Recently, quite a few questions surrounding technology for the visually impared have dropped into the Ask Slashdot in-box and I'd like to take the time to share these questions with you. Please read on for more.

Coolnat2004 asks: "I'm a high school student and a member of our technology group. Our school needs extra money for our technology, and I thought that a LAN party would be an effective, and exciting, solution. How can we make a great LAN party with the supplies at hand and make a profit while doing it? We have a network, but not a large enough room with enough ports. We're most likely going to create a detached network for the party, but don't know how to set it up because we have limited supplies. I guess we could seek a sponsorship from a local company, but that is unlikely to happen. Any suggestions on network layout, power layout, and general party to-do's?"

werjman asks: "I'm interested in switching completely to Linux but the only thing holding me back is the gaming. What I really want to know is what distro, graphical environment, Window Manager, and so forth are low on the system resources and play games great (and by games, I mean 3D accelerated memory hogs). Does anyone out there actually use Linux as a gaming platform?"

knipknap writes "With Christmas lying ahead I decided it was time to present myself new PC hardware. Of course, nothing can be good enough for my Linux box, so I ran looking for some really nice cases - but was soon disappointed by the very little options available when it comes to stylish cases. There is the very nice Hoojum Nanode, which is for Nano-ITX boards only, while I was looking for more powerful alternatives. Then there was the Cubit P4, also from Hoojum, which seemed to suit my needs. I ordered one via mini-itx.com, but unfortunately they messed up the order and noticed only after it was already sold out... so there went my last option. I was also recommended Hush (I already own one) and Shuttle, both of which I found looking kind of cheap. Another problem seems to be finding good peripherals - I have not found a single higher quality mouse and keyboard outside the plastic computer world. So I decided to ask Slashdotters - which other options are there available?" Personally I love the Hush box.

An anonymous reader asks: "I originally submitted this as a poll, but the answers I'm guessing, were way too long. However, I would like to ask the crowd at Slashdot: When do you read the instructions?"

ziploclogic asks: "Much of my days are taken up performing workflow analysis for courts. For the past few years I have worked for a company implementing their off-the-shelf Integrated Court Management system. While our products are among the best in the industry, I find it difficult to keep my analysis notes organized. The judicial process can vary greatly from state to state as well as from county to county. As to be expected, not one court has been a 100% match to our software. This leads to hours of spec writing for programming changes that must be derived from my notes. Keeping my information organized so that I can prepare said specifications and training plans prove to be a nightmare at times. I have tried one solution that seems to work well for my humble web design company where I send myself gMails with specific keywords in the subject line. This provides for sorting and [later] message retrieval. However, I can leave a court with notebooks [plural] full of workflow analysis notes that I have to decipher in the evenings. I would be interested to learn how others keep their analysis notes organized, especially when working with multiple clients and with multiple [individuals] departments within those clients. Thanks!"

James F. Hitchens asks: "I used to run Red-Hat Enterprise vs.3, just recently I switched to fedora core 3. The reason for my change was because I could not get my ATi Radeon 9600 All in Wonder to work. I hoped that Fedora was a little more advanced in the area of 3D acceleration (so I could play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Tux-racer). Yet again it was not to be, ne worke pas. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to make this work? The drivers that ATi supplies on their website are, in short, crap."

Bakerybob writes "My wife and I are currently setting up a small Japanese language school, and I am in charge of all of the technical aspects, with a small but not tiny budget. What would Slashdot recommend as technologies we could use to improve the student experience (and hopefully to interest more students in the school!)? We have the easy bases (free Wifi access for students, a stunningly poorly designed homepage, and a few cheap computers lying around for them to play on between classes) covered, but I'm sure there are a lot of better ideas out there. Has anyone used Moogle? What about online lessons via webcam? Give it your best shot, revolutionary thinkers!"

grubber33 wonders: "With exciting MMO games like World of Warcraft and others existing, the current monthly fee plans that all MMO games that I'm aware of aren't necessarily worth it for people that don't have as much time to play games as others. For instance, I have about 3-5 hours to play games per week, if I'm lucky. On top of that, I like more than one game but I'm still interested in MMO games. I was wondering what Slashdot thinks about newer MMO games implementing some sort of pay-as-you-play system or at least having that option alongside the current monthly fees."

carlmenezes asks: "I volunteer when I can to help a poor educational institution in India with their computing needs. As you can imagine, most computers are from donations and very little money (if any) can be spent on software licensing. Therefore, the installed software is all Open Source and I do all of the software installation by myself. I have already installed Linux on 16 PCs, with Firefox. The default desktop is KDE and the kdeedu package (klettres in particular) has several loyal fans. Incidentally, the kids don't find it hard to use at all and the lack of 3D doesn't bother them in the least :) I would like to ask the community about a good source code analysis tool. I have already installed Source Navigator. Is there any other comparable open source tool?"

CABAN writes "I am a third year computer security and investigations student. My program requires a three month placement in the IT security and forensics industry. Finding an appropriate learning environment seems to be harder than I expected. Lack of security clearance, no real world experience and many companies, who just don't see a need for ITS, are the critical shortfalls right now. What tips does Slashdot have for finding organizations who are willing to let students get involved with sensitive security procedures and cases?"

