The Debugger Spring 2000

Table of Contents Accessed times.

From the Chair - Dr. Gary L. Buterbaugh

Carol's Corner - Carol Miller

News From Tompkins Lab - Joseph Shyrock

Introducing Me - Sanwar Ali

Public Service Perspective - Calvin F. Younker

PACISE Programming Contest - Jim Wolfe

To B. Or Not To B. - Jim Wolfe

So What Would You Like?

EDITOR'S NOTES

This issue features two survey questions. One involves the future of the department; the other involves giving out rewards. Both surveys are soliciting your e-mail responses. The question about the future of the department is requesting your opinion regarding, "Should the Computer Science Department leave the College of Natural Science and Mathematics and join the College of Business?" This may not be something you have ever considered; but since most of the readers of this newsletter are alumni of the Computer Science Department, the idea may be one that you have strong feelings about, one way or the other. We would like to hear them.

The other question is in regard to the Century Club, "What type of gift would you suggest as a token of appreciation that the department might give to its Century Club members?" Although most issues of The Debugger contain a solicitation for the Century Club, this one does not - we couldn't fit it in. To be a member of the Century Club requires that a person give at least $100 during a year to the Foundation for IUP on behalf of the Computer Science Department - to any of the department's accounts.

In addition to this issue's alumni news from Carol Miller, we have articles from two new people who introduce themselves. Sanwar Ali is the second of the two new faculty we hired during this past academic year. Joseph Shyrock is our new lab manager for Tompkins Lab. Both tell you a little bit about themselves and what they have been up to since coming to IUP.

Finally, a parting note. Ralph Grove is departing IUP after this semester. He came to IUP in the Fall of 1995 and has been a driving force in software engineering and in incorporating Internet programming elements into the curriculum. Ralph has decided that the grass is greener in Virginia and is moving on the James Madison University. We wish him good luck; he will be missed.

Jim Wolfe, Editor

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From the Chair
Dr. Gary L. Buterbaugh

As we close the academic year, it might be a good time to reflect on this past year and all the things that have happened. This has indeed been a unique year. Here are some of the highlights:

The Department has been without a Lab since last summer! We "gave" our College the computers in the Tompkins Lab to upgrade its Teaching Lab (Stright 220) and used that facility both for our Teaching Lab in the day and our Lab by night. This certainly was not ideal, but we have made it through both semesters. We also went without a full-time Lab Manager for almost seven months.

We are just now getting 50 Pentium III computers for our newly renovated (much smaller) Tompkins Lab and our department's new Teaching Lab (Stright 320). We used departmental funds to upgrade these machines with larger hard drives, more RAM, larger screens, etc. The addition of our own Teaching Classroom will be very helpful.

We welcomed two of our faculty back from overseas: Dr. Mary Micco who had been in Turkey for a year and Dr. Ralph Grove who had been in England for a semester. We also welcomed two new faculty: Dr. Sanwar Ali and Dr. Andrew Yang. Both are helpful additions to our staff. We also finally hired a new Lab Manager and are very happy with the work of Mr. Joseph Shyrock. We are sad that we will say goodbye to Dr. Ralph Grove who is leaving IUP to go to James Madison University.

We hosted a very successful PACISE Conference and Student Programming Contest in April - PACISE is a statewide organization of faculty in the SSHE who teach in computer related departments. And one of our Programming Teams WON!!

We endured a HOT summer without air conditioning!

We had a very successful alumni breakfast on Homecoming Day - We will repeat this on October 14, 2000!

We graduated about eleven students in December and hope to "get rid of" twenty-four this May! Just kidding! :-)

We continue to value our great secretary, the diverse faculty, our hard working students and have fond memories of our many alumni.

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Carol's Corner
Carol Miller

Happy Springtime!!

I think we're all ready to crawl out from under winter by now, aren't we? Needless to remind all of you, we haven't had a lot of sunshine yet and we're suffering a bit from the lack. Hopefully, the will turn around in a day or so. But, we are in Indiana!

Well, the renovations here in Stright are finally on the down side. The Tompkins Lab is now about half its original size, and we can only hope that once we get up and running, it will all work out ok. The new computers just arrived on campus, so we should have it running by finals week. Most of the classrooms are finished. We're waiting for the computers to be set up in the teaching lab/classroom (Str 320).

But, on to what you really want to hear:

Lola Turnbull (12/75) dropped by one day around the beginning of Lent. It was a real surprise, we hadn't heard from Lola recently - actually since she was working at ARMCO in Butler. She had been working at Gulf prior to that. We got to see her occasionally when she was teaching our IBM JCL course. Anyway, you won't believe what she's doing now. She's a Pastor with the Methodist Ministries. She's with the Kings Chapel United Methodist Church in New Castle. She's been there since July 1 and she says she makes poverty wages; but it's not bad considering she only works 20 minutes a week. Lola was in Indiana giving the prayer at the Lenten luncheon at the Grace United Methodist Church. We had a really nice visit!! I think I talked her into attending the Alumni Breakfast at Homecoming in the fall (if we have one again). For those of you who would like to visit with Lola, just come on down! It was so nice to see you, Lola. Hopefully, we'll see you at Homecoming.

