skrysakj asks: "I have been searching high and low for a hosting company that can provide SSL encrypted POP3 or IMAP at an affordable price. I'd like something that is shared, not dedicated, to keep costs down. I believe that pghoster.com is a good option, since they offer a personal SSL certificate, a dedicated IP address, and more. Has anyone else found another viable and cost effective solution? Other features, such as SPAM filters, control panels, PHP, MySQL are all 'standard' but I just can't seem to find a company that offers that extra mile for paranoid security freaks such as myself."

adzoox writes "As I have just hired on my girlfriend to help out with some secretarial work in my Apple consulting, sales, and technical service business, and considering having my brother work with me soon; I'd like to know what the /. readers think about family in the 'Tech Workplace.' Obviously things aren't hectic like a restaurant, but my father and friends have all warned me against mixing business and pleasure and family. Do any of you have successful family owned IT businesses, eBay businesses, or programming/software consulting engineering businesses and what's been or secret to success? If not successful what unique problems did you encounter? How can I make it successful? And most importantly how do you handle authority (tardiness, work ethic, and workplace codes) with a girlfriend?"

apropos asks: "An interesting question came up recently when discussing (yet again) starting an open-source based consulting company: 'How would you design the ultimate virtual office with open source software?' With things like fax, VoIP, web, email, security and office suites all available as open source products, what kind of useful things could be done? One idea that came to mind was emailing answering machine recordings. What would you put into your ultimate virtual office solution?"

Dan asks: "I'm looking for an ISP that has double-byte capable Web mail. I have a small personal Web site where I blog on the Japanese game industry. The hosting at my current provider has been perfectly reliable, but I can't send or receive Japanese e-mail through their Web mail system, which can be a problem when I'm on the road. I'd prefer not to switch to a Japan-based hosting service because that would mean a Japanese UI for the Webmail, and I want to be able to give addresses to my friends that don't read Japanese. Does anyone know of a U.S. hosting service that might fill my needs? Thanks for all suggestions."

digitalamish asks: "Back in 2001 Slashdot had this Ask Slashdot about wiring a new house for networking. Some of the comments in that discussion talked about running fiber vs cat5e. It's more than two year later, I'm starting to build a house, and I'd like to update this topic. So, what's the current state of people's thinking. Is good old Cat-5e still good enough, is fiber a better option? What about other options like Cat-6? Or with the state of wireless, is wiring a house even worth it any more?"

itsAsony asks: "What are the free and paid repositories / portals where I can present my technical white papers (IT papers) that appeals and reaches a wide network of IT personnels such as engineers, technical management, IT sales, in the area of eBusiness & eBilling. I know of one such portal: ZDNet. Basically I am looking for an online portal and print & media source thru which I can present my case to the peer group, not a B-2-C, but peer-2-peer. Thanks for your help."

fromtheblueline asks: "As the last of her children leaves the house for college, my mother is planning on ditching her desktop, cable internet and landline in attempts to simplify and reduce bills. She doesn't use her PC for anything more than occasional emails and online purchases and her cell phone has pretty much made her landline obsolete. She emails me asking if there is a handheld that could replace these devices. I don't own one, don't need one (my SE616 and Powerbook is plenty), and really never bothered to research one. A quick search for anything decent reveals prices close to, or over, a low end notebook. As for access, unless she searches for open wifi points, I can't imagine mobile service being anymore competitive than a cable/DSL line coming into a house. Any recommendations, Slashdot?"

Hagmonk asks: "I've been writing website backends in Perl, PHP, and MySQL for years now. It's always been about the functionality though, not the presentation. What I'd now like to do is offer clients a complete service - a professional backend, -and- a professionally designed front end (both from an aesthetic and usability standpoint). The thought of heading to a 'typical' website design course frightens me. I don't want to waste my time being spoonfed the very basics. I want a course that teaches me graphics manipulation, layout and usability. I want it in a strong espresso shot of a month tuition max, not spread over a lazy year. Do such courses exist? In Australia or on-line?"

lastpub asks: "With all the vendors out there touting the latest industry buzzword of 'Utility Computing', I'm curious to find out what developers and IT professionals actually think about what that means. Each vendor has it's own message, and some of them have very nebulous descriptions. When you hear the term 'Utility Computing', what do you think?"

Poligraf asks: "All of slashdotters spend a lot of time in front of monitors. What are you doing to preserve your eyes? My issue seems to be not a declining vision, but fatigue after certain amount of time in front of the computer. It becomes so bad that I need occasionally to leave the room with computer and sit or lie down to relax for 5 to 10 minutes. What do you think of a full spectrum lights? Certain scientists swear that it is the best thing since sliced bread, others viciously rip their claims apart. Has anyone used these? What is your experience? What other methods can you come up with?\"

phorm asks: "After getting a much-awaited DVD-burner for Christmas, I've yet to use it to actually burn a video DVD. The main reason thus far: I've yet to find decent DVD-authoring software (either for Linux or Windows) that does what I want and doesn't have a high pricetag. So far, Freshmeat projects seem to be extremely alpha/beta quality, with not much support for buttons, animated menus/backgrounds, and all the other things that make commercial DVD's truly beautiful. Does anyone know of any affordable/free DVD authoring software that has these features? Preference to open-source or Linux software, but Windows software will do if there's nothing better." phorm is not alone in this quest, read on for another query on this topic.

