======================================================
AUC Higher Education News 16/12/02
A collection of Mac news and views relevant to the
tertiary education sector
(Submissions welcome to s.atherton@uq.net.au)
======================================================
The Oxford scholar Burton (aka Democritus) reflected upon being "a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts". It is a position I often find myself in. His turf was melancholy so perhaps he was a bit hard on himself. Higher Education News is a spectator of cyber-adventures and how the educator, developer and technical staff play their parts.
To continue this theme of melancholy, I had the pleasure to attend the University of Queensland's (UQ) Computer Centre's 40th anniversary this week. Perhaps the halls are not as revered as Burton's beloved Christ Church, but they are enough to take me on a walk down memory lane. I've always felt that to truly see where one is walking, an understanding of where we have been is important. Our history dictates our future and that is just as true in computing as it is in Byzantine history. This perception was clearly not shared by all of the staff at the event, as minds and tongues wandered as the noble ex-regent (past Director) spoke of one of Australias' first I.T. experiences in 1962- the purchase of a .... digital computer.Ignorant souls. Engineers and alcohol are a dangerous combination.
I was a willing spectator of the Prentice Centre (now ITS) adventure and thevarious actors. It was a veritable snapshot of I.T. in Australia and wassomewhat humbling. Who cares that this first "digital computer" had less grunt than my 13 year olds' iBook? It took a crane and "dedicated and noble" dock workers to remove it from the hold. That a whole industry, like the building housing it, grew around similar creations of valves on circuits is fascinating. The then Postmaster General contributed to the purchase of the machine. Teams trained to be able to handle the cards used to program the gizzmo in COBAL. Architects puzzled over the concept of raised floors to cool the "machine rooms" that housed the Babbage-inspired-Beast. Those were the days.
I heard how one of the fathers of ethernet, out from the UK for a conference was hijacked from a meeting in Sydney with the promise of "a short drive to Brisbane where you will see live kangaroos" and taken to UQ. Through some sort of symbiosis, UQ became the first university in the country to run this new fangled network (1970s). Debates about bandwidth focussed on whether 9600 baud was overdoing it or not (1980s). UQ supplied, for close to a decade, networking to another Brisbane University. Network engineering was an expensive and mystical art.
They formed a group to work on policy which grew to become CAUDIT.
They lay the cable that became AARNet, and essentially developed the infrastructure that bought the internet to the masses in Australia. It is no surprise that the PMG, then Telecom, now Telstra, had to ask them how to "do it" when the net opened to the wider public. A similar story played out in the U.K. between JANET and British Telecom.
How far things have come.
Yet, how little they have changed.
Bandwidth is still the hot issue of the day, ethernet sends those packets at 1 gig now, and now some of those packets find their way from A to B wirelessly, universities are still on that bleeding edge. Computers still incite a level of fanaticism. Network engineers are still mystical. What a fine history. What a great environment to be part of. Despite the historical insight, I bet none of us have an idea where the I.T. journey is taking us. Many of the founding fathers' skills would take them nowhere today, so training must be factored into any I.T. staff's package (see link one for wonderful AUC funded training).
If anyone is interested in my 1854 copy of "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy", drop me a line. All of this melancholy is getting me depressed. In the 1600s Burton wrote a chapter, "Study - a Cause". Let's nip that cause in the bud. Put away that pipette, those scans, those results, those books, and importantly those damned digital computers, and have a wonderful break over the festive season. I look forward to playing spectator again, and sharing those images with you, in 2003.
--------------------------- In This Issue ----------------------------------
1] AUC stuff- Mac OS X training in the New Year
2] AUC stuff- Call forPpapers for Conference @ Adelaide Uni
3] Apple stuff- Final Cut Pro Update
4] Apple stuff- review of PowerBook by PC users
5] Apple stuff- Another "why Apple" site
6] Apple stuff- and another...
7] Apple stuff- and just one more
8] Apple stuff- Quicktime streaming video to mobile phones?
9] Apple stuff- Apple's Digital Hub strategy pays off for DVD?
