AxsDeny writes: "The makers of the ever-so-popular FireWire, Apple Computer, are being given an Emmy by the television industry. Apple will receive the primetime Emmy, which is given by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, in a ceremony later Wednesday at the Goldenson Theatre in Hollywood. " So, maybe we can start giving Pulitzers for better keyboards and Oscars for a printer that really prints scripts well. Heh.

Plazm writes: "C|net has a story (printer friendly version, of course) that just cropped up this morning about Excite@Home being in financial trouble. Will they befall the same fate as Covad and Loki? Good thing I just purchased my cable modem and broadband service through @Home last week so they could go out of business the next."

xtermz asks: "I recently began working for a mid-large scale print house. We do everything from printing of sales fliers to invoices for some fortune 500 companies. For doing these invoices, we use something called JetLetter which is basically a mail merge program on crack. It lets your create a template, pull from a database and send a PCL stream to your desired printer type. The problem with this program is that it is designed only to pull from flat text files, or antiquated .dbf files. It can't support SQL Server, XML, or anything made after say...1992 (even though they have a 'JetLetter 2000' version, which is basically the same DOS based app with a 'Windows' interface). If you try doing a search for 'mail merge', your likely to get back a couple thousand hits for MS Word. Talking to my co-workers, JetLetter seems to be the only solution which suits our needs." Many people seem to think that to do "mail-merges" you need a word-processor. Not so. A mail-merge is simply applying a subset of data over a text template. Looking at the problem this way, can any of you offer suggestions to a solution that xtermz might be able to use to replace (or supplement) JetLetter?

Pig Hogger writes: "According to this National Post story, Ontario small claims judge Beverley Reade is taking Rogers Cable to court, after she failed to get a credit when her Internet connection stopped working for a few days. She asks for either $5800 ($500 for breach of contract, $300 as compensation for her inconvenience & $5000 for punitive damages) OR an apology from cable mogul Ted Rogers himself (like this would ever happen...). The kicker is that, despite being hounded by a collection agency seeking the disputed amount, judge Reade keeps being getting solicited by Rogers marketroids trying to sell her high-speed internet access and cable-TV service..."

David Cornelson writes: "If you like playing Interactive Fiction or Text Adventures, then maybe you'll like writing them too. One of the premiere development tools for creating these programs is called Inform. The resulting programs are compiled to the Z-Machine specification created by Infocom, one of the original commercial developers of text adventures. The Z-Machine is a virtual machine that has interpreters for many platforms. I recently started taking pre-orders for a layflat perfect bound copy of the Inform Designer's Manual: 4th Edition for the hardcore Interactive Fiction community that resides mostly at the usenet groups rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction, but if anyone else is interested, feel free to pre-order a copy of the DM4. This is a non-profit project. The author is Graham Nelson, a mathematics professor from Cambridge and has licensed both Inform and the DM4 for public use. The PDF version of the DM4 is currently available, but with so many current users of the Inform language, many people were seeking a printing solution. I volunteered to handle the logistics and Graham is currently finalizing a printed version with the cover art. The printer should receive the final cut in a week or so and begin printing shortly thereafter. Anyway, if you've ever played Zork, Adventure, or Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, you might want to try writing something of your own. This manual would not only help you get started, but there is a great deal of background information into the genre as well. David Cornelson, dcornelson@placet.com."

At about the same time, two readers sent in questions about those expensive LCD panels that, if you are not fortunate enough to own one, you are envious of anyone who does (I know I am!). However, these two questions raise some interesting issues which I'm sure those of you looking to buy one, may be asking as soon as you make that purchase. One issue is longevity: how long do those LCD pixels last? Another issue is cost: why don't LCD manufacturers make lower-cost Monochrome LCD screens available for those who don't need to work in full-color glory?

CryoStasis asks: "A buddy of mine reciently stated that 'You're not a real techie unless you have some weirdo contraption hanging off your parallel port." This comming from a guy who is using his for programing some type of micro-controller (he's being rather secretive about it until he's finished). I've decided to go into a different direction however and currently have an old NES PowerGlove hooked up that I use as a game controller. It works great and brings a whole new dimention into gaming. On the side I'm also looking at getting some kind of mouse script functioning desktop applications, no more mouse for me!. So what about everyone else. Who has something odd/unique hanging out of thier parrellel port?" Call me boring, but the only thing that hangs off of my parallel port is my printer, however I'm sure that there are a few of you out there who put their parallel port to some novel uses. Care to share?

Geoffrey Wiseman asks: "I'm considering my options for reporting functionality in a web application. Part of the problem stems from the fact that I'm not aware of a good solution for reporting on any web platform. It may well exist, but I haven't seen one yet. So let's start with the general questions first: I need the ability to build reports from data. The formatting has to be pretty solid, including the ability to make use of appropriate fonts and page breaks. Further, I'll likely need to do some batch reporting, so it has to be able to generate, say, a few hundred pages of reports, with formatting, in a reasonable time frame. That makes HTML and browser printing a little ... underpowered."

Jeremy Allison wrote in to tell us that Samba 2.2.0 has been released. Of course, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what that means already, so I've attached the press release. Mostly this looks like its stuff for compatibility with Windows "We just changed enough to break everyone else" 2000's implementation of the protocol. Congrats to everyone involved with what is unquesitonably among the most important server apps on Linux.

