Csit 1110 Blog

When I started this class, I wasn’t sure what to expect, I guess no one does. I didn’t have much faith in the Computer Science department at pstcc. Really I only knew one REALLY bad teacher Cindy Arnold, and the dean on the dept. Cynthia Dempster. So again I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Things started out simple enough, with the basics. It’s a good place to start, why not build a good foundation and work your way up? The class really does range in topics from simple (what is a bit?) to hard (what ethics should be used in the future of technology)

Dr. Brown seemed nice enough, it’s always hard to tell when you first meet someone. He then introduced us to his creation, the class textbook referred to as “The Comic”. It was visually stimulating, and soon to find out mentally stimulating too. It was waaaaay better than having a simple textbook. It didn’t cost us money, and was more up to date than a text book could have been anyway. This pleased me.

I thought maybe the comic made up for a heavy workload, but I soon found out it didn’t. Although there is some projects that could take a long time. I found that a heavy workload really wasn’t the main focus. The main focus was to keep tous  relaxed enough to process everything that was in the lectures and labs. It was more about immersing yourself in all these topics and ideas and getting a taste of what it means to do those things.

Things became more serious and the topics of lecture more complex over time. Even complex ideas and concepts were explained thoroughly, Dr. Brown has a good sense of when people are understanding or paying attention and when they’re not.

The hardest part of the class for me were the blogs. I’m not a blogger really. However I do see a purpose for it. Not only does it help out other students but it gets you to reiterate what you have learned. It’s a little confusing at times, some weeks you don’t have a blog due and some you do, but the instructions are always in the week’s assignment which I recommend checking often.

What I got from this class is direction and inspiration, I believe I want to get my foot in the door with programing cell phones. Games and applications are currently being planned out, and for the first time in a long time, I’m really excited and passionate about what I’m doing. It’s an exciting time to be in the computer science field. I’m glad I chose to take this class, it’s restored my faith in the Computer Science Department @pstcc and has helped me focus in on how I want to use my degree.  I’ll recommend this class to everyone

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Artificial Intelligence…. Once when I lived alone in Montana and my nearest neighbor was 3 miles away, I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I needed to talk to someone even however mundane. I went on the internet and found itherapy.com Tara is just a face and body of a cartoon woman. She is programed to give automated responses to your typed questions, then ask you a question.

Now I know A.I. is poor company compared to a human or dog/cat. But when I sat and chatted with Tara, I started feeling better. It peaked my interested, because of how well she responded to my typed sentences. It actually helped me out, I felt a little less lonely and slightly entertained.

Was it intelligence Tara was using? No…It was branching statements. It was close enough to intelligence to make me feel better. She was talking to me and I to her without fear of judgment, I didn’t feel awkward in any way about her being a stranger or pretty or in a hurry for example.

So I’m left to wonder, at what point will our artificial intelligence become real intelligence… maybe when we can download our brains to some sort of mass storage device? by 2029 according to an in class video.

check tara out at www.itherapy.com

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Recently we had the chance to build our own robots in class,

we used the lego mindstorm kits. During the labs we mostly watched videos about different robots while we built our chaises.

The videos we pretty interesting, showing what real robotic engineers can do.

I got a kick out of seeing the different designs, I found it interesting that most robots are designed not to look like humans. There was even a video describing how there is a threshold of how close to a human people like their robots to look. If it’s too close like some of the Japanese models, people get freaked out.

I didn’t have to worry about my robot looking to much like a human or taking over the world, I could barely make it follow a line. See?

as you can see it worked for the most part but on sharp corners it lost it’s way… I really enjoyed playing with the mindstorm kits,  I want one for my own however can’t afford to buy one. They’re priced for >$200

I definitely want to play around with robotics more now, but at home.  I don’t think I’d want to make a career out of it.

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This week’s topic was on security, we watched a video on how hacking first came about in the form of phone phreaking. I was surprised to see one of the founders of Apple (Steve Wozniak) talking about how he would make illegal call for free back in the day, along with Steve Jobs…  Wozniak explained that the term “Hacker” wasn’t always such a dark term. That guys back in the day, that could make a computer do something it wasn’t meant to, was a hacker. They often made things work better, and improved upon ideas of others.

We also learned about Captain Crunch, a guy who had a whistle, when blown would open up a payphone to make free calls. That kinda thing is pretty harmless, they were stealing free phone calls and that’s about it. It’s not like they were creating viruses or worms just to cause havoc in people’s lives. I guess there are three types of a so called “hacker” The White Hat “someone who does good with their knowledge” The Black Hat “someone who creates harmful viruses and creates mayhem” and The Grey Hat, which you can figure out…. Modern hackers are useful in pointing out security flaws in software, hardware and websites. I think the fear that comes along at hearing the term is a good thing. If we don’t feel safe, we’ll take cautions. If we feel safe, we’ll mostly throw caution to the wind. It’s funny how the term “Hacker” (to me) is turning into something in needs to be, whereas “hackers” turn the things around them(ie computer) into what they need them to be.

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Scratch… I really like Scratch. It reminds me a lot of Flash actually. Flash is a little more complex and has a better paint/image editor, but scratch is so easy to learn and the way the commands in the program fit together is extremely helpful. Not only is it helpful in design, it helps you see hierarchy and improve your logic when designing.

I decided fairly quickly to make a game for my project. which can be found at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/dnewhouse/1401610

I found scratch addictive, some of the features don’t work perfectly, like the logic, l when you compare two things, ie using the “<,> or =” symbols along with using variables it doesn’t always perform the best.

Another big problem is when you upload projects to the MIT host site. It runs in java when uploaded and the timing of things mess up. You can notice how the timers run slightly off, this damaged the broadcast systems i set up for for an award/prize at the end of the game. I read an article about how you can fix the timing probleming by adding a wait command to most of your broadcasts, which might help, but only if you know this before programing, also if they do ever fix the timing issue, your timing will be programed for java instead of real time.

