Facebook’s new interface for smartphones is at odds with how the world uses computers.

The key to making dynamic web applications interactive in Java is the use JSP pages. They do so by including special tags that are parsed and evaluated by the server, thus allowing the page to provide up to the second content. In today's article Rob Gravelle shows how to deliver dynamic content to the user via a JSP page using Eclipse Juno.

A new guest column by UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller on Sabato’s Crystal Ball ask the highly provocative question, “How Should We Vote?”

Schaller writes:

Given pervasive gerrymandering and a shrinking number of competitive districts, any serious reform of congressional elections might also entail changes to our voting rules — that is, how votes are cast by voters and aggregated to determine winners… So what sort of voting rule reforms might significantly alter the composition of Congress, encourage greater voter participation and create a more responsive national legislature?

Changing voting rules can change voter behavior in two important ways, notes Schaller: impacting the likelihood that someone will vote and affecting “how voters express their preferences once they do turn out to vote, especially if they are able to indicate secondary and alternative preferences and therefore vote strategically.”

Schaller suggests:

Despite the earnest efforts of FairVote.org and other electoral reform advocates to move legislation through Congress or the state legislatures, what is probably needed first is a widespread voter education effort… Election reform advocates must first get Americans to properly recognize that the roots of the problem reside as much in the voting rules as in campaign finance law or the redistricting process.

The sudden appearance of three referenda in Maryland’s last election made some in Annapolis predict that they would be a regular feature in future elections, used as a tool by Maryland’s GOP to contest policy passed by the Democratic majority in the Maryland General Assembly. However, political scientists now suggest that the number of signatures required to get a referendum on the ballot is still a high threshold to meet, even with the help of the Internet in gathering signatures.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, told AP that this year’s failed efforts to contest Maryland’s gun-control bill and a measure repealing capital punishment reinforce the sense that Maryland is a deeply Democratic state, where it is difficult for conservatives to overturn legislation. Norris argued, “It also says the Republican Party is even more marginalized in Maryland than it has been historically, and it’s been pretty marginalized historically.”

With its new mobile OS, Apple looks to longtime design head Jonathan Ive, and takes a few cues from competitors.

For Apple, there’s a lot riding on iOS 7, the newest version of its mobile software and the first refresh overseen by veteran industrial design head Jonathan Ive. To satisfy as many people as possible, it seems, Apple took inspiration from several different sources—including competitors.