Slashdot Mirror

scubacuda asks: "I'm looking for a good "all you can eat" cellular data plan for my laptop. So far, I've looked into T-mobile, Earthlink, and Verizon's wireless Internet options. Any suggestions on price, availability, and speed? The real kicker for me is Linux support, which, I've been told by all three companies, is NOT available. (Any and all hacks would be greatly appreciated!)" This particular market is still in a great degree of flux, especially with landscape-changing deals like the AT&T/Cingular merger going on in the background and issue of going for cellular or WiFi connectivity service. Are there any wireless carriers that you've been able to get working on a Linux laptop? If so, what did you have to do to attain your wireless laptop nirvana?

scubacuda points out this CNET story, writing "In addition to beefing up its storage (100MB -> 250MB), Yahoo! Mail has implemented Domain Keys to find spam. The idea is simple: give email providers a way to verify the domain and integrity of the messages sent. Sendmail, Inc. has released an open source implementation of the Yahoo! DomainKeys specification for testing on the Internet and is actively seeking participants and feedback for its Pilot Program. Yahoo! has submitted the DomainKeys framework as an Internet Draft, titled 'draft-delany-domainkeys-base-01.txt,' for publication with the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The patent license agreement can be found here."

scubacuda writes "In this GrepLaw interview, Downhill Battle's Nicholas Reville describes the success (and takedown) of SP2Torrent.com, alternative ways to buy music, what indie musicians think about filesharing, and real ways to counter threats to creativity and an open culture. Those excited about the possibilities of Bittorrent will especially appreciate Downhill Battle's Blog Torrent, an easy-to-install program that will dramatically simplify the creation, posting, and seeding of new torrents."

scubacuda writes "What actually happens when you install adware/spyware/malware? Follow the Bouncing Malware examines what's downloaded, redirected, and obfuscated. A fascinating read. (Part two was postponed in order to cover a new My Doom variant.)"

scubacuda writes "Greplaw has interviewed Katie Jones (of the real Katie.com). In addition to the details of the dispute regarding Penguin's 'branding' of the book Katie.com (which many /.ers 'reviewed'), she shares the details of her conversation with cyberlawyer Parry Aftab, how she believes Penguin's title change suggests that it thought it could steamroll her without recourse, and the tremendous amount of support the geek community has shown her." Ms. Aftab has several blogs. Ms. Aftab, if you contact us with a response to these allegations, Slashdot will publish your response (we've also written to your email address). Another reader notes: "Yesterday /. ran an article about the book Katie.com. Out of curiosity I just visited the Amazon.com website to see how many more reviews were on the website. Yesterday when I first checked there were over 300 reviews, most of them negative and the book scored only 2 stars total. Today, the book has 81 reviews with an average rating of 3 1/2 stars."

scubacuda writes "PC World: ICQ Universe (now owned by AOL) will soon be the first to offer social networking services on an IM platform. One has to wonder what types of legal issues might surface as social networks (particularly those unsecured) become more popular. For example, could being an IM buddy with someone later come back and haunt you?"

scubacuda writes "Wired: Inspired by McKenzie Wark's The Hacker Manifesto , Madrid's MNCARS's exhibit, Hackers: The Art of Abstraction , explores the connections between hackers, artists and anyone engaged in any kind of creative work. The centerpiece of the exhibition are documentary films and videos made by independent filmmakers and hackers from all over the world, including Freedom Downtime by Emmanuel Goldstein, Free Radio by Kevin Kayser, The Hacktivist by Ian Walker, Unauthorized Access by Annaliza Savage, New York City Hackers by Stig-Lennart Serensen and Hippies From Hell by Inne Pope."

