dunnowhat2type asks: "I grew up around a big city (suburbs of NY) and went to college in a relatively different area (upstate NY). After graduating last May, I took a job in the area where I went to college. I started in July, and was given a relocation package contingent on me staying for a year. Since August, I haven't been happy with the area I have been living in and have actively been pursuing employment back in the city. What am I better off doing: Is it better to be miserable with money, work experience, and health insurance; or going home and being happy, but unemployed?"

An anonymous reader asks: "I am the single member of the IT department at a small nonprofit. We were looking to replace our commercial content management system with a custom combination of open source solutions (Lucene, Jackrabbit, etc). However, since I was the sole developer, progress was slow and we have little resources to recruit potential volunteers. Recently, we had a closed source, commercial vendor demo their version of a content management system, and immediately upper management was willing to go along with their proposal, even at the expense of project requirements. Although I understand and accept the decision (and am quite relieved I am not expected to deliver as the sole developer), I am interested to know if there are resources for promoting open source software in a manner like closed source, commercial software. If not, is this a challenge within the OS community? It seems that OS solutions are primarily promoted to technical implementors rather than upper management. Of course, many technical implementors do not have the marketing skills to promote open source, but are there resources to help us do so?"

rtobyr asks: "I don't allow users at my organization to use any third party e-mail. When users complain, I point out that we can't control the security policies of outside systems. End users tend to think that big business will of course have good security; so I ran a test of the 'Big Four': Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, and GMail. Yahoo Mail was the only webmail provider to allow delivery of a VBS script. GMail was the only provider to block a zipped VBS script. End users also tend to think that a big business would never pull security features out from under their customers. Of course, we know that AOL and Microsoft have both compromised the security of their customers. I don't know of any security related bad press for Yahoo or Google. Three of my Big Four either allow VBS attachments or have a poor security track records. So, if you are a network administrator, do you limit your users' ability to use third party e-mail, and if so, do you allow for GMail or other providers that you've deemed to have secure systems and reputations?"

VincenzoRomano asks: "One year ago, I decided to buy some 'enterprise grade' firewalls, in order to replace the old ones used by a former ISP. Before buying, I did a bit of a survey. I browsed the product 'data sheets' from the manufacturer web sites, and in some cases, asked for more details by email. I finally choose a top product, that had been on the market for a year and a half, from a very well known and reputable company. The product showed a number of issues as soon as it was unpacked and put to work, that you would not expect from something 'enterprise grade', like not being able to keep a VPN up and running for more than a few minutes, or doing bad IP routing on our LAN. I've spent the last year to make the equipment working, accordingly to both their data sheets and the features expected from an 'enterprise grade' product. Important issues are still open while the technical support is actually relying on my own stuff and setup, and on my personal availability in order to do troubleshooting, firmware beta testing and other experiments. I've finally decided that the product was far from being ready to market or even usable for beta testers, and have requested some kind of compensation for all the job I had to do. What's your opinion about such a behavior in a company? Is it fair?"

Stevecrox asks: "I'm in my final year of university and have a working knowledge of C/C++, Visual Basic, VHDL and a variety of Assembler languages, however chatting to a friend on his placement year I've been told that C# is what employers are really looking for. What book would you recommend to someone looking to learn C# with my experience?"

DigitalDame2 writes "Lance Ulanoff of PCMag believes that the Viacom and YouTube lawsuit is a bad idea because it has the potential to damage the burgeoning online video business; instead, it could work with the millions of people who are currently viewing Viacom content on YouTube. On the other side, Jim Louderback, an editor-in-chief of PCMag says that Lance doesn't know what he's talking about: with all the content available online for free, Viacom can kiss those investments goodbye. YouTube is actively filtering, actively allowing uploads, and making money off of the content that's been uploaded. The courts will find that Viacom has been wronged, that Google has not done enough to protect the rights of copyright holders, and that Google owes Viacom reparations. Whose side are you on?"

