"I work for a major research organization. Of late a lot of the normal big computer companies have been visiting and preaching the gospel of Itanium. My question to them, and to the assembled masses here at Slashdot is what happens next when Itanium is real? My world view is that Itanium based systems will become commodity products very quickly after good silicon is available in reasonable volume. At that point, why should one spend $8-10k for that hardware from the likes of HP, Compaq, Dell and others when one can build it for $2k (or even less)? In other words, has Intel finally done in most of their customers by obliterating all the other CPU choices (except IBM Power4 [& friends G4, et al] and AMD Hammer) and turned the remainder of the marketplace into raw commodity goods? Lest you defend the other CPUs... Sparc is dead, Sun doesn't have the money (more than US$1B we'll guess) to do another round. PA-RISC is done, as HP has given away the architecture group. MIPS lacks funding (and perhaps even the idea people at this point). Alpha is gone too (also because of the heavy investment problem no doubt). Most other CPUs don't have an installed base that makes any difference, especially in the high end computing world. So what's next? I don't like the single track future that Intel has just because it is a single track!"

eyefish asks: "My trusty old watch recently gave up on me, and now I want to buy a new one. This time though I want something a bit more functional that my simple analog-digital watch. If you were to buy a new watch, and you are the geek type, which one would you buy? I'm interested in anything from watches with built-in GPS to built-in video or MP3 players and calculators. Or simply anything that looks really cool, or is really light, or syncs with my palm pilot. You get the drift." A watch that could sync via GPS? Never have the wrong time again! But seriously, what nifty new technologies have had the shrinking ray applied to them so that they fit nice and comfy on the wrist?

yipper asks: "Many amateur radio operators are exploring digital communication modes, one of which is a popular mode is called PSK-31. My local emergency communications volunteer group is thinking about using this mode for off-grid emergency setups. The problem is that a computer with a soundcard is more-or-less a requirement, hence my question: we need a lead on small, portable, battery (preferable 12 volt) powered systems which will run Linux or Windows, be easy on batteries, have audio in/out and a serial port. Recommendations can be older technology, as cost is a factor."

soyle asks: "Most of my family recently aquired webcams, but we all run different operating systems (Mac OS 9, Linux and Windows 98). Searching through the web for software that supports most of the above yielded pretty much nothing at all. I contacted one vendor who provides a free-beer version of a MacOS/Windows solution, but the person I spoke to said they they thought a linux port would require too much effort. However, if anyone had a basic skeleton for an application providing basic video/sound in/out, they'd be willing to work with the developers in order to plug in their own transport-code and develop a useable application. So my question is really twofold: Does anyone know of an existing video conferencing application that supports all three major desktop platforms? Does anyone know of an application whose developers would be willing to work with said company?"

Colour Blind asks: "I am working for a not-for-profit organization developing a website for kids. I am attempting to develop a method for testing if two colours (as defined by R, G, and B values [0-255]) are adequately different to be visible on top of each other. So far I have tried many things but this is the one that, by all accounts, should work: I have converted from RGB to (CIE)XYZ using a 3x3 matrix transformation. From here I have used three more equations to convert to CIELAB colour. I have then calculated the distance between the two colours in question in CIELAB colour space. The results are not correct: there are pairs of colours that are quite far from visible that yield the same difference as colours that are plainly acceptable for visibility. Any suggestions?"

Mud Husky asks: " I've held out getting high speed access because Comcast had been the only option in my area. Now, Knology is about to start offering cable internet access in my area. Comcast has been the subjects of many Slashdot stories like this and this and so on... I'd like to know if Slashdot users would be willing to share their experiences with Knology (good and bad) and other smaller ISPs. "

dualBootless asks: "I just got an iPaq 3670 on eBay, and I plan to try out the Sierra Wireless Aircard 555 PC-card with it (I am fortunate enough to live in an area supported by Verizon's 144kbit G3 service). Unfortunately, there is not yet Linux support for the 555, so I'll be stuck with WinCE. I would like to play around with Linux too, but re-flashing the rom every few days seems out of the question. Has anyone been able to dual-boot WinCE/Linux on these hand-helds? I'd be willing to put Linux on a compactflash if necessary, and swap the PC-card expansion pack for the compactflash one whenever I want to use Linux."

concord asks: "Our group applied for 501(c)(3) non-profit status with the IRS a few months ago. We are an educational group dedicated to assisting any individuals or groups interested in learning more or employing free software. We hold monthly LUG meetings here in Southwest Florida and have been doing so monthly for the past two years. Nevertheless our IRS case manager is denying our request (so far). Have any other LUGs in the US successfully attained 501(c)(3) status? Can you offer any pointers?"

