Page 16 March 4, 2009

By Wendy Gillis CUP Central Bureau Chief

SASKATOON (CUP) —- With things like lolcats, Spanish lessons, Facebook, and the Ralph Lauren col- lection, it would seem that every potential [Phone ap- plication has already been dreamed up.

But, a group of students and IPhone enthusiasts at the University of Saskatchewan are learning skills that could lead to the creation of even more programs for the popu- lar Apple gadget.

Canada’s only IPhone and IPod Touch workshops and panel discussions, called IP- hone U, are teaching neces- sary skills to design, write, and market potential appli- cations — and the knowledge could not come at a better time.

Despite the slumping econ- omy causing a slight decline

PROVINCIAL/ NATIONAL

Students soak up IPhone technology

Dramatic increase in demand for phone programmers has students clambering for job skills

in the need for computer

programmers, demand — for IPhone-savvy programmers has surged by 500 per cent, according to a recent study by the online outsourcing

firm, oDesk.

Dozens of potential pro- grammers are clambering to gain the knowledge, says Eric Neufeld, head of the

Computer Science Depart-

ment at the U of S, workshop organizer.

Seats for February’s two workshops were filled with- in hours of registration open- ing. Two more have been scheduled for late March.

Over the two-day work- shops, students will gain the skills to build three or four basic applications for the [Phone or IPod Touch, including a simple browser, a photo display, and a list mechanism. Participants must be familiar with basic computer programming lan- guages, such as Objective C and Javascript.

The idea for the workshops arose when a group of stu- dents, faculty, and one for- mer Apple employee — col- lectively calling themselves the Apple Corps — started getting together every Fri- day morning, attempting to learn the science behind the new technology.

“It really shows off the agil-

PANTHER POST

ity of a computer science de- gree,” said Neufeld.

“Once you have the basic knowledge, it takes rela- tively little effort to learn the new technologies, no matter how exotic.”

Johannes Lindenbaum, a computer science undergrad- uate student, was among the future programmers, having taken in both sessions last month.

Also an employee at an on- line computer programming agency, Lindenbaum says having phone programming skills is an asset to both his studies and his work.

“T have been looking to get more into the IPhone pro- gramming, and it was a great way to meet people in the in- dustry,” he said.

Lindenbaum says he is planning to attend the second workshop in March, which will offer more advanced training.

Computer snag leaks Ryerson students’ private information

By CUP

TORONTO (CUP) - A “weird software glitch” acci- dentally exposed the private information of at least 588 students, said Ryerson Uni- versity’s privacy co-ordina- tor, Heather Driscoll.

At apress conference on Feb. 23, Driscoll assured journal- ists that Toronto’s Ryerson University fixed the breach by installing a patch to cor- rect the software problem.

They have also contracted the services of Ernst and Young — a professional ser- vices firm — to help test the new patch and investigate what happened in the sys- tem.

After notifying the commu- nity through a media release, Driscoll said that Ryerson had retained the services of Ipsos Reid — a marketing re- search firm — to investigate how many more students may have had their informa-

tion exposed.

Driscoll would also not com- ment about how much it cost Ryerson to contract the ser- vices of Ernst and Young and Ipsos Reid, and could not give an estimate of how much Ryerson would be willing to spend during this process.

The media release was sent out through a national press release distributor, but not through student and faculty listservs.

Hamza Quresh, a second- year aerospace engineering student only heard about the security breach through reading an article in the To- ronto Star.

“How can we trust Ryerson in the future when they don’t have the sufficient controls

‘to stop people hacking into

our personal accounts?” he asked.

Gail Alivio, president of the Continuing Education Stu- dents’ Association of Ryer-

son, says the administration made no attempt to contact her or other elected repre- sentatives at CESAR.

“T read about this breach

from the newspaper like all

other students,” she said.

“We had a class representa- tive meeting on Thursday, Feb. 26, and many of our reps had questions about the

security breach,” she added.

“We had nothing to tell our members. This is pretty dis- appointing.”