CIT112 Ch12 Discussion

I don’t personally see the negative impact of joining a grid computing community. I think that it could be helpful. SETI at home has been a runaway success as far as providing an opportunity for people to become involved in something that interests them. Societally I see it as a positive interaction. If people feel like they can make a difference, then they might be more willing to be more attentive to issues and sensitive to needs of science. It would be mind boggling to know the amount of available idle resources across the country. It would be interesting to see what would happen if an end user could lease out their computing power to for-profit companies. It might make it easier to hedge the cost of a reasonably powerful computer. I would be more willing to buy an apple Mac-Pro quad or 8 core tower if I could lease out it’s abilities while I was at work, which is at least 8 hours a day. As far as The feasability of that type of interaction, I will predict that it will become more realistic when we go to fiber to the home, or at least 10-50Mbps up and down to the internet. It surely will be interesting to see that develop.

I think that most of the grid computing projects out there are legitimate, I don’t see why any business would want any type of information to be out there being compiled or processed on a stranger’s computer. They have to worry about viruses, and corrupt data, and the like, so I think it makes the whole idea fairly safe. Of course opening certain ports or downloading anything to be “run” or processed on any computer places it at risk for certain attacks. Installing any type of software can be risky, especially if it’s a network/communication based piece of software. But not so much different than running AOL, MSN Messenger, or ICQ. I remember back when people used Telnet to “chat”. So risk is always a factor, and whatever the risk, there’s always another side to consider.

Every flop makes a difference when it comes to computing large amounts of data. So does it make a difference? Of course it does. How much of a difference depends on the amount of processing power an individual has and is willing to share. Someone who runs a host program on an 80-486 is barely going to make a difference compared to the same host software running on a quad Xeon server. But every little bit still counts.

I don’t like the idea of faux grid computing communities abusing their members by running data that is commercially based, unless it has been explicitly stated. I’m not talking about in the fine print of the de-facto EULA either. I think if an organization is going to do that, they should be upfront about it, and I’m sure the community members would have no problems with it. It’s a case of “waht they don’t know won’t hurt them” however it is unethical at best. I think it should be more obvious to the owner of the computer as to what is happening with their computer, afterall they do OWN the hardware, and they have every right to pull the plug at any point. I surely wouldn’t appriciate my pc being used to develop the next biological warfare agent, or crack the code of a foreign government, or to convert part numbers for a large warehousing firm. If I sign up for SETI@Home, I want to be processing radio signals, period, unless they said otherwise.

I do think that grid computing within a company is a very good idea, I work for a company that has roughly 400-500 workstations, and many of them are old, slow, and borderline useless. If a grid computing environment could help even out the experience of the users, then I’m all for it. Of course that does open up things for certain attacks, and our grid could become the victom of a hacker or something, but I would feel confident that we wouldn’t have a big problem. In that instance grid computing would be very beneficial. If I were running a large firm that was involved in graphic design, and had many powerful workstations I would deffinately utilize grid computing to create and compile the 3-d graphics that made me money. I think I would keep it restricted to my local area network, but I would deffinately impliment such a scenerio.

Donated cycles are just that, donated. Not unlike donating a t-shirt to the Salvation Army. The donator can’t have a say in what kind of back his or her shirt goes on. The only notion involved is the donator understands this fact before they decide to donate. There is an incredible amount of waste in this country, I’m sure were not unique either. It would be interesting to see how a dictatorial country would try to control the use of computers within it’s borders. I wonder what would happen if, lets say, China or Iran forced it’s citizens to have grid client software installed on every computer that wanted to be on their “internet”. Allowing their government to have free access to this resource, it’s an interesting idea. I wonder if Americans would gather together and rallye like we did in WW2 to help our government succeed in “winning the war” Perhaps instead of buying ration stamps, or recycling aluminum, we could donate our idle time to help the government compile high resolution 3-d images of the terrain in which our soldiers are fighting. perhaps we could all analyze satellite imagry for the NSA or the CIA. Perhaps we could all “pitch in” with a “Flops for freedom” campaign. I don’t know, perhaps it’s something that will spark a new-old attitude in the lives of Americans. Perhaps it would make the challenges seem less challenging. Maybe it’ll be the next big idea, who knows, it sure would be interesting. I can hear the conspiracy theories now. I would participate if NASA wanted to try grid computing in the public sector. I would be honored, as long as they were honest about it.

