The Register: Compaq recalls fiery laptop adapters

Compaq has issued a recall and replace notice for 1.4m faulty laptop AC power adapters, after five caught fire.

Here's one for David [SiT] Carter-Tod: SourceForge: Project Info - The BOSS Online Submission System

The BOSS Online Submission System is a course management tool, developed by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick. BOSS allows students to submit assignments online securely, and contains a selection of tools to allow staff to mark assignments online and to manage their modules efficiently. BOSS also contains automatic testing facilities suitable for computer programming assignments.

Looks interesting.

John Robb's Radio Weblog: Knowledge management and desktop Weblogs

The biggest trend in business right now is the move to find ways to more effectively manage knowledge workers through knowledge management. This isakin to what Taylor did to improve the poductivity (sic) of themanufacturing workers but applied to knowledge workers. Surveys claim that over 50% of businesses will take steps to buy software that improves knowledge management. Why? Necessity. Companies want to improve knowledge worker productivity and improve the return on technology investments in networking and desktop computers. It is critical to the top and bottom line.

IMHO, Macrobyte's Conversant is a better tool than Userland's Radio for KM. YMMV.

This link arose from me getting back into the habit of reading David's SiT that linked to a followup by John Robb:

Mark Pilgrim (in response to my Radio as knowledge management tool post yesterday) "Most companies and employees don't work like that."(I have added my notes in situ)

My work as a lecturer is all about Knowledge Management . This 'weblog' is one of the main tools I am beginning to use to influence my constituency - my students. Not that I think that e-forums such as this will replace f2f lectures - heaven forbid! I enjoy the sheer theatre of lecturing too much to replace it entirely by electronically delivered media ;-)

PS The correct link for Mark Pilgrim's essay is diveintomark/Knowledge management (it all sounds so good)

As a university lecturer my job is all about Knowledege Management (KM). My students probably think my job is that of teacher. But, no, I don't see it that way. IMHO, once students are in higher education they are there to learn, not to be taught in the sense that they are empty vessels to be filled with information. Information != Knowledge. And it's not my job to pour facts into the heads of students. I believe it is my job to encourage, nuture, and advise them, even though that may sounds paternalistic and old-fashioned.

I see my job to be that of a facilitator for learning. I am not a teacher per se. This basically means that the students in my care are expected to be self-motivated learners and I will do everything in my, albeit limited, power to support their learning. This, of course, means that students need to be (self-)motivated. OK, there will aways be some students that take the path of 'least resistance' - especially if they're not interested in the subject(s) that I lecture. Which is often the case! ;-) But I digress...

The recent posts about KM that I've linked and/or contributed to have been an incentive for me to summarise my own thoughts on this topic. I count myself extremely lucky that I'm a computer scientist. It's a subject that I love. I will happily admit to being a geek. I guess some of my students don't have the same enthusiasm for my particular subjects - CAD and LLP - but I wouldn't necessarily hold that against them. However, there is one thing I cannot fathom and that is: given the chance to study such a dynamic and exciting subject why do some squander the opportunity? It's as if they don't have any interest in the subject which, if true, is a sad state of affairs. Some may even be put off the topic(s) by my lectures and lecturing style which would be a real tragedy. But I digress again...

So, how am I - just one person - able to manage knowledge for literally hundreds of students? One of the answers is to use KM tools to help automate the process. This is what I will be attempting to do over the course of the next academic year. And www.smeed.org will be central to that effort even though currently I am only scratching the surface of the technology - Conversant - that is used to implement the site. Will I be successful? Well, it depends on what you mean by success? If I only manage to enthuse one extra student then I'd count it as a success.

How can Conversant help? Good question. Let me attempt an answer.

First off, I use the web extensively to research my subjects. I'm fortunate that as a computer scientist there are many, many, great resources on the web that expound the merits, and technology, of my subject. After all, the web was built on the foundations laid by computer scientists and CS is therefore a natural fit. Technologists/scientists are also more likely to be early adopters of this sort of high-technology. Conversant provides the means for me to be able to rapidly and effortlessly document my 'travels through the web'.