10] (Possible) Apple stuff- Mac OS 9 may stay on a bit longer
11] Apple stuff- Forbes recommends Apple stocks in the socks
12] Interesting stuff- cute internet clock
13] Interesting stuff- CREN shuts down
14] Interesting stuff- muchas gracias: Gateway does an hispanic deal
15] Developer stuff- Online Help Desk software
16] Developer stuff- Lightweight IDE for JAVA
17] Developer stuff- guide to porting from UNIX to Mac OS X
18] Legal stuff- does DVD copy software violate U.S. copyright act?
19] Security stuff- Symantec offers student fellowships
20] Security stuff- Issues with stability in UNIX to Win switch?
21] Security stuff- CD copy protection futile?
22] Security stuff- IDG reports Mac OS amongst most secure system
23] Security stuff- fire set at Uni of Twente trashes research
24] Network stuff- NetWare client for Mac OS X
25] Network stuff- the web archive- snapshot of the web since 1996
26] Third party stuff- BBEdit update
27] Third party stuff- shareware gant chart software
28] Third party stuff- text to MP3 application
29] Third party stuff- UNIX computation tools bundled for high performance computing
30] Third party stuff- NIH Image JAVA version, ImageJ
31] Third party stuff- Director in on Mac OS X
32] Third party stuff- molecular visualization tool from Biophysics at Uni of Illinois
33] Third party stuff- Rosetta Stone begone. Hieroglyphs transliteration basics software
34] Third party stuff- hiragana & katakana software
35] Third party stuff- more linguistics: Arabic WP utility
36] Third party stuff- a driver to make the floppy drive work on older machines
37] Teaching stuff- "How to save the planet. Now on CD" (Sir Bob Geldof)
38] Teaching stuff- efficacy of video in the classroom
39] Teaching stuff- Online online Ed panel discussion from Glasgow
40] Teaching stuff- Uni NSW, COFA, online experience
41] Teaching stuff- digital library of kids' books
42] Research stuff- faster chips from light emissions?
43] Research stuff- CRC for Interaction Design at QUT
44] Research stuff- Centres for Quantum Computing & Silicon Photonics at UNSW
45] Research stuff- bioinformatics. Where biology meets I.T. -a layman's overview
46] Research stuff- Nature discussions on computational biology
47] Research stuff- a microbe to assist in first quantum computer?
48] Research stuff- Microsoft researcher wants you to record your memories
49] Clinical stuff- why U.K. GPs use IT and hospital doctors don't
50] Clinical stuff- notebook computer burn reported
51] What's coming up - relevant events in I.T. & education
----------------------------------------------------------------
1] AUC stuff- Mac OS X training in the New Year
----------------------------------------------------------------
The AUC will be offering some more Mac OS X Server Essentials training in
January 2003 based on the very positive feedback and full courses we had in
Sept/Oct this year. The details of the course including venues and dates are
on the web site (link from the What's New page). Get in fast if interested -
the AUC subsidizes member unis.
http://auc.uow.edu.au/training/osx_server/osx_server.html
------------------------------------------------------------
2] AUC stuff- call for papers for conference @ Adelaide Uni
------------------------------------------------------------
"A reminder that the Call for Papers for the AUC's upcoming 2003 Academic &
Developers Conference is now open. Papers are welcome from all
Higher-Education institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the wider
Asia-Pacific area. Published authors will be financially supported to attend
the conference!"
http://auc.uow.edu.au/conf/conf03/cfp_2003.html
--------------------------------------------------
3] Apple stuff- Final Cut Pro Update
--------------------------------------------------
"Final Cut Pro 3.0.4 addresses performance and reliability issues in Final
Cut Pro 3. These fixes and enhancements include: effects are now represented
correctly in exported EDLs, EDLs with clips containing speed changes are now
imported correctly, clips from reels with timecode occurring during hour 23
now capture and import correctly, incorrect sync in Exported OMF files are
eliminated, improved real-time performance on Power Macintosh G4/Dual 1.25
GHz computers and more."
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/download/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4] Apple stuff- review of PowerBook by PC users
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Cited by Martin Hill <mart@www.curtin.edu.au>
"Then we dragged two systems -- an earlier 867MHz model and the newest 1GHz
unit -- through hell for several weeks, both in the lab and on the road. We
beat them twice as hard because they're so pretty and because, well, we're
not Mac people. When it was over, the PowerBooks owned us utterly. Trust us;
that never happens."
