Work Computer

Put your computer talents to work

2006-04-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

(www.nilesstar.com)

ADULTS AND YOUTH

€ There are a number of local nonprofit organizations that are in the process of building their websites, or would like assistance in maintaining their websites. Because we know many teens and adults enjoy that kind of work, and because it can be done offsite, we are offering this volunteer opportunity.

If you have a solid knowledge of website design and maintenance and would like to support the work of a local organization, please contact the Volunteer Center and we will give you the opportunity to put that knowledge to work.

€ ST. JOSEPH TODAY enhances the image and recognition of the area to assist business and tourism.

Volunteer “Secret Shoppers” are invited to participate in conducting a survey to assess business improvement in the downtown area.

Volunteers may work on their own schedules. For more information or to get involved, call the Volunteer Center.

€ SOUTH HAVEN AREA HOSPICE provides comprehensive supportive palliative care to terminally ill persons and their families through personalized services.

Volunteers aged 16 and older are invited to become office volunteers or patient care volunteers. Hours are very flexible and a 20-hour training series is required.

If you would like to assist in this very important, life-affirming work, please connect with the Volunteer Center.

ADULTS

€ THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTER, a new organization on Red Bud Trail in Buchanan, offers therapeutic equestrian riding and activity programs that are dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities.

If you enjoy the outdoors, whether or not you are familiar with horsemanship, your time would be warmly welcomed to assist with a variety of duties including checking fences, clearing brush, and preparing the facility for horses arriving very soon.

To connect, call the Volunteer Center.

€ SODUS TOWNSHIP LIBRARY welcomes volunteers interested in working on one weekday afternoon per week beginning at 2 p.m. Volunteers assist with book check-out, straightening shelves, and other tasks as they arise. To connect, call the Volunteer Center.

€ S-O-S of MADISON CENTER is the rape crisis center located in St. Joseph County, Indiana. Volunteer Advocates provide 24-hour crisis intervention in person at area Emergency Departments and on the phone to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

The next training for Volunteer Advocates will begin on Thursday, May 25th from 6-9 p.m. and will continue on consecutive Tuesday and Thursday evenings for six weeks. Interested volunteers must first apply to S-O-S before taking the training.

To start the process, call the Volunteer Center.

€ THE BERRIEN COUNTY CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS reports that Berrien County residents use more blood products than we donate. Let's change that! The next Blood drive will be coming to your area soon:

Thursday, April 27 - Grace Lutheran Church, 404 E. Glenlord, St. Joseph, noon-5:45 p.m.Friday, April 28 - Eau Claire High School, 7450 Hochenberger Road, 10 a.m.-3:45 p.m.

Thursday, May 4 - St. John's United Church of Christ, 601 Sycamore, Niles, noon-5:45 p.m.FAMILIES€ “Spring has come, the grass has riz...” Remember that old rhyme. Well, the time has come to get going and do some spring cleaning outdoors.

If you and your family would like a day out together, there are myriad organizations that would welcome your green thumbs, or just your rakes! There may even be a nonprofit organization in your neighborhood that would like your help.

Or check with elderly or infirm neighbors to see if you can assist them with yard work. Get out there and breathe in some of that great Spring oxygen!YOUTH€ Have you ever thought about volunteering for the U.S. COAST GUARD AUXILIARY in St. Joseph? You could become a member and become qualified through training if you are 17 years of age or older.

Training includes both day and night operations, including Search and Rescue and watchstander/radio operator.

Another opportunity for younger teens aged 13-17 is the Sea Cadet Corps, now being organized.

This program assists youth in developing an interest in, and skills in, basic seamanship and its naval adaptations. For more information, call the Volunteer Center.

€ Do you enjoy coaching? If so, there are a number of summer sports programs that would welcome your support.

Times and days vary, but flexibility is necessary.To connect with any of these volunteer opportunties, call the Volunteer Center of Southwest Michigan in Niles at (269) 683-5464.

Focus in Microsoft hearing shifts to sharing of computer code for its rivals

2006-04-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

(www.signonsandiego.com)

LUXEMBOURG – Microsoft Corp. complained Wednesday that the European Commission had forced it to hand over trade secrets to rivals, effectively giving them a “free ride” on the work the software maker did to acquire new customers and develop new technologies.

But Microsoft's rivals said the company was trying to turn the case into a debate over intellectual property rights and skirt the commission's argument that Microsoft has abused its monopoly.

The European Commission's order for Microsoft Corp. to share its code so rivals' software can run smoothly with Windows took center stage Wednesday in the third day of the company's bid to have a landmark antitrust ruling against it overturned.

Microsoft lawyer Ian Forrester said the order had been an attempt “to handicap the (market) leader in perpetuity.”

“The decision condemned a company for not saying yes to a company who requests a huge amount of secret technology for the future,” he said.

“The Windows source code is copyright. It is valuable, the fruit of lots of effort,” he said, adding that were it printed on paper, it would take up 12,650 pages.

Thomas Vinje, a lawyer for an industry group supporting the commission – the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, or ECIS – said Microsoft was blowing its patent rights out of proportion.

“Microsoft are trying to turn this into an intellectual property case when it's not,” he said. “This is a case about abuse of a dominant position, about refusing to provide information to vendors.”

Microsoft broke an informal agreement with EU advocates when it brought up the recent dispute over the company's compliance with the order to share its code– earning them a stern reprimand from Judge Bo Vesterdorf, who told Forrester to stick to the issue at stake.

Forrester had claimed that Microsoft was being threatened with 2 million euros ($2.4 million) in daily fines, backdated to Dec. 15, for not creating “a new copyright work” derived from Windows' secret source code.

EU regulators had asked Microsoft to supply a “complete and accurate” support manual for developers to help them make compatible software.

Last December, they charged Microsoft with not obeying the order after an independent monitor branded Microsoft's 12,650-page technical manual as “unfit at this stage for its intended purpose.”

The world's largest software maker says it has the right to guard its valuable intellectual property, and maintains that it has worked strenuously to comply with the 2004 EU ruling that told it to pay a record 497 million euro ($613 million) fine.

The ruling was handed down after a five-year investigation concluded that Microsoft had taken advantage of its dominant position to damage rivals who offered server software and media player programs.

Forrester said Microsoft's server software was compatible with products made by other companies, such as those from Novell and Sun and using Linux and UNIX-based servers.

Microsoft executive John Shewchuk gave a presentation that showed the company's contention that server compatibility was a reality and worked with the Windows operating system, which runs on 95 percent of the world's personal computers.

“Microsoft spends an enormous amount of effort attempting to achieve interoperability,” he said.

Lawyers for both Microsoft and the commission will expound on why the ruling should be lifted, or left unchanged, using evidence from IBM Corp., Novell Inc., Oracle Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. on systems compatibility.

None of those companies is currently involved in the legal battle, although they are members of two broad industry coalitions – the ECIS and the Software & Information Industry Association – that have backed the commission.

In a new complaint filed in February, ECIS said times have changed, but Microsoft's behavior has not. It claimed Microsoft is up to the same tricks – but on a wider scale.

Wednesday's focus differs from the first two days of the five-day hearings. On Tuesday, the company brushed off the claims that it tried to squeeze competitors, including RealNetworks Inc., out of the streaming media market.

Instead, it argued before the 13 judges of the Court of First Instance that it merely added extra functions to its operating systems to meet likely demand from consumers – part of a natural process of evolution in the technology sector.

While a court decision on the ruling is not due for months, a decision backing the commission could force Microsoft to change the way it does business in the future and endorse the EU's ability to hold back aggressive corporate behavior.

Who needs a word processor?

2006-04-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

(www.reviews.zdnet.co.uk)

It's time to take a close look at online productivity applications as an alternative to the traditional office suite.

Can a modern computer user survive without an office suite, especially a user accustomed to using traditional, installed software? I've used Microsoft Word on every computer I've worked on since 1987. I know Word inside and out, and I have a library of Word files going back 19 years.

But now, with the rise of AJAX and Web 2.0 technologies, and with more and more companies writing applications that are delivered directly over the Web, I'm wondering: Do I really need Word?

So I'm trying an experiment. I am writing this column on Writely, a free word processor that runs completely in a Web browser. Writely is not the only online word processor, but it's one of the most well known, and it was just acquired by Google.

Google has closed new user registration for Writely while it is working out how to scale up the servers to handle Google-level traffic, but all existing users have 50 invitations they can give out.

For a nice collection of other Web 2.0 applications, with reviews, see this page on ITRedux. If you want to get started with an online word processor right away, Zoho Writer is worth experimenting with.

Diving in to Writely

First impressions: Wow! The last time I used browser-delivered productivity software (I think it was a spreadsheet), it was a painful experience. But this word processor makes a mockery of those previous applications.

It's fast and easy to use, and enough of its key commands are identical to Word that my training time with this product is essentially zero. Also, my big fear -- that I'll hit the Back button and lose my work -- is gracefully handled. Writely captures events that would cause you to lose data and pops up a window giving you the chance to save your work.

Second impressions: The differences begin to surface. Minor key commands that I'm used to don't work. For example, my automatic reflex is to save a file every time I pause in thought, with the Alt+F+S command. But in Writely, that pulls up the browser's file menu, not Writely's (the Writely key command is Ctrl-S).

Other little crutches that I've become used to in Word are missing: the autocorrect function that corrects minor misspellings or capitalisation errors is not there, so I need to write more carefully. And the multi-item clipboard isn't there either.

Word, of course, has hundreds of other features, and most people use only a few of them, which means that you won't miss most of the features that Word has and Writely doesn't.

But there will likely be one or two that slow you down. For me, I miss the function that sorts lists of text items. On the other hand, the table creation tool in Writely is quite good.

Furthermore, Google can add functions and features to Writely when it wants, and all users will immediately benefit. Nobody has to deal with installing updates or patches except Google itself.

However, comparing Word to Writely strictly on features and user interface misses the point. After all, for the foreseeable future, you're probably not going to use a computer without a productivity suite. So why bother with a purely online word processor at all?

It's better online

An online application can do some things that Word cannot, at least not easily. First, the Writely program has very strong collaboration features.

Multiple people can edit the same document at the same time, so you can literally keep a whole team of people on the same page. You can also roll back a document to a previous point in time, and you can see who made which revisions. This feature is similar to Word's revision tracking function but I found it simpler and easier to work with.

And since Writely is an online application, it stores your files online. Whenever you log onto Writely, from any computer, all your files appear. You don't have to worry about which computer you stored them on.

For people who use multiple computers, this is very useful, and this is one of the key differentiators between an offline word processor and an online one: online applications are self-contained and portable; they can run on any computer, and your files are always there. You can save your files to local computers, too, if you want.

Writely has strong online publishing tools. Any document can be published as a Web page visible to everybody or just to people you select. Posting a Writely file to a supported blog (Blogger, BlogHarbor, BlogWare, LiveJournal or SquareSpace) takes two clicks.

If you're technically minded, you can also set up a customised connection to a blog site you host. Unfortunately, I got error messages and was unsuccessful at posting to my Blogger account, and I found no easy way to post from Writely to a TypePad blog (competitor Zoho Writer does post to TypePad blogs, but I had problems getting that system to correctly post images).

Not for the print/offline generation

Writely can't be used when you're offline, so if you want to start a long report in Writely and finish it on a plane journey, you'll need to export your file to Word or another word processor to open it on your notebook. If you have an unreliable Internet connection, it's definitely not for you. Fortunately, Writely's export function is quick and reliable. There's also a good import function for editing existing Word documents in Writely.

If your document uses advanced features, these may not come through with 100 percent fidelity, but Writely makes clever decisions about most formatting. For example, it converts footnotes to within-document hyperlinks.

Writely's printing function is rudimentary. The product will print your documents, but if you more need than basic control over page formatting, use something else.

Who's it for?

Compared to Word, there is a fair bit that Writely cannot do. But as I near the end of this column, I've found no strong need for any features the application doesn't have. It's been easy to work on this document from both my home computer and my work computer, since I didn't have to worry about where the file was.

I even asked my editor to check out the file online instead of dealing with the normal cycle of emailing it or putting it on a shared drive for her to access. For the work I do, writing this column online has actually been a faster and easier experience than using Word.

In other words, I am sold. I'm so sold, in fact, that I'm eagerly looking forward to the day when online services companies, such as Google (which now owns Writely), release their own online suites. In the meantime, I'm going to start taking a very close look at complete online suites, such as the Zoho applications, gOffice and ThinkFree.

Online productivity applications like Writely cannot completely replace standalone software programs such as Word. Sometimes you need local and offline access to files, and you may also have complex documents that take fuller advantage of the rich and complex Word feature set than short documents or those intended for an online audience.

But for creating and editing documents that are intended primarily to be read online, it makes a lot of sense to use a word processor that's native to the online medium.

Apple Computer "neutral"

2006-04-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

(www.newratings.com)

NEW YORK, (newratings.com) - Analyst Keith Bachman of Banc of America Securities maintains his "neutral" rating on Apple Computer (AAPL.NAS).

The target price is set to $77.In a research note published this morning, the analyst mentions that the company may post its F2Q EPS ahead of expectations, benefiting from the decline in flash pricing.

Apple Computer is likely to post its F2Q ipod units sales at 9.5 million, above the consensus of about 9 million units, the analyst adds.

The company is likely to guide to F3Q revenues below the estimates and the consensus, Banc of America Securities says.

Computer gadgets boost Logitech profits

2006-04-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

(www.swissinfo.org)

The Swiss company Logitech, the world's largest computer mouse maker, has posted its eighth consecutive year of record sales and profits.

Sales for the year ending on March 31 were $1.8 billion (SFr2.29 billion), up 21 per cent over the previous fiscal year. Net profit rose to $181 million.

Fourth-quarter sales were $466 million, up 16 percent from $403 million for the same quarter period year ago."We are very pleased with the company's strong performance, and with our record-breaking results in the fourth quarter," Guerrino De Luca, Logitech's president and CEO, said in a statement on Thursday.

However, the maker of computer peripherals has a reputation for beating analysts' forecasts and traders were disappointed that the figures were barely ahead of average expectations.

Logitech benefited from increased popularity of communication over the internet, seeing strong sales of its speakers, headsets and webcams.Retail sales of audio products in the fourth quarter were up 68 per cent. According to analysts, this category of peripherals produces a lower gross margin than mice and keyboards, weighing on the company's profitability.

Audio

De Luca acknowledged that the shift in demand for lower margin audio products (speaker sales were up 116 per cent) had hit the company's performance."The tremendous success of audio was the main driver of a decline in gross margin growth. Audio [compared to] the mix of all our products commands a lower profit," he said.

De Luca also pointed the finger at disappointing sales for its wireless iPod headphone product launched last summer. Sales were hit by an unexpected alteration to the iPod format that meant the headphones needed an adapter to function.

"The product was launched amid great reviews. Without this setback gross margins would have been 32.5 per cent [instead of 32 per cent]," De Luca said.The company said it introduced more than 130 new products in the 2006 fiscal year, and shipped a record 143 million units.

Looking ahead, Logitech said it expected sales and operating income to grow 15 per cent annually.

The company will continue its share buyback programme after spending $241 million acquiring six million shares last year.

Logitech started life in 1981 in canton Vaud in western Switzerland producing computer mice for large PC manufacturers.swissinfo with agencies.

Apple Computer "outperform"

2006-04-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

(www.newratings.com)

NEW YORK

- Analyst Andrew J Neff of Bear Stearns mantains his "outperform" rating on Apple Computer Inc (AAPL.NAS).

The target price is set to $100.

In a research note published yesterday, the analyst mentions that the company is likely to post its iPod unit sales for the March quarter at 10.5 million, as compared to the consensus expectation of 8.5 million-9.5 million.

Apple Computer is likely to eventually put the Windows OS on its Mac computers, the analyst adds.

How to back-up your computer and save your digital life

2006-04-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

(www.graphic.pepperdine.edu)

You have pined away on those papers, projects, Photoshop collages and music mixes. You are the brilliant Pepperdine student. Everything is a work of your genius, which your computer should only feel honored to harbor.

Unfortunately computers are not always as trusty as Lassie once was in your childhood memories.

In reality they betray and backstab a la Brutus. They crash, leaving you scraping up the bits and pieces of that 20-page research paper due yesterday. The all-too-common computer-crash ranks up there with the common flu and psychotic roommates as far banes to the college existence.

It sadistically sends students hobbling into corners of despair, eyes bloodshot, curled between blankets, madly cursing what little light there is left in the day.

Anyone who has experienced the black computer screen understands that losing documents to a failing computer is like someone taking scissors to that thin thread you have been hanging on all of finals week and — snip — sending you reeling into that cold abyss known so painfully as academic breakdown. There is help however.

You need not wait in anxiety for the day you lose all of your documents.

All it takes to make the inevitable crash less painful is the planning-ahead that got you into college in the first place. That solution is not banging your head against a dead hard drive and throwing a tantrum to your mother. The solution is known as backing up your computer.

Your computer turns on at the push of a button. It plays your Jack Johnson mixes and holds priceless snapshot memories of Spring Break. It has been with you through days and nights of procrastination.

It has even been your comrade in crime when you burned illegal compact discs. But as fancy and trusty as your computer has been, it will break down on you. A wise Web site once told me, “It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.”

The life of a hard drive is an average of two to three years. If you are lucky, your drive may last four to five. Some unfortunate students have lost their loved one in six months.

The best solution is to always be prepared. As invincible as you might feel, be assured that you are not the exception to the unreliable computer rule. Your computer will crash. Repeat that in your head a few times: “My computer will crash.”

This is the introspective, or computer-spectrive, step. You must sit down and analyze, “How important are my documents?” If you are honest with yourself and know that you produce rubbish all of the time, and that most of your work can be re-done by a 12-year-old in a few minutes, well then, you can stop reading this column.

If you only care about a few documents that you may want to refer to in graduate school or share with your grandkids someday, then you may use a CD or DVD. Some people use shared space on the Internet to save their documents, though that option is less safe.

If you are one of those safe people who wants to make sure that you have every update of your paper on Christian existentialism just in case you get an itch to refer to it during summer vacation, then you need a USB port. USBs provide an easy, quick and fluid way to save documents.

If, however, you suspect that the good of the universe, or at least your universe, lies in those one to five years you spent formatting your computer, accruing pictures and projects, then you might want to set up what is known as an external hard drive. An external hard drive will save your documents and settings at set times either every day, week or month — again, depending on how important your work is.

If you’re planning to use an external hard drive, set apart more time than you would for a CD or USB. As with anything, the more time you put into it, the more benefit you will get. You will not only copy larger documents onto your external hard drive but also to your computer’s entire hard drive.

This includes your Windows operating system and other application programs. An external hard drive is great if you are particular about how your computer is set up — if you are attached to software patches, add-ons and special settings that make your computer run like a well-known buddy.

Experts suggest backing up an entire hard drive at least once a month.
Some opt for daily or weekly. iPods can act as hard drives also, though your saved computer work will limit space for music. Most hard drives average $1.50 per gig.

The cheapest you can find would be an 80 gig one for around $115.

The on-campus computer store sells a160 gig one for $145, though a place like Fry’s Electronics holds a larger selection and likely cheaper prices. The computer store is located next to the cafeteria where from 11a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, friendly representatives will gladly instruct you on how to install whichever hard drive you pick, according to your specific needs and computer.

They helped me with this stellar column after all. In about a month, the computer store will sell 20 to 30 models of hard drives online.

Phew. That mess is long gone along with the premonition that once plagued the back of your mind. After a few minutes of insuring your sanity, you can relax, get back to your Jack Johnson and picture surfing and saving the universe.

New Computer Virus Spreads Rapidly

2006-04-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

(www.canadaone.com)

Just as Internet users were recovering from the Blaster worm virus of last week, a new threat has arrived to take its place. W32.Sobig.F@mm is a trojan virus that will copy and send itself to email addresses it finds on the infected computer. It may also steal passwords and other system information.

The virus is known to create a sender address from files found in the infected computer, or may also appear as admin@internet.com. To accurately spot W32.Sobig.F@mm look for these warning signs:

Subject:
*Re: Details
*Re: Approved
*Re: Re: My details
*Re: Thank you!
*Re: That movie
*Re: Wicked screensaver
*Re: Your application
*Thank you!
*Your details

Attachment:
*your_document.pif
*document_all.pif
*thank_you.pif
*your_details.pif
*details.pif
*document_9446.pif
*application.pif
*wicked_scr.scr
*movie0045.pif

The virus will de-activate itself on September 10, 2003. If you do become infected Symantec has created a removal tool which you can find here:

. The virus can also be removed by running a full system virus scan using Norton or MacAfee software.

For more information or to learn about other threats visit the Symantec website at .

Survey: Most business PC users never change passwords

2006-04-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

(www.scmagazine.com)

More than half of U.S. business computer users admit to never changing their passwords for websites and applications, new research has claimed.

According to the survey conducted by IT security firm Palcott Software, this lax attitude to online security may be attributed to the fact that 69 percent of respondents said they use multiple logins on multiple sites. Therefore, they view changing passwords as too complex.

Another growing problem identified by the poll is how users manage all of these different passwords. The research survey found that 48 percent of respondents manually had to write down passwords either on paper or in computer files.

"Not enough attention is placed on user compliance in regard to password and security best practices," said Eric Constantini, co-founder and president of Palcott Software.

"The survey clearly shows that businesses are not doing all they can to prevent unauthorized access to web sites and applications. We believe this problem will only continue to grow as more and more business is conducted online."

He added that it is not enough for enterprises to tell users what the best security procedures are if many do not implement them.

"What users need is a simple way to secure their sensitive data, thus increasing the likelihood that they will actually comply," Constantini said.

The survey was conducted online with U.S. businesses in February 2006. The breakdown included 52 percent Small Office Home Office (SOHO), 25 percent with five to 25 employees, and 25 percent with more than 50 employees.

New law makes computer, TV makers pay for recycling

2006-03-25T17:24:00.000-08:00

(www.seattletimes.nwsource.com)

OLYMPIA — Manufacturers of televisions and computers will foot the bill for recycling and safely disposing of their products once they are discarded under a measure signed into law Friday by Gov. Christine Gregoire.

Under the new law, manufacturers will have to establish a program to collect, transport and dispose of old electronic products. Household consumers, schools, charities, small governments and small businesses will be able to drop off their e-waste without charge once the program is fully implemented, by Jan. 1, 2009.

The proposal was prompted by the state Department of Ecology's two-year study of recycling alternatives for the products.

"With the upcoming switch to high-definition television, now is the time to put this program into place in our state," Gregoire said before signing the measure.

Gregoire vetoed a section in the bill that would prohibit the export of e-waste to certain other countries, saying the state did not have the authority to restrict exports.

Maine recently passed a similar law, though consumers pay $2 a piece to recycle their products. A California law requires payment of a disposal fee when a TV or computer monitor is purchased, while Maryland assesses registration fees from computer makers and disburses the proceeds to municipalities for use in collecting and recycling old computers.

Nineteen other states and New York City have electronic recycling bills pending this year, said Suellen Mele, with Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation.

"This is landmark legislation," said Mo McBroom, with the Washington Environmental Council. "It's the biggest advancement in recycling in over a generation."

Washington residents discard more than 1 million televisions and monitors each year, according to Ecology. Nationally, about 2 million tons of e-junk are disposed of each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

An average computer monitor contains six pounds of lead, which can seep into waterways and poison the environment.

Manufacturers like Philips, Panasonic and Sharp opposed the law and sent several letters to Gregoire urging her to veto it.

The companies argued that the law unfairly burdens them with financing the entire system and puts them at a competitive disadvantage to foreign producers that can be difficult to track down and may not pay for their share of recycling.

"This is a matter of survival for the companies," said Ric Erdheim, senior council for Philips Electronics and spokesman for the Electronics Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling. "Where are we going to get the money to pay for all of this?"

In her signing letter, Gregoire said she is asking Ecology "to work closely with all affected stakeholders to ensure that this bill is implemented in a fair and equitable manner."

Other bills Gregoire signed Friday include a crackdown on driver-training schools that would strengthen the authority of the Department of Licensing to oversee such operations.

The measure also increases the training requirements for an instructor's license and would require inspection of each driver-training school and its business practices. Staff would have to undergo criminal-background checks.

Gregoire also signed a measure that makes it a felony to have sex with animals. The law was prompted by a widely publicized Washington state case in which a man died of injuries suffered while having sex with a horse. The measure makes bestiality a Class C felony, which is punishable by a maximum five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Anyone videotaping such acts also could be convicted under animal-cruelty laws, as could anyone permitting such acts to take place on his or her property.

COMPUTER CHIPS COULD PREVENT LOSS OF BAGGAGE

2006-03-25T17:23:00.000-08:00

(www.morningsentinel.mainetoday.com)

No one who travels by air was surprised at the announcement this week that the airline industry set a record last year for losing more luggage than ever.

An estimated 30 million bags were lost in 2005 and 200,000 of them were never found.

Most of the misconnected suitcases were returned to their owners in little more than a day.

It also should be no surprise that the problem is getting worse, not better, according to SITA, Inc., an international company that tracks this problem.

The answer, SITA says, is baggage tags that include a tiny computer chip to help airlines keep track of bags. They are being used in a few areas, and they work, SITA reports.

Anyone who has had the experience of arriving at a destination without his or her luggage will embrace the proposal.

In the meantime, we suggest extra frequent flier miles for your suitcase if it goes to Hawaii while you land in Omaha.

Dock laptop for desktop comfort

2006-03-25T17:20:00.000-08:00

(www.tmcnet.com)

Desktop computers have all of comforts of a full-sized keyboard, mouse, and big monitor. Don't try to slip one into a backpack or brief case, however, when you're on the move.

You can do that easily with a light-weight laptop or notebook computer. With a laptop, you need only one computer for home, office, school, a vacation cottage or anywhere else you can imagine.However, many people don't like the downsized features that come with all but top-of-of-the line "desktop-replacement laptops."

Those include a downsized keyboard, a touchpad pointing device instead of a mouse, and a smaller monitor.I've been using a wonderful solution to that comfort-or-portability dilemma at work. It is a computer docking station that transforms an ultra-light laptop into a full-sized desktop.

A docking station is a platform or frame into which you install a laptop computer. The laptop slides into the docking station and plugs into a master connector. That one connection gives the docking station full access to the computer.

You don't have to connect or disconnect a power cord or Internet cable, for instance, every time you dock and undock the laptop.Docking stations also contain outlets for connecting a full-size keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, printer, and other devices.

Some have built-in CD and DVD drives, enhanced sound systems, and other features.Once inserted in a docking station with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, a laptop essentially becomes a desktop.

Undock, and you've got a portable computer with all the files ready to go.Some people own one laptop computer, but have docking stations at home, in the office, in a dorm room at college, on a vacation home or boat. It's just like owning several desktop computers.

Different kinds of docking ports are available in local stories and online outlets.Basic models cost under $100.

Prices can soar, especially if you have to buy a new monitor, keyboard, speakers, and mouse to use with the docking station.Many old monitors, keyboards, speakers, and mice will work just fine with a new docking station. Keep that in mind when you're trying to decide what to do with old computer gear.

Why not plan on "re-purposing" the gear? Store the old equipment in case you do decide on a laptop and docking station in the future.The old gear may seem clunky.

However, it may be perfect for a second or third docking station in a rarely used location like a summer cottage.Pay special attention to security if you decide on the docking station solution.

I mean the physical security of the hardware. Both the laptop and the docking station can be inviting targets for thieves.Don't make yourself an easy target. Secure the docking station to a desk.

For the laptop, buy a security cable -- a lockable steel cable that connects to a slot in the computer's case.Keep the cable locked whenever you are away from the desk.

Caring For Your Eyes In The Digital World

2006-03-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

(www.medicalnewstoday.com)St

udies have found that the majority of people who work at a computer experience some eye or vision problems, and that the level of discomfort appears to increase with the amount of computer use.

But, increased use of smaller, portable work and recreational gadgets such as Personal Digital Assistants, laptops and cell phones used for text messaging and Web access may also be contributing factors to the visual fatigue and discomfort experienced by millions, according to a leading expert.

"The unique characteristics and high visual demands of computer work and play make many individuals susceptible to the development of eye and vision-related problems," notes Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, a practicing optometrist and author of Visual Ergonomics in the Workplace. "With the proliferation of portable electronic devices such as laptops, palm pilots and video game players, it's no surprise that eye care professionals are seeing more patients who complain of ocular discomfort."

Indeed, a national survey of doctors of optometry found that more than 14 percent of their patients present with eye or vision-related symptoms resulting from computer work. Furthermore, in a survey of more than 2,000 current and former contact lens wearers, time spent in front of a computer (41 percent) was the activity most frequently mentioned as causing discomfort while they were wearing their lenses.

Staring at a computer monitor or the small screens on most devices can lead to a variety of ailments, including headaches, eyestrain, blurred vision, dry and irritated eyes, neck and/or backache and sensitivity to light.

"Eye stress and strain may be caused by a combination of individual visual problems, improper viewing habits and poor environmental conditions, such as glare, improper workstation set up, dirty screens, poor lighting and viewing angles," explains Dr. Anshel, who has helped companies and government agencies, including Mitsubishi, American Airlines, 3M and the Department of Labor address the high stress area of vision demands in relation to working with computer monitors.

"Uncorrected or under-corrected vision problems can be major contributing factors to computer related eye stress, affecting visual performance and comfort," cautions Dr. Anshel.

