Kaz Riprock asks: "A few months ago, I was looking for a store where I could purchase AbraCabubble, a hard candy with gum center made by Brach's. I figured most manufacturers have a website with product locator and the closest store to me with Brach's bulk candy would do. After an hour or two probing the web with Google (like you needed the link), I was only able to come up with a few stock projections. This was amazing to me, because when I set out to find even the most obscure facts on the web, I usually don't come back quite so empty-handed, especially when looking for a presence for the third largest candy manufacturer in the US. Since then, they've put up a website. It's true that a business could get by without a web presence in this day and age, but what's the likelihood? What's the largest business that you sought lately to find an official page on and came up without anything to show for your efforts? Have they since come around and put a page up? I think it'd be interesting to keep a page (or even use this article) of companies that you should not expect to find a page on, so that at the very least, you'd find that page and know to stop looking. Thoughts?"

A Worried Parent asks: "My 6yo daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD and is currently taking a certain stimulant whose name starts with R. I don't like it, but for the moment her happiness has improved, as opposed to when she's not medicated where she appears unhappy and frustrated with her inability to find her way in the world. She's sat through an IQ test, and the result was 147, which means she's better at doing IQ tests than 99.9% of 6 year olds. I wasn't that surprised but her teachers were, she's very clever but has difficulty following instructions - which is kind of a requirement in a classroom environment. If she's in a group of kids being given instructions she'll be looking at something else, playing with the grass, singing quietly to herself, etc. She'll suddenly become aware of all the kids wandering off to follow said instructions and then panic because she wasn't paying attention. In a group of people her attention just sort of switches off. I don't think this is something she can change. Any thoughts on how to help? Don't bother quoting the books on this one, i'm after first hand experiences. (i've read enough books :p)"

lyapunov asks: "I have been trying to become more learned on the issues surrounding gun control and crime. I have had quite a time searching the internet for references about these issues. Practically everything that I have found has been written for, or is a study funded by, one of the groups that hold extreme viewpoints on the subject, e.g. the NRA or the Brady Foundation. The same holds true for references that I have found in our library. I was wondering if any of the members of the slashdot community have come across articles that are objective in dealing with these subjects, and I would also ask what ideas the members of this community have about this issue and what FACTS they can offer to support their ideas."

mad.frog asks: "I recently upgraded my ancient version of Quicken to the latest (Macintosh) version, with the intention of being able to download my credit card transactions directly from my bank into Quicken, rather than entering all that stuff by hand. As it turns out, almost no banks support doing this for non-Windows platforms (not surprisingly, Intuit doesn't point this out on the package). But here's the weird part: the information downloaded is just an xml-like text file (.QFX). Anyone know how (or why) they would make such a generic file platform-specific -- what business advantage does Intuit (or my bank) have in restricting how I use this information? Also, does anyone happen to know details of this (apparently undocumented, Intuit-specific) format so that I can hack mine into submission and use this data anyway, even if it's not on my bank's Platform Of Choice?"

elmore asks: "I was watching television tonight and saw a commercial for the new MSN web TV device. Normally I completely dismiss anything Microsoft comes up with but this seems pretty nifty. I like this device because my grandparents and my mother are fairly...'challenged'...when it comes to the internet. Sticking with my gut, I'd like to ask the Slashdot community what web TV devices you've seen and/or given to your internet 'challenged' family or friends."

Wakko Warner asks: "So anyway, I was on IRC the other day (as I am often wont to do), and, as I was being banned from the network for not running 'identd', I thought to myself: 'Why do we still use this???' Can anyone come up with a valid reason why, in 2002, ident is still considered by some people to be a necessary component of the Internet? Most people use Windows for everything, and Windows has no identity services. Most UNIX folks I know disable it for security reasons. So, why do people still insist we run it in order to connect to their network? Is it still 1993 in some part of the world?"

