dmayle asks: "I've decided to do some Mac-based database development, and, since Apple was kind enough to include ODBC Administrator, I decided to use that as a starting point. The only problem is, there doesn't seem to be ANY documentation anywhere about it. I know that PostgreSQL for Mac includes an ODBC driver, but again, I can's seem to find out any docs on how to use it... Are there any developers using this tool out there, and where did you learn how to do it?"

RJV asks: "I currently have a rather large digital music collection. It is all in mp3 or ogg format and it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends. I have built a rather cheap mp3 server to store all of the music on and I listen to it on my machines rather easily. However, I'm looking for a better solution for accessing and playing from the archive in my living room. I currently have a linux box that uses the TV as a monitor. I can use it fine to play mp3/ogg files through the home theater, but mostly because I know where the buttons are in xmms. (640x480 isn't the best resolution for xmms). I've looked into multiple other projects, such as Aurian Music Manager and Freevo (the computer also has a TV in card) but have not been satisfied with their performance and/or ease of use, especially when trying to use my Universal Remote Control. So, I've decided that perhaps the best course of action for the living room is to purchase a stand-alone component that will integrate with my current system. What are my options and are there any experiences within the community with these products?"

omega_cubed asks: "'You've successfully installed FreeBSD, now your computer is going to hang at boot up!' -- That was what I just recently suffered. I've been running Mandrake on my ThinkPad X20 for almost a year. But the lack of high speed internet connection over the summer prevented me from keeping up with the various patches/updates. Many services--sendmail, apache, etc.--were shutdown one by one because of security vulnerabilities. Recently I decided that instead of trying to catch all those patches I missed in the last few months, I might just as well do a clean install of FreeBSD. I've done what I think was all the preparations necessary: I backed-up all my files, checked all the hardwares for possible conflicts (on FreeBSD.org) and supports, downloaded the ISO image. And I decided the computer should be able to take it. Unfortunately, I didn't come across the old slashdot article reporting a possible conflict between IBM ThinkPad's BIOS and FreeBSD's filesystem. So last night, after much struggling, I installed FreeBSD. It finished, rebooted, and the computer now just hangs at bootup (here's a more detailed report on what happened). It doesn't even go into BIOS. Does anyone have experience dealing with this? Is there anyway I can update the BIOS? The diskettes provided IBM were not able to boot the computer, and I am at a loss here. Thanks."

DanCracker asks: "I've just inherited a 34 lb metorite from my grandfather. As a child, I was alwasy fascinated by it, but never developed my intrest. As much as this means to me, I've got little need nor room for such a thing. What is the next course of action I should take? Contact labs or universities? Post it on eBay? Help!"

jdedman4 writes "According to Junkbusters, various civil lawsuits against Spammers have used a number of theories, including the analogizing of junk email to junk faxes. As there have been a number of "IANAL, but . . ." discussions of late, I was curious as to which legal theories, if any, you all thought might work against spammers. Does the fact that a spammer deluges us all with automated commercial email subject him and his enterprise to personal jurisdiction in the courts of the fifty states? What torts do the spammers commit (intentional affliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, false light, nuisance, et cetera?) Might an unfair trade practices lawsuit be brought? Is state or federal law a better weapon? Why haven't the legislatures been more active in this area? It seems like this is a pure public relations winner for a media-conscious political figure - everyone hates spammers. If this is such a widespread and pernicious menace(which of course it is), why hasn't some enterprising young plaintiff's attorney filed a class action suit? Is it that the spammers are essentially judgment proof, or that they are difficult to find, or all of the law is analagous but not directly helpful?"

kyala asks: "I am finishing up a seven-year BS in a degree program that I designed but can't come up with a name for. Going through my school's interdisciplinary studies department, I designed a degree that combines physics, botany, and computer programming. The degree is great and I love what I study. The only problem is that I need to come up with a title for it and am stumped. So, of course, I'm turning to slashdot for suggestions. Not only will you be repaid in karma, but I'll give royalties on any spontaneous donations made at commencement out of sheer delight at the name of my degree. Some details: I pretty much have carte blanche, so, besides unimaginative profanities, don't inhibit yourself. Of course, ideally, I'm going for accuracy. Barring that, obscurity will do. Some of the candidates so far: 'Techno-Botanical Inevitabilities', 'Quantum Astrobiology', 'Heuristic Ontologies', 'The Degree Formerly Known as Everything', 'Inevitable Prolificity'. One guy even suggested I forego words and try an interpretive dance."