Curious__George writes "Kurt Seifried on SecurityPortal (4-11-01) writes on a topic that deserves wider notice in the Linux world: The potential dangers of installing BINARY RPMs (as opposed to SOURCE RPMs). Here is the article in standard and printer-friendly versions." (Read more below.)

Bob Young prefaces his answers to your questions by saying, "You may notice I've ducked some of the answers below - there is a reason for this. My role at Red Hat these days is as Chairman of the board. Matthew Szulik is Red Hat's CEO and will be a better person to answer some of the specific issues that these questions raise....

Really. He does. Quite eloquently. Clay Shirky's answers to our questions could easily be turned into an all-day seminar on where the Internet is today as a communications medium, where it might be 10 years from now, and how it is going to get from here to there. This is information you need if your career or business is affected by the Internet in any way. Lots of good debunking, too, of everything from WAP to the myth of increased media homogenization, all put forth with enough humor to keep even Clay's most depressing thoughts from bringing (too many) tears to your eyes.

Gart points to this article on printable computers, an "Illustrated narrative [that] shows how users will simply download microchip designs from the Internet and print out a working ink-based, plastic processor on a desktop fabrication machine, similar to an ink jet printer." This is a nicely lucid account, and straightforward about the reasons that you probably won't start printing out a new motherboard this evening. Still, a glimpse of the future; this is one technology it will be cool to watch emerge from vapor.

An Anonymous Coward asks: "I was speaking to a friend of mine who recently got a job for a major computer printer company. I asked him was his job was and was very suprised with his answer. The main function of his job was to work at one of the major US computer/electronic stores in the printer aisle. His company pays this retail chain to let him do this. He dresses in the same outfit the regular employees do, and spends all his time trying to convince people to buy printers made by his company. My question is, how common is this? Has this been going on for a while now, or is this something new? And am I the only one who thinks this is sleazy?" The only sleazy part is the fact that they are undercover. I would be really impressed with the company that would actually put some of their own people in sales chains and had them identified as such. Thoughts?

Bryan Andersen asks: "I'm needing to replace my color printer; mine has died and isn't worth repairing. I'm heavily into digital photography and wish to be able to produce high quality prints for display without having to use Windows or send the printing out. I realize I could either go to copy centers or online photo printing services, but I'd like to be able to tune my colors, etc. I'm quite knowlegable in photographic technique from both the camera and darkroom ends. From what I've read so far I can either spend many dollars on a color Postscript printer and have almost garanteed support through its internal PS support and lose a bit in output quality or I can spend less and use Ghostscript but deciphering which printers are supported well is next to impossible. I'd find a printer that uses archive quality inks with separate ink tanks for each color if possible. I'd also prefer to get a 6 or 7 color printer. What are known working setups? How good is the print quality? Are any of the larger format printers supported? Being able to print an 11"x14" image or larger would be nice."

A number of people have been wondering what's going to happen to TPJ ^[?] in light of Earthweb's (the owner of TPJ) sale of most of its properties to Internet.com. Many rumours have been flying around and Jon Orwant has decided to clear things. I've put his status update below.

After Bruce Perens' brief stint as a venture capitalist (which followed his stint with Debian and OSI among other organizations), he has moved on to work with HP in a sort of consulting role for all things Open Source inside and outside of the company. The article talks about HPs questionable history (including the recent printer driver debacle among other things) and what sort of things Bruce will be up to.

This (rightfully) angry Anonymous Coward asks: "When I got home, my front door was wide open! Evil types must have broken in. They stole my two Linux boxen, two monitors, laser printer, and ~250 CDs. They didn't trash anything, important things are backed-up, and the cat is fine. But I am pissed off!! I want to set up a simple Linux-based security system (umm...when i get a new box). I need help finding info on: digital cameras (outdoor?), motion detectors, lasers tripwires(??), etc. which can be hooked up in a manageable fashion to a Linux box. Can anyone help me?"

bschoate wrote in with a good question about everyone's favorite browser: "I just installed Netscape 6 and it continues and expands the practice of providing numerous ways to use Netscape.com to promote Netscape, Inc. (or AOL for that matter). I've found at least 42 (hey- there's that magic number again) toolbar or menu options that will take you to netscape.com for everything from buying printer supplies to business Web hosting. That's not even counting any of the side bar stuff like "Find and Book Travel". And, all of those tie-ins are littered with banner ads. So even if you don't buy anything, you're still generating revenue for Netscape on some level. Frankly, I see it as a slap in the face to Mozilla, since all their volunteered hard work has created a product that will line Netscape's pockets. Does any of the money generated by the browser get back to Mozilla? I kinda doubt it." Harsh words, but the more I think about it, the more I believe he has a point. Do any of you feel the same way, and if so, how do you feel that the problem should be solved?

Until this week, I've been unconvinced by those who say the U.S. election process needs to be conducted with computers instead of paper, pencil, and punchcards. I've changed my mind. It's time to take a good hard look at our ancient voting system, and bring it up to date. When today's 14-year-olds go to vote in the 2004 elections, will they still take the pencil from the volunteer, slide the punchcard into the molded plastic, and turn the weird knobs? Or will they use the technology they've grown up with?