Well, the semester has finally came to an end i I feel like it had just started for this class. Wish it could have gone on longer. This class was by far was the most interesting and funnest class i’ve ever had. I took this course just to try it out because im still undecided of my major. After taking this course i now think im going to major in computer science.

I never really knew a whole lot about the computer world but Dr. Brown went over all the aspects and made it really interesting. We watched so many interesting videos and did alot of fun stuff and it made me wanna come to class everyday with an exciting attitude. My favorite part of the class was building a computer, the scratch project, and playing around with Unity 3D.  I learned how to convert into binary which I thought would be hard but it really wasn’t. I learned some really cool things about technology and how it is progressing. After Dr. Brown showed us videos I went to my house and showed my roommates right away. This class was awesome!

Im really going to miss this class because it went over many different topics of computer science and now I’m off into my journey in networking. Dr. Brown told me I should take some programming courses as well and im excited to hear that he is teaching a course next semester. Dr. brown is a really great teacher and knows what he’s talking about so for all future students thinking of taking this course do it! I’ve learned so much out of this course and hopefully my journey in networking will be as fun as Dr. Brown made this class.

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When we were working in Lab on security, I think, Dr. Brown showed us his Unity 3d project he was working on. I had no clue what it was but thought it was really cool. So later that day I went home and downloaded it and started playing around with it. I found it really difficult to learn so I just YouTube a bunch of tutorial videos and started making my own project. I found it to be very addictive. Its still pretty tough tho because there is so much you can do with it. Its pretty easy as long as you know what your doing. So, Dr. Brown let us use Unity instead of Alice which I thought was awesome because Ive already been familiarizing myself with it. Virtual Reality is pretty fun. I like starting from nothing then coming out with an amazing product.

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This week we still got to play with the mind storms. I picked one that another class built which was made to shoot rubber bands and fooled with that one. I made it to shoot a rubber band whenever the sensor picked up something moving. I also made it turn 90 degrees every 5 sec. I thought it was pretty fun but wish I had more time to play around with it.

Before taking this class I never knew how sophisticated technology was getting. To see that not being able to tell man from machine is in the near future is pretty scary but also exciting as well. Makes me wonder what the singularity is really going to be like and what are the consequences of it. I would like for machines to be able to be put in our brains because my memory is horrible and it would be cool to be able to remember every little thing. But AI could be taken too far placing people out of jobs and what not. Makes you think maybe the movie the matrix really is going to be the future.

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This week were are playing with the lego mindstorm robots. On tuesday i couldnt make it to the lab cuz i popped a tire on the way to class but i was able to make it thursday. I had some catch up to do with figuring out how to build and program them but i quickly got the hange of it. It reminded me alot of the scratch program but instead it sontrols a robot.  I think robots one day are definantly going to be a huge part of our lives one day. I honestly cant wait for the robot industry to really take off. It will make life so much easier

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Growing up hacking to me seemed like you had to be a computer genius to do it.  But what i learned this week in class is that it is very easy to hack into anything that has software. I didn’t know that all hacking is was doing something to the program that it was not intended to do. Like putting source code in the search engines or pressing random buttons on a coke machine. I think its pretty interesting because it gives you a chance to learn more about that device or software. Like phone freaking, those guys were learning all kinds of things about phones and how they worked. I believe in order to fully understand something you have to know ways you can hack into it. That’s why i thing security is very important for securing private information.

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My first impressions with programming was that it was going to be very hard. Im sure it is when you get down to the very bone of it but using scratch made it very easy. Its like all the programming is done for you, you just have to put it together the way you want. Kind of like editing. What I want to find out is how you program something out of nothing. Like, how scratch is made. What programming techniques were used so that all you have to do is drag a task over and it will do that task. I think programming is very interesting and fun because you can create almost anything you want. There is so much stuff you can do with it. In class Dr. Brown showed us Unity and what he made off of it so I went home that day and downloaded it and cant stop making stuff. It takes alot of time but its worth seeing the final product.

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Ive always wondered how to make a web site and put it on the web. I’ve always thought you had to pay someone for a spot to put your site on. It turns out its very easy to do this once you get the kinks worked out. I ended up having a little trouble with uploading my html to the database because it only accepted 1 of the 4 photos I had. I think its pretty amazing how I can just write code in word pad then upload it on a database then bam! everyone can see it. This week Dr. Brown showed us SQL. I thought this was pretty interesting because I see a lot of companies use SQL. It seems pretty easy you just have to think through the steps.