"The good news is that many potential eye and/or vision problems can be reduced or eliminated by appropriate adjustment and placement of computer monitors, lighting control, good preventive vision care habits and regular professional eye care." Dr. Anshel offers the following advice to help prevent or reduce the development of vision-related problems.

For additional tips, take the "Eye Q's and Views" interactive quiz at http://www.computerquiz.jnjvision.com.

-- REDUCE GLARE - Extraneous light, or glare, is the greatest source of eyestrain for computer users. No matter where your computer is relative to a window, adjustable shades, curtains or blinds should be used to effectively control light levels throughout the day. Avoid facing an un-shaded window since the difference in brightness between the screen and the area behind it may be cause eye stress and discomfort. Consider using an anti-glare screen to reduce reflections.

-- CHECK YOUR CONTACTS - When working at a computer, people spend a lot of time concentrating and blink less frequently - about three times less than normally, according to studies. "Computer work is particularly stressful for contact lens wearers," says Dr. Anshel. "Long non-blinking phases may cause the surface of contact lenses to dry out, which can lead to discomfort and a loss of visual clarity." He recommends talking to an eye care professional about ACUVUE® OASYS™ with HYDRACLEAR™ Plus. In a clinical study with 335 contact lens wearers, nine in 10 (89 percent) patients wearing ACUVUE® OASYS™ said that their eyes felt comfortable, even when watching TV or using a computer for a long time.

-- ADJUST YOUR MONITOR - Ideal monitor placement is dependent on several factors including an individual's physical make-up and visual capabilities, work tasks and other workstation design elements. For maximum eye comfort, Dr. Anshel recommends placing the center of the screen five to nine inches below your horizontal line of sight. "You should be looking just over the top of the monitor in your straight-ahead gaze," he says.

-- TAKE A BREAK - "Our eyes were not made to see at a close distance for hours at a time without a break," says Dr. Anshel. A preventive approach to reducing visual stress includes occasionally looking away from the screen of your computer, PDA or portable game player. Dr. Anshel recommends the 20/20/20 rule. "Take a 20-second break every 20 minutes. Focus your eyes on points at least 20 feet from your terminal. Keep your eyes moving while looking at objects at various distances," he says.
-- CONSULT YOUR EYE CARE PROFESSIONAL - The American Optometric Association highly suggests yearly eye exams to ensure ocular health. For individuals whose jobs may require extensive time in front of a monitor, Dr. Anshel suggests a comprehensive eye examination soon after beginning computer work and periodically thereafter. "If, at any time, you experience any vision problems or discomfort, talk to your eye care professional," he adds.

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ACUVUE® OASYS™ are indicated for daily wear vision correction and approved by the FDA for up to six consecutive nights/seven days of extended wear. As with all contact lenses, eye problems, including corneal ulcers, can develop. Some wearers may also experience mild irritation, itching or discomfort. Lenses should not be prescribed if patients have any eye infection, or experience eye discomfort, excessive tearing, vision changes, redness or other eye problems. Consult the package insert for complete information. For further information, call 1-800-843-2020 or visit http://www.acuvue.com.
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.
The VISTAKON division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., specializes in disposable and frequent replacement contact lens brands, including ACUVUE® ADVANCE™ Brand Contact Lenses with HYDRACLEAR™, ACUVUE® ADVANCE™ Brand Contact Lenses for ASTIGMATISM for people with astigmatism, ACUVUE® OASYS™ Brand Contact Lenses with HYDRACLEAR™ PLUS, ACUVUE® Brand and ACUVUE® 2 Brand Contact Lenses; 1-DAY ACUVUE® Brand Contact Lenses; ACUVUE® Brand BIFOCAL Contact Lenses; ACUVUE® Brand TORIC and ACUVUE® 2 COLOURS™ Brand Contact Lenses. ACUVUE®, ACUVUE® ADVANCE™, HYDRACLEAR™, ACUVUE® OASYS™, ACUVUE® 2 COLOURS™, ULTRA COMFORT SERIES™ and VISTAKON® are trademarks of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.
† Helps protect against transmission of harmful UV radiation to the cornea and into the eye. * WARNING: UV-absorbing contact lenses are NOT substitutes for protective UV-absorbing eyewear such as UV-absorbing goggles or sunglasses because they do not completely cover the eye and surrounding area. You should continue to use UV-absorbing eyewear as directed.

NOTE: Long term exposure to UV radiation is one of the risk factors associated with cataracts. Exposure is based on a number of factors such as environmental conditions (altitude, geography, cloud cover) and personal factors (extent and nature of outdoor activities).

UV-Blocking contact lenses help provide protection against harmful UV radiation. However, clinical studies have not been done to demonstrate that wearing UV-Blocking contact lenses reduces the risk of developing cataracts or other eye disorders. Consult your eye care practitioner for more information.

NASA computer will peer into concrete

2006-03-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

(www.casperstartribune.net)

What do you do with one of the world's fastest computers?

You can forecast hurricane patterns. Or simulate how stars form, how nuclear bombs explode, or how a spacecraft handles solar winds.Or you can learn to mix concrete.Don't laugh.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., are using a million hours of processor time awarded to them on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's fastest supercomputer to analyze the billions of possibilities created by the collisions of tiny particles of sand, gravel and cement whenever a cement truck pours a sidewalk.

The different size and shape of each particle -- which scientists blow up to the size of weather balloons on their projection screens -- have a profound effect on the strength and durability of concrete and the time it takes to harden.

All of these, in turn, are critical factors when engineers create the right recipe for what has become a prime structural material in some of the world's tallest buildings.

The use of concrete dates to the Roman Empire, but thousands of years later, many of the material's properties remain a mystery.

"Several things about it are not really understood -- the durability, for one thing, is really not known how to predict," said Edward J. Garboczi, a member of the NIST team working on the project.

NIST is trying to create concrete that's more durable and easier to pour at construction sites.For the $10 billion concrete industry, the research is vital.

"You'll find steel in buildings, you'll find asphalt in roads and you'll find wood in houses, but you'll find concrete in all of those," said Iyad M. "Ed" Alsamsam, a structural engineer with the Portland Cement Association, an industry group whose members work with concrete and cement.High winds are less likely to sway skyscrapers that use concrete as a framing material, he said.

NIST researchers need NASA's supercomputer because of the nearly incalculable variations that go into making a typical batch of concrete.Concrete is a mixture of sand, gravel and cement.

The cement is made by mixing and heating limestone, clay and other materials.

There are national guidelines for the ingredients of cement, but they are fairly broad. Moreover, the sand and gravel that go into any concrete mix are locally quarried. So the exact mineral content of any two batches can vary, Garboczi said.

The particles that make up the mix also come in all shapes and sizes, which affect the durability of the finished concrete. Cement particles can range from 10 microns to 200 microns across (25,400 microns in an inch). The stones that make up the gravel can be anywhere from a half a millimeter to 2 inches in diameter.

There also are at least 40 types of additive mixtures -- polymers and materials such as corn syrup -- sold commercially to give concrete specific properties, such as strength, durability and curing time.

"Concrete can be different every time you make it, depending on what you're making it from," said William George, the NIST computer scientist who oversees the project.With 10,240 processors, NASA's supercomputer -- named "Columbia" -- is the nation's fourth most powerful in industry rankings, said Bryan Biegel, deputy chief of NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division.

The $120 million computer takes up 15,000 square feet in a temperature-controlled room at the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.

"The computer's named in honor of the Columbia crew," Biegel said.NIST researchers can already use a smaller cluster of the agency's 3,000 computer processors to simulate what happens when small pieces of concrete are mixed, George said.

But with Columbia, NIST will be able to scale up the work, modeling concrete blocks 10 times bigger and using the supercomputer to see -- for the first time -- how the size, distribution and shape of particles affect the flow and durability of concrete.

NIST will use the models as the basis for computer simulations in its Immersive Visualization Laboratory -- a large, dark room where computer simulations are projected onto garage door-sized screens.

They show what happens when millions of particles of sand, cement or any of concrete's ingredients are mixed and poured.In that lab, micron-sized particles of sand, created during a concrete research project in 2003, look like balls the size of weather balloons on screen.

Polymer fibers, millimeters long in real life, look like huge necklaces of pearls.

With a visor linked to the computer, the images become three dimensional and can be set in motion and manipulated, making viewers feel as if they have stepped onto a futuristic "holodeck."

The detail will be much greater with the help of the Columbia supercomputer.Meanwhile, concrete experts say this project is long overdue.

"There's a lot, lot, lot we have to learn," said Surendra Shah, a civil and environmental engineer at Northwestern University in Illinois.

"We should have been doing this 20 years ago, but people haven't realized the importance of the research.

"Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service

Microsoft Calls for Computer Revolution

2006-03-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

(www.robots.net)

mmm.bbb sends us a link to an Economist article on a report issued on the future of science over the next 14 years. Among other things it claims that computer science is bringing about a scientific revolution.

Computers, the report says, need to be integrated into every field science and become more than just tools. Intelligent computers "will soon play a role in formulating scientific hypotheses and designing and running experiments to test them." More news on the report can be found in a Techworld.com article.

The report itself, titled Towards 2020 Science (PDF format) was created by a panel of scientists brought together by Microsoft Research Cambridge, so perhaps it's no suprise it calls for scientist everywhere to buy more computers.

In addition to the report, a roadmap of challenges (PDF format) that computer science must meet by 2020 was also created. For a quick summary of the 82 page report's 7 main findings, read on.
The 82 page report provides a one page summary of their seven greatest findings but even the summary reads like a it was produced by one of those Dilbert memo generation scripts.

1. The transition of computers from a tool that supports scientist to a machine that 'does' science represents a revolution in science.

2. Computing has become as important to biology as math is to physics.

3. Computer science "concepts and tools" forms a "golden triangle" with "math and statistics"
and "computing platforms and applications" that will accelerate key breakthroughs in science.

4. It is "vitally important" to integrate conceptual tools from computer science into all sciences.

5. Computers will lead to a "transformation of the scienctific communication paradigm"

6. Better understanding of biological systems will result in new developments in computer science.

7. All scientists should be computer literate so more money should be spent on computers and computer training.

IBM researchers build carbon molecule computer

2006-03-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

(www.pcpro.co.uk)

A group of US researchers at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center claim to have built the first computer circuit on a molecule.

Using 12 field effect transistors stretched along a single carbon molecule in the form of a nanotube, the scientists managed to run the logic circuit at some 52MHz.

That will hardly set the world alight with today's Gigahertz PCs. However, the researchers were not interested in building processors at this point, rather they wanted to test the switching speed of their design.

They were impressed with the results. The 52MHz achieved is some 100,000 faster than any previous recorded speeds for carbon nanotube circuits.

Making advances in nanotube technology is seen as the pathway to keeping up with Moore's Law: that the complexity of computer processors will double every 18 months.

Chip makers such as Intel and AMD have taken the manufacture of circuits down to 90nm and smaller in the bid to up the transistor density and complexity of chips in tune with this 'law', but they will at some point reach the limits of the material they are working with: silicon.

When working at such a small scale, electrons can jump from one track or path to another, and resistance is increased.

The researchers said that nanotube circuits offer negligible resistance, and current can flow extremely quickly, while the likelihood of electrons jumping from 'tube' to 'tube' is very low.

DNS servers do hackers' dirty work

2006-03-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

(www.news.com.com)

In a twist on distributed denial-of-service attacks, cybercriminals are using DNS servers--the phonebooks of the Internet--to amplify their assaults and disrupt online business.

Earlier this year, VeriSign experienced attacks on its systems that were larger than anything it had ever seen before, it said last week. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which helps companies do business on the Web, discovered that the assaults weren't coming from commandeered "bot" computers, as is common. Instead, its machines were under attack by DNS (domain name system) servers.

"DNS is now a major vector for DDOS," Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher said, referring to distributed denial-of-service attacks. "The bar has been lowered. People with fewer resources can now launch potentially crippling attacks."

Just as in any DDOS attack, the target system--which could be a victim's Web server, name server or mail server--is inundated with a multitude of data coming from multiple systems on the Internet. The goal is to make the target unreachable online by flooding the data connection or by crashing it as it tries to handle the incoming data.

Such attacks were once the tool of bored teenagers who got a kick out of seeing Web sites crumble. But these days, DDOS attacks are sometimes used by criminals looking to extort money from online businesses--especially those on the margins, such as gambling sites and the adult-entertainment industry.

"We're past the era where denial of service simply happens because kids are looking for a good time," Kaminsky said.

Unlike a commandeered PC, a DNS server is a valid and good citizen of the Internet. The systems play a critical role in connecting Web users, mapping text-based domain names such as www.cnet.com to the numerical IP addresses used by computers.

In this new kind of attack, an assailant would typically use a botnet to send a large number of queries to open DNS servers. These queries will be "spoofed" to look like they come from the target of the flooding, and the DNS server will reply to that network address.

Using DNS servers to do their dirty work offers key benefits to attackers.

It hides their systems, making it harder for the victim to find the original source of the attack.

But more important, reflecting an attack through a DNS server also allows the assault to be amplified, delivering a larger amount of malicious traffic to the target.

Amplified response

A single DNS query could trigger a response that is as much as 73 times larger than the request, according to a recent paper by Randal Vaughn, a professor of information systems at Baylor University, and Gadi Evron, the manager of the Computer Emergency Response Team at Israel's ministry of finance.

"Relatively small DNS requests can be employed to cause significantly larger replies from a name server to the spoofed IP address," Vaughn and Evron wrote.

What happens during a DNS reflector and amplification attack could be compared with trying to jam up somebody's mailbox, said Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of DNS and chief scientist at secure DNS provider Nominum. A basic way to do that would be to write and mail a lot of letters. However, those letters would be traceable, and you would also have to spend a lot of time writing.

"A better way to do it would be to send in response-request cards--the kind you find in magazines--circle everything and fill in the target's address," Mockapetris said. "That would make more junk show up in the mailbox and eliminate the obvious link to you." And that's what is happening with this type of DDOS attack, he said.

It is generally possible to stop the more-common bot-delivered attack by blocking traffic from the attacking machines, which are identifiable. But blocking queries from DNS servers brings problems in its wake. A DNS server has a valid role to play in the workings of the Internet. Blocking traffic to a DNS server could also mean blocking legitimate users from sending e-mail or visiting a Web site.

"That's why this is a nasty attack," said Rob Fleischman, the chief technology officer at Simplicita, a Denver-based security start-up. "The DNS system is an area that is going to be under more attack. It is going to have closer scrutiny and more security."

At the heart of the problem are so-called recursive name servers, which are DNS servers that allow queries from anyone on the Net. There are about 7.5 million DNS servers, and estimates on how many are left wide open to queries range from 600,000 to 5.6 million, according to Vaughn and Evron's report.

"People who are running these open servers need to clean up their act. They are--witting or unwitting, lazy or just don't care--participants in these attacks," Mockapetris said. "They are the Typhoid Marys of the Internet."

To protect their systems, organizations with DNS servers can disable the recursive feature that lets anyone look up addresses. Alternatively, they can manage the server settings so that the recursive feature is available only to insiders. Internet service providers, as well as businesses and individuals, are among those who run DNS servers.

Targets of DDOS attacks could protect themselves using technologies to ward of DDOS attacks, which are sold by vendors including Prolexic Technologies.

In the early days of the Internet, recursive DNS servers served mobile users and cached people's requests for Web site addresses, making the Net scale much better, Mockapetris said. An example of the latter was the day Jerry Garcia died in 1995, he said.

"Everybody was going off to find every Grateful Dead Web site everywhere in the world," he said. "The first person to do that would cache it in the DNS server of their access provider, so the next person would not have to go out to Katmandu to look it up."

But fast forward 10 years, and recursive servers should be something of the past, Mockapetris said. "Now people are looking for ways to attack the network, and the open recursive servers can be used as unwitting cat's paws in a denial-of-service attack," he said.

"Once upon a time, everybody just trusted everybody, and you would say, 'Fine, use my server.' Now you have to be more careful about that."

Kaminsky agreed. "If you are a DNS administrator, you shouldn't be providing recursive services to the Internet anymore. It is unfortunately no longer a responsible thing to do," he said.

Increasingly, DNS is going to be used in attacks, experts said, and their administrators can no longer afford to be lazy.

"There are multiple of these kinds of storms that are rising, and service providers and enterprises need to figure out how to make sure that their sea walls, dams and dikes and levees are high enough to withstand them," Mockapetris said.

Computer Solutions achieve Microsoft Gold certification

2006-03-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

(www.businesstimes.com.mt)

Computer Solutions, a leading provider in ICT solutions, is proud to announce that it has just been awarded the prestigious Gold Partnership Status by Microsoft.

The Gold Partner benefits will enhance and evolve the service Computer Solutions offers to its customers.

Microsoft Gold Certified Partners are the elite Microsoft Partners who possess the knowledge, skills, experience and commitment to help implement technology solutions that match the customers’ business needs.

Computer Solutions passed the highest level of requirements from Microsoft and has demonstrated the most robust, efficient and scalable implementations of Microsoft technologies.

It has achieved this through its high levels of completed customer reference projects, employee certification and Microsoft Competencies, all of which were independently verified by Microsoft.

The certification recognises a Microsoft Competency in Networking Infrastructure Solutions.

The Gold Partner Status demonstrates Computer Solutions’ commitment to the development of Microsoft technologies.

Furthermore, it is now in a better position to provide its customers with a superior and more powerful level of technical support through its larger skill and knowledge base.

Through its enhanced partnership and in line with its corporate strategy, Computer Solutions can ensure that every customer will receive excellent value from their IT investment.

For further information call Computer Solutions on 2552 2000 or email info@computersolutions.com.mt

The scientific method: Computing the future

2006-03-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

(www.economist.com)

The practice of science may be undergoing yet another revolution

WHAT makes a scientific revolution? Thomas Kuhn famously described it as a “paradigm shift”—the change that takes place when one idea is overtaken by another, usually through the replacement over time of the generation of scientists who adhered to an old idea with another that cleaves to a new one.

These revolutions can be triggered by technological breakthroughs, such as the construction of the first telescope (which overthrew the Aristotelian idea that heavenly bodies are perfect and unchanging) and by conceptual breakthroughs such as the invention of calculus (which allowed the laws of motion to be formulated).

This week, a group of computer scientists claimed that developments in their subject will trigger a scientific revolution of similar proportions in the next 15 years.

That claim is not being made lightly. Some 34 of the world's leading biologists, physicists, chemists, Earth scientists and computer scientists, led by Stephen Emmott, of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, Britain, have spent the past eight months trying to understand how future developments in computing science might influence science as a whole.

They have concluded, in a report called “Towards 2020 Science”, that computing no longer merely helps scientists with their work. Instead, its concepts, tools and theorems have become integrated into the fabric of science itself. Indeed, computer science produces “an orderly, formal framework and exploratory apparatus for other sciences,” according to George Djorgovski, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology.

There is no doubt that computing has become increasingly important to science over the years.

The volume of data produced doubles every year, according to Alexander Szalay, another astrophysicist, who works at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Particle-physics experiments are particularly notorious in this respect. The next big physics experiment will be the Large Hadron Collider currently being built at CERN, a particle-physics laboratory in Geneva. It is expected to produce 800m collisions a second when it starts operations next year.

This will result in a data flow of 1 gigabyte per second, enough to fill a DVD every five seconds.

All this information must be transmitted from CERN to laboratories around the world for analysis. The computer science being put in place to deal with this and similar phenomena forms the technological aspect of the predicted scientific revolution.

Such solutions, however, are merely an extension of the existing paradigm of collecting and ordering data by whatever technological means are available, but leaving the value-added stuff of interpretation to the human brain. What really interested Dr Emmott's team was whether computers could participate meaningfully in this process, too. That truly would be a paradigm shift in scientific method.

And computer science does, indeed, seem to be developing a role not only in handling data, but also in analysing and interpreting them. For example, devices such as “data cubes” organise information as a collection of independent variables (such as the charges and energies of particles involved in collisions) and their dependent measurements (where and when the collisions took place).

This saves physicists a lot of work in deciphering the links between, say, the time elapsed since the initial collision and the types of particle existing at that moment. Meanwhile, in meteorology and epidemiology, computer science is being used to develop models of climate change and the spread of diseases including bird flu, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and malaria.

Roboboffin

Stephen Muggleton, the head of computational bio-informatics at Imperial College, London, has, meanwhile, taken the involvement of computers with data handling one step further. He argues they will soon play a role in formulating scientific hypotheses and designing and running experiments to test them.

The data deluge is such that human beings can no longer be expected to spot patterns in the data. Nor can they grasp the size and complexity of one database and see how it relates to another.

Computers—he dubs them “robot scientists”—can help by learning how to do the job. A couple of years ago, for example, a team led by Ross King of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, demonstrated that a learning machine performed better than humans at selecting experiments that would discriminate between hypotheses about the genetics of yeast.
And it is in biology that computing science is likely to have its greatest impact.

The report argues that cells and complex cellular systems can be seen as information-processing systems, so there is a natural fit between them and computational logic circuits.

That could lead to new developments in biology, biotechnology and medicine, as well as in computer science.

It is, perhaps, hardly unexpected that if 34 scientists with an interest in computing are asked to comment on the importance of computer science, they will find that it is, indeed, “The Future”. Even so, the team's case is a respectable one.

Indeed, this week's issue of Nature has given it “earthquake coverage”—devoting several pages to news and comment about the report. And Microsoft Research Cambridge also announced that it will provide €2.5m ($3m) to support research that addresses policy areas outlined by the report, which include a reform of the education system and the creation of new kinds of research institutes.

This is, admittedly, a small sum. If Microsoft wants the world to take its claims—and those of the scientists it commissioned to think about such things—seriously, then it should put more money where its mouth is. Otherwise the old guard might hang around rather longer than expected.

Microsoft Windows delay seen damaging computer sales

2006-03-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

(www.tech.monstersandcritics.com)

San Francisco - Shares of Microsoft led a sharp selloff of technology shares Wednesday after the world's leading software maker said it was postponing the release of its next-generation Windows operating system until after the 2006 holiday season.

The delay could seriously damage sales of computers in the US over the Christmas period, in which manufacturers like Dell and Hewlett Packard typically sell some 30 per cent of their annual consumer totals.

Gartner analyst Rob Smulder told Bloomberg News that the shortfall in sales could surpass 4 billion dollars.

Microsoft said it will still introduce the corporate version of Windows Vista in November, but that it was forced to delay the consumer versions as it sought to balance security needs with ease of use.

Vista is the first major update since Windows XP was introduced five years ago. Microsoft has already delayed the launch several times and was forced to cancel key updates to the programme in order to schedule its introduction by the end of 2006.

The news sent shares of Microsoft down some 70 cents, or almost 3 per cent, to below 27 dollars in morning trading on New York's Nasdaq Stock Market.

At the same time, shares of rival Apple, which uses its own operating system, rose more than 1 per cent on expectations that it would gain from Microsoft's stumble.

Vicious Computer Worm Wreaks Havoc in Japan

2006-03-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

(www.dailytech.com)S

Software

Taking your work home with you isn't such a good idea anymore in Japan

A computer worm called Antinny is working its way through Japanese computers and shows no sign of slowing.

The worm which attaches itself to computers using Winny file-sharing software (the Japanese equivalent to Napster) is spreading rapidly.

Many Japanese carry their work home with them, so work-related information often mingles with their home PCs which contain Winny software. As a result, security traders, doctors and even law enforcement officers are finding out the hard way what happens when Antinny invades a PC.

The list of betrayed secrets is long and getting longer: personal details of 10,000 prisoners from a Kyoto prison officer's computer; information about crime victims, informants and statements from suspects uploaded from a policeman's home computer; access codes to 29 airports from an airline pilot's PC; and the details of surgical procedures on 2,800 patients at a private hospital from the computer of a clerk. All have found their way onto the Internet.

The origins and author of the virus are still not known even though variants of the virus have been around for a few years.

The Japanese military has responded to the threat by ordering all personnel to ditch Winny software on personal computers and refrain from bringing sensitive materials home with them. Considering that Japan's Self Defense Forces were probably the hardest hit by Antinny, this should come as no surprise:

Perhaps most embarrassing have been the leaks from Japan's Self-Defense Forces, including data on surface-to-air missile tests and details of "Battle Scenario Training" for a simulated crisis on a transparently code-named "K Peninsula."

Transmeta discloses work for Microsoft, Sony

2006-03-21T16:02:00.000-08:00

(www.eetimes.com)

LONDON — Transmeta Corp., a processor technology developer and licensor, has disclosed that its engineers have been providing design services for Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp.

Transmeta (Santa Clara, Calif.), signed series of agreements with Microsoft in May 2005 under which the company provided the services of approximately thirty engineers to work on “a proprietary Microsoft project,” Transmeta said in a 10-K form filed March 16 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to cover its 2005 financial results.

Transmeta added that the work had been “substantially completed” and that the company was negotiating the provision of additional services for 2006 although it did not necessarily expect the work to be at the same level as provided in 2005.

However, Transmeta’s design services are not thought to be related to ‘Origami’ Microsoft’s design of ultracompact personal computer, according to online reports.

In the case of Sony Transmeta said it had provided the services of approximately 140 engineers to Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Sony Corp. under design services agreements entered into on March 31, 2005.

With Sony Transmeta said that although first stage contracts end on March 31, 2006, the company does expect to continue to provide services to the Sony Group after March 31, 2006.

Transmeta said that the two alliances are “strategic” although independent of and unrelated to each other.

“We intend to continue to seek additional strategic alliance opportunities and related agreements with these or other parties to provide engineering services that leverage our microprocessor design and development capabilities,” Transmeta said in the 10-K.

The advantages of computer docking stations

2006-03-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

(www.rocklintoday.com)

Desktop computers have all of comforts of a full-sized keyboard, mouse and big monitor. Don't try to slip one into a backpack or brief case, however, when you're on the move.

You can do that easily with a lightweight laptop or notebook computer.

With a laptop, you need only one computer for home, office, school, a vacation cottage or anywhere else you can imagine.

However, many people don't like the downsized features that come with all but top-of-of-the line desktop-replacement laptops. Those include a downsized keyboard, a touchpad pointing device instead of a mouse, and a smaller monitor.

I've been using a wonderful solution to that comfort-or-portability dilemma at work. It is a computer docking station that transforms an ultra-light laptop into a full-sized desktop.
A docking station is a platform or frame into which you install a laptop computer.

The laptop slides into the docking station and plugs into a master connector. That one connection gives the docking station full access to the computer.

You don't have to connect or disconnect a power cord or Internet cable, for instance, every time you dock and undock the laptop. Docking stations also contain outlets for connecting a full-size keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, printer, and other devices. Some have built-in CD and DVD drives, enhanced sound systems and other features.

Once inserted in a docking station with a monitor, keyboard and mouse, a laptop essentially becomes a desktop. Undock, and you've got a portable computer with all the files ready to go.

Some people own one laptop computer, but have docking stations at home, in the office, in a dorm room at college on a vacation home or boat. It's just like owning several desktop computers.

Different kinds of docking ports are available in local stories and online outlets. Basic models cost under $100. Prices can soar, especially if you have to buy a new monitor, keyboard, speakers and mouse to use with the docking station. Many old monitors, keyboards, speakers and mice will work just fine with a new docking station.

Keep that in mind when you're trying to decide what to do with old computer gear. Why not plan on repurposing the gear? Store the old equipment in case you do decide on a laptop and docking station in the future.

The old gear may seem clunky. However, it may be perfect for a second or third docking station in a rarely used location like a summer cottage.

Pay special attention to security if you decide on the docking station solution. I mean the physical security of the hardware. Both the laptop and the docking station can be inviting targets for thieves.

Don't make yourself an easy target. Secure the docking station to a desk. For the laptop, buy a security cable _ a lockable steel cable that connects to a slot in the computer's case.
Keep the cable locked whenever you are away from the desk.

Computer virus shakes Japanese work habits

2006-03-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

(www.upi.com)

TOKYO-- Japan's military ordered all personnel to remove the file-sharing software Winny from computers to prevent exposure of more secrets online, a report said.
The order is an effort to battle two years of damaging military and personal information that computer virus Antinny has put on the Internet.

The Japanese tradition of taking work home and doing it on personal computers has spread the digital worm -- a longstanding practice the virus is changing, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Last week, the Japanese military banned personnel from taking military data home and ordered them to remove Winny from their home computers. Now, the military says, it needs 56,000 more computers.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe also urged the public to stop using Winny.

Isamu Kaneko, the University of Tokyo professor who developed the Napster-like file-sharing Winny, said he has a patch he's trying to patent.

"If I hadn't been arrested (in May 2004), I could have dealt with it," Kaneko told the newspaper outside his trial on copyright infringement charges. "And this problem wouldn't have happened."

Hackers get Windows XP on Apple computers

2006-03-18T15:11:00.000-08:00

(www.seattlepi.nwsource.com)

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- As expected, hackers have found a way to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system on new Macintosh computers, winning an ad hoc contest and a $13,854 cash prize to boot.

Or, make that dual-boot - the way to make a computer switch between two operating systems.
Some users of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macs have clamored for such a solution since Apple said it would be switching its computers to Intel Corp.'s chips, putting the feat within reach.
Their reasons vary, but a common denominator is that they would like to run Windows-based programs on their Macs.

Colin Nederkoorn, a shipping broker in Houston, says he just wants to streamline his work: instead of using his Apple PowerBook computer for some programs and a Windows PC for other tasks, he'd like to just use one machine.

