Bob the Helper

Corporate relocation, need to purchase a house in/near Charlotte within ~30days. Having trouble finding a quality residential real estate agent. Refer me someone good please.

The usual route of an agent running a MLS listing and giving me 20 choices won't work for me. They do this, and I hop on Zillow and Trulio and find multiple listings within a few blocks with nearly the exact same price / sq ft / #bed / #bath / etc. This immediately causes me to think the 'value' is average, and this being a buyers market, I want a good-to-terrific deal.

Am I being unrealistic? How can I find an agent willing to ferret out great deals or at the very least vet the listings prior to sending them along? Should I start making initial offers ~50-60% less than list on the homes that meet my criteria but are pretty much the same as others nearby?

8gal freshwater aquarium. Aquarium kit came with no-brand traditional filter, would like to upgrade. Considering the "Tom Rapid Mini Canister Filter C-80" and the traditional Marineland Penguin 200B/170B (or Marineland Emperor 280). Advice please.

Purchased an acrylic 8gal tank kit (~3ft wide x 1ft tall x 1ft deep). Thinking about upgrading the filter that came with the kit to Marineland's Penguin or Emperor.

1. Adjustable flow control? Unclear if flow control is adjustable on any of these units. Also unclear if flow something I should be concerned about -- one of the pet store employees said there was no problem in adding a larger filter because the more circulation the better. It seems strange in my novice eyes because I imagine a big honkin' filter making the poor fish feel like they are in a never ending marathon. Explain this to me?

2. The acrylic / plastic top has notches that can be snapped out to fit different size filters. Unfortunately I have no idea what the dimensions of the filtration units are, so I am unclear if they will fit. I have eight linear inches before I would have to take a saw to the plastic.

3. Which filter should I choose?

Penguin 100B (100GPH for up to 20 gallons), Penguin 150B (150GPH for up to 30 gallons), Penguin 200B (200GPH for up to 50 gallons), Penguin 350B (350GPH for up to 75 gallons), Emperor 280 (280GPH for up to a 50gal Aquarium).

Curious about foreclosure auctions, and wondering how to find out what the home reserve price (minimum acceptable bid/price floor) is prior to the auction.

Please post info or provide url(s) to information on the DNS zone file. I need to understand adding A, CNAME, MX,.. records (how to, why to, what these are for,...)

How many (boyscouts) merit badges does one usually earn (or: how many badges can you earn) during a national scout jamboree?

Suggestions and ideas please.

As I understand it, a baby shower is only held for a woman's first child. Does the same rule of appropriateness apply to bridal showers (or bachelorette parties)?

Who would have thought that someone we elected president with no political experience would pick a justice for the supreme court that has never been a judge? Why not hire an attorney general who never passed the bar exam? Or a high school dropout for secretary of education?

Based on their history and lack of winning despite high-profile high-salary talent, should they be allowed to stay in the NFL? And what is needed for them to have a Superbowl-capable team? (real suggestions, sarcasm, and humorous answers all appreciated)

Looking for projects to make my home network even more exceptionally geeky. Already have dedicated linux firewall, nas/storage server, gb ethernet to desktops. Very recently added gb ethernet fiber optic switch backbone and switched from copper to optical network cards. today's project is to get (two gb fiber ports) link aggregation working between the switches, and from the servers to the main (backbone) switch. Trying to keep projects some combination of: straightforward, under $100, using open source software. prospective project also must be either semi-useful, look damn sexy on my (visio) network diagram, or (preferably) both.

Technology geek with home network. Have several 1u/2u/4u servers (dual p4@3ghz, p4@3ghz, p4@2.6ghz, p4@2.2ghz, p3@1.4ghz, p3@900mhz) and am looking to do something useful (or even semi-useful) to put them into service. Have dedicated Linux firewall and network storage (NAS) servers already. Suggestions and ideas (especially those with a URL pointing to what you are suggesting) very much appreciated.

In my everlasting quest to have my wife chase me around the house with a sharp axe while screaming hysterically at me for buying more network equipment, I was surfing ye ole auction site and noticed that Infiniband equipment seemed relatively speedy and cheap (network cards ~$50/10gig, 10gb switches starting ~$200-300). Since I yearn to pimp my home network slightly more than I fear her skills with an axe, I thought I'd ask what the catch is, or what I'm missing?

I read the wiki on FC and ethernet, and I still don't get it... I'll figure out the hard stuff, just give me the quick and simple: assume there is a traditional cat5e wired network connected to a ethernet switch. for the sake of simplicity, also assume there is a SFF LC fiber transceiver in the ethernet switch.

The question is, 'how would you'/or/'what needs to happen' to connect a FC switch (such as a silkworm connected to a couple storage servers with FC network cards) so that users could access these storage servers?

Is the speed between two: 1000BASE-SX LC multimode 50/125um fiber modules

the same as between two: 1000BASE-T CAT5e modules

Assume: Gigabit ethernet protocol, length of cable/fiber is nominal (under 100 feet), all else is the same, connections are between two quality switches.

[I think I am getting hung up on LC having a separate send and receive fiber (asynchronous), so the related question is: does gigabit ethernet have a max bandwidth of ~1gb or ~2gb, or...?]

Since light can have different wavelengths, is it not possible that it can travel at different speeds?