CIT112 Ch8 Lab

Well, I failed to complete the chapter 5 Resume builder project, and I take full responsibility for that, so I’ll take my hits as far as points on that one. Needleess to say I have nothing to review, other than the fact that I let myself down with not doing that assignment. I really don’t have enough time to go back and complete that one and this one by tonight, so I’m just going to have to move foreward…

I think being a Web page designer would be very rewarding. Perhaps only as a freelance designer it would fulfill it’s full reward. I understand that success would take many sleepless nights, and finishing things when promised, or expected (unlike my ch5 resume builder project) but I will be able to overcome my own inabilities with hard work.

Spending time in a dark noisy cool datacenter surrounded by large churning computers wouldn’t really thrill me. I am more of a “go out there and do it perfectly” kind of person, so I would probably shy away from positions that require a lot of manual data entry and input. Thinking about my abilities, I am able to think creatively, and with a little experience and the right position I can come up with powerful solutions that would stone most people. Every day I get “thank you”s and compliments on my methods, and willingness to learn and help. I like that, it’s a pain to have to sit there and answer phone call after phone call, but the one person that calls just to thank me for being so helpful makes it all worth it. I know the people that call me asking for help, if they have worked at a Tom Wood store for more than a week, I know their face, and I can recognize their voice, so that makes my job pretty unique. So perhaps I need to find a position that involves helping people that are more knoledgeable about computers than the average user, helping computer people with computer problems. That would be interesting.

Third, I think I might look for a job that would involve computers in an industry that has unique needs. Such as the railroad industry, or the steel industry. Perhaps since I know and enjoy the automotive industry I could work in a manufacturing plant with robotics or IT needs for the automotive manufacturing industry. That could work…

http://www.devbistro.com/jobs/45557
I found this job online, I chose to highlight it, because I think that I currently have the requirements to get this position. I am starting with this one, because I think it could work for me. I’m not particularly thrilled about it, but if I had to add it to a list to apply to today, I think I could accell quickly, and find myself on the way up right way.
As far as a daily experience at this job, I would think it’s probably an “answer the phone, and find a solution” kind of a position, without saying tier 1, I think it’s probably a tier 1 position to start. But I think I would find out more about the company before making a comitment, this is probably selling myself a little short. Of course there’s not a single mention of salary or wages, but I would bet around $12-$20/hr depending on cost of living of the area, that is at least what I would expect to be paid.

Shooting a little higher…
Meijer has a job opening… Web Developer Position
This one caught my eye because it’s in Grand Rapids, I like that city. I just figured I’d look there…
I see that they’re quite a bit more certain about educational requirements, which I like. I like to know what’s expected, not to say that they wouldn’t entertain the idea of hiring someone else, without the educational background, but I do understand it’s importance. However I’ve met many-a-dunce that has a degree in something, that wouldn’t be able to sell an Eskimo a pair of mittens, so it doesn’t always mean there’s a guarantee of the quality of an employee. I did however notice that there’s a link to see salary information, just a my powerbook ran out of battery, so let me recheck the website…Wow, I was just bombarded by ads, and not a single shred of information, that was a waste of time. I thought Careerbuilder would have a little more dignity.
Ok well, I think finding salary information is going to require a little more ambition on the part of the potential applicant, that’s unfortunate. It’s been my experience that there are more than one source of innacurate salary estimations. When I was job hunting to become an automotive mechanic I was offended at the offer of $13.50/hr to start and $1.00 raise after 6 months with insurance and other benefits. Come to find out that that wasn’t a bad offer, since it was an hourly position, and that’s not too shabby for a starting wage for a mechanic in the Chicago-land area. I was unfortunately led to believe that I was going to be making a good solid $40,000/year as a mechanic, my 1st year. Well I was a sucker to buy into that program, I should have taken the $13.50/hr to start, but we live and we learn.

http://webdesign.about.com/od/jobs/a/aa052598.htm
I found this article about being a webmaster uplifting and encouraging. A lot of the resumes and job descriptions out there seem to be open ended. Almost to say “We really don’t know what you should have, but we should see… um….. uh ….. some education… uh…. this and that. Seriously, what I’ve come across does it say that a College Degree is absolutely the bare minimum, above a pulse, that an applicant should have? I was reminded about the blind luck, and what it takes… stuff by this article. I found it very helpful. It led me to this job offering at Toyota… which is not letting me post a link properly… hmmm



Well it looks like I have a little to learn about Javascript, but here’s the post in text…



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TMMC is a world-class automotive assembly plant located in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario. We produce the top quality Corolla, Matrix and Lexus RX 350.
The world famous Toyota Production System, a philosophy of continuous improvement and ongoing training, enables each team member to work towards their highest potential. The success of our company stems from hiring results-driven, self-motivated individuals with the ability to work together to achieve team goals.

