PhraudulentOne asks: "I work for a small rural ISP in Canada and we are planning to offer highspeed internet access (512k-2Mbps) for our rural customers that are too far down the line (or are unlucky enough to be in another carriers area) to receive DSL access. I am wondering how many of you have had success deploying wireless over a 3-10 mile range and what technologies worked for you. I have deployed a 2.4Ghz solution in the past by Alvarion but this time I am interested in the possibilities of 5.8Ghz/3.5Ghz/900Mhz or 2.4Ghz. I have looked at some technologies (ie. Angel) that work in the 1900Mhz spectrum as well. NLOS (non line of sight) would be great which 900Mhz works well with, but high bandwidth would also be a plus."

ClintJCL asks: "I've recently been tasked to create an online web forum for my employer. Actually, they said 'weblog' but when I got more clarification, it is not really a blog but more of a message forum that is what they want. How do I find a good forum? I have looked into many, many forums, and there are simply too many out there to compare them all myself. Is there a website that reviews online forums and their software? Is there somebody who is experienced in doing this, that perhaps has some good advice?" We last touched on this subject exactly a year ago, and it seems that businesses are warming to the idea. Have new and better options popped up in the intervening time?

Anonymous Coward asks: "I was wondering whether people remember the very first MP3 file they ever downloaded. For me it was Cher's 1998 single 'Believe.' I was at work and, after reading an article about MP3s on CNET, I figured I'd give it a try. I think it's strange that I remember it so clearly. I mean, it's not like it was a first kiss or anything. I started out using WS FTP LE and Winamp. 1000s of MP3s later, WS FTP LE is a distant memory but Winamp is still my player of choice. What about you?"

Brian the Wise asks: "For all of you with large and/or complex wireless networks out there, what tools (commercial or otherwise) do you use to keep an eye on the health and state of your network? I'm not only interested in the security/IDS side of things, but also bad packets, reflections, clients flip-flopping between APs, etc. I've looked at all the usual open source projects, and so far Kismet comes the closest to my needs, but the wireless drivers on Linux do too much sanitizing of packets so I never see the bad ones. I know the FreeBSD drivers show more, but some of the advanced stuff (ie extra info from the Cisco Aironet drivers) is not supported by tcpdump or ethereal. Is there anything I can do besides getting up close and personal with the Linux network stack and drivers?"

Jsf72672 asks: "With the recently-passed Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, and the looming HIPAA compliance requirements a constant thorn in the side of IT staff, Enterprise Instant Messaging seems to be overlooked. Most users are using AIM or MSN. Microsoft and Yahoo! both have products tailored to the Enterprise, but no one wants to rely their technology to keep them out of jail, or from paying huge fines. Jabber looks attractive but our already overtaxed IT staff does not have the time to compile, secure and test homegrown solutions. What are Slashdot-reading IT Managers doing? I found these guys and their InterIM line of products, and they look pretty good. Is anyone using them? Are there other low-cost solutions you have employed?"

skurrier asks: "Reading the comments for a totally unrelated article, an almost off topic post caught my eye: Someone said that they still had a Sun branded Sony GDM class monitor from way back, and (of course) it rocked then and still rocks. (Sorry, can't find the article, yet alone the comment) As I looked across my desk to that similar Sun branded Sony behemoth plugged into my PC I asked myself: How many people still use ancient monitors? And more importantly, what is the oldest monitor you still use regularly?"

digitalsushi asks: "Are there any small Dialup ISPs out there that have the option to automatically save their customer's email attachments to a private web site? How do Dialup ISPs continually manage to deal when people email their customers huge media files, only to lock the mailbox into a 5 hour download? It seems that there must be some solution other than calling tech support every time the customer gets a giant email. What are the Dialup ISPs doing to protect themselves with limited resources?"

Cyphertube asks: "I'm wondering what rights an IT contractor has under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the US (or similar legislation in other countries). Can an employer get rid of you as an hourly contractor in situations they couldn't as a permanent employee, despite the fact that the reason they are getting rid of the employee is due to a disability?"

slonkak asks: "For extra credit in my Management & Information Systems we were asked to redevelop the IT curriculum. Interning at a government organization for the past 5 years, I have a good idea of what I'd like to know graduating from college. Here are the two tracks I came up with. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this curriculum? I would like more experience members of the Slashdot community to give their input on what they would like to see new hires have a good understanding of." Yes, this one may sound like Slashdot-Do-My-Homework, but the underlying question is still worthwhile. For you IT Managers out there, what do you expect someone with a college degree to know? For you prospective CS Students who might be reading, what would you like to learn while obtaining that degree?

Patman asks: "I've recently taken a new job where I'll need to be making drive images and such for quite a few IDE drives - say a few a day. I need the ability to 'hot-swap' IDE drives into a running Linux or Windows system. The systems that I'm using are fairly standard IBM desktop PCs, I've found references on Google to IDE->USB converter cables and IDE->USB converter boxes. Does anyone have experience with those? Some come with drivers for Windows - has anyone used them under Linux? Does the mass storage USB code deal with them accurately? Barring that, does anyone have any other ideas? External hot-swapping would be ideal, although an internal solution would be doable, too."

apoplectic asks: "Pick a word. A noun would be nice, but not required. Now, imagine a potentially meaningful adjective or other nebbish modifier, select the first letter, and append this to either the beginning or the end of the noun you originally chose. Some examples, include: JBoss, WebL, GStreamer, eMachine, iPod, and of course the XBox. I realize that the exceptions greatly outweigh this rule, but this does seem to be a disproportionately invoked naming standard that lacks a little 'je ne sais quoi'. Why is this so common? Do you really like this 'standard', or is this like something touched on by an episode of Futurama? Have, we have run out of names that have yet to be copyrighted, and all we are left with is Poppler -- or some hideous cryptic name from the aforementioned 'UName' naming standard. Why does it seem as if quite a few applications, along with many a geeky item, follow such unimaginative naming conventions?"

cloudscout asks: "Palm users are slowly being cut off from Instant Messaging networks. In July of 2002, changes to the Yahoo! Messenger network effectively disabled the service's PalmOS client and an updated version was never released. Now the same fate has befallen ICQ users. Changes to the ICQ network have disabled the PalmOS client. This happened in September and since then, ICQ has responded to all bug reports with an irrelevant form letter. This leaves Palm users with AIM whose official client is a couple of years old, buggy and costs $20. Is there a future for Instant Messaging on Palm? One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority."