Zzzt asks: "I work at a very small advertising agency & production company, doing various electronic media projects, including small websites. In anticipation of our clients going elsewhere, my boss decided we should offer development services for commerce websites, complete with credit card transactions and the like. For those out there who have created these sites, is it worth it for a small company to take on such a project, considering maintanance, liability, and other issues that will come up? Or should we just outsource the whole thing? For a medium to low-end HTML programmer, are there pre-canned packages that will most of the work for me?"

smackthud asks: "I'm looking for an external firewire enclosure that works with a new 200GB Western Digital HD w/8mb cache. I tried putting the drive into my ADS pyro enclosure, however, the drive is seen by my G4 iMac as a 128GB drive, which is obviously incorrect. This is not a limitation of MacOSX 10.2 or the iMac, since the HFS+ filesystem supports 2TB+ file systems, and Firewire itself is device size agnostic. The enclosure simply isn't reporting the size of the drive properly. Some research has revealed that most enclosures that use the Oxford 911 bridge chipset do not support ATA100 drives larger than 120GB, while at least one supports up to160GB, but no more. My suspicion is that this is a limitation of the bridge controller's implementation of the ATA100 interface. I've heard that ATA100 had the optional ability to support 48bit address space rather than 32, which would mean that only those vendors who support the optional space would be able to address drives larger than 137GB. This may play a factor in Firewire chipsets which must bridge IDE to IEE1394. Existing products from both WD and Lacie prove that using this drive should be possible, and that any problems with large ATA100 drives have been solved by some vendors. Any helpful information or recommendations would be appreciated."

Ninnux asks: "I wanted to find out from the community which was the better mathametics modeling package: Mathematica or Matlab. The cancer center I research and program for is considering purchasing a license set. I'll be working with Bayesian machine learning and other bioinformatic approaches for hormone pathway modeling. I know Matlab has various toolboxes that would be rather useful, but I'd like to hear what people think." While I'm sure direct comparisons will be made, I think focusing on the specific niche will help Ninnux the most; so, how well does each piece of software handle Bayesian functions and other bioinformatic computations?

kmleon asks: "Where can I find decent information on how to provide wireless internet service using an unlicensed technology (such as the 802.11 variants) across a state border? There are a few hundred people in this rural area that are desperate to use our service since no one else can give them broadband, but I have no idea how to offer that without knowing if we'd be getting in trouble with who knows how many government agencies. Anyone had any experience with doing this? The problem is that all our backbone is on one side of the border, with just strong enough of a signal to give service about 2-5 miles on the other side of the border. Is it just as simple as registering the business in both states? Which agency (FCC, FTC, or other someone else) could I contact for help? None of their websites have provided me with any helpful information. Thanks for any useful input."

WCityMike asks: "What is the origin of the cost of bandwidth? For instance, if I'm being charged for an apple, I know that, theoretically, the cost of that apple is going towards the purchase of apple seeds, the land on which the apple trees are grown, the fertilizer and water that helps the trees grow, and the salaries of those who pick the apples, clean them, box them, and send them to market. When an Internet provider charges someone hundreds of dollars in bandwidth costs because they were Slashdotted (or Farked) and their bandwidth use shot up, what costs have the Internet provider incurred, and why does it cost them what it does? Is there usually any sort of markup going on along the line, or are people just passing along their own expenses down the line to the end user?" It would be interesting to note the most important factor contributing to bandwidth costs. How much of the total costs are tied to infrastructure versus the human component (technicians, sysadmins, technical support and so forth)?

valianteffort asks: "I have had a site up on the net for over a year, and have attempted to get educators to respond in a way similar to the comments on Slashdot. My purpose is to build an educational community where educators could go to get advice or just blow off steam. Despite the fact that the site has a relatively large number of visitors I have not been able to entice the lively interaction I am hoping for. Does anyone have any ideas about how to get this interaction started and to maintain it once it gets going?"

SendItAllToOneAddress asks: "With the advent of the faster cellular phone networks, and an apparent lack of support for WAP among many popular web portals, I'm curious if the readers of Slashdot have a preferred way to retrieve e-mail by phone via Webmail or POP3 access, or are we stuck with the accounts provided by the cell services? I'd prefer not to have to use separate e-mail accounts, or to have to forward my e-mail to the cell phone."

Stavo asks: "I'm looking for a robust, reliable personal knowledge management solution. As a professional researcher, I read a lot of text-based content. I prefer to mark up content, by underlining or adding margin notes. I also need to retrieve and search content. The low tech solution is printing the text and using a pen to mark up, then filing the papers. If I want to quote a source, I have to type the quote. With the advent of Tablet PCs and similar tech, I'd like to find a way to keep the content digital. In other words, if I download an journal article in PDF or HTML, how can I mark it up, save it, and later search/retrieve it? Shouldn't computers provide a better solution than voluminous file cabinets filled with dead trees?"

