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http://www.dontpoke.com/img/ears.jpg

This is a feline of some variety with enormous ears and an otherwise bizarre appearance. My wife thinks it's the most adorable thing ever (I'm undecided), so I promised to find out what in the world it is. So far, I've had no luck identifying it. Do you recognize its breed? Species, even?

Last year, my wife and I moved to a new city, 700 miles away from anyone I know. My wife gets along with everybody, so she had no trouble acclimating. I expected a little trouble making friends as an adult, but so far I haven't really met anybody with whom I get along really well. I'm a 29-year-old IT developer, I'm friendly but not terribly outgoing, I work long hours, my hobbies are solitary (game development, guitar, writing, etc.), and the guys I work with are way dorkier than I am. Way dorkier.

I haven't had to make any new friends in a decade, and I guess I've forgotten how. What's a good way to meet cool, normal people?

Bonus points for advice on how my wife and I can make friends with another couple.

I'm a professional web programmer, but I've been developing games in Java and the XNA dev kit for the past couple of years. I'm interested in creating games for Android-powered mobile devices, but I have no experience with the platform.

I'm experienced in most standard web languages as well as Java, C#, ActionScript, and VB. What sort of learning curve can I expect to encounter learning to program for Android, and how would you recommend getting started?

I've created an ASP.NET application that I'm trying to publish to a web server, and while it works beautifully locally, it gives a generic runtime error when I upload it to my webhosting service's server.

I've tried it on both GoDaddy servers and IXWebHosting servers, and I get the same result. I'm fairly new to .NET, so I think I'm missing something very basic.

I know that I have to set up a folder in IIS as an ASP.NET application when I publish something like this to my own personal server... do I have to do something similar to get it to work on a shared hosting server?

The site in question: http://www.jakkel.com/dbdr/test/

Just to provide a little context here, I'm not new to the web: I'm a professional programmer for a well-regarded web developer, and we focus on adding functionality to the already gorgeous designs produced by our partner studios. I don't need any help learning to code, and I've got loads of experience with Photoshop and, to a lesser extent, Illustrator and Fireworks.

What I'd like to do is learn all about layout, aesthetics, colors, current trends, techniques, etc... in short, whatever it takes to take me from an engineer to an artist. Aside from diverting my education to double major in IT and graphic design and adding at least another year to my degree, what specifically would be the best way(s) for me to develop my skills as a designer?

I'm a professional web application programmer, but I have to admit that I don't know much about hosting or server tech.

I'd like to have someplace to host my personal projects and attempts at marketable websites. I already have hosting that uses php and mySQL, and while I can get by using those technologies, I'd much prefer to work with ASP.NET and SQL Server, like I do at work.

Also, I'm currently paying $7.95/month for 1500 GB of storage and 5200 GB transfer. That same price would only get me 200 GB of storage and 1000 GB transfer with a host that offers ASP.NET and SQL Server. Should I expect to pay through the nose if I want to use these technologies?

I'm a game design student in charge of a team of programmers, and we're looking for an idea for a new game. We'd like to create an educational game that will be useful as well as a lot of fun to play.

What I need to know is this: have you ever tried to learn something and wished that someone would create an easy and entertaining way to practice and learn?

e.g. A chemistry game in which the player has to collect the correct elements to create alkaline substances capable of repairing the high pH of a polluted pond, or a music puzzle game that requires the player to put together scales, keys, or modes correctly.

What I need from you is a difficult-to-grasp subject and, if you have one, an idea or two about the type of game it would be. We should be able to handle making it fun.

My recollection of it is awfully vague, but back when Nickelodeon was first starting out, they featured some pretty strange foreign cartoons in the early afternoon. This was an animated film they showed at least a half dozen times, possibly anime, and the part of it that stands out the most is the villain.

It's this horrible robot-like wheeled toy with big eyeballs, a yellow egg-shaped face, saw-like teeth, and it would scream in apparent anguish before charging. I'll be honest: it scared the bejeezus out of me, and I always chickened out before the end of the movie.

Does this ring any bells at all? I can't find anything about it on Google, but I'd like to face this nightmarish film again and see if it was as horrifying as I remember.

As a rule, insurance companies will not pay for refractive surgery for nearsightedness. They consider it elective or cosmetic. Mine isn't the typical situation, though, for the following reasons.

I have extremely poor vision, with a prescription of -12/-14 ("high myopia" is considered -6 to -10, so I'm way beyond that). Simply put, without correction, I'm perfectly blind.

Glasses aren't a viable day-to-day possibility. Because of the high degree of refraction, in low light anything that isn't directly in front of me is broken up into a wide band of prismatic-colored copies. This is merely a nuisance most of the time but when driving it is absolutely dangerous, as it makes it impossible to tell the actual location of other cars or the color of traffic lights.