Secondly, the dynamically generation of web pages in Conversant decouples the content of a page from its presentation allowing me to concentrate on the content of the site secure in the knowledge that I can very easily repurpose the content and/or alter the presentation with virtually no effort. This is a capability that intend to exploit much more cleverly than is currently the case.

Thirdly, the search and query features of this site also improves the usefulness of the site beyond all recognition - for me at least. I don't have the greatest memory in the world but I can usually remember enough to know that I will have commented on, or linked to, a particular subject and a query with relevant keyowrds will invariably dig up the relevant page(s). Those of you that know what my office looks like will appreciate that I need all the help I can get when it comes to keeping track of (on-line) documents ;-)

Fourthly, Conversant provides subscribers to the site to create, and respond to, messages via (i) a web interface (HTTP), (ii) an e-mail interface (SMTP), (iii) a newsgroup interface (NNTP), and also to a certain extent (iv) a remote procedure call interface (XML-RPC) which allows other forms of interaction to be built; for example using Userland's Radio <aside> I'm really looking forward to installing MacOS X 10.1 to use its new AppleScript and XML-RPC features to incorporate my beloved BBEdit into the editorial process </aside>. This richness and variety of interface means that I, and my subscribers, get to use the interface that we find most convenient. In my experience the easier something is to do the more likely you are to do it. For example, posting a quote from a page on the web is, in my case, a simple matter of highlighting the text of the quote, then clicking twice - once to invoke the javascript bookmarklet I use to capture the text and the URL from the page which is then used to prime a textarea form in a new window, and the other to submit the form to my weblog. Two clicks. Two seconds.

But information is not knowledge. Knowledge implies the intelligent interpretation of information. Hopefully, as someone fairly expert in several domains I can help my students assimiliate and interpret information and facts. I see it as my job to get them to ask questions and to challenge conventional viewpoints with the hope that the ensuing discussion and answer(s) will help develop their critical faculties.

The bottom line is that asking questions is a good habit to get into. There is no shame in not knowing the answer to something; the shame is knowing that you don't know the answer and yet not asking the question. Alas, it seems to be a common trait amongst Scottish students not to have the courage to pipe up and ask questions in case they are perceived to be ignorant and/or foolish by their fellow students. Case in point, a handful of students arranged to see me for a intensive exam revision tutorial just before a resit exam in August. We had a three-hour session as they had come prepared with questions. Not only that, they came prepared to ask them. It was probably one of the must productive sessions that I have been involved in and, not surprisingly, IIRC all the students that attended the 'tutorial' passed the resit.

I am sure that some of my students consider my daily updating of this site to be evidence of a 'sad' individual with nothing else better to do. Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily expect such students to bother reading what I have to say. At the danger of sounding patronising, I would say in my defence that I do indeed have other things to do but that I consider keeping up with developments in my field, and actively experimenting with this sort of technology, as an essential part of my job. Probably contrary to popular student opinion, I do have a life - a wonderful family and circle of friends, a lovely place to live, an interest in helping people appreciate the importance of the conservation and preservation of wild places and wild things, and an abiding and deep interest in computer science. I also find that the discipline of regular updating improves my organisational and writing skills and provides an incentive to seek out new knowledge and, sometimes, to disseminate that knowledge. Sad but true ;-)

So, even if nobody reads or responds to this posting, the sheer act of thinking and writing about the issue of knowledge management and my role as a lecturer to help improve the level of knowledge in my students, has helped me develop as a knowledge worker. I would encourage others to consider maintaining a regular weblog. Some of the best of the weblogs are written by students. Case in point is Wes [HtP] Felter - his site is one I visit regularly not only because of the eclectic nature of the links and commentary, but also because of the high standard of discussion that takes place over there. If any of my students have read this far and if they have a weblog, or similar, site then please let me know. I'd be interested in reading what you have to say. Of course, feel free to reply to this message and offer us all your viewpoint especially if you disagree with me - I won't hold it against you ;-). Perhaps you think my job is solely to be the type of teacher who tells you what to think and provides the answers to a small set of questions that are representative of the sorts of things that might crop up in my exams!? Discuss... ;-)

Thanks for reading this far.

