Hardware Hacking

Searching for a Cheap Overhead Projector? 26

Posted by Cliff from the instant-diy-"lcd-projector" dept.
stinkjones asks: "I recently found a project on Hackaday, which I found very interesting. It was linked to Tom's Hardware, and involved a massive, and cheap, projector. I have an LCD projector, but this seems like a great project with a pretty cool result. I already have an LCD that's perfect for the job but overhead projectors are hard to find. Retail they are around $500 new or a lot more, and if you can find them used they have a huge range of prices. Does anyone know where to find a cheap one?"
Communications

Searching for a Satellite Pager? 243

Posted by Cliff from the beep-me-anywhere dept.
mcolgin asks: "I need a satellite pager! Why? I own a dot-com and as the only technical person responsible for the 7 servers needed to run the site and it's automated delivery systems, I've got to find out about any problems, before my customers/suppliers do; no matter where I am, especially when I'm: camping in Eastern-Washington; back-country skiing in Whistler; or driving down to Oregon for Mother's Day. I've tried every type of cellphone and pager I can find, but nothing gets a message to me once I get out of populated areas and away from freeways. So, I started looking into Satellite pagers; but I swear, I can't find anything in the local Seattle, WA area and only a couple listings online from Google searches. This has got to be a problem that the Slashdot community has run into, before. Any suggestions?"
Networking

What's in a Typical Geek Home Network? 183

Posted by Cliff from the more-esoteric-than-hubs-and-workstations dept.
Mike D asks: "I have several machines on my home network (A Mac OS X server, a few Windows XP desktops, a G4 workstation, etc.) as well as various devices (wireless base stations, VPN/firewall) and always have spare machines around that I'm torn on what to do with. So, I wonder -- what do 'typical geeks' have on their home networks? What items do you feel are a requirement, what are luxuries, and what is just cool stuff that I should integrate into my own network? Of course, suggestions should be cheap/free/use existing hardware I can find around the house."
Communications

Is HTML E-mail Still Evil? 201

Posted by Cliff from the my-MUA-has-turned-into-a-browser dept.
Charlie Campbell asks: "My boss is pretty adamant about getting HTML newsletters to our clients; and, I'm pretty adamant about finding an alternative. I can understand the benefits in HTML mail from a designer's (mine) and marketing standpoint (that of my boss); yet, based on foreseeable issues with recipient software, mail filters, dial-up connections, etc. I feel that the risks outweigh the benefits. We've all heard this a million times... but is it now an outdated concern? Should I trust our client-base to be fully equipped for such a mailer? Should I worry about improper delivery marring our professional image? Is there anyone documenting the issue from a current-day perspective?"
Data Storage

Dumping Lots of Data to Disk in Realtime? 127

Posted by Cliff from the too-much-for-an-RDBMS? dept.
AmiChris asks: "At work I need something that can dump sequential entries for several hundred thousand instruments in realtime. It also needs to be able to retrieve data for a single instrument relatively quickly. A standard relational database won't cut it. It has to keep up with 2000+ updates per second, mostly on a subset of a few hundred instruments active at a given time. I've got some ideas of how I would build such a beast, based on flat files and a system of caching entries in memory. I would like to know if: someone has already built something like this; and if not, would someone want to use it if I build it? I'm not sure what other applications there might be. I could see recording massive amounts of network traffic or scientific data with such a library. I'm guessing someone out there has done something like this before. I'm currently working with C++ on Windows. "
Books

Does Anyone in IT Read Academic Literature? 73

Posted by Cliff from the where's-your-head-at dept.
digital book worm asks: "I'm a soon-to-be fresh-out with a Masters degree in Computer Science. For the last several years I've had paper after paper shoved in my face, and following some of the major publications (such as Communications of the ACM, IEEE Software, and some of the IEEE Transactions series) and conference proceedings has become second nature. I can't help but wonder though: For those of you outside of academia, do you find that there is any benefit to following the latest research on a regular basis? Clearly there are times when it is appropriate to go back and look for papers that solve a particular problem you're working on, but I'm finding it a little difficult to believe my professors' hype that the latest and greatest is the stuff that goes on in these papers, and that I should make it a life-long goal to keep current on many of the publications listed above."
The Internet

Dissidents Seeking Anonymous Web Solutions? 684

Posted by Cliff from the browsing-without-regard-for-politics dept.
DocMurphy asks: "I'm working with some dissidents who are looking for ways to use the Internet from within repressive regimes. Many have in-home Internet access, but think it too risky to participate in pro-freedom activities on home PCs. Internet cafés are also available, but although fairly anonymous, every machine may be infected with keystroke loggers that give governments access to and knowledge of 'banned' sites. Dissidents not only want to remain anonymous themselves, but also wish to not compromise the sites they access. Any suggestions for products/procedures/systems out there making anonymous access & publishing a reality under repressive regime run Internet access?"
Networking