That's why Nederkoorn, 23, started a contest back in January to goad programmers, soliciting donations for a cash prize for anyone who came up with a hack.

Late Thursday, the prize went to two San Francisco Bay Area software developers, Jesus Lopez, 33, of Alameda, and Eric Wasserman, 41, of Berkeley.

Lopez said he did most of the technical work - spending late nights and weekends on the challenge - while Wasserman, a devoted Mac user, introduced him to the contest in February and supported him in the process.

Lopez, who never even owned a Mac computer until he had to get one to assume the challenge, said in an interview Friday his previous tinkering projects were all personal.

"But this is something that I feel a lot of people could use, and that the tech community will benefit from this," he said.

On Friday, Nederkoorn's Web site was busy with collaboration between developers working to improve upon Lopez' work. Nederkoorn said the so-called "Windows on Mac" project is open-sourced, meaning anyone can build on it.

The hack, which is downloadable from the Web site, still takes some tedious labor and technical know-how, but Nederkoorn predicts an easier version for mainstream computer users might be available within a year.

"It should be as easy as two clicks at some stage," he said.

When Apple introduced its first Intel-based computer in January, company officials said Apple has no intention of selling or supporting Windows on its machines, though it has not done anything to preclude people from doing it themselves.

"If there are people who love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that's OK," senior vice president Phil Schiller said at the time.

For Gates, A Visa Charge

2006-03-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

(www.washingtonpost.com)

When the Senate comes back to work next week, it is scheduled to take up the issue of immigration. And that is what brought Bill Gates to Washington for a rare visit last week.

The Microsoft billionaire does not love this capital, but he decided to add his personal voice to his Washington office's lobbying effort to expand the number of foreign-born computer scientists allowed to work in this country under a special program known as H-1B visas.

In an interview sandwiched between his meetings on Capitol Hill, Gates told me the "high-skills immigration issue is by far the number one thing" on the Washington agenda for Microsoft and for the electronics industry generally. "This is gigantic for us."

Since autumn 2003 Congress has limited the number of people admitted annually on H-1B visas to 65,000. To qualify for such a visa, an applicant must have at least a bachelor's degree, specialized knowledge and a job offer from a U.S. employer. The visa is generally good for six years, with the possibility of applying for extensions.

So great is the demand for such skills in the burgeoning high-tech world that in August 2005 the last of the visas available for fiscal 2006 were issued. That means a 14-month shutdown of the program, until October of this year.

"It's kind of ironic," Gates told me, "to have somebody graduate from Stanford Computer Science Department and there's not enough H-1B visas, so they have to go back to India. . . . And I have people who have been hired who are just sitting on the border waiting."

The draft bill that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has been preparing for floor consideration would expand the annual H-1B limit from 65,000 to 115,000. By excluding dependents (who now are counted against the cap) from the total, it might mean the entry of as many as 300,000 people a year -- one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. population.

As Gates said, these are highly paid, highly qualified individuals. Salaries for these jobs at Microsoft start at about $100,000 a year.

Their counterparts can be hired more cheaply in China or India, he said, but Microsoft does 85 percent of its research and development work in the United States because it wants its computer scientists interacting directly with its program managers and its marketing people on its own campus.

Gates said he has a hard time understanding the logic of those who decry the outsourcing of American jobs yet are reluctant to facilitate bringing the high-skill people who are catalysts for economic growth to this country. "People just shake their heads at what kind of a central planning system would say having 65,000 smart people come in, that's okay, but 70,000 smart people, no."

President Bush and his administration support the expansion of H-1B visas. And Gates, in turn, is enthusiastic about the White House and bipartisan congressional efforts to boost the teaching of math and science in American high schools with the long-term goal of expanding the supply of qualified Americans for these jobs.

He is backing that effort both with gifts of technology from the company and grants of $300 million a year from his foundation for innovation in high schools. "But the benefit of things like that has got a fair time lag," he said, "and the next four or five years, it really hangs in the balance: how many of these talented people we want to hire, and who want to come here, can we hire?"

The answer is by no means certain. Opposition to the H-1B program grew during the dot-com bust, when groups representing domestic electrical engineers and computer technicians argued that foreigners were taking away their jobs.

In 2003 they succeeded in cutting the quota by two-thirds, from 195,000 to 65,000, and they continue to oppose its expansion.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment among computer and mathematical operators is less than 3 percent. Gates said, "If you're graduating from a reasonable university in this country, with a degree in computer science, you have many job offers."

Still, there is reluctance -- especially in the House of Representatives -- to lift the ceiling on H-1B visas in an election year.

The House has responded to public pressure to close the borders to illegal immigration and seems incapable of distinguishing that problem from the value of encouraging high-skill workers to bring their talents to the United States.

That's why Bill Gates comes to Washington.

New Virus Seeks Ransom for Computer Files

2006-03-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

(www.sci-tech-today.com)

The Trojan "is bold as brass, scooping up your valuable data and locking it away until you agree to pay the ransom to the criminals who have 'kidnapped' your files." said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for the security firm Sophos. "Companies who have made regular backups may be able to recover easily, but less diligent businesses may be in a quandary about whether to cough up the cash."

In the equivalent of a holdup in cyberspace, a new computer bug locks up a user's file with encryption and demands a $300 "ransom," security experts say.

The so-called "ransomware" Trojan was discovered Saturday by the security firm LURHQ, which said it was based on a similar scheme perpetrated 15 years ago.

Users whose computers are infected receive an e-mail stating that their files have been encrypted and will not be unlocked unless they transfer $300 to a special account.

In poorly written English, the message said, "Do not try to search for a program what encrypted your information -- it simply do not exists in your hard disk anymore. If you really care about documents and information in encrypted files, you can pay using electronic currency 300 dollars. Reporting to police about a case will not help you."

LURHQ said it was not clear how the Trojan was spread, but experts said it could be through infected e-mails or from visiting certain Web sites.

"Infection reports are not widespread, so it is not believed this is a mass threat by any means," LURHQ said.

"Malware of this nature is actually more successful when it is delivered in low volumes, as it is less likely that antivirus vendors will have detection for it, and more attention means the likely closing of the accounts used for the anonymous money transfer."

"Companies who have made regular backups may be able to recover easily, but less diligent businesses may be in a quandary about whether to cough up the cash."

However Sophos and LURHQ discovered the password -- C:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/VC98 -- a code disguised as a file.

"So there should be no need for anyone unfortunate enough to have suffered from this ransomware attack to have to pay the reward to the criminals behind it," Cluley said.

Computer expert to aid Curtin child probe

2006-03-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

(www.breakingnews.iol.ie)

An international computer expert will aid an Oireachtas Committee investigating allegations Judge Brian Curtin was in possession of child pornography, it was confirmed today.

After a lengthy legal battle, the Circuit Court judge’s advisors have contacted the All-Party Oireachtas Committee by letter to consent to the handover of the computer.

Chairman of the Oireachtas committee, Denis O’Donovan, said: “Someone of international repute, a computer expert will be brought in to examine it.

I imagine Judge Curtin will want to engage someone to oversee the procedure.”He confirmed: “We have received the letter.

It is a positive development insofar as it is a voluntary engagement by his legal team.“There was an outstanding order in December 2004 to obtain the computer and the hard drive.

We will endeavour to get all the materials gardai were holding.”Judge Curtin’s legal team has also sought assurances about the security of the computer and the conditions in which it has been kept since it was seized from his home in May 2002.

The Cork South West TD said: “If that is an issue for him we can get confirmation from gardai.”

The chairman said senior members of the gardai could be called before the committee to reassure the judge as to the safe-keeping of the materials.“We wrote to gardai in June 2004 to do nothing with the computer and keep it in safe keeping until we had further information,” he said.

The committee, which was set up in May, 2004, was halted six months later, when Judge Curtin challenged an order to produce his computer and its software.Last week, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the parliamentary committee to investigate the alleged actions of the judge.

The Circuit Court judge was acquitted of charges of possessing child pornography in 2004 after the warrant used to search his house was found to have been out of date.He had challenged the constitutionality of the Oireachtas committee which was set up to investigate his behaviour in the wake of the verdict.

Chief Justice John L Murray said he was satisfied that the committee would be able to accord the judge his full rights to justice and fair procedures.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Oireachtas committee had a right to examine the computer, which allegedly contained pornographic images and is currently being held by gardai.Mr O’Donovan said the committee had not met in full since December 2004 due to the judicial review.

The chairman said the committee would be meeting in private next Tuesday to discuss the group’s work.“We were stopped in our tracks by the judicial review procedure in the High Court which stopped it for 15 months,” he said.

“We have a duty to both houses of the Oireachtas to compete the work and we will do that as vigorously as possible.”

Computer viruses a growing concern for UK companies

2006-03-07T16:14:00.000-08:00

(www.businessweekly.co.uk)

Infection by viruses was the biggest single cause of the worst security incidents for UK companies in the past two years, accounting for roughly half of them, a new survey shows.

Infection by viruses was the biggest single cause of the worst security incidents for UK companies in the past two years, accounting for roughly half of them, a new survey shows.

Two-fifths of these were described as having a serious impact on the business, according to findings from the 2006 Department of Trade and Industry’s biennial Information Security Breaches Survey, conducted by a consortium led by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The research showed that virus infections were more likely to have caused service interruption than other incidents. Usually the disruption was minor but roughly a quarter of companies questioned who reported a virus as their worst incident had major disruption, with important services such as email down for more than a day.

The majority of UK businesses surveyed have a broadband link to the Internet (88 per cent) and as a result, the threat from malicious software such as viruses has never been greater. UK businesses have responded and now almost every company uses anti-virus software.

Despite the increased threat, fewer companies had viruses than in the last two surveys. Infection rates have dropped by roughly a third since two years ago. While the number of companies infected has fallen since 2004, the average number of infections suffered by those affected has risen to roughly one a day. Several businesses reported hundreds of infections a day.

A quarter of UK businesses are not protecting themselves against the threat caused by spyware.

As a result roughly one in seven of the worst incidents involving malicious software related to spyware that can download onto a computer when the user visits an unscrupulous website.

Two years ago, a small number of viruses dominated, for example Netsky and Bagle/Beagle.

In contrast over the last year, no single virus has caused widespread damage. Instead the nature of viruses – and the motivation of their writers – has changed. Some malicious viruses, known as ‘bots’, take over machines turning them into ‘botnets’ used for cyber crime and cleaning up the problems can take weeks of effort.

Virus infections tended to take more effort to resolve than other incidents sometimes taking over 50 days’ work to fix.Chris Potter, the partner from PwC leading the survey, said: “Today’s viruses have become more insidious.

These programmes lie hidden on infected machines, gather information and target their strikes at valuable data.

“Cyber-criminals now use virus infections to get in under the radar of businesses and steal confidential data.

“The damage that viruses can cause extends beyond systems and ultimately can affect a company’s customers, business relationships and reputation in the marketplace. The threat has never been greater.”

MIT researchers extend computer life without batteries

2006-03-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

(www.pcworld.idg.com.au)

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to extend the power life of mobile computers.

Instead of using batteries, they draw power from an electronic device called an ultracapacitor. The approach is still several years away from being used as the main electricity source for commercial laptops and handhelds, but is already used for backup power in many small consumer products.

"A number of electronic devices already use commercial ultracapacitors for specialized functions," said Joel Schindall, a professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"For example, a clock radio may use an ultracapacitor as a keep-alive source in case of power failure, and even the old Palm III used an ultracapacitor to retain its memory while the AA batteries were changed."

The new technology could shake up the retail computer business, where computer makers already compete for market share by boasting of more power-efficient machines.

Chip makers battle for business by launching more efficient processors like Intel's Centrino and Advanced Micro Devices' Turion, trading high performance speed for mobile endurance.
Hewlett-Packard Co. also says its customers demand longer run-times.

The company announced Monday that its HP Compaq nx9400 notebook will run on three levels of battery packs. Those range from the standard, four-hour unit to a substitute battery that adds five more hours, and a clip-on, supplementary battery that adds another 10 hours.

The speed at which a battery charges is also important to users. HP says its enhanced, lithium ion battery can gain 90 percent of a full charge after just 90 minutes of being plugged into a wall outlet.

By comparison, a consumer with a cell phone powered by MIT's ultracapacitor could gain a complete recharge in just a few seconds, Schindall says.

The new device is called a nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitor, or NEU. It works by applying nanotechnology to an existing electrical device; the capacitor.

Generic capacitors store energy as an electrical field. That is more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Even more efficient is the ultracapacitor, a capacitor-based storage cell that provides quick bursts of instant energy.

The drawback is size -- ultracapacitors need to be much larger than batteries to hold the same charge.

The MIT researchers solved this problem by taking advantage of the enormous surface area of nanotubes; molecular-scale straws of carbon atoms that enable ultracapacitors to store electrical fields at the atomic level. Storage capacity (and charging speed) in an ultracapacitor is proportional to the surface area of the electrodes, so the nanotubes provide a great leap forward.
Despite this promise, researchers say they still have three to five years more work before they can replace a computer's main battery.

One drawback is that the ultracapacitor provides direct current power. That is suitable for running power-off functions like a laptop's clock, but most desktop devices use alternating current for their main operations.

High cost could also be a problem at first, because of low quantity production and meager capital investment in manufacturing facilities, he said.

On the other hand, the device could clear these hurdles by finding customers across a variety of businesses. From cell phones to automobiles, the ultracapacitor could supplement fuel cell power sources by acting as an emergency reserve for peak power use.

"The eventual implications are profound," says Schindall.

Microsoft works on computer foot pad

2006-03-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

(www.dailytimes.com.pk)

Ever feel like you’re not making good enough use of your feet when you’re catching up on your e-mail or sorting through all those digital pictures you took on that last vacation? Computer scientists in Microsoft Corp.’s research division have developed a color-coded “dance pad” with buttons you can tap with your feet — or jump on — to scroll through electronic files.

It may never make it to store shelves, but that’s no concern to Microsoft, which spends billions of dollars a year researching far-out technologies without worrying about whether the gizmos will ever make it to store shelves.

Every year, the software giant holds an internal trade show where hundreds of researchers show off their work.

On Tuesday, Microsoft Research offered a sneak peek at its “Step User Interface” technology, one of more than 150 concepts that will be featured at its two-day TechFest beginning Wednesday.

“This is just one off-the-shelf piece of hardware we can use,” A.J. Brush, the lead researcher on the project, said after demonstrating the technology.

“Now we’re looking at broadening, thinking about accelerometers or other things you could strap onto your feet so you really could be just sitting at your desk and kicking your e-mail away under the desk.”

Asked if he could envision any truly practical uses for such technology, Kevin Schofield, general manager of strategy at Microsoft Research, paused, then enthusiastically said: “I can envision a lot of things!” ap

Police secrets leaked by computer virus

2006-03-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

(www.noticias.info)

Leaked data included names of sex crime victims

Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus and spam analysis centers, have reminded internet users of the importance of computer security after media reports revealed that sensitive police information has been leaked onto the internet from a virus-infected computer.

According to the Japanese press, information about 1500 individuals, related to police investigations over a three years, was leaked from a virus-infected computer belonging to an Okayama Police investigator.

The data is said to have been distributed to users of the Winny peer-to-peer file-sharing system. Winny is the most popular file-sharing network in Japan, with over a quarter of a million users.According to the report, the leak occured because the policeman was storing data about investigations on his personal computer.

The PC was infected with an unnamed computer virus which is said to have enabled Winny users across Japan to access the sensitive information.

The exposed data included the names of sex crime victims."It's bad enough when an individual has data stolen from them by a virus, but a police force being the victim is a real cause for concern," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"This incident acts as a timely reminder that all organizations need to take computer security seriously. If you allow your employees to put sensitive company data onto their own home computers, you are running the risk that they will not be as well defended as the PCs within your business."

Sophos recommends companies protect their email gateways, desktops and servers with an automatically updated consolidated solution to defend against the threats of viruses, spyware and spam.

About SophosSophos is a world leader in integrated threat management solutions, developing protection against viruses, spyware, spam and policy abuse for business, education and government. Sophos's reliably-engineered, easy-to-operate products protect more than 35 million users in more than 150 countries.

Through 20 years' experience and a global network of threat analysis centers, the company responds rapidly to emerging threats - no matter how complex - and achieves the highest levels of customer satisfaction in the industry.

PC Laptops Unveils its ``Totally Awesome Customer Support Program'' for Owners of Totally Awesome Computers Brand Personal Computers

2006-03-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

(www.tmcnet.com)

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah.- PC Laptops Begins Offering Free Lifetime Labor and Service Support to Owners of Totally Awesome-Brand Personal Computers PC Laptops today unveiled its "Totally Awesome Customer Support Program(TM)" to provide owners of computers made by Totally Awesome Computers with free lifetime labor and service support.

PC Laptops' "Totally Awesome Customer Support Program" is an extension of the PC Laptops' long-time, industry-leading "no questions asked" free lifetime labor and service support policy for owners of its self-proclaimed "best laptops on the planet."

Today's announcement was made in response to the fact that Totally Awesome Computers officially closed its doors on Friday, March 3, 2006, shuttering eight store locations in the greater metropolitan Salt Lake City area.

"My greatest concern in this entire situation has been for those individual and business owners of Totally Awesome-brand personal computers," said Dan ("The Laptop Man") Young, president and founder of PC Laptops.

"That's why we've decided to provide the same industry-leading free labor and service support to owners of Totally Awesome-brand personal computers. That's also why we made the conscious decision to formally expand into desktop and server computers, as well as to extend job offers to more than two dozen former employees of Totally Awesome Computers.

" Under terms of its "Totally Awesome Customer Support Program," PC Laptops will deliver "no questions asked" free lifetime labor and support on any Totally Awesome-brand personal computer.

The hardware components within all personal computers typically carry manufacturer warranties of between one to five years.

In the case of component failure within a Totally Awesome-brand personal computer (such as the failure of a hard drive, mother board, graphics controller, and the like), PC Laptops will also assist customers in coordinating with component manufacturers to ensure the best possible outcomes for replacing or upgrading such components that are still under manufacturer warranty.

"The response from the community over the weekend has been very positive, almost overwhelmingly so," Young said of PC Laptops' decision to provide free labor and service support to owners of Totally Awesome-brand personal computers.

"But TAC customers asked us over and over if we would provide free labor and service support beyond 90 days for their Totally Awesome-brand personal computers, so that's why I've decided to include all TAC computers within our industry-leading free lifetime labor and service support policy."

PC Laptops invites any owner of a Totally Awesome-brand personal computer to bring it into any of the six PC Laptops stores located in Utah along the Wasatch Front mountain range for a free diagnostic and check-up.

For journalists interested in additional information about PC Laptops' expansion and customer service plans, please call David Politis (801-523-3730: work or 801-556-8184: cell) or Russell Page (801-523-3730: work or 801-787-8435: cell), both of Politis Communications. About PC Laptops PC Laptops focuses on delivering a high level of local, personal service to differentiate itself in a crowded personal computer market.

The company sells industry-leading portable and desktop computers to customers around the world via its Web site (www.pclaptops.com) and toll-free number: 877-596-SAVE (7283).

Totally Awesome Customer Support Program is a trademark of PC Laptops, LLC.

Rugged 3U compact PCI single board computer

2006-02-28T14:04:00.000-08:00

(www.ferret.com.au)

SBS Technologies’ new rugged 3U Compact PCI Single Board Computer is designed for harsh environments, making it ideal for demanding military and industrial applications.

The convection- or conduction-cooled CR4 Intel Pentium M processor-based SBC packs high-performance computing power in a small 3U package making it a tailored fit for many military applications.

Available from Metromatics Pty Ltd, the CR4 gives engineers abundant I/O to work with by providing two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two 32-bit 33/66MHz PCI bus interfaces, an RS-232 and an RS-422/485 serial I/O ports and ten general-purpose I/O lines to the backplane with separate interrupts and interrupt masking capability.

This SBC also incorporates the Intel 855GME chipset, which includes the Intel 855GME Graphics Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) and Intel 6300ESB I/O Controller Hub (ICH).

The CR4's PLX PCI 6254 PCI/PCI bridge handles 32-bit data transfers to and from the CompactPCI backplane and through the bridge's dual mode capability, the CR4 can operate as a system controller or peripheral processor card eliminating the need to stock multiple configurations.

The CR4 supports various operating systems as well as the SBS Ready Driver interoperability program.

Features include:

* Intel Pentium M 1.4GHz low voltage processor

* 3U CompactPCI form factor

* Ruggedised convection or conduction-cooled versions

* System controller or peripheral mode operation

* Type I CompactFlash module on daughter card 143.tiff.

Microsoft Confirms Work On New Handheld Device

2006-02-28T14:00:00.000-08:00

(www.informationweek.com)

The company will update its 'Origami Project' site later this week with more details, but it's still a ways off from product availability.

Microsoft Corp. on Monday confirmed that it is working with manufacturers on the concept for a new personalized handheld device under the name Origami Project.

News of the device started circulating on the Web after Microsoft put up a cryptic Web site that hinted at a Thursday announcement, but gave no details.

The site generated so much buzz among bloggers that a Microsoft technical evangelist on Monday tried to temper expectations that the company was ready to release a product.

Soon after discovery of the Origami Project Web site, a video apparently of the device started circulating the Internet.

The video, which was found on the site of production firm Digital Kitchen, shows people using a handheld computer with a touch screen that's being used to watch video, access the Web, send pictures and instant messages and play videogames.

The machine appears to have a wireless connection.

"While Origami is a concept we've been working on with partners, please know that the video seen on Digital Kitchen's web site is a year old and represents our initial exploration into this form factor, including possible uses and scenarios," Microsoft said in an emailed statement.

"However, we are excited to share more details about the evolution of the Origami concept with you in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!"

A company spokesman told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that no announcement was planned for Thursday. Instead, the Origami Project site would be updated with more details.
Indeed, Robert Scoble, tech evangelist and Microsoft blogger, warned that speculation on the Web may have gone too far in building expectations for a product release.

"Seriously, let's keep our hype in check, OK?" Scoble wrote.

Sam Bhavnani, analyst for Current Analysis, said it is unlikely Microsoft is working on a branded product. With the exception of the Xbox, keyboards and mice, the Redmond, Wash., software maker manufactures very little hardware, so not to compete with partners that build computers and devices running its software.

The Digital Kitchen video appears to be a prototype of a device that Microsoft circulated among its manufacturing partners, Bhavnani said.

"Microsoft comes out with the concept and that drives the industry forward," Bhavnani said.

"They sell more software, and manufacturers have something very useful for the end user."

The secretive Origami Project site, however, is unusual for Microsoft, which is apparently trying its hand at viral marketing, a tactic in which marketers use mystery or humor to generate a buzz on the Web.

"Microsoft typically doesn't put up sites that don't tell you much, but pique your interest," Byhavnani said.

Study: Offshoring of Software Work Can Help U.S.

2006-02-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

(www.insideindianabusiness.com)

A study released by the Association for Computing Machinery finds that the offshoring of software development and research to other countries actually offers benefits for the United States' software industry and consumers.

The Indiana University School of Informatics offered input for the study. It found that offshoring can harm those who lose their jobs and affect their communities. However, it also finds that new jobs can be created in the U.S. when American companies are made more productive and competitive by offshoring. Source: Inside INdiana Business

Press Release

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – While the shift of computer software development and research to other countries has increased and poses challenges to the United States, the offshoring of such work also has reaped benefits for our nation’s software industry and consumers.

That is one of the conclusions of a study released today by the Association for Computing Machinery, a report that had input from experts with the Indiana University School of Informatics. The report, The Globalization and Offshoring of Software, was designed to examine the issues surrounding the migration of jobs within the computing and information technology field and industry.

“Offshoring can be harmful to individuals who lose their jobs and the local communities they live in, but what often is neglected in the discussion is that when American companies are made more productive and competitive by offshoring – and this can create new jobs here at home,” says William Aspray, Rudy Professor of Informatics and an executive consultant and editor of the study.

The report also finds that concern about projected U.S. job losses to low-wage, high-education countries such as China and India are overblown. It predicts the most likely scenario is that up to 3 percent of the country’s IT work would go overseas over the next decade.

“It is true that jobs in the software industry are among the very best jobs available in India, and software services there represent the country’s largest export,” says Aspray, an expert in the historical, political, and socioeconomic aspects of information technology. Aspray is the co-author of The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States (Computing Research Association, 1999), an acclaimed study that probed the supply of and demand for information technology workers and related issues in the United States.On the upside, Aspray notes that the U.S. IT industry has reaped favorably.

He points out the industry has found new markets for its software products, which are bought by software companies in India and elsewhere, it has lowered prices on American products, and has speeded the products to the marketplace.Despite widespread perceptions that IT jobs have rapidly dried up in the United States – particularly in the wake of the so-called Dot-Com boom-to-bust era (1999-2003) – the reality is that the number of jobs actually increased significantly during that period, the report says. And that came at a time when offshoring was intense and on the upswing.

The report found that workers and students can improve their chances of long-term employment in IT occupations by acquiring a strong educational foundation, learning the technologies used in global software, and keeping skills up to date throughout their careers“Some of the recommendations of this report fit well with the School of Informatics and its objectives,” Aspray says. “For example, it takes an interdisciplinary approach to an IT education, coupling core technical knowledge with other specialty knowledge.

Students and young researchers learn the values of teamwork and communication, and they get to learn about other cultures, which really is a strength of the School and Indiana University as a whole.

”Other IU people had a role in the ACM report. L. Jean Camp, associate professor of informatics, was a contributing writer to a chapter about the risks and exposures to intellectual property, privacy and security by offshoring. Matthew Hottell, lecturer in informatics, and Alla Genkina, a former IU graduate student now pursuing a doctorate in California, also provided research support for the study.

To read the report’s full text, go to:

www.acm.org/globalizationreport/index.htm.

U. of I. computer takes quantum leap and works when it's asleep

2006-02-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

(www.chicagotribune.com)

In the bizarre realm of quantum mechanics-- the physics theory that stumped even Albert Einstein--tiny things like electrons and packets of light often seem to be in two places at once, in total violation of common sense.

Now a University of Illinois physics team has taken that principle and built something harder to fathom: a quantum-based computer that can be awake and asleep at the same time, and spit out answers even if its program is never triggered.

It's plenty strange, but some experts say such real-world spinoffs of eerie quantum effects are growing so common that it's our understanding of "strange" that needs to change."This is the way nature is," said Charles Bennett, an IBM researcher who dreamed up some of the new uses of quantum physics. "We should be learning how to get used to that.

"Quantum mechanics is the theory physicists use to understand events at the atomic level, which works far differently than the large-scale world that people inhabit. The theory states that it's impossible to gain complete knowledge about any subatomic particle, and its location and other traits often exist only as probabilities.That maddening, fuzzy quality is fueling creative ideas about how to put quantum effects to work. The U. of I. experiment, published Thursday in the journal Nature, could help refine the young field of quantum computing.

In theory, computers based on quantum effects could race through calculations that would take an ordinary computer billions of years to complete. Applications of such computers could include precise simulations of how proteins work in the human body.Recent research also has raised the prospect of unbreakable quantum codes, a commercial opportunity that some companies already are vying to exploit.

Bennett and others have pioneered a form of "quantum teleportation" that can replicate the characteristics of light particles more than a mile away--though nobody expects to be able to beam people around.The not-quite-technical term many physicists use for such effects is "quantum weirdness."

Although quantum theory has proved one of the most successful and accurate ideas in science since Max Planck laid its foundations a century ago, most great physicists have pronounced the theory nearly impossible to reconcile with common sense. Einstein could not accept the theory's glorification of probability, complaining, "God does not play dice with the universe."U. of I. physics professor Paul Kwiat, co-author of the new quantum computing study, said one of his favorite quotes on the subject is by Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, who once said: "We know how to use [quantum mechanics] and how to apply it to problems; and so we have learned to live with the fact that nobody can understand it."A really weird computerKwiat said he and his team don't need to understand what quantum theory ultimately means for philosophical notions of reality.

But they do know that quantum effects allowed them to dream up one really weird computer.Like a frantic one-man band, a quantum computer gets its unique power by trying to do many things at the same time.Such devices are far different from the digital computers everyone uses, which can process just one "bit" of electronic information at a time, in a stately procession of 0s and 1s.

The uncanny gift of quantum mechanics is that it could permit computers that calculate many possibilities simultaneously, because their bits can be 0 and 1 at the same time. Such computers exploit the properties of light packets called photons or other particles that seem to exist in more than one physical state at once.As the number of quantum bits increases, the computer can consider many more combinations of data at a single stroke.

That could open the door to a "quantum genie," Kwiat said, offering answers to otherwise impossible problems.One use of such power may be to find all the possible factors of very large numbers--which unfortunately is just what code-breakers would need to crack the tightest modern security codes.

A typical code used in banking transactions would take 100 million personal computers a thousand years to decipher. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer might be able to do that job in minutes.On the bright side, quantum effects might also make it possible to make tamper-proof codes that no computer--quantum or otherwise--could ever break.U. of I. graduate student Onur Hosten, who co-wrote the Nature paper with Kwiat, said he has always been fascinated by ways of seeing quantum weirdness in the ordinary world."I spend a lot of time thinking about how far we can push these effects," Hosten said.

