acm - an acm publication

2008 - January

  • How many Americans does it take to change a light bulb?
    I changed a light bulb yesterday. Or, rather, I had the thing changed. I told an Egyptian friend I had a couple of bulbs burnt out and was assuming I could pick some up at one of the larger new supermarkets. He looked at me with barely concealed pity for my ignorance. No, he said. They don't carry light bulbs in a market. Later, in e-mail, he would spell it "light pulp," which is an image I find quite intriguing. Where's Einstein when you need him? Might light pulp be what glows inside the glass, I wonder?
  • About english: On the other hand
    I read Philip Yaffe's two recent Ubiquity pieces with interest, all the more so because I myself have plunged back into an international experience after sampling the delights of retirement for a year.
  • Serial port data communication using MODBUS protocol
    Serial communication is the process of sending data sequentially one bit at a time, over a communication channel or computer bus [5,6,7]. RS-232 is a standard for serial binary data transfer between a data terminal equipment (DTE) and a data circuit-terminating equipment (DCE), commonly used in computer serial ports.
  • Is the GMO controversy relevant to computer ethics?
    Computing and information technology professionals have exhibited high standards of engagement with ethical issues relating to privacy, information security and abuse of the technical capabilities they have been responsible for developing. But one can argue that computing capability is implicated in ethical controversies that receive relatively little discussion within the IT community. Stem cell research, nanotechnologies and other controversial areas of science would be impossible without the computational capacity of information processing. In many instances, the downstream applications of computer technology are deeply involved in the issues surrounding contested technologies.
  • An approach for conducting enterprise resource planning assessment

    The failure to plan will lead to results that fall short of expectations. The same thing can be said of companies and their search for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. All companies undertake the search for a new system because they believe there is an opportunity to improve the organization, either by improving the revenue, decreasing costs or both.

    But far too often, companies undertake this effort without having a plan on how to select a new ERP system. They fall victim selecting the product with the best sales presentation or the best cost proposal. There is not quantitative evidence that this new system will actually achieve the goals of improving the revenue or decreasing the cost.

    So put an evaluation plan in place. No two plans will be the same but all should have the same basic concepts.