The UMBC Linux Users Group (LUG) will meet during the spring semester on Mondays starting on February 4 from Noon to 1:00pm in ITE 234. If you are interested in becoming a member, please come to a few meetings and check it out.

The UMBC LUG was established in 1997 as an organization of and for people interested in the Linux operating system.  This includes people who want to learn how to install and use it on their personal computers as well as those who use it regularly and want to expand and deepen their knowledge about it.

The LUG also helps members and non-members install, update and use Linux Operating System and software during its periodic Installfests.

UMBC-LUG members come from all walks of life and courses of study. You'll find among its ranks faculty, staff and students from Information Systems, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Math, Visual Arts, Sociology, Music, Social Work, and yes, even Computer Science, all bound together by a common love of Linux. Membership is not limited to UMBC students and attendance by non-members and prospective members is always welcome.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the United States, is seeking two (2) full-time, paid, graduate-level interns for summer 2013.

The Weinberg Foundation is dedicated to assisting the financially disadvantaged and vulnerable through operating and capital grants to direct service organizations primarily located in Maryland, Hawaii, northeastern Pennsylvania, Israel, and the Former Soviet Union. These grants focus on five main areas:Older Adults; Workforce Development; Education, Children, Youth and Families; Disabilities; and Basic Human Needs and Health.

The internship will provide students with relevant, constructive work experience in a philanthropic setting focused on supporting our program areas and grantmaking.  Interns will be exposed to the field of philanthropy and not-for profit organizations. Interns will be expected to analyze and synthesize information and create reports for review and decision making at the Foundation. These individuals should have exceptional writing and verbal skills and a strong interest in social services, best practices, and research.

In light of the diversity of graduate-level course offerings across universities, we hesitate to discourage any candidate from applying.  We would, however, highly encourage candidates with interest in fields including:

·         Education                                           

·         Social work

·         Sociology

·         Law

·         Public health

·         Urban planning

·         Gerontology

·         Jewish studies

Candidates must have their own transportation and be able to commute to our Owing Mills office. Those qualified should reply to gradinternship@hjweinberg.org.  They may also be referred to our website at http://hjweinbergfoundation.org/about-us/employment/.

ATTENTION STUDENTS!

If you are looking for a Federal Internship Opportunity this summer that is PAID and in the local area apply to the 2013 CMS Opportunities.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is pleased to announce our 2013 Summer Intern Program.  This is a 12-week internship program for current students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale.  The purpose of the Summer Intern Program is to enhance students' knowledge about CMS programs, mission, vision and goals.  Additionally, the program seeks to familiarize participants about Federal, State, and local health care programs serving under-served and uninsured populations.

Recruitment for the 2013 Summer Internship Program will take place through vacancy announcements posted on <http://www.USAJobs.gov>.  

The announcements may be found by using a keyword search of "CMS Intern" in the "What" section of the USAJobs website.  A full description of the program, qualification, and application requirements will be found in the vacancy announcements, so please read carefully.

Students must submit a complete application online through the appropriate vacancy announcement(s) for consideration by the closing date.  The anticipated open period for applications is February 4, 2013 - February 11, 2013.

The available locations will be noted in each of the separate four vacancy announcements and could include: Baltimore, MD; Bethesda, MD; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Kansas City, MO; Denver, CO; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Continue to monitor <http://www.USAJobs.gov>  for the vacancy announcements!

The popular KDnuggets news site for analytics, data mining and data science asked their visitors “What will replace “Big Data” as a hot buzzword?” and the most popular choice was “smart data”. I’m not sure what people meant by that, but can only imagine that it includes data that have explicit or implicit semantics and are annotated with metadata like temporal qualifications, provenance and certainty factors. These are all capabilities of current semantic web technologies, especially when coupled with machine learning for additional inference.

(h/t Kingsley Idehen)

Want to stay ahead of the curve? Here are some simple reminders for what it takes to be better than the rest.

You've probably heard by now that Dell has announced it will go private with CEO Michael Dell maintaining a majority interest with minority shareholders including Silver Lake Partners and Microsoft.

To better understand the news (and most importantly, what you can learn), you have to understand a bit about the company's history.

In the 1990s, businesses were buying PCs. Dell was competing with companies such as Compaq that sold PCs through retailers. But Dell sold directly to companies using its website. This meant that Dell did not have to include the cost of the retail channel in its prices, according to the Harvard Business School case, Matching Dell, that I used to teach. This was just one of the many advantages the company during this time, which enabled Dell to charge higher prices and make PCs at a lower than industry-average cost.

But the collapse of the dot-com bubble meant that companies stopped buying so many PCs. In the 2000s, the biggest PC consumers were individuals who wanted to see machines operating in retail stores before buying them.

While Dell is taking measures to move the company forward, it's a good reminder that start-ups need to keep a competitive edge. Here's how:

1. Maintain a healthy paranoia. If you want to keep your company growing, you must maintain a healthy paranoia. This means that you should maintain fear that forces outside your control could sink your company. It should not be that hard for you to stay scared--because all your employees, investors, and customers are depending on you to keep the company growing.

Sorry to say, maintaining that healthy paranoia must be something you must live with and show to your people every day. If you stay scared, you must share that fear with your staff and make sure that they are always on the lookout for ways to change the company so it can sustain its growth.

2. View your company from the customer’s perspective. One way to do that is to look at your company from the customer’s perspective. This means that you should pretend you are a customer and shop from your company and your competitors. Knowing what customers want when they buy your industry’s product, you should take careful note of whether your company is not winning the battle for value creation.

And if you are falling behind, change your company so it gets back in the lead. That means stripping out annoying processes that make the customer want to fire you. And if your product does not have the features that customers want or your price is too high--find a way to fix those problems.

3. Imagine that the board fired you and brought in a new CEO. If you have a strong board, it should be asking whether you are still the right person to run the company.

In 1984, Intel’s CEO, Andy Grove, was losing ground to Japanese memory chip makers. He thought about what a new CEO would do if the board fired him and put in someone new. The answer was to get out of the memory business and start making central processing units.

Rather than quit, Grove changed strategy - thus Intel got the benefit of new thinking without losing Grove’s managerial talent. And Intel went from nearly perishing to decades of CPU industry leadership.

4. Change everything to stay ahead of the pack. If the customer changes, your company must reinvent itself to keep up with the changing customer’s needs. You must be able to track how customers are changing and what competitors are offering those customers.

If you can give customers a new offering that puts your company ahead of the value curve, you will be able to sustain your leadership.

If you are passionate about serving others, helping young women cultivate their academic and social skills, and are free on Wednesday afternoons, then this message is for you!

Come be a member of a team that works with female students at a West Baltimore high school on Wednesdays from 2:15- 5:30 p.m. During the sessions, volunteers will work with youth to complete activities that focus on college preparation, vocational skills development, tutoring, and other recreational/cultural exercises. Transportation is provided. Volunteers will receive a PRAC096 transcript notation for participating in the program.

Please contact Maia Barber at mbarber1@umbc.edu or 240-821-3018 for more information.