Laptop Computers

Someone stole eight laptop computers -- worth $8,000 each -- from a Linthicum hotel conference room Wednesday while a group holding a meeting there took a break, county police said.Robert Warner of Alcon Laboratories told police that national representatives of the Texas-based firm left the meeting at the Doubletree Guest Suites in the 1300 block of Concourse Drive shortly before 1 p.m. so hotel employees could rearrange the room.When they returned a few minutes later, the IBM Thinkpad computers were missing, police said.

Lynetta McCoy has told the teenagers the ugly truth, but not the younger kids. Instead, the smallest of the 50 or so children who regularly eat meals and receive tutoring at the Boys & Girls Club at Admiral Oaks in Annapolis believe that the club's recently stolen Xbox Kinect video game system stopped working. McCoy, the club's director, brought her own Xbox from home for the kids to use on Wednesday. She's still unsure how she'll explain everything else that disappeared during the burglary of more than $15,000 worth of club computers, electronics and cash earlier this week.

A Howard County school board combing through Superintendent Michael E. Hickey's proposed operating budget for the next school year found at least one program to trim: bike safety.Physical education supervisors had asked for $3,900 to buy 30 new bicycles to rotate among elementary schools to teach bike safety, but board members appeared to have already made up their minds. They don't vote on the budget until next Tuesday."That's all very nice if we had everything else we needed, but we don't," member Deborah Kendig said.

Baltimore County Police say a FedEx delivery person was robbed in Towson along LaSalle Road. The incident occurred Oct. 31 in the 8600 block of LaSalle Road, between 7 p.m. and 7:38 p.m. According to the report, the FedEx driver making a pickup was confronted by two men wearing masks. The men put what the FedEx driver believed to be firearm to her head, asked for keys to truck. They stole an engagement ring and cash. In addition to this incident, the following is compiled from police reports from the Towson and Cockeysville precincts.

WASHINGTON -- Caught in the awkward position of fostering one high-technology industry at the expense of another, the Commerce Department has revoked import duties on advanced screens that are used in laptop computers and other equipment.In its decision, announced late Monday, the department brushed aside the protests of a handful of fledgling U.S. companies, which argued that import duties were crucial to developing a domestic advanced-screen industry.Flat-panel displays that are capable of producing vivid colors and detailed images are central components in notebook computers and are expected to be used heavily in high-definition television systems.

Goodbye to the reams of paper and the dusty binders stacked under the desks in the nation's oldest working State House.Welcome to the Cyber-Senate.The Maryland Senate is now wired. When they return Wednesday for the 194th legislative session, 22 of the 47 senators will go about the ancient business of lawmaking with the help of a quintessential modern convenience: laptop computers."I'm pretty computer illiterate," acknowledged Sen. Leo E. Green, 66, a Prince George's Democrat, as he started up his laptop during a training session this week in the Senate chamber.

Look out, spiral notebooks, your days at Oldfields School are numbered.The old, reliable friend of students everywhere is being replaced at the Glencoe girls' school by laptop computers that flip open almost as easily -- but which students also can use to produce science projects, hand in homework and communicate with their parents.These days, black laptop bags are nearly as common as backpacks and lacrosse sticks at Oldfields, a boarding and day school and one of 10 private schools in the country participating in a pilot technology project co-sponsored by Microsoft and Toshiba.

The crime report is a sampling of crimes in Howard County compiled from police. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 410-313-3700. East Columbia Majors Lane: 6000 block, Long Reach. Someone entered an apartment early Feb. 10 through a rear sliding door while the resident was sleeping and stole clothes. Watchlight Court: 8900 block, Long Reach. Someone entered a home by forcing a rear sliding door late Feb. 10 and stole cash, digital video discs and a video game system. Stanford Blvd: 5500 block, Columbia Corporate Park.

Paul Brian Steedman stole 32 laptop computers from his employer, a Marriottsville-based nonprofit health care company owned by nuns, prosecutors say. The Westminster man then sold the computers on eBay, prosecutors say, listing photos of box labels with serial numbers that matched those of the stolen computers - along with a picture of himself as the seller and a user name that included his birth year. Steedman, 28, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Howard County Circuit Court to a felony theft scheme and could now face 15 years in prison, according to prosecutors.

