Software

Software for Making Company Diagrams? 59

Posted by Cliff from the vectorized-documentation dept.
gaudenz asks: "We have a network with Linux, Solaris, Mac and Windows and need a software to paint simple diagrams, such as used in deployment. The actual requirements are simple: The tool must export to postscript, support fonts, boxes with multiple lines of text, and connections between these boxes. We found Visio with VMWare to be the best solution, JGraphpad 5 looks promising, too. Since diagrams are a common thing in development companies I was hoping others have made a comparison, too, and may come up with some other ideas to solve this problem."
Games

High Performance Gaming Laptops On A Budget? 106

Posted by simoniker from the portable-gaming-goodness dept.
Cory Tunney writes "In my quest to find a gaming laptop that will fulfill my gaming fantasies, but not kick me in the wallet at the same time, I've come across many options. Alienware is out of the question, as are companies like VooDooPC, but out of the rough comes companies less known but with impressive hardware. Sager seems to have won over a pretty large group of fans, and iBuyPower also seems to put out a decent amount of bang for the buck. However, when it comes down to it, I am still left with several options and I do not know what road to travel. So here's the jist of it - a system with a price tag around $2,000, a high-end video card (Radeon or the equivalent NVidia) and a system with an AMD would be a plus, but I will not rule out Intel if they can offer similar performance. So, Slashdot readers, what systems can you recommend?"
Businesses

Are Job Perks Coming into Vogue Again? 481

Posted by Cliff from the corporations-with-carrots dept.
Pharmboy asks: "The Register is reporting on a company that was awarded 'Best Small Company to Work for in America' by the Detroit Free Press, in part, for providing Free beer to their employees. They offer free breakfast, lunch AND dinner, gym and snacks. This sounds similar to the late 90s, where companies were offering extreme benefits to attract extreme talent, before the bubble burst and most workers were just glad to have a job. As the job market gains strength, what are companies willing to do in order to attract the best talent? Are we about to enter another era where employers are willing to make work fun again, in order to attract and keep talent? Will this have any effect on other employers, forcing them to again offer benefits to keep pace and talent? How important are these kinds of perks to the average employee anyway? What kind of perks would you have to have to switch to a job that pay the same?"
Programming

Is the 80 Columns Limit Dead? 317

Posted by Cliff from the increased-screen-width dept.
Dancing Primate asks: "Reading through the code of co-workers and various open source projects, I'm finding that people are no longer formatting their code to 80 columns. With most people using X and the wide range of non-vi editors, is the 80 column limitation disappearing? Am I the only one who gets grumpy when I do a diff or print code, and it's hard to read?"
Music

Have you Received Your $13 from the RIAA? 87

Posted by Cliff from the you-could-almost-buy-a-new-CD-with-that dept.
bluephone asks: "The recent story about how the RIAA is scamming around their court approved settlement, I was reminded about the fact that they owe me money. During the registration period, I filed my claim for reimbursement, and my mother did too. They site claims that "Payments will be mailed to Music Purchasers who filed valid claims beginning on February 20, 2004 and two weeks should be allowed for delivery." It uses the future tense because it hasn't been updated since February 19, the day before the mailings were due to start. Well, it's been over 5 months, and neither myself, my mother, nor anyone I know has received their payment. And the only way to inquire about it is via a Post Office Box mailing address. So I ask you, oh Slashdot userbase, have you received your RIAA price fixing settlements?"
Security

Remote Backup of Windows Boxes w/o Samba? 100

Posted by Cliff from the data-dumps-over-a-secure-tunnel dept.
reezle asks: "I'm looking for a good (free as in beer) method to have my Debian server back up some remote Windows machines. There is no Samba in the mix; this is supposed to be a strictly secure internet thing. I've been toying with OpenSSH on the windows computers as a good tunnel, thought of simple tools like ntbackup initiated from a script on the Linux box, but not all of the pieces have come together yet. I need to have the Linux box make the connection, back up data (full and incremental backups) and have that backup data get back to the Linux machine in an encrypted format (across the wild internet). Has anyone done something like this?"
Hardware

Where to Spend $1M on a Cluster? 104

Posted by Cliff from the shopping-for-beowulfs dept.
Natchswing asks: "My university has been given a $757,825 NSF grant to build, 'A 256 node (128 pair) Beowulf parallel computing cluster ... to improve the realism of gravity-wave modeling by permitting treatment of the three dimensional problem and multiple wave interactions.' They want to pay a company to just show up and drop off a functional cluster rather than build it themselves. Since word has leaked out regarding the purchase intent, every computer manufacturer under the sun (including Apollo himself) has called up trying to sell their cluster. Since I'm no cluster expert, I'm writing Slashdot. If you had $0.7 mil to buy a pre-built cluster who would you go with and why?"
Wireless Networking

