TheRealZappa writes "For quite a while now I have been looking for a mouse that would not make any "clicking" sound when the buttons are pressed... Does it even exist? So to all you quiet-pc amateurs and hardware hackers... Can it be hacked? Can it be bought somewhere?" Sure it exists, I think they call it a "trackball" or "touchpad". Seriously, I've never had a non-broken mouse that didn't click.

ccfpark writes "I am going to Washington D.C. next week to talk to my senator (Bill Nelson of FL) and his technology advisor, Reg Lichty, about the CBDTPA. I am personally against this bill as it has the possibility of labeling me as a criminal for my participation in Open Sorce projects such as Handhelds.Org and Tuxscreen, where we endeavor replace proprietary operating systems on consumer electronics with Linux. If this bill is passed it may lead to outlawing these types of activities because it could circumvent software copy protection in these products. What I need are some good resources for formulating a business and political argument against this bill, so that I can speak to these politicians on their level."

Karim Yaghmour asks: "Flash/EEPROM programmers tend to be expensive (especially if you want support for many devices). I am trying to find a Flash/EEPROM programmer for which the schematics and software are available in Open Source form on the web. The projects I have found are rather basic and do not provide support for a wide range of memory devices. Does anyone have any recommendations? Is anyone working on such an Open Source project? Something like the Bitscope project (an 'Open Source' Oscilloscope) mentioned earlier on Slashdot, but for device programmers. If not, is anyone interested in starting such a project?"

mateub asks: "Before setting off to write something of our own, we have been looking for an image viewer that can deal with large (e.g. 10k by 10k pixel) CMYK TIFF images. Note that this is not necessarily the same thing as saying that the file is large, but usually it will be. A smart program could allocate enough memory to show the 1k by 1k pixels of a normal monitor and read other parts of the file when the user scrolls. Not fast, but functional. We've tried ImageMagick, and it isn't that smart--it runs out of memory even on my 1GB RAM, 4GB swap workstation. It appears The Gimp and xv can't even handle CMYK. Are there any programs that can display these images?"

Anonymous Coward asks: "Does anyone have experience with UPS software that has an eye towards security? i want an alternative to APC's 'Powerchute for Linux'. I've just discovered that Powerchute opens multiple ports and there are no options to turn this 'feature' off. What is even worse is that APC Support has announced no plans to address the issue. This means that if your firewall is running Powerchute, you might have security issues. Another example of the lax security: Powerchute requests root priveliges on install and has a certain 3-letter default password that anyone could guess within 5 minutes! Can anyone help with suggestions for alternative software?" Hmmm... I wonder if I accidentally put the default password in the text of this story.

steve asks: "There has been some talk about the newer alternative to true VPN lately. Are products like Netilla or Neoteris enough to replace the typical 'extranet'. most are based on simple SSL technology and somewhat limited in what applications you can run or use them for but they do give a simple web based interface. Has anyone out there played with any of these? Are they truly worth a look yet? Would you be concerned about potential browser issues (security or otherwise) creating a back door on your nice firewall?"

oo7tushar asks: "There's a lot of spyware out there these days. As a Windows/Linux user I'm concerned about what spyware is installed on my machines and I'm very concerned about this issue when it comes to Windows. A few questions for the masses: What are the most common spying applications that are installed? How do I get rid of them without getting rid of the parent application? Have you encountered spyware on Linux?"

Russ Jones writes "As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we have been struggling with finding ways to provide internet access to our growing off-campus students - currently, students have few to no options other than traditional, expensive, commercial providers. After feeling out large contracts through the University with major providers, it has become clear that they do not want to play ball with a public institution. Regardless, as a student I am still very interested in finding a solution to at least some of the woes. Students at Carolina are required to purchase laptops, many of which are wireless enabled. The University has put a lot of funding into wireless initiatives (but has only looked into using short-distance access points). Are there any long distance alternatives, that could possibly stretch a mile or more in radius? Any ideas on possible alternatives?"

An anonymous reader writes: "We keep seeing stories here about tidal power, and that's cool, but I don't see how it can be done without a column rising all the way to the surface. So here are the ideas I've got right now." Read on for some interesting thoughts on the subject...

JWinterboy asks: "I'm guessing that everyone here has a valid criticism of Microsoft's attacks on, and approach towards the Open Source model. To me, that begs the question of what we think would be an "appropriate" reaction from Microsoft towards the Open Source model. It doesn't have a service arm, so IBM's approach isn't really viable. At the same time, non-service related business models haven't fared very well. What would we like to see Microsoft do? How can it work with the Open Source community, leverage its resources, and still make a buck?"

jt007 writes "I am a student in the UK who graduates from a computing course in a matter of weeks, and am starting to look for graduate jobs. One problem though, a friend and I are going travelling in about 15 months (obviously I need the job to pay for the trip!). Do I tell my employers this before I start work and potentially harm my chances of getting the job, or do I just shaft them in 15 months time? I would be interested in finding out in particular how IT managers out there would react to being put in a situation like this? Would it harm any chances of a reference for a future job? So the question is: is it best to keep quiet about my plans, or is honesty the best policy?" Look at it this way: if the company planned to close your office in 15 months would they tell you? If you were leaving in a much shorter period of time I'd think you should tell them, they might be rather annoyed to train you in a job and then have you depart and you might not be able to use them as a reference in the future. But 15 months? If you tell them, not only would you risk not getting the job because of it, your plans might change before then and you'd have lost the job for nothing.

