Saqib Ali asks: "This week I saw a demo of the Tagless Editor by i4i. The editor is a plugin to Microsoft Word, which can be used to create XML based content. The plugin can handle various custom DTDs. However it can not properly handle the DocBook DTD. I was wondering if there is any WYSIWYG XML editor that can be used to edit DocBook DTD based content? Any ideas?"

TAL asks: "With Dell entering the market with their new PDA, the PDA market appears saturated. I work in a high-tech industry and I see more people carrying their PDAs than actually using them. At the same time, I see many people actually going back to their paper planners. I've ran the PDA gauntlet myself and have found that much time is wasted syncing, charging and reinstalling the software. Have there been any studies on PDA turnover? I think the PDA has become more of a status symbol than a useful tool."

Rudyatek asks: "When it comes to desktop OSs, there has been much talk about 'the end of the desktop', 'reinventing the GUI', etc. Usability has become increasingly important as we battle the ugly UIs of Windows and X11, and watch companies like Red Hat and Ximian try to improve them. But I'm curious if anyone has any clear ideas on what a truly 'better' UI would really be like? As a hobby OS programmer I have a great interest in alternative OS ideas, and this is one that I hear more complaining about than actual ideas. Anyone have ideas?"

Matey-O asks: "Having purchased a MiniDV camcorder for the impending arrival of my twins (I suspect a majority of camcorder sales HAVE to be bought by new parents), I also purchased the firewire connection kit. Based on the software estimates on how much uncompressed video can be stored on the harddisk, it looks like a 60 minute MiniDV cassette holds about 15 Gb. Since the PC can control the camera, and the transfer is billed as lossless, has any work been done on using MiniDV as a backup medium? One Cassette looks like it'd store ALL of my important info, and at $5 per, it'd be pretty economical too." Reading this definition, it looks like the submitter may be mistaken about the 15GB size, and the Backfire pages at Sourceforge indicate a more realistic figure of 12GB. Backfire itself looks like it might be the project the Matey-O wants, but the last update is from April of 2000. Has anyone taken up this idea and tried this particular backup path, before? Is it a practical alternative to your standard computer tape drives?

DNapalm asks: "I work at a small local ISP that is in desperate need of a firewall. We don't have much of a budget, so a hardware-based solution (which I'd prefer) really isn't an option. I've been searching around the web for firewall distributions, and I know what I am looking for. I'd like a boot CD (no install required, no filesystem hacking, just reboot) that stores the configuration on a floppy (that we can easily write protect). It should have a web interface and be able to log to a hard drive or some other machine. Some distributions I've found that seem close are Sentry Firewall, Devil-Linux, NetBoz, ClosedBSD, and Keeper Linux. Has anyone used these? Can you give recommendations? Any help would be appreciated."

Another Web Monkey asks: "I am a typical geek. After working all day on the computer, I come home and get right back on the internet. But unlike my corporate office, I don't have multiple internet connections. I know there are others not happy with a single DSL/Cable connection, but can't afford T1's. Some dual broadband routers are starting to appear on the market. I want to know what others are doing to satisfy, even if temporarily, their cravings for faster connections at home? Has anyone tried these routers, or have another solution?"

GuNgA-DiN asks: "I would like to develop a prototype system for the Educational market using tablet PC's. I need to buy a few tablet PC's (with docking stations) and built-in wireless capability. Does anyone know where I could buy a barebones tablet PC kit? I don't want to spend $2,300 on one just to test out my idea. There are plenty of options available for end-users with pre-installed operating systems (read: WindowsXP Tablet edition). However, these are very expensive and will never make it to the low-cost Educational market. I need a barebones, build-it-yourself developer's kit that I can use to experiment with."

wrschaeffer asks: "On a ship (a vessel at sea) where a floating ground exists, we are running shielded Ethernet cable to connect between 5 and 10 PC in our LAN. We are unsure on the grounding requirement. ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) has no requirements concerning grounding of Ethernet cable (just smoke and waterproof standards). We have many possibilities: ground one end; ground every end; ground every end and install a isolation transformer at the punch-down block; or don't ground any end. What should we do?"

the-empty-string asks: "Technology fads come and go, but sometimes they do leave behind real systems supporting real business processes. There was a time when 'client/server' was all the rage, and today there are thousands of such systems still in use, happily serving HR departments, providing inventory management, or tracking complex production processes. These days, after 'reusable components', 'three-tier', 'J2EE', and other resume-enhancing keywords, the magic phrase is 'Web services'. Consequently, many companies think they must scrape their existing client/server applications, in order to "move them to the Web". While the advantages of exposing functionality to the outside world are beyond debate, does this mean perfectly good and working applications must be abandoned only because they are client/server, or do they still have a useful role to play? Also, what is the migration strategy you would recommend to your boss or your customer, when these systems have to be replaced no matter what?"

