Issue 2 (January 25 - February 1, 2005): The Visions of Technics Technical progress lies first within the instrumental range and requires a pragmatic & utilitarian justification. By Bernhard Irrgang, Dresden University of Technology What Makes Users Unhappy: Share-Point Team Services Web Server Security Computer & Internet Security is very important but sometimes it is so confusing and frustrating that it makes users very unhappy — to a point where the system is so secure that it cannot be used by its most legitimate users, like system administrators. By Avi Rushinek and Sara Rushinek, University of Miami. Issue 5 (February 16-22, 2005): A Concise Guide to the Major Internet Bodies The bodies responsible for the Internet's protocols and parameters can be said to steer the Internet in a significant sense. This document, by Alex Simonelis of Dawson College, Montreal, is a summary of those bodies and their most important characteristics. Issue 8 (March 8 - 15, 2005): Just Right: Rethinking the How and Why of Technology Instruction Instruction should go well beyond a skill focus to one that connects technology use with the actual aims of curriculum and learning outcomes. Science and Engineering of Large-Scale Complex Systems A short note by Kemal Delic on the science of hybrid systems. Issue 9 (March 15 - 22, 2005): PCs in the Classroom & Open Book Exams By Evan Golub, Human Interaction lab, University of Maryland "What are the motivations behind giving an open-book/open-notes exam? Does giving free access to all of the resources of the Internet conflict with these motivations?" Taking Information Technology To The Heart Of India By V. Lalith Kumar, A.L.Suseela, and Akashdeep Aharma "Today we truly live in a global village, but it is a village with elite information 'haves' and many information 'have-nots.' With the new technologies available to us we have an opportunity to change this." Issue 11 (April 5 - 12, 2005): In Defense Of Cheating Donald A. Norman wants to see a reordering of academic priorities. Let us the debate continue! Issue 13 (April 19 - 26, 2005): Software Architecture and Plato's Ideal Types: How Minds Store and Use Symbols Francis Hsu says that Plato's Ideal Types helps explain not only how our minds work, but perhaps also how computer software should work. Issue 14 (April 26 - May 3, 2005): Manpower Retention in IT: An Oxymoron? Sunil Tadwalkar and Manjira Sen urge you to think of retention of people a business goal rather than a damage control measure. Issue 16 (May 10 - 17, 2005): Remote from Reality: The Out-of-Box Home Experience Designer Aaron Marcus says you cannot even begin to imagine the pain of achieving high-definition pleasure. "A Software Fix Towards Fault-Tolerant Computing" Goutam Kumar Saha describes a more cost-effective tool for application design engineers than the traditional expensive hardware fixes, or N-Version programming. Issue 17 (May 17 - 24, 2005): Reflections on Challenges to the Goal of Invisible Computing Arun Kumar Tripathi of the Department of Philosophy of Technololgy, Institute for Philosophy at Dresden University of Technology, says making computers ubiquitous is not enough; we should also strive to make them invisible. Issue 19 (June 1 - 8, 2005): The S-Scurves of Sinks, and Technology Espen Andersen remains surprised that so many people can go through life in delightful ignorance. Intrusion Prevention Systems Nick Ierace, Cesar Urrutia, and Richard Bassett say that Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPSs) are an important component of IT systems defense, and that without this technology our data and our networks are much more susceptible to malicious activities. Issue 21 (June 15 - 21, 2005): On the Reliability of GRE Scores John Orlando sheds a little Vermont wit and wisdom on the reliability of GRE scores in predicting graduate school success, and gives us a "Meta-Analytic, Cross-Functional, Regressive, Unilateral, Post-Kantian, Hyper-Empirical, Quadruple Blind, Verbiage-Intensive and Hemorrhoid-Inducing Study" on the subject. The Unique UNICODE Mir Lutful Kabir Saadi explains the rationale for Unicode and tells you all you need to know but were afraid to ask. Issue 24 (July 5 - July 12, 2005): No Moving Parts Data systems engineer Francis Hsu says that Software Architecture Axiom 1 is: "No Moving Parts," and argues that "if the IT industry wants to improve data reliability and lower data error rates further, whatever future systems and applications architecture we implement must consider lowering the frequency and necessity of human data inputs. In this regard, no moving parts (NMP) is the ultimate goal, but less moving parts (LMP) is the way to get there." Issue 26 (July 19 - 26, 2005): Why Do Current Graphical User Interfaces Not Work Naturally & How They Can Be Fixed? Warren M. Myers says, "I originally developed this idea of ring control in 2000 as a mental exercise in 'thinking outside the box'. I thought outside the box. I abandoned the box. Interface designers need to do the same thing, and come up with truly new and innovative ways of interacting with our computers." Issue 28 (August 2 - 9, 2005): Transient Software Fault Tolerance using Single-Version Algorithm Goutam Kumar Saha introduces a low-cost and unconventional technique for designing software capable of self-detection and recovery. Embedded Systems in Real Time Applications, Design & Architecture A.L.Suseela and V.Lalith Kumar offers a primer on the development of real-time, embedded, hybrid control software, illustrated within the problem domain of intelligent cruise control applications. Issue 30 (August 17-23, 2005): Notes on Malware In his insightful "Notes on Malware," Michel Kabay says: "With the help of unethical, immoral, careless, stupid or crazy virus authors, viruses evolve in response to selection pressures, hiding themselves in new niches of the computer universe, or 'cyberspace.' Virus authors even take ideas from each other's viruses, leading to a form of primitive viral sexuality." Kabay is Associate Professor, Information Assurance & Program Director, Master of Science in Information Assurance, Division of Business & Management, Norwich