My Blog

This blog is going to attempt to sum up the semester and everything I feel I’ve learned. I think the thing that sticks out most in my mind was the week about processors and the videos we watched about howAMD and Intel made the processors. I had no idea at how much went into making all the tiny switches in a processor. It was mind blowing at how layered and numerousthe switches were. The week I feel I missed out on the most was the week about viruses and mal-ware. I was out one of the days so I was a little lost the second day when Imade it to class. I have always been interested in how mal-ware and viruses were made and the effects they have on your machine. I just feel because of my own fault I missed out on a good week. Something I didn’t like about CSIT1110 was the Blogs. For me to write a blog is like pulling teeth, blogging isn’t a way I choose to express myself. I think I would rather write a paper at the end of the semester. Other things I liked about this class was learning about how computers came about and the history of them. I thing the concept of Moore’s Law is mind boggling. The week about machine language and computer languages were great. I had no idea that telling a machine to do simple tasks is extremely time consuming and there is a lot of attention to detail involved. Binary code was really interesting to me. I looked up how to translate binary code but I didn’t know about the ASCII table and how it all worked; how 0′s and 1′s are the base of computer’s foundations. The one thing that sets this class apart from the other classes I have taken over the last few semesters is the teacher. Dr. Brown takes dedication to teaching to a new level. He goes out of his way to put all kinds of information about technology out there for the students to learn and so we know about current events and technology in the media. This class was amazing and very eye opening, my only regret is I wasn’t told I needed to take it before I took Java Programming and that made it a little harder for me to grasp Java P but it was still a great semester!

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This week we talked about graphics, greenfoot and Alice. After this semester of programming classes i have taken i feel like my eyes are opened to how layered game code must be. I play the mmo Warhammer at the least a few hours a day, some days i have played for upwards of 12 hours. Its addictive and loads of fun. Looking at the graphics of this game i cant imagine how one would start to even imagine the code that it required to design and maintain. I also play the call of duty games. These games’ graphics have been improved from game to game and it seems that they are at the point that i don’t understand how it can become more realistic. I hope to continue to grow in knowledge in programming and one day I would hope to be on the staff of a major name video or computer game!

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This was the last week our class had to work with our mind-storm robots. I feel i have a better understanding of the difficulties of trying to tell a robot how to do the simplest tasks that we do instinctively. The robot we programed in class could only do one thing and that was follow a line around a circle and it was hard enough to get it to do that. By the end our robot could drive jerkily around the circle as many times as you wanted it to but this seems like very basic stuff. I would like to see the code Sony or Honda had to write to have their robots do karate forms. I bet that code is just as amazing as the processors in the robots. I would like to say thanks to Dr. Brown for allowing us to use the robots and the personal equipment he bought for them.

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This week in class we started looking into robots and what it takes to program a robot to do basic tasks. We even built a Lego robot that we are to program in class. We watched a few clips off of YouTube.com about the advancements in robotics that companies like Sony and Honda are making, it was incredible. Dealing with the Lego robot is going to be awesome. My only regret is I’m not the most creative person on the fly so I was stuck with making the generic robot design out of the book. I would have rather made something a little more interesting. I worked with the program to build directions that the robot receives and interprets into instructions. At first i thought, piece of cake, but later realized its not as simple as I was thinking. This up coming week we will be looking more into the programing of the Lego bots and hopefully gain some skill at telling these lil buggers what to do. thank you and have a good day.

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I think i have missed a week of blogging I’m not sure. but this past week we learned about malware, viruses, worms and spy-ware. I miss one day due to a root canal but i think i would have rather been in class. I have had viruses and Mal-ware type things on my computers before and its no fun. I have dug a few out and made things better but i never really understood how the malicious programs actually ran on my computer till this past week. It was pretty crazy how simple viruses and worms seem. If they were only that simple to get rid of. I actually got some kind of security spy-ware on my computer this past weekend. It wouldn’t let me access the Internet or any system tools to do a back up. I had to reinstall my OS and re-do all the updates on it. The reformat took close to 5 hours to finish. I wish there was more time spent on malware just because i think it is an interesting topic. I would actually like to know how to write a malprogramm. Just out of curiosity, not to harm anyone else’s system.

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Week 5 we were introduced to HTML code and how websites work, are built, and laid out. I forgot about that weeks blog, but it goes along with this weeks blog. I thought it was fascinating to learn that all a web sight was made up of was a few simple commands placed in and around text. I also thought it was neat at howweb pages are laid out in tables, made up of columns and rows. Every time I log onto any web page now I immediately notice how many columns that the page was made from.

