Gustavo asks: "My company is climbing the CMM ladder and the need for enterprise grade project management tools is growing. Currently we use a mix of MS-Project schedules and Excel spreadsheets, but this doesn't scale when one has a large pool of resources being used on several projects. Moreover, there being Project and Excel files are now scattered all around making it difficult to keep them up-to-date. One option is to go for the MS-Project Server but I was asked to find out if there is something free that we could use instead. Can you help me?"

statikuz writes "Wired is reporting that IBM's new data storage system, codenamed "Storage Tank", uses software to link servers in multiple locations over an IP network, creating a sort of mega-server capable of connecting thousands of computers and processing multiple petabytes of data. 'Storage Tank has the potential to become to an organization's data what the Dewey Decimal system is to a library,' said Dan Colby, general manager of storage systems at IBM. 'It reinvents the way information is filed, managed, shared and accessed within an organization.' CERN is currently using a beta version of the system to store data from the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator, which is being used to recreate the first moments of the Big Bang. IBM expects Storage Tank eventually will be able to handle 10 to 20 terabytes of CERN data. Get your own 'starter configuration' for only $90,000!"

ScottBob asks: "Seeing the recent post about the vintage computer festival got me thinking about old hardware I'm still using in my 'modern' computer. I have a 1 ghz Celeryonion machine, but when I bought the mobo I specifically looked for one with an ISA slot so I could still use my old Zoltrix modem I bought in '97 when V.90 was adopted (when it probably would have been cheaper to buy an ISA-less mobo and a PCI modem). I've also moved a '93 model floppy drive from machine to machine, and it still works. Usually, monitors and power supplies survive the ravage Moore's law has on hardware, but what other things does everybody else save when they cruft together a new machine? Anybody ever do things like disguise a 4 GHz P4 in an ancient 8086 machine box? While on the subject, is anybody still running old DOS programs in a DOS box on a Windows machine (e.g. a database) because your company is too poor/cheap to upgrade or doesn't want to bother with any free alternatives?"

A user writes "First Microsoft detergent, now, UNIX Diapers, among other niceties. The author of this page has apparently worked to photograph and categorize the use of the term UNIX in other, non software products." (And don't forget Linux detergent.) Update: 10/12 21:23 GMT by T : Less garbled now ;)

bcrowell writes "After some legal delays, today is supposed to be the first day that the Do Not Call registry will be enforced. Got my first illegal call just now, and strangely enough, when I said I was on the list and started asking for information, the telemarketer said my signal was breaking up (particularly strange since I wasn't on a cell phone.) Has anyone successfully gotten the necessary info from a telemarketer and then managed to file a complaint? You're supposed to be able to file a complaint at 888-382-1222, but their touch-tone system doesn't give you any way to do it. You're also supposed to be able to do it via the web, but there doesn't seem to be any form, although they say "You can file your complaint on this Web site using the File a Complaint page, which will be available starting October 1, 2003." Remember, it may take up to 3 months after you register until they're required to stop calling you." Tales of success? Tales of failure?

Realistic_Dragon writes "The first discussion has been sighted on the Linux kernel mailing list to put together a feature list of things that should go into Linux 2.7 - including hotplug CPU & Ram support, network transparent sound and improvements to Netfilter to bring it up to the the level of OpenBSD's Packet Filter. And all this before most of us have started to run 2.6.0-preX, or even a 2.6 series stable release happening. Perhaps if you have a (sensible) idea now would be a good time to voice it, otherwise you will have to wait for 2.9 to get it included."

GreenCrackBaby asks: "My wife was at a mall about a year ago when she ran across one of those groups who were trying to sign people up for a Visa credit card. Since she didn't yet have a credit card, she decided she'd fill out the form. She had everything filled out and was ready to sign it when she noticed the draconian fine print that essentially promised that they would sell her personal data to anyone they could, so instead of signing the form she said 'no thanks' and tossed it in the garbage. That was a mistake she has been made to regret. Almost immediately SPAM to her university email address went from 0 to 20 a day, and has been slowly increasing since. Soon we started to receive a large number of telemarketing calls to our home (where before we had received almost none). Junk mail addressed to her went through the roof. It wasn't until the Visa card arrived addressed to her that we knew what had happened." It appears that someone fished this woman's application out of the garbage and submitted this anyways, without a signature. How is something like this even close to being legal?