I had e-mail from Tony Popp (12/98) to bring me up to date. He had received his Debugger and saw where I mentioned he was in Philly but someone had said he was in Virginia. The real story is, he's presently working at the Vanguard Group of Investments in Valley Forge, PA. Thanks for clearing that up, Tony. Tony also dropped in to see us one day he was in town visiting his family. He's doing really well. He also sent along some information on some other alumni:

Michael Wrobel (5/98) is working at Unisys in Blue Bell, PA and actually lives about 10 miles from Tony. Matthew Zincola (5/97) is now working for Kronos outside Boston, MA. Tony's assisting him with a project called Ravedata (www.ravedata.com) that he has been working on for many years.

Again, Tony, thanks and do stop in any time you're in the area.

Jimmy Maple (5/86) and Irene are getting married on June 8. Hopefully I'll have more to report in the next issue.

I also heard from Debbie Rice (5/81), one of the Rice twins. They are both living in Ohio. Darla (5/81) lives in Amherst. Her e-mail address is ILUVDVC@aol.com. Debbie lives in Cleveland and her email address is DRICE76436@AOL.COM. They would love to hear from other fellow graduates that they've lost touch with. Darla has a 7 year old son, Steven, and, at the time of Debbie's e-mail, she was pregnant with her first, and was due on February 20, so I'm sure she's here by now. By next issue, maybe Debbie will give me an update. Debbie is employed by S&P Solutions and Darla is employed by Andersen Consulting. Debbie e-mailed me because she's looking for someone that she graduated with and she figured this just might be the place to do it. So here it is, straight from Debbie, "Okay you 1981 graduates, let's hear from you. What is going on with our fellow graduates?" Thanks Debbie, let me know about the baby!!!

Jim Wolfe had e-mail from Cindy (Mahan) Barnhart (5/84) who is living in Pittsburgh. She's married and has two children, Alex is 4 and Lindsey is 20 months. She works for Adonix Transcomm, which is a software company in Wexford. She's been there for over 10 years during which time she's worked with several IUP alumni, Jim Kreauter and Jeff DeAmico. Cindy gave up the full time job to raise her children, but she's working out of her home right now with clients that run the company's software. Cindy says she hasn't kept in touch with anyone; and she wants to come to the next gathering we have. So hopefully, we'll see her at the Homecoming breakfast too.

Peggy Mogush (5/87) reminded me that I forgot to add her comment to Julie (Paserba) Lampe (12/87) that she would bring the Vivarin to the Homecoming breakfast. She said if I put this in the Debugger, I would probably hear from Chris Munson (5/87). So Chris, if you're listening, I need to hear from you. Peggy also had me take a look at her Web page and see a couple photos of her cats. They're beautiful cats!! However, I'm afraid Peggy got a cat like one of mine - the kind that struts around the house just looking for trouble. But, oh what fun, huh Peg?

December 4 was the wedding day for Lisa Dillon (12/93) and Tony Boslett (5/92). They couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. It was in the 50's and just lovely. The wedding was in a small church in Boalsburg that was right off a Christmas card. The music was all Christmas Carols. It was really special. The reception was at the Atherton Hotel in State College and what fun we had. Janie (Pike) Kustaborder (5/92) was there with Ron and the kids, Amber and Heather. Those kids were so good!!! I also got to talk with Lois (Edinger) Raphael (12/93) and her husband, Eric for a bit. I wanted to talk with her for longer and was hoping to get a chance to talk with her during the reception, but I didn't really see her again until I was leaving. Hopefully, Lois, you'll read this and send me e-mail. I wish Lisa and Tony the very best. Lisa was planning on visiting with me in March; but she got her "marching" papers from HRB and was sent to work in DC for 7 months; and she needed the time to get ready. Hopefully we can do it another time.

And, speaking of Janie (Pike) Kustaborder, she's now back to work following the birth of Heather last September AND she's changing jobs. I haven't heard all the details, yet, since this is a very recent happening, but it's with Minitab in State College. Meanwhile, on the home front, Amber, 2, had another eye surgery. She has a problem with her tear duct and the doctors put another tube put in her eye. The doctor doesn't think it will work since apparently the tear duct has gotten smaller from the previous two surgeries trying to fix it. If it doesn't work, the next step will be to wait until she's four, then put a bypass duct in by drilling though the bones in her face. I, for one, hope it doesn't come to that (and I'm sure her parents are feeling the same way). Heather is growing like a weed. At two weeks she was in the 10th percentile for weight, at two months she was in the 30th. She hasn't shown any ill effects of her premature birth and the doctors say she's doing great. I need to get up there and see those girls, Janie.

Vivek Ajmani (5/90) dropped by one day he was in town. Vivek is working as a senior statistician for 3M Electronic Products Division in Austin, TX and really likes it down there. Although he's been pretty busy with work, he managed to find time to get his Ph.D. since graduating. Vivek, always nice to see you, please stop any time you're in town!

Jeff Senley (5/94) also dropped in one day. I didn't really get much chance to talk with Jeff since he arrived just about the time someone was leaving for one of the renovated areas in Stright and took Jeff with him to see the progress. But, I did find out the reason Jeff was on campus had to do with his musical vocation. Stop in again when you're in town. Jeff, by the way, is still with Shared Medical.

Wes Michael (5/88) also stopped by one afternoon along with his wife, Gretchen, and their two boys, Damian, 4 1/2 and Hayden, 2. Wes is still working for Telcordia (formerly Bell Labs) in New Jersey but will soon be working out of Ohio. They just bought a house in Ohio and are in the process of moving. They're expecting their 3rd baby in early March. Her name is Cassandra and her brothers cannot wait for her to arrive. Damian has promised to let me know when she gets here so I can tell everyone. She's probably here by now, though, so, Damian, I need to hear from you!

