It's finally somewhat usable folks. You can join irc.slashdot.org, and /msg Salsa CHANNELS to see what the channels are that she is monitoring. If channels are used, they are logged, and a link is added to the story here, to the IRC log. Currently Salsa is monitoring the newest 6 stories. If things work out, she'll monitor more. Don't be surprised if she blows up for a while yet, but we'll get the kinks worked out yet.

Hey, it's my turn to Ask Slashdot *grin*. We're seriously considering running a permanent ISDN line to the geekhouse so we don't have to keep redialing and sharing a single tired little modem over 5 users who all want bandwidth. The question is simply what is a good ISDN modem for us? Needs to work with Linux and preferably not to expensive. Who's got experience?

Ok tons 'o' crazy stuff is happening and I'm gonna answer this all at once so I can stop with the email. We have 3 problems currently. First is RAM. We can only run so many httpd's at a time, and so around 11, they are all being consumed, and connecting gets painful. Especially when stories have lots of comments and people use flat mode (eg, the Gnome/KDE flame war yesterday). We're getting more soon, several folks have offered to swap RAM for advertising, so this'll be solved soon. Second is bandwidth. We're just going to have to move the servers. If you know a good place to host boxes, contact Hemos. Ideally some place that will do it, at least partially in exchange for some advertising. Finally, the machine is acting funky- I'm not sure exactly what it is, but we're trying a few things. We'll work it out asap.

Ok it's gonna happen. We're making minor changes yet today and doing assorted nitpicky changes yet, but T.M.P. is ready to roll. Assuming everything falls into place, we're gonna officially announce it around 4 or 5 (eastern) on these pages, and Nate and I will be on irc.slashdot.org (in a to-be-announced-channel) this evening to answer questions (there will be many). The word from our testers has been really positive. We're really getting excited about this, so just hang in there, and hopefully everyone will see why.

Mark Whitley writes "I was wondering what resources there are for people who are desirous to find jobs that use open-source software. The Free Software Community has shown that they are very capable in the areas of collaboration and communication, and I think we might serve ourselves well to have better listings of jobs using open-source software. This needn't be a central site. I can picture the various home pages having links to jobs associated with their software (i.e. perl.com would show a listing of Perl jobs, linux.org would show a listing of Linux jobs, etc.). Paying attention to locale would be a plus as there are many people who cannot move to a different state/country. I think we could do a lot to further The Cause by more prominantly advertising jobs where you can work with the same software that you love to use at home. "

Florian sent us a simple question:What video card do people recommend these days? "I will choose between the Matrox Productiva and the Diamond Viper. I only need the Card for 2D. I already have a Monster Card. So what card could you prefer me? Thanks... " I'm actually curious what experience people have had with modern cards and Linux. My newest video card is a 3 year old Millenium, so I'm totally out of touch. Note:Send submissions to Ask Slashdot to Clifton Wood.

Ok, Salsa (the IRC bot) is really close to ready. I need to add the ability to send people URLs to the original article, and make it look pretty on the web side, but it's almost done. Unfortunately I won't finish it until at least this weekend because the next chunk of my life is dedicated to finishing The Mystery Project, which should be officially announced Wed. Afternoon. Nate and I will be on IRC in the evening to answer questions on SlashNET (Channel will be announced- maybe we'll beta test the bot :)

It's been a busy weekend. The finishing touches are now going on The Mystery Project. Nate has been coding like a crazy man making sure it works properly and I've been making sure that it looks perty when it gets done. Hopefully it'll be announced in the next day or two. We'll probably have a Q&A on SlashNET 'cuz there will be some questions. But this means I can get back to the Slash Source Code Release, as well as the Slashdot IRC Bot. Hopefully both of them will happen in the next week or so.

