playing tile based games like Carcasonne and Settlers of Catan. I am looking for some suggestions on some new games we could get into."

homework asks: "Last night, I got a call from my boss asking me to define a budget for me to work from home. What items should I include in the figures so that I can show that the use of my home and my personal equipment can be compensated for fairly. Should I include my salary into the figures? Has any other Slashdot reader been in a similar situations and what was the outcome? Were you treated fairly?"

paulius_g asks: "I have an eMachines laptop running Windows and I would like to know how today's geeks monitor their laptops caracteristics (CPU temperature, fan speeds, SMART, etc.) There are software to monitor normal motherboards, but laptop motherboards are usually unsupported on these kinds of software. I am in desperate need in such a software as my laptop overheats a lot while the fan is running at a low speed. So, what do you use to monitor your laptop?"

ThosLives asks: "With oil again pushing historic nominal prices and all sorts of articles on alternative power, what are people doing practically to reduce their energy consumption? It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'. Has anyone come up with really nifty ways to cut their energy consumption without sacrificing their technical lifestyle? What methods work best for you? At what point (price of gasoline, electricity, etc) will you start to change your behavior?"