Propagating a Signal Through Old Walls? 64

Posted by Cliff from the guiding-signals dept.
avjewe asks: "I have a wireless (802.11) network in my 100 year old house. The walls are thick plaster, with enough metal in them to block the signal quite effectively. The floors, however, pass the signal just fine. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions as to how one can propagate a signal through a maze of faraday cages? I recently added an omni-directional antenna which, as one would expect, boosted the signal where I already had one, but didn't help the dead spots."
Education

Is Typing a Necessary Skill? 1065

Posted by Cliff from the quick-brown-fox-jumps-over-the-lazy-dog dept.
cloudwilliam asks: "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on how many schools have stopped teaching touch-typing as a necessary office skill and are now often saying that basic computer skills are more important. I'd agree with the latter, but what about typing? I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II (and still own one, as a matter of fact) in the mid-1980s, and the last time I was tested, touch-typed at around 60 wpm. Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"
Music

Portable Digital Voice Recorders for a Singer? 44

Posted by Cliff from the pocket-arias dept.
Geek Singer asks: "I've had classical singing lessons for a while now and managed to advance to a level where hearing my own lessons is important for developing my skills. Here in Europe many singers use MiniDisc recorders. As a geek I think that MD recorders are DRM-encumbered, clumsy, slow and obsolete. Especially moving the recordings into my computer can get very troublesome due to nasty restrictions cast by Sony. For these reasons I need to have something else than a MD recorder. There are various portable MP3 players that have a voice recording capability, but I've found none that have all the properties I need: low price, good recording quality, line-in recording, excellent battery life, a good interface, support for Linux or Mac OS X and enough space for tens of hours of decent quality voice recordings or a slot for an exchangeable memory card. I've already checked numerous manufacturers including iRiver. Their players are great, except that the HD-models are too expensive and the flash-based models don't have a memory card slot. What portable digital voice recorders do you suggest?"
The Internet

Life Behind the Firewall Curtain? 91

Posted by Cliff from the online-but-unroutable dept.
beegle asks: "After a recent move, I discovered that my only broadband option is a cable company that puts all of its customers behind a NAT box. That means that my ISP gives me a 'private' 10.x.x.x address instead of a routable IP address. I'd like to connect to my machines remotely and use software that depends on a real address (P2P, games, etc.). The ISP doesn't prohibit this, but they're not willing to help, either. I've considered setting up a VPN to a friend's network, but that seems terribly inefficient. What hardware or software would you recommend for those of us who are stuck with 'fake' IP addresses?"
Biotech

Has Anyone Tried Corneal Reshaping? 63

Posted by Cliff from the alternatives-to-phasered-retinas dept.
bgraziano asks: "I'm looking into alternatives to LASIK and I'm investigating corneal reshaping. This involves wearing contact lenses at night to reshape my eyes to address nearsightedness and astigmatism. I've found lots of vendor sites but I can't find any first hand accounts from people going through the process. Has anyone tried this? Are you aware of any links to first hand accounts of people that have tried it?"
The Internet

Active Directory on Win2k or 2k3? 105

Posted by Cliff from the which-is-the-safer-option dept.
lordbry asks: "I am a Windows admin for a major university in a business computing area (if we have problems, people might not get paid). We have a Windows NT Domain, and are planning to migrate to Active Directory. One of my co-workers is pushing for doing this under Windows 2003. I, however, feel that (as with any M$ product) we should not even consider using 2003 for production anything until there is an SP 2 or 3, and that we should go with AD under Windows 2000. Does anyone have any advice, arguments, or horror stories that could help me make my case to the rest of my group, all of whom are somewhere in the middle? Does anyone think that 2003 is the way to go?"
Portables

Laptops with the Longest Battery Life? 751

Posted by Cliff from the built-to-last dept.
Yi Ding asks: "Recently, I have been investigating laptops for clients, and the majority of the complaints about current laptops is battery life. Most laptops just don't have enough juice to even finish a single DVD or write an article for 4-5 hours in an internet cafe. Of course, one can lug around extra battery packs, but it's a pain and often defeats the purpose of having a laptop in the first place, portability. What have your experiences with battery life been and where can I find the longest lasting, reasonably robust, laptop?"
Education

Primers for Semiconductor Physics? 36

Posted by Cliff from the quickly-brushing-up-on-those-rusty-skills dept.
mactom asks: "Hello, I am a physics engineer with a background in lasers (non semiconductor), but during the last years I have slipped into a job in semiconductor technology development. We define the manufacturing technology and how the transistors, diodes and other devices are to be designed and manufactured on the silicon level. First I did lithography only but now I am involved in layout and design of devices and in the whole technology development. After all of this, I've discovered that I have some serious gaps in my semiconductor physics understanding! I need some suggestions for books, tutorials or even seminars (in Europe/Germany) about semiconductor physics. Yes, I have some books already, but I always have the feeling that I miss something important when I do some self studying. So, I need some 'semiconductor for dummies' books or seminars.Any suggestions?"

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