Online-only testing has some worried about unequal digital literacy in grade-school children.

Welcome back to Science Fair, Bwog’s weekly roundup of science events around campus. As always, email science@bwog.com if you want your event featured.

The senior wisdom keeps on rolling over here at Bwog. Up next we bring you some thoughts from SEAS student Matthew Sheridan. Name, School, Major, Hometown: Matthew Sheridan, SEAS, Mechanical Engineering, San Antonio, TX Claim to fame: I get messages from random people asking how to get into roofs and tunnels. I was president of […]

Last week, we informed you of the beginning of DevFest, the “week-long application development experience” that has something to do with computers. Since the combination of get-rich-quick potential and Westside cookies was too much for Bwog to resist, technocrat chronicler Michael Menna was dispatched behind the Silicon Curtain of the Computer Science Department to report […]

Remember when these took up so much space? SGA Bureau Chief Zoe Camp reports: Guests were the order of the evening. Claire Fram from Barnard Ecoreps, introduced the brand spankin’ new EcoActs section on their website for students to sign up for projects like the Barnard Clothing-Swap Coordinator, Earth week, etc. Bronwyn Moreno from Relay […]

The computer strikes again; the English Department sponsored conference “The History of Reading and Reading Processes” examines how word processing has changed the way that authors write and the way that scholars and fans obsess. Daily Editor Liz Naiden was tempted to bring a typewriter to the keynote speech in 523 Butler. Long-time blogger and […]

Hiding in Butler, you’ve got six papers due in ten hours but you’re engaged in a poke war on Facebook.  It’s time to buckle down and get some real work done.  SocketHop is here to help.    Image via Flickr Lose the Clutter There’s a million ways to have distraction-free word processing, but Bwog has […]

Nothing stings quite as much as that whirrr-click-click-click sound when you try to boot up your newly-purchased laptop.  Blank screens and corrupted data have sent many Columbians into hysterical fits.  Do yourself a favor; spend an hour and earn permanent peace-of-mind.  Photo via Typepad   Backing up up your files is as essential to mainstream […]

 -xkcd Just a heads-up that a mere five days after you return from spring break, programming god Larry Wall will be giving a talk on “The Art of Ballistic Programming.” The Columbia University Association for Computing Machinery (CU ACM) is pretty stoked on this one, and you should be too. Wall created the Perl programming […]

 Image via terriemiller.com Waiting for lab computers to (eventually) log you on so you can print that rightfully-forgotten graduate Kant dissertation is a relic from days past.  It’s very easy to set up your own computer to print to lab printers.  In fact, you can print to any printer on campus from any computer you […]

Welcome to SocketHop, in which we bring you free (but useful) mini-apps and major (but relevant) headlines from the world of technology, hopefully demystifying the subject along the way.  Flood our inbox (bwog@columbia.edu) and tell us what you think and what you want to see.  Be not afraid of technology! Snazz Up Your Desktop: Exposé […]

A tech-savvy commenter speculated that after “clearing their cookies” (a term we’ll define for the computer illiterate in just a minute), voters can change their personal survey ID number to someone else’s, which in theory would mean that anyone would be able to vote multiple times.  Bwog’s on-call computer whiz kids Hans E Hyttinen and […]

Bwog just heard word that this July, Governor Paterson signed legislation making smoking illegal in all New York college dormitories — this includes EC!  A pair of RAs also noted that at least for Columbia, the mere possession of tobacco products is forbidden.  In other crackdown news, one Bwog staffer was removed by security this […]

Through the grapevine, Bwog has been hearing rumors that in attempts to safeguard against theft, Public Safety has plans to begin taking unattended laptops in Butler. Oddly enough, this is one rumor that turned out to be kind of true, in a vague, quasi-benevolent way. Ricky Morales, Crimes Prevention Manager at Public Safety clarified: “It’s […]

Sent from Lerner two hours ago, from Bwog correspondent Alex Weinberg: I was sitting in a Lerner computer lab when a slightly-past-middle-aged lady with thick reading glasses came in and stood in a corner pensively for several minutes. She approached my terminal. Lady: Are you going to be using this computer for a while? Me: […]