Eight million. It was New York City's estimated population in 2000 an online population projection showed, or the population of Austria, the California governor's home country. Today, there are also about 8 million people in the world wandering the virtual realm of "Azeroth," as users of the highly popular video game "World of Warcraft.

It's registration time. Log on to CSUN's Web site, select interesting classes and be amazed as a brand new computer program, artificial intelligence technology, suggests which academic majors should or should not be considered. A computer doubling as a student advisor is just one of the possibilities that may one day become reality through futuristic software currently being studied at CSUN.

Microsoft's Windows operating system has been the company's pinnacle software. It has catapulted the company's name in the technology hierarchy. Almost every personal computer on the planet runs a version of Windows, and people have familiarized themselves with the program for years.

To a student, taking lecture notes and doing research can be the most tedious of tasks. Students constantly struggle to raise their hands in class or deal with the old Dewey Decimal System. They need another source of information, one that is accessible and relatively easy to use.

In the pursuit of academic excellence, stress can be a student's most challenging obstacle. Grades and social lives often suffer. Even more alarming is the fact that unmanaged stress can greatly diminish a student's overall quality of life. Executive Order Number 792, issued by California State University Chancellor Charles B.