Maria D asks: "I am thinking of starting a small consulting and tutoring business in mathematics for children when I graduate with a Ph.D. I will also conduct parent and teacher workshops. As I do this, I would like to collect data for my research and, hopefully, publish it in peer-reviewed journals, present at conferences, etc. Now, the procedure for research is pretty straightforward if you are at a university. You do a human subject form, then you do your study, then you submit the articles mentioning your university affiliation at the appropriate place on the form. What if you are not affiliated with a university? How do you approach the whole human subject permission issue? Can you collect data at a workshop if you charge money for the workshop? Will the whole thing be easier if I get a university affiliation? How do I approach it if I do not want to work at a university full time?"

idjitProof asks: "I work for a non-profit organization with about 70 satellite offices. We're trying to find a cheap way to get these offices out of the stone age and into an ethernet with centralized, secure file-storage. I was wondering if there is a Linux hardware solution that is fairly dummy resistant or, alternatively, remotely configurable (with decent security). I spent the better part of today searching the web, but all I could find was boxed software products, no hardware solutions. I'd appreciate links to any companies that might have this kind of product."

kingelvis asks: "I have been thinking of putting together a road trip with a theme - Traveling to factories, manufacturing plants, etc all over the country and taking their (free) tours. I've already thought of a few places; Boeing, Auto factories in Detriot, Ben & Jerry's, Jack Daniel's distillery, and so forth. I'm interested in everything from 747s to bottled water, so please respond with any public tour you can think of. Where are some cool places you'd recommend visiting to see how stuff gets made? "

Fembot asks: "The Samba team are doing a great job, but I can't help but feel that making Unix machines serve Windows-based protocols is the wrong approach. Back in the days of Windows95 it shipped with an NFS client on the CD which could be installed optionaly. Are there open source (or even just free as in beer) NFS clients for Windows 2000/XP, and is it possible to authenticate users on Windows desktops via NIS?"

captainclever asks: "As an avid music fan, I'm keen on discovering new artists that I will like. I have discovered a few by listening to internet radio, and writing down the names of songs that take my fancy. I had a play with The Digital Music Network, but it was very intrusive, full of adverts and only worked in Windows. I found it quite a hard topic to google for as there is so much stuff about music. Has anyone come accoss a decent system that can suggest some good artists to me based on my existing listening habbits?" Word of mouth, of course, is the tried and true method of promoting a new group. Are there weblogs that allow users to discuss music much like Slashdot discusses "news"?

Michael Cray asks: "I'm an MIS student and a pro-Linux / Open Source guy. I've been trying to find an article, that serves as an introduction to Open Source, which my Professor could use in class. To me, Open Source is more philosophical than technical. Since this is an IDS/MIS course called 'Management of Information Systems', the professor picks articles from journals like the Harvard Review to be used in class. So if you are a teacher, what article would you use to present 'open source' in a college class room?" What articles have you found that would serve as a good introduction to Open Source? Documents like The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the GPL would be good intro pieces, but are there other pieces that might flesh out these two as an introduction to Open Source?

0x0d0a asks: "Slashdot has now had a number of articles on package management. Strong opinions about the management approaches of Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, and BSD have all been expressed, some quite negative. What suggestions do you have for improvement? What features do you value in a package management system, and in what areas would you like to see additional functionality?"

Fr05t asks: "Gone are the days of being able to use the W3C specs for DHTML and Javascript as a solid reference for every browser. To make things worse I've been finding more and more I'm required to build richer web content that runs on all browsers. I've found many books that have a chapter on Browser Compatibility, but is there such a thing as a complete guide to the incompatibilities between IE, Netscape, and Opera? I'd even settle for a site dedicated to the documentation of the browser SNAFU."

An anonymous reader asks: "My wife, who is not at all a computer geek, wants to get more into computer graphics, with a desire to get into 3D and animation. She knows Photoshop well, but doesn't have much in the way of a computer background. I keep our computers running, but am graphics- and art-challenged. I'd like some recommendations on how to get her started: Books, URLs, software packages. For software, Linux or Windows doesn't matter to me, but I'd prefer free or relatively inexpensive. Please, help me turn my wife into a graphics geek!"

A not-so Anonymous Coward asks: "I recently bought a second hand Creative Nomad IIc. I've since found that it is a good little MP3 player, with one slight exception: it's lack of memory. Sixty-four megs of memory was good, but with the 10 and 20 GIG players out now it's a little lacking. Plus, being Canadian has it's downside: with the new 'tax' being applied to anything that can store music (another reference, here), MP3 players are set to double in price. Being the kind of person I am, I'd rather try upgrading my current MP3 player then buy a new one. Are there any ways to attach a laptop hard drive to my Nomad? Are there any Smart Media > IDE converters I could use? Is there any information on how to make one myself?"

An Anonymous Coward asks "I've been pursuing a few different lines of study, to refresh myself in basic sciences before I return to school. Right now I am reading up on Chemistry, and thought it would be fun to acquire a chemistry set just to play around with and maybe learn a few things from. Do any science geeks here have any suggestions?" My childhood garage probably still has purple and black stains all over it (lucky I was wearing glasses). 300 in one electronics kits, anyone?

spazoid12 writes "I've been curious lately about memory. For example, why is it that my earliest memory is from about 7 years of age? (I'm mid-30's now) Most people I know remember much further back. How far back can a person remember? Is there a theoretical limit? What are the requirements for acquiring memories? I've read that oxygen is one; as in actual breathed-in stuff. This is supposed to explain why you can't remember anything from within the womb. That seems silly to me. My own theory (with nothing to back it up) is that language is required. We spoke mostly Brasilian Portuguese and some Russian in the home up until I was about 5 or 6. We moved to Brasil for a year when I was 8 and I barely remember anything from that trip. I really don't know either language today-- could this explain why I have no memories of those years? What if I re-learned those languages now, 30 years later? Would memories flood back?"