Qualifications
EDUCATION

University Degree Programmer/Analyst (Business Solutions Provider)
Equivalent
EXPERIENCE

Three (3) + years applicable experience
1. Systems analysis and design
2. Development (programming) and/or integration work with packages and/or custom apps.
3. Support of existing systems
POSITION SUMMARY

Technical requirements

Knowledge of programming languages, Java, PL1/Cobol/IMS/DB2
SAP/ABAP an asset
Knowledge of Operating systems, UNIX, MVS (OS/390, zOS)
Knowledge of Specialized software, Websphere, Rational Rose, JADE (EAD4J), Struts
Knowledge of Specialized standards, J2EE, UML
Non-technical requirements

Strong verbal/written communication skills
Team Player
Self Starter
Able to support overtime when needed
Able to support on call
Fast Learner
Experience with full SDLC
Able to communicate business terms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t know if anyone can see the “Equivalent EXPERIENCE” part, I know these careers are quite new, and maybe we don’t know what it takes to be successful in these positions, but I sure wish they were a little more precise with the requirements. Would they even talk to me in 4 years? if I get a degree? or would a fistful of certificates be sufficient… Why not try… By the way, I’m addicted to Toyota, and I would really love to work there some day, in some capacity. I applied for a job as a prototype vehicle builder, I just thought that would be sweet. Needless to say, they hired someone else, or nobody at all… Can’t hurt to try!

I have an extensive list of skills from being able to make a mean fried egg sandwich to sweating copper feed pipes for our basement bathroom at the age of 8, however I don’t have enough educational background. I learn really quickly, and feel that I am fairly smart, but it’s been a struggle for me to dicipline myself to get an education, from a standardized institution. I think there are many things I should be doing to further my career, one of which is becoming more involved in things on campus. I wish I had more time, school, working, and living is quite a load, but we only live once, so why not.

I have learned that I think I do need to go towards web design/development. I think I enjoy playing with code, and with my artistic background, I would be an invalueable asset to any organization that is looking for someone who can put things together in a person-oriented way. afterall if it weren’t for people, we wouldn’t need the web…

CIT112 Ch8 Discussion

1. What are the major milestones in the history of computing? Can you identify two or three events that directly affected the way we use computers today? Can you identify any current trends that might similarly affect the future of computing?

At some point someone decided that there was work that would be better completed by a machine; perhaps that has to do with the way our brains work, as humans. Since deciding a sharp stick might work better to kill animals, we have been looking for better ways to do just about everything we do. The computer is extremely important as far as tools are concerned. A major breakthrough occurred when researchers at Bell Labs created the transistor. Not only did this change computers, but everything electronic; radios, television, clocks, and eventually computers. Since every microprocessor is basically a slab of silicon with hundreds of thousands of transistors on it, i suppose this is an extremely important ingredient! The other major turning point for computers that influenced the human/computer interaction is the development of the GUI. As humans are primarily visual creatures, reading text on a screen is only so enthralling. Counting punches in cards is appauling, and standing in front of a patch panel with hundreds of wires isn’t something that most people would care to do. If I had to place importance on a particular aspect of computer evolution, the creation of the GUI would be #2 after the invention of the transistor. Assuming the electronic components have been built, and it’s time to interact. From birth we are programmed to recognise sights and sounds we point at the image of our fathers and say “dada” because we start with this, it’s only natural to think that interacting with a machine should be visual. Doulas Engalbart is credited as being the father of the GUI. Thankfuly we have this environment to work in, think of the creativity that would not be possible if everything was command line. The next exciting idea in computing is in the field of nanotechnology. If we could miniaturize transistors and machines to the molecular level people would not be able to concieve the possibilities. The next 30 years will be very exciting for computers and technology.

2. The computer and IT industries have rapidly emerged as a global economic force in the last twenty years. What benefits and drawbacks does this rapid growth have for our culture? Do you think this growth should be slowed?

