Per Christian Henden asks: "I`m aiming for a masters degree in bioinformatics, and I`m uncertain which courses would be good to follow (and my counselor doesn't know, either). There are of course some courses that 'belong' to this degree, and I`ll take those, but I get to choose a number of additional courses. I want to ask people working in bioinformatics 'What (CS) subjects are important or especially useful in bioinformatics?' I`m planning on choosing 'Large Datasets', 'Parallel Programming', 'Image Classification', and 'Subsymbolic AI', because I think those are important, but I`m really not sure what is useful or not in real life bioinformatics." Other Ask Slashdot articles, which have touched on bioinformatics, have dealt with magazines, books and graduate schools.

AvantLegion asks: "Every now and then, I stumble upon a website that is just a veritable tome of knowledge - be it of a certain theme (like Snopes.com) or more general information (Everything2.com). Free documentation databases are invaluable, but rarely seem to come up very early in Google searches. What websites out there do you consider to be indispensable sources of knowledge? (save the obvious Slashdot jokes). Where do you look up information besides combing through search engine results?"

Embedded Geek writes "It's hardly a new topic, but BBC is running a story about ageism hitting Gen-X, especially in IT. As a 34 year old coder, I was horrified to hear a quote from a *hiring manager*: 'In the IT sector (and coding in particular) younger minds generally work faster -- I would rather employ a keen teenager who code programs computers quickly than an older person.' It didn't help that the person is 32 years old. My kneejerk reaction, the same one anyone else over 30 would have, is that the guy is a buffoon (I'll withhold my preferred, spectacularly vulgar, term). The problem is that I do not believe his idiocy is unique - I have definitely felt the vibe when interviewing. It's frustrating, since Gen-X is finally shedding the media hyped 'slacker' stereotype only to run headlong into this garbage. Have any other Slashdot readers seen this? What is the youngest you can be before some PHB declares you fit for the scrap-heap? Other than stocking up on hair dye and botox, what steps can I take to prepare for the future? Share your war stories here." Ask Slashdot handled this topic over two years ago. Of course, this behavior could be explained away as economic concerns, as the decision to hire younger (and typically cheaper) employees can directly affect the bottom line. However, one has to wonder if the decision to go with less experienced programmers also affects software quality, in the long run. What are your thoughts on this subject?

Matt Hughes asks: "When does one programmer's preferences (Java over Microsoft-anything because they hate Microsoft, or Microsoft over open-source because open-source is evil) and the variety of choices start to erode productivity? As a J2EE developer for the past few years, I admit that I've become frustrated at the number of choices out there. Every one offers a different way of doing things but they don't all interoperate (JBuilder doesn't natively understand Struts) and none of them -- in my experience -- pulls all of the web technologies together very succinctly. Does Visual Studio .NET and the .NET framework pull this together better than the open-source projects out there, or is it just as complicated in your experience? Is .NET too immature to be trusted? What are your thoughts?" For those interested in the raw performance numbers, Slashdot did a performance comparison between the two technologies, in an earlier article.

tha_mink asks: "I am currently working for a number of clients that have very similar needs for a cost-effective POS system that may be integrated online. (read : cheap if not free) These are all small business clients with small budgets and so I would like to suggest something Linux-based, with a nice GUI, and a database I can get at through the web (PostgreSQL would be great). I have searched for and read the past Slashdot articles on the subject only to find that they are old and out of date. I have also done numerous google searches only to find that there is not a clear leader. My clients don't really need things like payroll and purchasing but inventory control, accounting, and customer storage are important. So I ask: What systems are available to fulfill the needs of small business without breaking the bank and without requiring any software from Redmond?"

ahodgkinson asks: "We often hear about companies, government agencies, schools and other organizations that migrate from Microsoft to open source based systems. We sometimes hear about organizations that evaluate Open Source and then elect to remain with their existing proprietary system. Both of these events represent represent a 'non-failure' for the open source movement. I'm interested in knowing more about the Open Source 'failure' events, namely when organizations move away from open source to a proprietary solution. Does anyone know of organizations that have moved from an Open Source based IT solution (back) to a proprietary system? Or where such a move was contemplated but not made? I'm specifically interested in larger organizations that have 'undone' a strategic move to Open Source, and their reasons why. Given your examples, is there anything we can learn from them?"