Rastor writes "The PC space combat sim FreeSpace 2 is being re-released as a special Limited Edition via the Interplay Store! According to Volition Watch: 'There will be 2000 copies available, and only through the Interplay store. They will be numbered copies and will be selling for $49.95.' Why should Slashdotters care? Besides being a highly-rated game when released in 1999, the source has been released and a Linux port is available." VolitionWatch also notes "all the extra add-on campaigns and MODs available... literally hundreds of hours of gameplay time" - a limited-edition re-release is an interesting move in a world where games normally go from full-price to budget to bargain bin, and rarely return.

scubacuda writes "Clay Shirky has an interesting take on encryption: 'The RIAA is succeeding where the Cypherpunks failed, convincing users to trade a broad but penetrable privacy for unbreakable anonymity under their personal control. In contrast to the Cypherpunks "eat your peas" approach, touting encryption as a first-order service users should work to embrace, encryption is now becoming a background feature of collaborative workspaces. Because encryption is becoming something that must run in the background, there is now an incentive to make its adoption as easy and transparent to the user as possible. It's too early to say how widely casual encryption use will spread, but it isn't too early to see that the shift is both profound and irreversible.'"

scubacuda writes "PC Advisor and others report that the CRF (Content Reference Forum), a new, cross-industry standards organisation that boasts Universal Music Group, Microsoft, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and VeriSign among its members, has unveiled a new specification for a DRM technology. A draft of CRF Baseline Profile 1.0 is available for public review and comment." According to a report on CNET News, the "the [CRF-created] file would set up a process that automatically delivers files in the right format and potentially triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor."

omasse asks: "I'm sick of telemarketing. Really sick. And since I'm in Canada, the new U.S. telemarketing law won't change a thing for me. The only easy solution is a technological one, and it ought to be fully transparent: No phone in my house should ring at all if it's an undesired call, and friends and family should not have to enter a 5-digit code to make them ring. To my knowledge, the only gadget that could do this is a sharp filter based on caller ID that I plug in my main phone drop. But Digitone's Caller ID Screener has been announced some time ago, there are no guarantees they'll meet their fall 2003 deadline, and I would prefer having a few products to chose from. There's been a discussion here once on a DIY home PBX system but that's way, way overkill for me. Could anyone tell me what are the ultimate Caller ID Screeners?"

scubacuda writes "Here is a tiny Linux distro for the Linksys wrt54g (d/l the distro here). In just a few seconds, you can give your access point's ramdisk syslog, telnetd, httpd (with cgi-bin support), vi, snort, mount, insmod, rmmod, top, grep, etc." Interesting -- "The script installs strictly to the ram disk of the box. No permanent changes are made. If you mess something up, power-cycle it."

walterbyrd quotes: "'We believe it is necessary for Linux customers to properly license SCO's IP if they are running Linux 2.4 kernel and later versions for commercial purposes. The license insures that customers can continue their use of binary deployments of Linux without violating SCO's intellectual property rights.' SCO will be offering an introductory license price of $699 for a single CPU system through October 15th, 2003." Update: 08/05 18:24 GMT by M : After October 15, SCO says they'll want $1399. Better buy now!

scubacuda writes "Akash Kapur of CircleID has written an editorial, Why ICANN Needs Fresh Blood: A Deeper View . Kapur writes, "ICANN was born amid the heady days of Internet euphoria. Its early promise to be the world's first global democracy (not to mention an entirely new form of governance) was a product of that euphoria. But like so many dot-coms, ICANN quickly succumbed to the hubris of its own vision. If ICANN has been a troubled organization from the start, then that is in no small measure because it over-promised at the start....What's needed is fresh blood -- new personalities, and new ideas to break the ideological impasse." Kapur lists cancelled at-large elections, the authoritarianism and secrecy of ICANN discussion, and the narrowing possibility that ICANN could represent a new model of governance as indicators that global democracy has failed."

scubacuda writes "In the Forbes editorial, Fact and Comment , Steve Forbes voices his support for Lessig and the Eldred case: 'Maybe Congress should just be done with it and declare that a copyright is forever....Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has proposed a sensible compromise..."[I]f Congress is listening to the frustration that the court's decision has created, [paying to maintain copyright extensions] would be a simple and effective way for the First Branch to respond." He's absolutely right.'"

scubacuda asks: "What do techies think about the plethora of cell phone plans out there? (While accompanying a friend at the Sprint kiosk, I couldn't help but dissuade several people from signing up with Sprint.) When I told a friend about my new AT&T "minutes w/o limits" plan ($99/mo for unlimited ANYWHERE minutes), he talked to Nextel and had them match the plan. What plans do you consider to be the best, and when have you been successful in negotiating your plan down?" Ask Slashdot did a similar question during November of 2000. It's amazing how fast cell phones have been adopted by people worldwide, and I think it would be interesting to see how much more you can get for your buck now, as opposed to then.

