An anonymous reader asks: "I recently moved into a townhouse (the first time on my own, actually) and need to get a server up and running before the other trivial stuff (furniture, getting food in the fridge, *getting* a fridge, etc, etc). I need the basic set of services - HTTP, FTP, DNS, SMTP/POP3 for any self respecting geek. The drawback is that I'm on a limited budget (money and space wise) and need a server that is *extremely* energy efficient, takes up little space, makes no noise, and generates very little heat. A basic P4 notebook seems to fit the bill - small, low power consumption, built in screen/keyboard/mouse (no need for KVM), wireless so I can stick it on the top shelf of my closet, and generates less heat and noise than your average desktop. Is there any reason to consider, say, a mini ITX rig (such as a shuttle) over this? Any drawbacks?"

KoshClassic asks: "Recently, on the NPR show All Things Considered, an interview was broadcast with Thomas Hazlett, formerly the chief economist of the FCC. Although short on details, Mr. Hazlett raises the point that, with the high penetration rate of cable / satellite TV into American homes, broadcasting television over the air has (or soon will) become superfulous and that this portion of the radio spectrum could be better utilized for other purposes. What do Slashdot readers think of this idea and, for those who agree, what alternative uses of the broadcast spectrum would you like to see?"

numbski asks: "We're all geeks here, and I think there is no question how much we love our caffeine. What concerns me is that my fiancee has noticed how much I take in during the morning, and that I even use Diet Pepsi in addition to pain killers as a medication for headaches. So I did my googling about caffeine and addiction. In the minority, you have one report making a scientific claim that there is no such thing as an addiction to caffeine, however many other articles (not to mention marketing propaganda) suggest otherwise. Perhaps not just the sake of having an addiction is what concerns me, but whatever other side effects. I generally take good care of myself, go to the gym, exercise, play hockey, eat right. I hate to have a stroke or heart attack later on in life because of the stuff. I'd be curious to know the thoughts of others who take in large amounts of caffeine, and perhaps what their doctors have said about it. I plan on talking to my own soon, but it seems like this warrants discussion amongst those who consume the most. Would/does this prevent you from grabbing your Bawls and running like hell?"

egeorge asks: "I was wondering what kind of paperwork/policies developers have at their jobs concerning contribution to open source projects. I develop software at a company that derives almost its entire revenue from software. Some software is licensed to customers, some is run internally in a service model, but the software is our whole business. We have recently been doing more and more modification and customization of open source products, and we would love to give some of this back. As developers, though, some of us are a little hesitant to just start flinging code that technically still belongs to the company out into the world. We want to make sure we get clarification about what is or is not covered by our NDAs. So, what kind of procedures do other developers have to go through to get adequate coverage for Open Source submissions? I would like to suggest a policy to my superiors, and could use a few good suggestions."

silent_tyr asks: "I am going to re-install my Linux box and being security conscious I am looking for a secure distribution. After a couple of Google searches I found a version called Secure Linux, which sounded ideal. So I followed this link, which turned out to be what I assume is a genuine NSA web-site. All in all, it looks like a good idea and I can play around with it as I wish, but eventually I will be using this machine as my base-system. So before I start I want to ask two questions: 1) Do you think that it is a good idea to trust the NSA not to put in back-door/spy-ware type code to enable them to snoop my personal information? 2) What other security-patched distro's can people recommend? I don't want to open up the floor for generic NSA-bashing, but I also don't want to have to work my way through every line of code before I install." There was a similar question that was asked a while ago, but there wasn't much to the discussion. For those of you who are running SELinux, what have your experiences been, so far?

Raisin Bread asks: "Maybe I'm fighting a losing battle - but has anyone out there encountered an administrative resistance when it comes to giving approval to make in-house solutions for problems? I'm at a university, and we want to build a tracking system that will accommodate our needs perfectly (and can do it), but the boss wants the easy way out by contracting out to a remotely-hosted and managed solution. Sure, they are commercially supported, but the fix is only mediocre. What arguments have been used to sway the boss to use the super-cool home grown solution?"