Fiscus asks: "Alcohol is a part of most peoples lives, and I'm sure many Slashdot readers rely on a couple of 'cleansing ales' as the week draws to an end. While most of us drink alcohol, not many decide to start brewing their own - now is your chance! And if you already homebrew, a new forum has been setup to speak with fellow brewers. Homebrewing can open up a whole variety of benefits; brew your favourite beer, experiment, make rocket fuel, as well as impressing friends. The new forum, is Australian based, however everyone is welcome and I would love to see some Slashdot readers down there sharing advise/tips/recipes for the christmas homebrewing season! Happy Homebrewing!"

Richard C asks: "I've just seen, for the first time, the newest AOL advert on UK television. One section depicts a man phoning AOL to ask for a free CD. As he speaks, he picks up his coffee mug, to which an AOL CD is stuck - he's been using it as a coaster. "Oh, don't worry - I've already got one" he adds. The irony of this amused me, to say the least, thought probably not in the way AOL intended. In any case, and in the true '101 uses for a dead cat' style, I thought it would be amusing (if not productive) to ask the Slashdot readership for their '101 uses for an AOL CD'. Be imaginative!"

cafebabe asks: "My mother has severe arthritis and must do a lot of her shopping online since it is painful for her to walk. Since she also has trouble typing, she needs a program to help her fill out all of the data entry fields on web sites. When I was home over Thanksgiving, I saw that my mother had Gator on her computer. I uninstalled it, explained spyware to her, and installed RoboForm, which I had heard good things about. RoboForm ended up causing her computer to crash so my father uninstalled it. Is RoboForm really the best thing out there or do any of you know of something better?"

Unknown Relic asks: "Our company has large quantities of old, MS Word documents which we are looking to permanently archive. One of the requirements of our archiving process is that the documents be stored in plain text format. Unfortunately we also have another, conflicting requirement: the text files must retain basic formatting information from the original documents, including bullets, indentations and basic table layout. While all of this formatting is possible using plain text, I have not been able to find any tools which do a decent job of retaining the above mentioned formatting during conversion. Even Word's 'Save As' option does a horrible job, though I suppose that's not overly surprising. Has anyone undertaken a project similar to this before? If so, what tools did you find or create to make the job feasible?"

garyebickford asks: "I've been using Quickbooks 2001 for a long time, sending out invoices via email. A couple of months ago it asked if I wanted to do an online update - these occurred occasionally and I agreed. There was no information regarding what the update would do, although IIRC there was some mention of 'new features' and 'improvements'. Since that time, it is now impossible to either fax or email an invoice without signing up for Quickbook's 'Online Business Member' program since it appears to use their own mail server. Membership is free for now, but the required click-agreement forces me to agree in advance to any future fees! I have no interest in letting Intuit know about my invoices and other financial information. As a result, this software is essentially useless and I must find a new accounting package. I've looked at various OSS packages but haven't found one that has developed far enough to use in this way. But there are many out there and I haven't kept up to date, so maybe someone else out there can suggest something. I'd prefer using it on Linux, of course. I'd also be interested if this loss of functionality would be sufficient to consider a class action suit to recover costs of conversion." The issue at hand is that commercial software has started to force consumers to fall into such schemes to maintain features that they already had. Today it is Quickbooks, but what about tomorrow?

onenil asks: "I'm a guy who has sort of fallen into IT from a young age, but was also quite heavily into music when I was younger. I now want to spark up my interest in music again as I want to broaden my horizons, and I figure the best way to do it is with my PC. I've started looking around for hardware and software, and have come to the conclusion that the best option is to buy a simple MIDI keyboard for music input (which just takes the keys you play and sends em off to the computer, with no in-built synthesizer) and a really kick-ass software package to do all the sound processing. Are there any musicians out there who can shed some light on this area?"

DosGusanos asks: "I was curious how much people around the U.S. and around the world pay for hosting. Obviously size in cabinets/rack units/square feet, included features such as bandwidth, UPS/generator, management, etc. factor in. The configuration I am particularly interested in is three machines, one www, one search, and one database. The machines would be hooked up to a T1 and networked to one another over Ethernet. Anyone paying for colo or hosting in this same ballpark? How happy/upset are you with your provider?"

