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This is James Nelson for the last time for the CSIT1110 class blog. Here is my personal reflection on what I have learned in class. The class has been long and interesting and we have learned many things. There has been a few things that I had already known and there were things of course that I didn’t know.

It all started back with the Greeks which we hear many stories about from all different kinds of things. I’m sure people today who live in the Information Age find it hard or difficult to see how things used to be to how they are now. Since robotics, computer’s, and other things have been around since before Christ, myself I don’t understand how we aren’t further advanced than we are now. Before Christ there were Greeks who made autamata and other things like birds and stuff that flew. Since people were smart enough back then to do things like that, and build pyramids, and all of the other great wonders of the world, isn’t it weird how things are only just as far as they are now. Some great minded people have done some very wonderful things, which are things we enjoy and look at everyday. It seems like we have got different and great things from each era since the beginning of time. I do love living in the age of the computers. I love my video games, as well as my big flat screen TV and high definition movies. The things I had when I was a kid compared to what I have now is more than crazy, which also goes back to why we are not further advanced than we are now. How can we go in less than 30 years as far as we have had, but not be more advanced in thousands of years. Why are our buildings and structures not built like they used to be where they last what seems like forever, and today stuff may last what we consider awhile which is really not a long time.

We have learned about very many things and people this semester. We have learned about computers, relays, vacuum tubes, resistors, integrated circuits, and microprocessor’s. All of those things I have learned about throughout my life, not just in this class. Hardware and software is another thing we have learned about, which are very important things which the computer can not operate without. Machine Code and Assembly Language are also other things a computer need to function. Graphics, audio, and video are also very important. In today’s world with the Blu-Ray and 3d graphics how they are evolving are getting greater and better with each passing day. I own a few high tech gadgets, but I do not have a Blu-Ray or a TV that does 3d. I hope to one day have them. Things are getting better each day as technology advances and it will continue to grow. I have learned a good bit in class and don’t have any complaints.

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Virtual Worlds & Games are a big part of the lives of very many individuals. Some people take the gaming experience to a level which is what I consider unhealthy. Some people’s live’s revolve around games, and they would rather play games than spend time with loved one’s or go to work for that matter. It’s like an addictive drug that’s hard to turn down. Depending on the game you are playing, it is hard to put down the controller. Video games are very relaxing and can be stressful at times. I find it more relaxing than stressful. You can see some people who play who may throw the controller at the screen or break stuff, which is completely absurd. I don’t understand fully how one can get so mad at something they can do over again and again. Some people may not like the repeat process, but hey that’s part of playing, not everyone can be perfect every time. Playing a game can put your mind at ease and make you feel like you are one with the world you are in and have created. Going through the world’s and experiencing the game play makes you feel sometime’s like you are there. When you sit and play a game for hours on end you do kind of have a sense like you are there or wish you were there. I have started playing a new game for the X-Box 360 which is Alice Madness Returns. It is a very interesting game, where you are Alice from Alice In Wonderland, and she is evil and demented and fights through different worlds killing different types of enemies. The worlds’s and graphics in the game are amazing and the game is challenging. I am playing the game on the experience one lower than expert, even for a first timer, and I will admit there has been a few times I felt like pulling my hair out at a certain part. Even though I may have felt frustrated at times I have not got pissed off, broke things, or chucked things at the TV or across the room. I have not had a whole lot of time here lately to play games as much as I would have liked due to class work, which takes up very many hours due to homework. Class is almost over though, and it’s about time to pick back up on the gaming for a few months, until next semester. To all you gamer’s out there keep on playing, and use the gaming for a stress reliever and not for a way to take frustrations out on TV’s etc… Below are a few images from the game.

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This week I continued working on the robotics lesson. I learned a lot of information that I did not know over the course of the last two weeks as well as some info I did know, being it is stuff we have learned in class so far. There is loads of new and useful information available to look at as well as boring and useless stuff. I have found more stuff that I found useful this semester than not. Also during this week we started learning about artificial intelligence. Programs appear to be intelligent. Are the programs really intelligent? I think not, but the person who invents the AI software or game or whatever it is, seems like a very intelligent or group of intelligent people. The AI field is a nice and interesting field to be in. I’m sure it takes very many man or woman hours to produce some of the quality type programs that they come up with. As far as AI, it has came a long way over the years and will continue to get better as the years pass, but it will only be as good as the people who put time and effort into it. There is question as to if artificial intelligence will ever be able to know answers to responses without having to be told, and at the rate of how things are going there could be a possibility, or maybe not. Only time will tell what the future holds, and the technology will get even better and more advanced.