University, Northfield, VT. Issue 31 (August 23-30, 2005): The Cucumber Season From Norway, the always-insightful Espen Andersen offers "The Cumber Season: Reflections on the Nature of Information when there isn't any." IT Job Outsourcing In an article analyzing the growth of offshore outsorucing, Bhumika Ghimire writes from Nepal about such issues security concerns, questions on job loss, the depleting talent pool in America, and concludes with a discussion of India and China as premier outsourcing destinations." Issue 32 (August 30 - September 6, 2005): The E2B Machine Translation: A New Approach to Human Language Technology Goutam Kumar Saha describes a machine translator which translates English text into Bangla text with disambiguation, and which is also useful for learning Bengali or Bangla as a foreign language. At the same time the Bengali rural people who do not know the English language well can understand the English matter with the translated output. The proposed approach is a new one that uses both the rule-based and transformation-based machine translation schemes along with three level parsing approaches, and is a significant contribution towards creation of a low-cost Human Language Technology (HLT). Issue 33 (September 13 - 20, 2005) : COMMUNICATIONS POLICYMAKING HISTORICAL SERIES MEMORANDUM The always-interesting communications lawyer and policy analyst Kenneth G. Robinson, publisher of the weekly TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY REVIEW weighs in with "1965: Voting Rights, Communications & the FCC". Issue 35 (September 28 - October 4, 2005): SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTED FAULT TOLERANCE THROUGH DATA ERROR RECOVERY Goutam Kumar Saha explains how a new software-implemented data error recovery scheme can be so effective in comparison to conventional Error Correction Codes (ECC) during the execution time of an application, and says: "The proposed algorithm is three times faster than the conventional software-implemented ECC and application program designers can easily implement the proposed scheme because of its simplicity while designing their fault tolerant applications at no extra hardware cost." MASTERING A MASTER'S DEGREE — AND YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER M.E.Kabay, Director of the Norwich University MSIA program, tells students: "Don't let the locus of control lie entirely outside yourself. Use your opportunities wisely and let your graduate program be the start of what you study, not the end." Issue 36 (October 5-11, 2005): INDUS: A NEW PLATFORM FOR UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING Kallol Borah began development of the Indus project at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2002. Indus demonstrates how general purpose object oriented programming languages can be extended to enable ubiquitous computing applications. Issue 38 (October 19-25, 2005): "A THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODEL FOR EVALUATING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS." In this model created by Dr. K.V.K.K. Prasad, model, software development is viewed in two dimensions, based on the answer to the questions: (a) is it inspired by considerations of utility and value? (b) does it advance software technology? Issue 40 (November 2-8, 2005): "SOFTWARE BASED FAULT TOLERANT COMPUTING." Goutam Kumar Saha explains how to design a software based fault tolerant application using microprocessor (MP), in order to tolerate the burst errors in memory. "WHY PEOPLE DON'T READ ONLINE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT" Michelle Cameron offers some good advice for Internet publishers. Issue 42 (November 16-22, 2005): "Artificial and Biological Intelligence" Subhash Kak of Louisiana State University says that "humans will eventually create silicon machines with minds that will slowly spread all over the world, and the entire universe will eventually become a conscious machine." Issue 43 (November 23-29, 2005): Web Page Translation In "A Novel 3-Tier XML Schematic Approach for Web Page Translation," Goutam Kumar Saha discusses how to embed syntactic, semantic and computational linguistic metadata information in the structure of an XML document and how the various markups help in Internationalization. Issue 44 (November 29-December 5, 2005): Build or Buy? Rob Meyer, CEO of the Numerical Algorithms Group, wants you to be thinking clearly when you consider the component approach to development. Computers and the Embodied Nature of Communication Examining the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Arun-Kumar Tripathi comments: "In terms of the language of embodiment, Merleau-Ponty took account of the way in which technologies may be embodied, such as the blind manšs cane or the woman's feathered hat... " Issue 46 (December 14-20, 2005): Run-Time Fault Detection Goutam Kumar Saha explains: "Fault tolerance means a system can provide its services even in the presence of faults. Safety refers to the situation that when a system temporarily fails to operate correctly, nothing catastrophic happens. Many process control systems, such as those used for chemical plants, sending people into space or for controlling nuclear power plants, are required to provide a high degree of safety. The objective of this article is to describe a new way of keeping track of the program flow while the program is being executed. Processor Status Register (PSR) is examined periodically in order to catch faults." Issue 47 (December 21-28, 2005): Internationalization is Everywhere Felix Sasaki "Internationalization" is the process of making a product or its underlying technology ready for applications in various languages, cultures and regions. In his paper "From Characters to Web Services .. to Internationalization is Everywhere," Felix Sasaki of the W3C shows that internationalization is relevant for a wide range of technologies (character encoding, bidirectional text, text formatting, character processing, datatype specific issues, etc.), and gives a brief overview of some of these technologies.

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