Computer Systems

The county has postponed, but not given up, plans to merge its computer system with those of the school system and Anne Arundel Community College.Following a free four-week IBM study into the merits of combining the computer system, the county has cited a $850,000 price tag, and no immediate cost savings for the fiscal year beginning July 11, as its reasons for postponing the proposed merger."

The State Archives had inadequate procedures to prevent loss or employee theft of its $31.4 million art collection, and outdated software left its computers vulnerable to attack, an audit released Tuesday found. The Department of Legislative Services audit did not find evidence that computers had been hacked or art lost or stolen, but recommended the State Archives improve its oversight. State Archives officials agreed with the auditors' findings and said they have put into place the recommendations or will soon do so. The State Archives, with a $8.7 million annual budget, keep historically significant documents and art, as well as certain government and private records.

Ten years ago, schools were introducing students to computers."Now, the kids are ahead of the schools," said Forrest Hudspeth, a Woodbine parent who teaches computer programming at Bell Atlantic Corp.To try to turn things around again, the Carroll County school system is beginning a plan to update the computer systems in all 32 school buildings, starting with North Carroll High School."We're going from a two-lane country road to a California six-lane superhighway," said Mr. Hudspeth, who serves on a committee of parents, teachers and business people trying to develop a technology plan for county schools.

After the Mount Vernon United Methodist Church was ravaged by a lightning-strike fire four years ago, the Hampden neighborhood was left with what appeared to be an unusable building. But Mark Dent saw more than a burned-out shell of an old stone church. He saw the future home of Chesapeake Systems, the 25-person computer company he co-owns. Still, the rebirth of the burned out church as a commercial building almost didn't happen. Dent's company spent months — and thousands of dollars — trying to work through the city's antiquated zoning law. As the process dragged on, he thought seriously about moving out of Baltimore, to an office park off Interstate 95. The city hopes to avoid such near-misses with a far-reaching piece of legislation, "Transform Baltimore," that would replace the city's decades-old zoning law. The new law is designed to be more understandable, speed up the zoning process, and discourage ad hoc zoning layers that are being used to sidestep outmoded rules.

Hackers in the United States and abroad have gained access to hundreds of sensitive but unclassified government and military computer networks on the global Internet network, computer security experts said yesterday.While most of the intruders appear to be out for the computer equivalent of a joy ride, federal investigators say that some of them have been able to take control of several military computer systems, allowing them to steal, alter or erase computer records, even to shut the computer systems down.

The Baltimore school board will spend $24 million to buy two computer systems -- one to keep track of students and their records and a second to manage budget and financial data.For years, the city school system has been unable to track its students accurately, despite a 1988 order by a federal judge requiring the system to find a computer system that would detail the progress of special education students.The new system, which will be paid for over four years with state funds, is expected to help accurately track attendance, enrollment and other key data as well as hold the academic records of each child in the system, according to Roger Reese Jr., the school system's chief financial officer.

Carol Sholes, director of information systems for Syracuse Newspapers, has been named to head the department that maintains computer technology and software systems at the Baltimore Sun Co. Sholes will take over as vice president of information technology by Jan. 2. She will replace Phil Rugile, who resigned July 28. Sun General Manager John Patinella said Sholes will be in charge of all the computer systems that make the newspaper work, and will take...

William E. Regan Jr., founder and former president of Data Networks Inc., a Baltimore-based company that specializes in providing computer systems to schools, and local and state governments, died Thursday in his sleep at his home in Berlin. The former Timonium resident was 67. Dr. Regan was born in Baltimore into an Irish-German family and was raised in Irvington. He was a 1958 graduate of Loyola High School, where he had been a champion basketball player. After earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Delaware in 1962, he went to work as a sales representative for Texas Instruments, selling integrated circuitry that led to the development of the modern computer, family members said.

For a school district unable to keep track of its students or buy basic supplies without reams of paperwork, the deal from a local computer company sounded too good to refuse. Give us $5.2 million and 18 months, Information Control Systems told Baltimore school officials, and we will deliver what you need: reliable computer systems. Eight months later, the ICS consultants wanted an additional $1.5 million for more work. They got it. Two months after that, the consultants brought in a new bill for $750,000.