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Hello again from James Nelson. This week we are learning about robotics which is more than an interesting topic to learn about. I was not able to experience working with the robots first hand, but I would had liked to experience it. Since I wasn’t able to work with the robots I did a research project on the history of robotics of some stuff I found very interesting. Some of the info I did research on is of some stuff our great teacher Dr. Brown has touched base on some this semester. Robotics according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics states that robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots.

Robotics from what I found is dated back as early as 350B.C. Archytas, a brilliant Greek mathematician, builds a mechanical bird that was called “The Pigeon”, and it was propelled by steam. This was of course what was dated from 350B.C. The next thing I found on record was another Greek person known as Ctesibus, who was an inventor and a physicist, designed water-clocks that had movable figures on them. The Greeks were fascinated with automata, self-operating machines. They used them in theater productions and religious ceremonies.

It’s not until many years later in 1495 that Leonardo DaVinci developed a mechanical device that looked like a armored knight. It’s internal mechanisms were designed to make the knight move like there was a real person inside. Robots built during the medieval times were built to amuse royalty.    

Image from http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Leonardo-Robot3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo-Robot3.jpg&h=1370&w=1370&sz=273&tbnid=Upf-lF5yOibJVM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=91&zoom=1&docid=AX51wRJvz4OoUM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=663ITvW2B4bNtgfZ9_CMDA&ved=0CGAQ9QEwAg&dur=9

We now jump ahead to 1738 where Jacques De Vaucanson begins building automata. He builds three in all. One is a flute player that could play twelve songs. The second automata could play a flute and a drum or a tambourine, and his last was the most famous which was the duck. The duck he called “moving anatomy”. The duck moved, quacked, flapped it’s wings, ate, and even digested it’s food. 

In 1770 Pierre Jaquet-Droz and Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz created three different dolls that all had different unique functions. One doll could write, one could play music, and the last one could draw pictures. In 1801 Joseph Jacquard builds a loom which is automated and uses punched cards, which are used later in the future as input methods for computers. We have learned about a guy in class by the name of Charles Babbage, and in 1822 he demonstrated a prototype for his “Difference Engine”, he continued his work by trying to design “The Analytical Engine”; that was suppose to use the punch cards inspired by Joseph Jacquard’s invention. Charles Babbage was called the “Father of The Computer”, but he never produced a functioning machine of either project. Info on the “Difference Engine” can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine Another person we have learned about in class this semester is Nikola Tesla, who in 1898 built a remote controlled boat at Madison Square Garden. In 1926 “Maria” which was Fritz Lang’s female robot, was the first to be projected on the silver screen. Another set of things we have learned about in class are the Three Laws of Robotics. They were made in 1940 by Issac Asimov. He later adds a 4th law which is called the “zeroth law”.

“Artificial Intelligence” came about in 1956. this is a form of artificial intelligence, but not an example of anything from 1956. There are very many different things in the AI world. Heinrich Ernst develops the MH-1, which is a mechanical hand at MIT in 1961. Here is MIT’s website http://web.mit.edu/ they have tons of neat stuff to look at on their site. The next year General Motors introduces “The Unimate” which is an industrial arm robot used to complete repetitive or dangerous tasks on the assembly line. A few years later in 1966 Shakey was created at The Stanford Research Institute. It was the first mobile robot to know and react to its own action’s. Later SRI developed something else. Can you guess what that may be? It’s Tide laundry detergent. I guessed that wrong too. In 1969 Victor Scheinman creates the Stanford Arm. He also does the Silver Arm in 1974, which is capable of assembling small parts together by using touch sensors.

Hewy, Dewey, and Louie are characters from a cartoon show I used to watch as a kid called Ducktales, but the one’s from the movie Silent Running from 1971, are robot drone co-stars by Bruce Dern. In 1977 almost everyone’s two favorite robots of a classic movie are made and a big it, and those robots are from Star Wars. R2-D2 and C-3PO are their names. They are probably two of my favorite robots along with Johnny 5. 

