sessha asks: "I want to log data from a Bluetooth Accelerometer (actually 5) attached to different parts of the body. How one would go about logging the data onto a bluetooth compatible PDA. I know quite little about PDA OS's, but the main concern is functionality - it doesn't matter if it is PalmOS or Windows CE or whatever. The Linux and Windows directions for data logging are shown, but how would one best go about this on a PDA? Also, it would require at least 256 MB storage, preferably more, since this will be recording 300 of these ASCII strings a second for a number of days. Suggestions as to the best equipment and software to use for such an endeavor would be greatly appreciated."

juraj asks: "I'm trying to achieve the following setup: I have two offices connected via a relatively slow ADSL line, and I want a shared fileserver between the offices. I have VPN using IPSec ready, so security is less of a concern, but simply mounting a filesystem (via Samba or NFS) from one office to another is not a solution because of the speed. Also, the ADSL line is sometimes not only slow, but also disconnected. I've tried the CODA distributed filesystem to achieve replication, so that both offices have local copies of their files. The problem is, that the CODA filesystem is just a research project: it is unstable, with the venus daemon constantly falling, and sometimes when recovering from the disconnected state, one side does not recognize the changes and they are simply not propagated. Have you had any good experiences with CODA? Which versions do you use? What kind of setup did you have? How is it configured? I've also heard about OpenAFS, but similar to CODA, I've learned it is unusable in a real environment. Is there any real solution to my problem? Are there any decent solid free distributed file systems for Linux or the BSDs?"

The Watcher asks: "I was at my parents house over the weekend trying to remove various adware/spyware/annoying software, things like Kazaa, Bonzi Buddy, etc.. During this I thought it would be helpful to know things like exactly what files/folders were created/modified and what registry entries were created/modified by an installer program so that I would not have to rely on the supplied uninstaller that only removes a selected subset of what was installed. So what are some preferred utilities out there that work well for this purpose?"

nasteric asks: "I caught myself in the middle of a very interesting discussion last Friday over Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee. The discussion had to do with usability and security. Many of the Microsoft Administrators I work with argued the more user friendly Linux becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes. They claimed making Linux a friend of Joe User will require it to 'open itself up' and become more susceptible to attack. Needless to say, this became an endless debate between our Microsoft Administrators and our Linux/Unix Administrators that will undoubtedly continue into the morning. Therefore I pose this question to the Slashdot community. Will making Linux more user friendly result in it becoming less secure? Hopefully your expertise will help shed some light on (and bring to and end) our discussion." Does decent usability necessarily imply the presence of vulnerabilities? Macs seem to have this area down pretty well, with little in the way of vulnerabilities. Can Linux software follow the same route?

baileyjs asks: "I help run a small web development firm, and we are always trying to save money, but not at the cost of service to our customers. We currently purchase DNS services from our ISP, but are looking at getting our own rack. I was going to put some DNS servers there when I saw that Network Solutions offers free DNS. All our of domains (about 150) are currently on Network Solutions, so transfer is not an issue. Why shouldn't I use Network Solutions? Why should I build my own? What reasons, besides 'Network Solutions is Evil', can I give my boss?"

Rorschach1 asks: "I'm a hardware hacker, doing my part to develop useful open source projects, but my projects are getting more ambitious and my test equipment just isn't keeping up. PC based oscilloscopes have been discussed here before, but I'm particularly in need of a logic analyzer. The BitScope does offer an 8-channel analyzer with Linux support, but that hardly compares to most commercial offerings. I'm also concerned by the fact that I can't find any independent reviews of the device, and I'm hesitant to shell out $500 without knowing what I'm getting into. A logic analyzer is a pretty simple device. My current setup runs on a dedicated 486 with ancient DOS-based software. Surely there must be a more modern option available that'll work under Linux, but so far I've been able to find nothing. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction?"

demi asks: "Okay, I'm looking for markup language to keep documentation in. The primary features I'm looking for is power--for example, I want tables to be at least as easy to describe as they are in HTML, and have similar power; output-independence--I want it to produce good-looking HTML and good-looking printed output, and I don't want to fiddle with typesetting at all; and I want it to be minimal--in particular, I don't want to have to markup paragraphs, these should be recognized in the same way POD or LaTeX does. POD is not powerful enough (no tables, headers, etc.). LaTeX is too oriented toward presentation, DocBook XML and SGML require too much markup, and Texinfo is really the same deal. I know I could roll my own but I'm looking for something standard-ish. My documentation will be focused on policies and procedures. Any suggestions?"

Keith Young asks: "Over the past month, we have seen a 1500% increase of spyware denials on our firewall primarily due to WildTangent 'spyware' installed with AOL IM 5.5 and adware installed with Weatherbug. Since many of these widely-installed types of applications have an automatic upgrade feature, how can these be tested for license agreements, spyware, and security 'irregularities'? Is this another reason to approach management to choose only open source alternatives?"

andrewa writes "Do any folks out there have recommendations on available gear for building a small, but extendable, rack-mounted system? As a developer of software for use in contact centers I want to put together a small development system that consists of at least three PCs to create a simulated environment to test my applications in. Why rack mounted? Well, I want to save space and only have the bare minimum systems (no need for multiple CD-ROMS, monitors, no sound-cards, just lots of memory and HD space). I also will add to this in the future, so don't want to limit myself to just a few pcs on the system. I've scouted around a bit, but didn't see too much. I'm in the UK at the moment, but will be moving to the U.S. in about 6 months, so power requirements (although I guess most equipment has switchable voltages) is a consideration."

