nightrav asks: "I'm one of the systems administrators at a small ISP (about 20k customers) and we're currently looking on moving to a different Radius solution. Currently we are using Merit with LDAP which is proving to be extremely slow and causes a great deal of authentication issues if a Total Control chassis reboots or experiences some other problem that causes it to dump its users. We would like to use some sort of Radius/MySQL solution for authentication and accounting and were wondering what solutions the Slashdot community would recommend."

goldspider asks: "I hope this is received in the spirit it was intended in. In a recent Reuters article, the Internet as a whole has been referred to as 'collateral damage' of the U.S.-led War on Terrorism, because of the perceived loss in privacy and online rights as a result of post-9/11 legislation. I am curious to hear about some specific examples of how this legislation has personally or professionally affected the everyday lives of Slashdot readers."

NetworkAttached asks: "I know of a company that has large online storage requirements - on the order of 50TB - for a new data-warehousing oriented application they are developing. I was astonished to hear that the pricing for this storage (disk, frames, management software, etc...) was nearly $20 million dollars. I've tried to research the actual costs myself, but that information seems all but impossible to find online. For those of you out there with real world experience in this area, is $20 million really accurate? What are the set of viable alternatives out there for storage requirements of this size?"

An anonymous reader asks: "I own several laptops and one flat-panel LCD display, and I am trying to find a good way to keep them clean without damaging them. Using the alcohol-based cleaning wipes that I normally use for my CRT displays doesn't seem right, and I had an (idiot) friend who shorted out a great many of the transistors on his laptop's LCD by spraying Windex on it. What's the best way to clean these things without damaging them or creating buildup that I'll just have to clean off again separately?"

a.h.s. boy asks: "I took a little visit to my usually-neglected Verizon Wireless online account site today, and found myself greeted with the following message: 'Attention This site will not be available for use after October 2002. Please go to http://vzw.msn.com to set up a profile and start using our new VZW with MSN portal.' And now what does it take to login to my wireless phone site? That's right, .NET Passport account. I want one of those like I want a hole in my bedroom wall, however I really do want the convenience of getting my phone information online. I'm sure more and more sites are going to start requiring .NET passports for access, and even if I use bogus information for the Passport, it's still tied to my (quite non-bogus) cell phone records, isn't it? I already sent mail off to the Executive Office of Verizon Wireless to complain, but I can't imagine they're going to care what I think. What are others doing to work around the growing need for a Passport account?" For current customers of Verizon wireless, the question basically boils down to: "Should I stay or should I go?". For those opting for the latter, based on this latest twist, are there other cell-phone companies offering similar features to Verizon's service?

nestea247 asks: "I graduated from CMU 3 years ago and have since worked in a very good company and gained quite a lot of solid software development experiences. Now I'm thinking of moving on, to learn more about software engineering i.e. management/methods/processes. CMU has a very good program. I have been comparing it against other schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley...etc., and it seems like only CMU has very specific concentration on software engineering and a tailor-made cirriculum. Other schools are just general masters degree in CS that might require me to re-learn or polish a lot of concepts in undergrad. So CMU sounds like a good choice, but I hope if someone could tell me what's good about the other schools. What should I take into consideration (academically) when I select a grad school for MSE?"

cornjchob asks: "I've been a Slashdot reader for quite sometime now, and I've seen alot of Physics articles posted. I've got a good understanding of alot of it, but that doesn't mean there's no room to improve. So what's some good reading material for Physics that will give you a good, solid foundation if you've missed something, and then give you some additional stuff? What about online articles or PDF's for us cheap folk? Quantum Mechanics is another subject area that--judging by alot of posts underneath the articles, at least--many of us could use some brushing up on. Any suggestions for books/articles/PDF's on that? Suggestions on anything pertinent to any of those would be great."

dmauer asks: "I recently purchased what ought to have been my Dream Machine. An uber-fast dual Athlon with oodles of speedy RAM, a Geforce4, and a hard drive big enough to choke a horse (all in a snazzy aluminum case, even). So I get the thing home, set it up, and proceed to install Debian, making sure all my hardware is working nicely, etc., etc., and then I realize that there's a problem I hadn't anticipated. It smells." Usually when consumer electronics have a distinctive smell, something is wrong. Has anyone else run into such a problem, before? Assuming this isn't a electronic or health problem, what can one do to eliminate the odor from the immediate area without resorting to periodic fumigations?

Ace905 asks: "I am a software developer looking to market my product, and after weeks of research and rejections I've come to a few conclusions that I hope are wrong; Software Publishers are looking almost exclusively for Game Software, To get big you have to already be big, and nobody comes to you even when you have a great product! I'm wondering if any other developers have similar experiences marketing their life's work? Are there any publishing companies that actively persue new developers? Where does a developer go to sell their cross-platform utility software? Your feedback is much appreciated!"

nometa asks: "I'm working with an indie band, and despite excellent reviews, a great album (produced by Sylvia Massey of Tool fame), and excited responses by crowds whenever we play, it seems near-impossible to get past the 'gate-keepers' of the music industry. Majors (and several indies, sadly) don't see a pretty boy band, push for fluffy singles over good songs, and generally act like they still have clue about what people want. We've had great success, however, on our websites selling CDs and pulling in new fans, and would like to push online music marketing further. Do any Slashdot readers have suggestions for pushing our music out further online?" We all know the problem with today's music industry, this is not the place for that horse-pill. Instead let's focus on how an independent music group can go out there and make it on their own, and do so using existing technology (including the Internet), to its best potential. So what suggestions do you have for young, aspiring bands who want to make their music, and not sell their soul in the process?