In 1979 the Stanford Cart is rebuilt by Hans Moravac. He adds a more robust vision system allowing for greater autonomy, which are some of the first 3d mapping experiments recorded. During this class lesson we learned about a guy named Seymour Paport who publishes Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas in 1980. The direct drive arm is built in 1981 and it’s the first to have motors built directly into the joints of the arm. LEGO and MIT Media Lab in 1986 colaborated to bring the first LEGO based educational products to the market. Honda also begins a robot research program during that year. In 1989 MIT introduces a robot by the name of Genghis.

Dr. John Adler came up with a robot with the concept of the CyberKnife. It does x-rays on patients to look for tumors, and the robot is pre-set with certain amounts of radiation which is radiated to the tumor in it’s patients when found. Marc Thorpe attempted to build a radio controlled vacuum cleaner, but instead he had the idea to start a robot combat event. In 1994 Marc actually starts Robot Wars at the Fort Mason center in San Francisco, CA. The second annual event was held in 1995, and another in 1996; so his Robot Wars became a big hit. 

The first node of the International Space Station was placed in orbit in 1997. Other components are set to be made and joined on the Space Station. The Pathfinder mission lands on Mars in July of 1997. In 1998 my sister got a “Animatronic Pet” called a “Furby”. It was a toy that everyone had to have. I wasn’t one of the one’s , because I thought they were weird and a little creepy for a kids toy. In 199 the well known LEGO releases their first Robotics Invention System 1.0 and it’s called MINDSTORMS. They also release The Robotics Discovery Set Droid Developer Kit and the Robotics Invention System 1.5. In 2000 they release MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System 2.0. They also release MINDSTORMS Ultimate Builders Set in 2001. The popular Roomba, which is a robotic vacuum cleaner, was released in 2002 by iRobot company. In 2004 Cornell University revealed a robot of self-replication. Cornell University revealed it’s “Starfish” robot in 2006. Tomy was released in 2007 which was an entertainment robot. It has “Special Action Mode” and it’s a humanoid which can walk, perform kicks, and throw punches like a human. Robonaut 2 is the latest generation of space astronaut helpers. They were released in 2010 and will one day go outside the Space Station and help with repairs or additions on the Space Station.

There are many different things throughout the history of robotics. There are very many things I may have not mentioned, but I tried to cover a good variety for you to read. The world is ever changing and will continue to grow and so will the robotics world. I hope to see great new things come about and I cant wait to see what does come out next.

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Hello again this is James Nelson for week 9. I have now been working on my scratch project for a little over a week now and I have made the scratch project for my new daughter Aeriana. She was finally born on October 17th at 5:57 p.m. and was 7lbs 7oz. She is the most precious little girl in the world. We have had a bumpy start and a few problems. Momma had to have a c-section to get the baby out and after the baby was born we got to spend a few hours with her before the dr’s took her away from us and took her across town to UT Neonatal ICU. She spent a week in ICU hooked up to all kinds of monitors and had an IV ran to her, but she is fine now and finally home with us. Since then momma has had to be re cut back open due to complications, but she is getting better and improving daily. I have been behind on the last two lessons and have been trying to play catch up and it’s been quite difficult. I have spent many hours in between sleeping and spending time with the family working on my project, but I think and hope it’s good enough to pass my assignment. There are many things in the program that took many times to figure out how to get what I wanted, and there are many things that I do not know how to do. Looking at some of the projects posted on the website from other users, there are some very talented individuals whose programs are wonderful. I hope to sometime make another Scratch program that is at least half as good as the others I have seen.

Hacking and Security are important things in the computer world these days and the need for both are in great need and improving daily. Without hacking our government wouldn’t know as much as they do about different countries and other things that we wouldn’t normally know. Hacking can also be a bad thing; it just depends on what context it’s used for. Nowadays hacking is used for the greater evil instead of the lesser good. People shouldn’t do wrong things, but this isn’t a perfect world, so you can’t expect much. Security is becoming a bigger thing and it is getting a little better for people’s safe keeping’s to stay safe and well. Myself personally have only had one problem with someone gaining access to my debit card information , which has been a few years now, and since then I haven’t had any problems. With my help and a great bank we figured out how to fix and resolve the issue at hand. Our world is getting better and worse on security issues and it will probably stay the same. This weeks lessons are very important and the topics were organized in a way I understood and liked.