Avi Rubin is known for annoying large companies and important people. Two years ago, the Johns Hopkins University professor first alerted the country to troubling vulnerabilities in electronic voting, much to the consternation of election officials and machine-maker Diebold Election Systems. Then earlier this year, Texas Instruments similarly was none too pleased when Rubin's team of what he calls "super geniuses" broke the encryption on its wireless gas payment cards and car keys - a potential threat to millions of consumers.

Drivers across Maryland had trouble renewing their licenses Monday and Tuesday because of a computer glitch at the Motor Vehicle Administration. Technicians updating the system last weekend to reflect changes in state laws that take effect Oct. 1 noticed that "something didn't quite click" on Monday morning when offices opened for business, said MVA spokeswoman Caryn Coyle. Computer systems at some of the 24 branches that reported "sporadic problems" were taken off line and rebooted, she said.

General Dynamics Corp. and its subcontractors expect to hire as many as 110 workers in Baltimore County who will work on computer systems for a new government program that will help retirees receive health care coverage, officials said Thursday. The defense contractor said Thursday that its information technology division won an $80 million award to work on the Department of Health and Human Services' Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. The program is part of the health care reform package that was passed this year and is intended to help retirees who are not yet eligible for Medicare obtain affordable insurance.

MP3Car.com used to be the right name for the Baltimore company. Not anymore. The company traces its roots to a worldwide online community of geeks in the 1990s who installed personal computers filled with electronic music files, or MP3s, in their cars. But, like many startup companies that surprisingly grew their business in a different direction, MP3Car.com is now struggling to choose a new name that signals what it does well: build sophisticated mobile computers for corporate and government clients.

Maryland Secretary of Human Resources Brenda Donald told lawmakers yesterday that her agency is doing a better job of using a new computer program to keep track of children in state care. At a General Assembly Joint Audit Committee meeting, Donald said that a recent audit documenting problems with "Chessie" - the Children's Electronic Social Services Information Exchange - "really is old news." Social services employees have entered data from 90 percent of foster care and abuse and neglect investigations, Donald said.

DALLAS - Remember that scene from Meet the Parents where actor Ben Stiller waits as an airline agent types in about a million keystrokes to find out if he can get an earlier flight? Pat Stock, a customer service agent for Southwest Airlines at Dallas' Love Field, lives it every day. "I've had people say, 'Why does it take all that? I'm just going to Houston,' and I just say, 'Because Mickey Mouse made it,'" she said, her fingers furiously clacking away to help a customer who had a paper ticket.

William E. Regan Jr., founder and former president of Data Networks Inc., a Baltimore-based company that specializes in providing computer systems to schools, and local and state governments, died Thursday in his sleep at his home in Berlin. The former Timonium resident was 67. Dr. Regan was born in Baltimore into an Irish-German family and was raised in Irvington. He was a 1958 graduate of Loyola High School, where he had been a champion basketball player. After earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Delaware in 1962, he went to work as a sales representative for Texas Instruments, selling integrated circuitry that led to the development of the modern computer, family members said.

In an article in Tuesday's editions of The Sun, the title for Intersolv executive Harold Daniels was reported incorrectly. Mr. Daniels is group vice president for enterprise client/server solutions.The Sun regrets the errors.Several years ago, Harold Daniels and his computer software wizards looked at the calendar and saw a huge problem was on the way for businesses the world over when the seemingly simple shift into the next millennium occurs on Jan. 1, 2000.Of course, as any wise business operator knows, trouble breeds opportunity.

A Baltimore school system computer contract that ballooned from $5.2 million to $11.4 million earlier this year is growing again - despite school board assertions that it didn't want to pay additional costs. The board approved another $644,731 in payments to Information Control Systems Inc. last night, but the bill is likely to add up to much more by the time the local computer company has finished its work. "Do I want to spend? No," said J. Tyson Tildon, school board chairman. "Do I have to spend?

Micros Systems Shares surged 14 percent to $70.96 after the Columbia maker of computer systems for restaurants and hotels reported fiscal first-quarter profit of 58 cents a share, beating analysts' estimates.

The Johns Hopkins University will receive at least $48 million to develop computer systems that would help military and spy agencies process the huge amounts of intelligence data they collect. The Department of Defense grant is for a new research center focused on improving technology that can automatically translate and analyze speech and text in multiple languages, school officials announced today. It would help overburdened intelligence analysts cope with the flood of information - often in Arabic - being gathered in Iraq and the war on terror, experts said.