scubacuda writes "Law.com's article, The Biggest IP Cases of 2002, has a nice summary of some of the intellectual property cases that have caught our attention this last year. Of particular interest to slashdotters: Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. (regarding Arriba's visual search engine), Enzo Biochem Inc. v. Gen-Probe Inc. (regarding a gene patent being invalid because it did not meet the written description requirement), an Illinois federal court injunction against Aimster, United States v. Elcom Ltd a/k/a Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. , and Playboy Enterprises Inc. v. Welles (regarding Playmate of the Year, Terri Welles, using Playboy's marks and metatags on her website)."

bdesham writes "Mac OS X Hints has a story about a plugin for QuickTime and iTunes that enables the user to play all of those Ogg Vorbis files that you have sitting on your hard drive, but can't play because of lack of support from Apple."

scubacuda asks: "I've mass deployed OpenOffice at work. Of the 40 computers running, ALL are running OpenOffice (only about 5 are running Microsoft Office in addition). I'm quite surprised at how well-received the deployment has been thus far: secretaries seem to be pleased with how well it integrates with Avery labels, it converts to/from Microsoft Office DOC/XLS files, etc. Have any other slashdotters implemented OpenOffice in an enterprise environment? If so, what have been the reactions from users and management?"

RandyOo writes: "Only 4 days after news of an XBox port of MAME was posted to Slashdot, Microsoft contacted the admin of mame.net and downloads have now been removed. Knew I should have downloaded it earlier this morning ... Thank goodness for P2P!" And scubacuda writes: "According to The Register, one group of Xbox hackers have decided to halt development on its Xbox mod chip. It will be interesting to see how other developers follow suit."

scubacuda writes: "This Reuters article says that Scotland has the highest concentration of UFO sightings--300 per year, the most per square kilometer and per head of population of anywhere in the world. That means 0.004 UFOs for every square kilometer of Scotland -- a rate four times as high as in France or Italy, earth's other UFO hotspots. (In comparison, only 2,000 UFOs are spotted every year in the United States represent, making just 0.0002 sightings per square kilometer. Bonnybridge--30 miles west of Edinburgh--seems to be the Scotland equivalent of Roswell, New Mexico). UFO nuts explain it in terms of aliens being attracted to remote areas. But can anyone say *autosuggestion*?"

scubacuda writes "According to this Technology Review article, a new surveillance technology called Video Flashlight melds 3-D models from background scenes. This "tweening process" allows security persononnel to fly around a subject such as a pedestrian, getting a detailed look without jumping between widely separated views." That's just flat out cool.

scubacuda asks: "DVD mail rentals are hot right now. Netflix, perhaps the most popular one, costs only $19/month (with free shipping). Since then, a whole new batch of similar DVD rental services have cropped up. What do Slashdot readers look for? Which ones are most reliable, have the best selections, provide free shipping and makes the best movie suggestions?"

scubacuda writes: "Are FAQs copywritable? Judge Barbara B. Crabb, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, in the case Mist-On Systems, Inc. v. Gilley's European Tan Spa, didn't think so."

scubacuda writes: "A while back, Slashdot posted a Rob Valliere's Linux vs. Windows review. Since then, he has posted a 2002 Linux Web Browser Review." This is a great , straightforward round-up of current web-browsing options, as shipped with distributions. Note though that none of these browsers are static -- Konqueror's CVS version, for instance, now includes tabs and other goodies. So bear your own downloading and installation habits in mind.

jaredcat writes "Ever wonder what would happen if the incredibly creative talents of Squaresoft and Disney got together? Well I never did, but that didn't seem to stop them. The first joint production of Square and Disney, Kingdom Hearts, was just released in Japan. Its an RPG with a Square CGI, a Square story, a Disney sense of humor, and Square and Disney charectars. If the opening movie is any indication of what's to come when Kingdom Hearts becomes available in the US, its going to be the best thing to hit the PS2 since, well, Final Fantasy X :)." Very positive review. Gotta admit, I'm intrigued. Update by J : Check out this review too, with a ton of screenshots, from the GIA: "By all rights [it] should be an awkward, conflated mess... instead, it's an epic piece of crossover fanfiction."