An anonymous reader asks: "I am attending an online college for the first time and I am starting to get a bad taste in my mouth about the amount of effort that some of my professors are putting forward in my courses. I feel like some of them are 'skating' and all I am paying for is a book, a posted syllabus, and a final exam. Have any of you been to an online school, and what where your experiences like? How did you feel about the quality of education you were getting?" Corrected the charset errors, that appeared in this article. Thanks to all who pointed this out.

dughutch asks: "My church currently uses a small business color laser printer (Minolta 2200), but alas, it can not handle the load of our growing congregation. We are looking at buying a higher volume color laser printer and I wanted to ask the Slashdot readers for any and all information on possible solutions relating to this question, including, but not limited to: cost, volume, repairs, and outsourcing?"

gosand asks: "When I began college in 1988, it was the first time I was able to interact with a large group of very different people. This helped me to see the world in different aspects, and helped to make me who I am today. During my college days I formed/reformed many of my opinions on things, although refining them has been a continual process. I often wonder how my experience might have been different if the internet, as it exists today, would have been around then. Sure, there was gopher, ftp, and BBSs, but only a relatively few people knew about them and used them. There wasn't online gaming to lure you away from your studies for hours at a time. If you wanted music, you went to the used CD store or joined Columbia House and BMG 5 times under different names. You had to actually communicate with people in person instead of email, and you had to go to the library and do your research from books. You only had a computer if you were in CS, and sometimes not even CS students had them. I am not suggesting that one way is better than the other, just noting the differences. Have computers and the internet made college life any easier in some respects? Have they made it harder? How has the internet affected your opinions on things during these formative years? These may seem like easy questions, but I have a feeling that there are a wide range of opinions out there."

Uruk asks: "Over the last few years, we've seen what looks like the victory of copyright and business interest at the expense of the consumer. There's been The DMCA, the UCITA, all of the legal wranging over DeCSS, and so on. Copyright holders can even shut your website down without doing the research about whether or not it was appropriate. Johansen did seem to be acquited of some of what was brought against him as a result of the DeCSS situation, but that was in Norway. Does anyone know of any copyright or consumer victories on the net in the last few years? Something that limits the abilities of these laws, or otherwise acts in the copyright spirit of free use? My hat is off to GNU and EFF, even Project Gutenberg. What is the status of this ongoing battle? I'm looking for the sunny side to a situation that seems littered with defeat."

bergeron76 asks: "Like many of you, I look at CRT and LCD displays constantly when I'm at work and when I'm at home (and even when I'm in my car). As a result, I was wondering if any of you have any neat ideas or ways to help reduce eye strain and dryness while looking at displays continuously? I've tried vitamins, eye drops, increased blinking, and combinations of glasses / contacts with little success thus far. People make assumptions about me because my eyes are constantly blood-shot, and I'm wondering what I can do to heal my eyes? I recently heard about Punctum Plugs and was wondering if anyone has had any experience with them and if they're worth the cost. They're little plugs that reduce the size of your tear ducts so your eyes retain more fluid and stay 'lubed'. Does anyone have any experiences with these or have any other recommendations for reducing eye strain and dryness (aside from not computing)?"

Kavau asks: "I've recently entered the world of digital photography, and bought a pocket-sized digital. While the resolution and the color accuracy are very nice, I was utterly disappointed by the (lack of) quality of the zoom lens: It has a clearly visible barrel distortion, especially in wide angle, so that straight lines appear curved in the picture. This is especially annoying in architectural shots or cityscapes. While grumbling about this shortcoming, I suddenly realized that I am dealing with digital imaging here: In principle it should be no problem to measure the distortion, and then to correct it with a digital mapping. Other lens faults such as vignetting could also be corrected. Now, since I don't want to reinvent the wheel, here is my question to Slashdot: Do you know of any open-source tools that deal with issues such as (1) applying general analytic transformations to a picture, (2) specifically correcting for barrel distortion, or (3) determining the amount of distortion from test pictures? Also, since people probably had this idea before, does anyone have experience with this issue that he/she wants to share, or some resources to point out?"

corporal_clegg asks: "I bought a Sharp 27" TV a year or so ago to serve as a second TV and PS2 gaming platform. When I recently attempted to play a DVD through the game console, the VChip kicked in and presented a beautifully rendered black rectangle on the screen. No amount of menu manipulation on either the game console or the TV can remove the VChip blocking; both system menus report the VChip as disabled, yet it continues to block all programming: golf, kids shows, everything. This occurs if the game console is attached and operating or completely removed. Of course the operating manuals provide no help on addressing these issues, and the manufacturers' web sites are likewise useless. So the question is: does anyone out there in slash-land know how to identify and remove, bypass or hardware reset the VChip/ blocking technology? I am very comfortable working at the board level and would much rather crack my case and fix this problem myself than take an 80lb TV to a repair shop only to be charged it's replacement cost to address the problem."