eraserewind asks: "Are telecom providers and ISPs going to continue to be necessary in the future? Why are we all paying subscriptions for communicating? What I want is a global extremely-high-speed ad-hoc wireless data & voice network, where the only entry cost is a mobile phone (or newtork card or whatever). Devices communicate peer to peer, or routed via other people's idle devices. Remember there is no subscriptions, so don't expect to piggy-back on someone's paid for DSL bandwidth. What are the technological barriers? What kind of protocols would you need? What hardware advances? How would you solve problems of geographic isolation? Are there theoretical, political or economic reasons it couldn't work?"

Deagol asks: "I'd like to replace our aging IBM server with a commodity solution (Linux, 3Ware cards, and lots of IDE drives). The main reason is price (the cost of 5 36GB SCSI disks for this sucker -- one of which died today -- could pay for the replacement server with 2TB of usable space after RAID-5. Being a huge fan of AIX's LVM,I've recently been playing with the Linux version of LVM. It's got all the right features (and even the ability to shrink logical volumes, a feature which AIX 4.3.3 doesn't have!), though the commands aren't as polished as the AIX counterparts. The big question for me is, will it stand up and be stable under heavy load, like the IBM does? Is anyone running Linux LVM on a 1TB+, 24/7 production machine?"

Yossarian2000 asks: "With all the media attention WLANs have been getting lately, more and more businesses seem to be looking to better understand their implications as relates to company intranets. Whether a business is running a WLAN or not, detecting rogue access points is essential to maintaining some degree of security. Currently, it seems there are few options for detecting APs: subnet scans (which add overhead to the network and can still miss some APs), handheld devices (which require regular site surveys), and systems that use existing access points to detect rogues (this assumes you have APs covering your entire site). Has anyone heard of better methods for the detection of rogue APs?"

Bryan Porter asks: "I've been using various Wine based products lately (ex. WineX, CrossOver, etc.), and have found several companies basing portions of the software on Wine (I believe Virtuoso 3.0 utilizes Wine to some extent). My question for the Slashdot community is, is Wine destined for specialization only? We've got well-working versions of Wine hacked into a cross-platform gaming system, hacked into cross-platform productivity systems, etc. Will we ever download just one Wine, or is the best solution a customized one?"

angryLNX asks: "This year, my high school's computer club started running out of project ideas and fun things to do as a club. Over the years, we have done the website, the Linux box and the TV announcement system. Does anyone have any ideas for projects or activities which would be worthwhile? Any good or bad experiences with certain high school computer clubs? Since we're in Connecticut, maybe it would be fun to attend a certain conference in New York?"

rerunn asks: "The recent story about the consultants from JBOSS walking out couldn't have had better timing. I'll save the drama and cut to the scenario: You and a few close co-workers make up the core grunts of 'the department'. The company relies heavily on your department for many services, some of which, other departments cannot provide. You like your job, it provides great satisfaction. Suddenly, the company realizes its in deep financial shit, and starts making cut backs. This impacts the department. You suddenly find yourself working 50-60 hour weeks, put on call with no compensation, given unreasonable amounts of work and generally treated like dirt. You get the feeling that the company is just going to take advantage of you no matter how and what happens. You get together with the rest of the department for a 'fsck this company' meeting and decide to walk out. Have you ever done this?? (We are so close!) What was the outcome?"

oosid asks: "I have recently upgraded my Sony Clie T-616 to an NX-60 with the built in keyboard, larger screen, and a WI-FI card. I have been searching for a good terminal emulator/ssh client and have found nothing worthy. Am I totally missing something, or is there really nothing out there? It would be awesome to be able to take advantage of the excellent screen and keyboard in my favorite wireless coffee shop."

An anonymous reader asks: "I just installed Acrobat Reader and found that it was using FEAD which claims - 'FEAD© Optimizer© significantly reduces the size of application programs on average by 50% (in some cases up to 75%, depending on the specific software), even when they are already compressed with common compression technology like ZIP or CAB.' . It seems that they optimize each application individually at thieir labs. But an average of 50% compression on already compressed binary files seems to be too good to be true. Anyone familiar with how someone may be able to achieve this?"