PokeBlor writes: "Arena.net has an article by Patrick Wyatt, a Blizzard ex, that goes into depth about the creation of multiplayer games, ranging from replayability to lag. He uses good examples from Starcraft and Warcraft 2, two games that Wyatt was a designer on."

This edition of Slashback has updates and clarifications on the official release of Sony's PS2 Linux, relative security among various operating systems, dirty output on power-boosted Linksys wireless access points, and more, flying hardware you might have figured was no more, and more.

Maybe a bad day at the factory? An anonymous reader submits: "I'm not sure where the other fellow got his WAP11, but mine don't show the dirty output his does." See this diagram for a much more desireable outcome, if you care to play with (a little bit of) fire.

First application should be a GPL'd AIBO obedience school. gonz writes: "An update to the previous reported linux on ps2 kit has been submitted by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) to the people previously registering interest on their technology sites. The update consist of that it will be released in May on both SCEA (us) and SCEE (pal areas, including Europe and Australia) territories. A website has been set up at this place. On a side note, registering for notification when pre-ordering can apparently be done too: 'Finally, although sales haven't yet started, if you send an e-mail with the message "subscribe" to ps2linux-request@technology.scee.net we'll let you know when pre-ordering starts.'"

Lessons in obviousness. John Kozubik writes: "I have written an article describing, in a manner I have not yet seen, why the court decision by the U.S. appeals court in SF that claimed in-line linking was not fair use was inherently flawed. It is a short piece written for both the technical and the non-technical, and I think it raises a strong point concerning the arbitrary nature of browser behavior."

If they'd launch some pigs, perhaps global phones would be affordable. Guppy06 writes: "Many of you may be surprised to learn that Iridium (famous for trying to compete with cell phones and failing miserably) is still throwing up satellites (I sure was). The article on CNN tells of the technical woes of getting this particular Delta II off the pad in Vandenberg as Iridium tries to put five more spares into orbit."

Couldn't they have spayed or neutered them instead? Speaking of old hardware, Anonymous Radio Shack Employee writes: "RadioShack has sent a notice to all of its employees to destroy all CueCats (preferably with a hammer). Apparently the CueCat is among a couple of dozen items that RadioShack has given up on, and wants destroyed. The memo says that store employee's can not benefit from the items on the list. Which sucks because my store has over a hundred of these things just sitting in the back room." This week's Linux Weekly News has a great, detailed followup to the recent flap over relative OS security sparked by a post in Windows Informant.

hypnos asks: "With the recent release of the Creative Labs Extigy, I'm wondering if there are any remotely similar options for Mac users. What I really want is a way to get several audio inputs, a mic pre-amp, and MIDI-IN all in one box, and attached to some protocol (USB, FireWire) that'll let me use it on my desktop or my laptop. Does anyone know of such a device? And barring that, are there sub-$500 PCI-type options that will allow the same things (without the notebook portability, obviously)?"

(arg!)Styopa writes: "NASA agrees that Mercury's worth a mission."

jaredcat writes: "The until-recently rumored new 64MB IPAQ handheld with improved expansion-card capabilities finally went on sale today at Compaq Direct for $649. Seeing as the lesser 3650 model can't currently be found on the street for love or money (I've seen it listed as high as $1000), I'm grabbing my 3670 while I still can." For some reason, I can't find the higher-end one on the site -- am I alone? With 64MB, this beats all but my most recent computer. Pop in my Merlin wireless card, and I can roam the city talking to myself all day? Excellent.

issachar asks: "While it seems that almost everyone at Slashdot believes that the ICANN / Verisign monopoly on TLD's is a bad thing, there doesn't seem to be a lot of agreement on which is the best alternate root server. While it might be impossible to give a simple answer to this question, perhaps some sort of unity would be a good thing. The recent story on Name.Space, doesn't do anything to clear up the confusion for people who are trying to pick an alternate root server. Furthermore, it seems that co-operation isn't working very well as OpenNIC doesn't recognise the ORSC yet. The frequent suggestion to get one of the major ISP's such as AOL on board won't fly until we have a leader (or at least a group of leading root servers that agree on basic principles). Any thoughts?"