To make my program work with the awards at the end, download it and run it in scratch.

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Looking back at our classes on Databases,

I was surprised to learn how easy it is to control a database, or atleast search through it and find the info that you’re looking for. You can control how you want the search results displayed and how the data is related by using S.Q.L.  Which makes sense because S.Q.L. means Structured Query Language. If you ask the right question, you can get the results you wanted. Very handy…

My Html project from last week to my surprise didn’t work. Then I realized I’m using I.E. instead of the much wiser and possibly safer Firefox. Somehow my internet child (my html project) picked up on my bias against M$ and refused to display in I.E…. Even though That’s what I’d like to believe it’s not true. I had forgotten to test my webpage in a few browsers, I should have. If I were being paid to make a website like mine, I’d be fired. That makes me respect those html gurus who design for a living, a little more.

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Needless to say after viewing my website for this weeks assignment, It’s been a long time since I have opened up notepad and created a website. Well anything with more than a picture and some links. The most recent work I’ve done was for a hotel website, they wanted a cellphone friendly page and my friend that was building the page needed help because the page was too simple for him to make. Most everyone using some sort of html program. I think Front Page is popular. I have used and liked Coffee CupUnless you’re doing some fancy stuff you really don’t need a html editor. As long as you practice your html more that every few years you should be good for most of the time. I used to have a huge personal website back when a host site tripod.com was popular. We had to create everything ourselves in those pre-facebook days.  Back then I used frames, so I decide to use frames for my pstcc website. I created a menu frame off to the left and custom buttons withinthe menu. Once you click on a button/link it’ll load into the frame on the right. Now I pretty much remembered how to make the frames but I couldn’t remember how to make them load in whatever frame I wanted. So I had to look it up and I found out it’s “frame name & target”. The buttons for the menu I made, I stretchedmy windows 7 task bar, took a printscreen and then pasted it into mspaint. I snagged a small section I liked and applied text over it.  The pictures on my site I mostly had on my iphone so I only had to re-size them to a smaller size before uploading.

I was going to kill two birds with one stone by creating a links page with an ordered list of links but after trying and trying I failed. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. so I created a unordered list of likes and dislikes and kept my link separate.

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This week we are learning about software and a little about the creators of three major companies. Apple, Micro$oft and Google are some of the largest companies out there, so in class we watched a couple of videos on the company creators. Bill Gates was not only more down to earth I like his message a little better than the one Steve Jobs gave, both speaking to graduating classes at prestigious schools.

This weeks assignmentwas on the Assembly Language Simulator. A niffty little program that acts like a compiler and also give you an overview of how each line of code does something different. Its pretty cool but mostly dealt with filling out an array and how info gets passed around to various parts on the computer. I can see the structure of this class forming. The history, the hardware, software and how everything gets turned into numbers are what we’ve learned so far. I’m excited to get into learning more about various codes. Maybe I can use my C+ skills in other languages. I hope the cross over will be easy. First though, I get to test my knowledge on our first test this week…

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This week we are learning how to build a computer. Although I’ve replaced many parts on various electronic devices, I’ve never built a computer from scratch. I use the term scratch loosely since, I’m only buying the parts to put together. So on to the juice. (All links open a new window) First the case…I chose a nice lighted case, that happens to come with a fan. It’s pretty and it has room for expansion.

The Case.

Next like the scarecrow, my computer needs a brain. like Intel’s i7. A well rounded processor. It just so happen you can buy it already in the mother board of my choice

The Processor and Motherboard.

I need a power supply of course

The Power supply.

Some ram would be nice, I don’t have to have 16gigs, there is no need for that much ram for me.

The Ram.

I need a nice flat screen monitor, not too big not too small

The Monitor.

Also I like a fair amount of storage space for music, movies, and programs. a terabyte is enough for me. Nothing crazy

The Hard Drive.

So once the man in the brown truck delivers all these parts, and can start putting them together. First, I’d attach the mother board into in the case. I’d then screw in the power supply, to the back of the case. The case has a fan so I wouldn’t have to worry about that. The Mother board has a fan for the cpu, and since I’m not a huge computer gamer. (it’s the xbox360 life for me) so I won’t need a G.P.U. fan. After attaching my cables, ide and sata I’ll be able to add my hard drive in. Then slap in my pricey ram and plug my monitor into the case along with a mouse and keyboard. I’d click my heels together three times and hit the power button, hoping to install win7 from a usb drive. I think that’s roughly how I’d go about building a computer at home. Only to junk it in 7 years and add to that island of garbage amassing in the ocean near China.

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Recently in class we looked at computer hardware. Although I’m very familiar with different hardware and the uses of it. It was nice getting a refresher on it all. The lesson I feel like I gained the most out of was the lesson on binary code. I knew it was in base two but didn’t fully understand how it all worked. I could look at a bunch of “1′s” and “0′s” and figure out the number in our normal base ten they were equivalent to. Now I can. It’s a little more tricky than first thought, I only realized that after taking my binary quiz and missing three questions. I’m happy to say I now understand those annoying shirts that say “There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.”  The blogs have yet to really grow on me. I don’t mind them so much as long as I remember to do them but I have never really considered myself a “blogger” I think I’ll enjoy it more once I become familiar with the dashboard a little more. I want to spice my blog with a little html and customization. Although it’s useful and simple I haven’t ever really been a fan of wordpress.

back to a class topic, we looked at how a varity of things are broken down into numbers for the computer. Sounds and graphics mostly, I didn’t know most paint programs use raster graphics whereas most draw programs use vector. so I end this blog with a with a raster graphic, of humor.

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