narzy asks: "To me one of the most important steps to keeping a computer secure is keeping the systems software up to date. The problem I run in to is that more and more of the applications in everyday use are web enabled in some context or another, making them high targets for attack and exploitation. I am beginning to find it difficult to keep clients computers completely up to date. I find that applications that have an auto update such as my anti-virus Nod32 which updates every day on its own a real blessing. It's a feature that is an option but and option that I personally wish was in a lot more software. Windows has this feature (so does Linux if you want it to) however in the case of Windows it's not exactly all that consistent. Unfortunately it opens another can of worms that isn't so enjoyable that being companies who abuse such a system for advertising purposes, modifying the software in such a way to reduce or change its functionality either because of internal decisions or external pressures from 3rd parties, compromise and abuse of the server the company uses to distribute the updates. But is it worth the added risk to know that 95%+ of the time your software is up to date? It's not a cure all but is it or is it not better then a reactive approach?"

sarig_magik asks: "It seems that Dell is testing the Linux desktop market worldwide, and their choice of desktop is Linspire 4.51. I wonder how Microsoft will view Dell, now? Could this be a real attempt to gain a foothold before any of the other distributors do? We know the hardware vendor, but can anyone comment on the choice of OS?" Although Dell is offering a system with a preloaded Linux Desktop, they aren't doing it here in the US, but through their Italian partner, Questar. While the choice of Linspire as a desktop may leave a few of you underwhelmed, this does seem to be a step in the right direction. Is Dell testing the market? Of course they are. How well do you think they will do?

digitalsushi writes "With summer here again our thoughts turn to the outdoors, and for two years, my peers and I have tried to find plans online for augmenting our laser tag gear to make it more realistic. We're not engineers, but also figured it can't be that hard to do something with some kind of infrared laser to decrease the beam width. What other sorts of inexpensive things could be added to our gear to make it more interesting? We're using the popular Laser Challenge V2 kits, but any brand at all would be interesting."

ajain writes "Maybe a year and a half back or so, I started using someone@somewhere.com as a dummy email id in online blogs, guestboks, forums, and sundry pages. But then I started wondering what if someone actually tried to email me on that email address. I was sure that it would bounce because I assumed that there wouldn't be an actual email address like that. In any case, just for fun, I decided to google on someone@somewhere.com. And lo behold, there are some 4090 results! I have written a small article at my blog and a reader says NoOne@NoWhere.com is another contender. Do you use some common dummy email IDs too, to get around the privacy problem online? Isn't there a potential for malicious misuse of someone's email ID in this way?"

blakeross asks: "I will be doing research this summer at Stanford with Professor Andrew Ng about how we can incorporate machine learning into Firefox. As we work to finish up Firefox 1.0, we're also seeking ideas that will make Firefox 2.0 blow every other browser out of the water. People who come up with the best 3-5 ideas that involve the use of machine learning will win Gmail accounts, and if we implement your idea you'll be acknowledged in both our paper and in Firefox credits. Your idea will also be appreciated by the millions of people who use Firefox. We'll also entertain Thunderbird proposals. See my weblog post for more details; I'll read all comments posted in response to this story or to my weblog."