Dave Rivitsky (5/77) was here with his wife, Ann, and their son, Benjamin. Benjamin is considering a computer science career and what better place to start than Dave's Alma mater. Dave is working for PPG as a project leader in the Flat Glass Cost System (and has been for 22 1/2 years). He was the first computer science graduate to be hired by PPG) and he and his family are living in Butler. They also have a fourteen year old daughter, Melanie, and their big news at the time was that they were expecting a new baby on December 26 - they said they were replacing the son they were losing. I told them they would have to bring the baby to Homecoming next year - they'll have a son here and they can bring the baby to the alumni breakfast. And, at update on the story: On December 22, Ethan Daniel arrived weighing 7 pounds 1 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. Everyone is doing well. Dave also gave me an update on Benjamin. He has since been accepted at IUP, but hasn't made his final decision.

Another PPG person was also here in November. Taufiq Shamim (8/93) did a presentation for Gary Buterbaugh's class and he stopped in to say hi. The big news for Taufiq is that he and his wife, Michelle, are the proud parents of a baby boy, Ethan. Actually, he was born April 21, 1999. Michelle took a year off work to be with the baby. Taufiq brought pictures (like a good alumnus) to show us. He's just adorable. I'm trying to talk them into bringing him up for a visit. Taufiq's mother has not been well, though; she had a heart attack then a stroke. She's living with Taufiq and Michelle right now. Let's hope her health continues to improve.

And, another PPGer I heard from is Dan Danka (5/99). Actually, I've heard from Dan a couple times. Originally, things were about the same for Dan, but a lot has been going on in Dan's life and PPG recently. He's been given control of a fairly large-scale project. The previous owner of the project is transferring jobs within PPG, so they turned the project over to Dan. Dan says there is a lot of travel involved; and he's already been to Ohio and Canada and eventually will hit Mexico in addition to more states here in the US. Sounds like fun, Dan, but I'm sure there's a lot of responsibility involved. Dan is also going to try to start on his MBA at Pitt in the fall. Poor Dan hasn't heard from anyone from IUP, so I'm going to give you his e-mail so everyone can send him e-mail. It's DDanka@ppg.com. I'm sure if you send him e-mail, you'll hear from him.

I have a few other names to toss out as alumni working for PPG: Pat Campbell (5/78); Kathy Scott (12/98); and Kari (Robson) Behune (5/98). Hopefully, by next issue, I'll have some updates on some of these people.

Recently I got a postcard from Marty Speranza (12/92) from the Prague. Marty was sent to Denmark in December by Union Switch & Signal; and at the time of the card, he had been in Berlin, Krakow and Amsterdam, and when he sent the postcard, he said he's coming to the USA for a visit in April and will stop in and see us. I haven't seen him yet!

Lance Wilkerson (5/76) sent me an e-mail in response to my plea for everyone who was at the Homecoming breakfast to contact me if I botched up their information. Lance's children are Scott and Julia. His wife is Vija (fortunately he said she's used to people butchering her name and Lance said mine was far from the worst). I think the only thing I got right was the dog, Bosco, who was with them. Spice (their other dog) stayed home with Minka and Samuel, the cats. Lance said how much they enjoyed their homecoming visit and the breakfast (including Lance getting to see Carol and Shirley from his graduating class)

I heard from Mike Ragan (12/82). There have been a lot of changes in his life since we last heard from him. He left AMP Incorporated after 15 years and joined a high tech startup company, Everybook Inc. in Middletown PA. They are creating the world's first true electronic book and e-commerce bookstore and they hold the patent for their e-book in the US, Canada, Australia and Russia and the patent is pending in 35 other countries. Mike's job as CIO, is to develop the software that will run their e-book and develop an e-commerce bookstore. Their major partners are Adobe and Oracle and they've negotiated a license with Adobe to develop their PDF Library technology. Only about a dozen other companies worldwide have a similar license. The OS on their e-book is an embedded Linux distribution from Lineo and they are a heavy user of Oracle products including Oracle iStore (e-commerce store front and catalog), Oracle Application Server, Oracle 8i and JDeveloper. Mike is really enjoying working in a small start up company with 15 employees as compared to a large corporation with over 40,000 employees. He wishes he had done it sooner! Mike was honored to host Governor Ridge for a press conference to sign the Electronic Transactions Act into law. Mike says that everyone is doing well on the home front. Michael and Christopher are 4 and 3 soon to be 5 and 4 years old and are growing like weeds. Holly, Mike's wife, has been teaching swimming and aerobics lessons. Thank you so much, Mike, for the update and for the many compliments.

And another Mike surfaced - Mike Ash (5/88). Mike's career has taken him in many directions. After graduation he worked for three years for a distributor in Edison NJ, and then another three years at the corporate headquarters of a manufacturer in Parsippany NJ. Then he moved back to the Pittsburgh area and married his college sweetheart, Elaine. They are now living in the Forest Hills area of Pittsburgh and have two kids, Amanda who's almost 4 years old, and Ryan who was 7 months at the time. When Mike moved back to Pittsburgh, he worked as a consultant; and he found a manufacturer he really enjoyed working with. After a period of nine months, he was offered a full time position with them and has been with them for 5 years now. They primarily use PROGRESS software, which is a 4GL, an RDBMS. With PROGRESS they develop character based applications, client server applications, and web based applications using a tool called WEBSPEED. Mike says they're always doing something new; and he really enjoys his job. Mike's e-mail is mash@thetechs.com if anyone is interested in getting in touch. Thank you, Mike for updating what is going on in your life for us; and thank you, too, for your nice compliments.