Testing Pre-Production Servers Accurately? 48

Posted by Cliff from the before-they-become-production dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Having been granted a 90-day demo enclosure of new blade servers from a major vendor the question I find myself asking is: On a limited budget, how does one simulate 1000+ attached clients and the activity of those clients? We're a K-12 school district and our current servers don't keep up with all the roaming-profile abuse from our Windows workstations. Are there tools or tricks available to simulate load on Netware/Linux servers? The user groups around here usually answer this question with 'Get some workstations for a test lab!', there's got to be a less expensive option, right? Can we leverage our existing client populous to achieve our goal, without interrupting or changing the quality of service at the desktop, substantially?"
Handhelds

Linux Support on USB Palm Pilots? 54

Posted by Cliff from the to-sync-or-not-to-sync dept.
seachnasaigh asks: "I love desktop Linux, but the one stumbling block I have with deploying it in some capacity for my userbase is USB Palm Pilots. Once upon a time I managed to get GPilot working with a serial PalmVx, but despite repeated attempts (SuSE 9.2 pro, Fedora Core 3 and several Palm devices) I can't get a synch to happen with the USB version, either through the native Gnome Pilot app or through Evolution (and yes, Kpilot too!). Our standard deployment is a Palm Tungsten T series; most of our desktops are recent Dells. It's embarrassing to have to boot into Windows to synch the Palms. Does anyone have some suggestions out there?"
Unix

Better Scheduler Than Cron? 66

Posted by Cliff from the better-than-the-reigning-champion dept.
Chanc_Gorkon asks: "I am looking for an open source job scheduler that is better than cron. I need a scheduler that has dependency checking, preemption (to stop jobs that access the same resources from running at the same time) and -full- logging. Cron e-mails are nice, but I usually end up cleaning them out with out reading. E-mailing the sysadmin -only- when a job does not get kicked off would be the preferable option. I have scoured Freshmeat and Sourceforge and have found nothing that comes close to what I am looking for. Do you guys have some options for me?"
News

Dutch Academics Declare Research Free-For-All 347

Posted by samzenpus from the free-knowledge dept.
A user writes "The register reports how the Dutch open up their research to the rest of the world. It goes on to tell that commercial scientific publishers such as Elsevier Science are not happy with it. Will other countries and universities follow, or will they stick to the idea that knowledge is a commodity?"
Operating Systems

32-bit to 64-bit - Obsolesence Pains Again? 184

Posted by Cliff from the will-history-repeat-itself dept.
robotsrule asks: "Having been in the computer industry a while I distinctly remember the pain of making the 16-bit to 32-bit transition, when Windows made the change to 32-bit support. Any developer who remember the joys of thunking and other kludges that were meant to help code conversions also remembers the arcane marathon debug sessions too. I have not been keeping up with the latest Microsoft Longhorn technical news, or the plans that the Linux community has for 64-bit platform support. Does anyone out there have a reliable prediction for the amount of system shock we are facing when either Longhorn or 64-bit Linux comes out? Will I lose all my favorite 32-bit development tools again as I watch the backward compatibility support dry up as the 64-bit O/S platforms are adopted? Or are the O/S manufacturers making happy noises about long-term support for existing development languages and tools?"
The Courts

What Would You Ask For in Copyright Law? 659

Posted by Cliff from the starting-over-and-doing-it-right dept.
BlastM asks: "The Australian Attorney General's Department, as reported recently on Slashdot, is accepting public input in a review of fair use exceptions (or lack thereof) in our copyright laws. Being an Australian citizen, I'll be directly affected by any reforms that are made, and under the Copyright Act in it's current form it's hard to avoid breaking the law nearly every day, whether format shifting music, recording broadcast TV shows or sharing movies via P2P or with friends. The question I pose to the freethinking minds, here: What fair use rights should be defined under copyright law? Is the use of a static, defined set of rights too restrictive? What's right/wrong with the copyright laws where you live?"
Technology

Homeless Wires? 118

Posted by Cliff from the shelter-for-destitute-and-forlorn-compware dept.
BladesP9 asks: "I'm in the process of moving. As such, I have stumbled upon no less than five boxes of wires and various parts. Everything from PS2, SCSI, FireWire, USB and God knows what. Having forgotten all about this stuff I know I will never be needing any of this again as long as I live. Not to mention the roughly 100 boxes of 10 pack 5.25 inch floppy discs. I could just throw all this stuff away, but I am feeling somewhat guilty about that. Is there anywhere I should look to donating this stuff? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing 'Goodwill' would really get use of, but I hate to throw away perfectly good hardware and media if someone could make use of it. I'm looking for suggestions. My wife has given me until the end of the week to find a home for it or I have to take it to the dump."

OSS Projects Offer Bounties For Features 261

Posted by Zonk from the headhunting-with-a-keyboard dept.
jtowndot writes "The market for open source developers seems to be heating up. Asterisk, Gnome, Horde, and Mozilla all have bounties for desired features. Recently, Lime Wire updated its wish list to include bounties on open source development work! Similarly, i2p also released a bounty list. Is it time to consider quitting my day job to do open source development full time?"

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