So Hosten wanted to see if he could get accurate information from a quantum computer even if its program never runs. It turned out he could.That's not as crazy as it sounds, if you try to use what Bennett calls "quantum intuition."Twinning effectHosten and Kwiat knew the same physical laws that allow quantum bits to be 0 and 1 at the same time ought to let them make a quantum computer that is both running and not running at once.

That twinning effect is called superposition, and it's at the heart of theories about the world of the very small.The quantum computer they built is set up to run a simple program using one photon of light at a time. The light goes through a series of lenses and mirrors that give an "answer" by directing the photon to one of many light detectors.But what if the setup allowed the photon in some cases to be reflected away from the computer before it arrived there? In those cases you would not expect to be able to get any information from the computer.

Yet Hosten and Kwiat were able to learn something about the photon's potential interaction with the computer even if final measurements showed the photon never took that route.That's because according to quantum mechanics, the photon actually exists in two conditions at once--one in which it went through the computer, and another in which it was bounced away.The two alternate paths even affect one another, and the interaction can influence which light detector is triggered.

That, in turn, provides information about what the computer would have found, even if measurements show the program never actually ran. Specifically, it can exclude one possible answer."What gives us the answer is the possibility of the computer running," Hosten said.Based on that idea, Hosten imagined an even more complicated setup, using still more optical devices to shoot the photon through a figure-eight circuit buzzing with possible outcomes.

Such a device, he showed, could narrow the possibilities to just one answer, even if the photon never actually went through the program.

Such implications of quantum theory may always seem too strange to handle. But Bennett said he hopes that today's youth one day will take quantum weirdness for granted, in a way that Einstein's generation never could."They didn't have as many decades to get used to the idea," Bennett said.

HCL forays into laptop market

2006-02-23T18:06:00.000-08:00

(www.business-standard.com)

HCL Infosystems today announced its foray into manufacturing of mobile computers and launch of 11 segment-specific range of laptops.

“We will now start manufacturing laptops at our existing plant at Pondicherry,” said George Paul, executive vice-president of the company.

The company, which recently increased capacity at its Pondicherry facility from 6,00,000 units to 1 million units per year has added two new lines at its existing plant.

“The company has added two new lines in the plant which will be dedicated to laptop manufacturing,” added Paul.

The notebook computer market in the country is expected to grow 50 per cent in 2005-06 from 4.75 lakh units sold last year.

The company further said that its latest foray is unlikely to effect its existing relationship with Toshiba, whose notebooks are distributed through the company.

“We have a separate business division marketing Toshiba notebooks. There would be no clash of interest between our own brand and Toshiba,” Paul said.

The products, which are priced at Rs 27,490 onwards, will be aimed at different segments including doctors, lawyers, women and CEOs.

It has also introduced hardy notebooks starting at Rs 1 lakh, designed for work in rough conditions and meant for defence personnel. Apart from normal computing functionalities, the notebooks will have software package specified for each target group.

The company will offer the laptops at an equal monthly installment of Rs 699 for three years. It has also introduced insurance coverage for theft, accidental damage, breakage and liquid spill.

Study Plays Down Export of Computer Jobs

2006-02-23T18:01:00.000-08:00

(www.nytimes.com)

The movement of computing work abroad represents an economic and scientific challenge, but the fears of job migration far outweigh the reality so far, according to a new study by the Association for Computing Machinery.

The lengthy report, to be released today, is the result of a yearlong project by the professional organization to assess the impact and implications of the outsourcing of software development and research.

The study concluded that dire predictions of job losses from shifting high-technology work to low-wage nations with strong education systems, like India and China, were greatly exaggerated.

Though international in perspective, the study group found that the most likely prognosis for the United States would be that 2 percent to 3 percent of the jobs in information technology would go offshore annually over the next decade or so.

But more jobs will be created than are lost in the future, they said, as long as the industry in America moves up the economic ladder to do higher-value work — typically, applying information technology to other fields, like biology and business. They noted that employment in the information technology industry was higher today than it was at the peak of the dot-com bubble, despite the growth of offshore outsourcing in the last few years.

"The global competition has gotten tougher and we have to run faster," said Moshe Y. Vardi, co-chair of the study group and a computer scientist at Rice University. "But the notion that information technology jobs are disappearing is just nonsense. The data don't bear that out."

Yet the view that job opportunities in computing are dwindling fast is both common and potentially damaging to America's competitive prowess, according to David A. Patterson, president of the Association for Computing Machinery.

He pointed to the declining interest in computer science as a major among American college students, based on a survey last year of the intentions of students entering college. The results suggested that only 1 in 75 students would major in computer science, compared with 1 in 30 in 2000.

"The perception among high school students and their parents is that the game is over — that all computing jobs are going overseas," observed Mr. Patterson, who is a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's an extraordinarily widely held misperception."

The concern, he said, is that misplaced pessimism will deter bright young people from pursuing careers in computing. That, in turn, would erode the skills in a field that is crucial to the nation's economic competitiveness.

In the recent debate on outsourcing, software has been considered one of the industries most susceptible to rapid job migration because code can be easily shipped over the Internet anywhere in the world. So the report's generally reassuring outlook is significant.

Still, offshore outsourcing raises some serious issues, the report noted. The benefits and pain of the globalization of technical work are unevenly spread. "It may be good for the economy, but it may not be good for you" if you lose your job, said Mr. Vardi of Rice University.

Federal job retraining programs, the report said, are currently focused on the manufacturing industry instead of high-technology services. The report also calls for changes in computing education.

"This is a huge challenge to education," Mr. Vardi said, "to try to determine what is the right mix of skills as we try to move up the economic ladder." Ronil Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, was one of the experts consulted by the computing association's study group. Mr. Hira, coauthor of "Outsourcing America," said the report took "a feel-good" stance on the outlook for jobs.

Computer scientist fights spam on two fronts

2006-02-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

www.currents.ucsc.edu

A "do-not-spam" registry developed as a student project at UCSC has now been implemented in two states as part of child protection legislation. Designed to shield minors from e-mails with adult content, the registries established in Utah and Michigan are the first of their kind in the country.

Another recent anti-spam project involving UCSC researchers is designed to thwart the "harvesters" who trawl the Internet for e-mail addresses to add to their spam mailing lists.

"These are big steps in the war against spam," said Arthur Keller, a research associate in the technology and information management program of UCSC's Baskin School of Engineering, who supervised the student project and collaborated on the development of the state registries.

Recently enacted anti-spam legislation in Utah and Michigan paved the way for the child protection registries. The new state laws require companies sending e-mails with adult content to have their mailing lists "scrubbed" of all registered e-mail addresses of minors.

For each prohibited message that a company sends to a registered e-mail address, it will face damages of $1,000 in Utah and $5,000 in Michigan.

The registries are based on a prototype do-not-spam registry developed between 2002 and 2003 by a team of UCSC engineering students under the direction of Keller. The students--Lee Holloway, John Rodrigues, Dat Huu Nguyen, and Thomas Belote--have all since graduated with degrees in computer science or computer engineering.

In 2003, UCSC licensed the registry prototype to Unspam, a company that offers anti-spam software and services, after a fortuitous meeting between Keller and Unspam CEO Matthew Prince at a Federal Trade Commission workshop. Keller and Holloway have both continued to work with Unspam on anti-spam strategies.

"I was lucky to find the right partner," Keller said. "We were both on the same track, but Matthew knew a lot more than me about getting the anti-spam legislation adopted."

In the model developed by Unspam, companies pay less than one cent to check each address in their mailing lists against a state registry. The revenue is divided between Unspam and the state. There is no charge to register a minor's e-mail address.

Although the successful implementation of the child protection registry is a promising start in the battle against spam, a nationwide do-not-spam registry faces obstacles. First, the child protection registry itself has come under legal attack.

The Free Speech Coalition, a trade association of the adult entertainment industry, has launched a federal lawsuit challenging Utah's anti-spam law on constitutional grounds. If the lawsuit succeeds, the state's registry would have to be dismantled. But Keller predicts the lawsuit will fail.

"The child protection registry is not a violation of first amendment rights," he said. "The spammer's right to send something does not override my child's right to be left alone."

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a report in 2004 skeptical of the do-not-spam registry concept. It said such a registry would fail to reduce the burden of spam, since no reliable mechanism exists to identify violators. Further, it warned that spammers could break into the registry to steal e-mail addresses.

Keller, however, cited several safety features in the Unspam system that addressed the FTC's concerns. "It is absolutely hack-proof," he said.

Keller said the successful implementation of the child protection registries could eventually lead to a nationwide do-not-spam registry that protects both minors and adults from all types of spam.

"The FTC took 10 years to create a do-not-call registry for telemarketers from the time it was authorized," he said. "I won't be surprised if a do-not-spam registry takes equally long."

In the meantime, Keller, Holloway and Prince have launched another anti-spam initiative, dubbed Project Honey Pot, designed to catch spammers in the act of "harvesting" e-mail addresses from the Internet. E-mail harvesting is illegal in the United States under the CAN-SPAM act of 2003, but until recently no mechanism existed to catch harvesters red-handed, Keller said.

Spammers typically find the e-mail addresses of their victims with automated programs called robots, which ceaselessly scour the billions of web pages on the Internet. Most robot traffic on the Internet is from legitimate companies like Yahoo and Google, but about 5 percent comes from harvesters.

To trap harvesters, Project Honey Pot has salted the Internet with a network of over 250,000 web sites containing bogus "spam trap" e-mail addresses. These "honey pot" sites can be visually identified by a legal disclaimer forbidding the harvesting of the addresses they carry.

Accessible only via special links from about 5,000 participating web sites worldwide, the honey pot sites are visible to robots, but not to humans. Each time a robot follows one of the links to a honey pot site, identifying information (such as the robot's IP address) is instantly recorded.

If an e-mail address on the honey pot site receives a spam message later, it is easy to identify the culprit, Keller said.

"Gathering these IP addresses is like finding fingerprints at a crime scene," he said. "It provides evidence essential for prosecuting anyone involved in the spam industry."

According to Keller, harvesters come in two flavors: hucksters, who sell an actual product, and fraudsters, who engage in "phishing" and other scams. Hucksters usually take over a month to send their first spam message to a newly harvested address, but then follow it up with many more. Fraudsters, in contrast, typically send a spam message within a day, but rarely send any more.

"Nearly 30 percent of the messages received by Project Honey Pot appear to be related to some sort of phish scheme, advanced fee fraud, or banking scam," Keller said.

Harvesting by fraudsters can usually be blocked by slightly modifying the way e-mail addresses are written on a web page, Keller said. Known as address "munging," this is often done by writing out "at" and "dot" in place of the corresponding symbols in an e-mail address.

Hucksters tend to use more advanced harvesting programs, Keller said, and are not deterred by simple address munging. Their sophistication, however, could become their Achilles heel.

Several harvesters of the huckster class have modified their programs to avoid honey pot sites -- even the mention of the words "spam trap" or "honey pot" on a site can deter them.

So even regular web sites could include these words to scare harvesters away, Keller said.

The next generation of harvesters may include mechanisms to tell real honey pots from the fakes, but Keller believes Project Honey Pot is a step ahead.

"As spammers adapt to avoid honey pots, we can exploit their adaptations to protect regular web sites," Keller said. "While this is yet another arms race, this time the anti-spam forces are in a position of strength."

Leader at Media Lab seeks smarter future

2006-02-20T13:26:00.000-08:00

www.iht.com

BOSTON Frank Moss is relying on old-fashioned common sense to chart the future as he steps into his new role as director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He says technology should be smarter about anticipating human needs and should do more than make life convenient.

At the same time, he also needs to keep persuading big companies to look upon the Media Lab as an incubator of ideas. MIT, whose Media Lab relies heavily on corporate sponsors to keep it running on an annual budget of $32 million, appointed Moss last week to succeed Nicholas Negroponte, the Media Lab co-founder and chairman, who is stepping down to focus on One Laptop per Child, a nonprofit organization he started last year to create and provide $100 laptop computers to children.

In his new role, Moss said, he wanted companies to be enticed, as he was, by the concept of cellphones that silenced themselves upon entering a theater, or phones that conveyed the urgency of a call from an elderly parent at an unusual time of day.

The Media Lab has been exploring such intersections of technology and society since 1985. Some of its innovations include digital ink, wearable computers and advanced prostheses. Thirty faculty members and 250 students work in a series of laboratories littered with robot parts, flat-screen monitors and bright plastic furniture.

Moss, 56, said he expected that technology would change society more profoundly in the coming decades than in the past 20 years. Technology will do more than facilitate easy communication, helping to ease the burden of aging and improving health care and education worldwide, he said.

"My job is to live in the future 20 years from today," Moss said during an interview in his corner office on the fourth floor of a building designed by the architect I.M. Pei.

Moss has spent most of his career starting computer and software companies like Stellar Computer and Bowstreet. In his most recent venture, he founded Infinity Pharmaceuticals, a company that combines technology with the sciences to seek new cancer treatments.

He led Tivoli Systems as chief executive and chairman from the company's founding in 1991 until its merger with International Business Machines in 1996. A childhood fascination with the space program led to an undergraduate degree in aerospace and mechanical sciences from Princeton. Moss went on to complete a doctorate degree at MIT in aeronautics and astronautics in 1977.

When Moss turned 50, he said, he re- evaluated his life's work. His three children, now 30, 24, and 16, thought he should do something to give back to humanity. "They were not particularly impressed by selling systems and network software," he said.

Moss was impressed with the way his children used technology - he refers to them as "digital natives," though they are not technologists - and it altered his view of where cutting-edge ingenuity originates. As the young population adapts technology to suit its needs, Moss said, "that's going to be the source and the force of innovation, and that's going to come from the bottom up."

Give Yourself a Password Makeover

2006-02-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

www.abcnews.go.com

You have your ATM pin number, your Internet account password, your Web mail password, and your eBay, Paypal, online banking, work network and work e-mail passwords.

Then there are the travel sites that make you log in, the news services, the online groups.

Some password generators mandate numbers. Some want numbers and letters. Some want characters, uppercase letters AND numbers.

To make matters worse, each site or account requires a different format for your user name: Some want your e-mail address. Others are so popular you have to make up strange versions of your usual log-on name.

Bottom line: It's a nightmare keeping track of your logons and passwords.

Say No to Post-it Notes

Don't resort to the obvious solution — a yellow post-it note with your info posted to the side of your computer monitor.

Instead create three tiers of accounts — high, medium and low security.

Access your high-security passwords only from home or on trusted computers, never on a public computer that might contain a key-logger. Key-loggers are software programs that record every stroke typed on the computer including every user name and password you enter.

Low security passwords can be used on any public account. So someone gets access to your New York Times log-in? That's not a big deal.

Use your medium security passwords based on your own judgment. In an Eastern European Internet café? Not a good idea. In your university's computer lab? Might be a better risk.

Here's How to Get Started with Your Password Makeover

Commit to writing down all the Web sites or networks where you use a password. Only write down the name of the site and your user name, NOT your passwords. A master list of passwords is an open invitation for someone to access your accounts — roommate, co-worker, burglar, kids.

Once that list is done, divide the sites into the three categories — high security, medium security and low security.

High-security log-ons should include anything associated with money or sensitive personal information — financial brokerages, online banking, Paypal, travel sites that store your credit card numbers, any site that has your Social Security number (school site, medical insurance site, tax site), and your work network.

Medium-security log-ons should include anything of a personal nature — your email accounts, your ISP account at home, your alumni network or instant messaging log-ons.

Low security log-ons can consist of e-mail groups, news sites that require a log-on, or random sites that require you provide a password.

Assign a Password to Each Group

To cover the requirements for all sign-ons, make your passwords 8 characters long and a combination of numbers, letters (including at least one uppercase letter) and a symbol, like an *, % or #. One tip for creating a memorable password is to script it like a vanity license plate:

Pr3t3nd$ (Pretends), W8ing4U2 (waiting for you two).

If you only have to remember 3 passwords, you can make them secure and complicated. Studies have shown security is tighter with a few good passwords than with lots of simple passwords.

Change Your Passwords

Now go through your list of sites and networks and change the passwords of your accounts. All your high-security accounts will have the same password, the mediums will be the same, and the low-security sites will have the same password. You should now only need to remember 3 passwords.

On your master list of accounts and user names, instead of writing the password next to the account, just indicate which security class it's in — high, medium, or low. You know those three passwords by heart (This is the challenge here: You have to memorize those three passwords).

If anyone finds your master list, they still don't know your passwords. As you acquire more sites and networks that require a password, fit them into your existing high, medium, and low scheme, and continue to add the user names into your master list.

Good luck, stay safe, and hopefully you'll never be locked out of your own accounts again.

Computer analysts

2006-02-17T17:23:00.000-08:00

www.timesonline.co.uk

The NHS is set to approve online therapy for a range of emotional problems. Will it work, asks John Naish

Therapist’s couch or your computer mouse? Only a few years ago the idea of soothing your psyche with the help of a home PC would have been laughably futuristic, but there is now a fast-proliferating range of high-tech head therapies on offer, and next week the Government’s own treatment watchdog is set to give crucial backing to this approach.

Internet sites and CD-Roms offer lifestyle support for everything from diets to life coaching and hypnotherapy. And for serious psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is expected to declare on Wednesday that two computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) packages, Beating the Blues and FearFighter, are proved by research to be effective and efficient enough to be prescribed routinely by GPs.

CBT helps people who have developed bad or destructive thinking and behavioural habits by teaching them healthier ways of being and thinking. Trials indicate that nearly half of patients show significant improvements, similar to the rates achieved with antidepressants. And this approach can be computerised with relative ease because it is short, highly structured and focuses on specific practical problems.

The NICE decision is the latest advance for computer-delivered CBT. Last year, Swedish researchers reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry how their study of 117 volunteers with mild to moderate depression found that computerised CBT can be as effective as face-to-face sessions for treating the condition. It doesn’t seem to work for technophobes, though — a third of the patients withdrew from the programme. Their main reason was that it was “too demanding ”.

But if you can bear on-screen psyche treatment, it could mean getting help much faster: the mental health charity Mind says a shortage of trained CBT therapists means that people can sometimes wait up to a year for treatment.

Stuart Toole, the managing director of FearFighter, claims that half a million people are using his system. Users can log on to it from a computer anywhere. Typically, a patient will get started with a 15-minute introduction given by a practice nurse in a GP clinic. They are given a log-on ID number and then can go off and complete the online course themselves, often in libraries or at home.

“We sell the package to primary care trusts and license it to hospital trusts,” says Toole. “We think it is four times cheaper than face-to-face therapy; with high usage, it works out at less than £100 per patient.” He emphasises, however, that it won’t replace face-to-face therapy completely, not just because of some patients’ technophobia but also because many will want to talk about their past and their personal problems in longer-term psychotherapy.

“It’s one piece of the therapeutic jigsaw,” Toole says. “But because many doctors’ current response to patients’ phobias is to do nothing, it is a big step forward for these patients.”
Beating the Blues, meanwhile, is expected to win NICE backing for use with patients with mild and moderate depression. It was developed by the computer software company Ultrasis and psychiatrists at King’s College London.

Beating the Blues consists of an introductory video and eight 50-minute interactive CBT sessions, along with five video case studies.

All the sessions are held at the patient’s GP surgery. “Currently Beating the Blues is used in 250 GP surgeries and primary care trusts, and that number is growing,” says Charlie Martin, an executive director at Ultrasis. “We expect each place to put about 40 patients a year through the system, which works out at about £60 a patient. Beat the Blues is competitive with face-to-face therapy and more cost-effective than drug therapies, which tend to cost about £180 per course.”

Online therapies aren’t just about mental health, though. Life coaches, dietitians and alternative therapists are increasingly selling their services online. They don’t benefit from government kitemarks and, as our venture into the virtual world has discovered, their quality and approach can vary greatly. In that respect, the internet is no different from the high street.

Fighting anxiety online

FearFighter is a ten-session, self-help treatment system that helps patients suffering from panic, anxiety or phobias to identify what sparks their attacks and to develop realistic treatment goals. These involve “exposure therapy”, where patients are encouraged to face their fears for long enough to get used to them. FearFighter asks patients to return every week to report how they’ve been doing and can plot their progress on graphs.

Brunel Study Shows Positive Role of Computer Games

2006-02-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Learn as you play...

www.entertainmentwise.com

As the average gamer spends as much time on gaming as on homework, study reveals how online gaming is a training ground for work.

Brunel academics today unveil the results of a three-year study into online gaming communities, which defies the traditional educationalists' negative perception of gaming.

The academics believe that computer games have a central role to play in the education and development of young people, contributing to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's strategy of work related learning, which helps children make an effective transition from school to work.

The study, which took the form of qualitative research into a community of players of the online game Runescape, shows that gaming is far from being a frivolous diversion from homework. The online worlds created by the gamers mirror many aspects of material society.

For example, gamers are invited to join 'Klans' - highly disciplined co-operatives in which they share a common set of goals, they adopt identities such as merchant or warrior and they divide their time online between work and leisure.

Most importantly, skills are learnt which are highly valued, with experienced players tailoring their 'training' to acquire the 'desirable' skills - a clear example of 'work related learning'.

Comments Nic Crowe from the Centre for Youth Work Studies in the School of Sport and Education at West London's Brunel University, who carried out the research in conjunction with Dr Simon Bradford: "A recent survey showed that most young people spend as much time on computer games as they do on their homework - three hours a day.

This is the kind of information to strike fear into the hearts of concerned parents and educationalists alike, as they perceive it as idle 'downtime'. However, this is far too simplistic a view.

"Our study shows that the online gaming communities are complex and highly developed, acting as 'training grounds' for the transition from school to work" Nic continues: "When playing, gamers are undergoing a complex process of 'work related learning' - learning how to cope with work scenarios - which is far removed from the traditionally held negative view of gaming.

Put simply, these games have a central - and positive - role to play in the development and education of young people."

The 'UK Children Go Online Survey', by Sonia Livingstone, Magdalena Bober, April 2005 shows that:

* The average gamer spends as much time on gaming as on homework.

* 82% of children own at least one games console.

* 70% of children play online.The study forms a chapter of a book, 'Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes'. Watch out for it if you would like to read the entire study!

Add Summarize! to your computer to help cut through textual clutter

2006-02-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

www.bocaratonnews.com

Computers are supposed to make our lives easier -- and in many ways they do. Yet there are studies suggesting that's really not the case. For the most part, I tend to disagree with most of those studies except when it comes to one thing and that's reading. Have you ever thought about how much more reading you do now that you have a computer sitting on your desk? I'd be willing to bet there's a good chance that much of your profession requires you to do a lot of reading.

Take email for example. Even with all the junk email filters running at full tilt, most of us acknowledge that reading just the valid emails can really eat into your day. And that's just email. What with all kinds of documents, news items, reports, contracts, brochures and sundry other items your job says you have to read, it's amazing that we get anything done. And if you're a student, you know all about the pain and suffering when it comes to those numerous books you have to get through in a limited amount of time. But there is a way to cut through all the textual clutter and strangely enough, it's your computer that may be able to help you after all.

"Summarize!" is an application from Corpora Software that helps you do what its name says. Using some very sophisticated techniques, Corpora says that its Summarize uses linguistic and statistical analysis algorithms that extract and determine how relevant each sentence in a document is to the key themes running throughout its content. The program then creates a readable summary to reflect the dominant themes. That summary is a lot shorter than the document itself which translates into a lot less reading which means you are going to save a lot of time.

Right out of the box, Summarize does a pretty good job of highlighting what is important. But as with anything that's making a kind of judgment for you, it requires some fine-tuning.

Fortunately, Summarize allows you to tweak and adjust how it does its work. You can, for example, tailor what you believe to be the more important themes for which you are looking and Summarize will endeavor to highlight anything that corresponds. The way this works is that you tell it what key words fall within your area of interest. Obviously, the more you use it, the more tailored your summaries will become. You can also determine the lengths of the summaries. This can be particularly effective because too much trimming may hinder your efforts in gleaning out the most significant information.

Summarize works with most of the more popular word-intensive applications such as Microsoft's Outlook, Word and PowerPoint. Summarize also works with PDF files and HTML so that it's great for scanning Web sites and the text within them. You can even scan an email and all of its attached documents with just one click of the mouse.

Corpora has a special server edition, which you can incorporate, directly into your company's Web site and into document management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint. With this configuration, it will automatically extract summaries and key words from your documents so as to improve document searches and categorization. Check with Corpora for more details on their Enterprise versions of their Summary products.

Being able to significantly reduce what you have to read while maintaining a statistically same level of understanding will more than likely make Summarize pay for itself in just the time you save from having to read every single word. You just may find yourself becoming more productive at work or accelerating your studies at school. Obviously, the product's effectiveness and value to you can really only be determined if you give it a try yourself. You can do so by visiting the Corpora Web site and buying a copy of Summarize! 2.0 for $49.

Craig Crossman is a national newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. The Palm Beach resident also hosts the number one daily national computer radio talk show, Computer America, heard on both the Business TalkRadio Network and the Lifestyle TalkRadio Network Monday through Friday, 10 p.m. to midnight ET. For more information, visit his Web site at www.computeramerica.com.

Copy protection threatens viewing of next-gen DVDs

2006-02-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

www.mobilemag.com

The bitter fight for the next-generation DVD market is having ever wider consequences. Even if you don't know your Blu-ray from your HD DVD, you can appreciate the fact that copy-protection safeguards and top-quality video viewing are potentially not compatible.

One worst-case scenario has consumers buying new PCs in order to view the new DVDs.Why is this happening? For two reasons: Hollywood studios want to stamp out piracy, and electronics manufacturers are scrambling to catch up.First of all, the digital piracy is a huge drain on profits for the major movie studios.

With the propensity of broadband and other high-speed Internet connections, potential digital pirates have found it all the easier to "borrow" movies, TV, and other forms of digital video for their own purposes. As a result, more and more pirated videos are flooding the market and less and less money is making its way into the coffers of Hollywood studios.One result of all this is a stringent approach toward digital ownership.

The next generation of DVDs will include specifically narrow digital rights management controls.

Unfortunately for a great many viewers, these "protective" procedures won't play nice with much of today's PC protocols, resulting in not-so-high quality viewing. (It should be noted here that standalone DVD players and HDTVs will have preinstalled plugs and protocols that will work with these new DRM controls.

Your average PC user, however, might be in trouble.

Most computer-to-monitor plugs are analog, which doesn't support copy protection. So, that shiny new DVD that you buy later this year will appear as not-so-shiny if you hook up your PC to a TV.

Some computers include a digital visual interface (DVI) plug, which allows digital transfer of images from PC to monitor.

But Hollywood studios, aware of this, have lashed out against the DVI, leveraging its influence into making Microsoft to include in the upcoming Vista OS a shutdown feature that prevents DVI connections altogether (unless, of course, you have preinstalled High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, which isn't at all standard in the garden-variety PC or OS).

But even HDCP depends on chipmakers and OS manufacturers like Microsoft, which have varying degrees of "catchup" in their release strategies.

If this all sounds confusing, it certainly is. We've descended into anagram mania here. The bottom line is that you should know what kind of video hookup capability your PC has before you go out and spend lavish amounts of money on next-gen DVDs, be they Blu-ray or HD DVD.

Computer games 'good for learning'

2006-02-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

www.computeractive.co.uk

Skills learned in virtual world can help kids in real life, says study

Computer games can be good for children, according a three-year study unveiled today by researchers at Brunel University.

They focused on the online game Runescape and concluded that, far from being a frivolous diversion from homework, it taught many valuable skills because the virtual worlds created by the gamers mirrored many aspects of the real world.

Gamers are invited to join highly disciplined co-operatives called Klans in which they share a common set of goals, adopt identities such as merchant or warrior and divide their time online between work and leisure.

Recent research has shown most children spend as much time on computer games as on their homework, says Nic Crowe, of Brunel's Centre for Youth Work Studies in the School of Sport and Education, who co-authored the report.

'This is the kind of information to strike fear into the hearts of concerned parents and educationalists alike, as they perceive it as idle 'downtime'. However, this is far too simplistic a view,' he said.

'Our study shows that the online gaming communities are complex and highly developed, acting as 'training grounds' for the transition from school to work.

'When playing, gamers are undergoing a complex process of 'work related learning' - learning how to cope with work scenarios - which is far removed from the traditionally held negative view of gaming.'

The study forms a chapter of a book, Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes, published by Routledge.

It is not the only sign that educationalists are taking computer games more seriously.

Professor David Buckingham, of London University's Institute for Education, said last month that computer games should be taught at school because they are as much a part of modern literacy as reading and writing.

Losing your hearing? Don't worry. A new computer program offers intriguing solutions.

2006-02-15T13:38:00.000-08:00

www.sfgate.com

When the Grateful Dead called him to consult, Robert Sweetow, director of audiology for the UCSF Medical Center, wasn't prepared for the level of technical expertise he'd encounter in the world of rock 'n' roll.

"It blows away my equipment," Sweetow says of his first visit to Ultrasound, the band's sound company. "We think we have state of the art equipment, but our equipment is archaic compared to the equipment these guys are working with. And what was amazing was the knowledge.

You know, I have a Ph.D. in audiology, and the knowledge these guys have about sound is better than mine, I thought."

This unlikely marriage of rock and science led to the creation of a computer program that can help people cope with diminished hearing. LACE, for Listening and Communication Enhancement, is based on the notion that even though hearing loss can never be reversed, listening skills can be improved.

All of this came about because Sweetow connected with the Dead in the '90s.

