trustedserf writes "This year I am including a bootable Live Linux CD in many of my Christmas cards. As I'll be making the copies myself I may even change the default desktop background to something personal, or Christmasy before running it off on cheap CD-Rs. The objective is to show people the easiest possible route to using a linux desktop so that they will be: A) Aware and B) Pleasantly surprised. About Christmas they may also have more time to try it out too. Naturally, I'm thinking of Gnoppix, but there are other options.. I use KDE, so I have to decide between it and Gnome. Bearing in mind my objectives, what distro would you choose. Also, importantly, is it possible any of them will damage their hardware (monitors with incorrect refresh etc.) I would be *very* unhappy if that happened. How many of them would fail to boot, leaving a bad impression? Which way would you go about it for maximum "WOW"."

The original Half-Life is regarded widely as a defining moment in the first person shooter genre. The game's use of story and in-game scripted elements changed the expectations of game players and spawned a bevy of imitators. The sequel, Half-Life 2, has been in the works for almost six years and is one of the most hyped and anticipated games of 2004. It was launched last week after delays, a code theft, and lawsuits frustrated the anxious fans waiting for a chance to play. Post-launch the game has received wide praise and, thanks to the unique distribution and authentication system called Steam, many complaints as well. Read on for my impressions of Valve's Half-Life 2.

An anonymous reader wonders: "I had Firefox 1.0PR running smoothly on three different machines and it hardly ever crashed. After upgrading to 1.0, I seem to have at least one annoying crash a day. On one of the machines, using the 'self update' feature caused Firefox to crash in middle of the upgrade and left it in a completely unusable state. Eventually, I had to uninstall it and resort to using IE to download the full installer, again. Is it just me, or are other heavy Firefox users noticing this sort of behavior?"

CareerConfused asks: "Today I came across an ad in the NY Times, put out by Microsoft, Micron, Level 3 (among others) that claimed that the H-1B visa quota for FY2005 has already expired (it claims the quota expired the first day of FY2005, which started just about a month back). OK. On the one hand, we have stories of techies not finding jobs; and on the other, we have stories from businesses which claim that lack of H1s is killing their business, as well as public advocacy (like that ad in NYT). So, what is it? Are we in another boom, with jobs going a-begging and companies requiring more H1s to fill them? How come I haven't noticed this in the form of a fatter paycheck (or an Aeron chair, or a fooseball table in the cubicle)?" What have you experienced in your searches for technology-based jobs? Is it still hard to sell your hard-earned skills or are things looking up?

A user asks: "I'm curious how the Slashdot gang chooses to keep up with the performance of high-level equipment for servers, routers, loadbalancing, and the like? For PC-type specs it's easy, every guy and his dog has a review website, and magazines stuff themselves in every window. However, the higher-end equipment is far more difficult to find trustworthy analysis of. I'm curious how other people have solved this problem, and what resources they use to keep on top of the game?"

Akai asks: "With HDTV DVR's costing upwards of a thousand US dollars or more, I was looking for a HiDef capture card that would work with Linux and an external HD receiver. The pchdtv card looks nice but it's RF input only for HiDef content, and only supports OTA at this point. Both DirecTV and DishNetwork HD STBs can be hacked with FireWire ports, but it's not cheap, so I was trying to find a capture card with either DVI or Component inputs, or a converter to take either of those to FireWire. The old Dish Network model 5000 receivers had an option to output HDTV RF but they are no longer compatible with Dish's current HDTV broadcasts. Google has not been helpful in this regard, and all I've found is professional (>$2000US) format conversion gear. Is there a PC (hopefully Linux) based video capture solution that can capture the output of a cable of DBS STB (RGBA, DVI, or Component out) without a significant loss of image fidelity?"

gillbates writes "Today Microsoft warned several Asian countries that using Linux could subject them to lawsuits, claiming that Linux violates '228 patents'. Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia." Ballmer is presumably speaking about this story. So, companies which sell insurance against lawsuits and companies which make competing products both warn of the dangers of using Linux. Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself, and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?