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This has been a very interesting and hectic week. Trying to keep up with everything in class has been very difficult to accomplish. I have downloaded and started my scratch project only to steer away in a totally different direction with it. The information contained in this weeks lessons on programming is very interesting. We leaned more about the programming languages of the computer world which is the main thing to keep the life in computers and how they are created. The computer programming languages keep getting easier to read and write and it’s making the new age of computer programming much more of a interesting thing to get into. More people these days are getting into this type of field just for the simple fact that almost anyone can do it. I do not fully understand the computer languages, but playing around with certain programs and or features of some software, i’m learning more each day. The creation of software development is playing a big part in today’s world. People put long time and hours into making programs that are easily accessible for everyone. How some programs are setup from what they were ten years ago, is a drastic improvement. From the basic Dos prompt commands to the now actually typing in exactly what you want to do and the computer know what you want is amazing. The computer world is evermore so developing at a fast rate, and it keeps getting better each year. The scratch program is an interesting thing for beginner users as well as advanced users. The first project I was working on I inadvertently strayed away from my project and went on to do a more suitable project in relation to my new daughter. The baby was born on the 17th and we have had complications. More details next week.

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This week in the class, we learned how to do many things which required lots of time and effort. We made and created web pages last week which we had to upload to a database for web use this week. This would have to be my least favorite thing we have done in class since I started this semester.  I have had so many problems getting my page to be accessible. Every time I thought I was close to getting done, I would go to access my webpage and it would give me a forbidden or can’t access due to not having permission to access. I still have never figured out what had went wrong, but my fellow classmates tried to help me out with the problem the best they could. To get things to work I eventually deleted every file from inside file zilla and started everything from scratch to eventually get it to work. My wife and I have been back and forth to the hospital this week having bad complications from pregnancy so this added to the frustration of the assignment. By the way today is Sunday the 16th and they are taking the baby to avoid further complications tonight or first thing in the morning. I will then be the proud parent of a little baby girl, which is our first kid. The SQL and databases I have been looking at and trying to figure out and I kind of got the database thing down and I know what they are. The SQL i’m not 100% on. I will have to look more into it and try to figure it out, but as for now I don’t feel confident enough to say hey I know what that is and this is how it goes. Next week will be a tad rough as well being I will be at hospital for a few days, but i’ll keep you all posted. Till next time this is James Nelson, have a great day.

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Hello again from James Nelson CSIT 1110. This week we are learning about networks and how to make a webpage using html. I have learned a few things that I didn’t know as well as a few things that I do already know. As far as the html webpage coding goes, i’m finding lots of stuff that I do not know. I use to play around with Myspace a few years ago and add backgrounds and things to make my page look neat or cool as most would say. Creating a page for something like that was so much easier than hand typed html code. I can remember looking through a list and seeing what interested me and clicking on a button that automatically gave you a code you put straight in and it gave you the result you wanted. I never really knew that so much work and research went into making a page look the way it does. There are lots and lots of different pages to look through, and many different things you can do with html. I have done hours of research to find certain things I want to do to make my page unique to my taste. There are still many things I need to learn, and i’m sure there are many things me and everyone else may need to improve on. Page development without the use of a editor of some sort is a tad bit complicated. Just putting you code in line after line isn’t how you get your page to look the way you want it to. There are certain codes for everything. Their are codes for how big your image will appear on your page. Their are also codes for how your text shows on a page as well as the color of it and position of where your text is located on the screen. A quotation mark or a forward slash mark put in the wrong location can cause certain things to not even show up on your page. I ran into one problem where pictures I added to my page kept getting deleted off of my page everyday, and the page requested I sign into where the image originated from. I have now set up a Photobucket account to manage my pictures so I have the right codes to get my pictures to stay loaded on my page where I want them. Help from a fellow classmate was greatly appreciated in help with that, because I wasn’t really sure what I was doing wrong. I pretty much have my webpage html scripts done and am ready to learn how to upload to a server. I may go back and do a few minor changes to my page to better improve my look. Their are many things I possibly still do not know, and I will try my best to acquire all the knowledge I can by myself without the use of a program that does it for me. I have enjoyed what I have leaned so far this week, and I look forward to what more is to come.

