MobyDisk asks: "Both myself and my roommate have experienced problems with unreliable fans on video cards, leading to fried video chips. Most cards don't have full-size 12V fans, even though they put out a lot of heat. I've resorted to replacing the fans with cheap upgrades. A search for '"video card fan' on Google reveals lots examples of this problem as well as fan upgrade kits. I want to know how common this problem is. Have other readers experienced problems with video card fans? Should video card manufacturers start using better fans for reliability? Or do they just want us to upgrade next year when the fan dies?"

cyclops asks: "I have been contemplating about going for LASIK surgery for a couple of years. I want to get rid of my dependency on glasses or lenses because I really find them cumbersome. The main thing that is stopping me now is that like you, programming is my livelihood and thus I spent a major part of my day staring into the monitor. I have readthat there is always a certain percentage of patients not regaining 20/20 vision but it's OK for them since most of them don't need that sharp vision during work. I am about to consult with a LASIK surgeon but I would love to hear anecdotal evidence about your experiences, to hear if it works out for you eventually. (I have stable myopia of -5.50 and astimagtism of -1.00 for 3 years already)." Ask Slashdot has handled this issue in the past in two previous articles: this one from 1999, and a related article from 2000. With at least 2 years since the last time this question was posed, how has medical technology improved in this aspect? For those unwilling or unable to take advantage of Laser Surgery, have other viable alternatives arisen in the past two years?

jtauber asks: "With RIAA's new campaign to 'educate' people that unauthorized downloads of music are illegal and with the range of artists who are endorsing the campaign, I thought it would be interesting to ask the question: which well-known artists (if any) go against the RIAA and are _in favour_ of music swapping? Certainly many unsigned bands like my own encourage it, but what about those signed with major record labels?" We did a question along a similar veign not too long ago, except its focus was non-RIAA Record Labels. What artists are you aware of (popular or not) who have come out in favor of music-swapping?

g8orade asks: "I belong to Photo.net, a community photography site that promotes exchange among 'serious-minded' (sometimes) photographers. A key facet is that members review and rank others' photos and can then search for the best, worst, most viewed, by topic, etc. There are plenty of other sites like this, Slashdot itself relies on users' contributions for its content. Is anyone a member of a community, database driven site like this that -also- acts as a catalog, allowing members to sell their digital content at prices set by them or the site, paid up front--not after the fact like shareware, with a cut of the transaction going to the site's hosters?"

xirlosan writes "I'd like to get a job working in a UNIX environment, be it programming or administrating UNIX machines. My question is this: What skills are absolutly 'must haves' and what other skills are attractive to employers when looking for a job in this field? I have my BS in Computer Science and have a fair amount of experience with Linux and Solaris, so I'm interested in what more I need. I looked for jobs at Monster, and there are so many skills the recommend it's hard to figure out what the most critical are. Any help would be certainly appreciated."

Toshito asks: "I found that I have several CD's with HDCD encoding. I understand that these CD's contain a 20 bits stream encoded in the 16 bits (the original signal is truncated at 15 bits). A standard CD player will play the 15 bits version, but you have to get a HDCD compatible player to access the 20 bits version. My question is: do you know of any way to decode this stream on a computer with software only? Is the decodind method secret and only available in chip (hardware) form?"

Dr_Harm asks: "I recently had the misfortune to encounter a CEO who had just received the Klez virus. Apparently, he believed the 'From:' header and accused me of not only authoring the virus, but deliberately and maliciously targeting him and his organization. Normally, clueless people like this don't bother me, except he was inclined to sue me and report me to the FBI. Of course, he's got more money and lawyers than I do, and could probably have made me miserable even though I'm completely innocent... but it raises the question: How do I know when I need a lawyer?"

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm a computer lab assistant at a small state college, and as such I help students with their MS Office coursework. This coursework is designed to make them operable in the open market, and help familiarize them with the word processing / spreadsheet environment. Unfortunately, it gives them a one sided perspective from a Microsoft standpoint, and the text is very unclear on the assignments. Are there any suite-independent, clear textbooks on word processing available out there?"

