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Vol
5, Issue 2
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2003
February
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Lead stories:
 Public relations students prefer Internet over textbook
Harness
the power of intellectual capital
Plus:
New
free US Federal Tax Law resource launched
Get
Your Articles Published In DCLnews
Ideas for DCL library?
Other news:
Sheppard
Air Force Base gives thumbs up to IETMS and super tough laptops
Military
needs more bandwidth to download videos
Britannia
Airways keeps laptops on during takeoffs and landings
Schools
offered e-book classics collection
XML replaces obsolete paper forms in US Air Force
Happy
Birthday, XML!
Asides:
Bagnold's
bluff
Lead Stories:
Public relations students prefer Internet over textbook
Date:
2/13/2003, DCLnews exclusive
Innovative course at the University of New Mexico uses Internet readings instead of traditional textbook -- students give it the thumbs up. Commenting on the story, Data Conversion Laboratory Inc. President Mark Gross said: "There's a major opportunity here. Publishers are naturals to take on these new [online] markets. But instead, at least in this case, they're losing the market by default. More.
Harness
the power of intellectual capital
Date:
2/13/2003, DCLnews guest article
 Alan Houser of
information management firm, Group Wellesley, reveals how XML
can help you keep pace with today's information delivery
requirements. More.
Plus:
New free
US Federal Tax Law resource launched
Date:
2/13/2003, DCLnews extra
 New website,
LegalBitStream.com, provides free searchable databases of
Federal Tax Law from 1990 to the present – a must for
tax lawyers and accountants. What's more, as an advertising-supported
site, using LegalBitStream doesn't require payment or registration.
The databases are made up of US tax cases, including the US Supreme
Court, US Tax Court, US Circuit and District Courts, and IRS
Materials,including Revenue Rulings, Revenue Procedures, Private
Letter Rulings and more.
See:
www.legalbitstream.com
(Data Conversion
Laboratory helped LegalBitStream.com with data conversion.
"Your fantastic conversion work made our circuit and district
court cases look so sharp," said Trey Mayfield of
LegalBitStream. "The quality and timeliness of your work
surpassed expectations and the personnel assigned to the task handled
the job with an exceptional level of professional expertise.")
Get
Your Articles Published In DCLnews
Date:
2/13/2003, DCLnews extra
Got something to say? If so, DCLnews accepts article submissions on XML and
document technology subjects. Please send a brief
synopsis (two or three paragraphs), along with your details, to
DCLnews editorial. We don't
offer payment, but will list your website and company details at the
end of your article.
Ideas for DCL library?
Date:
2/13/2003, DCLnews extra
Can you recommend
industry resources that we should include in DCL's
Technical Library? Send an email with details
to:
mailto:convert@dclab.com?subject=Industry_Resources
Other News:
Sheppard
Air Force Base gives thumbs up to IETMS and super tough laptops
Date:
1/17/2002, NewsChannel 6
Sheppard Air
Force Base, TX, has given airmen with the 361st Training Squadron
their first taste of high tech maintenance. The squadron has been
using a new Interactive Electronic Training Manual System (IETMS), replacing hard copy manuals (though some will be kept as back-up).
Sheppard is the
first base to use laptop computers in a training environment. So far
they have been given the thumbs-up from the airmen using them.
"[Paper] training manuals are very cumbersome, you can actually
take these with you to a training environment or to a flight line,"
said Rick Engle with the 361st Training Squadron.
The laptops have
been battle tested. They have survived being dropped in deep water –
even one that was dropped on to a hard floor continued working. More.
Military
needs more bandwidth to download videos
Date:
1/3/2003, Wired News
Everything from
fighter-plane video feeds and PowerPoint slides to maintenance supply
requests and technical manuals are jamming the Military's internet
pipes. Despite the Pentagon's efforts to boost bandwidth,
there's never enough. "Bandwidth gets consumed. It's like
software – applications grow until you fill up the memory
you've got," said Gen. Lance Lord, Chief of Air Force Space
Command, at a recent conference. Streaming video is the biggest
bandwidth eater – it is used to feed real-time battle footage
to the top brass back home. PowerPoint slides come a close second.
The Pentagon,
however, unveiled a $400-billion budget proposal for 2004 at the
tail-end of last year. If approved, the budget would apply $452
million to develop a laser satellite communications' system
that Pentagon officials say would break the bottleneck in bandwidth
needed to move the torrents of communications across Military
networks. More.
