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?

Leonel asks: "The company I work for is having some real trouble setting up network printers under Linux. There seems to be no way to directly set up a network-only printer (not a SAMBA printer) using Printtool, and it seems to have almost no vendor support. There are two NT servers now that we can't replace with Linux because of this problems. Specifically, I need support for a GCC EliteXL 1208, which is the most important. Also a HP Laserjet 6MP, to which we have found a temporary solution but some insight on that would help too. Any insights?" Network printing support is mentioned in the HOWTO however that section only discusses HP devices in any real detail. Could anyone lend a hand? Queue names for the GCC Elite, if available, would be ideal.

Scott Taylor asks: "I've recently started my own company, and after reading The Pragmatic Programmer, and Unix Power Tools I'm interested in removing the need for Microsoft Word to make my business cards and labels. I would like to use a command line solution. One where I can update a configuration file, run make and out comes a label or business card from the printer. Unfortunately I have little experience with text formatting tools other than LaTeX. What would be the best Unix tool to use to create proper templates for Avery labels. Can it support color and graphics? What about printing to color ink jet printers?"

A few words from HP on the Linux-based but Linux-unfriendly print server (read gently, and be thankful for small blessings); happy news from the "the NSA secretly controls PGP and its creator" front; more detail on the sordid, awful things that the MPAA used to say about VCRs, and an online Linux magazine for those who like read in 5 languages at once. (phew!)

chromatic's wide-ranging series of instructional and reference books for the Linux administrator continues here with three more titles, this time covering two books which sound aimed at fairly experienced uers, and one more suited to Windows crossover users. (Check out Part One and Part Two of this four-part series if you missed those, especially if you're looking for some more novice-oriented books.)

Lady and Gentlemen, sit back and brace yourself for the assault of the quickies: AlexPixel sent us the curiously named Bilbo.com which actually sells feet keyboards for key modifiers and mouse clicks. cadfael sent us a sordid tale of a coder scorned. Some billboards: first from Ant we have a windows error and from mazur we have a bit of unix (must be california ;) mmca noted that scientists have discovered why candy wrappers are loudest in movie theaters. IcesTorm-I noted a supposed windows bug that will make ya wonder. DuncMonk sent us a cool comic strip called Sinfest that you might wish to add to your morning coffee. How about the x86 Still for those of you who believe that controlling your stereo, lights, garage door, and neighbors dog just isn't enough for your PC. Not out there enough for ya? How about RSA implemented entirely in javascript? (Doesn't work for me ... I leave that crap turned off ;) And finally to leave everyone on the proper melodic note, gribbly Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers. Fortunately it's available in MP3 just in case you don't have a dot-matrix printer still handy...

Clinton Work asks: "There are tons of cheap/high quality inkjet printers on the market, but all of them use proprietary Windows printer drivers. The older HP inkjets have Linux drivers but are no longer on the market. Your only option is too choose a more expensive inkjet or a cheap laser printer with postscript support. I have looked at the modern printing software like LPRng and CUPS without any luck. Does anybody have a solution?"

Updates on Tom's detective work, Kevin's touchy look-but-don't touch semi-citizen status, and last but not least a word from the elusive printman, here folded, spindled and mutilated for your edification.

nico_DNS writes: ""The Symphony for dot matrix printers is a work which transforms obsolete office technology into an instrument for musical performance. The Symphony focuses the listener's attention on a nearly forgotten technology: the dot-matrix printer. Specifically, it employs the noises the printers make as the sole sound source for a musical composition. Leaving the constituent elements untouched, the process imposes a new order upon them, reorganizing the sounds along a musical structure. ""

Universal Access to computing and the Net is edging closer to reality. One company after another is now offering computing equipment and Net access to new employees. enRamp announced last week that it's offering a program to provide complete technology benefits to associates and their families. This is definitely a great moral (and business) idea whose time is coming. (Read More).

chromatic has brought us yet another pithy programming-book review, this time of Damien Conway's Object Oriented Perl. This sounds like a good book for those interested in not only an overview, but a book that pushes them into at least a few practical applications -- but not one too intimidating to learn from.

relyt writes "If you get spam, check out Spam Recycle. Forward them your spam, and they will prosecute the spammers for you, giving you time to do other things. It is also is supported by CAUCE! Send them your spam, and their trained monkeys will poke it, prod it, and kill it. " Somehow I'm skeptical, but hey, I get spammed every 48 hours to buy toner and I don't even own a printer. Sure would be nice if it would stop ;)

Don Faulkner asks: "One of the features of USB that people are really excited about is the 'multi-headed support.' In other words, I should be able to connect several sets of [monitor, keyboard, mouse (and other stuff like joystick, printer, etc.)] to one computer, maybe distribute these throughout my house, and move seamlessly from one to the next. What if we turn this around? What if I wanted to control several computers in a rack, all from one location? This is done today with KVM (Keybard/Video/Mouse) switches, some of which are very sophisticated. Could USB do the same thing? Most computers have two USB ports, so you could theoretically daisy-chain the computers together, but this would be bad for reliability (take down one computer, and everything past it on the chain disappears). So, we would probably want to use a hub, and attach the head to that. Has anyone tried this? Anyone seen it done?" Here's an interesting sidenote: the USB 2.0 specs were just released. You might check out what they have to say about KVM switches.

TreeRat sent us a Salon story by Simson Garfinkle about legit companies and spam. Its an interesting piece: it talks mostly about Caldera, but mentions several other offenders. The Spam in my INBOX is somewhere aroung 20-30 a day (mind you most of it is press releases from PR firm mailing lists, and random lists that "helpful" slashdot readers subscribed me to). Thank god for filters. But this is a problem we don't think as much about -- normally we think of spammers as slimeballs in basement sending out a hundred thousand emails advertising 'printer toner sale' or 'hot naked sluts want you' featuring 900 numbers and typos, not legitimate businesses.