demosi asks: "I'm involved in the NOMAD project, which is described here. Part of the work involves determining how community wireless services can be best used to build social capital (i.e. whether something will have a positive affect on the productivity of a community and its members), by promoting communication in a trustworthy environment. We're asking Slashdot readers if they're involved in similiar projects and if they're interested in measuring the network effects of community WiFi across different countries and cultures?"

BlueCup asks: "I've wanted to switch to Linux for quite a while, but my work requires a lot of automated tasks. For these tasks I have global macros set up using Toolsworks and Macro Express. So far I've looked for equivalents for Linux, but have been unsuccessful. Does anyone know of a similar program that reaches the same level of complexity of the above programs for Linux?"

Chasuk asks: "I work at a large computer retailer in a college town, and I've finally convinced the powers-that-be to sell PCs with Linux pre-installed. The catch is, it will only be installed on Micro ATX machines, which require half-height everything, and we can't find a source of half-height Linux compatible PCI modems. Even those universal, generic half-height replacement hangers/brackets would be acceptable, but I can't find those, either. Can anyone on Slashdot help? "

trifster asks: "At this year's Comdex I purchased a Buslink USB 2.0 Cardbus adapter for my laptop. It was a good price and a partial impulse purchase, however it was defective out of the box. Before Christmas 2003, I set it back via Buslink's RMA process. It will be 2 months tomorrow, and I have not received my replacement nor have the 3 phone calls or 4 emails been addressed. What can one consumer do when he is on the East Coast and his hardware is held hostage on the West Coast? What have your experiences been in resolving these support SNAFUs?"

jackda asks: "Like many out there I (an Engineer from Canada now in Massachusetts) am working in the US on the TN-1 visa. It has and continues to be a frustrating process both obtaining the visa, as well as obtaining information on working as a visa holder, in the US. I have received a very mixed bag of info from the US/CDN Consolate down to the border cross/INS people. I am just wondering if the collective minds of Slashdot could offer any tips, sources or info on anything from SSNs, to taxes, to resident/employment status, to any useful knowledge about living for a TN visa holder."

travik asks: "I use a Nokia 3650. The cell phone already knows my co-ordinates (E911 service). It has Bluetooth. Why can't I send the coordinates using Bluetooth to my laptop, and use a mapping application to give me my location and directions to where i want to go. I've searched Google and also read up on old posts, no one seems to be doing it. Why?"

phnork asks: "I have asked many skilled Win2K users and networking specialists how to close Port 1723 in my Win2K system. I have searched the net unsuccessfully, browsed news groups, asked my ISP techies, and even asked my wife. But, although all agree the port normally used for PPTP (VPN) should not be open, no one has taken the time to document how nor post the solution where it can be found. In fact, I have found that most security issues that abound in the Wide World of Windows occur because those in the know, do not. Not even Microsoft! If they did, the solution would be as easy and straight forward as setting up a printer. Networks and security are still relegated to the nether worlds of the 80s where we used to have problems with every printer installation and computers were hauled to a grinding stop by the inability of the protocol lords to arrive at a consensus. But, maybe now the solution is at hand. Now that I have asked for help maybe someone will come forward with those super words, 'Try this...'." What other hard-to-close ports have you found open in your Win2k install. What did you have to do to close them?

Patrick Clinger asks: "I run a large community Web site, and today I woke up to find that one of my domain names (proboards21.com) was disabled by my unnamed registrar -- my name servers were changed to NS1/NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM and I no longer have access to that domain in my control panel. I am in no way involved in any spam activities, and the registration for my domain expires in 2007. I would expect at least a courtesy call or an email letting me know what happened, but neither was provided by the unnamed registrar. What can you do when suddenly a registrar goes off and takes control of your domain when there was no violation of your agreement with them? What is to prevent any registrar from taking over any domain when they feel like it? Right now my domain is in limbo, waiting for them to hopefully restore it to the correct name servers."

bbulzibar asks: "Indiana University, like many other Universities, is struggling to deal with P2P file sharing. At a recent meeting, faculty, staff, and administration were convinced that 'the University is going to have to take some sort of action in the future [to eliminate illegal activity on the university's network].' With no student input, I can only imagine the worst happening (limiting data transfer, suing students, taking funds out of the student technology fee). What kind of a solution could be recommended by a proactive student in order to avoid an ugly 'solution' and loss of file sharing, yet reasonable enough that the University will accept it? IU has outlined 4 options at the meeting. Your thoughts?"

EvilJoven asks: "About a month ago I spent quite a large chunk of change on a new system only to have my cat chew through the VGA source cable of my brand new display. Over the course of the last few years my cat has cost me nearly $300CDN in repair and replacement costs due to chewed cables including a few power cables which are not only a pain to replace but potentially fatal to the animal and a fire hazard. So far the best solution I've found to stop this is wrapping all my cables in Snap-On Wire Protectors (about $6CDN for 3m at Canadian Tire in the Automotive section) but this is a rather unsightly solution. Due to the fact that I live in a one bedroom apartment restricting my cats access to my hardware is not an option. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on a better way to protect gear from animals."

Peterus7 asks: "I'm a student at the University of Washington, and I was planning on majoring in Computer Science or Informatics until I took Computer science, and I'm realizing that it's simply beyond me. I grew up with computers, and naturally I want to study a field that involves a lot of interaction between people and technology (mainly computers), but the Intro to Java class I'm taking now is driving me over the edge. Any suggestions for a technologically intensive field that doesn't require ungodly amounts of coding, or perhaps any general methods for surviving computer science courses for new students?"

Viqsi asks: "Back in my Win32 days, I was a very frequent user of RAR archives. I've had them get hit by partial hardware failures and still be recoverable, so I've always liked them, but they're completely non-Free, and the mini-RMS in my brain tells me this could be a problem for long-term archival. The closest free equivalent I can find is .tar.bz2, and while bzip2 has some recovery ability, tar is (as far as I have ever been able to tell) incapable of recovering anything past the damaged point, which is unacceptable for my purposes. I've recently had to pick up a copy of RAR for Linux to dig into one of those old archives, so this question's come back up for me again, and I still haven't found anything. Does anyone know of a file archive type that can recover from this kind of damage?"

Broue Master asks: "The main harddrive of a friend's computer stopped working. He described to me that the computer began by emitting strange 'scratching sounds', and after a while, it made a 'loud *tock* sound' and stopped. He tried to reboot it but soon realized that the harddrive wasn't spinning anymore. He asked me if I could revive it, at least long enough so that he could retrieve at least his "my documents" folder. The computer was running XP. I did a little googling(tm) of my own to find out that the most recommended solution out there seems to be 'freezing' the harddrive for a day in a ziplock bag. I'd like to know what fellow Slashdot readers have done in the past to try and resurrect dead harddrives and if the freezing method would still be a good idea, today. The harddrive is a Samsung 30Gb." A good 95% of the time, once an HD is gone, break out the shovel, because it's time to bury it. Still, it would be interesting to note, if only from an anecdotal standpoint, if any of you have managed to perform such miracle hardware resurrections. Have you managed to revive a dead and decaying drive from the dead long enough to pull data off of it? If so, what did you do?