Here, for posterity's sake, I've collected some of the stuff I have publicly written for various purposes. If you really like reading my stuff, you might also want to check out my blog.

Death of Bhutto causes confusion

Originally published in the Clarkson Integrator, January 14th, 2008

Benazir Bhutto, two-time prime minister of Pakistan, was killed in a combined shooting and bombing attack at a rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday, December 27, 2007. The rally was staged in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, against the country's military leader, Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto was the foremost member of the People's Party of Pakistan, a political party founded by her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

In October, Ms. Bhutto returned from a ten year self-imposed exile in London. The day after her return, her welcoming parade had been bombed, killing at least 134 of her supporters and wounding more than 400. Bhutto herself escaped unharmed from this attack.

Although Bhutto had been elected as Pakistan's prime minister twice, she was twice expelled from office under dubious charges of corruption, which prompted her ten-year exile in London. Notably, Bhutto was the first female leader of Pakistan. In fact, she was the first female leader in the region in the past century.

The exact details of Bhutto's death are still unknown. Many of her supporters insist that the Pakistani government, under Musharraf, was complicit in her assassination. They say that she was shot before a suicide bomber blew himself up.

Musharraf rejects these charges. His government states that she died when she hit her head on her car's sunroof after the suicide bomber detonated his weapon. Musharraf, in fact, has called for the body of Bhutto to be exhumed in order to confirm exactly how she died.

However, Musharraf has ruled out using his executive power to order a post-mortem examination without the agreement of Bhutto's family. Bhutto's family refuses to grant permission to exhume Bhutto's corpse without assurance that the examination will be carried out by the United Nations or some other international third party. According to Musharraf in an Al Jazeera interview on January 13, however, "there cannot be a UN investigation. There are not two or three countries involved. Why should there be a UN investigation? This is ridiculous."

Bhutto's family, however, states that it does not trust officials in Pakistan. "We do not believe that an investigation under the authority of the Pakistani government has the necessary transparency. Already so much forensic evidence has been destroyed," said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Benazir's son in another Al Jazeera interview on the 13th. Bilawal is currently a first-year student at Oxford University, in the United Kingdom.

At the beginning of January, Musharraf asked the UK to assist in the investigation of the murder. A team of British police officers was sent to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. The team consisted of eight experts in video evidence, forensic science, and explosives. Currently, they have made no conclusions. However, the Pakistani government, as well as those of the United States and the UK, believes that the attack was carried out by a sect of terrorists led by Baitullah Mehsud, with links to Al-Qaeda.

Musharraf points to a purported telephone conversation between Mehsud and a militant Pakistani Cleric, in which, according to the UK Times on January 13, Mehsud stated: "Fantastic job. Very brave boys, the ones who killed her." The UK detectives insist that their job is not to establish who killed her, but rather how she died. However, even a seemingly simple job like this has become very difficult. They are unable to examine the body, and the crime scene and Bhutto's vehicle were purportedly scrubbed within hours of the attack.

Bhutto is survived by her son and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Zardari was jailed for eight years in Pakistan on corruption charges before his release on bail in 2004.

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PeopleSoft conversion underway

Originally published in the Clarkson Integrator, November 19th, 2007

A new version of PeopleSoft, Clarkson University's curriculum and financial aid management software, is slated to be available to students, faculty, and administrators by the end of Thanksgiving break.

This new version, PeopleSoft 8.9, an upgrade from PeopleSoft 8.0, is designed to make it simpler for students to find important information. This version has been long overdue. Staff at OIT, human resources, student accounts, and graduate admissions have been developing and fine-tuning it for over a year. The upgrade was first proposed three years ago. The older version, PeopleSoft 8.0, has been in use since 2000.

President of SAS Suzanne Davis and Registrar Lynn Brown spoke with The Integrator about the coming upgrade. "We're excited about this new version, mostly because of the enhanced usability for students," said Brown. The new version of PeopleSoft features an upgraded home page, the "Student Service Center" which includes such information as a student's weekly schedule, financial summary, holds, enrollment appointments, and advisors.

Previously, PeopleSoft 8.0 required students to navigate through multiple levels of menus in order to find this information. Students will be able to use their regular Active Directory password to log in to PeopleSoft 8.9. If a student changes his AD password, this change will reflect immediately in PeopleSoft. When the transition is complete, students will log in to the new system by accessing ps.clarkson.edu.

Version 8.9 will include a "course wishlist," which will allow students to select courses before their enrollment appointment. Then, during their enrollment appointment, registering for courses already on their wishlist will only involve a single mouse click. When the system processes courses that are added to the course wishlist, it will take into account course prerequisites, permission numbers, and anything else that might prevent a student from enrolling aside from filled classes.

It will also include a service called "Quick What-If," which will allow students to experiment and see if possible courses taken in the future would fulfill graduation requirements. All features in the 8.0 version are also implemented in 8.9. There has been no loss of functionality between the two versions.