Britannia
Airways keeps laptops on during takeoffs and landings
Date:
1/30/2003, Internet Wire
 To save paper, UK
charter airline Britannia Airways has equipped its 430 pilots
with IBM ThinkPad laptop computers, giving them electronic access to
all the airplane manuals required on the flight deck. The ThinkPad
notebooks will hold information previously contained in as many as 20
bulky flight manuals (weighing approximately 40 pounds), and
will facilitate essential calculations to improve flight efficiency.
The U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration, however, has documented instances in
which laptop computers have interfered with cockpit instruments, and
has banned the use of all portable electronic devices during take-off
and landing on all flights. But the Civil Aviation Authority
in Britain deemed the ThinkPads safe after running its standard tests
to ensure electronic devices aboard aircraft are safe. More.
Schools
offered e-book classics collection
Date:
2/4/2003, Yahoo Finance
In a move designed
to give schools an affordable way to use e-book technology, Palm
Digital Media, Inc. and
Lightning Source, Inc. recently introduced the
"Classics Collection," a selection of classic literature
that gives students, teachers, and administrators unlimited use of up
to 500 e-books for an entire school year. Titles include: "The
Red Badge of Courage," by Stephen Crane; "Night and Day,"
by Virginia Woolf; and the works of Shakespeare.
"This
collection provides schools with a cost-effective way to easily
distribute books to students," said Mike Segroves, director of
business development at Palm Digital Media. "E-books cannot be
lost, stolen, or damaged, and the license entitles schools to
internally distribute as many copies of the e-books as it wants, as
many times as it wants, throughout the school year." He added
that the use of e-book literature in schools is just beginning and
e-textbooks are on the horizon, and that "we expect the use of
these digital materials to keep pace with the investment schools make
in technology in the coming years."
XML replaces obsolete paper forms in US Air Force
Date:
1/13,2003, Network World Fusion
The Air Force
is spending $6.7 million to overhaul its obsolete forms system.
Currently the Air Force has 18,000 different forms and 700,000 end
users. "Converting existing static forms, which include
everything from personnel and travel requests to logistics and
financial transactions, to smarter web-based versions will make the
process of accessing, filling out, and sending forms much easier for
Air Force personnel worldwide," says Carolyn Watkins-Taylor,
director of the Air Force's departmental publishing office.
The electronic forms
overhaul is part of a broader content management effort to modernize
Air Force publishing, which includes web-enabling technical manuals
and deploying XML databases. For the $6.7 million forms component,
the Air Force is using XML-based information management software from
PureEdge Solutions. The software lets users create, capture, process,
and archive secure XML e-forms using the Internet. More.
Happy
Birthday, XML!
Date:
2/10/2003, W3.org
XML
turned five on Feb 10th and two original members of the XML
Working Group -- Dave Hollander and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen –
have posted an article reflecting on the hopes that accompanied the
development of XML. They look at what happened since and what should
happen next in the continuing seven-year effort to define XML. More.
Asides:
Bagnold's Bluff
Date:
2/13/2003, LRDG.org
 One of the less
reported stories of the current Iraq crisis is that British and US special
forces units (SAS and Delta Force) have been doing reconnaissance
missions in and around Iraq. Specialist military forces of this type,
which used to be called "private armies" due to their
unconventional nature, came into vogue during WWII. One British unit,
the Long Range Desert Group, did a great deal of
reconnaissance work (along with numerous skirmishes) behind enemy
lines in the "great sand sea" of the Libyan desert.
Founded by desert
explorer and professional soldier Ralph Bagnold, the Long
Range Desert Group turned the tide of the desert war even though the
Italians at that time had a larger and superior force (in terms of
weaponry). How did Bagnold do it? By a bluff that earned the Long
Range Desert Group the nickname "Ghost Patrol." More.
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DCLnews
Staff
Publisher:
Mark Gross, DCL
President
Editor:
John Shreeve, UK Journalist
Data
Conversion Laboratory
61-18 190th St., 2nd Floor
Fresh Meadows, NY 11365
Telephone:
718-357-8700
Website: www.dclab.com
Editorial
E-mail: dclnews@dclab.com
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