njfelts's blog

I realised at the end of  last semester that going to school: Spring/Summer/Fall (back-to-back) had caught up with me. Though I felt great about my accomplishments thus far I felt drained and needed a short break to re-cooperate. Now,  as my 4th semester kicks-off, I feel rested up and ready get back to learning.

This semester I am taking:

• Database Design

• Networking Fundamentals

• Windows XP Professional

•  Elem. Prob & Stats

Though, I am only one to two days in ..I have already began to realize how beneficial the CSIT 1110 Intro to Info Tech course was and is to my program.  I have entered both the Database Design & Networking Fundamentals  courses with a basic understanding. CSIT 1110 merely offered a small foresight of  knowledge on both of my current courses (among many other CSIT areas) and that knowledge alone has initiated and eased me into my current classes.

I look forward to the semester ahead  in which I will hopefully continue to surpass my shortcomings as I enjoy further exploring  the In’s and Outs of  our Technological world.

Cheers!

I managed to make the Deans list this semester pulling off  5 A’s.

                                                            AND

I stumbled across a keyboard fit for a lady geek, like myself....

http://www.livbit.com/article/2008/12/14/the-chocolate-keyboard/

Cheers!

CSIT1110 Final Thoughts

This is my 3rd semester in college. I had a bit of catching up to do, but this semester has been my favorite because I am actually working toward my degree. I have learned and I am still learning so much. This class has been very informative, entertaining, exciting, and true breath of fresh air. I have enjoyed so many aspects of this class beginning with the textbook in the form of a comic. At first I was shocked and a little baffled by the idea, and then i thought “wait, this is actually a really cool concept!” There were a few times that I felt the comic needed to offer more information, but I learned quickly that if I was careful to pay attention to class lecture all the gaps in the comics were filled during that time. The only con to this for me was that the way my schedule was this semester by the time I had an opportunity to take the quiz I had lost some important information, and my notes had not always reflected the exact things i needed to remember.

Computer History/ Information/ Hardware/ and Software

The first part of this class was indeed the most difficult for me. I really entered this course and my degree with very little useful knowledge of computers. I found myself both interested and overwhelmed in the beginning. I enjoy knowing the history of things and found the history of computers fascinating. This was the beginning for learning the names of a lot of important people and I equally enjoyed coming to understand the reasons behind what made them important. Learning about Binary didn’t thrill me, I knew it was necessary but understanding it was a slow process for me. Although I do feel I have a much better understanding of binary now than I did at the beginning of the semester. Learning about Hardware and Software was great. I was finally able to begin to understand the interworkings of computers and having to create a computer out of parts really helped me comprehend the importance of each of those areas. Building a computer forces you to research and learn a lot. The Pseudo-Computer overwhelmed me, I really do not feel that I was ready for it at the time it come along. I would have liked to done better.

Networks/ Databases/ Programming/ and Security

This section of the class really helped to fill in some personal blanks for me. I really benefited from learning how networks, databases, programming, and security all help make computers the sometimes exciting, and irritating machines that they are. Creating a web page was really enjoyable for me as it felt less like work and more like play and any time that can be achieved how can anyone possibly complain. At this point in time I really admire programmers, I don’t really feel I would be good at programming but it does interest me some and as I get better with computers it’s definately something I would enjoy learning about. 

Robots/ A.I./ Virtual Reality/ and Computers and Society

This last section of the class has been very Interesting. I had no idea how long these concepts had been around or even how far some of them have come. I was actually taken back when I realized that advancements in A.I. were slower than one might assume. The fact that A.I. lack common sense had never occured to me before learning about the subject or computers in general. I especially enjoyed the videos shown in class over the course of this particular section. They got my mind buzzing around on matters I had never thought of before.