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I really enjoyed creating a web page using html. I never knew that you could create one by using note pad or Microsoft word. I thought you had to but some kind of software that helped you do it. I learned that it is fairly simple. All the code is very basic and easy to understand. I had a little trouble figuring out how to do the tables though. I also learned that it takes a lot of time to get it just the way you want it. I designed my writing to be three different alternating colors which took forever to write but it was fun. I think having a job creating web sites would be a lot of fun.

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     At first I was somewhat confused about how this simulator worked. I didnt understand what I was suppose to be looking for. All I saw was numbers generating other numbers and wanted  to now exactly what was going on. So I asked Dr. Brown and he explained it to me in a little more depth and now I get the concept and seems failry simple. All your doing is typing in code which turns it into a binary code. That binary code is recognized by the RAM and then puts it into the registers to calculate it. Knowing how to convert Binary really helped me on this one because I can see in my head the actual numbers its producing.  Programming seems to take a very long time to do but its whats needed for all the programs we use today. The only thing I dont understand is how to program something within an operating system. If your using windows and you wanna make another OS is the new OS based out of windows? Or, is there some other program to design programs? Idk Im sure Ill know sooner or later.

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I chose the AMD FX4100 for my processor. I wanted to go with something cheap but still fast, reliable and great for multitasking. It has 3.6 Ghz with 3.8Ghz turbo with a quad core all at 95 watts. Ive also read some reviews and people are saying that it is very easy to overclock. Some people were getting it up to 5.0 Ghz no problem. It also has 8mb of L3 cache and also comes with a heatsink and fan. Ive always heard AMD doesnt compare to Intel  but with the price of this new processor and the reviews it has I think this would be perfect for my new set up. Price: $109.99

For my motherboard, I chose the Gigabyte GA-970a. What caught my eye for this was that it has a USB3.0 controller which means for super fast USB data transferes. I love music so this really helps when transferring data to my iPod. It also has 12 usb slots. This board is both fast and stable. It also has many options of other hardware I can install and is future proof. Im not much of a gamer but if the time comes when I decide to start playing computer games I can always have the option to install the devices needed. From the reviews it says that the board is very durable, easy to install with every component labled, and is very reliable. This board sounded great for my needs for the price. Price: $99.99

For the RAM I chose the Corsair XMS 4GB DDR3. I dont play games or anything that would need more memory so I decided to go with a trusted brand for a cheap price. I Can always get more if I need to. The reviews were great on it and seems very reliable. Price: $21.99

For the graphics card I chose the Sapphire 100322L Radeon HD 6450. From the reviews its a good card for the price. I wanted a GC for playing blue ray and just good enough to play high end games if I decided. The GC is fast and quiet which got my attention. It also has an Hdmi output! Price: $44.99

The one thing I was most excited about was picking out a sound card. Again, I love music and I have an awsome surround sound system so I wanted to get a high quality sound card within a certain price range. The Asus Xonar DX 7.1 is a dolby supported device that produces 35 times more cleaner sound than the onboard audio. It has all the ports I need for the surround sound system I already have. Price: $94.99

The one thing im looking for in a hard drive is the noise it makes. I wanted a super quiet hard drive so I went with the Seagate Barcuda 7200. Its capasity is 1TB  runing at 7200 RPMs with 32 MB of cache. From the reviews it said it was ultra quiet and works efficiently. I useally dont store too much info on my computer so i think this would be sufficient for my needs. Price: $ 139.99

For the disc drive I chose the LG -10x Internal blue-ray combo. I wanted to have a blue ray player in my next computer so I thought I would go ahead and get the combo. It reads and writes discs and also has Lightscribe which you can create labels on your disc. It has 4mb of cache but the read and write speeds don’t seem very fast but I don’t really care too much. For the price I think this would suit my needs. Price $79.99

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The case and power supply I’m going to buy together. I thought this Apevia case looked cool and it also comes with 3 quiet fans. Also what I liked was the LCD temperature reading on the front so I would always know when my system was getting too hot. Also I thought this power supply looked cool. It is a Apevia 500w which exceeds my power requirements by 200w. It also has a cool led fan! Combined price: $119.98

The Samsung Syncmaster P2570 lcd monitor is probably the sexiest monitor I have ever seen. I want to be able to use my computer as a tv as well so I wanted a big widescreen for my monitor. It supports 1080p digital video input with an hdmi input. Price: $366.00

I chose the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard. It has a comfortable feel with back lit lighting. The key strokes are quiet and little effort is needed. Its slim and lightweight. Price: $49.99

This Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse looks incredibly comfortable. It can operate on almost any surface and is wirelessly operable from up to 30 ft away. It has a touch scroll system on the front so all you have to do is slide your finger. Its a bit pricey for a mouse but I would love to have one. Price: $59.99

Total Computer Cost: $1,187.89

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