Deagol asks "I work for a good-sized University. I've heard that Tripwire and our software licensing department is negotiating for a site-license. I was asked to comment on whether our department would like to buy in. I personally lost interest in Tripwire when they went commercial (I guess seeing a well-respected research tool go proprietary soured the milk for me), and though I've toyed briefly with the 'open source' version, I mainly have experience with the Academic Source Release. Seeing how their demo is only a 'simulation' (how lame is that?), I can't get a feel for what the commercial version can really do for me. Does anyone know the value (if any) of commercial Tripwire over the free one; Are there open source packages that have made Tripwire obsolete?"

chadpnet asks: "While making the move from cubicle life to an office I have noticed that my walls are very bare. I went searching for BSD and Linux posters but couldn't find any. IS there not production of these posters or am I looking in the wrong place?"

DangerTenor asks: "As I flew around the world, lusting after my coworker's $300 BOSE Quiet Comfort Noise-cancelling headphones, I looked down at my laptop computer and noticed the built-in microphone. Has anyone written or considered writing software to run noise-cancellation based on the built-in mic?"

prec asks: "One of my goals for my post-university life is to start my own High Speed Internet provider. The plan is to find a decent sized residential area that does not currently have such a service available and start my business there. However, one major problem presents itself - How in the world could I start my own cable company? Would I actually have to lay my own cable lines and everything or do the big companies (such as Comcast) have services set up for people to start their own 'Comcast Franchise' type businesses? All feedback is appreciated."

slowtonejoe75 asks: "I have friends and family working as physicists for the government at national laboratories funded by your tax dollars. Since Bush has been in office, funding meetings for these labs with the DOE (Dept. of Energy) in Washington have turned up dry. The Bush administration is clearly not interested in hardcore research unless it has to do with missles, bio-chemistry, and security. I understand that there are some priorities in life but I see this whole focus shift with respect to funding to be a real step backwards as far as the advancement of science. I want to know where the Slashdot community would place funding if they had their way?"

SunPin asks: "I'm a writer that is 99% dependent, due to fine-motor disabilities, on voice dictation. I've been a dictation user since 1990. My preference is 'discrete' speech because of very low resource consumption and its effectively infinite flexibility. Over the years, my computer use has de-evolved to programming, FTP, email (Mozilla), word processing (OpenOffice) and Ricochet. Drop the game and there's nothing that I shouldn't be allowed to do on the go. The problem is that I can't. Back in 1990, the requirements for IBM VoiceType were: DOS, 8MB RAM, 10MB of drive space with one of those new-fangled scorching 386-16MHz processors... not exactly demanding by today's standards and, unless I'm outright wrong, not demanding by today's PDA standards. Why hasn't it occurred yet?"

denisonbigred asks: "With all of the talks about disarming Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and all of the news coming out about Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups use of technology, I tend to wonder what is being done about the possibility of informational warfare. There must be a few geeks over in Iraq, and angry, subversive, geeks must be at least as dangerous as Iraq's rag-tag army. Is this a legitimate concern, and does anyone know what, if anything, is being done to address it?"

jolly good asks: "Back in the good old days all CMOS were accessed exactly the same way because there was an agreed upon standard in place. These days, however, motherboard feature sets have expanded to the point where the old 128 byte CMOS standard is no longer adequate. This has lead to different proprietary methods to access the upper 128 bytes in CMOS as there isn't a standard for a 256 byte CMOS. What I'd like to know is how are OEM's handling duplicating CMOS settings across large numbers of machines on production lines?"

Wee asks: "I'm traveling to London (from the US) this coming Saturday. For various reasons I need to be able to stay occasionally connected to the Net while there. Instead of risking one of my daily-use laptops to the rigors of travel, I've built a working Toshiba 430CDT laptop from parts, purchased an appropriate power adapter, equipped it with an old modem/10mbps NIC (plus an Orinoco card, just because), searched Google for temporary two-week, UK-based dial-up accounts, only to find... nothing whatsoever. Zip, nada, nothing. Maybe AOL, but I'd have to think long and hard at giving them a credit card. I did find some companies that would sell me a monthly plan, but there were usually minimums. Does anyone know of 'temporary' dial-up accounts (with various local PoPs) in London? Failing that, does anyone know of an ISP I can sign up with for only one month?"

Missing Bookmarks asks: "I accidentally deleted my bookmarks. I lost my 'Lore' folder, where I was collecting links to the classic folklore of the computer science subculture - things like Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust, The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate, Dijkstra's Go To Statement Considered Harmful, and The Alice and Bob after-dinner speech. I don't need anything from The Jargon File (like The Story of Mel), because that stuff is obviously easy to find. I've listed all the things I could remember; please help me find the ones I've forgotten."

nicsterrr asks: "What does one do when a promising open source project stops dead with no word from the developer(s)? I have been considering contributing to a certain sorceforge hosted project over the past few months, but unfortunately all development seems to have stopped and the main developer has vanished (from the internet at least). I understand that the GPL states that GPL source code can be used in derived work if the licence is unchanged, but I am hesitant just to 'hijack' the work done by (it seems) just one person, without first having an understanding of what his thoughts are first. In addition, there are almost no supporting comments in the code, and no separate developer documentation. What would you do in this situation if you were interested in furthering the undocumented, unfinished, and currently abandoned work (which at first glance seems to have potential) of someone else, and your attempts to contact them have been in vain?"