Josh Berkus asks: "One of my clients would love to convert their entire office to Linux. But one thing keeps them tied to a NetWare file server: a little utility called 'Filer' Filer allows the sysadmins to retrieve deleted and overwritten files, up to a week after the event. With 70 secretaries using that server, that ability is crucial. I've looked around the Internet, but cannot find anything quite equivalent in the Linux world, except maybe hourly backups and that's a pain. What the client really needs is a utility/mod for the filesystem or network layer that archives files instead of over-writing or deleting them. I had one kernel hacker offer to write me something like that, but my client does not want to be a test case. Note, that we have nothing against Netware, it's just that this client has historically not been able to get good Novell support. Anybody know anything that's already in production like this? Is Reiser working on this for ReiserFS?" This sounds deceptively easy. If this was a personal machine, this would be easy, but the showstopper is that this has to work as a share meaning that this "trashcan" like functionality needs to be implemented at the filesystem level. While I can understand the submittors desire to not be a test case, if there doesn't exist a ready-made solution to this particular problem, how difficult would it be to add this on to ext2/ext3, Reiserfs or some other suitable open source filesystem and test it for reliability?

streamViewer asks: "I'm planning to move in the near future from the US to Singapore where private satellite dish ownership is against forbidden and all television service is delivered by a state-owned monopoly. However, in this particular country, while English language television programming is limited and highly censored, Internet service is plentiful and for the most part unregulated To get around this problem, I'm considering installing a dish on a friend's house, paying for DSL service there and setting up a computer to allow me to both control the dish/receiver and to stream video to me in Asia. Video could either be real-time, or probably more realistic given the nature of overseas Net traffic, stored using a software-based DVR. What hardware/software solution would you envision for this task? Are you aware of anyone else doing this? Do you have any thoughts on which satellite services would have the most permissible licensing restrictions to allow me to do this? And finally, am I a fool to think this is really a loophole in their regulatory policy? Are there any other reasons why I shouldn't do this? Thanks in advance."

An anonymous reader asks: "I am a high school senior this year and I have been considering a year off before college. Is this a wise move? If you took a year off, were you still able to get into the school you wanted? I have been asking around and everyone tells me it is a horrible move; however, the people who say this are the ones who did not take a year off."

davodavodavo asks: "I'm a market researacher looking for any industry data on the costs of administering UNIX, Linux and Wintel server farms. I've got the overview stuff (Gartner grp), but I'm looking to build a fairly detailed cost model. Specific focus are the activities of server configuration management -- binary images, software distribution, and application deployment. How frequently does some part of a server's software stack have to be updated / upgraded? Any data along the following lines will be appreciated: amount of time it takes an admin to update 50 machine; frequency of distribution or configuration error requiring a roll-back to a previous configuration; average time to perform a rollback; and so forth. If anyone knows of a good detailed model on this topic, please send pointers! I will happily provide the results of my work to the slashdot community (if you are interested, please email me). Basically, I am simply trying to understand the economics behind server management."

semanticgap asks: "I am thinking of putting together a PC based home entertainment system (media server in the basement talking to various computers around the house and controllable via some sort of a remote control device, etc.) as a fun project with emphasis on writing software. I've been reading up on the current state of affairs, and it looks like the protocol for this sort of a thing is UPnP (Universal Plug-n-Pray). It seems to provide all the functionality I want, but I don't like the fact that it is developed by Microsoft, nor do I like it in general - it relies heavily on things like UUID's, HTTPMU and other Microsoft-ish hacks. So I thought I'd ask Slashdot community - is UPnP going to gain acceptance, or are there alternatives to it?"

theirpuppet asks: "I've hit every job site I can find, and it's pretty much impossible to find an honest one. Dice displays the same ads regardless of whether you want the last day's postings or the last week's. Monster sells your email addy to every spammer in the universe. The other ones lie about the amount of viable postings that they have, or they just rip them from Dice/Monster. Where are the honest ones, worth visiting? Yes I know the tricks, don't give your email addy out, apply to the companies directly. But it's not the point. Spending hours a day combing through the same ads over and over in search of one that might be new is ridiculous!"

