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June Watanabe reported Monday that the Fort Street Mall sewer line project has been stalled since Fall 2006 because of a HECO power line.

That report was the first time I’d heard a reason for the delay. Fort Street Mall has been separated with chain link fences between Pauahi and King Streets, with no construction activity or notices.

The city now expects HECO to finish its work in May, so that the sewer project can be finally completed in June. The nighttime construction schedule that was used last year will be used again to finish the project, so that classes and businesses are not affected.

The project will “[replace] or [reline] sewer lines that are more than 100 years old” according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

According to Engadget and PC World, Dell will soon offer preinstalled Linux operating systems on consumer desktops and notebooks. Over 70% of respondents to CEO Michael Dell’s pet project, IdeaStorm, indicated that Dell should offer preinstalled Linux.
Previously, Dell only offered Red Hat Linux on a high-end line of workstations and servers.

More details appear on the company’s Direct2Dell blog. Dell has some major work to do before it can roll out Linux boxen, including:

• Writing Linux drivers for Dell hardware. This is no small ask, considering the variety of hardware that Dell preinstalls on its consumer boxen. In many cases, Dell relies on the hardware manufacturer to provide drivers. However, some manufacturers offer limited driver support for Linux. Should Dell take charge and develop Dell-certified Linux drivers for critical hardware?
• Training technical support staff for Linux systems. I went through two weeks of Dell technical support training in 2003 when I worked on the Optiplex support desk for a few months. Again, recruiting and training the technical support team is no small task. Many of Dell’s technical support staff work exclusively with Microsoft Windows. However, Dell writes most of its training materials in-house, and Dell’s instructors are usually recruited from Dell’s technical support staff.
• Determining pricing. How much can a customer save by choosing Linux instead of Microsoft Windows Vista? Is it possible to avoid the Microsoft tax by choosing not to install any Microsoft software on a Dell box?
• Determining the distribution(s). Linux comes in a variety of versions or distributions, each with its own special features that add value to the core Linux operating system. Will Dell offer Red Hat or its free cousin Fedora? How about Ubuntu? What about consumer-friendly distributions such as, Linspire, Xandros or Mandriva?
• Determining the software load. Will Dell preload GPL software such as OpenOffice and Firefox? Will Dell load its own branded Linux software instead?
• Linux support for Windows. Will Dell offer preloaded Linux software that can run Windows applications, such as CrossOver or VMware? Will Dell offer Microsoft Windows as a dual boot or emulation option?

One final thought: is Linux still a source of competitive advantage for Dell, or is Linux becoming a key success factor (KSF) for the mainstream computer industry?

On February 6, I posted two articles about the Domain Name System (DNS). As the debate continues over a proposed .xxx TLD (top level domain), I found another article that includes a good description of what the domain name system actually does. 

The .xx TLD is a good idea. While some argue that adult content web sites will register and keep the .com and .xxx version of their domain names, it’s much easier to explain to a corporate or government user that any service .xxx domain name is forbidden territory on their work computer. This may be one reason why many adult content providers do not support the .xxx proposal.

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According to a new study by Symantec on March 19, the developer of the Norton software range, 69 percent of all email messages sent from Asia are spam.

The volume XI report and a summary are available as PDF files. A Flash presentation with audio narration is also available.

The Phillipines has the worst percentage score, as 88% of that country’s email messages are unsolicitied commercial email (UCE or spam). China accounts for the largest volume of spam messages.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report also includes a new section on underground economy servers: systems that help organized crime sell stolen information. It’s an online identity theft swap meet, and 51% of these computers are located in the USA. US banks issues 86% of the debit and credit cards found on these networks. The US also leads the world in phishing sites, account for 46% of the global numbers.

Government is the number one target for identity thieves, accounting for 25 percent of the data breaches reported to Symantec.

Home users are the number one target by far, accounting for 93% of all reported attacks. As always, I advise home broadband users to buy a router and reset the default address and passwords. This step alone can repel a large number of simple attacks.

Beijing is the number one city in terms of zombie computers, accounting for 5% of the worldwide total. China accounts for 26% of the worldwide total. Bot infections are up 11% over the previous year, for an average of 63912 active zombie computers per day.

Symantec collects data from 120 million users of the company’s software, 2 million honeypot e-mail accounts and 40000 network traffic sensors.

The threat report is an interesting source of information, but it’s also a sales tool for the company, so take these figures with a grain of salt.

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’m still grading the IS 6100 midterm exams. I should finish these by Monday.

Students should not be concerned if their TurnItIn.com originality score for this assignment changes during my grading. As the instructor, I can rerun an originality analysis to exclude the reference list. I can also choose to exclude any sections that the student put in quotation marks (“”), which are usually reserved for direct quotes from another source.

I use these two features a lot when I grade. The ability to exclude direct quotes is very helpful for me. Keep in mind that I almost always advise students to use their own words, and avoid quoting directly from the textbook. A direct quote demonstrates little more than the ability find a section and type it in accurately.

Reference lists usually produce false positives, because a properly formatted reference to the textbook should be almost identical in most students papers.

TurnItIn.com works very well as a deterrent against sharing
or submitting assignments
that students been found on other computers, email or the internet. As I
wrote in my syllabus, I assume that most graduate students are adults
and will act honorably. I don’t use TurnItIn.com as a “gotcha” tool to trap students.

Some students have asked why their originality scores changed before the assignment was due. I always set up my TurnItIn.com assignment so that every submission is reanalyzed any time a new submission is made. This step helps protect students who submitted their assignments early, because any new submissions will be analyzed against the previous submissions as well as TurnItIn.com’s vast database.

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