Contacts aren't a perfect solution, either. Because of their thickness, whenever I blink they slide up my eyes and take a good 1/2 to 1 second to return to their proper location. They also tend to slip off of my corneas entirely more often than most contact wearers experience, and even in the best of times are not comfortable when worn for more than eight to ten hours.

I'm a perfect candidate for ICL (implanted contact lens) surgery, but I don't believe that I should have to cover the entire cost of the procedure ($7,000). I'm insured, this is a safe and proven cure for my condition, and the traditional solutions are simply not adequate. Do I have a hope of arguing my case?

I'm attending a college accredited by the NCA, one of the six American accreditation organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Most of the central US falls within its jurisdiction.

My wife and I have been discussing moving to the coast once I graduate in May with my Associate's, but I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not sure how this regional accreditation thing actually works. Will any business take my degree seriously? Will any nationally accredited university outside of the NCA's region let me transfer my credits?

I'm a programming student looking to build a broad range of skills for future employment, and my web development classes are very light on server side scripting.

I've been independently studying PHP a bit, and it looks fantastic. However, I'm not sure that it's the -best- place for me to start. I need a language that employers will be happy to see on my resume and that is useful for independent projects.

If you had it to do over again, which server side scripting language would you start with?

I'm a game development student, and I'd really like to start making some of my own low-poly character models. I'm a decent artist, but I've never had much luck in figuring out the world of 3D. What's the best piece(s) of software for me to learn 3D modeling, texturing, and animation?

I had a request for a cake frosted with cool whip frosting (ingredients: cool whip, instant pudding mix, milk, and powdered sugar). Most of my experience is with buttercream and other frostings of similar consistency.

Have you had experience with this recipe? Is it possible to decorate with cool whip frosting? Would you recommend it?

The Capitol v. Thomas lawsuit over copyright infringement has me wondering what would happen to an everyday person ordered by the court to pay an enormous amount of money. Thomas was ordered to pay just under $2 million, but an 80GB iPod full of provably pirated songs could be worth $3 -billion- or more in damages.

Assume that a private citizen was sued for over a billion dollars and lost, and that an appeal was denied. Would that person be required to make payments on the lawsuit until death? Would that amount be the person's entire salary over the minimum for survival? Would bankruptcy affect his obligation?

No, I don't expect the RIAA to knock on my door anytime soon-- I'm writing a speech about copyright reform. Any help would be massively appreciated.

I've been an amateur web developer for years, using simple html and css with occasional Flash content. However, I'm beginning to study programming now and I'd like to figure out how to create websites similar to the big, commercially successful ones.

Using Facebook as an example, it contains countless tools for users to arrange and view the data, allows them to upload content with context-sensitive controls, has smoothly animated expand/contract features for long entries, has pop-up alert windows, and clearly has a lot of database functionality. It does this all without any download-required third-party browser plugins, like Flash, Shockwave, or Silverlight, and it seems to work equally well on all browsers. Is this all Javascript, or am I missing something?

I have to admit that I know a lot less about this than I should. What should I be researching?

I'm programming an old-school 2D sidescroller shoot-em-up, and I have the engine working fairly well. However, I want to graphically turn it into something totally unique. A slick ship shooting ion charges at UFOs is obvious and lame. A flying squirrel throwing nut-grenades at terrified chipmunks is better. I want something weird and fun that my professor will remember for quite a while.

The only criteria are these:

The player-controlled object flies (or floats) and emits fast-moving projectiles.

The targets move around, and react when hit.

What can you come up with?

I have an HTC Touch Pro running Windows Mobile 6 and a laptop running Vista. I want to synchronize my address book and calendar, but I'm having trouble doing so without resorting to USB.

I know that I need to have a MS Exchange Server involved somehow, but I'm a little fuzzy on what it is and how a home user can access one without paying for it.

Any help would be massively appreciated.

I have to make a 2-dimensional sprite-based PC action game as a final project in my Game Development 1 class, and I'm looking for ideas. It doesn't have to be too complicated, just exhibit collision detection and other typical game behavior.

My professor is expecting a minimum of a shooting gallery type game, but I'm quite a bit ahead in the class and I'd like to do something cooler and more entertaining, such as replicate the first stage from Spore or a level of Bust A Move.

One little caveat- I have no experience in tile based games, so I'd prefer to avoid those.

So, any ideas?

I'm designing a site for a specialty bakery, but my work has usually gravitated toward the ultra-slick, modern look. I need to make something that's girly and slightly eccentric, yet professional, and I need some ideas.

What sites have you seen that fit this theme?

I have a home network (on a cable modem, 5 meg service) with one wired and three wireless PCs, and I often share files via BitTorrent on the wired machine. However, when it's running (even at the most conservative bandwidth settings, strangely) the other computers have intermittent-at-best luck with even simple web browsing. What I want to do is configure my network so that the wired PC can't hog the connection completely. What do you recommend?