Free Republic

Survey results from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles (HERI/UCLA) show that the popularity of computer science (CS) as a major among incoming freshmen has dropped significantly in the past four years. Alarmingly, the proportion of women who thought that they might major in CS has fallen to levels unseen since the early 1970s. The percentage of incoming undergraduates indicating that they would major in CS declined by over 60 percent between the Fall of 2000 and 2004, and is now 70 percent lower than its peak in the early 1980s (Figure 1).Freshmen...

Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers, new research has claimed. The study for computing firm Hewlett Packard warned of a rise in "infomania", with people becoming addicted to email and text messages. Researchers found 62% of people checked work messages at home or on holiday. The firm said new technology can help productivity, but users must learn to switch computers and phones off. Losing sleep The study, carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry, found excessive use of technology reduced workers' intelligence. Those distracted by incoming...

Was executed American contractor Nicholas Berg's decision to share his computer password with alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui during a 1999 encounter in Norman, Okla., just a coincidence, as Attorney General John Ashcroft assured the nation last week? Or was there more to this bizarre development than meets the eye? Oklahoma City bombing investigator, former NBC reporter Jayna Davis, has been exploring some of the more troubling aspects of the Berg-Moussaoui meeting, especially in light of the role the city of Norman played in events leading up to 9/11. First, says Davis, the official story which had Berg, then a...

Question for my fellow freepers: My laptop recently got hit by something big. Needless to say, I wiped the entire drive, and reloaded Windows XP Pro. Everything went well, but for some reason, I cannot change my monitor settings. I go to display properties, but I cannot move the slidebar to change the screen resolution. DVD's can't play because it comes up with a message saying my screen settings are wrong. Any idea? BTW, I have a Dell Inspiron.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Mechanical engineers at Purdue University have new findings offering promise for modifying household refrigeration technology with small devices to cool future weapons systems and computer chips. The devices, called "micro-channel heat sinks," circulate coolant through numerous channels about three times the width of a human hair. Such devices might be attached directly to electronic components in military lasers, microwave radar and weapons systems, as well as in future computers that will generate more heat than present computers, said Issam Mudawar, a professor of mechanical engineering who is leading the research. The researchers are adapting refrigeration systems...

Help! My son has changed the settings for the screen magnification--he changed the colors from 256 to 16. Fonts, icons, size of open windows are huge--the overfill the screen to the point that only about 1/4 of an open window can be viewed. Here is the problem--when I try to change the settings I can get the open window to move high enough to allow me access to the bottom of the open window to hit the ok button. Can you offer a solution. Thanking you in advance.

TEN years ago, Microsoft unveiled Windows 95 in a way that suggested that the product's arrival was no less momentous than when humans stood upright for the first time. The company spent about $200 million introducing the operating system. That paid for festivities on the Microsoft campus (with Jay Leno as M.C.), rights to use the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up" in a global advertising campaign and permission to bathe the Empire State Building at night with the Windows logo. It also loaded The Times of London with Windows 95 advertising that day, making the newspaper a one-day freebie,...

Last week, Michael Kanellos published this FAQ on the 40th anniversary of Moore’s law, which is famously known as the phenomenon that computer processing power will double every 18 months. Actually, Gordon Moore only said that transistor count would double every 24 months and it was David House (a former executive of Intel) who extrapolated that performance would double every 18 months as a result of the increase in transistors. Ironically, it is House’s unofficial reinterpretation of Moore’s law that has become the popular definition of Moore’s law. Over two years ago, Tomshardware released this excellent article showing the historical...

So Your Computer is Running Slow When you first bought your computer, it zinged. It was faster than the computer you replaced. It was "upgraded"! But lately something happened. It slowed to a crawl, taking forever to boot up and net surfing - especially for you dial-up users - became excruciatingly, impossibly slow. It is possible to recapture that lost speed. What happened? There are a few culprits. We personally hate long winded explanations, so we will keep this short. Or, you can forget the explanations and just skip to the fixes. For those of you still with us, here...