endisnigh writes "I am a smalltime sysadmin working in a cyber cafe in Dublin - my problem is that the linux server that we have here (redhat 5.1) attracts system crackers for some reason - people from a few different countries who seem to be portscanning etc.. I wouldn't consider myself totally green as regards to linux, but find it hard to get good up-to-date linux security advice that covers everyting from shadow passwords, to secure finger daemons to immutable file systems to just *exactly* what daemons don't need to be running on a mail/web/name server. I want answers! I want advice! I want cheesy poofs! "

Ben Burdick (weez) wrote in to tell us that SlashNET had its first forum last night. It was an impromptu discussion with several members of the freedows project with a lengthy Q & A session. Check out Weez's SlashNET home page for the complete log

Well folks, as everyone has noticed, we're having some problems. These problems are not being solved because after this weeks move, I don't yet have a phone line, and hence, no Internet Access. I'll hopefully solve this tomorrow and things will get back to normal. So bear with us- rest assured, this is pissing me off more than you guys (sigh).

BOredAtWork writes "Anybody have a DVD running under linux? I'm looking to buy a kit and add one (seeing ID4 in all its DVD glory on my TV would kick ass) to my box, but only if it works well under linux. Can anybody recommend a brand? Point me to an install Howto? "

Wade Naveja sent us This SF Examiner Piece where they explain what portals really are:A waste of corporate money trying to morph the Internet into your TV. Several people have jokingly suggested a Slashdot Portal (yeah, right). But in general, I'm curious what everyone thinks about the ideas.

So I go away for a few hours and everything blows up. No surprise I guess *grin*. For those who don't know, I've been moving this week. Well, trying to move anyway. The carpet (which should have been installed last week) didn't get in until last night at 7. But the furniture is inside (in gigantic piles!) and I finally have a few minutes to try to get things back in order around here. Anyway, my apologies, things should be back tomorrow soon- or at least, as soon as the phone lines at my house get installed (not for another week. Grrr).

Iris writes " I have a problem that i am sure slashdot readers could help with. I have a friend that has a class C block of IP's that is not in use. I know it is possible to create a IPsec, NAT, or L2TP tunnel between out machines so i can use his IP's on my network, but i can not find any good information on this. Can anyone help our suggest a place to look for information. And yes i have looked into PPTP but decided against it."

Nate, Dave and I rest easy now that Slashdot is up and running on the new machine. It's a P2/266 dual CPU board, with one CPU. Now we just need to wait for the second CPU to get back and we'll be cool. Things went pretty smooth (except for the part where we "Borrowed" the network connection from one of the other servers, that *ahem* was doing a backup). In any case, now we have a mountain of parts and will spend the rest of the day putting together machines for The Mystery Project, and an MP3 player for our living room in the new house.

So everybody remembers a few weeks ago when we tried to move the server, right? Well tomorrow we're going to finish the job (/me crosses fingers). VAResearch shipped us a CPU:It's a dual CPU box, this was #2, but since we're still waiting for #1, this one has been promoted. Tomorrow probably 11ish (I need to sleep in!) we'll be down for awhile. The existing machine is getting gutted for parts needed to complete The Mystery Project (which will be ready in the next couple of weeks even if it kills Nate and I *grin*). Things are going to be hairy around here for the next week or so as Hemos, Dave, and I are moving, hang in there, things will get back to normal.

bleachboy writes "We all know about VA Research and their fine complete system solutions for Linux, but I am the type of nerd who likes to put my computer together piece-by-piece. Can anyone recommend a hardware vendor (i.e. mobos, memory, cpu's, etc) who is known to be Linux-friendly? Not that it matters particularly when buying piecemeal hardware, but I like to support companies worthy of support! :) "

We scored our 10 millionth hit last night ladies and gentleman. It was a Linux 2.0.32 box at 9:49pm. The user was viewing the MS Terraserver Crashing Article, and they came from 129.97.33.92. Anyone wanna step up and take credit? Slashdot is now clipping along at over 2 million hits/month. If you feel this warrants a bit of a party, join me on irc.slashdot.org today in #10million.

Kevin Way is having trouble getting his Diamond Monster 3D to work properly under Linux. It's kind of a strange situation. Hit the link below to read his description and see if you can't help.