Tuesday, January 26, 2010

A heck of a way to run a railroad

This was sent by the Provost to all SJSU Faculty and Staff:

An important and TIME-SENSITIVE message to all faculty and staff from Lael Adediji, Coordinator of Advising Information:

As we all know, competition for seats in classes can be fierce. Classes are full and waitlists are long, yet SJSU needs to make a serious effort to graduate seniors. If classes are full, how are graduating seniors to get seats in the courses they need to complete the degree? Academic Advising and Retention Services (AARS) is making an effort to assist these graduating seniors by giving them a Graduating Senior Card. On gray cardstock and embossed with SJSU’s seal, the Graduating Senior Card will be given to those with an Application for Graduation on file for Spring or Summer 2010. Graduating seniors may come to AARS, where their remaining courses will be verified. They will then be given the card as documentation that the particular class is needed. Then, they can take the card to the course instructor as verification that the student truly does need the class to complete the degree. Whenever possible, please give students with this card priority for an add code.

When an instructor receives this gray card, s/he should look for SJSU’s embossed seal, as well as the student’s name and identification, the course needed, and the initials of an AARS staff member. Many high units seniors will be aware of this card. If you have a graduating senior who needs this verification, please do not hesitate to send him or her to AARS for a Graduating Senior Card.

[Contact information deleted]

Regards, Lael Adediji, Coordinator of Advising Information

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Will cloud computing hubs be terrorist targets?

As government, industry and individuals move toward a cloud computing model where applications and data resides in data hubs, could these hubs be vulnerable to, or targets of, a future terrorist attack?

Rob Enderle, who is president and founder of Enderle Group, wrote in this post, "a coordinated attack on several or all of the hubs could stop a country -- even one the size of the U.S. -- cold, with recovery taking years and massive infrastructure failures causing loss of life and resources at levels never seen outside of an outright world war."

To this Chuck Goolsbee responded, "Datacenters, Telecommunications Infrastructure, Carrier Hotels, Long-Haul Fiber-Optic Circuits, and by extension, “Cloud Computing” will never be terrorism targets. Ever. They have no emotional value. Their disablement or even destruction provokes no visceral emotional reaction or outrage..."

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

On Facebook not all friends are equal

Not all Facebook friends may be close, personal trusted friends you may want to have access to everything you post to Facebook. Nick O'Neill, on All-Facebook, posted this on February 2nd, 2009 of how to tweek your settings in Facebook so you can restrict some friends some seeing things you may NOT want them to see. This post has been kept up to date to reflect changes in Facebook's interface.