ssbrasher's blog

When I began this class I really had no idea what direction I wanted to go with my computer science career. Now things are starting to come together and I feel more confident about the degree or degrees I will pursue. Dr. Browns class is the ideal course for anyone looking for a career in information technology, he covers every area in the course with enough detail that when you are done there is no reason why anyone person can’t have a good inclination as to what direction they what to take.

As I looked back at my own experiences in the class I realized that my final goal, as it stands, is going to be a bachelors degree in cyber security. All though, I could easily find myself repairing personal computers for a living. I chose cyber security because lately I’ve developed a curiosity in criminal minds and how they operate. And with the Internet becoming more and more used by those minds I think it be a good career in the making.

There are a few areas that I enjoyed more than others. Security is one obviously since that is the direction I want to take my career. But I also took a real liking toward AI, Virtual Reality, and Gaming. I know I said that I don’t play games much anymore but I have a feeling Santa might bring my daughter a Wii for Christmas and if that happens I could find myself enjoying winter inside on her game console. Because these games and programs have so much to offer now it’s hard not to just look on with amazement.

One final note, Dr. Brown way of teaching is definitely innovative and unorthodox. I have had two years of college prior to this class and haven’t seem anything like it. His methods maybe different, but they are without a doubt more interesting and appealing from a students standpoint. I say this because I personally get board real easily and he kept my attention better than most of my other instructors thus far while teaching everything the course required. I will recommend this class to anyone wanting to learn the basic history of computer science and looking for direction within the field.

I have to admit I’m beginning to see why so many people are addicted to games. The challenge of creating the perfect character can have you investing some serious time on the program or game. I did have some difficulty with the second life program at first, the site kept crashing. If I had more time I would have liked to have made multiple changes to my avatar and really create something outragous, but as it stands I was only able to make minor changes to his facial features and the colors of his wardrobe. The world of virtual reality is truly amazing though, people can escape real life just with the click of a mouse and become anything or anyone their imagination desires. The possibilities are endless. I, myself was once a role player of dungeons & dragons,  and I can still remember spending as many as 6-7 hours in a room full of people. All of us tried to out-do each others imagination creating the most interesting and incredible imaginary being we could think up. Now we can go online and bring our imaginations to life. Real cool, real cool indeed.

I think that artificial intelligence is sorta scary and wondrous at the same time. on one hand if we are someday able to implement a program into a artificial life form that allows for it to completely understand human thought and conversation we could end up dealing with a new form of evil of which the likes that the best story writer couldn’t even imagine. Common sense is the key, along with a strong sense of life’s basic morals. On the other hand the possibilities for good are endless many of life’s less than favorable jobs could be passed off to this AI freeing us to pursue more pleasurable careers. If I were a leader in the field of AI and robotics I probably wouldn’t push the issue of intelligence within robots too much. I think I would concentrate more on building a being that was intelligent enough to perform everyday tasks and really had no thought process outside of its regular tasks.

I guess I have seen to many doomsday movies to see how a AI with thoughts and emotions could be a good creation. The last thing we need is a bunch of robots struggling with some sort of moral delima.

This weeks lesson was really cool. Using the lego-robots “sorry can’t remember what they are called presently” as a visual aid is a good idea. This actually will keep me more involved with the lesson and I won’t be as likely to loose interest.

I noticed that the programs for the bots seemed fairly simple to write and understand. I look forward to this weeks class. And getting to write and experiment with the bot. Also I look forward to learning more about what it can do with the right commands.

I found the security section of this course to be particularly interesting. I had no idea that a hacker at one time was a good thing. I was always told that hackers were the cause of the, pain in the butt, viruses that invade my PC on a regular basis. And even though I had heard of most of the problems that hackers can give a average user with their malwear, I never realized how many different ways they could invade a computer. This whole section really make me want to be evermore cautious about what kind of information I leave on my computer and make sure my virus protection stays up to date. On a lighter note, I would have loved to see the phone phreaks in action. The idea of calling someone using a toy from a box of cerial is almost cartoonish. I guess you just had to be there.

The new Alice program I’ ve installed is really cool. This is what I have been waiting for in the IT program. I really want to learn how to program and design a good game or website. I do realize I have a long way to go but the more hands on this stuff gets the better I feel about my choice in a major.

