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JAMF Software has announced significant new classroom management capabilities with Casper Focus, enabling teachers to unlock the full potential of iPad in the classroom. Casper Focus allows teachers to ensure that all students are engaged, on the same activity, and using their iOS devices in the ways the technology was intended.

Using the Casper Suite, educators are able to distribute content and apps directly to any iOS device, ensuring a consistent and standardized method for delivering educational content to students. With the release of Casper Focus, teachers gain the ability to leverage the Casper Suites powerful classroom management tools, without requiring interaction from their IT departments. The end result is that educators have granular control over the devices in their classroom, able to focus all students on the same curriculum at the same time or work with subgroups and individuals as they progress through curriculum at different paces.

A focused and consistent learning experience

Casper Focus introduces capabilities tailored to the specific needs of the classroom, developed with feedback from teachers and their experience using Apple technologies.

For instance, a teacher may limit students exclusively to the content that they are teaching or assessing, ensuring that students attention is focused on the curriculum. Student devices can be focused on a single app so that students do not wander to other apps or reference unauthorized materials during exams.

Previously, many of these capabilities would have required significant manual work to implement, while relying upon an informal combination of unsupported or disparate technologies. Casper Focus consolidates these features into a single interface boasting significant customization options, meeting the wide variety of needs for educators leveraging Apple technologies on a daily basis.

We couldnt be more excited to provide tools that improve the ways educators share the best educational curriculum with students, said Nick Amundsen, Developer Manager, R&D at JAMF Software. We have long had the opportunity to work with System Administrators behind the scenes, building enterprise tools that power widespread use of Apple technologies in education organizations. Now, with Casper Focus, weve placed these powerful technologies directly into the hands of the teachers that work with students every day.

New frontiers of Apple technology in education

JAMF Software technologies enable many of the largest one-to-one programs and deployments of Apple technologies around the world, including 7 of the top 10 universities and many of the top 100 school districts.

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JAMF Software Releases Casper Focus, a Powerful Classroom Management Tool for iPad in Education

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There is a perception in some tech circles that older programmers aren't able to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, and that they are discriminated against in the software field. But a new study from North Carolina State University indicates that the knowledge and skills of programmers actually improve over time and that older programmers know as much (or more) than their younger peers when it comes to recent software platforms.

"We wanted to explore these perceptions of veteran programmers as being out of step with emerging technologies and see if we could determine whether older programmers are actually keeping up with changes in the field," says Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. "And we found that, in some cases, veteran programmers even have a slight edge."

The researchers looked at the profiles of more than 80,000 programmers on a site called StackOverflow, which is an online community that allows users to ask and answer programming questions. The site also allows users to rate the usefulness of other users' questions and answers. Users who are rated as asking good questions and providing good answers receive points that are reflected in their "reputation score." The higher an individual's reputation score, the more likely it is that the user has a robust understanding of programming issues.

For the first part of the study, the researchers compared the age of users with their reputation scores. They found that an individual's reputation increases with age, at least into a user's 40s. There wasn't enough data to draw meaningful conclusions for older programmers.

The researchers then looked at the number of different subjects that users asked and answered questions about, which reflects the breadth of their programming interests. The researchers found that there is a sharp decline in the number of subjects users weighed in on between the ages of 15 and 30 but that the range of subjects increased steadily through the programmers' 30s and into their early 50s.

Finally, the researchers evaluated the knowledge of older programmers (ages 37 and older) compared to younger programmers (younger than 37) in regard to relatively recent technologies meaning technologies that have been around for less than 10 years.

For two smartphone operating systems, iOS and Windows Phone 7, the veteran programmers had a significant edge in knowledge over their younger counterparts. For every other technology, from Django to Silverlight, there was no statistically significant difference between older and younger programmers.

"The data doesn't support the bias against older programmers if anything, just the opposite," Murphy-Hill says.

