Axis/Radio interop, actual and potential

To borrow a line, SOAP celebrates diversity This document describes the integration between a popular scripting platform and a Java based implementation of SOAP, both in what is possible today and what could be done to improve the user's experience in the future.

Tech News - CNET.com | Computer science's gender gap

In a new book entitled "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing," social scientist and scholar Jane Margolis and computer scientist and educator Allan Fisher explore why only a small fraction of high school and university computer science students are female, even though women make up a growing portion of computer and Internet users.

As part of their research for the book, Margolis and Fisher followed more than 100 computer science students, both male and female, at Carnegie Mellon University for four years beginning in 1995. The book details the unique experiences and challenges women confront in the field of computing and how it contributes to the thinning ranks of women in such programs.

An interesting article with suggestions how to achive better enrolment stats. Their research has had an impact on the computer science department of Carnegie Mellon, raising women's enrollment in the program from 7 percent in 1995 to 42 percent in 2000.

MacNet Journal - Tired of viruses and bugs? Ditch Microsoft

"This is the way I view it: One reason I use a Mac is that the underlying system is less likely to be attacked by hackers than if I used Windows. Sure, the Mac has some killer applications that help make this decision easy, but a big plus to running Macs as a small business owner is that the machines are easier to maintain and one part of that is that viruses and crippling security risks are lessened, at least at this point in time, just by choosing Apple products. And, since I decided to use Apple products to avoid many of the pitfalls I would face if I was running Windows, why would I then decide to hop into bed with Microsoft and introduce more of their buggy products to a machine that I want to rely on?

With this underlying philosophy, the decision is pretty easy. I minimize my exposure to Microsoft and at the same time minimize my exposure to viruses and bugs. That folks is a win-win situation."

Right on!

David Davies' Radio Weblog

An admission. I've been bitten by Radio's web services and am licking my wounds somewhat. All was going so well until I ran up against a wall, the wall being Radio's handling of TCP connections on the Mac.

As a Radio scripting newbie, Chris Double is digging around for documentation about Radio/Fronter/UserTalk. His Radio Weblog contains the links he's dug up so far.

And Andy Sylvester anounces a Radio UserLand Resource Directory.

THE HISTORY OF COMPUTING

This WWW page is the initiation of a collection of materials related to the history of computing as collected and written by J. A. N. Lee, until 1995 Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, past chair of the IEEE Computer Society History of Computing Committee and current chair of the IFIP Working Group 9.7 (History of Computing). It was original constructed as part of the course materials for the "Professionalism in Computing" class at Virginia Tech, and in particular as a set of notes and amplification of the materials in the video "The Machine That Changed The World", developed and distributed by WGBH (PBS) and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

A great resource.

>From the latest update to Librarians' Index to the Internet:
>
>>The History of Computing - http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/
>>"This collection of materials relating to the history
>>of computing" includes links to historical overviews;
>>information on people, corporations, and machines;
>>organizations and museums; and more."
>
>It is a good resource and includes a version of "Who
>wants to be a Millionaire" in which all the questions
>are on computing (unlike the computer-phobic tv original).
>See:
>
>http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/cgi-bin/million/index.html
>
>[snip]

I actually managed to answer everything correctly up to, and including, the 64000 hokie question. I bombed out on the 125000 question when I gave the wrong answer to 'What kind of engineer was Konrad Zuse?'

I'm pretty proud of my score. How sad is that ;-)?

Thanks for the link Alan.

Duncan

via CamWorld - CMSWatch: Featured Opinion: Why Getting Laid Off Is Better Than Building a Proprietary CMS

So there you are, called into the Vice Presidens office. Immediately your mind is racing withwhat the heck did I do Then your VP hits you with it you are now in charge of a very strategic projectBuild me a content management system in 4 months or less says your VP, who happens to be from thewe can build anything in our IT departmen mentality. At this point you wish he had laid you off. ...

ArsDigita closes shop, sells assets to Red Hat

The Register: Open source a needed outlet for programming pros

Open source hackers are very likely to be programmers with a decade of professional experience employed by a commercial software company, and very unlikely to be the stock high school math-club geeks of popular press reports, a survey of SourceForge members conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicates.

PS it looks unlikely that I will manage to attend the Departmental Seminar | Robert Chassell | Free Software: Access and Empowerment today (Thursday). Keeping my fingers crossed that my schedule allows me to work it in but I'm not confident.

OSDN: Open Source Development Network | The Boston Consulting Group/OSDN Hacker Survey

Who are the hackers that create all this great free software? How much time do they spend? Why do they do it? Where are they from? Do they think its sustainable?

Institutional Web Management Workshop 2002

The 6th Institutional Web Management Workshop will take place at the University of Strathclyde on 18-20th June 2002.

As participants at previous events will be aware this workshop is aimed at those involved in management of institutional Web management services. The workshop aims to address a broad range of topics, including strategic, managerial, resourcing and technical issues.

A key feature of the workshop is the importance placed on participative and interactive sessions, including hands-on sessions, group discussions, etc.

We are now issuing a call for speakers and workshop facilitators.

I was co-opted onto the Programme Committee yesterday. In his 'welcome' e-mail to the rest of the committee Brian Kelly (chair of the Programme Committee) introduced me as:

"Duncan will provide additional technical expertise and interest to the programme committee together with links with the Scottish and Computer Science sectors.

Duncan also has an interest in blogger technologies. As we've talked about previously it would be useful to make use of new Web technologies to support the workshop, not only to make use of the functionality which can be provided, but also as a learning process for ourselves and workshop delegates so that we can gain experience in new tools."

I am delighted to be associated with this workshop and thoroughly enjoyed the 2000 Institutional Web Management Workshop in Bath. One of the first things I'll be doing is to set up a Free-Conversant site to introduce the rest of the committee to this great technology. Looking foward to renewing contact with friends made at the Bath event.