Linux and Open Source have made an impact in mass media and anyone working with information technology these days will have heard these terms. Few, however, understand why or how to properly leverage them during design and implementation. During many projects, the budget is smaller then one wants, but the project must get going. How? Using open source solutions of course. There are four main reasons why open source solutions lead to higher quality products and projects.

The paper discusses some of the issues involved with designing and implementing a linux based network for a small startup company called CoatingsMart Inc. based on the experience learned at eChemicals. CoatingsMart was purchased by Morton Powder Coatings. (2000-2001)

This paper and presentation was given to a masters class in computer security at the University of Michigan. Topics and examples were given in the presentation to include both technical issues and management issues. (Fall 2001)

Maintaining network and computer security in a small company environment is harder than in a large corporation. The staff members in small companies have more control over the equipment and people involved (since there are fewer of them) so before implementing security, everyone must be convinced that it is a good idea.

Computer Security Goals

Proceedings of SPIE -- Volume 4189, by Shridhar, Waltz, Miller, Houle, Bijnagte, Dibble. Recognition of license plate images is the topic of this paper. The major issue in this problem is the accurate extraction of the license plate character string from varying backgrounds using processing techniques that are reasonably fast. The images are also characterized by non-uniform illumination. Recognition of the string is relatively straightforward, if the extraction process has been correctly designed.

The research paper and presentation discusses the process of creating a license plate recognition system. The process begins with an image capture stage and progresses through plate extraction and finally character recognition. (2000)

Quick Book Review - Mastering Algorithms with Perl

Authors: Jon Orwant, Jarkko Hietaniemi & John Macdonald
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 1-56592-398-7

Pages: 704 (648 of real hard core stuff)
Rating: 9
Reviewer: Ryan Dibble (rdibble at dibble dot net)

An example for client-server architecture, Perl socket programming, and rapid application development practices. The focus is on the creation of a simple, effective, practical, multi-user communication protocol supporting both individual user and group user messaging. It explains implementation of the PerlChat server, multi-platform GUI clients, and a web based interface. (1999)

The research and implementation paper summarizes the design and implementation of a real-time vision processing software program called LOIS and the processing of porting it from a Windows desktop to a Linux embedded system. (1998-2001)

This project's main goal was to develop a Network Search Algorithm using a bi-directional multi-scale search. This algorithm is applicable to many different problems. The sample problem chosen was the game of puzzles. (1996)