sachachua asks: "You know CS could be taught better. I've decided that I really want to get into improving CS education. My university seems like the best place to start. I like the way we do CS, but I know it can be improved. I want to find the weaknesses in our CS program. I want to know how other schools are teaching computer science - what they're doing better, what they're doing differently. Then I want to help improve the way CS is being taught and learned. I'd like to benefit from this before I graduate. (See? I have a selfish reason after all.)" Do you think that the current CS teaching practices used in college or uni are insufficient for the new century? How would you improve the curriculum and the way in which these classes are taught?

"I've been reading through the ACM SIGCSE proceedings and there are some studies I'd like to do in order to give myself some research training (we don't get much of that in our regular curriculum). We're also trying to organize peer mentoring and code clinics (but that brings up interesting ethical questions). What are other things students can do to improve the quality of their CS education?

My university's already doing some pretty cool things. One of my professors sneaked some patterns into an introductory course. The teachers are super-approachable. But it's just that I look at our curriculum and classes and teachers and I realize that there's so much more that can be done.

I want to know this:

Lots of people have probably already tried this before - improving the way CS is taught/learned. I want to know how it turned out or how it's turning out. Do you have any advice? Notes? Ideas? Know anyone I should talk to? I'm an insanely motivated geek here and I want to make sure I get the best CS education with the (rather limited) resources available. If it incidentally helps other people, then that would be a Really Good Thing. =)"

jaredcat writes "According to bwcenter.com and an article on ZDNet's GameSpot, Peter Molyneux's eagerly awaited Black & White has finally gone gold and will be shipping in North America on 3/27/01. I know what I'll be doing for spring break..." I just read that ZDNet article linked above - the ASPCA will be protesting this game, mark my words.

VirtualUK asks: "Prior to joining my company, that I've been working with for over a year now, I signed an 'Inventions & IP Rights' contract. That contract stated that the work that I had been carrying out off (and was planning to continue with) of my own back, and in my own time and was my own. At the time the work I was carrying out for the new company and my projects at home were completely separate, however I could see that the company was heading in the area I was working on. Wanting to ensure that everything was kept honest, I reminded them of the work that I am doing and wanted to ensure them that I was not stealing anything from them. What was the response? Basically, that the 'Inventions & IP Rights' contract that I signed didn't count for squat, that they owned anything that had vaguely anything to do with the problem space they were concerned with, and that if I were to use my code in a public domain I could face retribution from the company in the future." When in a situation like this, go to your nearest IP Lawyer for a consultation. Companies that exhibit this behavior are not worth your time or your expertise. With that aside, how many of you have faced this situation? What did you do and how did things turn out?

"I feel sickened, I felt like I had been kicked in the guts, 18 months work for nothing? Not wanting to say the area I'm in, they pretty much said that if they wrote word processors and I made fonts in my spare time that they owned those fonts! I don't think so. So far my options I have considered are:

1. Carry on working for the company, keep quiet about anything like this in the future and hope they don't try any funny business, but lose my vested stock options
2. Leave the company, work for another company in a different problem space and carry on my work in my own time, hoping that my old company doesn't try to do any funny business, and lose my vested stock options.
3. Try and get VC to go on this on my own, but in today's climate, that's hardly likely.

What's the killer is that I have a young family and so I have to ensure that I have an income at all times, but my gut tells me that this is the kick that I've needed to go it alone.

What are your opinions? Anyone know of any good IP Rights Lawyers?"

david.given writes "Yes, those loons at APL just will not leave the spacecraft in peace. The latest plans are to attempt to fire the thrusters again on Feb 14, 1900UTC (1400EST) and lift off the surface of EROS. If the thrusters work, and the trajectory is correct, and the camera is undamaged, and the communications system holds up, they reckon that they should get some more pictures from about 400m up. What's next? They're going to bring it home?"

