phase_9 writes "The latest version of Mozilla Thunderbird may still only be in beta but already the user community have started creating an extensive set of viable Exchange killers. One such example is the latest mashup between Thunderbird and Google Calendars, providing bi-directional syncing of calendar information from both the client and internet. How long will it be before open-source software can provide a complete, accessible office suite for a fraction of the cost that Microsoft current imposes?"

Gunfighter asks: "I run a small data center for one of my customers, but they're constantly filling up different hard drives on different servers and then shuffling the data back and forth. At their current level of business, they can't afford to invest in a Storage Area Network of any sort, so they want to spread the load of their data storage needs across their existing servers, like Google does. The only software packages I've found that do this seamlessly are Lustre and NFS. The problem with Lustre is that it has a single metadata server unless you configure fail-over, and NFS isn't redundant at all and can be a nightmare to manage. The only thing I've found that even comes close is Starfish. While it looks promising, I'm wondering if anyone else has found a reliable solution that is as easy to set up and manage? Eventually, they would like to be able to scale from their current storage usage levels (~2TB) to several hundred terabytes once the operation goes into full production."

max3000 asks: "I'm currently building an embedded device that will be used outdoors, and the technology is pretty much nailed down at this point, except the display. Quite honestly, I'm confused and lost in all the display technologies out there: LCD (TFT, passive/active, and so forth), ChLCD, OLED, FED, AMLCD, EL, electrophoretic, ePaper like eInk, and more (some of which may overlap). Can you help a confused, fellow reader? What I need is (apparently) fairly complicated: an outdoor, sunlight-readable (at-a-glance readable, not squint-your-eyes readable), VGA/SVGA display. The display should have a 4-6 inch diagonal, capable of displaying at least 16 color grayscale, and it should be based on a technology with a roadmap to color in 2-3 years time. If not driveable directly from a PC, the display should come with a development kit that is." What small displays are out there that can meet these specifications?

alphakappa asks: "I am interested in building a video wall as a personal project using recycled old laptops so that I can make use of the display controllers that are already present. Is there free or cheap software that can extend the display on Windows and still be capable of showing different videos on different zones (like, say run a video in one zone while showing a powerpoint presentation in another one) What tools would you use?"

Londovir asks: "Recently, our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction. The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of information for schools. Should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine the validity of the information?"

tooger writes "Matt Hartley from MadPenguin.org opines that web apps can never replace desktop applications, for a variety of reasons. He writes, 'Some of you may point out that the data stored on your hard drive is not of any real consequence, but I would disagree. It is more than probable that a skilled, disgruntled employee of the company you trust with your data could ... sell off your personal information.' Given the real danger of privacy concerns, identity theft, and uptime, will web-based applications ever truly replace locally hosted software?"

An anonymous reader sends us to Boing Boing for a report that "the Director of Communications for the RIAA, Jenni Engebretsen, has been appointed Deputy CEO for Public Affairs for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver." The DNC site has the official press release. Cory Doctorow notes that the RIAA is the most hated "corporation" in America, having beaten out Halliburton and Wal-Mart for the honor, and writes for the DNC's attention, "This represents a potential shear with the left-wing blogosphere."

audiophile writes "Just because it's a PC doesn't mean it can't output good-sounding audio. In the same vein as specialty A/V products, you can find PC-based A/V systems with extensive audio processing and step-up performance specifications, including Signal-to-Noise ratio, which can make a significant difference when using the analog outputs. Media center manufacturer Niveus shares tips for getting high-quality audio from a PC."

dido writes "In his most recent column, Robert X. Cringely observes that network neutrality may have never really existed at all. It appears that some, perhaps all, of the major broadband ISPs have been implementing tiered service levels for a long time. From the article: 'What turns out to be the case is that some ISPs have all along given priorities to different packet types. What AT&T, Comcast and the others were trying to do was to find a way to be paid for priority access — priority access that had long existed but hadn't yet been converted into a revenue stream.'" Cringely comes to this conclusion after being unable to get a fax line working. His assumption that the (Vonage) line's failure to support faxing is due to Comcast packet prioritizing is not really supported or proved. But his main point about the longstanding existence of service tiering will come as no surprise to this community.

driehle writes "In an article published in IEEE Computer magazine I recently looked at the economics of open source. I argue that large system integrators will do best and that open source startups will keep struggling. For developers, open source creates independence and new career paths as committers, while non-committers will fall on hard times. The race is on!"

SorryTomato writes "The Tamil Tigers Liberation Front a separatist group in Sri Lanka, which has been classified as a terrorist group in 32 countries has moved up from routine sea piracy to a space-based one. They have been accused of illegally using Intelsat satellites to beam radio and television broadcasts internationally. Intelsat says that they will end the transmissions 'within days.' Intelsat has been accused of having business links with Hezbollah before, but claim that they are blameless this time and LTTE was using an empty transponder."

An anonymous reader asks: "I was recently doing a closet-cleaning and came across literally hundreds of old software CDs that are no longer usable — both manufactured CDs and CD-Rs. Note that by 'not usable', I mean that many of them simply couldn't be read anymore, possibly due to the fact that they'd been stored rather ineptly (no, I wasn't responsible for how they were stored). It seems wrong to just throw them out, but are there other things that can be done with them that will allow their raw materials to be reused in some way?Is it possible to reclaim CDs for raw materials?"

macpulse asks: "What is the best way to image and deploy dual-boot Intel Macintosh desktops in an Educational environment? Our organization is getting ready to purchase dozens of new Intel Macs for each campus and we're not sure how to proceed. With Windows XP and Dell, we've simply used Symantec's Enterprise Ghost to deploy our images. Playing with the test Intel Macs we have, we are unable to get Ghost to work with the Mac. I've also played with Bombich's NetRestore product (which is FOSS!) but without much success. I'm curious how my fellow readers have resolved this issue. Thanks!"

David Martinjak writes "Nagios is an open source application for monitoring hosts, services, and conditions over a network. Availability of daemons and services can be tested, and specific statistics can be checked by Nagios to provide system and network administrators with vital information to help sustain uptime and prevent outages. Nagios: System and Network Monitoring is for everyone who has a network to run." Read on for the rest of the review.

KMG writes "Zune Scene has got a scoop about the next generation Microsoft Zune. There will be two new models; a flash memory based and a hard drive based. Zune with HDD will be thinner and have larger storage capacity while the flash based will feature Wi-fi, video playback. So will we see another try from Microsoft to beat Apple's iPod or it will be another vain attempt from the Redmond guys."