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This is James Nelson again for week 3 and this is my 3rd blog post for the class. Today we will be talking about what steps you need and how to build a PC. First thing involved is the person building a computer needs to determine what things are they looking for in a PC and what they want their machine to do. One thing you will need would be a tool kit which you can pick up at any radio shack or at http://radioshack.com  Other things you will need are as follows, computer case (eXtreme 939PL 10-Bay Mid Tower Gamer ATX Case w/ 550W PSU & 250mm Fan) I am using the standard type atx case, power supply (Coolmax 500 Watt CXI-500B 20+4pin PSU – SLI/CrossFireX Ready) The coolmax seems like the best option for me to go with, because I want to do networking with gaming and the bigger fan it comes with will help with keeping my cpu cooler, cooling fan, motherboard(MSI G41M-E43 Intel LGA775 mATX 2xDDR3 Motherboard w/ HDMI) I chose this board because of its specs and also because of the hdmi hookup, sound card (Syba 7.1Ch Dolby Digital EX PCI Sound Card – 8 Channels – SD-CM-PCI8) I figured since i’m trying to use some of the best items I can put in why not go big with the sound card and this one does go big it has 8 channels to hookup a killer sound system, video card (Sapphire 299-R0C25-H02SA Radeon 9250 128MB PCI Video Card w/ DVI, TV-Out) All the bells and whistles with this card so not only can I hook up my surround sound system to whatever i’m listening to on my screen but I can also hook my pc up to my big screen for some serious gaming or high quality movie watching, processor (Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz LGA775 1333FSB Processor (OEM)) it’s not the best processor but for the price it should be able to run and keep up with almost anything I want to do at one time, hard drive (Western Digital WD5002ABYS 500GB RE3 7200RPM SATA2 3.0Gb/s) I’m just going with a 500gb hard drive, don’t really see going any bigger if I need more space later I always have the option to use an external which gives me unlimited options and space, memory (Mushkin 991770 4GB DDR3 PC3-10666 Silverline Desktop Memory) don’t really know much about this memory but my system i use now only has 3gb ddr ram and it seems good enough for me so going up to a 4 gb can’t hurt anything, modem (150Mbps 802.11g/n Wireless-N PCI Network Adapter Card I’m not planning on doing dial up being it is about over rated now so I’m going with the wireless setup and i use a N now so sticking with the same because i’m more familiar with it, ethernet, dvd drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and a operating system. All of those things can be bought from http://www.outletpc.com

The first thing you need to do would be to start with the case. With the case open and empty you need your tool kit and all of your hardware ready to go in. Make sure being you are working with things that can ruined do to static electricity that you keep your self grounded to avoid damage to components. After, your ready then you can start by putting your motherboard into your case. You can the attach your processor and cooling fan onto the board which are held on by sockets with a locking handle. You can then attach your video and sound cards to the motherboard by putting them into the dimm slots. A tiny screw hold them in place. You can now attach your wi-fi card or your modem if your doing dial up or wireless. You can now attach your memory chips and secure them into place.

Now you can attach your hard drive and power supply and and slide your dvd drive, cd burner, sd card slots or whatever through the front of the case. You will now have wires and things run everywhere inside of the case. So, after you hook up the things you just installed to the motherboard and they are secured then you need to take zip ties or something like that to secure your wires. This is important because all of the wires and stuff could block the cooling fan, and due to lack of space anyways. You don’t want to cause your system to melt down. Now that you have everything hooked up make sure everything is tight and secure one more time. Slide the cover to your case into place and tighten the four screws or two however many your case may have. Now that everything is together you are ready to plug in your keyboard, mouse, and monitor into the back of the tower. Now you are ready to plug in your machine and start the install your operating system. Most people use windows which you can pick up at any bestbuy or walmart. http://www.bestbuy.com and http://www.walmart.com after the computer is turned on open up your cd drive and put in your disk and let the computer recognize the disk and follow instructions for installation. When the installation is finished you are now ready to do some things on your newly built PC.

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