The interface of the new system is significantly different from that of version 8.0. There is a menu on the left side of the screen with a single link to the "Student Service Center" on it. Along the top of the screen is a green navigation bar with links entitled "Home," "Add to Favorites," and "Sign out." The "Home" and "Add to Favorites" links navigate to error messages. There is a large, bold Clarkson logo in the top-left corner, and the interface is, for the most part, colored green and white.

Aside from the two prominent broken links, the new system appears to be quite robust. There are a few other quirks, however. For example, the weekly calendar view allows users to choose any date between 1900 and 2100.

Students who were able to tour the beta version of the new 8.9 system gave it mixed reviews. For some, the new system seemed to be a significant upgrade in usability and convenience. For others, the new system was still unsatisfying. One student noted that "the old version of PeopleSoft was ridiculous. This new version is a lot more intuitive, but I hope it's just a step and that Clarkson will keep trying to make PeopleSoft better. Clarkson is a tech school, and it should have higher standards when it comes to campus technology and infrastructure." Many students welcome new features like the "course wishlist," but some perceive the "quick what-if" feature to be confusing.

In an attempt to make the transition smooth and flawless, Clarkson's technical team had been practicing moving student's data from DB2, the format of the older version 8.0, to SQL, the format for version 8.9. Then, this past Friday at 5:00 p.m., the old system was completely disabled so that the transition could actually begin.

On Saturday and Sunday the team ran conversion scripts in order to move the data to the new system. The team plans to perform finishing touches for the transition on Monday. Then, the team plans to run tests on the new database on Tuesday and Wednesday to be sure that it is ready for release. If there are any major snags in the upgrade, the team plans to fix them in the days after Thanksgiving before students arrive on campus again on Monday.

Students who have not yet enrolled in classes for the spring semester will be unable to do so while the system is being updated. When asked why PeopleSoft would be upgraded during the enrollment period, Lynn Brown replied, "It's got less to do with the middle of the enrollment period and more to do with the Thanksgiving break." Now is the most convenient time for the administration to make this change, because there are few students on campus and the administration has relatively few commitments.

"Over breaks between semesters, however, are intense enrollment times, and SAS simply would not have the resources to make the change then." Alternatively, the school could have waited until February, when there is relatively little enrollment or administration related activity on campus. However, the team felt that "February was just too long to wait, especially because we have everything ready now."

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Campus speed bumps vanish

Originally published in the Clarkson Integrator, November 5th, 2007

In the early morning of Thursday, October 18, someone unknown dismantled and removed the new speed bumps located in front of the Science Center, the bottom end of the Quad, and on the access road by the Townhouses--all of the speed bumps on the Clarkson campus.

The speed bumps had been installed earlier in the semester by Campus Safety. At noon, Campus Safety sent an email to all Clarkson students stating that the speed bumps had been stolen and offering a $500 reward "for information that leads to the identification of the person(s) responsible." That evening, the missing speed bumps were discovered in a pile in the parking lot at Baghdad Field.

Campus Safety intended for the speed bumps to reduce the number of complaints about excessive vehicle speeds around campus, especially in places with high pedestrian activity. Among many students, however, the speed bumps were merely a poorly implemented annoyance for drivers on campus. One student complained that the model of speed bump used was bad for his car's suspension. Another stated that his car was wide enough to drive over the speed bumps without even hitting them. "Although the thought behind putting them in was good, the money that was spent should have gone toward better causes, like additional blue lights around campus or better access to dorm buildings."

Many students are happy that the bumps have been removed, but others miss them. Some stated that they missed the slow speed of passing cars at the locations where the speed bumps had been. Although relatively uncommon, vehicle accidents have occurred on campus, and the areas where the speed bumps were installed are where accidents have occurred most frequently.

According to David DeLisle, director of Campus Safety, there had been numerous complaints from faculty and staff about the speed of passing cars outside the Science Center parking lot, including several near misses. While the speed bumps were in place, however, there were no accidents or complaints about vehicle speed. DeLisle was unhappy that "some students seem to care more about speed on campus than about safety of the people [the speed bumps] might save." Since the speed bumps have been removed, there have been no recorded vehicle incidents on campus.

According to DeLisle, purchase and installation of the speed bumps cost Campus Safety about $1000, which came out of their regular operating budget. The e-mail message that campus safety distributed to all Clarkson students on Thursday noted that the speed bumps were "of no cost to students..." By this, Campus Safety meant that the student body was not required to pay extra tuition for their purchase and installation. The speed bumps were made of hard plastic and were manufactured by Barco Products.

The removal of the speed bumps has been classified as "grand larceny," a criminal offense. Potsdam local police are cooperating with Campus Safety to help find the people responsible. Although Campus Safety have received some leads, DeLisle states that "nothing significant has come up yet."

Campus Safety intends to reinstall the speed bumps in the spring, after the cold weather is gone, to prevent damage from snow plows and frost." Until then, the bumps are being stored for the winter in Walker Center.

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