Anonymous Coward asks: "Does Slashdot know of any anyone who makes a flat panel antenna for C-band Satellite TV? The only makers of commercial flat panel antennas that I'm aware of is this one, but it's only KU-band."

green pizza asks: "My handwriting is horrible, an irregular mix of sloppy print and cursive. I know this, and my coworkers have learned to live with it, but I didn't realize just how bad my chickenscratch was until I tried using a tablet PC. Unlike a Palm which forced me to learn its input method, a tablet PC (and other humans) expect me to write a certain way. Aside from a handwriting class for professional adults on the other side of the country, I have only been able to find lessons and materials for the young, illiterate, or mentally challenged. Have any other geeks found a structured way to improve their handwriting?"

ThisIsFred asks: "I maintain a small network (about 1500 users, 9 servers in four locations), and happen to be in an area where the power company's quality of service could be better. Reliability has been slowly improving over the past few years, but we still experience dozens of outages during the course of the year. Unfortunately, all of our un-interruptible power supplies give in after about two years of service, regardless of the brand I buy. I have stacks of lead-acid batteries waiting to get hauled away by a subcontractor licensed to dispose of hazardous materials. This is an expensive service, my employer doesn't want to allocate funds for it every two years. I don't like having to give up space for the storage of dead batteries, and I don't like wasting my time replacing them. Should my employer be responsible for the disposal fees? Shouldn't vendors selling new UPS units be legally required to take back old batteries, like with auto batteries? And what sort of solution should I be looking at that is lower maintenance? Currently I am using smaller, standalone units (1400 VA), because it is really hard for me to secure the funds for something more expensive. I'd like to see what other folks do. I trust examples based on Slashdot's real experience more than some vendor's sales pitch. I need to put together a good argument for the next budget review."

frankkubiak asks: "I recently bought the new iPod with 40GB. I understand the arguments of the record industry, that I should buy the music I want to hear. Alright. So I don't want to get MP3 files by file-sharing. But here is my problem: I live outside the U.S., in Germany to be exact. iTunes only offers service to those inside the U.S. (see this related Slashdot article). I don't want a CD, vinyl record, tape or minidisc. I simply want to listen to the music. Even if I decide to buy a legacy audio CD, it is often copy-protected and won't load in my PC. So, strictly speaking, it is not even an audio-CD. Heise keeps a database of those un-CDs (German language. English speakers can use this fish-translated page). It sounds incredible, but even after hours of research on the web, I don't see a legal way to use this device with new songs. The only way I see to use this device is to buy a CD, and if I can't rip it, I'll have to [break the law and] download the MP3-file via file-sharing. I believe there are more people like me out there who want to listen to their music, without feeling guilty. Why is there no one meeting this demand? How does Slashdot feel about this?" Before you mention Napster, let's note that it has similar restrictions (see the "International Considerations" section). So where can non-U.S. internet users go to download the legal MP3s that they want?

Anonym1ty asks: "My group of Amateur Radio Operators is planning a DX-Pedition in 2005 to an Island in Alaska. We are planning on operating a station for a few days to become the rare ham radio contact from the island. We already have sponsors, but we want to showcase this event and Ham Radio in some way to the public and were hoping to find some way to get PBS, The Discovery Channel or some other network to tag along with us and showcase what Amateur Radio is. In researching how to contact these I find a sea of red tape. The Discovery Channel Networks only take suggestions from scientists or production crews. PBS seems interested but the few stations I have actually received a response from seem to just mention how they have no budget. How do I find a production company and convince them this would be a good idea? It is important to note that we Ham Radio operators cannot make any money on this and any pecuniary gain would go to the production company."

shakuni asks: "I work for a large network equipment vendor in the operations software business unit. One of the questions that I have been asking all my customers (large telecom service providers) is their position on adoption of open source software in their operations environment. The customers that I have interviewed don't comprise a a large enough sample to make sweeping statements. However, most large service providers (who have probably more than 80% of $1 trillion telecom market worldwide) seem very wary of open source, even though the high cost commercial software is hitting on them hard. How is open source adoption being encouraged amongst the financial and telecom behemoths, who are averse to taking risks with their IT systems? Are there specific organizations out there that actively address the IT manager and CTOs concerns about open source software? In other words, is there an enterprise Open Source initiative that pro-actively helps companies move in this direction?"

An anonymous reader asks: "Running a small graphic design studio, we've hit a snag that I'm sure many tech-reliant small businesses have hit before: our small flock of file servers, multi-processor machines and 22" monitors draws more electricity then the wiring in our current space can take. We're looking for a new space for this and other reasons, and as we look around we're generally forced to take the word of landlords as to what sort of amperage an electrical system can provide. Does anyone in the Slashdot community know a reliable way to test and see if an electrical system can support the needs of a computer-reliant business?"

direktorjb writes "I have an urgent need to connect about 6 users in Baghdad and another 6 in Kuwait to an AS400 app (5250 emulation) back in the states. Is anyone aware of a decent ISP in those regions? If I cant get a reliable ISP (and therefore a solid VPN connection), what are my other choices? Should I check out VSAT?"

Spencer Wilson asks: "I'm constantly told that I have an extremely high intelligence. I always feel like I should know so much more, though. Do you, the Slashdot readers, know of any ways to improve ones brain power? Perhaps books, Web sites, etc., that provide questions that involve ways to increase memory, creativity, mental agility, logic reasoning, intelligence, etc. Are there any diets/exercises that really help?"