In 2002, Sweetow ran across a former Dead audio engineer turned software designer and entrepreneur named Gerry Kearby, who had started the first Internet music distribution system with a digital rights management component, Liquid Audio. Kearby, who suffers from tinnitus -- a constant ringing in the ears that can be caused by too much exposure to loud music -- was looking at a business plan from some doctors who thought they could develop a cure for his condition. Sweetow had an idea of his own that intrigued Kearby.

"We have this cadre of people we know who have been on the leading edge of audio technology for 30 years," Kearby says, "and ... we're approaching the downward slide of our physical skills.

I said, 'Look, I'm going to gather up the troops ... and I'm going to see if we can build some medical software using the technology we built to make recording studios and equipment for rock 'n' roll bands.' It was a perfect combination. They have the brains and we have the brawn, so to speak."

Millions of Baby Boomers approaching senior citizenship are realizing that years spent listening to loud rock music in youth have exacted a toll. Noise-related hearing loss doesn't typically show up until middle age. Its onset is also so slow and insidious that other people usually notice it first ("Are you going deaf?").

More than 31 million people in the United States suffer from hearing loss, according to Kearby, but Sweetow says only around 20 percent will ever wear hearing aids.

"I've been fitting hearing aids on people for 30 years," Sweetow says. "The technological advances in the fidelity of the sound produced by hearing aids has improved significantly over the years. It has a broader bandwidth, less distortion."

But both Sweetow and Kearby say that hearing aids can only do part of the job. "You put on the best hearing aid in the world on people and they still come back and say, 'Yeah, but it doesn't help me with noise,' " Sweetow says.

"You put on your glasses, you get your full bandwidth back," Kearby says, referring to a popular style of hearing aid. "First time I put on a hearing aid, I was shocked. I'm an audio guy. I thought 'I'll get my hearing back.' No. It's not that way at all. It's not what you get at all. You get this artificial thing."

Before the advent of transistors in the 1950s, audiologists tried to rehabilitate patients with hearing loss. Once they could be fitted with miniature hearing aids, patients were simply sent back out in the world.

"Think about what happens when you have your leg amputated and you get a prosthetic limb," Sweetow says. "They don't say 'OK, you've got your limb, hop on out of here and you're done.' They say you've got to have physical therapy. But in our field, nobody provides any kind of therapy after."

Working with research audiologist Jennifer Henderson Sabes and Kearby's team of software designers, Sweetow developed LACE; he shares the patent with the university. Built to run on personal computers, the program features an Internet link that allows an audiologist to monitor each patient's progress. LACE users progress through 20 half-hour sessions. Mixing different tasks -- speech in noise, competing voices, rapid speech, word memory -- the program challenges users further as they get better.

LACE trains the brain and promotes successful communication, whether or not the patient wears a hearing aid. A short blurb last November in the AARP newsletter, for people over 50, prompted more than 15,000 downloads of the rather unwieldy 30 megabyte demonstration version from the company's Web site, neurotone.com.

"We all know people who have normal hearing who are lousy listeners," Sweetow says. "And, conversely, I know people who are hearing impaired who are great listeners.

The difference being hearing is access to acoustic information; listening is using acoustic information and focusing on it with intention and attention. That is further enhanced by cognitive skills and then, finally, by communication strategies. The goal of any audiologist is not to restore somebody's hearing. The goal is to restore somebody's communication skills.

"I had been thinking about this for five years," Sweetow says, "and I had started giving talks about the need for an interactive, adaptive therapy. Then along comes Jen (Sabes), who starts putting in my mind the proper terminology about how the cognitive neural science ties in to what I had been thinking and talking about in probably a more basic manner. She helps to refine this. Then along comes Gerry, who says, 'Oh, we can do this. And not only can we do this, but we can do it in this manner and we can throw this into the picture and that into picture.'

And all of a sudden, before we know it, this becomes a viable product that patients can actually use."
LACE works not only through repetitive tasks that increase motor skills, but also by blazing new neural pathways in the brain. In addition, the text content of the exercises provides further positive reinforcement. LACE comes at learning from all directions.

"Jen and I went through tons and tons of literature on learning theory to see how do people learn," Sweetow says. "And we know that you need repetition. You need to get feedback in terms of 'Am I doing this right or wrong?' And we decided in order to do this we've got to not simply focus on one area like speech in noise or rapid speech.

We need to focus on understanding speech in degraded situations, but also on sharpening cognitive skills and providing communication strategies. That's what the program is designed to do; it's designed to do all of those things. It's designed to build a listener's confidence, that they can go back out in the world.

You don't have to have perfect hearing. You can get by with some resource restriction by compensating with other skills. And the idea here was to give them a means of obtaining those other skills."

While audiologists have worked in laboratories and hospitals, audio engineers in the music world have been trying to solve some of the same problems from the opposite end. The kind of acoustic research conducted by people building loudspeakers, such as Don Pearson of Ultrasound, who worked with Kearby and the Dead, or John Meyer of Berkeley's Meyer Sound Labs, made scientists out of guys who started out hot-rodding guitar amplifiers.

"With the Dead in the early days, we spent a lot of time thinking about how do we improve intelligibility," Kearby says. "It was Pearson and John Meyer who said we do it by making everything correct in phase and correct in time. And then we could actually be less loud and get information farther back."

Sweetow wants to go a step further and train patients to understand what they don't hear as well as what they do.

"We want to give the patient the ability to extract whatever cues work for them to allow them to make this connection between what was said and what they perceived. If you perceive the 'S' sound as being a gzhzzz, but then you know that every time you hear gzhzzz, that means 'S,' well, then you start to make that association. It's all about the brain. It's not about the ears."

Keyboard Power: Using Your Computer Even if Your Mouse “Dies”

2006-02-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

www.dailyindia.com

There are various accessories that could help operating a computer easier. The mouse is just an example of an accessory which makes navigation simple with just one click. However, most of these accessories have short “lifespan” and can be considered disposable. This is when the accessories can become bothersome.

What are you to do, when in the middle of an important document, your mouse decides to “die”? Would you worry? Would you panic and run to the nearest store? What if it’s night time and the stores are closed and you are rushing up your work?

On your keyboard, immediately press CTRL + S simultaneously to save whatever it is you’re doing. That way, you don’t lose your work. This is a common and one of the most familiar tasks without using the mouse. If the mouse is not functioning and you need to do something important but you don’t have the time to repair the mouse or change it, you can actually still do your work even with just the keyboard around.

Here are some key combinations you need to navigate your way through your PC sans the mouse:

Ctrl + O – to open a file or document

Ctrl + B – to use the “Bold” feature of fonts

Ctrl + I – to italize fonts

Ctrl + U – to underline texts in a document

Ctrl + X – to cut texts, cells, or icons from files

Ctrl + W – to close existing windows

Ctrl + R – to align document to the right

Ctrl + L – to align document to the left

Ctrl + E – to align document to the center (especially in Word Documents)

Ctrl + Z – to undo last action done in a document

Ctrl + Y – to redo last action done in a document

Shift F7 – to prompt the Thesaurus tool in a document

F7 – to prompt the spelling and grammar check tool in a document

F12 – or save as, to save same document with another filename or to another drive

Windows + D - shows desktop

Alt + Tab – switches you from one window to another

F5 – refreshes your browser when it seems to have stopped moving (when you are using the Internet)

Ctrl + Esc – prompts the “Start Menu” when you are using the old 101-key keyboard without

the Windows keys on it.

F6 – enables you to change the URL on the address field when you are using the Internet.

Shift + Tab – when you need to go back to a previous cell (in a spreadsheet) or entry in a form

(in the Internet)

Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert – to paste copied text to another document

Windows + F – when you need to find and open a file recently saved

Windows + Pause/Break – to directly open and view your system properties without going

through the control panel windows

Windows + E – to directly open and view Windows Explorer without going though the Start

Menu

Alt + F4 – to prompt shut down menu

When you get used to using these shortcuts, you will certainly be able to finish the task you are doing even without the mouse. And this ability will make you look like a computer whiz.

The writer, Ismael D. Tabije, runs the website, http://www.bestlaptopnotebookdeal.com, where one can buy cheap laptop and notebook computers of top brands like Acer, Apple, Compaq, Dell, HP, IBM, Sony and Toshiba. The site also offers tips on buying laptops, ink cartridges, computer rentals, choosing PDAs, and care of your laptop batteries.

EYE ON WEB USE

2006-02-15T13:24:00.000-08:00

Workplace cyberslackers cause concern for employers?

www.montereyherald.com

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - E-mailing, Web surfing and online journaling have advanced the workplace in countless ways. They've also created a new breed of employee: the cyberslacker.
When boredom, procrastination or pressing personal business strike at work, the cyberslacker goes online to shop, play games, pay bills, view pornography, download music, communicate with friends, maybe even look for another job.

"I've seen problems at all levels, from entry-level employees to presidents," said N.E. Sam Sargent, president of Human Resource Asset Management Systems Ltd., a local human-resource consulting firm.

Eighty to 85 percent of employees who use computers to do their jobs also regularly use them for personal tasks or fun -- as much as 3.7 hours per week, according to the National Technology Readiness Survey by the University of Maryland. Another study by BIGresearch, an Ohio-based market analyst, found that 37 percent of last year's holiday shoppers said they would use Internet access at work to browse or buy gifts online.

Problems arise when personal activity on the work computer affects employee productivity.

Websense Inc., a San Diego-based seller of Internet-filtering software, estimates that Internet misuse in the workplace costs American companies more than $178 billion annually in lost productivity. That translates to more than $5,000 per employee each year.

"People want to reach out and connect, and they'll do it however they can," Sargent said. "We used to worry about hanging around the water cooler taking too much time."

Employers also are concerned about employees inadvertently breaching corporate security or privacy through personal computer usage.

Web sites and pop-up ads may have spyware that can infiltrate a company's computer network, with corporate espionage in mind. Spam, or unsolicited e-mails, can carry computer viruses or worms that also paralyze networks.

As a result, many employers establish computer-usage policies that range from strict to lenient.

"Policies are good if they're fair and enforceable," said Sargent, who founded the Colorado Springs Society for Human Resource Management. "Many are driven by privacy and security issues for the company. They want to protect their intellectual property."

"It is a big problem," says Jacqueline McManus, an employment and labor law specialist with Fenton & Keller in Monterey, "especially when what they're doing on the Internet is viewing pornography, which is a lot more common than we'd like to believe."

Nearly all of her clients have computer use policies, she said, and it's the rare employer these days that hasn't done some tracking or spot checking.

It's a two-pronged issue, and those prongs -- the issues of productivity and sexual harassment -- can be pretty sharp.

She knows of several cases where employees have sued their employers for exposure of what they seen, generally not by choice, on someone else's computer, and she's handled such cases firsthand.

"It's something we deal with at least every week, if not every day."

While some employers are a bit more lenient on personal e-mails than others, the trend is for stricter controls on personal Web use.

The bottom line, says McManus, is that clear policies are vital these days.

"It warns the employee that their computer use at work is not private, and they're going to access it."

PC People co-owner Richard Allen, whose Monterey company has been serving individual computers and company networks since 1987, calls it a "well acknowledged fact" that employees use those office computers for stuff other than work.

Business owners don't often bring it Internet access as an issue, says Allen, but that's not to say bosses don't care about it.

Allen, whose clients range from "onesies and twosies," as he calls them, to companies with hundreds of users, said it varies by client.

"Some places totally restrict access, some do logging to see where people have been," said Allen. "That in itself is pretty intimidating" for employees.

The downside for those clients, he said, is that there tends to be more administrative work and more maintenance involved.

He thinks most employers would rather hold their workers accountable for productivity rather than for each keystroke they make.

"Some of the employers are reluctant to play that role, to be the bad guy," says Allen, "but it's getting to a point that it's becoming more of a concern."

And the worst abusers often give themselves away, since the more surfing one does, the more vulnerable they can be to snarling their desktop with viruses and worms.

Companies usually consider computer misuse as grounds for termination.

Half of nearly 300 employers responding to a recent Society for Human Resources Management survey said they've fired or disciplined employees for Internet use unrelated to job duties.

To ensure proper usage and have documented proof of employee actions, many companies monitor computer activity with applications and devices that flag suspicious e-mails, chat-room conversations and Internet browsing. Some filtering software prevents employees from accessing certain Web sites, such as those deemed pornographic.

Some employers disclose the extent of such policing and others do not.

Whether they rely on monitoring programs or their own staff, most companies keep tabs on what their employees are up to.

A 2001 American Management Association survey found that 36 percent of employers review files on work computers, 47 percent read e-mails and 63 percent check Internet connections.

Scientists in California work on ultra-thin cells that could make solar power cheaper

2006-02-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

www.newenergyreport.org

Highlight:Experts have been saying for a while now that the rising prices of fossil fuels are increasing the demand for alternative energy sources, so researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are working on a very thin but durable solar cell that will generate more energy than traditional solar panels, but at a reduced cost.
Original source:http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-12-27-voa47.cfm

Summary:

- Scientists in California are working on a new solar power cell they hope will provide energy at a lower cost than conventional solar panels.

- Scientists in California have developed an ultra-thin, solar cell.

- The manufacturing process is currently long and complicated.

- But with the tremendous growth of solar power in the United States, it will probably be worth the effort.

- In 2004 half a million dollars worth of solar cells and modules were shipped every week inside the United States.

- And with the prices of fossil fuels on the rise, demand for alternative energy sources is likely to increase.

- So researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are trying to make a very thin but durable solar cell that will have more applications and generate more energy than the bulky solar panels now in use.

- Ilan Gur Scientist Ilan Gur Ilan Gur is one of the scientists involved.

- "The thickness of the film of nanocrystals is really important because that is our active layer, that is our active material in the solar cell.

- And obviously we are making a solar cell, we need to absorb all of the sunlight."

- The result: something similar to material used in computer chips in DVDs and CD players.

- The resulting solar cell is then tested to see how well it would work if it were on a rooftop.

- Paul Alivisatos Paul Alivisatos Paul Alivisatos is a scientist and professor of chemistry involved with the project.

- He says the cells are manufactured similarly to photographic film, which could be a great advantage.

- He says if every roof in the country was covered with solar cells, sunlight could supply three-quarters of the electricity needed in the U.S.

- See more articles and news on solar cellTrack news on solar power at SolarFactor.com.Track news on solar panels at SolarFactor.com.

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Gates calls for better computer security

2006-02-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

www.sanjose.bizjournals.com

Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates called Tuesday for the creation of a trustworthy environment to enable the development of the digital lifestyle and predicted that new technologies soon will replace the lowly password.

Speaking Tuesday in San Jose to the world's largest gathering of computer security experts and engineers, Gates said, "We need to make sure that security is not the thing that holds us back."
Gates, the chairman and chief software architect at Redmond, Wash.,-based Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), said that to be effective security "has to be designed so that you don't have to pay a lot of attention to it."

There was irony in Gates' call for greater security. The design of Microsoft software has often been blamed for enabling many of the computer attacks that have shaken confidence in online activities. But Gates went even further, saying that every piece of software should be engineered for security.

"We need to be thinking of these things from the beginning," he said, adding, "This has been a big shift for Microsoft."

Gates said that what he calls "the Trust Ecosystem has to have a very rich design," meaning that every corner of the computer and the Web should have safety and security woven through and through.

Microsoft is pushing the Identity Metasystem, an industrywide approach to identity verification that uses a series of questions instead of a traditional password to allow a computer user to make sensitive transactions on the Web. Among the innovations announced by Microsoft today was a virtual InfoCard, a feature of Microsoft Windows operating system, that matches the sensitivity of a transaction with the amount or type of information needed to verify the identity of the user.

Microsoft is trying to drum up interest among companies that do business on the Web and to make the Metasystem widely accepted.

"If we all work together to reduce identity fraud, it will be very beneficial to all, Richard Turner, program Manager for Web Services Strategy, said in an interview.

Gates also predicted that electronic Smart Cards will replace the use of passwords over the next three to four years.

In a reference to the recent hunting accident in which U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot and wounded a member of the hunting party, Gates said he was very glad to be in San Jose. "My other invitation was to go quail hunting with Dick Cheney."

Multiple iPods and computers

2006-02-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

www.macworld.com

Apple has made it pretty easy to sync an iPod with a computer, but what happens when things get a bit more complicated? You may have an entire family fighting to synchronize several iPods with one Mac. Or you may need to share sync duties between your home Mac and a Windows PC at work. If you have more music players or more computers than you know how to deal with, the following tips and tools can help.

Multiple iPods on the same Mac

Apple includes a unique identifier in each iPod, so iTunes can easily differentiate between multiple iPods and manage settings for all of them. When you use multiple iPods with one computer, assigning each a unique name will help avoid confusion. If you need to change an iPod’s name, double-click on that name in the Source menu and enter a new one.

With multiple iPods, iTunes can load each player with the same collection or sync each device with its own customized playlist(s). By default, iTunes is set to Automatically Update All Songs And Playlists.

If you want manual control, or if you’re connecting an iPod that’s synced with one computer to another system and don’t want to overwrite all the music on it, you’ll want to switch to manual mode. Connect the iPod, click on the No button if iTunes asks whether you want to link that iPod to the new library (you’ll be asked only if the iPod has been previously linked to another computer), click on the iPod icon near the bottom right-hand corner of the iTunes window, and select Manually Manage Songs And Playlists in the resulting window (see “Let Me Decide”).

Since each person sharing the computer may prefer to maintain unique iTunes settings, you can set up multiple OS X user accounts, each with its own iTunes library and settings. A downside of this approach is that, by default, iTunes stores its music in each user’s Home folder, which means that duplicate copies of shared songs will be maintained for each person.

To avoid having duplicate files, consider setting iTunes to store its Music folder in a location that each user can access, such as a FireWire drive, a network drive, or a part of a local hard drive accessible to all users. To relocate the folder, find its current location by looking at the General tab of iTunes’ Advanced preference pane.

Quit iTunes and move (or copy) the iTunes Music folder you just found to a new location. Relaunch iTunes, and specify your folder’s new location by clicking on the Change button and pointing iTunes to the folder (also under the General tab of iTunes’ Advanced pane). Repeat this process for other user accounts on the same computer, and you’re set.

If you don’t have multiple OS X user accounts, another solution is Doug Adams’s $5 iTunes Library Manager 4.2.5, which lets you create multiple iTunes library and preference configurations without duplicating files. Once this AppleScript applet is installed, you run it by choosing it from the Scripts menu in iTunes’ menu bar. The first time you launch the applet, it will prompt you to save the current library. You then create as many configurations as you need, and you can load each one as necessary. A similar program, Steve Roy’s $10 Libra 2.0.4, also works with Windows.

Multiple computers

When connecting an iPod to more than one computer, you may want to have all the same music and associated ratings available on each system. There are several ways to do this.

Networked Computers Synchronizing iTunes manually between computers can be a laborious task. Oligrob Software’s free syncOtunes 0.95 () can ease this chore. It’s designed to sync libraries and settings, provided that the computers involved can communicate directly over a network.

After installing syncOtunes, select your local iTunes Music Library.xml file, and then select the same file on the remote computer across the network. Click on the Compare Libraries button to display the number of songs needing synchronization and to select which songs and artists to copy (see “It’s All the Same”).

Clicking on the Copy Music Files button will then copy the appropriate files into the iTunes Music folder on each computer, which may take quite a while depending on the speed of your network. Once the files have been copied, click on the Import Into iTunes button to open iTunes on the local computer and begin the import process. Then you’ll need to run the import manually in iTunes on the remote computer.

Non-Networked Computers For syncing

between distant computers—say, a home system and an office computer behind a firewall—using an iPod for transporting files can be more convenient. Because iTunes is set by default to autosync with iPods, be sure to switch to manual mode to avoid losing files.

To prevent the pirating of copyrighted files, Apple designed the iTunes synchronization process to work only in one direction—moving files from a computer to an iPod. While Apple doesn’t let you move files off of the iPod the same way you put them on, there are easy ways to do so. Whitney Young’s free Senuti 0.31 () lets you copy single songs, songs grouped by artist or album, or entire playlists from an iPod into iTunes.

One downside of Senuti is its lack of support for copying metadata such as ratings and play counts. Fortunately, many additional synchronization utilities are available to fill the gap. Two that stand out from the crowd are Sci-Fi Hi-Fi’s $8 PodWorks 2.8.5 and crispSofties’ $35 iPod.iTunes 3.0.3. Both programs can transfer metadata along with songs and playlists, but iPod.iTunes has the added feature of avoiding duplicate files by checking for files already in iTunes before synchronization.

Another option is a new service called MP3tunes, which provides syncing tools and unlimited online storage space for all your music files for $40 a year. Remember that you can authorize only five computers at once to play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

Syncing across Platforms Syncing iPods between different operating systems can be more complex. Officially, Apple doesn’t support using a Mac-formatted iPod on a Windows PC. However, cross-platform syncing is possible.

Windows-formatted iPods make for the easiest cross-platform syncing: Macs are natively capable of accessing the FAT32 standard used on Windows iPods, so a Windows-formatted iPod will appear in iTunes on a Mac and can be accessed seamlessly (though transfer speed is likely to be slower than it would be with a Mac-formatted iPod).

Windows does not natively support Mac-formatted iPods, so syncing a Mac-formatted iPod to a Windows PC requires a third-party utility such as Mediafour’s $30 XPlay 2.2. In addition to its own Windows-to-iPod syncing capabilities, XPlay 2.2 can be used in conjunction with iTunes. The program also lets you move files from an iPod to a PC.

Using the restore feature provided by Apple’s iPod Updater, you can convert an iPod from Mac to Windows and vice versa. But all data is erased from the device during the restore process, so use one of the methods mentioned earlier to back up any data unique to the iPod before you attempt a conversion.

With a little patience and the right settings and tools, even the most complicated group of iPods, Macs, and Windows PCs can make beautiful music together.

IBM hones its blade line with speedy servers

2006-02-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

www.financialexpress.com

Four years ago, as legend has it, an IBM engineering team loaded its product prototype into a pickup truck and took off on a road trip to the company’s headquarters in New York.
The goal was to get executives in Armonk excited about their idea and what it could do for the technology industry.

Turns out they had a winner. Today, IBM's blade computer products generate $1 billion in annual sales. The Research Triangle Park, N.C., staff devoted to them has expanded from fewer than 100 to more than 1,000 people working in engineering, marketing, finance and manufacturing.

“It's great proof of IBM's innovation,” said Doug Balog, vice-president and head of IBM's BladeCenter division. Other research teams work on the BladeCenter in New York, on the West Coast and around the world.

Blade computer servers are modular, allowing companies to add or subtract capacity. The blades are thin computers that slide into a high-tech frame much like books on a bookshelf. The system is flexible, compact and simple to manage, he said.

“A computer room that used to have racks and racks of computers can collapse all that into a much smaller space and save money when running their systems,” Balog said.

Last week, after two years of work by teams in RTP and elsewhere, the company announced its third line of BladeCenter products. The new frame, BladeCenter H, works up to 10 times faster than any previous blade server system. It's designed for customers such as Wall Street analysts and digital movie animators, who need access to lots of data at once.

The BladeCenter H frame will start at $3,849 when it hits the market in March. Two new blade computer models will start at $1,749 and $2,499.

Servers can often be a bottleneck in a computer network, so faster is better, Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said.

“There's no amount of speed they could have that wouldn't be useful,” Kay said.

And it looks as if IBM plans to continue the trend. Last week, the company announced that it expects to release the fastest processor ever for servers in 2007.

The high density of computers in a blade server means it consumes a lot of electricity and produces a lot of heat, Kay said. In addition to a new power-conserving blade model, IBM says the BladeCenter H frame lets customers manage power requirements and keep the servers cool.
When IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo Group last spring, the company made it clear that it would be focusing on its other strengths. Blade servers are one of them, Kay said.

Shortly after entering the market in 2002, IBM took over as No. 1, and now holds a 42% market share, Balog said. Hewlett-Packard is second with 32%, and Dell is a distant third with less than 10%. The market, predicted to exceed $3 billion this year, could hit $10 billion in a few years, he said.

IBM is trying to increase market penetration by collaborating with partners and customers to understand what they need, Balog said. In addition to sharing ideas, partners such as telecommunications gear-maker Nortel Networks are helping market BladeCenters and related products in their industries.

The Armonk road-trip story has become company lore, but there's an element of truth to it, Balog said. The Triangle team was ‘pretty jazzed’ about the BladeCenter introduction, Balog said, and he wouldn't be surprised if they're already back at work today figuring out the next improvement.

“The division in RTP is really the heart and soul of this announcement in terms of the creative energy,” Balog said. “There are a lot of people who spend their waking energy focusing on IBM's continued success in this market.”

PlayStation chip shows serious side

2006-02-13T13:30:00.000-08:00

www.theage.com.au

An IBM microchip widely known as the heart of a video-game system is finding a home in a new line of computers intended to handle complex graphics and number-crunching.

Server computers coming this year with the "Cell" chip can be used for applications ranging from video entertainment and architectural design to military mapping and 3-D medical imagery.

"Think of using a joystick and flying through the body and looking for parasites, cancers, tumours," says Jeff Benck, vice-president of development for IBM's BladeCenter server products. "That's the kind of new application this thing is going to unlock."

Sony and Toshiba co-designed the Cell chip, which is to run the upcoming Sony PlayStation 3 video-game system and high-definition televisions from both companies.

Mr Benck says the chip was not designed just for gaming, and that it is a natural evolution to start with gaming to increase the volume of chips and lower the cost.

For IBM's first Cell product, the chips are slated to appear in this year's third quarter in "blade" servers, thin computer systems that work in groups and are pulled in and out of a chassis like books on a shelf.

The Cell-based servers would perform a variety of tasks. Mercury Computer Systems is using Cell technology in applications including radar, sonar, telecommunications and seismic sensors.

IBM touts Cell as a "supercomputer on a chip", with 10 times as much computing power as traditional chips in handling some applications.

Computer and Internet Technology Energy Solutions

2006-02-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

www.software.newsforge.com

Anonymous Reader writes "Use computer technology such as the Internet, VPNs, USB-keys, sneaker-netting, live CDs, and so forth to help to reduce dependency on oil and to reduce air pollution. MozillaQuest Magazine reports: "Today, in 'Part 2' of this 'Solutions for the Energy Crises' . . . article, we look at telecommuting as an alternative to burning gas and diesel fuel.

We also look at some of the computer tools that help people to do these things . . . If one's work is done on a computer, that person is a perfect candidate for working from home -- telecommuting" Telecommuting offers at least two contributions to solving the energy crises. It keeps commuters off the road and thus directly reduces oil-based fuels consumption and demand. Additionally, telecommuting also takes traffic off the roadways during the rush hour traffic jams and bottlenecks, thus reducing the severity of the traffic jams.

That reduces waste and therefore reduces consumption and demand of oil-based fuels wasted in slow moving and stalled traffic.

The technology for telecommuting is here now. And it is getting better all the time. Businesses, industries, organizations, institutions, and government offices can and should start implementing telecommuting programs now.

Many already are implementing telecommuting programs now. But there is much room to expand telecommuting programs.

This article is a must read for anyone interested in solving the gas, oil, and energy crises.

Investigate state's computer snafus

2006-02-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

www.madison.com

Before Wisconsin spent $35.6 million to upgrade the Department of Motor Vehicles' computerized registration and titling system, it took motorists up to four weeks to get license plates and vehicle titles.

Now, after the costly upgrade, the wait time is -- 12 weeks.

If you're seeing red over spending $35.6 million of taxpayers' money on a project that made things worse, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.

All over state government at the Department of Revenue, UW, Department of Corrections and Elections Board efforts to install new computerized systems and upgrade existing ones have gone awry at taxpayers' expense.

Thankfully, lawmakers are paying attention. Leaders of the Legislature's Joint Audit Committee, Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, and Rep. Suzanne Jeskewitz, R-Menomonee Falls, along with Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, plan to request an audit to find out what's going wrong.

Their effort deserves all lawmakers' support.

Anyone who has come in contact with computers learns to cringe at words like "upgrade" and "new installation." Something always goes wrong. The difference in the state's situation is that the projects involve many millions of dollars, and things are going wrong repeatedly in ways that cost residents, businesses and other government units time and money.

We need to know who is screwing up and why. Then we need to make corrections so that it stops happening. A legislative review should ask:

• Is there a common theme to the snafus?

• Has the state been contracting with incompetent businesses to do the computer projects?

• Were the state's project goals realistic?

• Did the state fail to provide the contractors with the support and resources they need or were the state's preparations for computer changes inadequate?

• Does the state have the expertise to direct and oversee the contractors?

• Were the state's contracts for the work faulty?

Currently, it is difficult to pinpoint a villain. The state agencies involved are as frustrated as anyone and are forthrightly apologizing. In at least one case the contractor is attempting to fix the problems for free.

But that does not excuse the delays and errors. Take the Revenue Department's system for calculating the share of sales and use tax collections owed to counties and special districts.
The 4-year-old, $37-million system still can't get its job right. It underpaid 33 counties a total of $1.8 million and overpaid 25 counties and two professional sports districts by $2.8 million.

Those kinds of mistakes are simply intolerable. Lawmakers should proceed full speed ahead with an investigation.

Computer downtime rising up to work on world's problems

2006-02-10T14:35:00.000-08:00

www.tmcnet.com

(San Antonio Express-News (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)

People donating their spare computing power to the World Community Grid are helping to find solutions to some of the world's most vexing problems, such as discovering new drugs to combat AIDS.

