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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's website was the only site I could find that had any information on cellphones and solicitation.

Note the first question from 'JOHN PUHATCH':

Q: Regarding the sole use of wireless phones as an alternative to a land line connection, as I have done for nearly two years: You stated that tele-marketers do not call wireless phones. If only that were the case. Tele-marketing agencies have regularly contacted me on my cell phone concerning everything from vacation homes to long-distance service. My assumption is that these agencies secure my cell phone number by buying information from the plethora of forms and applications that require home telephone numbers but leave no place for a cell phone.

'A: [...]In short, John, you lost your chance at a telemarketing-free life when you filled out those forms with your phone number. May others learn from your mistake.'

Most land-based phone companies allow anonymous-call blocks these days. Are there cellular phone companies doing anything similar?

Throwing the gopher out with the bathwater. An Anonymous Coward writes: "As reported on News.com and discussed on Slashdot, MSIE's gopher support had a serious security vulnerability that allowed your machine to get ROOT'ed.

Well, it seems that Microsoft is unwilling or unable to make the fix, so it is removing support for the gopher protocol from IE. Not that MSIE's gopher support isn't very poorly implemented anyways."

Kept out of the U.S. by the secret conspiracy, no doubt. Buggalo writes "When I saw the article about the Pogo Flipster I thought I'd mention this too. Of course, it's not available in the US (not yet at least), but it sounds cool anyway. It plays MP4 video as well as MP3 audio. One thing that differentiates it from the Flipster is that this one includes video inputs so you don't even need a computer to get anything onto it. It also seems to have a larger screen. From what I can tell it has 64 megs of flash memory built in, and has an SD memory card slot as well. Sorry the website is in Japanese, but you can use Babelfish to translate it."

Not betting on a United front. dgb2n writes "Smart Money Magazine published an excellent article covering the business implications of the United Linux consortium. It provides some good insight into Red Hat's business model, stock price, and future prospects and names a potential winner in the Linux market."

At least this one aspect is happy. Hellkitten writes "The password for the database has been found, it was as simple as 'ladepujd', the name of the database's creator spelt backwards This previous Slashdot article explains the problem they had.

Aasentunet posted this notice, telling the password and thanking everyone that helped"

ZDNet has the story here as well."

Location, location, location. A lot of people were interested in the Google contest whose winner was announced last week; Dan Egnor creator of that entry, writes "FYI, I've released the code for the winning Google contest entry under the GPL."

You mean they weren't just saying Hi? Anonymous Goodfella writes: "In an update to the Dangers of Being a Microbiologist, the AP [news.com.au] is reporting an attack on a Tennessee state medical examiner who gave evidence to an inquiry into the death of infectious diseases researcher Don Wiley. Coroner O.C. Smith was left tied with barbed wire to an apparent explosive."

Jakob Nielsen says Flash No Longer Evil Allen Varney writes "Given that Flash MX now supports the back button, Unicode, and accessibility, and has introduced p$user interface components, usability guru Jakob Nielsen today updated his famous 'Flash: 99% Bad' rant from October 2000. (Scroll down to see the update, stirringly titled 'Flash Now Improved.') His Nielsen Norman Group has formed a strategic alliance with Macromedia to start educating one million Flash designers in the fundamentals of good design. You did know that Flash .SWF is now an open format, right?"

Step 47: remove blindfold, scream. For those anxiously awaiting (or judiciously pondering) the Linux upgrade kit for the PS2, some words to consider from reader silvaran, who writes: "I just received my Playstation 2 Linux kit in the mail. I was disappointed to find that none of the monitors (3) that I had function properly with it. So I took to following the instructions on a blind install. It's not the most elegant of solutions, but it works. You need a blank memory card to install, but everything else is included in the kit. I'm on my way to a full Linux installation, complete with 100mbit networking, 40-gig HD and a USB keyboard and mouse; also included are full documentation on taking advantage of the PS2 hardware under Linux."

That blind install looks not for the faint of heart -- still, it would be nice if every distro included a simple walk through like that for when a monitor just isn't handy :)

Reader microwerx adds some a few more words of advice and caution: "[T]he PS2 Linux Kit will not read CDRs, so you'll have to use the supplied 10/100 Ethernet Adapter to get stuff in and out of the machine. One very good thing about the PS2 Linux Kit was the documentation regarding the Emotion Engine chip, etc. There's at least 2000+ pages of information regarding how it all works in glorious PDF format. There is also a OpenGL-like library (ps2gl) that supports the hardware. I also understand that SDL also works. Another is the amount of equipment you receive. You get a USB mouse and keyboard, a 10/100MBPS Ethernet Adaptor, A VGA convertor, and a 40Gb Hard drive. And all of this stuff appears to have some future use (you may have to remove Linux to use them nonetheless). So, once again, unless you just want the novelty of having a PS2 Workstation, developing console games, or setting up a small home server, I don't believe that you'll gain too much additional functionality. An overall rating of 3 1/2 stars out of 5 is certainly in order (because after all, it is for game development)."