rlsnyder asks: "I'm the inadvertant co-administrator of e-mail a for company that relies pretty heavily on it for daily business (e.g. sending confirmations of financial transactions). At one point in the not-too-distant past, our server was an open relay. I admit I'm a sinner for letting it happen, and I'm ready to do my pennance. Given the relatively low volume of mail our server moved that did not originate from inside, I doubt I was a major contributor to the world of SPAM. In any event, we've been blacklisted on a number of sites. Some lists have reasonable policies, and we've since been removed. Other places are a little more arbitrary as to removal policies, and although I can prove we're not a relay, we're still listed." While I approve of the basic concept of SPAM Blacklists, there are dozens of SPAM blacklists out there who are real keen on adding open relays to the list, but not so keen on taking rehabilitated hosts out. I would posit that SPAM blacklists that are not properly maintained are a part of the problem, not the solution. What are your thoughts on the subject?

TheMaccLads asks: "I've recently joined a new C++ project, and it's in a terrible state. There are 100-odd source directories, dozens of libraries, and a couple of dozen executables and DLLs. Some executables pull in (i.e. compile themselves) the occasional source file from a library, instead of using the libraries. My job is to port a subset to unix, but I need a tool to visualise all the relationships between directories, projects, libraries, and so on, because my brain will overheat soon otherwise. Preferably a tool that will do it by parsing the MS Dev studio projects and workspaces, but if I have to write it myself in Perl, I will! Anyone know of any tools? Or suggest an approach?"

TrAvELAr asks: "I run a rather large network for a research company and I have been tasked with a project to ensure that the time is accurate on all of our studies. Right now, I am using the time service built into Windows 2000 to sync all of our workstations with one of our servers. My problem lies in the fact that I can't prove that the time on my server is accurate. Because of the nature of our research, our network is not allowed to access the internet, thus ruling out synchronization to NIST and other time servers. I've been toying around with the idea of syncing it via GPS. I've done some research on the net and found a couple of places that offer packages for this at a fairly high price. I believe that this is something that I could do myself if I could find the right interface software. Has anyone out there had any experience with this type of project? I would appreciate any feedback/suggestions from anyone out there who has implemented/maintained a similar system."

kfs27 asks: "In an attempt to help a professor of mine record and duplicate his lectures. I have been asked to put together a CD duplicating box. Commercial products seem to be very expensive and I figured a PC with some SCSI160 Cards (HW or SW Raid maybe), SCSI Burners and a 15K RPM drive (size not an issue) could do the job for cheaper. But the question is, how many CDs can you burn at once of 30 minutes, mono audio. 10 at a time would be excellent I think. More of course better. Cost is not a huge issue, as long as it's less than Commercial Duplicators, it's more of an experiment, but must be stable and easy to operate (I'd be willing to script up a frontend)."

scrimmer asks: " I'm a second year high school English teacher--heaven forbid I misspell something in this post! I'll be teaching Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 for the first time this semester, and I was hoping Slashdotters could help me out a bit. I want to make the novel as relevant as possible to my students, but I would also like to work DMCA-related stuff, free speech-on-the-Internet stuff, and other issues--as seen on Slashdot--into the unit to give it a fresh spin, in addition to the traditional censorship issues normally taught alongside this novel. I've been chasing web links for weeks, but I'm afraid I might miss some salient issues. If you were a student in my class for a few weeks, what kind of angle would you most like to investigate while studying this novel?"

Quite a few submitters have asked "How do you make a quiet PC". Well, rather than tackle it from the PC standpoint, how about devices that can quiet a whole environment? Along these lines, 16977 asks: "I've been considering building an active noise control system for an area about the size of a closet. ANC today doesn't work quite as well as it did in Silence, Please (works best for low frequencies, only covers small areas, etc.), but it is still a fascinating technology. I'm wondering if anyone out there has done similar projects with either the hardware or controlling software of ANC, and what information they have to share." And since I have your attention on this subject, sammy.lost-angel.com asks: "I would like to ask the slashdot community about their recommendations for noise-cancelling headphones. Traveling in planes is very noisy, and with MP3 players becoming more and more common, I would like to hear some experiences with various different noise cancelling headphones paired up with MP3 players. How well do they work in general? What is the best and most cost-effective headphones available?"

