Discusses how, despite many obstacles, open-source software has the potential to strongly influence the future of software development and support in the academic world. (EV)

Presents a history of computer viruses, explains various types of viruses and how they affect software or computer operating systems, and describes examples of specific viruses. Available vaccines are explained, and precautions for protecting programs and disks are given. (nine references) (LRW)

Describes the Constituent Object Parser (COP), a domain independent syntactic parser developed for use in information retrieval and similar applications. The syntactic structure of natural language entities is discussed, and the mechanisms by which COP handles the problems of conjunctions, ellipsis, and discontinuous constituents are explained.…

Discusses reasons for learning to program in BASIC, various versions of BASIC, BASIC compilers, and adherence to proposed standards. Brief reviews of six BASIC software packages are included. (12 references) (MES)

Discusses current laws that can be applied to software piracy and methods to prevent piracy in organizations. Specifically looks at copyright and patent law. (JOW)

Presents a model for the purchase of computer-aided design (CAD) software: collect general information, observe CAD in use, arrange onsite demonstrations, select CAD software and hardware, and choose a vendor. (JOW)

Discusses the need for security and metering features for CD-ROM products. Topics covered include user productivity issues, pricing problems, integrated information resources, advantages of CD-ROM distribution systems, unauthorized use, content encryption, and multiple simultaneous meters. (MES)

Presents a layered architecture for hypermedia systems that uses the MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Expert Group) proposal to provide the desired independence between hypermedia applications' conceptual models and storage strategies for hypermedia objects. An overview of the MHEG standard proposal is provided. (Contains 16…

Reviews current developments in multimedia computing for both the business and consumer markets, including interactive multimedia players; compact disc-interactive (CD-I), including levels of audio quality, various video specifications and visual effects, and software; digital video interactive (DVI); and multimedia personal computers. (LRW)

Explains how Stanford University custom designed its own building maintenance and administration software package: the Housing Operations Maintenance Enterprise Resource (HOMER). Describes how HOMER relieved facility maintenance staff from some archaic systems, and its development and functionality. (GR)

Explains how to incorporate sound and video into Web pages with special software and HTML tags. Topics include creating sound files; sound formats; video technology; video formats; referencing sound and video files in HTML pages; embedding sounds and videos; players, plug-ins, and viewers; sound and video files from the Web; and streaming. (LRW)

Presents two binary programming models with a special network structure that can be explored computationally for simultaneous test construction. Uses an efficient special purpose network algorithm to solve these models. An empirical study illustrates the approach. (SLD)

Describes the use of digital ortho photography in the master planning process conducted at the University of Alabama that made planning easy and quick to do. What the benefits are in going digital for master planning are highlighted as is a description of what hardware and software are needed. (GR)

Describes new features, system specifications, upgrading procedures, and package options (including costs) for Office XP. (PKP)

It used to be that Internet threats were aimed at disabling their targets. The most common payload of yesterday's viruses, worms and other malicious code either caused system instability or, perhaps, deleted certain files. In many cases, these threats announced their arrival by flashing messages on the computer screen or causing some other…