Michelle (Emery) Davis (5/87) dropped me an e-mail. She's still with Merrill Lynch and she's working with Mike Sholes. Michelle's husband, Rick, is doing well and still working with Vistakon (Johnson & Johnson Vision Products). Their daughter, Caroline is almost 8 and in second grade. Their son, Rocco (aka Richard Emery Davis) is five and in kindergarten. She sent pictures of their last cruise; and I must say, they sure looked like they were having a good time. Thanks, Michelle, it's always nice to hear from you!!

I finally heard from Chris Clair (12/94). People had been asking me if I ever heard from Chris and I hadn't for quite some time. When I last heard, Chris was working for Keane, Inc. and was on an assignment near Atlantic City. He's still with Keane and he was in Atlantic City from October '97 until March '99; then in Harrisburg for a couple months, back around Philadelphia and then in November back to Atlantic City. At the time Chris wrote, he was awaiting an outsourcing assignment where he will be working in Center City Philly. It will be at least a two year assignment and Chris thinks he will be a team leader once they get it going. And, now, here's the interesting stuff - in November '98 he met someone who also worked at Keane and her name is Jennie and they became "close friends". However, in November, Jennie moved back to Pittsburgh (Mt. Lebanon) to be closer to her family. Chris said they had agreed that if and when Jennie moved they would stop seeing each other. But, that didn't happen - they are still together and have no idea what will happen in the future. Chris really likes the Philadelphia area and Jennie really likes Pittsburgh. I wish you the best whatever happens, Chris. And, of course, if you happen to be visiting her over Homecoming, come visit with us. Chris said he hasn't had time to visit with Dewey Miller (12/94) and Bo Gohn (12/94) and, like everyone else, he thought Brent Cramer (5/95) had fallen off the earth, other than the occasional e-mail.

BUT, I have heard from Dewey Miller. Dewey has been working really hard and putting in long hours. But, he's been able to get in a few rounds of golf on the weekends at least once at Augustine in VA. He's also been dating a very nice lady named Dottie who is a real animal lover (I won't go there, but it's killing me not to). She not only works at a kennel, she also does odd jobs at several local stables and shows dogs (her Australian Shepherds and Border Collies) and horses. They're planning a cruise in November to Jamaica and Mexico. So, stay turned for further developments ... Dewey was also looking for a possible summer intern, but needed somone who had a pretty good knowledge of Oracle. Otherwise, Dewey says he's been staying out of trouble. Dewey has had a chance to visit Bo and family and says they are doing well and Little Ben is walking and talking.

Doug Blystone (8/95) has become a homeowner. He bought a house in Coatesville, PA. Doug is still working with client/server programming and SQL Server administration with Catholic Health Initiatives and is keeping busy refereeing basketball. Doug hasn't heard from Derek Ochs for a long time and sure would like to. Doug's e-mail address is birdman@voicenet.com. Thanks for the info, Doug. Have fun with the house!

Sean VanScoyoc (12/90) stopped in one day. As you know, Sean works here on campus. The big news in Sean's life is he and his wife are expecting Adam Matthew on May 20 of this year. Sean has promised to bring him by so we can spoil him. We're pretty good at that. Don't forget, Sean. And, let us know all the particulars when he arrives.

Dave Schoentag (5/82) has been in touch a couple times recently. Dave is now living in Durham NC, but still working for IBM. Dave is doing well. I can't believe it's been that long since he graduated, can you? Dave sent a contribution for the Tompkins Scholarship with a matching fund form for IBM. He sent me an extra copy of the form, so if anyone wants to contribute from IBM and you don't have a form, I have one. Dave has some incredibly good ideas as far as gifts, etc. for Century Club members and has made a contribution toward the survey which is in this Debugger issue (See the article titled "So What Would You Like?") and which we hope you will participate in. Thanks for all your help, Dave, I might be in touch later on for more ideas.

I heard from Eric Smith (5/99). Eric is with CSC in Delaware. He loves the work, is learning a lot and is getting more responsibility. Eric and Bridget Calderon (8/99) may be making a trip to IUP in the Fall for recruiting purposes. I hope so. It will be nice to see them and I think they'll do a really nice job. Meanwhile, Eric really likes his job, but he's working part time at Home Depot two nights a week and one day of the weekend (he said it makes his evenings more exciting and it keeps him occupied). And he wonders why he's lost 15 pounds since he moved down there?? He's also saving the bucks so he can buy a place in a couple of years. He already has a couple beach trips planned for summer, too. And, he's been doing the Baltimore and DC weekends. Eric stopped in Indiana one Sunday for a few hours, but needless to say, we didn't see him. He was on a visit to parents. He said his parents seem a lot happier these days. He thinks it has something to do with Eric leaving the nest and his parents no longer supporting him, therefore having more money to spend on other things. I can't imagine a parent feeling that way, can you? Anyway, Eric, it's always nice to hear from you and hopefully we'll see you in the fall. Hey, Eric, why not plan your trip for the week of homecoming - either the Friday before or the Monday after and you can come to the breakfast????

Todd Campbell (5/88) "checked in" to see how everyone was doing and let us know how he was doing and to make sure we don't forget him which is always an excellent idea (hint, hint to some of you). Todd's still living in West Chester, and working for Shared Medical Systems(SMS) doing application development using mainly VC++, VB, and Java. He bumps into Kim Phillips (12/97) and Shea Paul (5/98) every once in awhile Todd thinks he'll be staying in that area for a few years, but he will be moving his residence in a few months to an area just outside West Chester. Thanks, Todd, for checking in!!