More than a quarter of a million PCs worldwide have joined the nonprofit network, letting researchers crunch data faster and more cheaply."The World Community Grid takes research projects that were unimaginable by researchers before and makes them possible," said Viktors Berstis, 57, a master inventor at IBM who has led development of the philanthropic project, which his company sponsors.

The grid encourages people, businesses and other organizations around the world with PCs to download software enabling them to donate computer downtime to researchers to solve problems that require supercomputing power.

Organizations partnering with the World Community Grid in donating their idle computing time include Coastal Federal Credit Union, based in Raleigh, N.C., the United Way, the Semiconductor Industry Association and the University of Kentucky.Grid computing involves linking large numbers of computers together to harness their collective power to solve complex problems.

Most grid projects focus on drug development, but other industries ranging from financial services to manufacturing have begun using grid computing in their businesses, according to United Devices, an Austin-based company that created the software behind the project.The first World Community Grid project, the Human Proteome Folding Project, was launched in November 2004. Researchers created a database that describes the structure of about 120,000 protein domains, spanning 90 complete genomes, that could not be described using traditional approaches.

The database could ultimately help scientists find cures to diseases such as cancer and malaria."If the World Community Grid didn't exist, I would probably be doing this for E. coli and tuberculosis and just a few other pathogens," said Richard Bonneau, assistant professor of biology and computer science at New York University and the principal investigator on the Human Proteome Folding Project.

Bonneau and researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology, where the project took place, estimate that it would have taken 100 years to crunch the data to outline the protein structures using only the supercomputers at its center."What the grid has allowed me to do is make this more widely accessible," Bonneau said.

"In the end, the World Community Grid will have enabled the adoption of a new technology by the biomedical community that is important. If I didn't have the grid, I would have to buy as large a computer as I or my institution could afford." A supercomputer can cost tens of millions of dollars initially and half a million dollars a year or more to operate, Bonneau said.

Instead of spending money on computing power, the researchers are able to spend money on advancing the science and solving complex problems, he said.The latest World Community Grid project is focused on developing better treatments for those infected with HIV in the face of its evolving drug resistance.

It's called the FightAIDS@Home project. The Olson Laboratory project at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., is heading the study.The project lets researchers run millions of computations to test chemical compounds against proteins found in HIV to find what compounds prevent it from reproducing, said Dr. William Lindstrom, research associate in professor Art Olson's laboratory at the Scripps institute."The World Community Grid has allowed us to ask questions we really wouldn't have been able to ask without it," Lindstrom said.

The donation of computer time also means a lot to researchers, he said.

"For us, it's really nice to feel like people are participating in our research." Future projects could focus on climate change, pandemic outbreaks, natural disaster predictions and more.

The system can tackle all kinds of things impossible today for researchers who don't have access to supercomputing systems, said IBM's Berstis.As of last week, more than 263,000 PCs in 157 countries are running the World Community Grid. That computation power makes the grid one of the top five supercomputers in the world, Berstis said.

Berstis, who has been with IBM for 28 years, has received 105 patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and has 100 more pending. Last year he received 15 patents, and he has several patents and patents pending on grid computing.

"You often are annoyed by something," Berstis said. "You have an annoyance. You think of it as an opportunity. Once in a while something pops up in the back of your head as a solution.

" Berstis started inventing at age 4, when he made crystal radios. He said he has been making electronic "doodads" and studying chemistry, physics and math for years."You never know where the latest idea might come from," he said. "You think about the ridiculous and then fix all the problems. You sort of get an idea about what makes sense.

" The World Community Grid made sense to Berstis."Grid computing is bringing a new level of computing power to bear," he said.

MSU professors to design computer safety curriculum with research grant from Microsoft

2006-02-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

(www.newsroom.msu.edu).- EAST LANSING, Mich. – Think MP3 downloads, online shopping and online communities – today’s teens know all about these Internet possibilities. But do they know how to protect themselves from everyday online threats such as identity theft, spyware, scams and fraud?

Through a new research grant, Michigan State University researchers from several departments in the College of Communication Arts & Sciences and the College of Engineering are on a mission to make teens – and the Internet – safer.

Microsoft Research has provided a $50,000 grant to study local high schoolers’ computer safety and to create and evaluate curriculum to improve online safety for teens and first-year college students.

Professors Nora Rifon, an expert in the area of human behavior and decision-making in the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing, and Robert LaRose, an expert in the social effects of the Internet from the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, are the lead investigators of the project.

Rifon credits her relationship with the state of Michigan, particularly the Attorney General's Office, for bringing the idea to fruition. She has worked with the Attorney General's Office since 2000. In addition to working on informational security and privacy issues, Rifon has served as an expert witness for the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division.

“My work with the state showed a need for more information and policy on online privacy. Computer safety is a serious issue today and tomorrow. Today’s teens are tomorrow’s adults and we need to understand how they use and perceive online environments to help protect themselves now and as adults. A well-developed high school curriculum is the first step to help our youth protect themselves,” Rifon said.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox says this work is extremely valuable.

"My ID theft team, like professor Rifon and Marty Pohl at Holt High School, recognized that teens are particularly vulnerable to losing control of their personal information as they prepare to graduate and leave their families to live on their own," Cox said.

"Requests for personal information will bombard every young adult, so it's essential that they know how they can reduce the risk of having their information misused. It is very important for young adults to both learn and adopt safe information practices."

Working directly with the Holt School District and freshmen classes at Michigan State University, the project will involve finding out what young people think about their risks and abilities to protect themselves online. MSU researchers will examine factors that help determine their knowledge, confidence and behaviors related to computer safety.

Rifon and co-principal investigator LaRose will use their i-safety model to create online courseware based on the information they gather and offer prototypes to use in Holt computer classes and on MSU’s campus.

Their model was developed and tested with funding from a grant from the National Science Foundation and the curriculum is a direct extension of that work. Richard Enbody of the College of Engineering will develop interactive software that will make it possible to tailor the online lessons to individual students based on their safety needs and abilities.

The researchers will study the impacts of the prototype being used in the classroom.

“The prototype will directly affect one local school district, but the curriculum will soon be available to all districts interested in computer safety,” Rifon said.

LaRose stresses that the project fits into a long-term goal for the college.

“The MSU component will be our contribution to a growing national movement to improve the information and communication technology literacy of college students,” LaRose said.

The proposal was subjected to a rigorous peer-review process by Microsoft security experts and was one of 15 selected from 114 submissions for funding in the Microsoft Research External Research & Programs, Trustworthy Computing Curriculum 2006 Request for Proposals.

“Microsoft is committed to investing in innovative research throughout the academic community to advance the state-of-the-art in computing,” said John Spencer, Microsoft program manager.

“Our goal in funding projects such as the computer safety course at Michigan State University is to continue to drive innovation and to create a safer computing environment for everyone,” he said.

Computer to help hospitals in emergencies

2006-02-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

(www.upi.com).- ITHACA, N.Y.- Cornell University is joining the Lockheed Martin Corp. in developing a computerized system for hospitals to plan and deal with mass casualty events.

Weill Cornell Medical College and Lockheed Martin will develop the system to assist the nation's hospitals in handling mass casualties from disasters such as hurricanes, pandemics and bioterrorism. The system will be able to create disaster simulations for testing purposes and act as a decision-making support system in a real disaster.

The system, for which Lockheed is providing the research funding, will be an extension of a prototype developed at Cornell. It will combine Cornell's computer models with command-and-control systems Lockheed developed for medical services in the military. Other technology companies will be invited to work on the project.

"In light of the 9-11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the persistent threat of terrorism, we believe there is an urgent need to develop logistics solutions for planning and response in the face of mass casualty events," said Jack Muckstadt, professor of operations research and industrial engineering.

The goal is to create a distributed communications system that would coordinate the work of emergency responders, hospital managers and local and regional officials.

Computer Aided Technology, Inc. Earns Top SolidWorks North American Subscription Service Award

2006-02-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

(www10.mcadcafe.com).- Buffalo Grove - Computer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI) received the Top SolidWorks Subscription Award for Resellers in North America at the SolidWorks World International User Conference and Exposition held in Las Vegas, NV.

A top reseller of SolidWorks ® software, CATI supports customers in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Upper Michigan and Wisconsin. SolidWorks Corporation also recognized CATI as a Charter Reseller of SolidWorks software, the company being one of a small group of resellers that joined the network before the first production release of SolidWorks.

CATI strives to continuously improve its services to the community by offering online customer support, technical webcasts and informative events on an ongoing basis."CATI has always worked closely with its customers and the technical staff is committed to making sure engineers and designers get the most out of their investment in SolidWorks," commented Richard Werneth, president, CATI.

“Recent improvements, such as our online customer support and expanded facility in Buffalo Grove, reflect CATI’s dedication to the SolidWorks community. As one of the original resellers of SolidWorks software, we look forward to a continued partnership that will provide engineers with the most powerful technology solutions available.”

“CATI was one of the first resellers in the world to partner with SolidWorks Corporation,” said Bertrand Sicot, vice president North American sales, SolidWorks Corporation. “From the beginning, CATI’s focus was to deliver the highest level of customer support and continued innovation to SolidWorks users – that mission continues in their work today.

When SolidWorks Corporation was founded, one of its key goals was to build a first-class reseller channel and CATI represents one of the best within that community.” About CATIComputer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI), headquartered in Buffalo Grove, IL, provides the Midwest with six full-service facilities, supporting Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. CATI creates competitive advantage for manufacturing clients by leveraging an industry-experienced team and leading technology solutions.

CATI is the Nation’s original SolidWorks Reseller and a Top Reseller of SolidWorks in the Midwest. CATI is dedicated to providing comprehensive solutions to engineering, manufacturing, and educational sectors and offers a full suite of SolidWorks Solution Partner technologies including CAD, CAE, CAID, CAM, ECAD, and PDM solutions.

For the latest news from CATI, visit the company’s website at www.cati.com or contact a representative at 888-308-2284. About SolidWorks CorporationSolidWorks Corporation, a Dassault Systèmes S.A. (Nasdaq: DASTY, Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) company, develops and markets software for design, analysis, and product data management.

It is the leading supplier of CAD software, helping hundreds of thousands of users speed next-generation products to market around the world.

With SolidWorks software, designers excel at their jobs and make their companies more successful by bringing designs to life. For the latest news, information, or an online demonstration, visit the company's Web site ( www.solidworks.com )

3 February virus: Are we ready for it?

2006-01-31T15:20:00.000-08:00

We're less concerned about it being a digital doomsday. Businesses are certainly protected from this. But I have no doubt some home users will be affected.

(software.silicon.com) .-Antivirus companies are at odds over the severity of a time-bomb virus which is set to go off on 3 February. The so-called Nyxem virus has so far infected 300,000 computers around the world, most of which are outside the UK.

Mikko Hypponen, head of antivirus research for F-Secure, said: "It's going to be a pretty big problem in Turkey, Peru and Italy but not much of a problem in the UK. There are hundreds of thousands of computers that have been affected.

"There've been 15,000 infected in the US – out of the whole computer base that's not so bad. The computers that are going to be hit will be hit badly and will lose lots of important files."

The virus, which is also nicknamed Nyxem, BlackMal and Mywife, is expected to destroy a number of work and security files on infected computers on the third day of every month.

Antivirus firm Sophos said it had seen the worm spread reasonably widely; at the time of writing it accounted for 10 per cent of virus reports.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for antivirus firm Sophos, said: "We're less concerned about it being a digital doomsday. Businesses are certainly protected from this. But I have no doubt some home users will be affected."

The worm travels as a Windows dot-exe attachment and copies itself to shared network resources on the victim's machine.

But Eugene Kaspersky, head of research and development at Kaspersky Labs, said the virus could cause havoc.
He said: "Significant numbers of computers are infected with Nyxem.E. February 3 could turn out to be a very difficult day with unprotected users losing data and the internet community at large suffering from heavy traffic."

Parents now can be supersnoopers

2006-01-31T15:13:00.000-08:00

(www.southbendtribune.com).- PHILADELPHIA -- Do you know where your child is -- down to the exact block?Is she driving? How fast? Is he really at the library, or at an unchaperoned party across town?Anxious parents are resorting to increasingly sophisticated technology to keep a virtual eye on the kids 24/7. But some experts wonder whether constant monitoring, sometimes without the child's knowledge, represents necessary vigilance, or the oppressive rule of Big Mother or Father.

Global-positioning system (GPS) satellite technology, now in cell phones as well as cars, is the latest advance for parental snooping -- pinpointing, 007-style, the exact location of users.

Its killer application, says Phil Magney, an analyst with Telematics Research Group, is to monitor teen driving. The technology is equally effective in tailing kids after they get out of their cars.Dozens of businesses already market the service to parents, and "we'll see many, many more in the next year," he predicts.Deb Cervin, 44, of Rockwell, N.C., secretly installed a tracking device on her daughter's car.

"When I was a teenager, I wouldn't have liked it," she concedes. "Now, the dangers are different. Sometimes Mom's got to be sneaky."Other new parental spyware includes security systems that send e-mail alerts when a child enters or leaves the house, and home video cameras that relay live images to parents' computers at work."I think we're keeping track of children too much," said sociologist Frank Furedi, author of "Paranoid Parenting," who believes that unchecked anxiety leads to extreme measures that erode privacy and trust. Parents become obsessed, Furedi said: "When you see the slightest problems, you become worried about them.

These technologies inflate your fears rather than lessen them."Peggy Stein of Felton, Del., is willing to take the heat.When daughter Kelly, now a freshman at Drexel University in Philadelphia, began to drive two years ago, her mother quietly installed SignalTrac, a dashboard GPS system, in the girl's Mitsubishi Galant. From her home computer, Stein, 43, can follow a real-time map of Kelly's comings and goings (or rather, the Mitsubishi's comings and goings) and rate of travel.

"It's like having a parent in the passenger seat," said Stein, who describes herself as a "worrywart." "It's not like reading the diary of your child's private thoughts."At first, she was "a little shocked," said Kelly, 19.

"It would freak out anybody, knowing you're being tracked." Now she views the system as "backup protection," a way for someone to know whether she arrived at her destination safely.

Stein sees parents as a growing market for GPS. She is half of a two-mother team that heads SignalTrac, part of the fleet-tracking company GPS North America in Langhorne, Pa.SignalTrac -- the unit costs about $500, plus $34.99 a month -- has seen its customer base triple each of the last three years to about 1,000 parents, said Todd Lewis, the company's technology officer.The system provides a location history and sends alerts -- a message to a cell phone, for example -- if the car exceeds a predetermined speed or breaches a set geographic boundary.

Lewis recommends that parents tell the kids when they've installed SignalTrac. (Besides, the system works better with an antenna mounted on the rear windshield, something that would be hard to hide.)Cervin says she'll dismantle SignalTrac when her daughter turns 18. "I'm not a total control freak," Cervin said.

"I'd like to keep it on, but I'm not going to go that far." Mothers and fathers have always conducted reconnaissance on their children, starting with the decidedly low-tech method of checking the odometer reading before the engine cools.

Modern parents access cell-phone histories and use Internet tracking software.GPS chips and electronic eavesdropping gadgets previously associated with private eyes take it to a new level, however.

Although experts can cite no law against a parent's "spying" on a minor child by using GPS, the practice can corrode the bond between parent and child, therapists warn."These technological shortcuts, in the long run, are going to backfire.

The kids are going to resent them," Exton psychologist Jeffrey Bernstein said.Even if you tell the child he's being monitored, a parent is "asking for trouble," he said. "The best thing is to have talks, build trust, catch them doing things right."In the meantime, products designed for parental "peace of mind" proliferate. Wherify Wireless, in California, plans to introduce the Wherifone cell phone early next year.

Aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds, it consists of five programmable keys -- to avoid massive bills -- and GPS for easy tracking.And the Teen Arrive Alive service, which offers tracking through Nextel cell phones for about $20 a month, anticipates a surge in business when federal Enhanced 911 rules take full effect at year's end. Under the requirements, more networks will be adding GPS location-tracking capability to their cell phones.

"These aren't Ozzie and Harriet days," said Jack Church, a vice president at the Bradenton, Fla., company that launched Teen Arrive Alive last year. "There are so many dangers out there."As long as the phone is on and not in use (good luck with that one), a parent will know whether the child is "driving to a ball game, riding in a friend's car, or hanging out at the mall," the service's Web site promises.

Then there's EZFind Technologies in West Chester, Pa., which plans to add GPS to the low-tech locator tags it now sells for wallets and laptops. Place one on a child's jacket, then track. In Motorola's "latchkey security" system, home surveillance cameras tied to a computer can relay still images to a cell or work computer, issue a text-message alert when a door opens, and store a history of images for the subscriber to review later.

Peter Kleiner, 44, is part of a test group for the year-old Homesight system, which starts at $299."I go by 'knowledge is power,' " said Kleiner, general manager at WYSP-FM (94.1) and a single parent to Jake, 13, and Ben, 11, who occasionally arrive home before he does. Cameras in the garage, kitchen, basement and upstairs computer room record the day's happenings, and Kleiner looks them over when he gets home."This gives me a little check and balance to make sure they stay honest with me," he said.What do the boys think of the setup? "It's pretty cool," Jake said, "unless you're watching me."

Sony Computer Entertainment buys Zipper Interactive

2006-01-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

Sony Computer Entertainment said it's bought Zipper Interactive, creator of the popular "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs" series of video games.

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Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
Redmond-based Zipper Interactive had been developing games for Sony Computer Entertainment for six years, and this month the two companies signed an exclusive development agreement. The "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs" game series has sold more than 7 million units worldwide.
Zipper Interactive will join Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios, based in Foster City, Calif.
"As part of the Sony Computer Entertainment group we can look forward to introducing innovative titles that push online functionality and community experiences even further," said Jim Bosler, president and CEO of Zipper Interactive, in a statement.

CDW quarterly profit up as computer sales rise

2006-01-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Computer retailer CDW Corp. (CDWC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday said fourth-quarter profit rose 12.5 percent on higher sales.
CDW, which sells computer products to government agencies and businesses, said profit rose to $70.5 million, or 86 cents a share, from $62.7 million, or 73 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose 6.6 percent to $1.6 billion. Analysts on average had expected profit of 84 cents a share on revenue of $1.64 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
CDW said average daily sales for the fourth quarter were $25.5 million, compared to $23.5 million a year earlier.
The company said it had quarterly unit volume growth in software, data storage, printers, video, memory, and input devices.
Gross profit margin was 15.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005, compared to 14.8 percent in the same period of 2004.
Shares of CDW fell $1.80, or 3.1 percent, to $57.00 in early trade on the Nasdaq.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston.)

Youth who hacked into computer at Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek gets probation

2006-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

(Charleston-AP) January 24, 2006 - A Canadian man who as a teenager hacked into a computer at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to two years probation.
24-year-old Luke Blazejewski, of Toronto, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Charleston earlier this month to a single misdemeanor.
Court records indicate Blazejewski hacked into the computer in 1999 or early 2000. Prosecutor Dean Eichelberger says he did so in order to send an e-mail with a .mil address, to show he had cracked a military computer. Eichelberger says Blazejewski was part of a group of kids seeking bragging rights.
Court records say he gained access by getting user names and passwords from a private company that does business with the military.

Local thieves target Honda computer

2006-01-24T21:04:00.000-08:00

A homely little computer box is the latest darling of certain savvy thieves.Kelso and Longview police took reports in December and January of break-ins to Honda Civics where the only item stolen was the vehicle's operating computer.

"Whoever's doing this obviously knows cars very well," Brian Haugen, service manager at Stirling Honda, said last week. "He knows where it's located and is in and out in several minutes."Prowlers snatch the whole computer -- which costs $850 to $900 to replace. Then, according to mechanics, they add a tiny computer chip worth less than 20 bucks."The computer they're stealing is from the 1993 to 1995 Honda Civic coupe EX," Haugen said. "The reason it's popular is the fact that it's programmable. They can change the settings on it, which obviously can make the cars run better."Based on what he has heard from his customers, "Our assumption is that hot rodders are using them" to increase horsepower."They take a chip and solder it into the (computer) board," said Stirling Honda technician Dave Chagnon. The Daily News found racing chips from the Honda EX computer on eBay priced at $18 for "buy it now." According to information from the sellers, the chips increase the amount of fuel injected into the engine during acceleration and modify the timing to increase horsepower by 7 percent to 20 percent."We've been looking on eBay," Chagnon said. "Nobody local is advertising them."Kelso Police Sgt. Doug Lane said the thieves either use a "slim jim" to open a locked door or break a window to gain access. The computer box is located under the footwell area."Honda put them in a place that made it easy to maintain," Chagnon said. "But easy to maintain makes it easy to steal."Victim vehicles have been parked at the Three Rivers Mall, Triangle Center, the 700 block of Commerce Avenue, the 600 block of 16th Avenue and the 700 block of Allen Street.One Stirling customer bought a new computer to replace the one prowlers stole, and then lost the new one in another vehicle break-in.Another victim was Chagnon's daughter, who discovered the break-in when a co-worker, who also owns a Honda Civic, said his car had been broken into and wouldn't start."She went and checked. Same thing," he said. "Good thing we had full coverage. That's a spendy little unit." Chagnon installed a new computer in his daughter's car, but he hid it."Where I put it and the way I put it in, there is no way in hell he's getting it out," he said. He invites other Civic owners to come by the shop."I'm willing to explain how to relocate it so (prowlers) can't get it."Other security measures include parking in well-lit areas, locking all doors and installing a car alarm.Anyone who notices suspicious activity around a Honda Civic should call 911.
User Comments:
Share your thoughts with other readers of this story. After your comment is approved, it'll appear below.

Barbara Clark wrote on January 24, 2006 12:01 PM:"My daughter's Honda was one of the first ones to have this happen to.It was during that cold snap we had the first of december. It took place at the Fairview apartments in Longview. Although there were a number of very nice finger prints available(frost)our local officers declined, due to too much time,money and trouble. Just maybe if the time, money and trouble had been taken back then, so many others would not have had to go thru the same. "
Mark L wrote on January 24, 2006 10:46 AM:"It sounds like the meth heads are getting more sophisticated. Honda ought to stamp a VIN on these computers. It could be illegal to possess one with an obliterated VIN, and would allow easy them to be easily traced."

Intel link will offer Apple Windows of opportunity

2006-01-19T08:56:00.000-08:00

The launch of Apple Macintoshes based on Intel processors raises a space-saving -- and perhaps a money-saving -- idea. Will we be able to run Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X on the same machine?There are two ways to do this: the first is to buy a Mac and install Windows. Apple executives have stated that they will not try to prevent this. The second is to run Mac OS X on a standard PC. The latter has been accomplished with hacked, pre-release versions of Mac OS X Intel code, but Apple is determined to prevent it, so it is not an option for business users.According to reports, installing Windows XP may not be as simple as first thought: the Intel-based Macs don't have a standard PC BIOS (Basic input/output system) chip. Instead, Apple is utilising Intel's Extended Firmware Interface. Intel designed EFI for its next generation Itanium chip, but PC manufacturers haven't been interested in using it, so Microsoft hasn't supported it in mass-market versions of Windows.Whether anyone will find a work-around for XP remains to be seen. However, Windows Vista does include EFI support, so when that arrives, creating dual-boot Macs should not be a problem -- or even triple-boot machines for those who want a standalone version of GNU/Linux. (OS X is already based on a version of Unix.)Possessing the ability to run Windows Vista at native speeds will be a boon for Mac users who need to run some of the vast collection of Windows programs. These include specialised business and accounting programs, as well as vast numbers of corporate programs that are written in-house. At the moment, this can be achieved via an emulator, and Microsoft sells Virtual PC (bought from Connectix) for the purpose. No doubt Microsoft will be delighted to offer boxed copies of Windows Vista to Mac users instead.People who need to use both types of system could save money and will certainly save space by having one dual-boot machine instead of two. And if it has to be a Mac, then Apple will gain some sales at the PC industry's expense -- although it would be nice to have a choice.Apple could also benefit by selling Intel-based Macs to people who would like to try a Mac, but have too much time and money invested in their Windows software and hardware to be willing to take the risk. In ball-park terms, Apple only needs to convert 1% of Windows PC sales (around 200 million units a year) to increase Mac sales by almost 50%.Of course, this is not the first time we have looked forward to an almost-universal desktop system. That was one of the aims of the AIM alliance, formed by Apple, IBM and Motorola in 1991. They worked to create an open PC standard called PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform), later renamed CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform). This was intended to run Mac OS, IBM's OS/2, Windows NT, and several versions of Unix, including Sun's Solaris. Be's BeOS and other operating systems would have followed.The idea was that versatile CHRP PCs would attract enough users, and enough software, to enable the PowerPC chip to displace Intel's x86 line and change the face of the PC industry. But while IBM and Motorola showed CHRP systems, they were never available running Mac OS, and were not competitive against Intel-based PCs that already ran OS/2, Windows and numerous versions of Unix perfectly well.Historically, then, Apple has declined two opportunities to separate its operating system from its proprietary hardware. The first was when it declined to take Bill Gates's advice, offered in 1985, to license Mac OS and make it an industry standard. The second was when it failed to follow through with the objectives of the AIM alliance a decade later.The move to Intel provides another opportunity to sell Mac OS without bundling it with hardware. This would enable companies to create a wide range of compatible hardware that is currently not available to Mac users -- including handhelds, tablet PCs and hi-fi style media servers -- and to reach emerging markets where Apple currently has little or no presence.Shouldn't Apple take it? - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Apple curtails tracking by iTunes

2006-01-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

Apple Computer responded to a small uproar over privacy concerns regarding its latest version of iTunes, announcing Wednesday that it does not keep information about a person's purchases and clearly explained how to turn off the new ``MiniStore'' feature.
The MiniStore, located at the bottom of the new iTunes screen, tracks the music and video individuals listen to and watch, and offers suggestions that match a person's tastes. Though users could turn it off before, the notice on iTunes -- located in the MiniStore window -- clearly explains how to do it.
``We've listened to our users and made access to the MiniStore an opt-in feature,'' said Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr. ``Apple does not keep any information related to the contents of our users' music library.''
Last week, Apple was sharply criticized by some bloggers who were upset with the service because it tracks a person's behavior with a unique identification number, and did so without notifying consumers.
``I applaud Apple's relatively quick reaction to this issue by providing a clear and concise explanation of this feature,'' said Kirk McElhearn, author of several books on Macintosh computers who flagged Apple's response on his Kirkville blog on Wednesday.
``It shows that we bloggers do have some input out there,'' he said in an interview. ``It's important for people to stand up for the little things.''

Optometrist's clear vision honoured with Dell-RBC Small Business Excellence Award

2006-01-19T08:29:00.000-08:00

TORONTO, Jan. 18 /CNW/ - Dell Canada and RBC Royal Bank today announcedthat Dr. Jawad Minhas, an optometrist from Waterloo, Ontario, is the winner ofthe Dell Canada - RBC Small Business Excellence Award. "In 2002, I took a leap of faith," said Dr. Minhas. "Frustrated with theinefficiencies of my first optometry practice, I shut it down and started fromscratch; the only thing I took with me was a pen. I had a vision of a practicethat not only provided my patients with superior care, but also a businessthat allowed me to have a better work-life balance. Technology played apivotal role in my initial vision, and continues to be critical to the ongoingsuccess of my practice." The Dell Canada - RBC Small Business Excellence Award challenged entrantsto illustrate how they use information technology to foster a competitiveadvantage and deliver superior customer experience. As the winner of the Dell - RBC Small Business Excellence Award,Dr. Minhas will receive $20,000 in technology and up to $5,000 in professionalservices from Dell. He will also receive a "Day with Dell" program with Dellexecutives, including company founder and Chairman Michael Dell, to share bestbusiness practices. As an optometric practice that focuses on eliminating patients'dependence on glasses, Dr. Minhas uses technology to not only create a moreefficient "electronic office," but also provide higher levels of patienteducation. "I use animation software to educate my patients on everything fromsimple vision care, to more complicated issues like diagnosis and recommendedprocedures. These technologies have improved our office efficiency and ourcustomer service by enabling me and my team to answer patients' questions on-site, without the need for multiple office visits." Dr. Minhas' office uses seven Dimension desktops, each configured in apeer-to-peer network, which enable him to integrate eye examination equipmentand patient records with administration processes. "I've never seen so many entrepreneurs combine creative energy, businessfocus, and smart IT use to achieve their dreams," said Greg Davis, presidentof Dell Canada. "Dr. Minhas exemplifies the drive, innovation and customerfocus that helped Dell grow from its small-business roots over 20 years ago." "This award was introduced to support and recognize small businessentrepreneurs who have taken a creative and ambitious approach toincorporating technology into their business model," said Kris Depencier,national manager, Small Business, RBC Royal Bank. "We are delighted to be apart of this program with Dell, and we wish Dr. Minhas and his businesscontinued success." Dell and RBC also recognized two runners up to the contest. Manna Bakeryof St. John's, Newfoundland, and March Entertainment Inc., of Toronto,Ontario, who will each receive a Dell Latitude(TM) notebook . The response tothe inaugural year of the award in Canada has been overwhelming with hundredsof applications received from across the country. To learn more about the winners and the Dell Canada - RBC Small BusinessExcellence Award, please visit: www.dell.ca/sbcontest. About Dell Canada Inc. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Dell Canada Inc. is a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Dell Inc. Dell Canada is among the leaders in desktop products,notebooks, servers and storage, and has offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Montrealand Edmonton. Information on Dell Canada and its products can be obtained onthe World Wide Web at www.dell.ca. About Dell Inc. Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is a trusted and diversified information-technology supplier and partner, and sells a comprehensive portfolio ofproducts and services directly to customers worldwide. Dell, recognized byFortune magazine as America's most admired company and No. 3 globally,designs, builds and delivers innovative, tailored systems that providecustomers with exceptional value. Company revenue for the last four quarterswas $54.2 billion. For more information about Dell and its products andservices, visit www.dell.com. About RBC Financial Group: Royal Bank of Canada (TSX, NYSE: RY) uses the initials RBC as a prefixfor its businesses and operating subsidiaries, which operate under the masterbrand name of RBC Financial Group. Royal Bank of Canada is Canada's largestbank as measured by market capitalization and assets, and is one of NorthAmerica's leading diversified financial services companies. It providespersonal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance,corporate and investment banking, and transaction processing services on aglobal basis. The company employs approximately 60,000 people who serve morethan 14 million personal, business and public sector clients through officesin North America and some 30 countries around the world. For more information,please visit www.rbc.com. Dell cannot be held responsible for typography, photography, or other errors. (TM) Dell, and the Dell logo, are trademarks of Dell Inc. (TM) All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their registered holders. (C) 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. /NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available on the CNW Photo Network and archived at http://photos.newswire.ca. Additional archived images are also available on the CNW Photo Archive website at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited members of the media/For further information: MEDIA CONTACTS: For Dell: Suzanne Sprajcar,
(416) 486-5910, ssprajcar@gcigroup.com; For RBC Royal Bank: Judi Levita,
(416) 974-8810, judi.levita@rbc.com

Dell Canada and RBC Royal Bank today announced that Dr. Jawad Minhas, an optometrist from Waterloo, Ontario, is the winner of the Dell Canada-RBC Small Business Excellence Award. L-R: Dr. Jawad Minhas, Michael Lombardo, Director Home & Small Business Dell Canada and Kristina Depencier, National Manager, Small Business RBC Royal Bank.(CNW Group/Dell Canada Inc.)

