brainee28 asks: "I work in the IS department for a manufacturer in Arizona (a one-man-show). I do mostly everything; from systems, to networks, to procurement, to implementation. I can't mention who I work for since we deal with government contracts. My problem is this: The company didn't start out with an IS department. Up until 6 years ago, a few computers were scattered around, but processes and business was still being done the old-fashioned way (with paper). When the IS department was started, it was started by a hobbyist (he was named IS Manager before I showed up), who knew nothing about management or any of the major issues that befall a traditional IS dept. I joined 6 years ago (I have 5 years of IS Management experience, and 15 years of experience with IS in general) with the idea that I would be managing day-to-day operations. That has still not come to pass. The hobbyist left the company 4 years ago, and I've been on my own ever since." What is the best way for new IS managers to convince their superiors of the need for widespread change?

dafuchs asks: "Colemak, a new keyboard layout claims to be better then QWERTY and Dvorak. While i'm not certain if I should switch, it looks neat. It is better for hacking then Dvorak, and best of all, the 'l' is not in the right top corner. What do you think? Is it worth a try?"

DevanJedi asks: "Many people around the world plan their charitable giving around this time of the year, for religious, tax or other similarly benevolent reasons. As a geek who spends an inordinate amount of time around his computer, I have compiled a list of entities that have made my geek life easier, in the past year. Which other projects does Slashdot believe to be worthy of praise, money, recognition, developer time or general applause?"

BerkeleyDude writes "Gaim 2.0.0beta1 has been released! Here is the changelog. New features include account status, away messages, etc, UPnP and NAT traversal support, new UI for buddylist, chat windows and preferences."

corp-dollar writes "According to this eWEEK story on the poor adoption of LUA (least-privileged user account) in Windows, a pair of Microsoft security consultants are pitching the idea of a security deployment repository to serve information and tools to handle LUA bugs and other problems businesses are facing. Sounds like a decent enough idea to cut back on the compatibility problems when trying to run business apps in no-admin mode."

Ant writes "MSNBC has a story on the 'must-have' items from decades past. From the article: 'With so many new toys and games hitting store shelves every year, it may be a little surprising that many of the most popular playthings are actually quite old. But people have been playing for a very long time. In 4000 B.C., Babylonians played a board game that was probably the ancestor of chess and checkers. Stone yo-yos were first used in ancient Greece around 1000 B.C. Kites appeared in China around the same time, though historians speculate that they have probably been flown since before recorded history.'"

b O b 1 9 19 A writes "The TechZone has an interesting article wondering where computer interfaces are going. They discuss some alternatives to the traditional desktop, and propose a framework in which future interface designs may be evaluated. From the article: 'The next 10 years will be a transitional phase for interface design. 3D rendering technologies already have a stable home in the entertainment, video game, simulation, and design sectors. Although 2D interfaces have dominated everything else, I expect we will start seeing more 3D incursions. Operating systems and applications are beginning to capitalize on what 3D has to offer. The precise nature of how and where 3D can best be incorporated is an open question, and a framework to evaluate these questions seems appropriate.'" Big-time ad alert. Set your ad and flashblockers to stun.

full-of-beans asks: "I work as a software developer for a large UK based international organization. Most of my colleagues that program are under 40 years old. Those that are over 40 tend to be in either Management or IT Support! I was wondering were do all the old programmers go? They can't all end up in management. I know we don't get paid enough to take early retirement. Is there some other career that tends to attract 40+ year old programmers, if so I'd like to know, because I'm not that far of 40 myself!"

John Garrett writes "The Search Engine Marketing Kit is a kit aimed at professional web developers and Search Engine Marketing professionals who are seeking proven strategies and techniques for improving the search performance of websites. In fact anyone who has an interest in how well a website ranks on searches related to the website’s content or target market could benefit from the tips found in this kit." Read the rest of John's review.

An anonymous reader writes "Jabber has published the experimental draft Jingle specs, which extend XMPP for use in voice over IP (VoIP), video, and other peer-to-peer multimedia sessions. Google released an open-source library called 'Libjingle' on SourceForge. Libjingle is a set of components provided by Google that let your programs interoperate with Google Talk's peer-to-peer and voice calling capabilities. The package includes source code for Google's implementation of Jingle and Jingle-Audio."

cyclop asks: "I am a close friend of a Ph.D. student on human interface usability. She's now working to tailor a KDE-vs-Gnome usability study (a pretty hot topic these days), and I have been called to help, as a long time GNU/Linux desktop user. What kind of advice -- both technical and theoretical -- would you give us on conducting a deep and objective study on the Unix desktop, that can be useful for the developers and the OSS community?"