einstein writes "I live out in the middle of nowhere, and I lose power at the drop of a hat. My house is right next to the Susquehanna river, and all the kinetic energy going past my house makes just want to go off grid. Most homebuilt hydro power is lower volume/high speed. What would be a good, unobtrusive way to generate electricity from a high volume/low speed body of water? I'm between two large hydro dams, so the water level is fairly constant, but does tend to fluctuate 4-6ft in the winter due to ice floes and melting snow. I think maybe a miniature version of one of the recent submerged tidal generators might work... Does anyone have some suggestions on how I might go about this project?" More than a few people have done this before.

theodp writes "Over the next week, taxpayers in 19 states will be confronting new sections on state returns that ask them to fork over unpaid sales taxes for items purchased out of state, including Internet transactions. A NY Daily News editorial characterized the addition of use tax to state returns as a rip-off and advised taxpayers to fill in a zero on the line, although an accountant suggests doing so may even be worse than just leaving it blank and put you on the line for tax fraud."

dirtkilla asks: "I work for a large health care software vendor in our remote hosting area. Recently we've been asked to look into a Knowledge Management/Doc Repository type solution to implement. I have researched and installed a few options: C-arbre and TikiWiki. C-Arbre is lacking in documentation and Tiki seems pretty bloated. I'm facing people pushing to implement Microsoft Share Point, I'd much rather go towards an open non-Microsoft solution." How would you organize a variety of information, both digital and non-digital, into an easy to maintain system that just about anyone can use?

The Clockwork Troll asks: "I've had a whole-house audio/video distribution project on the back-burner for a while now. As gigabit networking hardware prices come down to earth, I'm tempted to jump on the 1000BaseTX bandwagon. As far as I can tell though, the current crop of consumer-priced hardware/software doesn't address a couple key issues, namely: fragmenting jumbo frames for the benefit of legacy clients - this is critical as some of the devices on my network will not tolerate the 9000+ byte Ethernet frames which are needed to get the most out of gigabit; and OS support - do Linux and Windows require much tweaking to take advantage of gigabit? Will most drivers automatically optimize themselves? A Google search didn't reveal too much consensus, especially on hardware choices. What switches and software configurations have Slashdot readers been using for home gigabit networks, in particular mixed ones (100/1000BaseTX?"

network-nose asks: "I work as a Network Administrator in a 500 user manufacturing facility in southeastern Wisconsin. My job is to keep the company running as close to 100% of the time as possible while trying not to spend any money on up to date hardware and software. As of late, we have been having quite a few network problems that can only really be resolved by sniffing packets. I am wondering what tools the rest of you network guys and gals out there use in a corporate environment for analyzing packets. Of course, the more reasonbly priced the better, but I know you usually get what you pay for."

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm a developer and have been given a task of creating documentation, for fellow developers, on how the system (a CMS) I have implemented, and adapted, works and how to develop for it. On the surface it doesn't seem too complicated but the amount of information I need to get down on paper, and the level of detail needed on some parts, is great. What's the best way to approach this task when there's so much information bouncing about in your head you don't know where to start?"

SteamedPenguin asks: "I am writing a Fick Cardiac Index calculator. It isn't quite finished, but it is almost done. I am bitten by the bug. Writing software, even simple software, in the health care field is fun. I see a good number of Slashdot readers who are either health care practitioners, or claim to be, so I am curious if there are are other nursing and medical tools out there that are written using Open Source languages, and/or are Open Source themselves. Google gives a good number. I am specifically interested in Open Source applications though. I am also interested to hear from people who are writing such software. Can these applications be released under the GPL? Are the algorithms proprietary? What resources are there for people who want to implement these small helper applications?"

Anonymouse asks: "Has anyone out there just had the urge to build Gimp 2.0 on Windows instead of using an installer made by a third party, hosted on a free web hosting service? It's probably fine but it makes me nervous, so I figure I should try building it on Windows instead...besides, it could be educational! Does anyone have any instructions/suggestions for building the source on Windows XP using MinGW and MinSYS? Keep in mind I have no experience with *nix, and my meek programing skillz only apply to Perl. Thanks!"

Richard Weidmann asks: "Can a Windows box be attached to a local network as freely available resource? I use Mac OS X and Linux but sometimes it is simply convenient to have a Windows computer to do some specific task or run some specific program. I would like to run my Windows computer headless in the network in such a fashion that I can access it easily from the other computers such that: VLC is started, so I see the Windows desktop; the home directory of my current machine is mounted on the Windows box; and my local optical drive can be read from the Windows machine. Has anybody seen such a setup or project?"

Dredd2Kad asks: "Recently I've been accused of trademark infringement because of something in the metadata of my website. What are my rights? Should I stand and fight or let it go? Part of me doesn't care, because my website is nothing but a special interest group, the other part of me is mad as hell that someone has come to my place and threatened me. I feel the plaintiff chose to trademark something really generic (HardRadio), and my choice of metadata (hard radio) should be allowed some wiggle room, especially since I'm not a commercial entity like they are. Please read my story and let me know what you think. I know someone out there must have had a similar problem." In addition to seeking professional legal advice, what other steps can one take to handle these problems?

pawul13 asks: "I've seen lots of articles and suggestions on ergonomic keyboards (and I have the excellent kinesis version, which helps tremendously), but what about mice? I'm currently experiencing a lot of pain, but only in my 'mouse' wrist. I have a semi-ergo Logitech, but it's not doing it. Does anyone have suggestions for the best ergo mouse (Trackball, optical, whatever, it doesn't matter)?" There was a similar question from January, but it may have been too limited.