Malfaetor asks: "Some friends and I are tentatively planning a public Network Gaming Marathon (LAN Party, except for an entire weekend) later this year, starting on a Friday night and ending the following Sunday afternoon. We've already acquired a file server and game servers, as well as did some testing on bandwidth usage of various games. We've also queried local hotels for available conference rooms, and thought about power consumption requirements, and so forth. I ask this of my fellow Slashdot readers: If you have ever hosted or attended a LAN party before, even if it was not of this scale, would you have any input (or horror stories!) that could help to ensure we have not overlooked anything? Any information you could provide would be greatly appreciated!"

Omega1045 asks: "What XML tools do you use? XML Spy? EditPad? A pen, notepad, scanner, and a good OCR program? XML is now becoming more than just hype. XML, SOAP Web Services, and Enterprise Integration (EI) are really taking off from the number and type of contract opportunities I am seeing and receiving. Until recently, I was doing most of my XML by hand. Other than the nostalgia for those early HTML days, it is really eating into my time. I have started trying XML Spy, but to buy it will be a big hit in the wallet (which I am willing to do if it is the best thing out there). What does Slashdot recommend?"

bobej1977 asks: "I'm looking into opening a technology-centric cafe/bar, and am wondering about the legality of showing different types of media in the cafe. Specifically, I'm interested in using a PVR to build a library of popular television shows (Futurama, Simpsons, Enterprise, etc) and making it available to patrons of the cafe. Many establishments show live sports events or even popular shows but where exactly is the legal-line that a business shouldn't cross? While I'm at it, what about showing DVDs in the cafe? While I'm sure that doing so is prohibited, would it be tolerated since I wouldn't be charging to watch them? The precedent I'm thinking of is that some electronics or video rental stores that show movies, in the store. If not, what kind of arrangements could be made to get permission, if I'd like to have a LOTR-a-thon?"

Great_Jehovah asks: "I've done a lot of trial-and-error and spent time researching getting various devices (e.g. motherboards, USB devices, DVD burners) working on Linux. I've also spent a bunch of time configuring different pieces of software for particular applications. I would like a nice centralized place to share these pieces of knowledge and also to see what others have done. I've looked on Google but either I can't conjure the right keywords, or this place just doesn't exist yet. Anyone know where such a site exists? If not, I'll start one."

vrmlguy asks: "I've worked for several small consulting organizations over the past few years, and have discovered an unmet need. Every place I've worked has developed lots of code (usually scripts) that rarely gets reused except by the person who wrote it. Management always talks about 'knowledge management systems', but nothing ever gets off the ground. Does anyone know of something that works? I've looked at the CMS Info and TECFA Portals Pointers web sites, but haven't found much that seems to meet my needs. What I think that I need is something similar to sourceforge, but without the bells and whistles. BSCW looks like the closest fit, but I've got a few concerns about its licensing. The ideal solution would let me control any code that I upload, and search other peoples' code for stuff I can download and modify for my own use. CVS is overkill, since I expect that people will rarely check things back in that they've downloaded. Ease of use is important, since people always think it's easier to write from scratch than to search for things to reuse. Security is paramount, since there will be a lot of code that, for various contractual reasons, we don't want to share with anyone. Does anyone know of a great project that I may have missed?"

weatherbug asks: "I've recently been appointed as a member of a team to help determine the direction our organization is headed with Red Hat Linux. Currently we're using multiple versions from Red Hat 6.x through Advance Server 2.1. However, now that Red Hat has effectively separated their distributions into a 'consumer' (Red Hat 8,9, etc) and 'enterprise' (Red Hat Adv. Server 2.x, etc), we aren't sure which version we want to adopt. A Red Hat salesman recently told us that the 'consumer' version of Red Hat was mostly for hackers and hobbyists who weren't concerned about stability and wanted the most up-to-date software, while the 'enterprise' version would be more stable and have a five-year product lifetime. As a long time Linux system administrator, I feel that this is a sales tactic and that there really is no compelling reason for us to ever use the 'enterprise' version. After all, it is Linux and it is open source, and we have enough in-house talent to not need Red Hat support. Why would we ever need or care about a five-year product lifetime? Am I wrong, and if so, could you set us straight? We'd be interested to know what other large organizations have decided to do."