I had  a lot of fun making my own  web page too. I created a rough draft on paper of how I would like my page to look. It look great on paper but when I put it in HTML my page of text was just a few sentence on the web page. That created the look of not having much text on my web page. Other than that little bit of trouble everything else was pretty awesome. The tutorials helped me get some extra practice that I needed. I wish I would have put more time into the web page that I made but I am now working on a personal web page just for the fun of it.

more next week on programming.

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The simulator was pretty need. It broke down an showed step by step how a computer carries out commands. I still feel like I’m not drawing a line between a few dots here. I can understand programming when it comes to math and simple programs like we have covered this far in the semester. I understand the transfer into assembly and machine language and then into binary but im not seeing how complex games are writen. I’m thinking the understanding may click together later in the semester.

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what to say about week three… It went by extremely fast mainly because i didn’t go to class one of the two days. This was because the release of the new Halo Reach game came out and i stayed up way to late playing it. But speaking about the one class i did go to it was interesting. I never really wondered how a processor chip was made but after seeing the inner works of Intel I was impressed! The depths of circuitry that goes into making a processor was mind blowing. Once again the class was made interesting and fun by our teach. I really regret missing the Thursday class seeings how this is the only class im going to enjoy this semester.

Now to build my computer. my list of needed componets.

Plexiglass for my PC case. Hard drive, CD-ROM, Processor, Processor cooling fan, mother board, memory modules, video card, keyboard and mouse, monitor, and the power unit.

129$-Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 2-TB 64mb cache SATA 3.0Gb/s http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=15&name=Hard-Drives

283$-Processor: Intel core i7-860 2.8ghz LGA 1156 95W Quadcore processor http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=34&name=CPUs-Processors

39$-Processor cooling: Zalman 2 ball cpu 1300-2650RPM http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=11&name=Fans-Heatsinks

119$-Motherboard: Gigabyte GA p55 U5b3 Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=20&name=Motherboards

91$-Memory modules: G.Skill ripjaws series 4gb http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=17&name=Memory

199$-power supply: Rosewill lightning series http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182239

149$-Video Card: Gigabyte GV-R57750-1GD Radeon 1GB 128-bit http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=38&name=Video-Cards-Video-Devices

41$-Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=234&name=Keyboards-Mice

15$-mouse: Pixxo wireless mouse http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=234&name=Keyboards-Mice

179$-Monitor: Samsung 21.5″ LCD http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=19&name=Monitors

23$-CD-Rom: ASUS 24x DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=10&name=CD-DVD-Burners-Media

This is the parts like prices and links to the Hardware I would like to use to build a computer. For lack of a better operation system I would go with windows 7.

These parts would be assembled in their own place inside of my home made constructed PC case. The reason I plan on making a see through case is because I have always thought the inner workings of technology is extremely fascinating and I thought to see how things are arranged inside a computer would bring something extra to my computer. The reason i chose these parts and devices for my computer was based on a medium to higher priced range for quality a good reviews. The over all function of the computer will be strictly gaming. I didnt have any suggestions other than the suggestion to buy parts from newegg.com. I have spent alot of time on this but i might be missing out on a few items. I read that most parts bought will come with the needed wiring and connections so i didntboth listing them. I know that there will be a variety of screws and fasteners ill need as well.

Thanks for reading

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Well week two has come and gone. I enjoyed the class again and look forward to next week. This week we went over Binary, Hexadecimal, and Octal. I already knew how to preform the math for binary because of my own curisosity and the aid of google but had never heard about hexadecimal or octal. I now have a better understanding of binary as well as hexadecimal and octal; I cant help but feel the class is moving a little slow right now but i think the reason i feel this way is because im also attending the CSIT1530 class. Nothing in CSIT1110 that has been presented so far has been boring i just cant wait to get to the hands on stuff. More to follow next week.

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This will be my first blog post eveeeeeer. I’m going to be bloging about my current CSIT1110 class. So far it has been two days into class and I am feeling like I’m going to really love it. My current skill level with a computer is very basic and I don’t really know alot of the computer jargon or terminology but I’m not to worried. This is a subject that I am extremely fascinated with and as I am a fast learner I’m sure getting the ropes will not be so hard. Our teacher Mr. Brown seems to know his stuff and I feel like he is a teacher that really cares about the student. Mr. Brown has gone the extra mile when it comes to teaching with all the extra posts and twitter updates. More to come on the class and how I am grasping CSIT1110.

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