Semester Summary
April 29, 2012
In this intro to information technology class during the spring semester of 2012, I learned much more than I had anticipated. We covered so much and yet still somehow were still able to dip our feet into so many different topics. For instance we not only were able to work with and build our own robots, but we also learned so much about how they work, the history of there creation, and what defines a truly conscious being, and also what defines a smart robot. In order to be considered smart does it have to have common sense, does it have to always give the right answer, and does it need to be able to answer more than one question or problem?
I feel like we received the knowledge necessary for a good base in any Information Technology major. We covered everything from how a computer actually works using transistors and binary numbers, all the way up to Robots, AI, and Virtual Worlds. Along the Way we covered several things that I feel stuck at as more important. Such as using the Assembly Language Simulator, to gain a better picture of how a computers Central Processing Unit (CPU) works, the methods used in software development and the planning/design process involved, including algorithms to help figure out how to make the programs work. Some other important concepts I learned about include the Von Neumann architecture, Moore’s Law, and the Machine Cycle. I am still blown away that Moore’s Law has been approximately correct since he created it, and the rate that the number of transistors is increasing for a defined space is crazy. The size they can make flash drives now, and still have incredible memory space is just plain impressive.
The talks that we had in-class about the topics each week did a really good job of not just looking at how things work, but also how they affect our lives and the lives of the people around us. The fact that almost anyone can get on the internet and social media sites such as YouTube, and report news, or share information with other people has really changed people lives, and had an effect on how some people do business. Rather than grabbing a local newspaper and reading the latest news, people can simply have the latest news streamed live to their smartphones. The way we view technology and the way it is appearing more and more in our households is going to change the way we live, and our expectations for a standard of living. I think that technology is leading the way into the future and and changing the way the future looks day by day.
Virtual Worlds
April 29, 2012
I used to play several different games, on several different platforms. About a year ago I stopped playing World of Warcraft. Before I stopped playing WoW I had three max level virtual characters, including a dranei Shaman, a human warrior, and a night elf druid. I enjoyed playing WoW and had lots of friends that I played with, we had a clan and used to raid dungeons weekly. I miss those days sometimes. the World of Warcraft is a magnificent game it provides an entirely open ended world, where user controlled avatars can roam freely and battle creatures, monsters, and other Users. The pros are that you can escape into a world where your fictional fantasies can come true, and you can live a fictional life of sorts through your avatar. The Cons that caused me to quit playing are that the game took too much time out of my real life, cost a little too much, and kept me up to long into the night. The game is very rewarding as far as your in-game character goes, giving away prizes for completed quests and dungeons, and out of game in the sense that you can make new friends. The experience of leveling your character and gaining more xp, new perks, and abilities, is very fun and extremely entertaining. I also play several games on the Xbox 360, primarily playing shooters and RPGs, but I also enjoy racing and sports games.
Robots
April 16, 2012
What do I have to say about robots, that’s easy They Are Awesome. Tricky to program, and build but so much fun and so cool. Me and my partner built a small bot using Lego mind-storms parts, it drives on dual treads and steers like a tank. It is very much a tank with its voice activated main cannon, which when loaded will rapidly fire a serious of “deadly” rubber bands. The robot uses ultra-sonic sensors to determine its distance to objects, and avoid collision with them. I had a lot of fun with this project and was quite pleased with the results the robot produced. I hope you enjoy this video post of our robot in action.
Security and Hacking
April 16, 2012
The thought of having a virus in my computer frightens me. Especially if it is a powerful one, I do not want to lose any of my data or preferences, and I really don’t wanna give away any private information.. My PC works perfectly the way I like it, and I don’t want it to be tampered with. The Lectures and material have made me a little more cautious with what I download, or receive from other peoples PCs. I feel like I am better prepared to defend myself against viruses, Trojans, and worms etc… The abilities of malware and its potential for the damage that can be caused are in a way awesome.
I can respect a sound program, I don’t appreciate a virus, but I still respect it. I would love to gain for myself the title of hacker, not in the negative sense, but in the sense of a master of the computer. The abilities of computers and programming are increasing rapidly, and so is the potential for some seriously amazing things, and to be a master of these future technologies to come would be a great honor, and a lot of fun. Or at least I think it would.
I do not approve of someone else watching what I do with my Computer, for the plain fact that it is my personnel property, and contains some information that I don’t want other people to have access to. I think it would be fine if the government monitored whose computer accessed certain, sites, but and this is a big but, I think that they should have to appeal and provide sufficient evidence to get a warrant to watch a website. I believe that they should use the ability as little as possible and only under close supervision, and strict rules.
Scratch
April 16, 2012
I very much enjoy programming, and I very much enjoyed this assignment. Although I had never heard of Scratch, I had experience using several other programming languages. So I found Scratch very easy to use and entertaining. The program I wrote using Scratch was very tricky to get working right, it is still a little buggy, but most everything is working right. It is essentially the ground work to create a much more in-depth game. I programmed a stick-man to obey the laws of physics to a degree. He could run, jump, kneel, and stand on top of surfaces. In order to create the effect of gravity and the appearance of standing on the ground, instead of falling right past the green that should be ground, I had to create a Y velocity variable, and change the effects it was playing on the character based on his position on the map.