Explore further: Apple blocks Java on Macs due to vulnerabilities (Update)

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Study shows software developers' skills improve over time

Monty Meets Monty

Monty Taylor says he wound up on the MySQL project because he shared a name with Monty Widenius. Widenius is the Finn who founded MySQL the worlds most popular open source database and Taylor says that when he applied for a job at MySQL AB, the company that oversaw the project, it was his name that elevated his resume above the slush pile. How could they not interview someone else named Monty? he says, with the sort of playfulness that so often laces his storytelling.

He came to the project in a roundabout way. As a college undergraduate, he dabbled in computer science, but it rubbed him wrong. My first professor looked like Ed Grimley, he says. All my worst fears of what computer science would do to me were realized. In the end, he studied theater at a tiny Texas school called Abilene Christian, and after graduating, he continued to work as a director and a lighting designer and all-around backstage technician. He drifted back into software only because he needed another way to pay the bills and a local Fujitsu office needed a system administrator. But at MySQL, even as he continued his work in the theater, he cemented his place in a world that would remake the software business.

MySQL was a stepping stone for the software game but also for Monty Taylor. Following in the footsteps of Linux, the project built up a vibrant community of developers, but this community splintered after tech giant Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB in 2008. Though Sun was ostensibly a friend of open source software, its commercial aims clashed with the project. MySQL never reached the point where it transcended commercial contraints where it was free to evolve as quickly as possible.

At Sun, in an effort to solve this problem, a developer named Brian Aker forked the MySQL project, creating a new version called Drizzle, and Taylor soon joined the effort. The Drizzle team eventually moved Rackspace, and though the project never revived the success of MySQL, it brought Taylor to the doorstep of OpenStack.

With Rackspace working hand-in-hand with NASA on the project, the idea from the beginning was that OpenStack would work like Linux. No one company would have control. The rub was that software development moves so much quicker on the web than it does with operating systems. When he left the Drizzle project for OpenStack, Taylors task was to build a service that could not only meld contributions from any number of developers spanning any number of companies, but meld them with unusual speed and accuracy.

The result was the OpenStack Continuous Integration service though Taylor doesnt like calling it that. For one thing, its a dreadful name. But it also fails to show that the OpenStack system a very different from the norm.

Built around tools like Jenkins and Buildbot, CI systems are designed to rapidly merge new code into a large piece of software. But this doesnt always happen as quickly as it could. Typically, new code is tested only after it has been merged into the trunk, the core software the community is working on. This means that, at any given time, the trunk may be broken, and for a sweeping project like OpenStack, a broken trunk puts a drag on the process.

What happens is that people trying to get work done start pulling broken code from the trunk, Taylor says, and thats not scalable.

OpenStacks CI service is different in that Taylor and others have developed a means of automatically testing all code before its submitted to the trunk. There is no red light, green light, he says. The trunk is always green. It just always works. We dont let change land unless it works. This protects developers from each other, but it also makes it easier for anyone to use the code, at any time. They always know the trunk is in order.

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Why Open Source Software Is Like Burning Man (Only Better)

LAKE FOREST, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 29, 2013) - ProBoards, the world's largest host of free Internet forums, today announced the immediate availability of ProBoards Version 5, the most powerful and easy-to-use Web 2.0 Internet forum software. ProBoards Version 5 is available now for free at http://www.proboards.com. The new Version 5.0 offers several new features and functionality that benefit Internet users and forum administrators alike.

More than four years in development, this powerful new forum software includes a live search function, a single sign-on for users, integrated notifications of new messages and topics, and a Forum Dashboard that allows users to more efficiently track activity across multiple forums at a glance. In addition, ProBoards Version 5 features greater security tools, increased privacy, enhanced moderator tools, AJAX pagination, a new mobile interface, and hundreds of other new features that emphasize ease of use and greater interaction.

"ProBoards Version 5 is the most advanced hosted forum service on the market," said Nicolas Ternisien, founder of Forum Software Reviews. ProBoards was recently awarded "Best Hosted Forum Software" for the second consecutive year by Forum Software Reviews. "The changes in ProBoards Version 5 will encourage forum use and participation, increasing the number of topics viewed through both SEO optimization and new tools that help drive forum engagement."