The Commerce Department said yesterday that some Japanese companies have been dumping flat-panel display screens -- used mainly on laptop computers -- in the U.S. market.After a six-month preliminary investigation, the department concluded that a handful of Japanese companies were engaging in unfair competition by selling some of their products below the cost of production. The department ordered the companies to pay anti-dumping duties on their imports.The immediate effect will be minimal, since the duties imposed yesterday range from 1.46 percent of the selling prices -- levied against Toshiba -- to 4.6 percent levied against Sharp.

Baltimore County Poice report that laptop computers were stolen in two seperate incidents last week in Towson. The first occurred 11 p.m., Sept. 19 and 6:25 a.m., Sept. 20 in the 400 block of Hopkins Boulevard. According to the police report, someone entered through an open window while resident slept, stole a aptop and left out front door. The second incident was between Sept. 21 and Sept. 22, times unknown. This theft occurred in the 8400 block of Charles Valley Court, and happened when a car was broken into.

Punctuation isn't something I spend much time thinking about, even though I make a living, in part, by writing and checking over what other people write. It's not to say I don't understand punctuation. As grammar people go, I'd say I'm punctuation proficient. Since the devices that replaced typewriters, once referred to as word processors, but now known as desktop and laptop computers came into being, a particular bit of punctuation has crossed the threshold from being an afterthought of the writing process to an irritating little sliver of ink that's apt to hook the wrong way or translate into some errant version of a letter of the alphabet.

Paul Brian Steedman stole 32 laptop computers from his employer, a Marriottsville-based nonprofit health care company owned by nuns, prosecutors say. The Westminster man then sold the computers on eBay, prosecutors say, listing photos of box labels with serial numbers that matched those of the stolen computers - along with a picture of himself as the seller and a user name that included his birth year. Steedman, 28, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Howard County Circuit Court to a felony theft scheme and could now face 15 years in prison, according to prosecutors.

A 36-year-old Clarksburg man was sentenced yesterday to seven years and three months in federal prison for using a computer to entice a 15-year-old Anne Arundel County girl into having sex with him. After his release from prison, Michael Lawrence Manoly is to register as a sex offender and will be under federal supervision for the rest of his life, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake determined. Prosecutors said Manoly, using the screen name "Kevin" and portraying himself as 25, began corresponding with the teenager in February 2006.

In an attempt to get every school onto the same technological page, the Howard County school system is phasing in a plan to get rid of about 4,000 computers, servers and other types of technology deemed behind current standards. The department, under an agreement with Apple Financial Services of Austin, Texas, will pay $1.6 million a year to lease new equipment -- including desktop and laptop computers and up-to-date operating systems -- and at the end of four years will have the opportunity to purchase each computer for a dollar.

About 30 laptop computers were stolen from a combined elementary and middle school in Howard County after a parent meeting Monday night in what a custodian reported as an armed robbery, police and school officials said yesterday. The theft, which happened about an hour after visitors left Cradlerock School in Columbia, shook the community yesterday as pupils brought home a letter describing the incident to their parents. The letter from Principal Jason McCoy also outlined planned improvements to the building's security.

Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski toured the Baltimore County Police Training Academy yesterday to see how $7 million in federal grant money is being put to work."

Thieves broke into a Hanover office building overnight Wednesday and stole thousands of dollars worth of electronic and computer equipment, county police said.The thieves entered the building in the 7200 block of Parkway Corporate Drive between 9 p.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m. Wednesday by prying open the back door of the ground-level Red Cross office, police said. They vandalized a conference room and took a $500 combination television-videocassette recorder from a supervisor's office, police said.

NETWORKING home computers is one of the geekiest jobs the average PC user may ever undertake, but some new figures indicate that it's getting easier. And that's good news if you're thinking about making the leap. In a January survey, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 46 percent of homes with two or more PCs had some kind of network operating, compared with 29 percent slightly more than two years ago. Pew's researchers - whose meticulous surveys produce some of the most reliable statistics on Internet use - attribute the increase to two factors.

Thieves broke into Baltimore Freedom Academy last week and stole 30 laptop computers, school officials said yesterday. The laptops, which have wireless Internet capabilities, were donated this summer to the innovative public high school, which is housed in Lombard Middle School, just east of downtown. School police were investigating the theft of the laptops, which were valued at a total of about $50,000. The school received them from the Centre for Management and Technology, a Baltimore-based nonprofit group that helps schools and other nonprofits improve their technology and efficiency.