Dan asks: "For several years now I have been working on the ultimate rescue CD, being able to load many disk images, Windows XP PE, all from CDROM while having a nice graphical menu as the main interface during bootup (I would post a nice screenshot, but I like my bandwidth) and I mainly used the ISOLINUX bootloader. I recently received a SanDisk Mini Cruzer 256 USB 2.0 keychain drive, and I am really eager to put some sort of multi booting system on my USB key drive to achieve the same goal. I haven't seen anyone having any success with ISOLINUX or something similar, but the drive is bootable for sure. I have exhausted all options, I searched, I posted on many forums, I never get any useful replies. Since Slashdot readers mostly share the same interests, I am hoping you guys can help me out!" How would yo u configure a USB Key drive to boot multiple operating systems?

Frank Winstead asks: "I stumbled upon some "Free to air" (FTA) satellite television references on the web, mostly selling equipment. There seems to be a lot of non-English programming available subscription-Free on the Ku band. The English programming seems to be a mix of religious shows, network feeds, and unexplained content from American over-the-air TV stations. Is it worth a one time ~$200 investment for equipment? Is the authoritative info on FTA?"

JohnA writes "While searching for drivers for an HP printer that was given to me, I noticed an article on the front page of hp.com that brags about how HP's R&D department was able to insert flaws into their products to 'deter' counterfeiting. I'm so glad we have HP looking out for us..."

MEW writes "According to this article, 'the semiconductor industry began using red phosphorus as a flame retardant instead of the Br-based compound it had used for years,' due to environmental concerns. By July 2002, 1000 tons of the stuff was used for about a billion chips, when they stopped due to high component failures. In particular Sumitomo Bakelite caused rampant failures in Fujitsu disk drives. There's still a lot of Sumitomo Bakelite out there, and we may see the worst of it soon, as components start to fail prematurely. This was posted by Spaceman on Macintouch who says that the bad material accounts for 'half the world's supply of 'IC Plastics'' and can result in 'sudden or premature end of life.'"

profet writes "CNET.com is reporting that PalmSource plans to change its OS plans and simultaneously develop/release OS 6 and continue development on OS 5. The names shall be changed to reflect that they are both current. The plan is to have OS 5 for low end devices ($100 price point is a goal), and OS 6 for high end devices. This is a drastic change from their current practice of having one current OS drastically customized (read: hacked) to suit the manufacturer's needs. It looks like PalmSource is aiming directly at Symbian's success with Nokia's series 60 platform."

deacon brown asks: "My employer has just acquired the license to operate a low power FM station in the area (on a tight budget, of course). Because of our location, I'm the only local tech guy, so they might need my help setting this thing up. I can't do it at the job, but I'd LOVE to make Open Source work for this radio station, so I can keep the costs as low as possible. Does anyone have experience setting up, or operating, Radio stations? How should I go about getting information together, to have a go at this? I know they're some areas where I'll need to buy some hardware to do a job (mixers, etc), but are there software solutions like (e.g. the Linux phone switch) for other parts?" While there have been a few helpful articles on this subject, I think they more dealt with the hardware side, rather than the software side of the equation. What operations and infrastructure can you see Open Source handling in a small radio station?

Craig Maloney writes "If you are a Windows programmer looking to create or move your stand-alone database applications away from Microsoft-specific tools such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, Access or SQL Server, MySQL: Building User Interfaces is written just for you." Read on for the rest of Craig's review.

Atryn writes "Nextel Communications appears to be entering the world of wireless wide-area broadband technology. A new site showed up today describing their market level trial of Flash OFDM technology. Using a PCMCIA Type II modem card in your laptop or a tethered modem, you can have speeds of 1.5 Mbps (bursting to 3 Mbps) downstream and 375 Kbps (bursting to 750 Kbps) upstream as described here. They also appear to be seeking seeking trial participants, who, when selected, will get the technology free of charge! Of course, you need to be in North Carolina."