In conclusion,  I have learned so many new things about computers.Simply a few months ago I had been feeling rather nervous and scared that I wasn’t learning or able to comprehend a lot of things. Then I realized the things I have accomplished will occur to me at different moments and times, as they have. The experiences I’ve had and the things that I have learned sneak up on me while I’m doing something or another and this realization comes over me that what I’m doing in that moment is something i didn’t orwould not have known without attending college or this class, or another class. I will miss attending CSIT1110 because I enjoyed it so much. I will also miss all the very interesting links, videos, etc. that were made available to me– there was so much i simply didn’t have the time to explore. Mostly, I will miss the energy and excitement of Dr. Browns lectures it was nice to be in the company of a professor who really cared about making class an adventure.

Cheers!

Anihtan Inkpen: 3day old Second Life Avatar.

Hello-hello.

Well, since my gaming expertise doesn’t really go beyond games and systems like The Super Mario Bros., Tetris,  and the really fantastic Wii games that are out these days,  I decided to leave reality behind for a day and create a Second Life character to enter into the world of computer gaming and virtual living. After setting up a profile I believe that I followed a link which teleported me to “Avatar Island” where I made a virtual friend who sent me “gestures” and I’m really proud to be able to make my character lolligag around while say “Bullshit, Bullshit..” It’s a real crowd pleaser. Ahem, anyway. This virtual friend spent hours with me trying to teach me things like change my appearnce and teleport around. I was even so lucky to learn how to pole dance at a club..

A few pro’s and con’s.

Pro’s: I made a virtual character, a virtual friend or two, I can fly around aimlessly for hours, and I left behind all my troubles for a while.

Con’s: I spent over an hour trying to learn how to “virtually” dress my character, about 45 minutes trying to figure out how to positon the camera to look at my character’s face to create a snapshot, and I can’t figure out how to teleport back to the club Infernal so that I might earn some virtual money “shakin it” on the pole.

In conclusion, I found it both fun and irritating. I may slip into – Anihtan Inkpen– mode sometime in the future when i feel i’ve got days of my life to writeoff to some social yet virtual interaction, but mostly I’ll probably continue playing Table Tennis or Dr. Mario it’s a mindless way to pass my carefree “me” time.

Isn’t life beautiful?  –Cheers!

Ohh. . The Joy of Artificial Intelligence.

I visited several chat-bots to discuss my broken lawn mower. Sadly, nothing came of this adventure. The bots quickly lost track of the conversation, went off subject, and became disoriented. I am a bit disappointed that  “alice”, “eliza”, nor “God” could offer an intelligent response. Seriously, not one of them even thought to, in the least, say: buy a new one (which is what i plan to do). I guess this experience has further clarified to me that it really must be difficult to create human-like  interactive bots. Science and Technology have leaps and bounds yet to go in the realm of A.I., but the experience was interesting and fun.

Cheers!

I Love Technology.

This week Dr. Brown showed several video clips and a documentary which covered different areas of robotics. I find it interesting that robots have been around or in the making for as long as they have been, their longevity had never really entered my mind until reading the class assigned comic for robotics. Like everything in life, robots have a history all their own. I also find it intriguing how life-like androids/robots can actually be.

 If I ever had a couple of thousand dollars to throw around I probably wouldn’t hesitate purchasing rumba (spelling?) vacuum cleaner. I have pets and hard wood floors and it sure would be nice to retire the swiffer. In addition to cleaning up after my pets I would love a little robot (of some fashion) that i could control or program to chase them around. Since they would most likely become desensitized to little old; rumba–Lol.

My Fear, as with many people I’m sure, is that robotics will reach a point that less human interaction is required to a point that people no longer have jobs or that people will feel that it’s no longer necessary to be civil or have manners or care about their neighbor anymore.

I really can’t say much about working with robots in class, time was a little slim when the Lego Mindstorms were unleashed at the end of the morning. Our group did get to make the robot spin around and move forward and backward.  Hopefully, more to come later. .

Cheers.

Unfortunately– I somehow over looked, or forgot about, this blog entry. Honestly do not know which..