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/pl/xml/02/12/16/021216plpowerbook.xml
-------------------------------------------------------
5] Apple stuff- Another "why Apple" site
-------------------------------------------------------
In some of the more dictatorial university regimes you may find the need to
fight the Apple fight. There are a number of interesting sites out there
that I have referred to in past editions. Here is another.
Cited Andrew Nielsen <andrew@starfish.net.au>
"Rather nicely done, and quite appropriately targeted."
http://www.pctomac.com/
------------------------------------------
6] Apple stuff- and another...
------------------------------------------
http://thinkertons.com/whyjustx.htm
----------------------------------------------
7] Apple stuff- and just one more
----------------------------------------------
From Martin Hill <mart@www.curtin.edu.au>
"Quite a lot of good comparative TCO, ROI, support, environmental and other
stuff from an educational perspective (though it is all very
applicable to the business context as well)."
http://forgetcomputers.com/~jdroz/index.html#whymac
------------------------------------------------------------------
8] Apple stuff- Quicktime streaming video to mobile phones?
------------------------------------------------------------------
MPEG 4 is something G3 mobile phones can handle. QuickTime handles MPEG 4.
Looks like a prediction by engineers in the area may be coming to fruition.
"Apple's QuickTime is poised to make headway as an audio and video delivery
platform for mobile phones in Japan, with new standards-compatible software
on its way and a fresh endorsement by leading wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo."
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-976829.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
9] Apple stuff- Apple's Digital Hub strategy pays off for DVD?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cited Martin Hill <mart@www.curtin.edu.au>
"Of those, DVD-R is the clear leader, accounting for approximately 70
percent of the 3.5 million total. The dominance of the DVD-R format
is driven largely by the popularity of DVD recording in the Macintosh market
as Apple emerged as an early supporter for the DVD-R format. According to
Gartner/Dataquest, Apple will account for two-thirds of the 600,000-plus DVD
recorders expected to be sold this year and has
shipped 500,000 Macintosh computers equipped with DVD recorders to date."
http://www.videostoremag.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?sec_id=2&article
_ID=4079
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
10] (Possible) Apple stuff- Mac OS 9 may stay on a bit longer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warning: I have yet to see anything from Apple on this. One of the joys of
being a non-Apple publication!
"Apple Computer has pulled back from a plan that would have made Mac OS X
the primary operating system on all new Macs starting in January. "
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-977881.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
11] Apple stuff- Forbes recommends Apple stocks in the socks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Although I have no plans to switch my Windows allegiance to the Macintosh,
I have always marveled at Apple's ability to persevere with the odds so
often stacked against its survival. Of course, it does not hurt that the
company has incredibly loyal customers, 25 million or so at last count."
http://www.forbes.com/2002/12/12/cz_1212soapbox.html
----------------------------------------------------------------
12] Interesting stuff- cute internet clock
----------------------------------------------------------------
Cited Tony Maguire <tmaguire@asia.apple.com>
http://www.yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html
-------------------------------------------------------
13] Interesting stuff- CREN shuts down
-------------------------------------------------------
"The CREN (a non-profit, member organization of over 220 universities,
colleges, and research organizations governed by a 12-member Board of
Trustees) Board of Trustees has approved a resolution for the membership to
vote to dissolve the corporation effective as soon as appropriate so that
reasonable care can be taken to transition services and personnel. If
approved by the CREN membership, the venerable higher-education technology
association will close down after more than twenty years of service to the
higher education community. "
http://www.cren.net/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
14] Interesting stuff- muchas gracias: Gateway does an hispanic deal
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Continuing its drive to help bridge the digital divide in education,
Gateway, Inc. today announced it has teamed with the Hispanic Association of
Colleges and Universities (HACU) to provide a variety of technology
solutions and educational opportunities to HACU's 342 member and partner
higher education institutions, including discounted PCs and a rebate
program."
http://www.hacu.net/
--------------------------------------------------------------
15] Developer stuff- Online Help Desk software
--------------------------------------------------------------
From John Zornig <jzornig@asia.apple.com>
"A great help desk app written in WebObjects. Might be just the thing for a
Uni wanting to improve the efficiency of their IT support staff."