Elfan writes "We've discussed laptops in education before and the importance of condoms and lockpicks. However, since its not to early to think about the Fall semester for incoming freshman, I was wondering what electronic devices people found most useful for college now. How do you keep yourself organized, a PDA of some sort or an old-fashioned calendar? What to take notes with, pencil and paper? Laptop? Palm pilot? Tape recorder? Or just too cool to take notes like in high school? One laptop for everything, with a docking station back in the dorm perhaps, or just a desktop? Both? All of this is made more complicated, of course, by the lack of funds most college students enjoy."

Joe Curzon writes "Over two years ago, I created what is now probably the most comprehensive and detailed guide to spotting bootleg and counterfeit anime/manga related goods - The Pirate Anime FAQ. A special version of the FAQ has also been published at numerous Anime Conventions around the USA. However due to commitments in the "real world" I have not been able to update FAQ almost a year. :( I would like to iron out any creases and update the whole thing in one go, so I was wondering what improvements would the Otaku readers of /. recommend? The DVD section and Fansub section are in need of the most attention and I plan to deal with that soon, but I was also wondering if there were any subtle changes I could make to improve the FAQ as well?"

neiljt writes "As a UK-based IT worker living about a 90-minute journey from London, I am interested in the idea of working from home, or teleworking. In the UK, however, the take-up of this practice has been less than frantic. My own immediate plan is to find work at home here in the UK, however my ultimate aim would be to find employment, which gives me the freedom to live where I choose. What barriers exist to working in the UK for a non-UK (e.g. US) employer. What about a UK citizen living outside the UK working for a UK or US employer? (Feel free to substitute your country of residence)"

Neurotensor asks: "My lab is researching quantum computing, and I don't like the fact that Windows / Visual Basic [seems to be] the preferred solution for controlling the experiments. It's not just a pride thing, unlike many colleagues I know what I'm missing out on, in the free software world. I've wasted a *lot* of time and effort trying to implement some very simple stuff with free (and better) alternatives, simply because certain hardware manufacturers utterly refuse to support anything other than Windows." There were older articles that touched on this subject, 2 years ago, but are others still finding themselves in the same situation as the submitter?

halfgeek asks: "I was just considering how keyboard-centric I've managed to make my setup, even under the mouse-hungry Windows GUI (no shouting; I regularly SSH to my Linux routing box for experiments, bring up VMWare when I need some X, and can't live without Cygwin). Almost everything I would want to do can be done without moving a hand to the mouse. I can open up an SSH to my server with Win+Shift+V, bring up a calculator with Win+C, run a one-shot console command with Win+0, open up the MW dictionary website to a highlighted word by hitting Ctrl+C (to copy) and then Win+Enter (to look up the contents of the clipboard). (Much of this is implemented with Perl programs and WinKey.) I also make frequent use of the volume knob and mute button built into my Logitech keyboard. If there is any good route to finding the keyboard I want with all the features I'm thinking of at a justifiable price, whether prefabricated or a wicked mod, I would just love to know about it." There are quite a few options the submitter is looking for, but it basically boils down to is this: the more keys, the better. What keyboards have you found, in your browsing travels, that have been stuffed full of useful features?

A Pride of Lyings asks: "I'm having a devil of a time finding a good editor or IDE aimed at HTML/XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/JSP/XML that meets the following criteria: CVS integration (VSS integration would be nice but not required); stellar UTF-8 support (internationalization is a big big deal now); correctly recognizes and highlights HTML, JSP, JS, and CSS within a single file; does some rudimentary auto-completion; is easily configurable; runs on Win2k (oy vey); supports bookmarks of various kinds; supports code collapsing; and affordable. I'm at a loss and rather fatigued from kicking all of these tires, so I'm throwing it open to you: what do you use for your front-end work? What makes it good?"

Brian J. asks: "I've recently completed a manuscript for a novel that depicts a heist involving elements of the Information Technology industry. Basically, a quartet of laid-off technology workers think they're going to get revenge against their former employer, but it doesn't work out that way. I was wondering if Slashdot knew of author's agents or editorial staff at publishers who have an affinity for technology, especially technology fiction, to whom I could send a query letter."