Max Matakino writes "CNet.co.uk has stumbled across a very interesting box indeed out at CeBIT: 'The SkyQube Squared from Qool Labs is a VoIP gateway that enables you to forward calls and messages made to your mobile phone or landline via SkypeOut to another number anywhere in the world.' This means that if you receive a call to your house phone while you're in China, you can get it forwarded to a Chinese cell phone or telephone for the relatively very cheap price of a SkypeOut call. I'm guessing wireless carriers aren't going to be happy about this one."

dyous87 points out a ZDNet article reporting that Novell has endorsed a customer's comment claiming that the total cost of ownership of Linux is higher then that of Windows. Novell and Microsoft jointly issued a press release quoting an IT guy for a UK-based bank, HSBC: "Some will be surprised to learn that our Windows environment has a lower total cost of ownership than our current Linux environment." The context of the comment makes it clear that HSBC's Linux environment has a mix of distros, and that a move to centralize around one distro — Novell's — will save money. Nevertheless, Novell's connection to this assertion is not likely to improve their reputation in the open source community.

ryrw writes "I'm planning to spend a year backpacking around the world and the hardest question I have to answer is: What technology do I take with me? Aside from the obvious (digital camera, ipod, et. al.) what technological devices would you you take? Specifically, I wonder if I should bring my nice and shiny MacBook Pro. I can think of lots of uses for it (offloading pix, updating weblog, email, etc.), but I'm worried it will be lost or stolen along the way. Does anyone have experience with travel while toting technology?"

zlite writes "What's the best way to create a UAV for less than $1,000? Use the new Hitechnic gyro sensor for Mindstorms NXT to create a Lego autopilot! This one can turn a R/C plane into a drone, keeping the aircraft level and returning it to the launch area. Add a Bluetooth GPS module and a microcam and you've got a fully autonomous surveillance platform."

TFGeditor asks: "Thanks to the advice of fellow readers from a previous Ask Slashdot, I now have a PC system optimally configured to produce professional on-air radio programs. Now I have a new problem: my radio co-host and I are in different cities located a few hundred miles apart. In order to give the show a real-time (i.e. 'live') sound, we need to somehow connect us so that we can produce a show complete with co-host banter, real-time interaction, and so on. I want it to sound as if we were both in the same studio. How can we do this? Will Skype or other VOIP applications do this without the result sounding 'tinny' (like a phone connection)? Are there other apps that will do a better job?"

Raul654 asks: "A member of my immediate family is a biology teacher at an all-girls high school. For some years, she's been giving her students the option to earn extra credit by reading a science-related book. What scientifically accurate science fiction books would you recommend for high school readers?"

Somnus suggests we check out the latest issue of MIT's Technology Review, where researchers describe how they can dramatically boost engine output and efficiency by preventing pre-ignition, or "knock." How they do it: "Both turbocharging and direct injection are preexisting technologies, and neither looks particularly impressive... by combining them, and augmenting them with a novel way to use a small amount of ethanol, Cohn and his colleagues have created a design that they believe could triple the power of a test engine."

stephe writes "Brent Williams presented 'Open Source Business Models: A Wall Street Look at a Wild 2006 and the Prospects for Even More Fun in 2007' at EclipseCon last Tuesday. Brent is (temporarily) an independent equity research analyst, who moved to Wall Street after 20 years in the software trenches. He starts with a tear-down of the Oracle Linux debate and the Microsoft Novell deal. I especially like his taking apart the commoditization myth and his observations around interface standards versus standards of implementation. He graciously allowed me to post the slides on my blog. They're getting a lot of interest from the open source business crowd, and I thought the Slashdot crowd would want to see them as well. Enjoy."

Forrest Kyle writes "A former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg has received multiple death threats for questioning the extent to which human activities are driving global warming. '"Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor. "I can tolerate being called a skeptic because all scientists should be skeptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal." Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology [...] recently claimed: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science."'"