I do have  a few thoughts and first impressions of Pausch and Alice so, I’m going to write this blog late, reguardless of missed points. The video of Randy Pausch seemed very bittersweet. He was so accomplished and it was really quite amazing to see how positive, admirable, and selfless he could be given the hand he was dealt in life. He recongnized his life as a full and complete journey-bravo that.

I’m not a big gamer type of person. I quite like the old school NES with Tetris and Super Mario Bros. it’s simple easy fun. So, my first thoughts on Alice were, lol, “well, here we gooo..”  Soon, I realized after hours of sitting at the computer that one task is  many tasks combined that require continuous testing to get the slightest of results. The program itself seems slow and buggy to me. Things that seem like they should work or would be easy to accomplish take a lot of thought and trial/error.

Alice…has definately been an eye-opening experience of the amount of work it takes to experience the life of a programmer.

Cheers.

Nothing is really ever Secure…hack.

Years ago a roommate of mine sat me down and demonstrated for me that he could go into someone else’s computer and take control of it from his. When I asked him why he did it and how many times he had. He just laughed and told me that he did it for fun just to see if he can. He was real into flight simulator games and had groups of friends that he flew with and he liked to sneak in their computers and mess with them when they flew.

Viruses Happen..to you, me, and everyone.

A little more than a year ago my parents Internet was turned off at their house, confused about it, they called the cable company. They were told that their computer was so drastically infected that they were in turn infecting other computers on the network. If i remember correctly, the cable company was less than polite about telling them to have their computer fixed before calling back to have their service turned back on. My parents were dumbfounded.

Yesterday, The bank closed my debit card because 7am yesterday morning somebody got a hold of my number and made 2 online purchases on my account totalling nearly $400.00.  How lucky am I?

The bottom line really is that we are not ever “safe” from people looking to simply “have fun”, destroy an other’s property, or commit fraud.  These things will continue to happen in our technological world, and society will deal with it, dismiss it, and carry on.

Cheers!

Uploading my web page to a server was a rather straight forward process. After finishing the page i was looking forward to seeing it up on the site.

On My Computer the page seemed like a good first try at HTML,  all the pictures, links, and words worked great and I felt that the time i put into the assignment really showed.

Wow, I was surely mistaken.

After I posted all my pictures and the actual html document I followed the link and realized one of my photos did not work. It was a frustrating process going around and around trying to fix the problem, everything I tried failed. With no time left to change the page I had to live with the fact that one photo would not be viewable.

The following day, while at school, I looked up my page to view it on one of their computers and was really disappointed. Not only was the one photo, that i was aware of, not viewable but all of the other photos were distorted in some form or another too. It was embarrassing and disheartening to look at after the time i put into the page.

In conclusion, not only could I not figure out why the one photo didn’t appear but I have a funky distorted web page floating around out there that i can’t explain or comprehend what happened to it.

Ah-Ha, ha, ha..  I  had fun doing the assignment regardless.

Cheers!

HTML

This has probably been one of the most fun assignments that i’ve received in college, to date! It can be frustrating at times, yet overall I have enjoyed being able to do something creative.  The perfectionist in me is definately seeping out.  I am nervous, however  not knowing if pictures and links will work properly.  They work for me on my computer and i sent the file to a friend (who has an identical computer) and so far has worked for her. I also sent it to two of my parents computers and i was told that things looked funny on one of them[colors were different and no pictures] (i have a sneaking suspicion that it’s a browser issue on that particular computer-not positive) but the pictures did not work on either of their computers?? I wasn’t there to look myself nor was i able to tinker with them.  So I am uncertain of the issue.

I would say that i’m about 75-80% done with my web page. Though, I know that I will edit until the last possible moment and still feel like there is more I could have done in the end. Though, I am enjoying this assignment I feel that I will be happy when it’s done because it consumes oodles of time and brainpower to perform the repeat process of: do, and then save, fix, and then save, edit, and then save, etc.

Cheers!