jolly good asks: "Back in the good old days all CMOS were accessed exactly the same way because there was an agreed upon standard in place. These days, however, motherboard feature sets have expanded to the point where the old 128 byte CMOS standard is no longer adequate. This has lead to different proprietary methods to access the upper 128 bytes in CMOS as there isn't a standard for a 256 byte CMOS. What I'd like to know is how are OEM's handling duplicating CMOS settings across large numbers of machines on production lines?"

WasteOfAmmo asks: "I help administer a small software library where users are allowed to borrow CD's for a few days to install various software packages (yes, it is all legal, futher explanation is not necessary). Obviously as the CD's are circulated more and more they become more and more scratched, 'dirty', and abused looking. Eventuallly (sometimes after 1 use) the CD's begin to have read errors. Currently once the CD's are confirmed as 'bad' they are destoryed and replaced (re-burned). This system is costly if not in material then in time. I have been searching with little or no success for a commercial or mid to high volume (5 - 20 disks per day) system for cleaning/polishing/repairing (ie: removal of small scratches) CD's. I have read all about various cleaners (including toothpaste) and kits that can be used but in all cases the procedure is time intensive, typically targeted at low volume end users, and with dubious claims of success at best. What I am looking for a system that would work similar to a video tape rewinder: you pop the CD into it, hit a button, walk away; Sometime later you come back and presto you have a freshly cleaned CD. With all the libraries, video rental, and software 'collections' out there must be a better system then 'hand washing' each CD."

Bill Kendrick writes "The 'Simputer' (Simple, Inexpensive, Multilingual Computer), a Linux-based PDA developed by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, and released a few weeks ago, has been reviewed by Scientific American, and they seem to like it!"

zerOnIne asks: "Like many geeks I know, I love good old clicky mechanical tactile-feedback keyboards. I've got an IBM Model M (101 key) on the server, and a Linux CoolKeyboard on my desktop, and I wouldn't want to part with them. The problem is, though, that my wife and I live in a studio apartment, and my desk is necessarily right next to the bed alcove. This poses a problem on nights, like tonight, when I want to get some late-night hacking in, and she needs to get some sleep: my typing can rather loud if I get going. Is there a keyboard out there that can give me the mechanical feel of an IBM-101, but without the noise? As an aside note, whatever happened to the Linux CoolKeyboards company?"

Larry Groebe writes "Just before COMDEX, Fossil announced a new PDA in a wristwatch. Based on the Palm OS, this is nothing less than a complete Palm Pilot on your wrist. See here for features and a picture. This is completely UNLIKE Fossil's *first* attempt at a wrist PDA, which was a hopeless view-only gadget. This new model allows regular Graffiti input and appears to run all Palm programs! At $149, I may be the first in line when it comes out next spring."

egarland writes "Tom's Hardware has a new article previewing the new GeForceFX chip and discussing its architecture. 0.13 Micron, 16 GB/s memory bandwidth, 128-bit DDR2 memory interface, 125 M transistors, support for 8x FSAA. Sounds like an interesting chip. They stuck with a 128 bit memory bus so ATI's R300 still has more memory bandwidth (19.8 GB/s) but NVidia has new lossless memory compression so we will have to wait for benchmarks to see if NVidia comes up a winner here. The reference card also sports a massive new cooling system which is worth a look." Readers Oliver Wendell and JavaTenor add links to additional stories at The Register and at AnandTech.

watzinaneihm writes "Dell has released its Axim X5 handheld as as promised . At $299 after rebate, a reasonable buy, price-wise. "

Angela asks: "In the spirit (and utter terror) of the upcoming holiday season, I would like to ask the opinion of the Slashdot community on speaker technology. The dilemma is this: I would like to purchase computer speakers for my audiophile husband for Christmas, but I am clueless when it comes to this particular field. I am also on a budget ($200USD or less?). What computers speakers would you suggest and why?"

OutRigged asks: "SCSI hard drives have had speeds in excess of 10,000RPM for years, yet IDE has always been stuck at 7200RPM. Is there some kind of technical reason IDE drives don't go above 7200RPM? I can't imagine cost being that big of an issue, and the connection is certainly not a problem, with Parallel ATA capable, at least theoretically, of speeds over 100MB, and Serial ATA capable of even more. With hard drives now reaching sizes in excess of 300GB, don't you think we need a speed increase?" If you are wondering what the terms "Parallel ATA" and "Serial ATA" refer to, check out this article.

stevejsmith asks: "I'm going to buy a Dell computer which supports DDR RAM, however it only comes with two DIMM slots. I have lying around two 128MB sticks of RAM, and want to use them. I know RAM is cheap, but I want some way to put more than two DIMMS in this system. Short of getting a new motherboard, is there any way I can add more RAM? On Slashdot I remember seeing a PCI card that help RAM for a RAM drive, but is there such thing as a PCI card that just held regular RAM for system usage? If not a PCI card, any other suggestions?"

c640180 asks: "I need to figure out a way to mount a 1U enclosure in a small closet that doesn't have a relay rack or anything similar. Is there such a thing as a set of right angle brackets that would provide me with 19" wide screw holes so that I could mount the device vertically (so that the screws would be pointing down)? how do other folks who don't have real network closets mount real networking hardware?"