Rob Flickenger writes "This month's freely downloadable SeattleWireless TV show is out. Continuing with the Big Brother theme, Drew from WiFimaps.com interviews Special Agent Tom Grasso of the National Cybercrime, Forensics, and Training Alliance (at the FBI) about wardriving and wireless. This episode also features Gerry Curry's deployment of wireless in the rural Nova Scotia, Canada, and Danny Dinneen from Ireland introduces the Cork Wireless community network project. The show is downloadable in Windows Media, RealMedia, and BitTorrent MPEG formats."

zzzreyes asks: "I live in a 4 storey building, and pretty much everyone in this building is into gaming and computers. I have just received, through the death of a great aunt, about $7,000. I want to know how and what I should buy, to provide wireless access through out the whole building, so we can all share one connection. There are 6 double-room apartments on each side, and we only have four floors. I'll hopefully have access to the elevator shaft, in case I need it. Will $7,000 be enough?" How cheaply could you do something like this, assuming you had access to much of the building? What would be the best way to set up the access points to guarantee the best coverage for the whole building?

prostoalex writes "Jim Turley from Embedded Systems Programming magazine answers the question of where microprocessors come from. While the public generally knows about the silicon and microprocessor vendors, few can describe the process of turning the beach sand into the latest and greatest several-hundred-dollars-worth CPU."

NivekEnterprises asks: "At my school where I am an Electrical Engineering major A Wi-Fi network has been set up, and is running in several buildings. Since the coverage extends outside several of my friends and I are trying to map the signal strength. Basically we are going to take a map of campus and walk around with a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, marking as best we can. Is there an easier way to do this? Has anyone else done something similar and is willing to share some their insights?"

Happy-Jollies writes "The team at LinuxHardware.org have kept us up-to-date on the latest in processors for quite some time now and they're at it again. With the latest release of the Pentium 4 'Prescott,' many Linux users will be deciding where to spend their money. LinuxHardware.org's round-up takes a look at the Prescott, Northwood, Extreme Edition, and the AMD Athlon 64."

Aaron writes "Kind of an interesting discussion and story over at Broadband Reports about the flurry of vendors releasing modified Linux based firmware updates for the Linksys WRT54G router. The updates bring a whole new level of functionality Linksys couldn't be bothered to incorporate. Among a long list of free improvements is the incorporation of bandwidth management, allowing users to end the days of choppy VoIP conversations without swapping out hardware."

urgent asks: "In March of 2002, Ask Slashdot ran this article, wherein advice on 'hardware to digitize the VGA output of a PC' was sought. Most of the responses seemed to assume that remote administration of PC's/servers was the end goal. If you've got control of the software and/or hardware, it's pretty clear there are easier solutions for that. On the other had, there are many legacy and embedded systems where it would be nice to monitor and record display output. For instance, integrating old computerized factory equipment into a SCADA system, or recording old embedded maritime and medical displays (hint: jobs). My dream hardware would be a dongle that connected to a VGA out and could be polled over ethernet or CAN."

Daniel Kolph writes "The GameCube Linux Project has just released, what they call the GameCube Linux Alpha This is an 1 MB busybox-based Linux system that contains screen output, network code, a telnet server and a webserver. They also provide a kernel patch. (Screenshots/Download)"

tfiedler asks: "I'm trying to find a low cost digital eyepiece for my microscope, around $200 or so in cost, and have ran across very little useful information. I want something that can be plugged into my video capture card, so RCA or S-vid output is a requirement. I've found the following two products. The barrel for my microscope is 18mm in diameter. Does anyone have other suggestions, or any experience with the ones at the mentioned URLs? Additionally, has anyone done anything like this with a webcam?"

An anonymous reader writes "According to this Reuters article plain old vanilla cell phones are fading away in the US. Instead, the author claims, (after quoting some 'expert' from this company) that phones with fancy features (cameras, games, etc.) are starting to dominate. I beg to differ - one of the few things stopping me from purchasing a phone is the fact that I do not want to pay for hundreds of features that I will never use. All I want is an address book and a way to make calls."

An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has written Building a Basic HTPC. They discuss why Building a HTPC only makes sense if it can do something better than any other commercially available solution, as well as why HTPC should integrate act like a component not a computer. They also go into upsampling of DVDs to HDTV."

Bill Kendrick writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, it appears Lycoris has put together an OS for handhelds like the iPAQ and Zaurus. It's based on the Open Source OpenZaurus and OPIE projects, so it should look pretty familiar to Linux-on-PDA fans."