Sloan Seaman (8/96) was here one day interviewing interns. He has formed his own company called i-muse, inc. which is located in the Pittsburgh area (actually north of Pittsburgh) and he was looking for good old IUP interns. Sloan's looking good (and prosperous). It was great seeing you, Sloan, maybe if you start hiring interns, we'll get to see you a bit more often! Take care and keep in touch.

Heard from George Soares (12/94). He's had a few changes in his life. I think I had reported earlier that George got married in September of 1997 and they've been living in Northern Virginia (about 45 minutes from DC). They purchased a house last year in Ashburn, VA (close to Dulles Airport) and are now expecting - in George's words "our first full-time resident". Ily, George's wife, is due at the end of May and they're expecting a girl. Her name will be Illyanna Elizabeth Soares. George was still working at Healthcare Data Exchange (HDX), a subsidiary of SMS, at the time of his e-mail, but he had accepted an offer from MicroStrategy, a company based in Northern Virginia, to become an International E-Business Consultant for the U.S. and Latin America. He'll have the opportunity to use his bilingual skills and occasionally get to travel to Brazil. MicroStrategy specializes in the creation of decision support systems and E-Business software for companies to build one-to-one relationship with their customers. He started at MicroStrategy on March 27th. George said it was a hard decision since he really enjoyed working for HDX but he couldn't turn down such an unique opportunity. He promised HDX help on their recruiting process. Although HDX is part of SMS, HDX wants to start doing their own recruiting separate from SMS. They have (had) several openings and are looking for good candidates. George e-mailed a job description to me which I posted for our coming graduates. If anyone out there would like the information, give me a call or e-mail or contact Jonas Dahlen, Trading Partner Solutions Manager, 101 Lindenwood Drive Suite 200, Malvern, PA 19355, Phone: (610) 219-9099, Fax: (610) 219-1384, E-mail: Jonas.Dahlen@HDX.COM. Thanks George, I hope everything goes well in the new job. Let us know when the baby Illyanna arrives and tell us how the job is going.

Joanne (Jones) Asch (5/88) has a new email address. It's jjasch@cyberhighway.net. I think it's time for an update from Joanne, don't the rest of you?

Andy Weiss (5/93) has changed jobs after seven years. He loved his job with Cornerstone Software and Andy says it's a really fun place to work. So, why did he leave?? You guessed it - the commute was getting to be a hassle - particulary in view of the fact that little Eva was home waiting for him. He was commuting a hundred miles round trip daily, so the time was becoming a burden, let alone the cost of gasoline and upkeep for his car. Now he'll be working 1.5 miles from home. Andy said the new job has pretty much has the same money, benefits and responsibility. He'll be leaving a job he really doesn't want to leave, but he'll be saving his sanity with the shorter commute. Andy said he and Cornerstone discussed several options to keep him there, but in the end, the only logical solution was the change in jobs. I can understand how Andy feels, too, cause I looked at Eva's website and she is just as cute as can be. If anyone is interested in seeing for yourself, the website is www.evarose.com. Best of luck to you, Andy, please keep in touch!

Gary Buterbaugh had an e-mail from Kevin Novak (12/97) who is working as a consultant for AppNet. Inc. He is living in the Boston area and he and his wife are enjoying the New England winters. They're planning a trip to Italy in the summer. Kevin's also looking for some people who may be interested in working up there. So, if anyone is interested in relocating or changing jobs, check out http://www.appnet.com. Nice to hear you're enjoying your work, Kevin, take care!

Vickie Pearce (12/94) has had some changes in her life, too. First of all, the merger between RPS and FedEx. Their new colors are purple and green and they have white trucks with purple and green lettering Vickie said the change has pretty much happened, but it will be official on June 1. The merger happened so that RPS could use the FedEx brand name and be able to compete more effectively with UPS. But, Vickie says that along with all of the celebration, comes a lot of change and work. Part of the I.T. department now works for FedEx Ground and another part for newly formed company, FedEx Services. She said it's a bit confusing right now, but they have been assured it will all work out in the end. Vickie has a new supervisor, but will still work on the Corporate Intranet designing web pages for the various departments. She said it can be a challenge, but it's also a lot of fun. They're also beginning a residential service this year and there will be a dog on the home delivery vans. And, another big change for Vickie, she bought a new townhouse in Imperial, PA. She signed the papers in September and moved in April. I think she had a lot of fun picking out everything as the building progressed. Hopefully, she got some furniture. So, this is the departing of Pamm and Vickie. Those two were friends throughout college and have lived together since. Pamm has moved into an apartment. As far as Vickie's health goes, she has been just fine since her recovery from the inflammation around her heart. She has no limitations and is back to running 3 or 4 miles at a time. That's great news, Vickie! Vickie has been trying to contact Brent Cramer, too.

And, speaking of Pamm Gindlesperger (12/94). Pamm sent me her new address, too. Her apartment is in the Crafton area and she moved in the beginning of April. Pamm's looking for Brent Cramer, too. Always nice to hear from you two!