Something strange may have just taken control of this OS,until I catch the SOB, and kill it. I could just be over paranoid but,something is surely biting on My butt, and I try not ever to cry Wolf! I have tried all the suggested scans, reckon I need to try some more. Only X rated place I go is a bit of lurking around on DU, never thought I could catch the crabs online.Run Your scans, I'm logging off.

"With eight new variants surfacing in the last week alone, and over a dozen reported since the beginning of March, the Mytob mass-mailing worm appears to be evolving rapidly." On Monday, security software maker Symantec reported two new versions of the virus, labeled as W32.Mytob.R and W32.Mytob.S. Both worms achieved a low or moderate threat rating from Symantec, as have earlier variants of Mytob, but the company is still recommending that people update their security software immediately to protect against the emerging threat.

A number puzzle originating in the work of self-taught maths genius Srinivasa Ramanujan nearly a century ago has been solved. The solution may one day lead to advances in particle physics and computer security. Karl Mahlburg, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US, has spent a year putting together the final pieces to the puzzle, which involves understanding patterns of numbers. "I have filled notebook upon notebook with calculations and equations," says Mahlburg, who has submitted a 10-page paper of his results to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The patterns were first discovered...

Need another reason to get your Gmail account? How about using its generous 1GB storage capacity as a virtual drive to save and retrieve files directly from inside Windows Explorer, accessing it from a new drive you’ll find under My Computer? http://www.googletutor.com/?p=72

Chicago, IL, Mar. 16 (UPI) -- The second you send an e-mail from your PC, your personal privacy probably has been compromised. E-mail messages hop from your computer over a number of networks to their final destination, but like a postcard from a vacationer in Mexico, the content can be perused by anyone, at anytime, before it is delivered, experts told UPI's The Web. "E-mail is completely open," said Jeff Multz, vice president of sales at SecureWorks Inc., a computer security services firm in Atlanta. "People think it is secure when it is sent over a network, but that is...

The 'qwerty' keyboard has been the subject of derision and verbal abuse ever since it made its first awkward appearance in 1872. The device has been largely neglected through the march of decades, even as computer components have advanced dramatically. Clearly keyboards need some imagination. A new software program that introduces a level of memory and intelligence to the lowly PC keyboard may just do that. The solution is called the Predictive Keyboard, and it's been developed by the WordLogic Corp. It's scheduled for commercial unveiling later this spring. The Predictive Keyboard can carry out a great many simple and...

I have a DVD I need to salvage if possible. My kids have managed to scratch it (but it doesn't look horribly scratched, just superficial scuffs). I have heard there is programs that allow one to extract the infomation so I can record it (or just view it on my computer). I can watch about 2/3rds of the disk without problems then it starts lagging and eventually stops (and locks up). I have tried numerous players from my home tv dvd player to my two dvd players (one is a recorder) on my computer. All sources lock up about the...

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved its fast-track anti-spyware legislation today, pushing the bill out for a full House vote. But not before amending its language. Again. At a January hearing on the legislation, several lawmakers, who otherwise strongly supported H.R. 29, the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act (SPY ACT), raised concerns that the bill would unintentionally target third-party cookies. During a subcommittee vote last month, the House amended the SPY ACT in an attempt to exempt all types of cookies. And before voting on the legislation on Wednesday, the committee further amended it to...

I use Microsoft as my Internet browser. recently, I went into Internet Options. I delete cookies and files. I go in and wipe out clear out History... ...but I still keep seeing internet sites that I THOUGHT I'd previously deleted up in the browser line. For example, Free Republic shows up in my browser as I start to type in its address. It automatically fills in. What the hell am I not doing correctly?!

The head of the Christian Civic League said hackers destroyed thousands of dollars' worth of the league's intellectual property. They replaced a web page posting the organization's daily newsletter with obscenities and comments advocating atheism. Heath said he's very upset with what happened here, but he's not surprised. He said the Civic League's strong stand against homosexuality has made it a target for threats and vandals.

I use Outlook Express to get incoming email from my own domain server (i.e. www.myname.com). For the past few days (and also in the past) I have been unable to get incoming mail. After a few moments of connection, I get the following message: Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: 'mail.[myname].com', Server: 'mail.[myname].com', Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10053, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F However, if I disconnect from my high speed internet connection and use a dialup account, I CAN get...