The Randy Pausche video was down right inspirational and to be honest I felt like he had to be one of the strongest individuals, just to get up in front of that crowd of people that he seemed to be very close to, and speak without breaking down into tears. I have a great deal of respect for him and what he accomplished in his life. Even though it was sadly cut short I believe he accomplish probably more than I ever possibly could. It just goes without saying, person can thrive even when death is stairing them square in the eyes.

I’ll be honest I really enjoyed building my web page. It wasn’t as fancy as some of my class mates web pages, but I was pleased with the over all outcome of the project. I just wish it had gone together a little more smoothly than it did. the images really gave me fits though, and what’s worse is when I finally figured out why I was having problems it wasn’t me it was really my home PC that was the problem and not the way I was adding the images in my notepad. Oh well, that why we call it learning. It just seems that most the time I’m learning the hard way.

I am so disappointed in myself. The pseudo computer should have been a relatively easy assignment for me, but instead of getting the help I needed I chose to try and figure it out on my own. Well, as you can see I failed to get the assignment done and what’s worse is I knew better than to do this assignment that way. The only thing I could figure out was how to plug in the asembly language to get a machine code and even then I didn’t really know what was going on.

Dr. Brown if you read this “which I am assuming you will” I apologize for not paying more attention to your lecture, even though I’m really the one who will suffer from not using my common sense and just asking for help. I will say this though, it won’t happen again. the good news is I was able to get something out of the software powerpoint. I had know idea that microsoft made so many millionares and that the company was created before I was even born.

http://www.tigerdirect.com

I’ve never been one to comparison shop so I will get my parts from tigerdirect, I did, however, look at pricewatch.com and geeks.com and seen that if one was on a tight budget he or she could purchase some refurbished equipment at a substantially lower price than buying new stuff. I don’t know how reliable this used equipment would be but its there if someone needs it.

Building my new toy

1. I will lay out my motherboard and install the CPU.

2. Lay CPU cooler on top of CPU snap into place the plug it into motherboard.

3. Position memory cards into correct slots.

4. Place back plate connecter in computer case

5. Align motherboard in computer case connect it to back plate then screw it in.

6. Pull out Hard-Drive cage and put new HD in cage.

7. Put HD back in Computer case and screw into place, replace cage cover on case.

8. CD-DVDRW is next… it should just slide in and screw into place.

9. Plug in the power, reset and HD LED switches to motherboard…. be sure the HD LED is positive to positive and negative to negative.

10. Put power supply in case making sure it gets optimal ventilation then screw into place.

11. Install video card it should snap into place and then tighten down a screw.

12. And now start connecting all the cables and fire-wires these  should all be pin or slot friendly.

13. Plug it in and install windows to see if it works. Then hopefully if all is well get the windows updates. And don’t forget to install the drivers.

14. Finish putting the case together and its finished.

My parts list consists of the following:

Motherboard- Gigabyte G41M-E S2L  , 

 CPU- Intel Core i7 870

Computer Case- NZXT ZERO 2 Craft Series Full Tower, 

Optical Drive-Sony Optiarc

Hard Drive-Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB

Power Supply-XION Power Real 1000 watt

Cooling fan-TR2 M3 CPU Fan

Video Card-XFX GeForce9400 GT 1GB

Memory Cards-Patriot 4GB DDR2 RAM 2GB USB Drive

Keyboard-Microsoft Wired Keyboard ANB-00001

Mouse-Microsoft wireless mouse GBA-00022

Monitor-LG 23″ 1080 LCD monitor

Now assuming I haven’t screwed up anywhere and all the cables came with their respected equipment the PC should be operational. If a cable or to is missing ” which sometimes happens” I will ordered what is needed. I chose the parts I did to get the most memory possible, I love to copy songs and make all kinds of crazy CD’s. I do this mainly because I hate to hear the DJ’s talk on the radio. Soon I hope to be doing other stuff like using more sophisticated applications on my PC, as well.

I have to say that I found the whole truth behind how computers are writen to be really interesting. I had no idea that 0,1’s was the starting point for a computers informaton, and I had only heard of binary code. I never actually knew what binary meant. I will be honest; though, I still have a hard time calculating hexadecimal and octaldecimal’s. Who knows maybe someday I’ll get it.

 The quizes aren’t too bad either if you just pay attention to the powerpoint slides. I have to admit I have never had a class quite like this one. So far I dont mind everything being on the computer, it is just taking some getting used too. I do like the layout of the powerpoint comics, it is definitely better that stairing at a boring textbook all semester. I look forward to the rest of the semester