Just Alex asks: "I just got Comcast High-Speed Internet service, and found out that just up to a few months ago they were recording the actions of all of their users and saving it for who knows what. Now I'm thinking about getting an 'anonymous' service like anonymizer.com, but I wonder what other folks are using. Are all of these services the same? What should I be looking for? And what people recommend given their experience with them? Also, which ones play better with Linux?"

stone22 asks: "My company has decided to install a gigabit link. This will be initially used only for testing purposes, and on the longterm as a backbone for our corperate network. We allready decided to use copper, but what standard ? I've heard about problems using cat 7 cables (cross talk, bulky cables, non-standard connectors) so I could really use some hints from all you cabling experts out there."

lunatech3007 asks: "I am writing a paper on the use of free software in e-Governance. I plan to submit this paper to " National Conference on e-Governance" (more information on e-Governance) . I am writing a section on the countries which have successfully adopted free software for e-governance or for government related works. I am looking for articles/websites/papers where they give their experiences while using it. Also in March 2002 RMS presented a paper on `Free Software and Relevance to India` in Banglore, India. I have not been able to get this paper online. Can anyone give pointers where I can get hold of this paper? Any help in this regard will be greatly appreciated and acknowledged."

reversedNormal asks: "I would like to write a full fledged 3d-Animation Software package from scratch. Yes, I know, a VERY daunting and time consuming task. But I have a very good understanding of 3D mathematics, physics, and computer graphics in general, plus a solid foundation in computer programming. To give you an idea, this package will be similar to Maya, 3DS Max, etc... in many respects. The question is, what is the best programming paradigm to use for such a project? I have all of the major concepts, and relationships in mind, but refuse to write one line of code until I have a good design plan. How does a professional programmer approach this design task? Ultimately I would like to be able to tie it into any number of different operating systems, graphics API's (OpenGL, DirectX, etc..), and so on. What are some good ways to do this?"

ericdano asks: "Addonics has announced a pair of SCSI solutions, which convert common ATAPI devices and IDE hard drives to high-speed SCSI devices on all Windows, Macintosh, and Linux-based computers: the IDE-SCSI converter ($100) for hard drives and the ATAPI-SCSI converter ($110) for ATAPI-based CDRW, DVD-R/RW, DVD-ROM or CD-ROMs. The company has also announced a high-performance single-channel Ultra160 SCSI PCI host controller ($170) with 160MB/sec. data throughput. How safe are these products?"

theinfobox asks: "Is anyone else burned out on tech jobs? Or, has anyone tired of the never ending hunt for tech position? I know a lot of people who have and they are now looking at other career fields. I am almost at that point myself. What career fields are you considering after leaving the tech industry?"

An anonymous reader asks: "So here I am with yet another computer book (Network Programming with Perl) and a pending case of neck, back and eye strain as I try and juggle the book and the keyboard and try to keep an eye on what's on the monitor. I've tried all sorts of ways to try and wade through a book and type in the various examples but everything is a bit of a kludge. I'm hoping to learn what creative methods for integrating books and computers that folks have come up with. There has to be ways to keep the juggling acts and the assorted cramps and aches to a minimum."

zaqattack911 asks: "In the workplace today it is becoming more and more common for everyday applications to be accessible over the web. Just about all the booking and tracking systems at my job are handled via web-apps these days. Along with this trend, is the increased need for secure transactions over the web. Just about all of the apps on my webserver are going to be SSL only. Some of them are for internal use only, some for the outside internet to use. Is there a cheap alternative to getting your certificates signed? Self signing my certificates works of course, but just about all browsers make a big fuss about it. Verisign asks for about 400$ initially, and 300$ to renew a certificate every year. This seems like a scam to me, and I'd love to know if anyone knows of alternatives out there? Is there a way to get around the certificate signing business? I looked at a company called RSA Security which allows a company to 'self sign' and use their accepted signature. The website doesn't mention the price, and I'm sure it's not very affordable. What else is there?"

