OPINION

Do You Believe in Magic? Why Millennials Show Little Interest in IT Careers

By Terry Calhoun

There was a 60 percent decline during 2000-2004 in the number of freshmen planning to major in computer science. Bill Gates was recently quoted as saying that he was baffled by that declining enrollment, especially since those same young people just love all of their technology toys. Microsoft, he says, can’t hire the workers that it needs.

Well, others say that maybe Microsoft is rejecting qualified people because of their specialized requirements. And some people point out that the unemployment rate in the computer occupations is higher than overall professional unemployment occupations. But it’s hard for me to believe that a guy as smart as Gates would be baffled by the freshmen major statistics. Read more

IT NEWS

PwdHash - Protection from Phishermen?

Two Stanford professors have created a new software product that scrambles passwords so that every site gets a unique one; so a legitimate password that you accidentally enter into a phishing site just won't work anywhere else. (SiliconValley.com) Read more

Spam Fighting Part 2: Sources and Causes

"How did we get in this mess? How have we come to the place where a relatively small group of rogue Internet users are on the verge of bringing the whole thing to a grinding halt because of their short-sighted greed?" (The Independent Journal of Open Standards and Open Source) Read more

Fees Adding Up for Blackberries at Purdue

The phones are so addictive, some call them "CrackBerries," and the posture of sitting at a conference table with your head bowed staring into the phone is called the "BlackBerry prayer." (The Exponent, an independent college newspaper published by the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation) Read more

Indiana U Joins Ranks of Schools with Growing FireFox Fans

Better security, a pop-up blocker that works most of the time, and other benefits are helping the Mozilla browser eat away slowly at MSIEs market share. (The Indiana Daily Student) Read more

RESOURCES

Where Do We Go From Here? The Next Decade for Digital Libraries

The latest from Clifford Lynch takes a deep look back and forward at libraries. "As of 2005, it seems a virtual certainty that substantial programmatic US government funding of digital libraries research in terms of the construction of prototype systems is at an end, at least for the near future." (D-Lib Magazine) Listen now!

DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

UC and CSU Make Deal for Legal Downloads

The University of California and California State University systems have selected Cdigix to offer digital entertainment to any of their campuses which choose to join the program. (UCLA Daily Bruin) Read more

Jacksonville State University to Replace 30-year-old Technology System

JSU has gone with Banner, despite the projected $11.4M cost because the older system just isn't up to what the campus needs. (JaxNews.com) Read more