08/2009
VOL. 52 NO. 08
Practice
Contributed Articles
Virtual Extension
36 The Pathologies of Big Data
scale up your datasets enough and
your apps come undone. What are
the typical problems and where do
the bottlenecks surface?
By Adam Jacobs
58 A Blind Person’s Interactions
with Technology
Meaning can be as important as
usability in the design of technology.
By Kristen Shinohara
and Josh Tenenberg
45 Browser Security:
Lessons from Google Chrome
To shield the browser from attacks,
Google Chrome developers eyed
three key problems.
By Charles Reis, Adam Barth,
and Carlos Pizano
as with all magazines, page limitations often
prevent the publication of articles that might
otherwise be included in the print edition.
to ensure timely publication, aCM created
Communications’ Virtual extension (Ve).
Ve articles undergo the same rigorous review
process as those in the print edition and are
accepted for publication on their merit. these
articles are now available to aCM members in
the Digital library.
What Determines
IT Spending Priorities?
Hoon S. Cha, David E. Pingry,
and Matt E. Thatcher
50 CTO Roundtable: Cloud Computing
The age of cloud computing has
begun. how can companies take
advantage of the new opportunities
it provides?
By Mache Creeger
67 Revitalizing Computing Education
Through Free and Open Source
Software for Humanity
The humanitarian focus of socially
useful projects promises to motivate
community-minded undergrads
in and out of Cs.
By Ralph Morelli, Allen Tucker,
Norman Danner, Trishan R. de Lanerolle,
Heidi J. C. Ellis, Ozgur Izmirli,
Danny Krizanc, and Gary Parker
Distinguishing Citation Quality
for Journal Impact Assessment
Andrew Lim, Hong Ma, Qi Wen,
Zhou Xu, and Brenda Cheang
Research Highlights
article development led by
queue.acm.org
84 Technical Perspective
Maintaining Quality in the Face
of Distributed Development
By James Herbsleb
The Critical Elements of the Patch
Management Process
Thomas Gerace and Huseyin Cavusoglu
Review
Learning to Build
an IT Innovation Platform
Rajiv Kohli and Nigel P. Melville
76 Boolean Satisfiability: From
Theoretical Hardness
to Practical Success
satisfiability solvers can now be
effectively deployed in practical
applications.
By Sharad Malik and Lintao Zhang
85 Does Distributed Development Affect
Software Quality? An Empirical Case
Study of Windows Vista
By Christian Bird,
Nachiappan Nagappan,
Premkumar Devenbu, Harald Gall,
and Brendan Murphy
94 Technical Perspective
Where the Chips May Fall
By Sachin S. Sapatnekar
Global Software Development:
Where are the Benefits?
Eoin O Conchuir, Pär J. Ågerfalk,
Helena H. Olsson, and Brian Fitzgerald
Ranking Billions of Web Pages
Using Diodes
Rohit Kaul, Yeogirl Yun,
and Seong-Gon Kim
About the cover:
one of the most effective
methods for designing
tools and technologies for
blind users is to observe
how they interact and go
about their daily lives, say
kristen shinohara and
Josh tenenberg in their
article on page 58. the
cover represents a famous
quote from helen keller,
as explained on the inside
front cover. the symbols,
though much larger than
readable braille, were translated into braille by alicia
kubista using an online braille generator.
95 Statistical Analysis of Circuit
Timing Using Majorization
By Michael Orshansky
and Wei-Shen Wang
Attracting Native Americans
to Computing
Roli Varma
Technical Opinion
What Drives the Adoption
of Antiphishing Measures
by Hong Kong Banks?
Inranil Bose and
Alvin Chung Man Leung