Duncan

ASCI White

ASCI White will possess more than 160 trillion bytes of IBM disk storage capacity, holding 16,000 times more data than the average desktop PC. At a peak computational performance of 12.28 teraflops, or trillions of calculations per second, it could simultaneously process web transactions for every man, woman, and child on the planet in one minute.

ASCI White is a 512-node RS/6000 SP, 1000 times more powerful than the "Deep Blue" supercomputer that defeated chess grand master Garry Kasparov in a celebrated 1997 match, and capable of solving in one second what a human being with a calculator would need 10 million years to figure out. The new RS/6000 SP requires more than a little space to house the 2,000 miles of copper wiring contained in the microprocessors needed for its demanding tasks?n area the size of two basketball courts, in fact.

TOP500 Supercomputer Sites

To provide a better basis for statistics on high-performance computers, we list the sites that have the 500 most powerful computer systems installed. The best Linpack benchmark performance achieved is used as a performance measure in ranking the computers. The TOP500 list has been updated twice a year since June 1993. Here you can get information about all published lists.

Overview of Recent Supercomputers

In this report we give an overview of parallel and vector computers which are currently available or will become available within a short time frame from vendors; no attempt is made to list all machines that are still in the research phase. The machines are described according to their architectural class. Shared and distributed-memory SIMD an MIMD machines are discerned. The information about each machine is kept as compact as possible. Moreover, no attempt is made to quote price information as this is often even more elusive than the performance of a system.

Open Directory - Computers: Programming: Languages: Assembly

WWW Computer Architecture Page

sandpile.org -- The world's leading source for pure technical x86 processor information.

I had to laugh when I tried an obvious Google search to see what would come up to help answer the question I set in [52.223] LLP Practical #00

Why/if Low-Level Programming is an integral part of a Computer Science (or related) degree?

Guess which site what was the first hit with Google Search: Why low level programming? Sweet!

Ars Technica: Book review: Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets (8/99)

Outside of resources like Eric Raymond's Jargon File, it's hard for a 'net newbie to really soak up the kind of old-school hacker lore that still wafts through the back alleys of the 'net. If you were to hang out on USENET long enough, you might pick up some of this stuff, but it's rapidly being diluted as the 'net becomes a place for all types of attitudes, backgrounds, education levels, etc. This in itself isn't bad; indeed, it's a sign of healthy growth. What's tragic, however, is the fact that such folklore has been misappropriated by script-kiddies and overzealous Linux users who came late to the party yet insist on pretending as if they've always been here. Nevertheless, there are ways to get an authentic taste of the kind of spirit that permeated the programming community in earlier times.

Prior to teaching 2nd and 3rd year students [52.225] CAD... with...

... the recommended text book - Computer Organisation & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface - by Patterson & Hennessy for the course lecture notes ;-)! Joking apart, the course text book* is essential reading IMHO. No doubt second-hand copies will be available from last year's students. The University Bookshop have many copies available too.

I taught a final year honours class using the first text book that H & P wrote. Ars Technica: Book review: Computer Architecture: a quantitative approach (9/99) says it better than I:

If anyone is qualified to talk about computer architecture, it's David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy. Patterson was at the vanguard of the RISC movement; he published a number of seminal RISC papers and even coined the term RISC. He was the man behind the design of Berkely's RISC-I computer, the machine on which Sun's SPARC was based. His other contributions include leadership of the team that invented RAID, as well as research into computation using networks of workstations (NOW). John Hennessy was also one of the leaders of the RISC movement in the early 80's. He worked on the Stanford team that developed the MIPS architecture, and he later went on to found MIPS Computer Systems, which eventually merged with SGI. If you're a member of the ACM and/or you have access to their Digital Library, I'd recommend doing a search for either of these authors and reading some of their other published work.