vrmlguy writes "I've seen recent posts about low-power, off-grid computing and about small systems, but neither quite captures the object of my desire. I'm looking for the ideal LAMP-based server for home use. Cost of ownership (though not TCO!) is one of my primary concerns, followed closely by reliability. Here's my idea of the perfect server. The software requirements are easy. I want to run Slash, WIKI and/or blogging software that I and my family can access worldwide. The system should be able to keep up with requests coming in via DSL or cable-modem, but doesn't need to withstand slashdotting. There are Linux-based systems available for under $200, which appeal to me as a low-cost base. I would want to add at least one additional disk for OS-level RAID. Also, since this is a server, it will need to be available 24x7, which could run up my electric bill. Therefore, I'm willing to spend a bit more for something that supports a 'napping' mode that can, say, spin down the disks and slow down the CPU, but still respond to web-page requests. Are there systems available that do what I need at a price I can afford?"

6footblondwhiteguy asks: "Having just finished a major system design review at work, I have collected many of what I call GFAR (Go Fetch a Rock). These are pointless, time-wasting actions, proposed by the clueless executives invited to these reviews... e.g. 'This other project is using SUN servers, see if you can use theirs'. I instantly know the answer to each of the GFAR's: (not in this lifetime, no way, or sometime after the sun burns out). So, how do you avoid your boss's boss's boss's newest bright idea without either highlighting it's futility or arguing its merit in a public forum? Surely the Slashdot community has some wise architects that have strategies for deflecting these actions. I suspect the window of avoidance to be about one minute (before it's written down)."

Boiotos asks: "I'm cooking up a CD-ROM image of excellent Win32 Open Source software to give to friends and family who are intrigued by the whole OSS movement but don't know where to start. I figure once they're used to Mozilla and AbiWord under WinXP, a Linux partition would be less daunting. So fellow Slashdotters, how about it: what Win32 OSS projects deserve a place on the 650 Mb of Solid Gold? Remember, this is for non-geeks and families, so Cygwin is out (even though I love it) and games are in. Extra points, as always, to the obscure but beautiful. Finally, projects targeting only Win32 -- with no Free Unix crossover -- may apply, but will be subject to a strenuous physical test."

ttennebkram asks: "OLED's are the cool technology behind the new displays that will be bright, thin, and energy efficient. I bought my Motorola Timeport back in 2001 and LOVE it. Lots more products were supposed to be on the market by now. I was disapointed that the new Handspring Treo's don't use it, instead opting for the old fashioned color LCD's. Searches on Google return the hype from 2 years ago, but very little recent info. Any word on upcoming handhelds or cellphones using this technology? Thanks."

heytal asks: "Yes, It's old news, and you all have been to Google News at least once. And yes, it crawls Slashdot and considers it as one of the news sources too ;-).This article is an interesting article on how things work, and how Google News would change the industry. What I want to ask the Slashdot users is their experience with Google News, how much they use it, and how has it changed their news surfing habbits?"

Hank asks: "I work for Hewlett-Packard and just recently installed my first SAN at a customer site. It was much fun, I was blown away by the ease of the storage device management and the allocation of storage space across the systems. Being a professional environment, it was high-available, ran over FibreChannel through switched fabric, and cost upwards of US$250k -- not really affordable for most households. Roughly at the same time I started looking at IEEE 1394 cards for some video-editing, and an idea came up: Would it be possible to build a lowcost SAN based on Firewire cards, hubs and devices? How would storage device mgmt look like (the (de-)allocating of LUNs / slices / partitions)? What about support of multiple OS's on the SAN? How about this: would it be possible to create a Linux-based disk-array with an IEEE1394 interface (Old P200, crammed with disks, software RAID, lots of RAM for caching, Firewire interface, looking/acting like a single disk to the outside world, storage device mgmt via web-frontend)?"