http://www.webhelpdesk.com/product_info.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
16] Developer stuff- Lightweight IDE for JAVA
--------------------------------------------------------------
From Apple Developer Connect <http://developer.apple.com/devnews/>
"JJEdit 1.0 by J. MacMullin is a lightweight Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) for Java programming on Mac OS X. It includes a
text editor for Java source code, which includes code coloring and
autocompletion of Java class names. This shareware release adds JavaDoc
generation, .jar file generation, and some bug fixes."
http://homepage.mac.com/jmacmullin/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
17] Developer stuff- guide to porting from UNIX to Mac OS X
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"This document helps to guide developers in bringing applications written
for UNIX-based operating systems to Mac OS X. It provides the background
needed to understand the operating system. It touches on some of the design
decisions, and it provides a listing and discussion of some of the main
areas that you should be concerned with in bringing UNIX applications to Mac
OS X."
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Darwin/GettingStarted/PortingUNIX
/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
18] Legal stuff- does DVD copy software violate U.S. copyright act?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"A court in California will this month rule on the legality of an ingenious
new software package that makes perfect copies of movies on DVDs even if
they are protected with the latest anti-copying technology. The software has
been developed by 321 Studios of St Louis, Missouri. The company says its
DVDXcopy program does not violate the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
which makes it illegal to defeat copy-protection schemes."
New Scientist vol 176 issue 2372 - 07 December 2002, page 19 or
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=3&id=mg1762372
1.500
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
19] Security stuff- Symantec offers student fellowships
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today
announced the Symantec Fellowship at Purdue University's Center for
Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), the
world's foremost university center for multidisciplinary research and
education in areas of information security."
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/news_and_events/news/view_story.php?id=75
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
20] Security stuff- Issues with stability in UNIX to Win switch?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cited Shay Telfer <shay@cygnus.uwa.edu.au>
"An older MS internal whitepaper from August 2000 on switching Hotmail,
which MS acquired in 1997, from front-end servers running FreeBSD and
back-end database servers running Solaris to a whole farm running Win2K,
reads like a veritable sales brochure for UNIX, but concludes that the
company ought to set the right example by ensuring that each division
"should eat its own dogfood.""
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28226.html
http://securityoffice.softimage.net/hotmail.html
------------------------------------------------------------
21] Security stuff- CD copy protection futile?
------------------------------------------------------------
"The technology built into some CDs to stop people copying them is futile.
So says a computer scientist who has put today's antipiracy systems under
the microscope. He believes the continual software and hardware upgrades
issued by the makers of computer CD drives and audio CD players render copy
protection systems pointless in the long run."
New Scientist vol 176 issue 2368 - 09 November 2002, page 9 or
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=1&id=mg1762368
0.700
----------------------------------------------------------------------
22] Security stuff- IDG reports Mac OS amongst most secure system
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cited David Allibon <dallibon@asia.apple.com>
"A new report from mi2g Ltd. ranks Apple Computer's Macintosh as among the
most secure operating systems, much less vulnerable to hackers,
worms, and viruses than either Microsoft or Linux operating systems. The
report is based on data from mi2g's Security Intelligence Products and
Systems database, which tracks information about computer vulnerabilities."
http://www.idg.net/ic_961134_1794_9-10000.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
23] Security stuff- fire set at Uni of Twente trashes research
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"A humongous fire in a mathematics and computer center paralyzed
communications and caused up to $50 million in damage at the University of
Twente in the Netherlands on 20 November. Two days later, police arrested a
26-year-old university employee after he allegedly tried to set another
academic building ablaze. Police say the man has confessed to the first fire
but did not vouchsafe his motives. A university spokesperson says most of
the files stored on the computers can probably be recovered from backups,
but some scientists have lost "years of work" in paper files and other
nonretrievable information."
Science 2002 December 6;289:1881
-----------------------------------------------------------------
24] Network stuff- NetWare client for Mac OS X
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Buy Now Built completely from the ground up, this OS X Native client allows
your Mac to communicate on your Novell Network in Pure IP with unprecedented
efficiency. This easy-to-use Novell Client is enhanced for optimal
performance and security. "
http://www.prosoftengineering.com/products/netware_client_x.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------
25] Network stuff- the web archive- snapshot of the web since 1996
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Imagine if your very first Web pages or some furious, ill-written
late-night postings came back to haunt you years later. Well, now they can.