An anonymous submitter sends: "I'm working on a new book which would have the Open Source/Linux/BSD/etc community as its target audience, and the editors are very interested in having a CD-ROM included with it. I personally feel that a CD only adds a few bucks to the cost for negligible benefit, since the code is probably outdated by the time you get it. What are your thoughts? Do you get something out of having the code on CD, or would you rather have references in the book or online and download the software yourself? (And lest you wonder why I'm posting as AC, this is a serious question, not a PR attempt.)" I have several technical books with CD-ROMs. I've never used any of them. I'd rather the book have an accompanying website to provide code and errata. But maybe other people feel differently.

verch writes "I work at a Large Corporation that is considering Linux as a competing platform to our large Solaris and Wintel install bases. One of the biggest concerns is how easily a large number of linux machines can be installed mostly unattended. For Solaris we mostly use jumpstart which allows us after minor preparation to simply remotely attach to the console of a machine and boot and install it over the network. x86 hardware tends not to be as nice, I don't know of any linux hardware that has remote console capabalities as nice as Sun's, and network boot options are limited (PXE?). Installation procedures that involve having to lood a CD or boot floppy into every machine could potentially be dealbreakers. So, what options exist for completely remote unattended installs of linux machines?" Had a similar question a while ago; have things improved since then?

MrNally asks: "Last night I was trying out my new harmonica when my cats started to freak. A quick check of google (isn't the internet wonderful - la la) reveals that, as a rule, cats hate the harmonica. Here's a small company that has used this to 'cat proof' your computer, playing harmonica sounds whenever the keyboard is used in cat-like ways. Does anyone know anything about feline physiology? Any ideas why my cats hate my Bob Dylan renditions when played on the harmonica, but don't seem to mind it on the guitar? And then there's the point that someone has turned this into a computer solution which suggests that there's a bandwidth limitation to their hatred (that is, their hatred is still true even after a low pass filter). Most importantly, is there any similar system that could be created for certain humans? ;-)" So remember, folks, if you don't want any household catastrophes, leave the harmonica renditions of your favorite songs to a feline-claw-free environment. Come to think of it, are there any particular instruments cats like?

dieckert_heath asks: "I spend so much time in front of the PC, I recently started wondering if there was a way to learn what interests me (cisco routers and networking in general) via subliminal messages flashed on my PC. Anyone done anything like this?" Good idea! I wonder why no one hasn't thought of it, until now?

bLanark asks: "I've used a variety of programming languanges over the years, but recently started using Java commercially (as opposed to just playing at home). As soon as I was on that Java project, I became a rampant stallion, never left my wife alone, sexually. She even started sleeping in the spare room just to get some rest on some nights! Soon, I was back on C++ (due to a budget cut and re-org). I am no longer a stallion (I won't go into more details!). My theory is that java's so easy, so after conquering an API a day (JDOM, Swing,...) I just came home and carried on conquering. Now, I have to work for a living again, and it doesn't leave much energy. Do other slashdotters have similar experience? Is lisp tantric? Do assembler programmers favour wham-bam-that's-the-end-of-that-non-maskable-inter rupt-where's-the-remote-control-honey-can-you-get- me-a-beer? What's the best programming language for attracting sexual partners? What about Operating Systems? Does MS == S&M?" Does C/C++ dampen your love life? Does Perl please your partner? Can you jive with Java? Inquiring minds want to know.

Apreche writes "I was in the shower today humming a song that's been in my head. I started to really want to listen to music in the shower, but the best product I've ever seen is a shower cd player from the sharper image. Are there ANY waterproof mp3 players? I'm looking for about 30 minutes of music, all of the buttons in winamps main window, and stereo sound or better. I mean, now that I have all kinds of digital music, what good is it if I can't listen to it wherever and whenever I want?"

shellac writes "For a number of years now, Japan has had incredibly high-tech toilets, complete with a funky electronic control panel that controls a water jet for cleaning the posterior, a hot air blow dryer, a fake flushing sound to cover up those noisy "Dumb & Dumber" style sessions, a seat warmer, and other nice features, not to mention the occasional amusing gaijin encounter. Prototype models can also chemically analyze urine using lasers. The manufacturer, Toto, has made these available in the US and in other countries, but they have failed to largely fulfill their promised potential, despite their popularity in Japan. There is some evidence Kohler toilets is keeping these out of American markets. The toilets also appear to be a victim of poor marketing on Toto's part, which in all fairness may be due to Western advertising taboos that do not exist in Japan. I know I would love to have one of these, and I suspect many others would as well. What does that /. community think of these toilets? Can anyone post a personal review?"

openbear writes "While doing a code review for a closed source project at work I came across a few files that were stolen from an open source project. The individual that did this was dumb enough to leave the original license in one of the files, however he was smart enough to remove all trace of where the code came from. He since quit the organization, so we (the developers) can't get to him to find out where he got this code from. Now management wants us to ship the product as is (with the stolen code intact) because we can't point to the original source of his questionable code. A few of us scoured sourceforge and several apache projects but couldn't find anything matching. My question is: What is the best way to track down where this code originated from. Is there an organization that would help? A tool? A website?"

tuxbeej writes "Just recently I've been told that I may be developing keratoconus, a non-inflammatory eye condition in which the normally round dome-shaped cornea progressively thins causing a cone-like bulge to develop (thanks, NKCF!). As a result, my eyesight will get worse and it's getting harder to see on a 15" monitor. Being 22 years old and studying MIS, I've been hoping to keep my eyesight for a long, long time. Anyway, I was in the market for a new monitor and I was curious to know if anyone has done shopping for a monitor intended for someone with bad eyesight? Are there any recommended sizes, features, brands? It seems like a generic question, but I'm curious to know if certain technologies have any advantages over another or if there is a site out there that handles info like this." We had an older article about CRT's vs. LCD's.