Tim Ferro (12/97) has changed jobs. You may remember that Tim began working for Raytheon in State College after graduation. When Raytheon was laying off and Tim wasn't sure if he'd be kept on, he moved to a company called Conceptual Systems, Inc. in November 1998. Now, they've merged with & become SMG (Strategic Management Group), Inc. Tim is REALLY happy he made the move. He's carrying primary responsibility for final implementation & deployment of their flagship product internally for the full corporation. And, things are going well at the Ferro homestead - Haley just turned 7, and Reid will be 6. Tim's ulterior motive in writing was major recruitment. His company is hiring like mad. They need something like 30 software engineers. They're interested in recent grads and experienced people, so if any of you are interested, write to Tim or call or e-mail at Strategic Management Systems, Inc., Technology Center, 1963 Cato Avenue, Suite 200, State College, PA 16801 or: tim.ferro@smginc.com. Tim says IUP already has a pretty good reputation up there since they've seen in Tim what IUP puts out. He's become entrusted with substantial responsibility; and David Smith, also an IUP alumnus, was a well-respected senior-level engineer there before recently moving on to another opportunity. Tim says those IUP sweatshirts don't hurt either. Great to hear from you, Tim, you'll have to bring the kids down some day. We haven't seen them since you left. Homecoming might be a good time to do that!!

Gary Buterbaugh reported hearing from Dave Bonzo (5/80) who has been suffering with a ruptured disc in his back and was off work for two months. He went back to work last October and is slowing regaining some strength. Keep us posted, Dave, and let us know how things are going.

Karl Cherry (12/86) is still with FISERV in Pittsburgh where he has been the development manager of their division's Internet Banking and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) teams for almost two years. The IVR team has undergone phenomenal growth over the past few years, and they're staffed with a significant number of IUP Computer Science Grads including Dave Prohaska (12/98) (Voice Team), Larry Marley (5/92) (Internet Team), and Brian Widlocher (Voice Team). Karl's recently been given approval to add some people to his team. I tried to help, but I don't think I found anyone for him. If anyone out there is interested in relocating to the Pittsburgh area, you might want to give Karl a call

And, if anyone is interested in relocating to the Charlotte area, you need to contact Laura Wojciechowski (12/97). Laura is working for First Union Bank in Charlotte and they had some openings there. At the time Laura wrote, the jobs ranged from mainframe to client server. If anyone is interested, Laura's e-mail is laura.wojciechowski1 @firstunion.com, so send her a resume and let her know what kind of job you are interested in. You can also check out www.firstunion.com and if you see a specific position you're interested in, list that. Laura said First Union is a great company to work for and she'd love to help you get a job there. Thanks, Laura. It's always nice to hear from you.

Calvin Yonkers (5/93) sent an update which is printed separately so please be sure to read about Calvin and the road he chose following graduation. You'll find it very interesting. Thanks, Calvin, I appreciate it!

I just got a card from Bonnie (Krensavage) Smith (5/88). They have moved again. This time to Pittsburgh. They didn't like living in CT so they split the Michigan/Connecticut difference and moved to Presto, PA into a real house with a real yard; and Bonnie has invited everyone to visit with them. I won't put the address and phone number in though, cause I'm not sure how many people she wants to have; and I'll leave that part up to them. Thanks, Bonnie, for the info. Keep in touch and let me know how it's going.

And, that's all the news I have for this edition. Please remember that it's up to you to keep me in business. Thanks to all of you who do that. Let me hear from you and from some of you who haven't yet written.

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News From Tompkins Lab
Joseph Shyrock

Greetings.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joseph Shyrock, and I am a proud alumnus of IUP. Before working for IUP, I was employed by Digital Solutions Incorporated (DSI). They are a small company out of Altoona, PA that deals primarily with database and networking solutions. As of January 2000, Tompkins Lab came under my control. Much has changed in the lab over the last two semesters. The changes have been varied; I will discuss some of them here.

Tompkins Lab has under gone major renovations. Unfortunately, the Computer Science Department lost a portion of the lab area to the Math Department and the Graduate School. The Lab itself is temporarily in Stright 220 while renovations to Stright Hall are completed. The servers are going to be located in Stright 103, which is the Tompkins Lab manager s office and server room. The new lab is slated to open no later than the beginning of Summer Session I. The lab will have 20 new computers; the computers will be Pentium IIIs with 13 Gig drives and 128MB of RAM. Along with the new machines for Tompkins Lab, 30 additional machines have been purchased for another classroom, Stright 320. The specifications for the machines will be as impressive as those for Tompkins Lab. Also during the summer, 10 additional machines will be purchased for Tompkins Lab. Plans for a new member server to run NT are also in place. The server will support Oracle, as well as Sequel.

The university will be moving from Windows 95 to Windows 98 as the official operating system over the summer. This may also include upgrading the servers from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000. Also, the campus will be moving to Office 2000 from Office 97.

The campus has also implemented individual user accounts for the campus wide NT network. This allows the students the ability to map to their home directory from any of the labs on campus. The students will be allocated 20 MB of storage space for anything that they may need. As it stands now, the students will have access to the VAX, as well as to their NT home directories. This will provide the students with various storage options and alternative ways to publish WebPages.

Homecoming will be
October 14, 2000
Look for details about this year's
Homecoming Breakfast
in the August issue.

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Introducing Me
Sanwar Ali

Having taught in the Computer Science Department for eight months now, I've become familiar to most of our students. Particularly, students who have taken my courses know by now what a funny guy I am. They also know that if they send me e-mail in the small hours of the morning, they will get a reply right away for sure. All my former students, colleagues, and advisors used to call me "the night hawk". Sometimes, at worst cases, I scared my students off by telling them that I am a martial arts student. Anyway, I will try to introduce myself to the alumni of this department.