The Wayback Machine gives you access to the Internet Archive, which has
taken an almost-complete snapshot of the World Wide Web every 60 days since
1996 - that's about 2 billion pages."
New Scientist vol 176 issue 2370 - 23 November 2002, page 46 or
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=5&id=mg1762370
5.000
http://web.archive.org.
-------------------------------------------------
26] Third party stuff- BBEdit update
-------------------------------------------------
The ultimate text editor
"The update package contains the BBEdit 7.0.1 application package, which can
be used to replace any full copy of BBEdit 7.0. This update is recommended
for all BBEdit 7.0 customers."
http://www.barebones.com/support/updates.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
27] Third party stuff- shareware gant chart software
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From http://www.versiontracker.com
chartConstructor 1.2.1 (Shareware - 12/13/2002)
Gantt and PERT chart creator
http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=14316&db=mac
------------------------------------------------------------
28] Third party stuff- text to MP3 application
------------------------------------------------------------
From http://www.versiontracker.com
A pal is doing his PhD around a clinical application in this area. This may
help.
iSpeak It 1.0 (Shareware - 12/13/2002)
Listen to your documents via iTunes or iPod
http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=17446&db=mac
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
29] Third party stuff- UNIX computation tools bundled for high
performance computing
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
All of these packages have been out there and I have mentioned many before
but on this site Gaurav has done some work on the code to make sure it does
it's thing and gives useful commentary.
"If you want to use your G4 with Mac OS X for some good numerical work ..
this could be useful to you. I have here, binaries, source, documentation
and instructions to install Fortran, MPI, OpenMP, Octave, Cactus, Tinker,
Globus, RNPL, GIMPS, Computing Libraries, Pascal, LISP, GRAVSIM, FEYNMAN,
etc. on Darwin OS. If you are interesting in harnessing the full power of a
dual G4, i.e. using AltiVec and both processors, click here."
http://gravity.psu.edu/~khanna/hpc.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
30] Third party stuff- NIH Image JAVA version, ImageJ
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Ray Phillips <r.phillips@jkmrc.uq.edu.au>
"It's a public domain image processing and analysis program written in Java.
It was created by the National Institutes of Health--the group which wrote
NIH Image [2] for the Mac."
http://rsb.info.nih.gov/nih-image/
--------------------------------------------------------------
31] Third party stuff- Director in on Mac OS X
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Multimedia mavens consider Macromedia Director the tool of the trade to
create content ready for CD-ROMs, kiosks or the Internet."
http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/director/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
32] Third party stuff- molecular visualization tool from Biophysics
at Uni of Illinois
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"VMD is a molecular visualization program for displaying, animating, and
analyzing large biomolecular systems using 3-D graphics and built-in
scripting. VMD supports computers running MacOS-X, Unix, or Windows, is
distributed free of charge, and includes source code."
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
33] Third party stuff- Rosetta Stone begone. Hieroglyphs transilteration
basics software
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"AEgyptian Transliteration is an application that helps you study the basics
of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. You can browse the list of hieroglyph
characters, studying their transliterations and pronunciations. You can also
do tests to check your knowledge of character data."
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~cthulhu/modern/aegyptian_trans/app.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
34] Third party stuff- hiragana & katakana software
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And from the same guys (above) who brought you "The West Bank of the Luxor
in a Mac", comes a Japanese tool
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~cthulhu/modern/hira_kata/app.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
35] Third party stuff- more linguistics: Arabic WP utility
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Arabic Genie is the only Arabic word processing utility and Windows Mac
arabic importer for Macintosh and OSX to type and use arabic text for all
softwares, including Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, QuarkXpress,
Macromedia Freehand etc."