An anonymous reader asks: "I've done assembler for the 6809, 68000, 8085, MIPS and ARM architectures over the years. But - I've never learned assembler for the most common architecture out there. I would like to change that. I can roughly follow my way around x86 disassemblies, but I'm not as good at optimizing/fine tuning bits of assembler because I am not intimately familiar with all of the addressing modes etc. I would like a book that is targetted at people like me. I would like to be able to fine tune, say a blitter in x86 assembler. One thing I do not in a book is something that is trying to teach me assembler programming in general. Most assembler books seem to fall in the latter category. Are there books out there that might prove useful to me?"

TellarHK asks: "My aunt and uncle, both completely unfamiliar with computers, are looking to replace a broken word processor with something new. They'd like to either spend as few dollars as possible on a computer, or replace the word processor. Silly me, I mentioned I had a spare PC kicking around. It's a Digital Equipment 'Starion 930' Pentium 100 with 40M, and onboard video of an unknown type. As this machine is going to be used for word processing, I need an OS that will work with my newly dusted-off Lexmark Z11 printer. So what are my options? Will QNX handle the limited video and printer? Is there a WYSIWYG solution for FreeDOS? Is there a chance in hell any Linux distribution can give me graphics? I've got a whopping three gig drive in there. What can I do with it?"

pctainto asks: "I'm doing some work designing a solar car for a certain unnamed university. We are contemplating installing a camera and LCD system to replace the rear view mirror, since it is hard to turn one's head in the car and it would make designing the cockpit much easier. Does anyone know of a camera/LCD system that would be relatively simple and would be able to survive for a few hours without needing a new battery? We need something with relatively high resolution, so, something like an x10 camera wouldn't work very well. (You have to be able to identify letters that are 20 cm high from a distance of 15 m)"

permaculture had this simple but philosophical query to run by you all, today: "I was once asked this question: 'If you didn't have to work for money, what would you do with your time?' I've put that question to many people since I first heard it, and got a lot of different answers. It seems to me that the answer to this question is what you should be aiming for even though you do have to spend most of your time earning a crust."

yusing asks: "Public sector or private sector? Which would you rather work in? What are Slashdot reader experiences like? What are the differences in work environments? What are the frustrations of each? This person chose private sector after working in public. This article argues that the public sector should be expanded. There are definitely political considerations in this choice (bigger/smaller government for example) but I'd like help deciding which would be more appropriate for me. Where can I find quality reading to help me decide?"

jbum asks: "One day I'm going to lose my trusty mid-80s calculator, so help me find a new one that doesn't suck! I've been using the same calculator since the mid 80s. It's a Casio CM-100 'Computer Math Calc,' and if you lookup the name on Usenet/Goggle News or even here on Slashdot, you'll find a small number of lucky (but older) programmers singing its praises. Sadly, it hasn't been manufactured in years. Here's a picture. Has anyone found a calculator that is currently being manufactured which is remotely appropriate for programmers rather than scientists/engineers?"

heretic108 asks: "I'm an open-source developer in a small western nation, which is slowly starting to take interest in Open Source, but whose (still MS-dominated) government is currently considering adopting a software patents regime similar to USA. This nation boasts a smart and feisty IT community, who have been terribly under-represented in government. I have a meeting in a week with a prominent member of the legislature (who has IT portfolio interests), during which I will have the opportunity to put the case against software patents. I'm asking for help in assembling information for use in the anti-patents case. Thank you dearly for any and all help you are able to provide here."

scompt asks: "I've been looking around for some information on building a custom docking station for my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. The barrier is obviously the odd, jumbo connector on the back. Does anybody know the pinout of it? Hacking the insides of a laptop is almost a lost cause, but opening up the docking connector might provide a nice way to expand a previously dead end box."

joecooler asks: "I work for an ASIC company in the verification group. We use VCS and Vera to write and run simulations, Clearcase for revision control, and LSF to manage our server farm. At my instigation my employer has begun to move to Linux PC's for our simulation server farm instead of the much more expensive and much slower Solaris Sun machines. Everything has been working well and everyone has been very pleased with the performance except for one 'small' problem - every two weeks or so we will suddenly see all jobs running on Linux machines crash. After much pain we have been able to isolate this to an issue with Clearcase returning files 'slowly' to the Linux machines, causing VCS compiles to die. Has anyone else had issues with Clearcase and Linux running on a PC? If so, how did you debug this and isolate the exact source of the problem? Is this solvable, or is it one of the mysteries of networking?"

full-case asks: "Due to some interesting politics at the ISP where I work, I can run two machines in the colocation room for free if and only if they both occupy the same case. As it turns out, I have two (standard ATX-form-factor) motherboards with associated sundry that would really like to be colocated, and I know I've heard of cases that will accept multiple motherboards, but I can't for the life of me find one that will take the right size. The only ones that I can find are either in the $6k price range, or this sort of thing, which requires special ultra-tiny motherboards. I figure I would be served better by having a 4U case divided internally to mount two motherboards; both machines will fit nicely into a 2U case separately...but does such a beast exist, or can it be (cheaply) assembled from parts?"