Prior to joining IUP, I taught at several institutions at Texas, Tennessee, and Illinois for eight years. During 1997-99, I was Chair of Computer Science Department at McMurray College in Jacksonville, IL. I completed my Ph.D. in physics from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX. I was then employed as a postdoctoral research associate in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Texas, Arlington for more than two years. I also completed an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of North Texas at Denton. I earned a B.S. in physics with minors in mathematics and statistics from Dhaka University, Bangladesh, from where I immigrated to the United States in 1979. Prior to coming to the USA, I was a Scientific Officer at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission for several years. My wife, Parveen, whom I married in 1977, was also a Scientific Officer in the same organization.

Our first child, Nawshin, was born in Milwaukee in 1981. She is now a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and enjoys writing. Our second child, Shihab, who was born in Fort Worth, is a fifth grader. He plays clarinet, practice Tae Kwon Do, and lives on beef jerky.

In the past, I taught various courses in computer science, such as Object-Oriented Programming using C++, Data Structures, Discrete Structures, Data Communications, Algorithm Analysis & Design, Advanced Programming in C, Computer Organization & Assembly Language, Programming Languages, Operating Systems, Microcomputer & Business Applications, Programming in QBasic, and Computer Science Seminar. In my earlier career, I also taught many courses other than computer science, such as College Physics, Modern Physics, Electricity & Magnetism, Wave Motion, Quantum Mechanics, Probability & Statistics, Business Statistics, Digital Electronics, and Electronic Materials (graduate). I enjoy teaching and will continue to teach. While I was in Memphis for four years, I was involved in a Summer Enrichment Program at the University of Tennessee and received an award for Outstanding Services to the Summer Enrichment Program, 1995-1997. One of my students completed his Ph.D. from Texas A & M University and several others from Tennessee and Illinois are pursuing master s degree. I am very proud of them.

For the past two semesters at IUP, I have been teaching CO 101 Microbased Computer Literacy and CO 310 Data Structures. In the fall of 2000, I will teach an interesting course called CO 460 Theory of Computation. Those who are interested, please feel free to enroll in this course and enjoy its beauty.

My wife, a physicist and mathematician, taught several years in high schools in Texas and Tennessee. Last year she taught in two colleges in Illinois. Currently, she is teaching part-time in the Indiana Area School District and Homer City Schools. She is looking for a full-time position.

During my leisure time, I am very much involved in Bangla literature and linguistics and organizing cultural shows. I have edited literary magazines and directed Bangla plays in Texas. Once in a while, I sit down and write short stories. In Illinois, I was invited twice by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to present two interesting papers on Bangla Linguistics and World Alphabets. It has been a privilege becoming a faculty member of the Computer Science Department at IUP. Furthermore, my wife and I are closer to our daughter here in Pennsylvania. I will continue to provide my teaching excellence and am committed to it. When students ask me why they should study computer science, I tell them that computer professionals are in great demand. There is a shortage of more than half-a-million computer professionals throughout the United States. I encourage our students to study hard and also pursue graduate studies in various fields of computer science, like network security, cryptography, and databases, particularly Oracle. These areas are in great demand in industries, corporations, and in academic institutions as well. Computer Science is the wave of the future. Who knows what brilliant innovations one of my students will devise in this new millennium? But beyond the pragmatic, for people who thirst for logic, like myself, what better field to go into than one that encourages scientific thinking to improve the quality of our lives.

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Public Service Perspective
Calvin F. Younker

I thought I'd write after reading the Fall 1999 issue of The Debugger. I was a May 1993 Computer Science graduate. The faculty and Carol likely won't remember me, as I came in and got out in 2 years and wasn't involved in any activities. I had previously graduated from IUP in 1987 with a degree in Secondary Math Education and minors in Computer Science and Physics, and returned to IUP after 3 1/2 years of teaching.

My road has been different from those of the other alumni I read about in The Debugger -- public service. Not long after graduation, I accepted a job with PennDOT at the Engineering District 12-0 office in Uniontown. I don't work for a Fortune 500 company or work on multi-million-dollar projects. The pay is good but not outstanding; but I have excellent fully-paid benefits, a casual work environment, and no urban traffic. I do travel in support of PennDOT sites in Fayette, Greene, Washington, and Westmoreland counties, and get an occasional trip to Harrisburg, Altoona, State College, or Philadelphia.

There have been a lot of changes in these types of jobs recently. I started as a Computer Systems Analyst 1, then promoted to a Systems Analyst 2 several years later. Strangely enough, there were tons of Systems Analysts all over the state in various departments -- whether you wrote application programs in Harrisburg, or did a variety of user support like me. Last year, the Civil Service Commission broke these up into 4 different classifications, for Applications Development, Database Analysts, Distributed Systems (networking), or Information Technology Generalists (of which I'm now an ITG 1).

My job has given me the chance to work with telephony, PCs, LAN/WAN, mainframe, client/server apps, training, purchasing/budgeting, programming, and end-user support. It is a good chance for someone to get a taste of a wide variety of Information Technology fields. For example, it has given me the perspective that I don't like programming and have really developed a knack and interest in networking. In fact, I'll be starting a Microsoft Certification training course soon, and have been watching the job market for something that would have better pay and allow me to concentrate just on networking.

By the way, I'm single and live in Uniontown, Fayette County.

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PACISE Programming Contest
Jim Wolfe

This year, on rather short notice, the Computer Science Department hosted the PACISE (Pennsylvania Association of Computer and Information Science Educators) Conference. It was held on April 7-8 at the Eberly College of Business. The last time the conference was at IUP was 1995. As usual, in association with the conference, a programming contest was held. This year, we had a total of ten teams from five universities; we had been hoping for a few more.

