Dr.Dubious DDQ asks: "With all the recent Microsoft(r) news, I see a lot of the usual complaining about Microsoft's unfair 'embrace and extend' practices. I do my own fair share of this, but I'd much rather actually *do* something about it.At the risk of prompting cries of 'No! That will only make them stronger!', I find myself asking: How possible is it to 'transparently' replace Microsoft-brand services with other (preferably, but not necessarily, Open Source) services (rather than flatly demanding migration away from all things MS)? Or put the other way around, what tweaks would have to be made to existing, standard services to make them 'bug-for-bug compatible' with MS versions, particularly OUTSIDE of the context of SMB/Samba, which is an already-obvious example?" While there are definite reasons why such an effort may be worthwhile, it is also possible that Microsoft could attempt to make legal attacks at such projects...even though they are designed with software interoperability in mind. Precedents in support of this idea do exist, such as: ReactOS and even standard Open Source openings like Gnumeric.

grocer asks: "Due to a piano, the living room suddenly has too much furniture and the TV is going upstairs. I just got a Dell Dimension 4600 with DVD (ROM and RW), 17" Flat screen, and the good speakers and it's staying downstairs. The Dell is under warranty and I'm not opening it, so card based solutions are out. I know it has enough power/space (2.8Ghz, 1GB RAM, 60+ gig free) to run MPEG-2 and do PVR, I just can't find a good review/comparison on the web of USB PVR hardware. I've it gotten down to the Adaptec VideOh! DVD Media Center USB 2.0 or the AVerMedia UltraTV USB 300. Any other recommendations for USB tuners? Anybody else move the TV and replace it with a computer?"

BrynM asks: "I work for a professional association that is currently using several Symantec Act! databases to keep track of Membership, Event Registration and Continuing Education. This 'solution' is growing very long in the tooth as Act! is really just a contact database and not a full blown management system and doesn't handle payments for member dues, orders or registration fees at all. I have worked for an Association that used iMIS, which is fully featured but is way beyond my current employer's budget to implement. There's a short list of software in the Google Directory, but foraging the vendor's websites hoping for a demo and trying to get a quote for all of them would be unrealistic. Finding something that uses a database back-end that we can interface other things with would be ideal. I'm OSS agnostic on this one - we just want the most useful and practical solution. What software would you recommend? Do you have any experiences with software to avoid?"

GraWil asks: "Does anyone have advice on purchasing a color laser printer? I'm trying to decide between getting a new small 'personal' color laser or a used/refurbished workhorse. For the roughly the same money, I can either buy a Xerox 6100 or a refurbished Tektronix 740/750 or even a tabloid sized 790. I've had mixed luck with color HP and Lexmark printers but I'm open to any suggestions at this point. There are a fair number of reviews but none of them ever compare new with the old."

Saqib Ali asks: "Office 2003 Pro as been out for quite some time now. I was wondering how many large corporations have been to able use it as a XML authoring / modelling application? I have been involved in evaluation of several XML authoring / modelling applications and am planning to evaluate Office 2003 for it's XML authoring capabilities. The scope of my evaluation is limited to capabilities required for authoring technical documentation, preferably in DocBook XML. Is there anything I should keep in mind before starting the evaluation? One feature that I like about Office 2003 is its support for WebDAV. Our homebrewed CMS (Content Management Systems) supports WebDAV, which makes publishing the content a breeze. Except for OpenOffice, I haven't seen any other XML authoring application that has support for WebDAV. Any suggestions?"

Pieroxy asks: "As a web developer, both professionally and personally, I try to always make sure what I write works in every browser at my disposal. When the choice came for me to choose a platform for my PC, I went the Windows route, because I cannot afford not to test IE on all those websites/applications. But now I am facing a problem with all browsers that don't have a native Windows port, such as IE5/Mac, Safari/Konqueror. kde-cygwin helped very little because the version of Konqueror shipped doesn't display most JPEG, making any testing worthless. IE5 for Mac should die soon, but is still widely used as being the default browser for so long. How do you test your web pages? Have you noticed discrepancies on how a specific engine (Gecko, Opera, KHTML) renders content on different Platforms? Do I need a Mac and a Linux machine to make sure it is working on these platforms?"

harlows_monkeys asks: "I went through a bit of a hassle getting a replacement SS card, because my name in their records is 'Timothy' but my driver's license says 'Tim'. They seemed surprised and a little bit suspicious over my going by 'Tim' when my legal name is 'Timothy'. Looking over things, I see that I'm 'Tim' on my driver's license, health and auto insurance, credit and bank cards, bank accounts, mutual funds, paychecks, W-2, and tax returns. I'm 'Timothy' to the SS office, and on my auto lease (but 'Tim' on my auto registration). The SS office warned me that this mismatch would cause problems. Has anyone else run into this? Should I be going around and changing my records everywhere to say 'Timothy' to match my Social Security records?"

a little lethargic asks: "I work at a medium sized business (20-25 computer users, out of house web server, in-house Win2k profiles and file server, ADSL connection, firewalled, nightly tape backup - a pretty standard small business-type setup). Our insurance company's 'Technology Risk Group' is trying to get us to purchase 'Cyber Risk Insurance'. The minimum premium for their policies begins at Cd$3500. Management wants to know if we should consider this or not. Has anyone on Slashdot dealt with similar insurance issues and might they have experience or insight to share?"

bcorrigan78 asks: "I love programming, however I work in a network operations center with very few co-workers where the air conditioners can just about put you to sleep. Besides music, what do all of you programmers do to avoid workplace monotony?"

An anonymous reader asks: "I have an extremely unpleasant person to whom I directly report. I have no desire to leave my company until I've accomplished certain personal (read: financial) goals, but that will probably be, at the least, 12-30 months. In the meantime, I'd like to start resolving the personality clashes that me and this individual seem to constantly find ourselves in, with the hopes of perhaps extending my stay. Unfortunately, it's beyond my current mediating skills. Have you found any particular books, articles, texts, outlooks, or strategies which they have found valuable with respect to resolving personality conflicts in the workplace, or in a larger sense, mediating, arbitrating, or resolving disagreements?"

BJS asks: "I'm in the process of building a my first Wearable Computer. The last thing I have to do in it's construction is to make a heads up display system. I want to have something like an iScape2, a MicroOptical C3, or even this TekGear component, however I'm in collage so I can't afford to spend much. A friend of mine suggested that I find a broken camcorder online and mod the viewfinder. Dose anyone have any suggestions or experience in making their own HUDs? Does anyone know where I can find a broken camcorder or camcorder parts? And finally, what experiences have people had with making a wearable computer? Thank you, Slashdot!"

bergeron76 asks: "Does anyone know of a Linux distributions or modifications to a Linux d system that implement a CVS[like] structure for control over system configuration files (/etc, /usr/etc, and so on)? Personally, I'd love to see a distro that featured a native CVS/RCS control mechanism for editing system configuration files. Does anything like this currently exist? If not, is anyone working in this direction?"

A not-so-anonymous Anonymous Coward asks: "Like many Slashdot readers, I have accumulated a lot of data over the years. Emails, documents, 'media' etc. Although I try to keep up with backups, I still feel I need some other place where I could dump my data without worrying about hard drive crashes and other problems. Googling reveals that there is a whole slew of online storage providers. But most are around $10 a month with a couple of gigs of space. So what does Slashdot recommend for sites that offer plenty of storage and fit the budget of a poor home user?"