The summer before teaching that final year honours class I was in the USA on vacation. A couple of weeks before flying out I e-mailed Profs Patterson and Hennessy in the hope that I could see them to discuss their courses and their textbook. I was honoured, and not a little surprised, that they both agreed to meet me whilst I was in California so I duly visted them at Berkeley and Stanford respectively. I took along my own copy of the hardback first edition of their book. It's now probably one of only a few that have been signed personally by both authors!! It has now pride of place in my bookcase ;-)

The Register: Fonts, face-tagging and false frequencies

AMD get plenty of opprobrium for its new naming convention:-

"I make no judgement about whether the comparison is fair or accurate, but I do take exception, (as will many many more people), at being told lies by marketing bunnies. AMD were more than happy to crow about clock speed when they reached 1GHz first, but now they tell us, ( 9 months later), that processor speed does not matter!" writes Mark Newman.

And on a related metric: MIPS - Meaningless Indicator of Performance used by Salesmen.

The Register: Intel to ship 802.11a wireless LAN kit in 2002

Intel has aggressive plans to use the 802.11 wireless connectivity specification as the basis for local area networking, with product roll-outs during what's left of 2001 and throughout 2002.

The Register: AMD confirms QuantiSpeed marchitecture slogan

We can confirm AMD's attempt to prevent punters from assuming that its chips are much slower than Intel's because its Athlon XP clock speeds are rather lower than Pentium 4 megahertz ratings will indeed be called QuantiSpeed.

I wonder why AMD trademarked the phrase Intimate Integration. Other bizarre phrase include Powerfully Different, Upgrades Made Easy, and What it Takes!

Guess what's going into my CAD lecture tomorrow ;-)

PS Intel attempted to trademark AMD name!

At the first lecture of the new Semester I succumbed to a little rant about academic dishonesty. One of my students (thanks David) alerted me to this great Slashdot | Cooperation in CS Education? thread in response to this question:

"The college I currently attend, like most colleges, is on a form of 'Academic Honesty Policy'. It has been explained to me in various ways, but mostly it boils down to: If you catch someone's code out of the corner of you eye, that's cheating, and you need to come up with your own 'original' ideas. I'm a CS major, so I write a lot of code, and I imagine when I get in the work force, I'll be writing a lot more. The difference is, in the workplace, I'll be in a team of people. I won't have control and I'll have personnel and political issues to deal with in addition to my job. So far I've had one class that actually demonstrated this principle, and I'm pretty much finished all my CS courses. I know the college has to do this so they can somehow grade 'my' code and assess my performance. Isn't there a better way? A way that students can be taught to work as a team yet still be able to tell who is pulling their own weight and who is not?"

There's some gems of advice/opinion/info in some of the posts in that thread. Must let me colleagues know.

developerWorks: Web architecture | XML zone : An introduction to RSS news feeds

RDF Site Summary (RSS) is catching on as one of the most widely used XML formats on the Web. Find out how to create and use RSS files and learn what they can do for you. See why companies like Netscape, Userland, and Moreover use RSS to distribute and syndicate article summaries and headlines. This article includes sample code that demonstrates elements of an RSS file, plus a Perl example using the module XML::RSS.

Thanks for the link Don!

In Brian Carnell & Knowledge Management, Seth I am sure speaks for most of using Conversant when he says:

I have to admit to being a little jealous of Brian Carnell, but mostly I'm just very impressed. He's just one man, but he's built a collection of ultra-high quality, content-rich web sites with Conversant. In fact, it's hard to believe that one person has done all that.

I would like to aspire to Brian's capabilities with Conversant and I am determined to improve www.smeed.org since he has shown us how much untapped potential there really is in Conversant.

In fact, I'm toying with the idea of setting some student project(s) that somehow uses Conversant to its full potential. I must also polish off the http://www.arspentia.org site and prepare it for the next set of group projects in CAD - Macrobyte willing.

On the AppleScript - Web Services page, Dave [Scripting News] gets the credit he deserves:

Web Services applications communicate using XML-based protocols, such as XML-RPC (Remote Procedure Calls) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). The SOAP protocol is a working standard defined by the WC3, an Internet standards organization. XML-RPC is a UserLand Software open specification.