FosterSJC asks: "I go to St. John's College, Annapolis, home of the Great Books Program, for almost 70 years. This neoclassical method of education was developed and instituted in the late '30s by Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan. We have a set syllabus that every student reads in a set order of the course of his/her four years at the college - all primary sources and in all subjects, Lab, Math, Language, Music, and Seminar. Taking a hint, partially, from the OSS CD thread a few weeks back, and this thread, I would like any and all advice about compiling a CD to give to freshman, and anyone else for that matter, containing as many of the Great Books as possible. Since most all are in the public domain (very few 20th century authors), the trick would be finding them, sorting them, organizing them, and making sure you have the highest quality translations as well (the biggest problem with the Public Domain versions of these books). Please help."

desau asks: "In the never ending quest to build a better MP3 player for my car, I've decided that I would like to be able to punch in letters via my IR remote. The only problem is that I can't find an IR remote with letters. I'm distinctly trying to stay away from the number pads with letters overloaded (such as phone pads) as they prove to difficult while driving. Also, it needs to work with the IRDA standard and work with LIRC. Anyone out there know where to look?"

mmol_6453 asks: "I have the opportunity to submit a plan for a week-long class about 'Alternative Operating Systems' to our local community college's Computer Camp. The students will be aged 8-16. We've had classes attended by students who used Linux, but we've never set up a class with alternatives as options. We've found that students in this age range, when interested in the material, can absorb a great deal of information in a short time. This means there's a lot of potential to teach them about Linux, *BSD, and open-source. We often get extremely bright students here, the kind who are likely to go out and earn $80,000/yr in a post-90s economy. Some of them are even on Slashdot. I want to give the rest a boost in the right direction."

Xochi77 asks: "As a Geek and a Backpacker, my laptop travels where ever I go, but now that I'm planning a trip through remote regions of South America and Africa, I'm starting to wonder where I'm going to get my power from. How has the Slashdot community dealt with powering high-tech gear in third world countries? I'm especially interested in alternative power sources, like solar cells and wind-up generators etc, but they will have to fit in my backpack!"

PDiddy asks: "Working for a corporation which uses Exchange 2000, I have run into countless traveling users with laptops that have complaints about how their mail is received from the outside vs. inside. Most of these users have a 56k or less dialup when on the road, so having them connect with an Exchange profile is incredibly slow, even with 'Offline Folders' enabled. The second option is to have two profiles. One for Exchange (Inside), and have it default to delivering to a PST. The second profile (Outside) be setup for POP and set it to the same PST. On the surface, this solution looks great to the user, but the ability to nightly backup the mail on the exchange server is removed. The third option would be to have a combination of the two approaches, the difference being the exchange profile (Inside), would leave the mail on the server, but then you have users complaining about having to sort through their new mail twice. What I need is a good, all around solution. Perhaps their are some third-party plugins for outlook I am unaware of to create a new solution? Also, are their any recommended methods for accessing an Exchange global address book over a very slow connection, or, perhaps syncing updates to laptop while connected so it can be used on the road? Currently, if you export that address book, it will set the email addresses to X.400, which will not work from a POP profile."

madax asks: "Well..yeah..I am doing some graduate level research in identifying choke points in the electronics supply chain, trying to identify critical materials used in the electronics industry, critical processes owned by maybe a select few players and potential information distortion mechanisms that could be used by a few select players in the supply chain to disrupt the entire industry. Can anyone help me by pointing to interesting examples from your experience?"

Quixote asks: "''Black Friday' is about over now. Though I wasn't among the faithful who queued up to get into the stores, I could see massive traffic jams in the local Best Buy, Target, etc. on my drive in to work. But it looks like the online offerings of some of the retailers are also pretty much slashdotted (I'm downloading a 500KB rebate form from CompUSA rebate center at the blazing speed of 800bytes/sec as I submit this story). So, how many of you avoided the long checkout lines and used the 'net instead? What are your experiences? What 'killer' deals did you get online, that you wouldn't have gotten in the store? And what are your thoughts on this whole phenomenon: why shouldn't the stores just get rid of this 'lets open the store at an unearthly hour' practice, and just move all of the 'Black Friday' sales online?"