With only a few months to prepare for the contest, a lot had to be done in a very short time - obtaining the use facilities, determining how to set up the environment, finding students to help during the contest, finding faculty to judge the contest, acquiring appropriate contest problems, obtaining prizes for the winners, etc. Many people were involved in getting all of this accomplished.

With the lab situation in Stright in complete disarray, we decided to try to use computer labs in the Eberly College of Business. There we found Raj Murthy, College Technology Manager for the College of Business; he readily agreed to let us use two of that College's labs and offered to help set up the contest. With Raj's help, we determined the contest environment - teams would use Microsoft Visual C++ to write the programs; would communicate with judges using a chat room; would obtain information intended for all teams using an online bulletin board; would submit problems using Windows NT controlled access to network drives; and would see contest results through Web pages. This was all a vast improvement over the contest environment that was used in 1995 when much of the interactions involved paper or floppy disks. Raj and a group of student helpers worked many hours to figure out how to make all the elements work together and to provide the security necessary to run the contest.

Finding students to help during the contest did not turn out to be a problem. But, finding faculty to help was a problem. Even after an appeal to all possible attendees (the Computer Science and Information Science faculties of all SSHE universities), we barely had enough volunteers to do the job of judging. Fortunately, John Cross agreed to be chief judge which made it possible for the other judges to serve part-time (and participate in the conference part-time). Andrew Yang (new IUP faculty member), and Tim Meyer from Edinboro were the other two judges.

Getting faculty to write problems for the contest was another major hassle. I anticipated this and began writing problems as soon as it was certain that IUP would host the conference, back in January. But I was hoping that I would receive at least a few problems from other faculty. I received a total of one problem (from Andrew Yang) - unfortunately, his problem was essentially the same as one I had already written). As a consequence, I knew that the problem collection was a little on the difficult side - whenever I have to make problems (or test questions) with little time to do it, they always come out somewhat difficult. I had no time to filter out the harder problems and find easier replacements - the programming teams would had deal with the problems as they were.

While all this was going on, John Cross, who was in charge of procuring prizes (as he was in 1995), outdid himself. He managed to get Microsoft and Borland to contribute nine software packages each. He also convinced local businesses, the Student Co-Op Bookstore, Henry Hall, and Computers & More, to contribute many smaller prizes. As a result, we had plenty of things to give to the winning teams and to give as door prizes at the conference.

On the evening of April 7, the practice session for the contest was held. As I watched the programming teams try to use the environment, send questions to the judges, submit programs, etc., I witnessed a disaster. Nearly, every piece of software and every procedure that we had planned to use for the contest failed in some way. Fortunately, by the end of the practice, Raj and the student workers had figured out what to do to correct the problems. On the morning of April 8, the contest was held and nearly everything worked flawlessly. The only problems we had turned out to be inconsequential. I guess that is why they call it practice.

The winning team was from IUP, consisting of Yiming Sun, Jim Culp, and Gautam Swaminathan. They managed to solve three problems during the three hours of the contest. Second place went to a team from Shippensburg; they solved two problems. Third place went to a team from Slippery Rock who solved one problem. Other teams also solved one problem; but Slippery Rock's solution was faster. Incidentally, I thought it was interesting that the most frequently solved problem was one about a simple form of encryption - the theme of the conference was "Internet Security."

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To B. Or Not To B.
Jim Wolfe

During this semester (and part of last semester), there has been an ongoing discussion between the Computer Science Department and the College of Business regarding whether or not the department should leave the College of Natural Science and Mathematics and move to the College of Business (recently renamed the College of Business and Technology). These discussions have grown out of suggestions from various sources that the department would fare better in many respects if it changed colleges. Without going into the details of the pros and cons, suffice to say that many members of the department considered there to be enough potential benefits in changing colleges to pursue these discussions. To date, the department as a whole has met with the deans of both colleges; smaller faculty groups from the department have also met the deans; and there has been some interaction between department chairs.

There will almost certainly be a vote by the faculty in the not-too-distant future to determine the department's direction. To make such a change in colleges requires the agreement of the Computer Science Department, the College of Business, and the Provost; however, if the department and the college are in favor of the move, the Provost is not likely to object. The faculty at present could be described as being in a "fact finding" phase.

Would you like to express your opinion on this topic? Consider this article as a RFC (Request For Comment). Do you think a move to the College of Business would be a benefit or a detriment? Would having the Computer Science Department join the College of Business enhance or diminish its image? You may look at the question from any angle or based upon any issue(s) you want. Send any comments, pro or con, to me at jlwolfe@grove.iup.edu or to Gary Buterbaugh at glbuter@grove.iup.edu

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So What Would You Like?

At the suggestion of Dave Schoentag (and we thought it was a good one), we are soliciting your opinion about Century Club gifts. As you may know, the department has been giving gifts to alumni who give $100 or more per year to any component of the departmental accounts with the Foundation for IUP. Such givers are designated as members of the Century Club and the small gift is a token of our gratitude.

But, we are running out of ideas for gifts; and who better to ask than those who are likely to be the recipients. If you have any suggestions for Century Club gifts, we would like to receive them. Send your suggestion via e-mail to Carol Miller, camiller@grove.iup.edu or put it on paper and send it to Carol at the department: 319 Stright Hall, 210 S. 10th Street, Indiana, PA. 15705

Homecoming will be
October 14, 2000
Look for details about this year's
Homecoming Breakfast

in the August issue.

Link to the faculty