Peter Gant asks: "By day I'm the sys admin on a mixed Windows / Linux environment but in my spare time I work on a small Beowolf system comprising eight nodes and a small rack, it's only small but it's mine . The system is put together using 100Mb network cards and a switch and this is that part that's been bugging me, I have a system where the slowest CPU runs at 600MHz but the network links run at (assuming a single start and stop bit) ten million bytes a second. There are of course better ways of doing this. I could rip out all of the 100Mb cards and fit gigabit ethernet running over copper or fiber but most switches only have a single gigabit port and multiple-port gigabit switches are damned expensive. There's also the possibility of using Myrinet but unless I mortgage the house and sell my girlfriend into slavery this isn't a realistic option." It gets more detailed in the article. If you are interested in Beowulf discussions, maybe this question will provide some grist for the grey matter.

groovemaneuver asks: "A question was posted recently regarding sharing a SCSI disk between multiple machines. Firewire was mentioned as an alternative, but there wasn't much elaboration. Is there anyone out there using an IEEE 1394 solution for shared storage between two or more boxes? I've managed to dig up ads for a bunch of enclosures that feature multiple firewire ports, but nothing to indicate that it was possible to connect any of them to multiple machines. The only thing close that I've found was the SANCube, and aside from being fairly pricey (defeating my purpose for using firewire), it is only officially supported as a Mac/Win device."

Oliver Wendell Jones writes "InfoWorld is running an article about a new kind of inexpensive (starting under $800) tablet PC that runs your choice of Windows 2000, Windows XP or the Lindows distro of Linux. The PC is called the DocuNote and features an 8.4" touch screen with digital camera and microphone. The PCs are being created by a company called StepUp, which is formed of a lot of people from the old eMachines organization. DocuNotes are scheduled to start shipping in mid-December."

dbaman asks: "I have previously used a router with my broadband connection and run cables thru my house to have a home network. Now I'm in a new house, and I don't want to drill holes in the wall and run cable thru the attic again. I have considered 802.11 wireless, but am more interested in the HomePlug Powerline standard, which lets you use the electrical outlets in the house as the network. Powerline uses 56 bit DES encryption rather than WEP like wireless, and is apparently a bit faster than wireless. LinkSys, GigaFast, and NetGear have adapters out, and a Powerline-based router from LinkSys will soon be available. Does anyone have any experience or advice with this new HomePlug PowerLine networking standard?"

Kieckerjan asks: "A friend of mine, who's an architect, has been appointed a research position at a small university. Along with the job he's been assigned a budget to spend on whatever he thinks is necessary to get the job done. One of the things he needs is a fast machine to run Maya. As he is fed up with Wintel systems, he's been looking into alternatives. His eye fell on SGI's Fuel workstation, which costs about 15.000 EURO. For that kind of money you can buy a seriously bad-assed pentium-based system, and run Linux on it. His question to me was: is it worthwhile to shell out the extra money for a SGI system? Since I have no experience with modern SGI's, I am in no position to judge about performance differences, but maybe someone on this forum does."

numatrix writes "Sharp just announced the release of the SL-5600 Zaurus today, the followup to the SL-5500 linux pda. Features include an xscale 400mhz processor, 96mb total flash, higher capacity battery, 2.4.18 kernel, built in speaker and mic, and all of the best bits of goodness from the 5500. Infosync has an article as well."

OrangeTide writes "Using PCI host adapters and Xeon processors, engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Labs have achieved 10-TFlops relatively cheaply. More information can be obtained from this article at EETimes." Lately, Linux seems to be the operating system of choice for new supercomputers, and this one's no different. It's cool to see big iron made cheaply.

prostoalex writes "Sony Ericsson announced their new PCMCIA GPRS wireless modem, capable of delivering 57.6 Kbps. It is tri-band and works in 900/1800/1900 MHz range, which led Sony Ericsson to imply that the card will work in 160 countries, providing an always-on Internet connection. Currently only Microsoft operating systems (starting at Windows 98) are supported. No exact price information on official site, but the PC Pro article above quotes 200 UK pounds. The manufacturer also runs a contest for those who would rather get one for free."

WEEEEEEE writes "Just saw over at GideonTech where they just put up a new Indiglo clock mod for a computer case. With avid LAN party go'ers around here, seems like a easy to do mod to keep track of time while you're fraggin' away. More on it over the HOWTO area."