"We've completely redefined and revolutionized Internet forums with ProBoards Version 5," said Patrick Clinger, CEO and founder of ProBoards. "We've spent considerable time talking with our users to find out what features and functionality they wanted most. Based on their feedback, we've made our forum software the most powerful and customizable on the market, while creating a more intuitive user experience for everyone from forum novices to experienced web developers."

ProBoards Version 5 features include:

Since its founding in 2000, ProBoards has attracted more than 22 million registered users and achieved a milestone of 3.5 million free hosted forums created. The company's site boasts over 15 million monthly unique visitors with more than 200 million page views per month.

About ProBoardsFounded in 2000, ProBoards (www.proboards.com) is the largest provider of free forum hosting on the Internet. With millions of members, ProBoards is the preferred service provider for forum enthusiasts across the globe. At the core of this achievement is ProBoards' award-winning forum software, exceptional customer support, and dedication to continuous improvement.

For more information on ProBoards, go to http://www.proboards.com.

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ProBoards Version 5 Reinvents Online Forums by Providing the Most Powerful, Easy to Use Discussion Forum Software ...

MALVERN, PA--(Marketwired - Apr 29, 2013) - Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE: VSH) today announced the availability of free Android software designed to simplify the use of the company's VCNL4020 and VCNL3020 integrated proximity and ambient light sensors in any mobile device running Android 4.0.1 software or higher. The VCNLx020 Android software significantly reduces the time needed to program an Android device for use with the VCNL4020 and VCNL3020, eliminating the need for debugging and simplifying the overall adoption of Vishay's digital IC-enabled optical sensors.

In devices such as smartphones, ambient light sensors optimize the visibility of the LCD display by allowing the backlight to adjust its brightness automatically based on surrounding light levels. The proximity sensor is used to turn off the backlight of the display and disable the touch functionality when the phone is brought next to the user's ear, preventing his or her cheek from ending a call accidentally. Both types of sensors are designed to reduce power consumption and extend battery life in mobile electronics. For these devices, the Vishay Semiconductors VCNL4020 and VCNL3020 are fully integrated solutions, containing an infrared emitter and photo detector for proximity sensing, an ambient light sensor (VCNL4020), and signal processing, all in a single surface-mount package.

The VCNLx020 Android software package includes the documentation, source code, and patch files required to allow an Android-based platform to communicate with the VCNL4020 or VCNL3020. This communication follows the standard Android sensors framework. The supplied Android VCNL4020 driver consists of two parts: the kernel module responsible for the data control and acquisition from the VCNL4020 and the subsequent HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) module to link the kernel to the main Android framework, allowing the information supplied by the sensor to be used by Android applications. To demonstrate this, a demo Android app is included (VCNL40x0-DemoApp.apk), along with its associated source code, which can serve as a base for building user-specific Android applications.

The VCNLx020 Android software package can be downloaded for free, after registration on Vishay's website, by clicking on the Android robot at http://www.vishay.com/optical-sensors/.

Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., a Fortune 1,000 Company listed on the NYSE (VSH), is one of the world's largest manufacturers of discrete semiconductors (diodes, MOSFETs, and infrared optoelectronics) and passive electronic components (resistors, inductors, and capacitors). These components are used in virtually all types of electronic devices and equipment, in the industrial, computing, automotive, consumer, telecommunications, military, aerospace, power supplies, and medical markets. Vishay's product innovations, successful acquisition strategy, and "one-stop shop" service have made it a global industry leader. Vishay can be found on the Internet at http://www.vishay.com.

Android is a trademark of Google Inc.

Vishay on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VishayIntertechnology Vishay Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/vishayindust

Links to datasheets:http://www.vishay.com/doc?83476 (VCNL4020) http://www.vishay.com/doc?84150 (VCNL3020)

Link to product photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/vishay/8664133178

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Vishay Intertechnology's Free Android(TM) Software Simplifies Adoption of VCNL4020 and VCNL3020 in Mobile Devices