BrightIce writes "Advogato has an interesting article about GUIs on Unix. The basic message is that it is wrong that the command line is "a completely seperate world" and proposes some interesting ways CLI and GUI could cooperate." The feature actually isn't all that long - but I'm sure the discussion can get going from there.

sachachua asks: "I'm sure most people have a story about terrific teachers they have had at some point in their life. You know, the kind of teacher who gets you really excited about subjects like computer science or physics. I credit my fascination with Linux to my first year high school teacher, who let me play with being a sysadmin while trying to figure out how to set up a Linux BBS. Then there's one of my college professors, who was really approachable and let me ask all sorts of Java-related questions outside class - even gave me extra projects to work on. There are countless professors and teaching assistants who make learning computer science fun and exciting for students. Would Slashdot readers like to share a couple of great stories?"

sachachua asks: "I'm a sophomore taking up computer science, and since I'll be graduating pretty soon - March 2003 - I'm trying to figure out what to do in order to better prepare myself for the future. I'm really into programming, and I'm considering going for a practicum or an internship in some software company that can really help me develop my potential. I do a lot of web work with PHP, Java and Perl, and I pick up new languages easily. =) However, it's a bit difficult because I'm way over in the Philippines, which is a Third World country. Since it's so far away, my campus doesn't get visited by all those companies that court other graduates. And even if they do manage to find me, there are all sorts of visas to arrange. But the international exposure will be really great, and I want to meet other geeks. =)"

"I'm also really interested in computer science education and I want to do research. I'm thinking about going for graduate and post-graduate education, and I've been looking for professors who have done research in CS Ed. It's still kinda challenging because education abroad is expensive, so I have to have a good enough record for financial aid. I want to be a teacher, and I want to improve the way computer science is being taught. I know it's _really_ difficult, especially since I'm just a student right now, but if I work hard at it I know I'll find a way.

What advice would you have for a student who's at one of those crossroads? Should I go for the internship, do well in the industry, and make something that lots of people can use? Should I look for an internship at a university that does research in computer science education, and help develop the next generation of whiz kids? What are some other choices I might not know of yet?"

kost writes: " There is clone of popular DOS game called Scorched Earth but this one is in three dimensions (very good concept). It is called Scorched Island 3D and you can download it here from FTP server or you can see some screenshots. It is a game where you try to shoot your opponent over the hill with different weapons and such. Disadvantages of the game include lack of sound and network play. " Ah, Scorched Earth. I spent a lot of quality time perfecting my angles to play the crap out of my friends and neighbors. It's good to see this game back. (michael: Enemy has rubber shield (the purple one), and is in a depression. Solution: napalm, contact triggers, fire shot that hits shield and immediately goes into the dirt next to him. Napalm pours out, fills up, and pours into the tiny hole in the rubber shield created by the shot hitting it. A single sweet second where the entire inside of his shield is full of napalm, held in by the shield, then, FOOM! Toasty.)

jensend writes: "Mozilla's .6 milestone has been reached. This should bring the functionality of Netscape 6 without the marketing stuff and performance hit. Details at Mozilla .6 Release Notes."

BrightIce writes: "The Java Developer Journal has an interesting article about Java in the Linux world. It tries to explain why the Linux folks dislike Java, what the future might bring regarding M$, C# and Java, about Sun and Microsoft, and Java and Embedded Linux." I know why I hate it: it takes too.long.to.get.to.my.method(half, of, the, time); and then there's the fact that when Java was new and exciting I wrote a video game in it, only to have Sun cease-and-desist me for calling it "Java Invaders." (oh, and have you ever noticed that our logo isn't the sun logo? They cease-and-desisted us for using their logo here too, even tho that is definitely fair use). Other than that, my only problem with Java is that the VM in Netscape is crap. Oh, and their licensing. And the fact that it's bloated. And the fact that I don't have enough time to type in all the reasons it irritated me *grin*

Julius X writes: "Early Wednesday morning, the first Iridium satellite to reenter the atmposphere broke up over the Arctic Ocean at 9:44 GMT. The satellite had failed just two months after its launch in September 1998, and had been tumbling out of control ever since. The report here on Space.com provides more detail, and says that another satellite is due to come down in the next three weeks or so."