http://www.devalipi.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
36] Third party stuff- a driver to make the floppy drive work on older
machines
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From http://www.versiontracker.com
Looks like this is slow but works for those of you who have Mac OS X on
older machines with built in floppies
MkLinux Floppy Driver 0.96j (Beta - 12/10/2002)
Driver for built-in floppy drives
http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=14399&db=mac
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
37] Teaching stuff- "How to save the planet. Now on CD" (Sir Bob Geldof)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A collaboration between UNESCO and Griffith University, ‘Teaching and
Learning for a Sustainable Future’ is an interactive CD-Rom that makes it
possible to teach kids all over the world about sustainability"
http://www.gu.edu.au/er/campaign/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
38] Teaching stuff- efficacy of video in the classroom
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was dazzled recently during my short stint dealing with schools (K-12) in
Queensland. Despite political rhetoric regarding this place being "The Smart
State", the bean counters asked why on earth Apple's ability to do video was
a big deal. They were more interested in increasing computer numbers & less
in what on earth the things were used for. Anyway, this UK report gives a
positive angle to DV in the classroom.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/top_news_item.cfm?NewsID=5502
http://www.becta.org.uk/index.cfm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
39] Teaching stuff- Online online Ed panel discussion from Glasgow
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From ASCILITE general <ascilite-general@vcs.ascilite.org.au>
"As promised to participants at the SCROLLA panel session on 'Encouraging
Research into Online Learning and Assessment' at ASCILITE 2002 on Monday 9th
December, we are using the Virtual Learning Space to host continuing
discussion on over the next few weeks."
If you are already a member of the VLS you can login by going to
<http://www.scrolla.ac.uk/discuss>
If you are not a member of the VLS please go to
<http://itlearningspace-scot.ac.uk/> and select "join our online
community".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
40] Teaching stuff- Uni NSW, COFA, online experience
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cited Andrew Jeffrey <ajeffrey@asia.apple.com>
"Rick Bennett, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales'
College of Fine Arts (COFA), thrives on teaching, but he is most interested
in students' experience of collaboration. Since designing his first online
course in 1998, Bennett has had two successes and a flop. The experience has
prepared him for what will probably come next: a deluge of requests for the
college's Omnium v3.0 software for collaborative online learning."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/26/1038274292848.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
41] Teaching stuff- digital library of kids' books
---------------------------------------------------------------
"The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) is a 5-year research
project to develop innovative software and a collection of books that
specifically address the needs of children as readers. Interdisciplinary
researchers from computer science, library studies, education, art, and
psychology are working together with children to design this new library."
http://www.icdlbooks.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
42] Research stuff- faster chips from light emissions?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An Italian company has worked out how to make silicon emit light when an
electric current is passed through it. This promises to revolutionise
electronics by freeing microchips of the layers upon layers of connecting
wires that slow them down and lead to overheating. Instead, circuits on
chips will be able to beam signals to each other using light."
New Scientist vol 176 issue 2369 - 16 November 2002, page 15 or
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=4&id=mg1762369
1.900
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
43] Research stuff- CRC for Interaction Design at QUT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In the second project, the Government has committed $12.4million over seven
years to a new CRC for Interaction Design while QUT and industry partners
will invest a further $7.4million to develop new creative content
technologies."
http://www.news.qut.edu.au/cgi-bin/WebObjects/News.woa/wa/goNewsPage?newsEve
ntID=911
http://www.news.qut.edu.au/cgi-bin/WebObjects/News.woa/wa/goNewsPage?newsEve
ntID=910
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
44] Research stuff- Centres for Quantum Computing & Silicon Photonics at
UNSW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Computer Technology, led by
Professor Clark, will receive $14 million for the period 2003-2007, while
the ARC Centre for Excellence in Advanced Silicon Photovoltaics and
Photonics, led by Prof Stuart Wenham, will incorporate the present ARC Key
Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering and the ARC Special Research Centre for
Third-Generation Photovoltaics (directed by Professor Martin Green), and
receive $12.2 million for the same period. In total, eight Centres around
Australia- five of them in New South Wales - will share $90 million for the
five year period."
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2002/dec/ARC_Centres_release.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
45] Research stuff- bioinformatics. Where biology meets I.T. -a layman's
overview
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
But for you non-laymen, please keep an eye on next year's Higher Ed News. It
is likely we will be running Mac OS X bioinformatics workshops.
