r0gue_ asks: "I work for a mid-size OEM hardware manufacturer. We ship approximately 300 to 500 IDE HDs every month across all our units. Currently we experience about a 4% failure rate (Maxtor and WDs), though in recent months it has been a couple percent higher. The problem is our systems are dedicated boxes with a non end-user friendly form factor. Virtually every physical HD failure results in an RMA. What we are looking for is a hardware based IDE HD burn-in platform. Something that we could drop a dozen or so drives in at once, stress test them for a day or two, then put them into inventory for builds. I know the HD manufacturers and larger OEMs use them but I have not been able to track down anywhere we could purchase one. Right now moving to SCSI or a form factor that supports externally removable drives is not an option. I was hoping that the Slashdot community could point me in the right direction."

zbowling (Zac Bowling) asks: "I currently use Comcast cable internet, and I consistently get hit with spam popups. These are not the ones you get from a webpages or media, these are dialog box popups from people scanning all possible IPs for the open messenger port on most NT or Win2k machines. The NT Messenger service (also the same as Novells Network Alert system) is reserved for admins, so they can send messages to the domain or a single workstation for any reason. This service has been taken advantage of by spammers looking for a cheap way to spam someone. One message I got was a spam to get me to buy a firewall product from them to prevent this from happening. I'm sure you can shut of that service or block that port except from people in your subnet. Does anyone know of any resources on the topic?"

mindlace23 asks: "Assuming you had some mechanism by which an open source project generated revenue, how would you fairly distribute those earnings amongst the contributors to the software? Rules that most clearly avoid bias would be preferable; Some sort of automated heuristic would be ideal if it's not gameable."

SysKoll asks: "I belong to an LUG (Linux Users Group) and I am trying to increase the visibility of Linux and Open Source for the general public. I googled for several hours and I noticed that almost nobody seems to offer Linux and OSS promotional posters anymore. (I already have the 'Good evening Mr Gates, I'll be your server tonight' giant Tux poster). So do you have a recommendation for OSS and Linux posters, preferably suitable for the general public?"

Above asks: "In this article we see apache 2.0.45 has been released. Well, I plan on rebuilding my webserver soon, which means installing the "latest" version. However, I'm still on the 1.x train, which is still going strong. As someone who hasn't used 2.x, and hasn't followed the development is it ready for the masses or should I stick with 1.x and be happy? Are mod_perl and ssl (my two requirements) stable? What about all the other things (php et all)? I don't do anything fancy with my web sites, but having them "just work" and not having to upgrade every other day are both strong concerns. What are your experiences?"

Dave2 Wickham asks: "I am interested in using one of my PCs as a remote control. The most likely candidate for this would be my laptop - which runs Windows XP (flame on, but I don't want to make any major changes in my last year of school). It has a standard IR port built in - nothing fancy. If there is, for some reason, no option for this, then is there any way for me to use my Live! Drive with LIRC on my Linux machine?" For those interested, Ask Slashdot handled the converse of this issue, in an article on controlling PCs with IR remotes.

RedBear writes "I work for a small non-profit (under 10 people) as the "tech" person (I deal mostly with simple computer problems and website work). The organization is focused on marine safety training and injury prevention. We have a lot of products for sale, mostly small things like bandanas, signal mirrors, first aid kits, etc. We also have a lot of training equipment that we loan out, mostly big things like PFDs (personal flotation devices), immersion suits and even huge inflatable survival rafts. Also, both for sale and loan, we have a ton of books, videos, brochures and displays (for conferences and such). Some of the training equipment for loan is only to be loaned to instructors certified by our organization. We're in the process of looking for a good inventory control system. It takes two people many hours every week keeping track of what equipment comes in and goes out, and when a bunch of orders come in at once they literally can't keep up. We do have a computerized database system but it was designed for the organization from scratch and uses FileMaker Pro. There's nothing wrong with that, but it really doesn't work well. It's confusing, and doesn't integrate with any other system, like our mailing list database or any sort of invoicing system." Ask Slashdot last touched on this subject with this article which inventory control with handhelds. While I'm sure such functionality would be appreciated, what other Open Source technologies would be necessary if you were going to implement across-the-board inventory control, and how well do they all integrate with each other and with the proprietary inventory control solutions?

hoibbes asks: "I was wondering if anyone knew of a C++ program for my Pocket PC. Now, I know that I will probably get quite a few replies saying Embedded Visual C++, and while they would be right, that is not what I am looking for. I am looking for a program that will let me write C++ code on my Pocket PC. So that while I am away on a trip I can still work on my code. I have been searching for a while now and have come up with nothing. I come to ask the help of Slashdot in a final attempt to find what I need."

Rick the Red asks: "I'm using Windows ME, Office 2000, and a Pocket PC, but I'm trying to break free (pun intended). To begin my migration, I've decided to replace Office 2000 with OpenOffice.org on Windows, then move to Linux (dual-boot; I've still got the games issue) once that conversion is complete. My concern is the Pocket PC. I'd love to go cold-turkey and replace my Jornada with a Sharp Zaurus, but that's not in the budget right now. OpenOffice.org provides XMerge, which covers Word and Excel, but what about Outlook? What email reader/contact list/calendar apps (for Windows) do you recommend to replace Outlook -and- sync with Pocket Outlook? Any success stories to share?"

b!arg asks: "I am a sysadmin for a construction company. Currently the company spends god knows how much money on disposable cameras. They use these cameras to document accidents and the such out in the field. Typically these disposable cameras have 27 pictures available to them but only a few are ever taken before they are developed because of time. We can't hold onto a camera to take different shots of different accidents until its full. I am looking into the feasibility of moving to all digital cameras. Does anyone have experience with using these in such a potentially damaging setting? Obviously no digicam will withstand getting run over by a dumptruck, but what have you found to be a durable digital camera for people out in the field. Ease of use is also fairly important. And since we understand that these will almost definitely break once in awhile, I can't buy $1000 cameras. Two MegaPixels is sufficient quality, preferably using CF and, if I can dream, waterproof since the Northwest U.S. tends to be a tad rainy (does that break my budget?). Or am I trying to be too 'techie' when this solution just won't work because of the conditions in which they'll be used?"