bjking's blog

I really enjoyed this class overall it was a great experience from beginning to end especially starting with the history of computers and working out way up to what the future of computers may hold. I have always been into computers since as far back as I can remember and taking this class helped me further my education in computers and information technology.  Learning about the history of how everything got started technology wise was awesome. I was fascinated and I was really happy that I wasn’t working full time and was able to actually be here for class this semester I am really glad that I came back and took this class again. It was a memorable experience that I am glad that I got to share again.

I really enjoyed the middle section of class actually getting into the technology and seeing how things work. The assembly language project was really cool and informative in helping understand how computers actually perform the task they do. Learning more about networks was fun. I have always been really into networking computers. Getting computers to talk to each other is something that has fascinating to me. The database section was cool too it was really educational. And the programming was really cool as well. The scratch project was really fun i got to tap into my creative side.  The security section was cool but a little scary learning about how vulnerable an unprotected computer can be. Learning about hackers was a little upsetting as well.

The last section of class was probably my favorite. Delving into the what may come in the future of technology was really awesome. The lego mindstorms was something that I was looking forward to all semester and it definitely lived up to the hype. I had and incredible time learning how to program them. it was almost more fun when it didn’t work the way we wanted it to cause then you had to go and figure out what went wrong. Again I had a lot of fun throughout this whole class and I hope everyone else did as well and everyone who takes it in the future.

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Since my middle school days i have played games such as everquest and world or warcraft and final fantasy and other games like this and played around with second life and similar virtual worlds and i find it rather fascinating. I like this sort of game because it is a nice escape from the real world and you can do things in game that you couldn’t imagine doing in real life. I mean you can’t really wake up and think “I kinda feel like going to kill some goblins and selling the skin from them” a favorite past time of mine in everquest. But there is a down side to these virtual worlds as well, i have seen marriages fall apart because people are so addicted to these games that the real world ceases to exist to them. I dunno I almost got to that point when i realized that i had spent a month of my life in game but i managed to pull myself back into the real world. But i believe that there can be a happy medium there.

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I enjoyed the topic of artificial intelligence it really does blow my mind thinking about a machine that can come close to thinking. Yes programs run and do what you tell them to do and robots will walk and talk and dance….. when you tell them to, again still fascinating but when they decide to do it on their own that is was is awesome, and yet a little unsettling I personally don’t see a future ruled by machines and where humans and enslaved or die out but still it is an unnerving thought that if we were to create something that was as smart as us what is to stop it from creating the next generation. Like i said i don’t really foresee it happening but if i were to go out i think going by the hands of a robot would be a pretty cool way to go. I really enjoy video games a lot and they do seem to be advancing almost exponentially and i am looking forward to where it is going.

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I have been very interested in robots as far back as I can remember they have always fascinated me and actually getting to work with the lego mindstorms is awesome. I really enjoy writing a piece of code and watching how it comes to life through a physical medium and honestly when it doesn’t work the way I want it to is almost more fun than when it works cause you have to go back and figure out what went wrong and where and how to fix it so while playing with toys you are learning problem solving skills as well. The videos that we watched about the robotics were really fascinating as well the great race was an incredible thing to watch.

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Learning about security was almost a scary thing knowing what people are capable of and how vulnerable a computer really is. It made me almost positive that I will never use internet banking again and really weary of ordering anything online. Although learning about how hacking originated with the phone lines and everything was really interesting and the idea of white hat hackers is really cool thinking that some people actually learn how to hack into computers actually do it for a good reason. Again this section was scary but very fascinating at the same time.

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I had and absolutely amazing time doing my scratch project it was incredibly fascinating digging into my imagination and making it come to life. Programing is something that I am Interested in but not something that I think I would have the patience for to pursue a careen doing it, scratch was really fun but I don’t know if I could delve into a true programming language. I was really proud of my project even though it was rather simple, I have shown my project to a few people and they all said that it was really cool and that they could even conceive how to do anything like so that made me smile. But at any rate I am really glad that I got the experience of doing this project.

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going through the process of hand coding and html site on my own has made me develop a whole new respect for websites that I visit, I tend to not be so judgemental of a website if it doesn’t look so fancy, I’ve come to realize that it isn’t as easy as it may seem there is a lot of work that goes into designing a website and making it look just the way you want it to (or the way that everyone else wants it to) and trying to get links and images to work exactly the way you would like isn’t a cakewalk either so again I have a brand new respect for web developers and anyone who has to deal with html on a regular basis. Like I have said in previous posts I would like to delve into this in the future but I don’t know if I have the patience or the mental capacity to do it for a living, I tend to lean towards the networking and communications side of things I get a sense of accomplishment when I manage to get computers to talk to each other and do it well. As far as databases I enjoyed learning more about them. I took an applications course in high school and got a small dose of how they work but seeing the structure of them and how they work internally was really interesting again not something that I would probably get into career wise but I enjoy taking in as much info as I can about computers and learning how they work inside and out and value every ounce of information that I can take in.

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Yes I know I haven’t been to class in a while, I made the mistake of taking on a third shift job and have not been the best at waking up on time, this has been a problem and I have recently let go of this job, I messed around and screwed up with this particular assignment (html handcoding) I ventured into this last semester when I first started into this class and got a pretty decent website built but didn’t get far enough into class to actually get it uploaded, I still haven’t got around to doing this semester and I am really starting to regret my decisions anyway, through what I have experience in the world of hand coding html I really enjoyed putting the raw source code out there and then opening it in a browser and seeing what came out of it, it was really fun seeing what you can do with just some text, characters and with some tags and what will come out of it. Seeing your creativity broken down into letters, numbers, and symbols and see it rebuilt in all it’s glory through html. It is something that fascinates me and something I hope to delve into in the future, again I am really sorry that I ended up in the situation I am in and the particular way that I went about things and the effect it will have on my overall grade but it is something that I will have to deal with but I am glad that I had this experience in the past and in the present.

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Despite all the complaining I heard about the assembly language stuff I really enjoyed it, it seemed to more or less tie everything that we have been studying together. These first couple of weeks haven’t really been too terrible hard for me but then again I have been through the a good bit of this class already so it clicks a little easier the second time.

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here is the list of parts for my computer

Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield 2.8GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80605I5760 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115067
EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR LGA1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188055
Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC “compatible with Core i7/Core i5″ Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371015

Kingston HyperX T1 Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 Desktop Memory Model KHX2133C9AD3T1K2/4GX (two of these) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104204
Western Digital RE4-GP WD2002FYPS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Hard Drive -Bare Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136365
HIS H587FN1GD

Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161329
LG WH10LS30K 10X

Blu-ray Burner – LightScribe Support – Bulk – OEMhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136181

Sunbeam 9 Bay Acrylic Case – UV Blue http://www.xoxide.com/sunbeam-9bay-acrylic-uv.html

Quad Red LED 120mm Fan x3 http://www.xoxide.com/quadledred12.html

I would start by mounting the mother board to the case along with the power supply, then put the processor in position and mount the fan onto the processor using thermal compound, then put in the ram chips, then  mount the hard drive and optical drive, then connect the optical drive and hard drive to mother board using the appropriate cables, then put the video card into the pcie slot then attach the case fans close the whole thing up and plug it in and see if everything works

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