The Top Themes of 2003

by Scott Tilley

Computing technology continues to pervade our daily lives. This past year saw the introduction of fast new machines, sleek new operating systems, and upgrades to numerous applications. However, the most exciting developments were more general and more far-reaching. The top themes for 2003 were digital music sales; worms, viruses, and spam; and VoIP.

The 2003 Southeastern Conference

by Tauhida Parveen

The 17th Annual Southeastern Conference was held November 7-8, 2003 at Georgia Perimeter College in Dunwoody, GA. The conference is sponsored by the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC), in cooperation with the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). The conference theme was “Computing in Support of Teaching.” This was my first academic conference. I was very nervous about presenting my paper, but overall it was a great learning experience.

WSE 2003

The 5th IEEE International Workshop on Web Site Evolution (WSE 2003) was held on September 22 at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. This year the WSE workshop was focused on the theme of “Architecture.” I fully enjoyed WSE 2003, thanks to the collegial atmosphere of the workshop, and to the glamour of the most culturally-diverse city in Europe, Amsterdam.

SIGDOC 2003

The 21st Annual International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC 2003) was held from October 12-15 in San Francisco, CA. The theme of SIGDOC 2003 was "Finding Real-World Solutions for Documentation." As with previous SIGDOC events, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's conference; the program was strong, the people were pleasant, and the Chinese food was great!

Internet Explorer Caught on Safari

On Friday, June 13, Microsoft announced that they would cease development of Internet Explorer for the Mac. On Monday, June 23 at the WWDC 2003 event, Apple released Version 1.0 of their own browser, Safari. These two events are inextricably linked. Is the safarization of office applications underway? Should Steve Jobs be happy or worried?

Napster Reloaded

Like a digital phoenix rising from the ashes of the dot.com meltdown, Napster is returning. The Napster name is currently owned by Roxio. Earlier this week they purchased the music service pressplay from Sony-Universal. The intent seems clear enough: reload Napster with legitimate music content and relaunch it as an online music store. It would put Roxio and Napster on a collision course with the recently released Apple online music store. After its long hiatus, does the Napster brand name still have enough clout to compete?

The Canon PowerShot G2

People occasionally ask me about photography and, in particular, about camera equipment specifications. They focus on the technology almost as if that would automatically create great pictures all by itself. To some extent, the computing power and automation available in today's cameras can make the process of taking photos seem quite simple. However, images beyond the ordinary snapshot rely largely on the technical and artistic abilities of the photographer, working in synergy with the equipment; there's more to using a digital camera than megapixels. Consequently, this article is not so much a review of the Canon PowerShot G2, but more about my experiences exploring the creative and practical impacts of consumer-level digital camera technology.

The Safarization of Office

With the recent release of the Safari Web browser, Apple, has entered an exciting and potentially dangerous phase. Safari is a “turbo browser for OS X” based on the KHTML rendering engine. What is particularly interesting about this development is that Safari, being based on KHTML, is an open source software application. Moreover, Apple has promised to integrate their changes and enhancements to the core back into the open source for use by the general public. Imagine what would happen if they did the same thing for Open Office.

Web Services at COMDEX 2002

Web services have been a hot topic for the past few years. Their promise of seamless access to applications over the Internet is very attractive. However, the difficult economic climate for information technology companies has caused the focus of Web services to shift. Previously, it was a topic for geeks, with discussions full of acronyms like SOAP and WSDL. Now, Web services have become a topic for business, with discussions using more common acronyms like EAI and ROI. This shift was strikingly apparent at COMDEX 2002.

Steve Jobs' Macworld 2003 Keynote

Apple kicked off 2003 with the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The highlight of the show was the keynote presentation by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. There were several very interesting announcements (and some interesting things left out). On the software side, Final Cut Express, iLife, Safari, Keynote, and X11 were introduced. On the hardware side, Airport Extreme, and 17" and 12" models of the PowerBook were unveiled. The giant 17" PowerBook is truly innovative.