Amadeus, IBM to Implement e-Ticketing Solution for Indian Airlines

2006-01-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

Indian Airlines has partnered with Amadeus and IBM to implement an electronic ticketing solution in India. The airline will implement Amadeus Electronic Ticket Server (ETS) to fully manage and distribute electronic tickets, including interlining.Under the agreement, IBM will undertake the upgrade of processes and systems at Indian Airlines to IATA e-ticketing standards.
pay per click advertising"Indian Airlines has moved a step forward and will offer e-tickets by the end of this year," said Anil Goyal, Director Commercial for the airline. "We are pleased to partner with Amadeus for the support and e-ticketing solution. Amadeus' commitment to deliver tailored technology solutions that best meet our needs is clear. Its cutting edge e-ticketing system is able to deliver direct business benefits and considerable cost savings to Indian, ensuring the smooth ticketing of flight itineraries."The airline expects to become fully compliant with IATA's objective to achieve 100% paper-less air travel by end 2007. Amadeus ETS will cut Indian Airlines' ticketing costs, as well as help the carrier increase operational efficiency and aid travel agents by reducing the workload associated with the issuing, storage and distribution of traditional tickets.Amadeus said e-ticketing would also make life easy for travelers; check-in is quicker and smoother, travelers can enjoy the speed and convenience of Internet check-in or self-service and lost tickets can be quickly and easily replaced. A stand-alone solution, Amadeus ETS will be seamlessly integrated into Indian Airlines' reservations and departure control systems, enabling the carrier to interline efficiently with airlines already part of the Amadeus e-ticketing community, as well as with others on demand.Amadeus' Vice President, Airline Business Group, Frederic Spagnou, said, "We are proud to have been selected by Indian to implement their e-ticketing solution. This deal is especially important to us because of the huge potential of the Indian market and the significant influence of Indian in it. Amadeus will deliver a state-of-the-art solution, supporting future profitable growth for Indian Airlines."Sharat Bansal, Country Leader, IBM Business Consulting Services, India, said, "Value creation and competitive differentiation in full service carriers is driven by sound partnership strategies. IBM is pleased to leverage our expertise to help Indian Airlines seamlessly integrate with its travel business partners, through this solution. This initiative reiterates our passion and commitment to provide comprehensive business solutions to our clients in the aviation industry in India, by leveraging IBM's deep airline industry skills and global aviation experience."

HP, Hitachi Researchers to Jointly Work on Security, Privacy Issues

2006-01-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

HP and Hitachi Ltd. announced that researchers from HP Labs Bristol, UK, and Princeton, N.J., and the Hitachi Systems Development Laboratory would conduct joint work on key security and privacy issues.The joint research will focus on authenticating users and devices to improve security inside networks and the use of digital signatures to guarantee the authenticity of document content.
pay per click advertisingThe first theme, network security and authentication, has been stimulated by the constant threat to IT infrastructures from, among many others, impersonation, computer viruses and worms. To combat these threats, HP and Hitachi researchers are investigating how to ensure that computers used to access corporate networks remotely are appropriately authorized. The researchers are interested in developing technologies for a secure infrastructure that manages communications based on the authentication of the integrity of both the PC and the user.HP said that this approach would take advantage of authentication technologies such as Hitachi's Certificate Validation Server (CVS) and the HP ProtectTools Embedded Security PC solution. The researchers will investigate practical ways to deploy "trusted computing" technology in corporate settings. The goal of this project is to improve important aspects of IT infrastructure security by providing a high-grade, lower-cost technology foundation for enforceable security policy and strengthened identity across a range of devices.The focus of the second theme, content security research, is to address the problem of how to guarantee the integrity of documents and data by using digital signatures while allowing changes to be made to them.For example, it may be necessary to delete sensitive data such as names and company secrets from a document for reasons of privacy or confidentiality, yet show that the visible portion of the document is authentic. This process is regularly applied to documents affected by the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and similar laws in other countries. This type of technology also would help ensure the authenticity and integrity of audit trails, an important issue for companies complying with legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley.Content security also could be used to demonstrate the integrity of audit trails, for example to third-party auditors, while still retaining confidentiality and privacy of the data contained within."This collaboration highlights HP Labs and Hitachi Labs' common interest in security research and our aim to bring about secure systems and infrastructure technologies for modern enterprise needs," said Dick Lampman, senior vice president of research, HP, and director, HP Labs. "HP and Hitachi have had technology alliances that have spanned 16 years and this is an extension of our partnership to further leverage our research and development."Dr. Akira Maeda, general manager of Systems Development Laboratory, Hitachi, said, "Hitachi and HP both recognize the increasing importance of security. This collaboration is expected to contribute to a dramatic increase in customer satisfaction by delivering entirely new security backbones."

HP Launches Compaq nc6140 Laptop with Built-in CDMA EV-DO

2006-01-19T08:26:00.000-08:00

HP has introduced a mobile broadband notebook that allows users to stay connected at broadband speeds to corporate networks, email and the Internet without being tied to a wireless hotspot. The HP Compaq nc6140 Notebook PC operates on Verizon Wireless' Evolution Data Optimized (EV-DO) network, which allows customers to connect at broadband speeds to corporate networks, email and the Internet, over the cellular network.The notebook features integrated dual-antennas and pre-installed software to help establish a wireless connection via Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess network. HP and Verizon Wireless will jointly market the new business notebook. "Mobile professionals using HP's mobile broadband notebook no longer have to limit themselves to airports, hotel lobbies or other public Wi-Fi hotspots," said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Computing, HP. "Our customers can now enjoy extremely fast data connectivity speeds, enabling them to communicate better and be more productive wherever they happen to be." The EV-DO network offers download speeds of 400 to 700 kbps. The notebook also incorporates the QUALCOMM MSM6500 CDMA2000 1xEV-DO high-speed wireless chipset. In addition to the convenience of its integrated mobile broadband technology complemented by wireless LAN and Bluetooth wireless technology, the thin and light HP nc6140 incorporates enhanced security such as HP ProtectTools Security Manager that allows users to easily manage security solutions using flexible, customizable security layers. The notebook also offers HP Drivelock hard drive protection to protect against unauthorized access to the notebook. Starting at a weight of 6 pounds (2.7 kg), the nc6140 has a 15-inch, wide viewing angle display, a full-sized keyboard and scroll zone within the recessed touchpad. Expansion capabilities include an optional port replicator that simplifies system management and an optional HP Travel Battery that doubles battery life without compromising functionality. The HP Compaq nc6140 Notebook PC is available now with a starting price of US$1,399. Customers with any monthly Verizon Wireless voice plan can receive unlimited BroadbandAccess for an additional US$59.99 monthly access. For non-voice customers, BroadbandAccess is available for US$79.99 monthly access.

Sun-Times' classy 'Mr. Classified' has a final word: retirement

2006-01-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

Many are just three lines of small type -- abbreviations, phone numbers and dollar amounts -- hawking a used car, seeking a job as a baby-sitter or offering an apartment for rent.
But to Dick Nardini, those "three-liner" classified ads are the lifeblood of the Chicago Sun-Times' advertising pages -- drawing readers to the larger ads and serving as their personal connection to the paper. He treats that link as a sacred trust.
"It's the most important thing that person is doing," Nardini said. "How about a 'little, minor' thing like a transposition of a phone number -- two characters in a phone number -- and an unhappy guy or person who placed the ad because they are not getting any calls, and a very unhappy person with that phone number who is being bombarded with calls?
"So, accuracy is a very important thing."
After more than half a century of ensuring those high standards in the Sun-Times, Nardini is planning to retire March 31.
His decision caps a career in which he rose to be director of classified advertising, overseeing all of those ads in the middle of the paper -- everything from the "three-liners" to the paid death notices to the larger automobile and employment ads.
'He was the newspaper'
The bronze plaque outside the newspaper's suite of advertising offices calls him "Mr. Classified." Irv Kupcinet jokingly called him "junior" because the legendary gossip columnist was one of the few who had logged more years at the paper than Nardini.
To generations of advertisers, he was the face of the Sun-Times.
"It's one thing to do business with someone because you have to. It's another to do it because you want to," said Joe Shaker, president of Shaker Recruitment Advertising and Communications, which places "help wanted" ads in the paper. "And with Dick Nardini, you wanted to do business with the paper because of him. He was the newspaper."
Sun-Times publisher John Cruickshank called Nardini "the exemplar of integrity and gentlemanliness.
"He's had tremendous relationships with several generations of customers, especially in the automotive business," Cruickshank said. "And they have stayed with him, stayed with the paper through its ups and downs, because they trust Dick Nardini."
Started when he was 15
Nardini, 71, has been at the Sun-Times so long, he worked at all three of its headquarters over the years -- 211 W. Wacker, 401 N. Wabash and its current home at 350 N. Orleans.
By his count, he has served under 20 vice presidents of advertising and nine publishers, including three Marshall Fields -- III, IV and V. Ever the diplomat, he won't name favorites.
"Dick leaves the Sun-Times with the same impeccable style that has characterized his 55-year career," said Boni Fine, vice president of advertising. "He's one of the classiest guys I know, and I'm privileged to have had him as a colleague these last 12 years."
Nardini joined the Sun-Times advertising department as a messenger on Aug. 16, 1950, a month shy of his 16th birthday. He gradually moved up the corporate ladder, reaching the post of director of classified advertising in 1996.
Nardini, 71, lives in Schiller Park with his wife, Mabel. They have five children and six grandchildren. He served on the Leyden High School Board from 1969 until last year -- the final 27 of those years as president of the board.
The Illinois State Board of Education named him outstanding school board president in 1992.
He was also honored with the prestigious Marshall Field Award in 1976 for "outstanding salesmanship, which resulted in substantial new revenue" for the Sun-Times and its then sister paper, the Chicago Daily News.
Nardini proudly calls the Sun-Times "the best paper in the city," but he is modest about his role in that success.
"I love people," Nardini said. "The awards I got, I may have received them, but frankly a lot of people should share them. I believe that strongly. I think people make you look good."

What's the best way of keeping two computers -- a home PC and a work notebook -- synchronised? Here's one solution.

2005-06-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of people, I have a desktop at home and another system (a notebook) provided by my company. I like my little corporate notebook, and I take it with me nearly everywhere, but at home I much prefer working on my home-built PC, with its sweet dual-monitor setup and blazing speed. The problem is that nothing about today's Windows computers makes dual-PC work easy.
That's not to say it can't be done. Over the past year, I've experimented with several tools that make the two-PC setup a workable option, to the point that I don't have to think about it much anymore -- it just works. At least for now. Here's what I've learned along the way.
Remote access: overrated
I've written before about the benefits of remote access software, such as GoToMyPC. I still use remote access from time to time, but not nearly as much as when I first wrote about it a year ago, because there's nothing like working on a computer directly. For a while, I left my notebook at work so that I didn't have to carry it back and forth. But even on my reasonably fast DSL connection at home, using my notebook at work via remote control for any length of time is frustrating -- the remote PC always seems to be a half-step behind me, and the choppiness of the interface almost makes me queasy. Remote control is fine for occasional work, but I've found it no good for intense, focused computer use. Besides, my work notebook weighs only about 1.1kg, and I take it home at the end of every workday.
When I do need remote access, these days I'm using the free version of LogMeIn, which is not only excellent value (you have to pay only if you want file transfer), but it's also the only remote control product I've used that can access both monitors on a two-monitor PC.
Synchronisation: the key to everything
As I mentioned earlier, when I'm at home I like to work on my own desktop computer instead of the notebook. The problem: my notebook holds all of my work files. Previously, when I wanted to work on my desktop, I would use LapLink to synchronise all of my files between the two PCs. Then when I was done working, I'd synchronise again so that the notebook had my latest work on it.
This was time-consuming and basically a real drag. But I've since discovered a live synchronisation utility called FolderShare that keeps the data files on my two computers in perfect lockstep (there's also a solid competitor, BeInSync). Now, every time I create or change a file on one computer, the changes are automatically sent over the Internet to the other PC. I am this close to not needing LapLink. But I still do, because of…
Outlook: the special case
If your business uses Microsoft Exchange as its email server and you have a generous IT department, you don't have to worry about synchronising your computers, because each time any one of them connects to the Exchange server, it will automatically read in the latest state of your email folders, along with your new mail. Any changes you make on one machine will be reflected on the others, as soon as they connect to your server.
However, if you have more email than your IT group will let you store on the Exchange server, you probably are saving folders in local PST files, which don't sync automatically over Exchange. Using a live sync program such as FolderShare for these files can get a bit tricky. If, by mistake, you end up running Outlook on two machines at the same time, you could find yourself trying to untangle a mess of PST versions that store different states of your email archives. And, unfortunately, some hard disk search utilities, such as Copernic Desktop Search, keep your Outlook folders open and change the last-used time stamp, which can make a mess of a sync plan.
To keep Outlook files synced, you can use a specialised tool, such as SynchPST. Unfortunately, SynchPST accesses files only using Windows' shared folders capability, so the computers you want to sync have to be on the same network -- it won't work over the open Internet. I also have reservations about the security of Windows folder sharing, although new tools such as Network Magic give you much better control than Windows does on its own.
So I'm still using LapLink to synchronise my email archive files, although not my main Exchange-based in-box -- that's handled automatically. It's awkward and time-consuming, so I do the notebook-to-PC sync only on Friday night when I settle in for the weekend. Of course, I do a PC-to-notebook sync again Sunday night before the working week starts. During the week, I manage all of my email on the notebook.
Skip work, play music
There are other ways to exploit the resources you have at your disposal with two computers. For example, if you have a large music or photo library on your home computer, you can access all of it from work using a service such as Orb, which basically turns your home PC into a media server for your remote devices, including your work computer and even your connected handhelds.
That is, in a nutshell, the two-computer installation I am using today. It's not simple or easy to use, and I always fear that if I go away on holiday I'll have forgotten all the quirks of my configuration when I come back. But, for now, I'm getting a lot of good use out of this setup. And it beats having all my eggs in one basket.

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/notebooks

City says ex-official viewed porn on its computers

2005-06-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

Christine L. RomeroSouthwest Valley RepublicJun. 22, 2005 12:00 AM
As Goodyear continues its national search for a new deputy city manager, details about one who quit several months ago are rising to the surface.Goodyear has two deputy city managers positions and has had one post open since late February, when former Deputy City Manager Grant Anderson retired. New information obtained by the Southwest Valley Republic indicates that Anderson was placed on administrative leave for "possible misuse of city computer equipment" two days before he gave notice of his retirement.City Manager Stephen Cleveland said Goodyear conducted the investigation and found evidence that Anderson violated the city's Internet guidelines that forbids pornography. The policy also forbids using city equipment for chatrooms and ordering personal goods with a credit card.
Anderson said he never looked at pornography on his work computer. He said several people used the laptop, which they sometimes took on business trips. Anderson also said he believes pornography sites may have been linked to legitimate Web sites he was researching."I had already decided to retire," Anderson said. "This just heightened the speed of that retirement, which was going to happen rather rapidly anyway."The city, like many employers, conducts random checks of computer use."We offered him the opportunity to resign, and he chose to retire. That was acceptable," Cleveland said, later adding, "The degree of the violation indicates the action we take. At the end of the day, (Goodyear has a) zero-tolerance policy."Goodyear has asked other employees to resign in similar circumstances, he said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0621swv-manager.html

Access your Home or Work Computer from anywhere. Share your files and control your computer. Just BeAnywhere!

2005-06-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

BeAnywhere releases today it's Personal Edition, a remote control software that allows access to a computer and file transfer, from any other computer in the world through the Internet.
Lisbon, Portugal (PRWEB) June 15, 2005 -- With BeAnywhere you can access your Remote computer, download and upload files, use the programs on the remote PC, control the keyboard and mouse just as if you were sitting in front of it.BeAnywhere allows you to invite your friends or relatives anywhere in the world to “visit” your home computer, look at the family’s photo album, or download last weekend’s home movie. This remote desktop tool allows you to get that crucial file you forgot to bring to your important meeting, or finish comfortably in your home sofa that report you had on your office desktop.BeAnywhere’s setup and use has been simplified so that you don’t have to worry about port configuration, routers, IP addresses, or any other technical issues usually required for such programs. For instance, the use of the remote desktop tool that comes with Windows XP requires the previous knowledge of the remote computer’s IP Address. Since generally Internet Service Providers use dynamic IP addressing, you are given a different IP address every time you make a connection, forcing you to know your IP address constantly.With BeAnywhere all this becomes much easier. When you install BeAnywhere Server (which is installed in the computer that is going to receive remote connections) the setup wizard automatically configures the connection. All you need to do is define the user profile and access level (read only, or read and write, mouse and keyboard control etc.). BeAnywhere is designed for any kind of user, from the most basic computer user to the most advanced one, for people that rely on a simple and powerful tool to do the job.BeAnywhere offers a 30 day free trial for this remote desktop tool. The full services can be purchased from US$ 79,50/year, to US$ 7,95/month.For further information and the free trial download, please visit www.beanywhere.com.About Multiplicar Negocios Lda.Multiplicar Negocios is a European Company, specialized in software development.Our business model is based on developing our own technologies, while being faithful to the highest quality standards. The Company has developed a set of solutions that aim to deliver two primary goals: productivity increase and low cost, both for companies as well as for personal users.We aim to build solutions that, along side with simplicity in use, are also powerful working or leisure tools, delivering high tech quality to everyone, through the most adequate distribution mean available for this: The Internet.
Contact:Miguel Sabino00351219426882e-mail protected from spam bots

How much time you spent watching television?

2005-06-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

A survey of global reading habits has come up with an amazing result — India has come out on top.
Researchers from the National Opinion Poll contacted 30,000 people in 30 countries and compared how much time they spent watching television as against reading. The West is starting to realise that India has become an intellectual powerhouse churning out hundreds of thousands of graduates, especially in the sciences — and this survey seems to confirm that somehow Indians and books go together. India came top of the global reading chart with 10.7 hours per week per head — 4.2 hours higher than the global average. In Britain, there is concern, as there is throughout the western world, that television is encouraging a generation of couch potatoes, brought up on American programming. Britons, for example, spend more time in front of the television and less time reading than other Europeans, the survey shows. The average person in the UK watches 18 hours of TV each week, which is worse than France, Spain, Germany and Italy. By contrast, Britons spend just 5.3 hours per week reading, which is less than their European counterparts. At 18 hours per week Britons watch 1.4 hours more TV per week than the global average. US trends are similar to the UK, with Americans spending 19 hours watching TV each week and only 5.7 hours reading. In France, people watch an average 17.3 hours per week compared with Spain at 15.9, Germany at 15.2 and Italy at 14.9. The NOP researchers asked people aged 13 and above in each country how long they spent per week watching TV, listening to the radio, reading and using a computer for non-work activities. Only people in Brazil, Taiwan, Japan and Korea read less than those in the UK. In Italy, people spend an average 5.6 hours per week reading compared with 5.7 per week in Germany, 5.8 in Spain and 6.9 in France. The research was carried out by market research group NOP World as part of its annual study of consumer attitudes, values and behaviours. NOP World spokesman Nick Chiarelli said increased non-work computer use was cutting the amount of time which people around the world spent doing other things. From the Indian perspective, Britain has been associated with books, scholarships and a land to which generations of Indians have proceeded for higher scholarships. But things are changing or have already changed in the UK — for the worse. Chiarelli said: “From a UK perspective, it is perhaps not surprising that we rank so high in terms of television. Watching TV has always been a popular leisure pastime in this country — but it is quite concerning how far we lag behind many other countries in terms of how much we read.” Chiarelli explained “There is a point of context. We are trying to represent urban, upscale India. We don’t interview rural populations or subsistence level populations, of which there will be quite a lot in India. Our view is that India stacks up very well, there is striving for self-improvement in India and reading is one way of doing that.” Chiarelli added that there had been substantial resources put into education in India. “And this is payback time.” As far as TV watching was concerned, “India comes fourth from bottom. The global average is 22 hours”.

http://www.presstrust.com/article436942.html

Power User Monday Tip of the Week: Stay Secure and Synchronized at the Office

2005-06-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

Brought to you by: James
If you find yourself stuck at your work computer during breaks, you may be tempted to browse the internet, but I can name two things that are probably keeping you from enjoying your short browse. You're probably concerned about security, which keeps you from checking your email. And, you probably find it difficult to keep your news feeds and bookmarks in sync between your home and work computers. Don't worry, it's not as difficult (or insecure) as you think. The first thing that you'll probably want to do is pickup your email. To stay in sync and avoid installing any third-party applications, just access your email through a web-based interface (aka "webmail"). Your first priority when accessing webmail on a public or work computer is to confirm that the connection is secure. A secure connection will keep peering eyes away from your password and email activities. If the connection is secure, you will notice a small lock icon at some location in your browser. In safari, the lock icon is at the top-right of the browser window. In Firefox, the lock icon is in the address bar. If you are connecting to your webmail via a URL that has an "https://" header, chances are that it's secure. Generally, you can get secure access to your webmail through either your ISP or webhosting provider. If your ISP does not provide secure webmail access, and you don't have a webhosting provider, then ask someone for a Gmail account, or find another free webmail service with a secure login system. The next thing you'll probably want to do is check all of your favorite RSS or Atom feeds. To stay in sync and avoid installing any third-party applications, just access your feeds through a web-based interface (aka "online news aggregator") like NewsGator or Bloglines. After that, you'll probably want to browse through your favorite sites. To stay in sync and avoid installing any third-party applications, just access your bookmarks through a web-based interface (aka "social bookmarks manager") like de.lirio.us or del.icio.us. If you are paranoid enough to require complete anonymity while browsing at work, then look no further than The Cloak. With The Cloak, you can surf via an anonymous proxy (hiding your identity from the sites that you visit) and optionally encrypt your entire browsing experience. For an added ounce of security, use a browser with which you can easily delete the cookies, cache, and history. Firefox is one such browser. Safari v2 also offers a secure "Private Browsing" feature. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy staying secure and synchronized at the office!

http://www.macmerc.com/articles

Asians Shun Computer Animation, One-Dimensional Characters, Predictable Plots

2005-06-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Asian animation has long exceeded the quality and imaginative scope of anything produced by American studios like Disney and Pixar, whose best films do not come close to matching the overseas competition (sorry, Shrek!). Defining the art of Asian animé and setting its standard is Japan's Hayao Miyazaki, a man who, with a nod to Tsui Hark, is regarded as the leading animation director of our time.In his seven feature films including "Princess Mononoke," "Spirited Away," and his new release, "Howl's Moving Castle," Miyazaki continually demonstrates a visual and thematic complexity unknown to American animation.For starters, Miyazaki relies most heavily on hand-drawn animation cells, not the CGI technology preferred stateside. (Recently, Miyazaki told The New York Times that he limits use of digital imagery to no more than 10 percent of each film.) Miyazaki's loyalty to flat, hand-drawn images imparts an appealingly old-fashioned quality to his films, one that reinforces the magical aspects of his movies and fills them with arresting, painterly images. Each Miyazaki picture is like a beautiful illustrated children's storybook brought to life, a textured, detailed universe that is inspired equally by real life and the director's imagination.Thematically, Miyazaki favors stories that revolve around plucky young heroines - the Princess Mononoke, "Spirited Away"'s Chihiro and "Howl's"'s Sophie - characters who find themselves in trouble and who must use courage and resourcefulness to work their way out. But the worlds these girls or young women inhabit are nowhere near as simple as those of, say, Pocahontas or Mulan or the Little Mermaid. Good and evil are never tidily defined and happiness is not guaranteed to the "good guys." A spell-casting evil witch in "Howl's" can be transformed by her own needs and by a simple act of kindness into someone a girl might like to have around. A heroic-seeming wizard can be tainted by vanity. A good-hearted, deserving character can offer love and find it will go unrequited.Throughout his stories, Miyazaki is less concerned with sanitizing life for children than he is with teaching them that fear and confusion and change are a part of it. An evil spell can turn a lovely young woman into an old hag, war can blot out the sun, the environment can be partly destroyed by humankind's predations, the man who seems like humanity's savior may lack the fortitude or power. While each of his stories arrives at a happy ending, the resolution is never as ringing as those familiar from American films.Miyazaki's familiar themes are brought to bear in "Howl's Moving Castle," his loose adaptation of the children's fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones. Stateside, there are two versions: the dubbed one reviewed here, which features a brilliant cast of A-list actors doing voice work, and a subtitled version."Howl's" is the story of a young milliner, Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer), who lives in a pretty village whose lanterned streets and cobblestone walks seem modeled on early 1900s England. Sophie, who has a lonely life working diligently in her family's shop, finds her existence unexpectedly altered by an encounter with the dashing young wizard Howl (Christian Bale). But this rapturous meeting ends and Sophie next finds herself victim of a curse: She is turned into an old woman (now voiced by Jean Simmons) by the jealous Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall). Sophie has no choice but to go in search of Howl, who resides in a literal moving castle, and try to get the spell undone. Her travels ultimately into the employ of the young wizard whose home is also residence to a fire demon called Calcifer (Billy Crystal) and a young boy called Markl (Josh Hutcherson).As Sophie adapts to her new life - groaning amusingly with the aches and pains of old age and keeping house for Howl - she learns more about her employer's magic and limitations. She figures out how to work the small colored dial beside the door - the one that changes the location outside the door if you give it a spin. Howl, meanwhile, proves a shape shifter and anti-war activist who, by changing himself into a blackbird, attempts to stop a war in which aerial combat and bombing raids wreak destruction.Miyazaki's story could have used an editor. It is essentially a love story that pivots on the bond between Sophie and Howl and the complications that get in the way of their union. But it is also a story about being fearless in the face of danger and being unafraid to be yourself, as Sophie is, no matter what the consequences. It is unfortunate that the vague nature of the military conflict that involves Howl is not always well integrated into the tale of Sophie's travails. Some of the war-related developments may leave you scratching your head.But any frustrations with the narrative are more than made up for by the film's visual components. End to end, "Howl's Moving Castle" is a feast of beautifully drawn and colored images that bring Miyazaki's endless imagination to life. The literal Howl's castle is an ambulatory scrap yard, a funny, inventive mishmash of spare parts and shapes with architectural antecedents that could include an old shoe, a grouper's mouth, assorted planks and window panes. The "castle" trundles across the countryside on four mechanized chicken legs fueled by the work of Calcifer. Elsewhere, Miyazaki's scarecrow is a pogo stick brought to life, a suited T-shaped character with a round turnip head and a helpful disposition to go with his bounce. Howl's secret escape, the landscape he knew as a boy, is a Monet painting brought to life, an oasis of green grass, wildflowers and blue water crowned by a heavenly sky and pillowy clouds. It is an environmentalist's dream, a paradise lost and found again, one that contrasts mightily with Miyazki's horrifying visions of war."Howl's Moving Castle" is the third highest grossing film in Japanese history (the other two are "Titanic" and Miyazaki's "Spirited Away"). For American audiences, adults and children about 7 and older, it is an experience well-rewarded and another example of why Asian animation sets the standard.

http://www.ctnow.com/movies/reviews/hce-howlsrev.artjun17,0,6912703.story?coll=hce-headlines-entertainment

Computer pioneer spills his secrets... Steve Jobs speaks to graduating Stanford students

2005-06-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

By Mary F. AlbertStaff WriterPublished: Sunday, June 12, 2005 9:50 PM PDTE-mail this story Print this page
PALO ALTO — The core of Apple Computer leadership revealed the secrets to his success Sunday to graduating Stanford students and their families.By highlighting the challenges he faced in founding the company that revolutionized personal computers, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs emphasized certain fundamentals to the almost 5,000 undergraduate, master's and doctoral students at the university's 114th commencement ceremony."Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick," said Jobs, who has struggled with a pancreatic tumor and the "public failure" of getting fired from Apple in the company's early history.