Apart from that I created the effect of firing a bullet, and gave the character/or player an enemy to shoot at. I also made the game capable of scrolling, so the maps can be made much larger than a single screen. It gives the mini-game the feeling as if you were following the character with a camera….that always shoots from the same angle haha.
I enjoyed listening to Randy Pausch’s last lecture. It made me wanna get up recovery as much of the creativity, and childhood dreams I had, and do something with it. After all my life is not defined by what others think of me, it is defined by the personnel goals I have, and whether I achieve them or not. I don’t need fame or fortune, I only need to realize my dreams and go for them.
HTML-2
April 16, 2012
I have an entirely new outlook on the web and how the system is simply, yet not so simply made up of the PC using a browser to read html. How the browser sends a request to the DNS to fetch the ip address of the server containing the webpage or, the servers that will process the request to build a webpage, and then it is sent back to the computer, and read into the format we see by our browsers.
It is funny for me to view the internet this way. Even though I know it is the truth of how it works, I still have this feeling like the internet is something that is alive, always moving and changing.
SQL and databases was easy as pie, and very enjoyable too, I find the joy of solving a puzzle when I successfully build and relate a database. Then to see my queries show up exactly as they had been planned to be. SQL can be very fun indeed, but the part I do not enjoy about databases is data entry. When first starting a database there is just to much repetitive typing of the same pattern, even if you copy and paste the insert statements it gets a little bit boring.
The usefulness of databases is not lost on me. I have seen how essential they can be to a business. My fathers business uses a database to help manage inventory, sales orders, invoices, transfers, bills, and much more. The database that he uses however is very out of date, and as such requires a rather large amount of knowledge of the database, and its workings.
Working with HTML
March 16, 2012
I must admit I did not really enjoy working with HTML. Although I did feel the power, and recognized the capabilities that a Hyper-Text Markup Language provides. I did not like how tricky it is to format a webpage to exactly the way I wanted. I was quite pleased with how my webpage turned out. One of the abilities that HTML provides that especially helped me were tables. After I learned how to use the tables it was much easier to format my webpage. All in all I don’t think I would like to make webpages for a living but the abilities and need for Webpages and people who can create them is much more evident to me now.
Assembly Language Simulator
February 13, 2012
Learning to use the ALS was much easier then I had thought it would be. It was very interesting to watch the simulator go through a process similar to what is occurring in the CPU of a computer. I like how words and numbers can be assembled into binary code, that the CPU knows how to read, and then spits Binary code back out as a result. SOO much is going on inside my computer at such high speeds, even when I am doing something as little as typing letters.
I had trouble visualizing how a computer actually interpreted 0s and 1s to mean anything more than just 0s and 1s, but this lab helped me to see how that process takes place. I feel like the idea behind how a computer actually works from Input to Output makes much more sense now.
My Cheap small and Competent PC
February 5, 2012
With the creation of my PC, I tried to build a smaller computer. I wanted it to still be powerful enough to do some gaming, but also tried to make it as cheap a build as possible without losing too much abilities. Here is a list of the computer parts I found.
I Chose the Steel ATX Mini Tower with a built in 500W power supply. Because it is one of the smaller PC cases available, that still provides enough room to pack everything I wanted in. The case only cost about $31 Dollars.
The Motherboard I chose for my PC is the ECS H61H2-M2(1.0) LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard. It is a Micro Board and very cheap, it received great ratings and is supposed to provide a lot of bang for its buck. It has a built in sound card, but the video card is not included. The Motherboard cost about $70.
I Chose the Intel Pentium G620 Sandy Bridge 2.6GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80623G620. Although this chip is a deal at $70 it still has the processing power required to do gaming, and according to reviews is still quite a reliable CPU.
The RAM I chose is the Kingston ValueRAM 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3N9/2G for about $16 dollars. It is not anything special but 2GB should be plenty enough for what I was trying to do with this PC.
The Video Card I would purchase is the: PNY VCGGT4301XPB GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card. It runs for about $65. I chose this card because it was an NVIDIA and had plenty of memory size and a good clock speed. Should be able to handle gaming as long as I don’t run them at the Highest quality.
The Hard Drive I chose is a: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive. It is a refurbished drive that still gets plenty of rep from users and only runs for $70. 160GB is plenty of Space for what I would be using this PC for.
I also included a ASUS DVD Burner Disc drive for $21 Dollars. The disc Drive price was covered by a deal that was available for that week with the purchase of the Hard Drive.
I have extra monitors lying around but they are all rather outdated and low quality. So I included this Acer S200HLAbd Black 20″ 5ms LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor, for a discounted $89.
I already have a keyboard, mouse, and Speakers so I didn’t included them in my list. They are nothing special but do the job I was looking to get done. The Total cost of all my Equipment is $411 Dollars and the Abilities I expect out of this computer for the size of the case is well worth that price. The last thing I would probably include is a aftermarket cooler because I don’t want my computer to overheat, if I start over clocking it.
All the parts and pictures were found on www.Newegg.com and prices are based off the prices the website presented. I also talked to and had help from my friend Seann Gloss who has experience building several PCs. He offered plenty of helpful insight as far as what brands to avoid, and what to look for in certain parts.
Binary Numbers!
January 29, 2012
I really enjoyed learning about the binary number system. The fact that computers can only store 0s and 1s. Yet computers have the power to do so much. I am kinda geeking out about how cool base 2 is. The way that the hexadecimal system was explained really helped me in learning to go between base 2 and base 16.