Rob asks: "I work at a large university as an IT support person for one of the college's Novell networks, and I frequently find that my hands are tied on security issues--highly paid, highly respected professors do not like to see the words 'Access Denied', not even on their secretaries' screens. They routinely share their passwords, leave their machines unlocked, and go weeks on end without rebooting. They demand Administrator access on their local machines. They demand Internet Explorer have minimal security (but it's our fault when they get a piece of spyware). So, Slashdot community, I ask you this: how do you limit a user's access without making it look like you're limiting their access?"

An anonymous reader asks: "So I've bought myself a brand spanking new dive computer to keep tabs on my dive profiles, decompression, and all the other fun things like that. Nifty! The dive shop owner assures me that it's Mac compatible; if the software isn't in the box, he'll get an appropriate disc from his supplier, and if he can't get the disc, he'll replace it with a model that does work. There's only one problem: the only connectivity it has is an infrared port. There is no Bluetooth, no USB and no Firewire...not that you'd expect any of that on something that's going to be submerged in salt water on a regular basis. Is there a viable infrared option for the Mac? Although the support people haven't been able to tell me yet if it's Mac compatible or not, might something like the Belkin USB to Infrared Smartbeam work? Are drivers included in Mac OS X 10.3, or am I going to be SOL? Bluetooth is all very well and good, but it doesn't help you if the hardware you want to play with doesn't support it. What about Linux IRda support, for that matter -- just to make it cross platform?"

A not-so anonymous Anonymous Coward puts this tough issue up for discussion: "There seem some more determined efforts underway currently in some corners of the KDE project to port substantial parts of the software stack to the MS Windows platform. These efforts are now met by fierce resistance on the part of some of their core developers. Aaron J. Seigo summarizes his reasoning in his blog: 'If the applications people want are available on Windows, they will tend to stick with Windows...by porting software to Windows, we eliminate the majority of the competitive advantage of Free Software desktops in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of consumers while Microsoft has all the rope they need to shut the door once again on us ... Free Software desktop applications on Windows represent a no-win situation for Open Source, but Open Source desktops on Free Software operating systems do.'" (Read more below.)

rleclerc writes "I would like to ask those 'Javaniers' in the Slashdot community what they thought were essential non-standard libraries that every Java coder should have. Normally I roll my own when it comes to that type of thing and simply build on whats available in the foundation classes. However, recent work has pushed me toward looking at some scientific libraries and I thought I would find out what libraries others in the Java community would consider an essential weapon in their Java arsenal. A few that I am looking at are the Cern scientific libraries and the Apache Commons Collections libraries. To avoid extra libraries I have opted to use the Java logging rather than the Apache one. Anyone like to add anything to the list?"

Jim Willis asks: "Our IT Division happens to be populated with some civic-minded people who are interested in making time available for local high-school students interested in science and technology. Question is, we're not sure the best way to do it. We're mulling around the idea of sponsoring a robotics competition or some sort of programming fair/competition. Unfortunately, we've been out of high-school long enough to not know what excites students about technology. Slashdot readers (esp. those of you in high-school): Where should we focus our attention and donate/volunteer our time?"

Cymage asks: "I usually do my charitable contributions in December, and so I am looking at organizations to give to. I try to give to organizations with different areas of focus. Here are some of the ones I have given to in the past/am considering: Basic Needs (Atlanta) - Food Bank and St Vincent, Promoting Self-Sufficiency - Habitat and Heifer, and Digital Rights/Software - EFF, Mozilla, SourceForge, and BitTorrent. What other organizations, especially technical ones, do you give to and why?"

Rui Carmo writes "Now here's something you don't get asked every day, but which a friend happens to need for her kids: If you had to suggest Open-Source software for mathematics - somewhere from high-school to freshman level, and not merely for 'pure' mathematics, but also applicable to physics and statistics (the kids are considering going into Applied Maths and Engineering), what would you point people toward, assuming they have access to both Linux and Windows? I know this is a niche thing and that there is nothing out there that even comes close to Wolfram's excellent Mathematica (which I used on my old NeXTCube), but surely something along the lines of (or simpler than) Calculation Center exists?" The Knoppix-based Quantian might be a good place to start; what math software do you recommend?

JabrTheHut asks: "Having been a Palm user for over two years now, I've upgraded to a Tungsten T3. While the features I'm used to using have not changed, I have become increasingly frustrated by what I see as a lack of progress. It doesn't seem to want to deal with text files (there is no import feature for the Palm Desktop notepad or memo pad, for example). Also there seems to be no way to copy arbitrary files to the Palm - all files must be "owned" by an application. With a 256MB SD card I expected to use it to copy files between work and home. Has anyone else noticed these or other shortcomings and have figured out ways around them?"

Crazy Brian asks: "I have envisioned, for some time now, having a 3Com Audrey with a barcode scanner in my kitchen, where I can scan in items as I put them away, then scan them again as I use them. Barcode information would be stored on my MySQL server, and an inventory would be updated. I could then generate a shopping list, or link it to a database of recipes, to find out what I can have for dinner tonight. The closest thing I have found is the ShopWizard from Symbol, which only runs under Windows. Is there anything out there for Linux? I hope it can use the upcdatabase to find unknown barcodes. Is there any group interest in creating something like this, assuming nothing already exists?" Icepick's Trashbin is a simple application built on this concept, but wouldn't knowing exactly what is in your cabinets and having a ready-made grocery list be a useful feature for any kitchen?