Despite these setbacks, Jobs went on to found NeXT Software Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios, which produced the Academy award-winning films "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo."The key, he said, was pursuing his passion for innovation. "The only way to be truly satisfied," he concluded, is to find and pursue what makes you happy.For this reason, he advised the next generation of Stanford professionals to "keep looking and don't settle."
On a campus renowned for its computer science and technology departments, Jobs was a welcome choice for keynote speaker, agreed several graduating students."A lot of years the speaker is controversial," senior Amy Halvorsen said before taking her seat. "But this year it seems like everyone is excited."As Jobs took his seat on the podium, several graduates shouted, "Hire me, Steve! Hire me!"
Eron Umberg, who majored in human biology, said she even considered dressing up as an iPod for the occasion."I am very excited," said Umberg, who opted for a shimmering wig with horns on top instead. "Stanford is a pretty Apple-friendly place."Stanford officials selected Jobs — a "pioneer and visionary" — because the university has been "characterized for its willingness to be bold," said university President John L. Hennessy, who thanked Jobs for his personal address.
On Sunday, the university conferred about 1,900 bachelor's, 2,000 master's, and 900 doctoral degrees.E-mail: malbert@examiner.com

Is "your" computer at work private?

2005-06-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

Many jobs require computer use. Is "your" computer at work private? A workplace privacy expert, Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., weighs in:Q.: Can my boss monitor e-mails I write at work?Real-time monitoring of e-mail without your consent is illegal and violates federal wiretap law, according to Kerr. Otherwise, "your boss can conduct monitoring but only monitoring that is reasonable," Kerr said. "Reasonable" is typically defined by the employer's written policy or code of conduct, he added.Q: It's a free country. I can view what I want online — right?It may be a free country but your freedoms can be restricted at work, Kerr said. Your e-mail or Web use may violate your employer's policy. Bosses might check e-mail for a variety of reasons: to see if you are sending company secrets to a competitor, to see if you are wasting time and to see if you are productive, Kerr said. Inappropriate or excessive Internet use could signal a problem employee, Kerr said.Q: I'm an adult — if I want to view porn or go to gambling Web sites at work, and no one objects, what's the big deal? For that matter, why can't I Christmas shop online or visit other G-rated Web sites?This problem is diminishing as more and more people have Internet access at home, Kerr noted. But at work, employers worry that porn images might constitute a hostile work environment, he said. "It's a sexual harassment concern," Kerr said. As for G- rated fare, like shopping or game Web sites, rules vary workplace to workplace. In the end, bosses rule.Q: I don't like the feeling that my manager is watching me. Can I avoid this?Many workplaces limit surveillance to situations where a complaint is lodged, Kerr said. Otherwise, the possibility that you are being checked exists and is unavoidable. Ask your bosses if they read your e-mail or track Web use; or refer to your workplace policy manual or code of conduct. "In the case of private employers, they have a lot of power," Kerr said.— Nan Connolly
Bauer investigation continues
Investigators are continuing to follow leads in the case of the Boise rec-league soccer coach accused of molesting several boys since the mid-1990s, Ada County sheriff's Lt. Patrick Calley said Monday.Michael Patrick Bauer, 37, was arrested at his Meridian home Wednesday after a check of his work computer turned up child pornography, sheriff's officials said. Forensic tests on the computer pointed to a pattern of abuse, and Sheriff Gary Raney said Bauer may have had several victims.Bauer is currently charged with one count of possession of sexually exploitive material and is being held in the Ada County Jail on a $1 million bond.

Internet inventors reflect on creationTwo researchers never envisioned consequences of work

2005-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

By Bambi Francisco, MarketWatchLast Update: 12:10 PM ET June 13, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- In 1973, two scientists began working on a design to bring together disparate networks that would allow computers to communicate with one another.

More than 30 years later, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn -- whose work gave us the Internet -- are enjoying the fruits of their early labor. They were in San Francisco last week to receive the 2004 A.M. Turing Award, the computer field's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
"Of course we could see it all... We knew the PC would be invented in about 10 years... the breakup of the Bell system would occur," quipped Kahn, in an interview with MarketWatch, when asked if he ever imagined that the system that he worked on would become the platform upon which millions would communicate and billions of dollars of wealth would be created.
"It's all happening exactly the way we planned," echoed Cerf.
See the interview with Cerf and Kahn
In all seriousness, the men say that they couldn't have imagined the ease with which people can access billions of pieces of information, not to mention create it.
The Web has enabled people to publish a "Niagara [Falls] of information," said Cerf, with a hint of incredulity about what consumers are doing upon this network he pioneered.
The Web has become a "social revolution," said Kahn.
Indeed, both men are in awe of the blogging revolution. Blogs "force critical thinking," said Cerf, who said one of the more interesting aspects of the blog revolution is that there are no deadlines.
Both men also spoke of the unintended consequences of the Internet, like spam and viruses. These are "things we never thought would happen," said Kahn.
Asked which of the leading Internet companies -- Google (GOOG: news, chart, profile) , eBay (EBAY: news, chart, profile) or Yahoo -- is the most innovative, the two men chose two different companies.
"So far Google has shown the most innovation," said Cerf, who said that Google was his home page. "I'd point out that eBay has transformed the landscape," said Kahn. "They've got a strong contingency of folks that rely on it."
The commercialized Internet is quite a leap from three decades ago when the two young men were, as they describe, simply working on a research experiment.
"We were just trying to work on an engineering problem, trying to get PCs to interconnect," said Cerf. "Little by little over time, because that was a success, we saw inroads... Energy groups started considering it," said Kahn.
The TCP/IP backbone protocol that the two men worked on became the standard because it was supported by the research lab of the U.S. Department of Defense.
"We had most of the leading researchers working with us," said Kahn. Additionally, the system was tested before it became a standard. A lot of companies agree on standardizing a technology today before they implement it, said Cerf.
The problem is that often it's only after the technology is implemented that you discover it doesn't work, Cerf added.
Asked what they thought to be the most innovative developments in the last 10 years, Kahn said it was broadband access and wireless networks. Cerf pointed to voice-over-Internet technologies and wireless.
Sound off: Will Google hit $300 before it reports in mid-July? Bambi.Francisco@dowjones.com or go to Bambi.blogs.com

Developers get taste of Intel-based Macs

2005-06-13T10:40:00.001-07:00

By Ina Fried, Special to ZDNet

After announcing the big shift on Monday, Apple Computer has offered developers an early chance to get their bearings, with labs of Intel-based Macs up and running at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. The labs were open until 9 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday and until midnight on Tuesday.
And though Apple won't start selling Intel-based Macs to customers until sometime next year, the Mac maker is leasing test machines to developers for US$999 starting this month.
Fetch Software president Jim Matthews said his company has been through past transitions, including the mid-'90s shift from Motorola's 68000 family of chips to PowerPC processors and the more recent move from OS 9 to OS X. Matthews said he appreciates the advance notice Apple is giving developers this time around.
"Apple is giving us plenty of time and hardware we can test on, which wasn't the case the last time," Matthews said.
For developers, the amount of work needed to make their code ready for next year's arrival of Intel-based Macs varies considerably. For Mac programs that are fairly new, written after the arrival of Mac OS X in Apple's Cocoa environment, the changes can be made in a matter of hours, or even less in some cases.
"We've already ported our app to Intel," said Wil Shipley, CEO of Delicious Monster Software. "All we had to do was click one button. It took about 40 seconds. It ran perfectly on the sneak-preview Intel Macs here at WWDC."
But for others, the changes will be more complex. For those whose applications were developed prior to Mac OS X and then "carbonised" to run natively in OS X, the work is somewhat more involved. If developers have used Apple's Xcode tools, it is still only a matter of weeks, at most, Apple said. But, if developers used tools from Metrowerks, they must first bring their code over to Apple's tools and then begin the work of tweaking the software for Intel's chips.
Microsoft is among those in that last camp. Both Virtual PC and Office for Mac were developed in Carbon, using tools from Metrowerks. Microsoft said it doesn't know how much work it has ahead of itself.
"That's one of the main things our developers are looking at," said Scott Erickson, group product manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit. Microsoft has already said it will make future versions of Office run natively on Intel chips, but it has yet to detail plans for Virtual PC, software that allows Windows programs to run on a Mac.
Developers seem generally upbeat, though. Bare Bones Software has had a team of workers testing code on the Intel machines Apple has made available. CEO Rich Siegel said the early testing largely confirms the belief that the effort needed won't be extraordinary.
"Our initial analysis and prediction of a smooth transition still appears to be accurate, even after a few days of review and analysis," Siegel said in an e-mail interview. "There are some adjustments to be made, but nothing particularly daunting."
One community where there are signs of discontent is the high-end computing market Apple has garnered with Mac OS X. There has been much discussion in recent days on Apple's mailing lists for scientific and technical computing issues about the work those developers face. Many have written optimisations and code that specifically targets the PowerPC's AltiVec instructions.
Though Apple believes that there is not that much work for most developers, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller said the company is trying to be careful not to trivialise the work that needs to be done.
He notes that the work required to take OS 9 applications and make them run natively in OS X, a process known as Carbonisation, ended up being tougher than Apple had thought. "That turned out to be more work than we all expected" Schiller said in an interview Monday. "This is not near the (same) effort."
For smaller companies that may not want to invest the time or the US$1,000 to rent the Intel system, a company called Advenio has a service in which it will do the necessary porting work. As an indication of the relative time involved, the company is charging a flat US$100 fee to create a universal binary of a Cocoa application; the fee for porting a Carbonised program starts at US$500 and depends on the amount of work involved.
Fetch Software's Matthews said he is not too worried about the time needed to move applications over to the Intel chips, especially as compared with past transitions. "I think this is probably going to be the least traumatic switch for our software."
Of more concern, though, is what customers do during an uncertain time for the Mac, as Apple tries to continue selling PowerPC-based Macs while laying plans for a day when such machines will be entirely supplanted by Intel machines. "It's going to be fine as long as customers don't freak out, as long as customers don't stop buying Macs," Matthews said.

Treadmill system lets office-bound work out while they work

2005-06-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

By STEVE KARNOWSKITHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Sitting at their desks is about the last thing workers would do in Dr. James Levine's office of the future.
Instead of being sedentary in front of their computers, they'd stand. But instead of standing still, they'd walk on a treadmill. And instead of meeting around a conference table, they'd talk business while walking laps on a track.

A woman works out while she works on Dr. James Levine's brainchild, a workstation that combines a computer, desk and treadmill. The "ultimate office makeover" offers an alternative to being sedentary in front of a computer, according to the Mayo Clinic obesity doctor, who also uses a treadmill on the job.
That's exactly how Levine, a Mayo Clinic obesity researcher, and several of his colleagues have been working for the past five weeks or so.
"I hate going to the gym, which may be partly why I'm so interested in this," he said, keeping up a 1-mph pace on his treadmill while checking e-mail and fielding questions from a reporter.
That speed is slow enough to avoid breaking a sweat but fast enough to burn an extra 100 calories per hour, or 1,000 a day, given his average 10-hour workdays, Levine said. And it helps the 41-year-old endocrinologist keep his 5-foot-8 1/2-inch frame at 158 pounds.
"We're talking more than 50 pounds of weight loss a year, if I were to keep my diet the same," he said.
Levine is a leading researcher of NEAT -- short for "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" -- the calories people burn during everyday activities such as standing, walking or even fidgeting.
A recently published study he led showed that thin people are on their feet an average of 152 more minutes a day than couch potatoes. Levine was brainstorming ways to address that 2 1/2- hour NEAT deficit a few months ago when he had the idea for the "ultimate office makeover."
"The response has to be appropriate for the magnitude of the problem," he said. "And so we really thought, 'Is there a completely different way of working?' "

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Within four weeks, his team developed an alternative to the traditional cubicle -- workstations that combine a computer, desk and treadmill into one unit. It was a refinement of a desk Levine created for himself about six months ago.
He and his team also put a carpeted track around the perimeter of their new 5,000-square-foot space. They made walls out of magnetic marker boards so they can stand up while developing project ideas.
And they used black tape to mark a hockey net on the wall behind Levine's treadmill so they can fire lightweight plastic pucks at the goal while talking to him.
"It's great fun, and it creates a whole positivity," he said while touring the walking track. "Partly because it's so new, but partly because it's nice to be moving."
The makeover was relatively cheap. Levine says the 10 workstations cost about $1,000 each -- about half the cost of a cubicle -- and remodeling the space cost about $5.50 per square foot.
Those who don't feel like standing can always pull up a tall stool to work on their computers, he said, but the environment "sends you this message of 'Walking is the norm. Being upright is the norm.' "
Yes, there's peer pressure, he said, but isn't it better than peer pressure to bring doughnuts to work? "Coercion to help you get healthier and happier, that isn't so bad."
Staying fit doesn't appear to be a major concern yet for Chinmay Manohar, a 24-year-old research assistant in Levine's office. A runner and a hiker, he's a trim 5-feet-8 and 130 pounds.
But he's found Levine's setup keeps him more alert and focused. When he's soldering electronic gizmos, he stands at a raised workbench. When he's computer programming, he walks on a treadmill. Somehow, typing isn't a problem.
"It took me only a day or two to actually get acquainted with the system. Also, it keeps me fit."
Levine has heard from people like Lois Yurow in Westfield, N.J., who wanted to know where she could get a workstation like his after she saw a newspaper photo of him walking on it.
"I looked at it and said, 'I want one of those things!' " she said.
Although the treadmill-workstations aren't commercially available yet, Mayo Clinic's technology licensing people are working on that.
Yurow, 42, is at her home-office desk about six hours straight each day -- with breaks to fill her water glass or throw in a load of laundry -- until her children come home from school. She also puts in another hour at night after her children have settled down.
"It would be great if there were something set up that would let me be standing up all the time ... and let me get my work done," she said.

Make Money Online and Live Life to the Fullest

2005-06-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Scott
Many people today feel they are trudging to work every day to a dead end job. These people often feel like hamsters in a wheel, running the same paces over and over and never really going anywhere. So many people have hopes and aspirations outside of their cubicles, but they seldom have the chance to explore these avenues because work and family commitments clash to severely leave any extra time for themselves. What is the answer to the monotony and the frustration? Make money online and live your life to the fullest. When you make money online, you do not have to be sitting at your computer every second of every day. You do not need to hold your web page's hand to see it achieve ultimate financial success. You simply need to make a few effective decisions, and your computer could be making money for you.You can make money online in many ways. Do you have a great product? Sell it online. Set up a web page detailing your product, and advertise to as many people as you can by placing it on the Internet, the world's fastest growing market place. Do you have great flair for marketing but lack a good product? That is okay, too. Companies exist that work in reselling rights to property - both product and ideas - that you can buy and then sell. They have the product, and you can do the marketing. Do you want a second income to ensure success even on days when you can't be handling hands-on marketing? Join an affiliate program. These programs provide the means to make money online every minute your web page is online, even while you sleep soundly. When you join an affiliate program, yo will put the affiliate's banner on your web site, and they will pay you every time someone goes to their site from your link. You do nothing and make money!Making money online is not scary. Making money online is not hard. Making money online is smart. The opportunities exist for businesses willing to get out there and try. Take the leap into the technological age and make money online. You will find you are among a growing community of individuals who have chosen to be their own boss and achieve their own goals. Forums and pages designed to support Internet business owners provide insight and continual connections to the fast paced changes always occurring in the industry. You are never alone in the Internet industry business because you are among some of the most motivated and effective business people in the industry. Check out your options today. Why go to an awful job and be frustrated all day when you could make money online?
About the Author
Benjamin Scott operates a successful internet business working from his home personal computer. Ben will take you by the hand and show you how to duplicate his success using the internet as a roadmap to financial freedom. Subscribe to his free e-business and marketing tips newsletter at http://www.eazyhomebusiness.com/

China launches laptop computer-based network campus scheme

2005-06-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

China Education and Research Network (CERNET) has launched the "New Network Campus" program, which is based on the wide use of laptop computers in the prestigious Qinghua University.
According to a 3-year-plan, CERNET will build wireless campus networks in 100, 200 and 500 institutions of higher learning in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
In the meantime, CERNET will work with computer giants Lenovo, IBM, HP, DELL and SAMSUNG to supply cheaper brand-name laptops to students. The computers may be cheaper by several thousand yuan (1 US dollar equals 8.27 yuan) than the market prices.
CERNET will provide 50,000 laptops to students this year and 300,000 more in 2006, according to the plan.
With the scheme in operation, college students may enjoy network teaching platform, IP phone call, IPTV and other special services. Students will be able to work in dorm rooms, classrooms, dining halls and libraries and surf the Internet from anywhere on campus using the wireless network.
Source: Xinhua

Computer theft at newspaper an 'inside job'

2005-06-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

By Shaun SmillieThe Mail & Guardian newspaper has lost new computer equipment valued at about R1-million in a “bizarre” robbery.Police and employees of the newspaper believe it could be an inside job. According to police Constable Sefako Xaba, the robbery occurred between 1am and 2am on Sunday at the Mail & Guardian’s (M&G) premises in Milpark, Johannesburg. “The security guards told us that about 10 men armed with either AK-47s or R-5s (assault rifles) tied them up. It was a quick job. The suspects appeared to know where everything was and where to find it,” Xaba said.The robbers stole brand-new Apple Mac computers, PCs, photocopiers and fax machines, M&G chief operating officer Hoosain Karjieker said.

The security guard at the gate was apparently overpowered by three of the robbers, locked in a bathroom and bound with his own shoelaces and a cord.Three other security personnel in the M&G building were also tied up. “They only took the new stuff, which we’ve only had for about eight weeks. They didn’t go into the offices or the advertising areas,” said Karjieker.The security guards were able to raise the alarm, after one of them apparently found a pair of scissors and was able to cut himself loose. The robbers apparently loaded the equipment into a vehicle and fled. “It is really bizarre – it must have been an inside job. They just targeted the M&G; there are also other businesses in the complex,” said Karjieker. M&G editor Ferial Hafferjee said the staff hoped to have everything up and running on Monday. “It is mainly the production side of the paper that has been affected. None of the journalists’ laptops appear to have been stolen,” said Hafferjee.According to Karjieker, the company would only be able to assess the full extent of the damage on Monday when staff arrived at work. The robbery is the latest in a series of misfortunes to befall the M&G in recent months. The paper is moving to new premises in August.

IBM Builds Most Powerful Privately Owned Computer as Showcase

2005-06-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

(Bloomberg) -- International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest maker of mainframe servers, has built itself the most powerful privately owned supercomputer to attract customers in science, weather forecasting and financial services.
The Watson Blue Gene computer system, with an average processing speed of 91.29 teraflops, is about three times faster and one-ninth the cost of the ``Earth Simulator'' built by NEC Corp. and once the world's fastest computer, said David Turek, IBM's vice president for Deep Computing.
IBM will use the Watson Blue Gene and smaller supercomputers to spur mainframe sales, which fell 16 percent in the first quarter. Blue Gene computers are faster and smaller than competing machines and can add computing power as needed, said Stacey Quandt, an analyst for researcher Robert Frances Group. All eight sold so far went to universities and government agencies.
``It will help IBM generate sales'' by showing customers what's possible, Quandt said. ``It's not just theory. This is a real world application.''
Shares of Armonk, New York-based IBM declined 16 cents to $74.77 on June 10 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have fallen 24 percent this year.
IBM, which spent $5.67 billion on research last year, will use the machine for a variety of its own studies, such as how applications work at high speed, Turek said. IBM consultants will be able to make the machine available to customers who need large amount of computing power.
Supercomputers
NEC's Earth computer, which cost about $350 million and is used to predict environmental change, was the world's fastest machine when it was unveiled in 2002, capable of 36 teraflops. One teraflop equals 1 trillion mathematical operations a second.
IBM last year unveiled a faster computer that was built for the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to simulate nuclear explosions. By the end of this summer, that Blue Gene machine will be capable of more than 300 teraflops, Turek said.
The Watson Blue Gene machine, which is installed at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, would cost about $40 million, Turek said.
``We've built a system that's faster by a factor of three and much cheaper over what was the state of art,'' Turek said.
The computer can be used for researching drugs, weather, global risk management in financial markets and supply-chain management. IBM has sold Blue Gene systems to institutes including Scotland's University of Edinburgh and Japan's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
IBM is selling smaller versions of the machines with fewer teraflops for as little as $2 million. IBM also rents a Blue Gene machine for $10,000 a week.
The machine IBM built for itself occupies the space of 20 refrigerators, about half that of competing systems, Quandt said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Peter J. Brennan in Los Angeles at pbrennan3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 13, 2005 00:01 EDT

Mercury Computer Systems Introduces Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition for Massive Volume 3D Data Management and Visualization

2005-06-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Mercury Computer Systems Introduces Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition for Massive Volume 3D Data Management and VisualizationMonday
June 13, 2:00 am ET
Optimized 3D Graphics Software Delivers Scalable, Collaborative, and Cost Efficient Solution for Large Display Walls and Data Intensive Management
MADRID, Spain, June 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRCY - News) announced the introduction of its cluster edition for Open Inventor® from Mercury at the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) Conference and Exhibition. The Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition is a technology breakthrough that enables application developers to overcome limitations of display hardware cost effectively. This optimized software solution enables transparent scalability of Open Inventor from Mercury and VolumeViz(TM) LDM (large data management) for increased resolution, quality, and performance in applications that display large volumes of data. These applications, which include oil exploration and production, and scientific 3D visualization, are typically run on high- performance visualization computer systems with multiple Internet-networked graphics machines, also called graphics clusters.

"A key advantage of our Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition is the ability to manage and dynamically analyze massive volumes of data, and propose 3D representations that are appropriate to the geophysics people," said Jean Bernard Cazeaux, vice president of Geosciences and 3DViz Technology, Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. "Data sets can be extremely large and complex, such as when derived from seismic acquisition, making the interpretation of results all the more challenging."
The Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition also offers users great flexibility to interactively navigate within several hundred gigabytes of volume data. From data analysis and interpretation to decision making, this powerful technology can dramatically impact collaboration workflow in geosciences, material sciences analysis, product design and simulation, visual simulation and much more. The Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition and VolumeViz LDM offer the most consistent coverage of high-performance visualization platforms including graphics clusters, multi-pipe SMP machines, and video compositing systems.
"I believe the combination of our software cluster technology with high- end visualization systems significantly accelerates the decision-making process," Mr. Cazeaux added.
Based on a distributed scene graph, the Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition allows an application to run unchanged on a master computer, with its scene graph optimally distributed to slave cluster nodes. It manages the parallelized rendering of portions of the total image to calculate and display. Leveraging its out-of-core capabilities, VolumeViz LDM transforms Open Inventor from Mercury into an optimal middleware for the management and visualization of very large volume data.
The high level of data synchronization, caching, and management enable Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition to provide unparalleled transparency for the best possible load balancing and scalability with any available combination of CPU, GPU, channels, memory, storage, and network resources. It is designed for seamless adaptation to legacy Open Inventor from Mercury and/or VolumeViz LDM applications; no additional effort is required for user interface integration deployment on arbitrary configurations.
The Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition and VolumeViz LDM are available on Linux systems, including AMD Opteron64, and Intel Xeon EMT64. Mercury plans to release the Windows version for both 32- and 64-bit architecture during the last quarter of calendar year 2005.
Mercury will demonstrate the Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition at its EAGE booth and at the American Association of Petroleum Geologist (AAPG) Conferences in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 19-23. All demonstrations will include large seismic and reservoir data on a 12-screen high resolution display (approximately 16 million pixels) driven by a compact/high-density visualization cluster from Mercury.
About Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRCY - News) is the leading provider of high-performance embedded, real-time digital signal and image processing solutions. Mercury's solutions play a critical role in a wide range of applications, transforming sensor data to information for analysis and interpretation. In military reconnaissance and surveillance platforms the Company's systems process real-time radar, sonar, and signals intelligence data. Mercury's systems are also used in state-of-the-art medical diagnostic imaging devices including MRI, PET, and digital X-ray, and in semiconductor imaging applications including photomask generation and wafer inspection. Mercury provides advanced 3D image processing and visualization software and optimized systems to diverse end markets including life sciences, geosciences, and simulation. The Company also provides radio frequency (RF) products for enhanced communications capabilities in military and commercial applications.
Based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Mercury serves customers in North America, Europe and Asia through its direct sales force and a network of subsidiaries and distributors. Visit Mercury on the web at http://www.mc.com/ and http://www.mc.com/tgs.
Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including those relating to the Open Inventor from Mercury Cluster Edition. You can identify these statements by our use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, competition, changes in technology, delays in completing engineering and manufacturing programs, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays, and market acceptance of the Company's products. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in the Company's recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made.
Contacts:
Laurent Coureau, Marketing Manager, 3D Viz Group
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
lcoureau@mc.com
TEL: +33 556 13 40 02
Kathy Donahue, Public Relations Manager
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
kdonahue@mc.com
TEL: 978-967-1126
Open Inventor is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Mercury Computer Systems SA is source licensee of Open Inventor. VolumeViz LDM is a trademark of Mercury Computer Systems SA. Product and company names mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Source: Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.

Do you speak computer?Hispanics get helpful boost into English-dominated digital world

2005-06-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

By John KeilmanTribune staff reporterPublished June 13, 2005
In a darkened community room at the Des Plaines Public Library, Hector Marino tells his students to fire up Microsoft Paint on their borrowed laptop computers. It's the perfect way, he says in Spanish, to get some practice with el raton.That means "the mouse," one of many translations Marino uses to make the world of computing, which is dominated by English, more comprehensible for his Spanish-speaking students. The desktop is el escritorio. E-mail, he says, is correo electronico. And to get from one Web page to another, he tells them: haz un clic."It's a challenge for them. But we try to make it easy," Marino said. "We use the very basics. They don't need to create PowerPoint presentations. They need basic things--to save, erase, copy and paste. We're trying to teach them the essentials."A growing number of Spanish speaking people are interested in joining the digital realm, hoping to stay in touch with overseas relatives, get ahead at work and keep up with what their kids are learning. That's testing the ingenuity of computer instructors trying to teach a subject whose technical terms can be hard to grasp even without a language barrier."It's double the effort," said Mauricio Blanco, who teaches at the computer center of Onward Neighborhood House in Chicago's West Town neighborhood. "All the software, all the programs are in English."The latest federal statistics show that only 1 in 3 Hispanics uses the Internet, the lowest rate of any ethnic group covered by the report. The percentage is slowly climbing, but Andy Carvin of the Digital Divide Network, an advocacy group based in Newton, Mass., said the gap remains a problem."The issue of the `digital divide' is based on whether all people have equal opportunities to improve their quality of life," he said. "A lot of people may think of the Internet as a place to check the latest sports scores. But for a lot of people, it's a lifeline to get training for job prospects, help their kids' education or stay connected with their family."The first step toward reaping online benefits is figuring out the essentials of working with a computer. While it's possible to customize the machines with a Spanish-language interface, the vast majority of computers sold in stores or available in public places use English menus and commands.That's why organizations like the Poder Learning Center pair computer instruction with English lessons. The Pilsen-based adult education group doesn't hand out Spanish-English cheat sheets or translate the vocabulary of computing as students learn to navigate Windows."When we introduce the technology, we introduce it in English," executive director Daniel Loftus said. "Eventually, you'll need to know those computer terms in English, so let's just attack this head-on."The West Chicago Public Library in DuPage County sticks with the bilingual approach with its computer classes for Spanish speakers. Librarian Jennifer Winter said that, language aside, the main problem for her students--many of whom are middle age or older--is getting comfortable with a machine that, to the uninitiated, can seem as impenetrable as Esperanto."For anyone who didn't grow up in the computer culture, I think it's equally confusing in any language," she said. "People who are 25 or so, who have had computers in school since the day they started, it's not even a hurdle for them."Indeed, gaining insight into their kids' technology is a big reason Hispanic parents have crowded computer classes at Maine West High School in Des Plaines over the last five years.An English-speaking teacher usually leads the 15- to 20-person classes, with an aide serving as interpreter. Sheila Rudden-Shorey, a social worker at the school, said the classes attract parents who want to understand what their children are doing at school."Most of them realize that it's the way of the future," she said. "You can see homework assignments, e-mail teachers. They see their children as young as five and six being exposed to it. That's a big motivation."Spanish-speaking parents in Chicago can also take classes through the public schools, learning everything from how to navigate the desktop to the finer points of video editing."When they come out of it, they're going to know a lot more than most of the people in school buildings," said Jesus Esquivel, who designed the program at the Bilingual Parent Resource Center in Pilsen.He said that in the fall, the school system plans to expand the program to other languages, including Polish, Chinese and Arabic.Hector Marino has become an old hand at leading computer classes in Spanish. He estimates he has taught 1,000 students since 2000, when the Des Plaines Library began offering the courses, and he recently conducted a workshop for 20 other libraries interested in setting up similar programs.In one recent class, a warm-up with Microsoft Paint led to exercises with PowerPoint and Web surfing. Most of the seven students had little trouble following along--one woman even began checking flights to Mexico on a travel Web site as Marino tutored others on the mechanics of cutting and pasting.