HiyaPower writes "Netpliance announced that they have thrown in the towel and will no longer produce their internet appliance. This follows the failure of web appliances by Virgin, and a number of others. It looks like even grandma wants a good isp when she logs on the net and that bundling cute hardware with inferior service just doesn't cut the mustard. This will be a sad note to all of those who have yet to buy the unit that cost $400 to produce for a fraction of that amount. Get'm while you can, cuz they don't make'm no more..." CEO John McHale says in that announcement: "We plan to reposition Netpliance from a direct consumer Internet appliance service provider to an enabling infrastructure and managed services company." Perhaps there will be some closeouts? jensend sent in this C|Net coverage as well.

nlaporte asks: "My neighbor just threw out his old Primestar satellite dish and receiver. Thinking that I might be able to use it, I picked them up. As Primestar is defunct (aquired by DirecTV), I was wondering if anyone knew how (or knew of a Web site that told how) to reuse the old dish and/or reciever for receiving other satellite broadcasts, i.e. NASA TV or Voice of America, etc. What about using it for another pay satellite service? Is this dish I picked up worth keeping, or should I chuck it?" I hope there will be more uses for the glut of satellite dishes that have popped up all over America and the rest of the world...otherwise garbage dumps are going to get real interesting over the next few years.

citizen_bongo writes "MacCentral reports that Apple has filed suit against unnamed individual employees of Apple and of other companies who were trusted with Apple trade secrets. The suit names 25 "Does" and surely will increase if Apple "uncovers" any more people in the conspiracy. This comes after the leak by ATI on the new Apple product line and the leaks surfacing about the Cube weeks before the MacWorld Expo." The irony is that if Apple's legal hadn't gone after the sites with Cube images, everyone woulda ignored it or thought it a hoax.

citizen_bongo writes: "A great story by MSNBC about classic gaming and the people that keep playing them (I do too, I admit). It also talks about 'Video Game Player of the Century' Bobby Mitchell, who scored 3,333,360 points in Pac Man. I can still play Super Mario Brothers, but I have trouble playing Starcraft for 10 minutes without getting bored. The classic games always have had something that modern games seem to lack, and that's simplicity and fun." I still love the classics, I even own a few. The games are still great, and it's a fun hobby, too.

ibjhb writes: "Sprint and WorldCom are itching to launch the IPv6. This will provided us with the 'zillions' of extra addresses not provided by the current IPv4. There's other capabilities, including increased sercurity. ZDNet carries the story ..." Seems like we've been talking about IPv6 for as long as I've been using IPv4.

bradlauster writes: "As Reported on InfoWorld.com: Intel will be announcing new mobile processors on Monday. One is claimed to run at 500 MHz and consume less than two watts! How's that compare to Transmeta's Crusoe ... and has anyone used one?" yomahz points to additional coverage at news.com. Isn't it nice what price/performance battles can do?

orKiD asks: "Since PDAs are becoming very common in today's world, is there any possibility of a PDA clone? A lot of the computer buying boom was caused by the AT clones that came onto the market. They brought prices down, they let people customize and get exactly what they wanted. This didn't really happen with laptops, so can it, and will it happen with PDAs? If not, perhaps a PDA designed by the people, for the people? An OpenPDA? I am currently contemplating on buying a PDA, and even though many of the PalmOS PDAs are similar, each one has its advantages, and disadvantages. I want to be able to pick and choose exactly what I want in my PDA." Hmmm...interesting thought. Read on for more info...

This question sounds awfully similar to this one from iKev: "Remember the Itsy ? Well, I was browsing the Web page today, and noticed that several movies (.avi and quicktime) exist, that show off the power of this device. There's the infamous Doom in action, java apps, e-mail, and the rock'n'scroll input system. This is not vapourware, its the real deal, so why oh why doesn't Compaq go full scale with this one? Oh, I forgot, they don't cater to the geek crowd. Has anyone been able to build one of these BTW? I would fork out for it in a flash... "

Might this project be an answer to both? Gratis to Tim Lord for the info.