Cited Andrew POWE <apowe@asia.apple.com>
"Interesting things will still happen in computers, but the excitement will
be elsewhere as IT is used to facilitate advances in other fields. A good
example of this is biotechnology, where the crossover with IT is called
bioinformatics."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/07/1038950233077.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
46] Research stuff- Nature discussions on computational biology
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nature has a series of articles on computational biology.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v420/n6912/f
ull/nature01253_fs.html
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v420/n6912/f
ull/nature01253_fs.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
47] Research stuff- a microbe to assist in first quantum computer?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A microbe that thrives in one of the most inhospitable environments on
Earth might just help engineers to build the first quantum computers. The
highly organised building skills of a protein manufactured by the microbe,
which lives in scalding, sulphurous geothermal springs, has allowed NASA
scientists to create regular arrays of "quantum dots".
New Scientist vol 176 issue 2372 - 07 December 2002, page 22 or
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=2&id=mg1762372
2.000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
48] Research stuff- Microsoft researcher wants you to record your memories
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It will come as no surprise to Microsoft's critics to learn that the
software company wants full control of everybody's life. New Scientist can
reveal that Bill Gates's software engineers are working on ways to load
every photo you take, every letter you write - in fact your every memory and
experience - into a surrogate brain that never forgets anything."
New Scientist vol 176 issue 2370 - 23 November 2002, page 21 or
http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=1&id=mg1762370
2.000
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49] Clinical stuff- why U.K. GPs use IT and hospital doctors don't
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"The actions of the medical profession and the British government have
encouraged general practitioners to embrace computing at the same time that
hospital doctors were alienated. However, clinical computing for a general
practice is technically much easier than for a whole hospital or health
district. This review focuses on technical issues (patient record
architecture, terminology, interoperability standards, security, and
developments in computer technology) which prevent what works for general
practice working well in hospitals. These issues, which are all related to
scalability, present a major challenge to those responsible for delivering
the new vision of integrated 21st century information technology support for
the NHS"
British Medical Journal 2002;325:1090-1093 ( 9 November ) and 1086-1089
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50] Clinical stuff- notebook computer burn reported
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If ever there was an argument for Mac notebooks- that Pentium chips runs
hot!
"The following story should be taken as a serious warning against use of a
laptop computer in a literal sense. The patient, a previously healthy
50-year-old scientist and the father of two children, had been writing a
report one evening in his home. Sitting comfortable in an armchair, he had
placed his laptop computer on his lap while writing for about 1 h. The next
day he noticed irritation and oedema of ....."
The Lancet. Volume 360, Number 9346 (23 November 2002)
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51] What's coming up - relevant events in I.T. & education
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January 6-10, 2003. Moscone Center, San Francisco. MacWorld Conference and
Expo.
http://www.macworldexpo.com/macworld2003/
February 4 - 7, 2003
The First Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference
Adelaide
http://sky.fit.qut.edu.au/~chenp/APBC2003/
February 9-12th, 2003. GLOBAL DIRECTIONS IN eLEARNING: Assessing "Promising
Practices" and the Future(s) of eLearning in Organizational Transformation.
The Edinburgh International Conference Centre, Scotland, UK. Call for papers
open until 30th September. Contact :
gmartin@strategem.co.uk
February 13-14, 2003
NZ Bioinformatics conference
Te Papa, Wellington
http://bioconf.otago.ac.nz/
May 6-9, 2003. EDUCAUSE IN AUSTRALASIA 2003- Expanding the Learning
Community, Meeting the Challenges. Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide,
South Australia
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/educause2003
June 23-28, 2003. ED-MEDIA 2003. World Conference on Educational Multimedia,
Hypermedia & Telecommunications. Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/call.htm
June 29-July 3, 2003
ISMB 2003
Brisbane, Queensland
http://www.ismb02.org/ismb2003.htm
4-9th July, AusWeb 2003 Conference. Hyatt Regency Sanctuary Cove, Gold
Coast. One of my favourite web/ I.T. in teaching events as the format is
always interesting. Pre-reading of papers a must & discussions abound.
http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/
5-10 July 2003. Sixth International Conference on Computer Based Learning in
Science (CBLIS). University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
http://www.ucy.ac.cy/cblis2003
16th - 19th of August
AusBiotech 2003 Conference & Investment Forum
Adelaide
http://www.AusBiotech.org/
September 28th to October 1st, 2003. AUC Academic and Developers Conference.
University of Adelaide, South Australia. Call for papers for this dynamic
event which has strong AUC funding.
http://auc.uow.edu.au/conf/conf03/CFP_2003.html