polymath69 asks: "Living on the edge of Debian unstable means that updates sometimes break stuff, occasionally to an extent that is difficult to recover from. This got me thinking about treating the entire set of mounted filesystems as a transactional database. Mark state, try something which might be dangerous, test, and approve (commit) or panic (rollback). Obviously some filesystem support would be required, but with ext3 and reiserfs available, maybe the potential is already there. And such a system would need lots of disk space, but these days that's a demand easily granted. There's lots out there on process-level checkpointing, and even some stuff about system-level checkpointing, but all I've found on that was in the context of saving and restoring processes for a system freeze and restore. But I couldn't find anything on Google or SourceForge about doing this sort of temporary branching in the filesystem. Is this idea feasible? Is anyone working on it?"

xihr asks: "I'm the developer of Interstelen, initially a turn-based, strategic Web game of interstellar conquest. As time has progressed, I've found that it hasn't gone much beyond the barely-usable, early-alpha phase, primarily because, as with most people, I don't enjoy making user interfaces. It's clear at this point that it's not going to get done unless something changes. So my choices are to put the game on hold, or to change the architecture and goals. It occurred to me that this might be a better approach: Architect a server and public protocol, as well as client libraries for a few languages to help people along and a trivial text-based client primarily for a code example and debugging, and 'recruit' (hopefully, just 'let') people to write various clients." Seems like a reasonable strategy, especially if time is a limited commodity. I'm sure there are Slashdot readers who are working on (or have done) similar project. How did things turn out?

Telemakhos asks: "This was asked last year, and though hardware may come and go in the course of a year, the mid-February question is eternal: What's Geeky and Good for St. Val's this year? Moreover, if roses aren't yet too bleeding-edge, whence is it best to order them?" Guys, while you are suggesting presents for the ladies, aside from the obvious, what would you like for Cupid Day?

jdclucidly asks: "I am faced with the problem of storing a huge high quality audio library in a portable format (i.e. I need to be able to be at a party to DJ within an hour's notice). Being the minimalist that I am, I'd also like this solution to also empower me to listen in my own leisure time wherever I go (i.e. car/home). So, it needs to be lower power, low cost, and able to interface with existing stereo equipment where ever I go. With over 6000 CD's in my possession, storing CD audio on 9.6 GB DVD-R in the open FLAC codec with fully searchable META data was the logical conclusion. Problem: The portable DVD-R/W drives exist, but the host hardware isn't portable enough. I have concluded that a laptop is too bulky for car use and too expensive to risk taking to parties. Instead, what I'd like to do is to port FLAC to the ARM architecture on Linux and use the 106 mHz processor on board the Zarus PDA to power my media library. However, there are two problems in this solution: 1) UDF packet writing/reading, which is required for DVD use, is still very much in it's infancy in Linux; 2) I don't know of any PDA that supports the USB 2.0 or Firewire that portable DVD-R/W requires. Does Slashdot have any ideas for accomplishing a portable media library for under USD$1000 or am I getting a little ahead of the technology here?"

CygnusTM asks: "I work for a Fortune 50 company, and we need to expand our PGP installation. We have a quote from Network Associates, but I'd really like to convince the higher-ups that GnuPG is the way to go. The traditional resistance to open source is that there is no one to call when there is a problem, but I also sense there is a little "You get what you pay for" in there, also. How do I get them past this? With enough ammo, maybe I can open the door for other open source software." What are the real advantages and disadvantages of deploying GnuPG over PGP in a corporate environment?

the_radix asks: "I'm not a great coder, but I love computers and especially programming. Those professional programmers that I know often complain of their managers not understanding the coding process and having unrealistic expectations of programmers. As such, I am considering a new career path: management. Since middle management is all about balancing, I'm looking for pointers before I start looking for positions. What do you, as coders and programmers, want from your immediate manager? If there are any geeks out there in upper management, what do you want from your lower-level managers who keep the techs in line? I'm not asking for the basic 'stand-up-for-your-subordinates' advice, but rather requests from a coder's standpoint. Geeks have special needs, and accommodating those needs (and 'odd' behaviors) is a good idea all around, for both employee morale and department output." I think many of us would rather like one who listened or who would at least take advice from the technical staff to heart. Many times managers will not consult their coders when they make plans, they'll make the plans first and tell their coding staff later, and this causes all kinds of problems. Generally, a superior with less "pointy hair" is something we'd all appreciate, but I'm sure the rest of you can expand what I'm trying to say here, or even say it better than I can.