Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

2001 brought many exciting new developments in personal computing. The economy may have slowed down, but innovation continues apace. In our fifth year of publication, the top themes of 2001 were the DVDs, peer-to-peer computing, wireless networks, Windows XP, and the Euro.

Full
Article

by Shihong Huang

The 8th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE 2001) was held from Oct. 2-5 in Stuttgart, Germany. Although recent events reduced attendance somewhat compared to previous years, the conference was a success. WCRE brings together researchers active in the esoteric area of software reverse engineering: examining existing code for the purposes of aiding program understanding and system evolution.

Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

The 3rd International Workshop on Web Site Evolution (WSE 2001) was held on November 10 in Florence, Italy. WSE was one of four co-located events with the International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM 2001). The theme of WSE 2001 was "Access for All", a reflection of the goal of making the Web a vehicle for truly universal communication, providing comparable experiences to diverse users, irrespective of their national language, physical abilities, or computing platform. I personally consider WSE 2001 to be a resounding success -- but then again, I would, since I was the General Chair ☺.

Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

The IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) holds its annual conference every autumn in Toronto. This year was somewhat special for me: I had not attended a CASCON since 1996, and it's the tenth anniversary of my first participation in this distinctly Canadian event in 1991. Although attendance at CASCON 2001 was somewhat reduced (like all meetings these days), I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. For a country as large as Canada, CASCON offers the unique opportunity for everyone involved in academic software research to gather in one place and at one time to network, to discuss innovative new results, and to get a glimpse into what the world's largest software company is working on for today and tomorrow.

Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

The 19th Annual International Conference on Systems Documentation (ACM SIGDOC 2001) was held last week in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although recent events reduced attendance somewhat compared to previous years, I personally consider the conference to be a success. (Admittedly, I'm a little biased: I was Program Chair.) The theme of SIGDOC 2001 was "Going Global: Communicating in the New Millennium", a reflection of the new reality of the changing nature of professional communication as exemplified by the migration to multilingual Web sites.

Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

It seems like just last week I was talking about Compaq dropping support for its Alpha chip, in favor of Intel's Itanium. Wait a minute, it was just last week! On Monday, Compaq announced that it dropped support for, well, Compaq. The Houston, Texas-based PC company announced it was being bought by Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard for $25B. By Friday, the value of the deal had dropped to about $19B, with the stock of both H-P and Compaq dropping about 24% and 16%, respectively. Seems like Wall St. dropped its support too.

Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

This summer has seen several interesting developments in the microprocessor arena. Compaq has dropped their Alpha chip in favor of Intel's Itanium. Both IBM and Intel have demonstrated prototype transistors whose physical size has fallen to the single-atom nanoscale level. Transmeta announced new Crusoe chips with power consumptions that have been cut in half. AMD has released their impressive Mobile Athlon 4. Yet the share prices of almost all of these companies continue to fall. What's up?

Full
Article

by Scott Tilley

The 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2001) took place May 12-19 in Toronto, Canada. As the event in the academic calendar for software engineering researchers, ICSE  is a must-attend conference. This year's ICSE was a tremendous success. I participated in the regular ICSE tracks, as well as a co-located workshop (IWPC 2001), an ICSE-sponsored workshop (NCC 2001), a new track (FoSP), and a new symposium (NSEFS). Although the packed schedule made for a very busy and tiring week, I think ICSE 2001 was by far the best ICSE yet.

Full
Article

Spring Internet World 2001	Volume 5 Number 3 Apr. 30, 2001	RealAudio

by Scott Tilley

It was quieter this year. Less crowded. Less vendors. Less traffic on Pico. Nevertheless, Spring Internet World 2001 in Los Angeles was an interesting event. There was definitely more business flavor to the convention this year, with topics such as customer-relationship management, Web caching, and network monitoring emerging as central themes. Perhaps this is just a sign of the maturing of the Internet economy. But not everything at Internet World is mature. How can you take marketing ploys like getting out of a straight jacket, while riding on a six-foot unicycle, all the while doing a product pitch, seriously?

Full
Article

CD/DVD/MP3/VCD Players	Volume 5 Number 2 Feb. 28, 2001	RealAudio

by Scott Tilley

I have owned an audio CD player since 1987. It worked pretty well for the first 10 years or so, then started having problems recognizing discs and refused to play many CDs in my collection. Instead of buying a replacement CD player, I bought a DVD player that can also play audio CDs. However, this DVD player can also play Video CDs (VCDs) and -- most importantly -- MP3 CD-R and CD-RW discs. Now I can pop in a single CD and enjoy over 10 hours of continuous music on my home stereo. It's digital music to my ears!

Full
Article

A Soupçon of Security	Volume 5 Number 1 Jan. 31, 2001	RealAudio

by Scott Tilley

Last Fall, Microsoft admitted that their internal networks had been compromised by hackers operating from abroad. Last week, some of Microsoft's Web properties were inaccessible due to concerted attacks by hackers. Events such as these have again raised the profile of information systems security. If mighty Microsoft is susceptible to Trojan horses and Denial-of-Service attacks, what hope is here for you? In his recent book Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, well-known computer security guru Bruce Schneier outlines the serious challenges to any organization attempting to create and operate a secure computing environment. Even a soupçon of security helps, but it is never enough.

disclaimer