Black_Macrame asks: "I have recently moved from 10 years of working with the net in various capacities (read all) to a slightly more analog field. I am now the curator of a Historical Site in Texas which is essentially, a relatively isolated, old (1875) family home. It once was a school, and is now currently a tax shelter for the family, and a fertile wildlife sanctuary. No-one has opened many of the drawers of the furniture here since they were last shut. There are letters of love, war, death, and all the usual human experiences, plus alot of antiques and many old books. It's a big historical database and I want to archive -everything- digitally: letters, furniture, books, 360 VRML of the rooms and even old 78 rpm records. Does anyone out there have any experience with similar projects? Any suggestions for tracking the antiques (books, furniture, knick-knacks) online? Suggestions for archiving the 78's? Anything in general?"

wowbagger asks: "I have the (mis)fortune to be working on a commercial product that will contain encryption/decryption capability. Since the product is targeted for export as well as use within the US, I get to file with the various TLAs showing my product isn't going to destroy the world. Joy. Does anybody else have experience in this? Yes, the ITAR regs aren't merely a case of 'locking the barn door after the horse has fled', but rather 'locking the barn door after the horse has fled, raised a family, evolved into sentience, developed technology, come back with flamethrowers, burned the barn to the ground, sown the lot with salt, and left for another star system'. But unfortunately I have to comply. So, does anybody else have any experience with this process?" A better place to ask this would be the cypherpunks or wasabisystems.com crypto mailing lists...

sholgate asks: "I've been asked to look into implementing a paperless office under Linux. We receive emails, letters, word documents, PDFs etc and need a way of converting and storing them in a way that provides easy searching and accessing. We've been offered two Windows solutions, one based on Canon ScanFile and the other using Lotus Notes. My office went with Canon back in 1995 and now has a load of unreadable CDs as the original software was DOS based doesn't seem to work under Win98/XP. We now face paying for conversion to the new system plus new license fees. We are primarily Linux/Unix based here so Windows is inconvenient and history has shown that a closed product is not a good solution. I favour having a directory browsing system based on thumbnails (such as nautilus or konqueror) and searching with grep, but I can see the benefits of more complex systems that store a database of search terms etc. Have other Slashdotters thought about paperless offices? What answers did you come up with?"

Untimely Ripp'd asks: "Satellite broadband has been available to PC users for half a decade, and still is not trivially available to Mac users. It can be done, but it's always an unsupported hack, or it requires buying expensive extra hardware and software. I cannot understand why Hughes and the other providers would refuse to spend the relatively few dollars necessary to develop a couple of device drivers and glue libraries. Time after time, the vendors have said, 'it's coming,' but it never does, and the promise eventually goes away. (Earthlink's FAQ page no longer says that Mac software is being developed, for example). I'm not gung-ho on conspiracy theories, but the only explanation I can figure is that they're either being paid or bullied. Does anyone know of any serious tech hurdle that would make it cost more than $100K or so to develop the necessary software?" this article mentions one-way Mac service coming online from OWC in a future expansion, along with nationwide service. A comment from that story does mention a simple solution, but why is it that Satellite service, even one way satellite service, depends on Windows-only software? What other solutions have Mac users resorted to when they wanted their Macs connected?

Trak asks: "I've always been fascinated by Japanese culture and would love to spend a few years living there. Making a long story, short: my wife just left and I've got some savings, so I'm considering the move. I have a some jobs here in The States that I could rely on for telecommuting work, but I'd rather find a job there in The Land of the Rising Sun. Any advice on where to look and what to pursue? Any horror stories? I've done it all from System Admin to Programming to CTO, so I'm open to just about anything that's available, I just don't know where to begin looking. Thanks."

rhost89 asks: "I'm a hobbyist OS Developer and am appalled at the obscurity and availability of some of the specs sheets for various device groups, specifically video cards. If we want to write video drivers we are almost forced into writing for VESA or for cards that were obsolete 5 years ago, meaning high resolutions that run like a dog, or blazingly fast at 640x480 at 256 colors. Most manufactures hold on to their engineering spec sheets like pirate holds on to their gold doubloons (NVIDIA, and ATI come to mind, here). Other manufactures are quite happy to provide the specs for their devices, such as Intel and Matrox. My question is what can hobbyist OS developers do to get these coveted spec sheets. Would petitions help or would it be an exercise in futility. What else can we do to free this valuable information besides reverse engineering the manufactures binaries?" It's funny how the more things have changed over the last five years, the more things stay the same.