The benefits of this type of rapid growth is that we don’t spend much time on things that aren’t truly beneficial. Unfortunately as everything is developed according to financial gains, we see technology being maximized according to profits. Luckily there are groups of people out there that are developing software in a selfless way, creating a user or purely technology driven segment. I wouldn’t quell any of the development of these technologies, however the progress could be more organized. Certain companies have had a habit of releasing software simply on a schedule dictated by hype rather than completeness or accuracy. Microsoft spends incredible amounts of time making repairs to their products rather than making them work well before releasing them. Now, that’s ok in itself, the trouble comes from in when the user has a bad or frusterating experience because of that fact.

3. Compare computer professions to other professions such as the law, medicine, teaching, etc. in terms of working conditions, educational preparation, salaries, and social status. Consider why you are attracted to the computing professions and discuss what would provide the incentive for you to be successful in an IT field.

I don’t have much knowledge about the fields mentioned, however I am a certified automotible mechanic, and from my experience the lines between the two professions are becoming blurry. As computer technology becomes more prevalant, people have to learn and rely more and more on computers. From my experience of moving from the automotive industry to the computer industry, I am viewed differently by most people I encounter. Before when I would announce that I am a car mechanic, people would either walk away or talk about what hapened to their granny one day. Now people ask what I do, and I say I’m a computer mechanic, I get more interested reactions, people want to talk about their computer, or their work, or their hobbies. It seem more human than even fixing cars is. So far the computer industry is pretty routine for me, I would like to eventually develop web applications or sites that are useful and helpful to many people. I would like the creative aspect and the technical challenges that a career like that would propose.

CIT112 Ch11 Lab Tracking File

I’m not seeing a dropbox for the tracking file, but here’s a link, I don’t even know if it needs to be turned in…

Ch11 Tracking File

CIT112 Assignment5 – Game Design

GhostHunter!!!

CIT112 Ch11 Multimedia project – Civilization III

Knowing the complexity of the human experience, one would find it daunting to simulate that in an entertaining way in a board game. Computers allow game designers to accomplish things never even considered with little plastic pieces and a printed board. The Civilization series of games is a long running example of fantastic programming and flawless planning.

Starting out, the game loads several splash screen ads, for Infogrames Ltd. and Fireaxis Games, then it goes into a 3D opening animation of a castle looking structure surrounded by a lake. Clearly ascending around a cylindrical object it pans out showing the size of the building, the further up the camera goes to the top, the more modern the building looks. Ultimately you find yourself looking at the Title of the game, “SID MEIER’S Civilization III”

This is the beginning of the game, from here you need to choose where you wish to go, I chose to click on “New Game” But as the image shows there are 10 options to choose from. Most often I would choose to start a new game, because the credits are pretty boring, and I like to customize the gameboard. Quick Start randomy assigned game options and places you in the game without hesitation. The tutorial is a partially interactive “walk through” of the basic game controls, and I would recomend this to anyone who has never played the game before.

Taking a few screenshots along the way… You can see several buttons, and clickable options that aren’t very descriptive, but as the player becomes more familiar with the game, he or she can see all relavant information at a quick glance. I feel the interface to this game is exceptionally well made. Not very confusing once you understand the controls.

here we see the 1st setup page.




here we see our “Earth” options, such as age, Climate, and level of Native activity, which is important later in the game.

Not much is happening in the first 5 minutes of game play, initially you have a piece that has attributes such as strength, moves, and special abilities. Most often you start out with a setteler and a worker. These are non military units, and are very vulnerable to attack, and defeat. The 1st order is to build a city, and the first one is the Civilization’s center and capitol. The worker who is mostly defenseless has the capability of building things like roads, irrigation, and fortresses, all of these things benefit the city or the units that are to come. Every unit uncovers more of the map as they explore the surrounding area, to find firtile land, and resources used to make certain military units, improvements, and luxuries.

A closer look at the built city of “Rome” shows more details and more game features which are all explained in the tutorial.

As you can see, there are Many details that must have taken quite some time to link and program.

In this screen we see, for the first time, our Science advisor, who alerts us to the progress of our scientific advancement. We are starting to see that this program is very in depth, there are dozens of aspects that we have not even begun to see yet.




Here we are just starting to set out and explore our world. We see more and more every time we move a play piece into the darkness. the excitement of the unknown is shadowed by the urgency to progress as quickly as possible. The high stakes of building a civilization and developing it into #1 are under way.



Knowing the complexity of the game, and what it takes to play it well, I couldn’t immagine the effort it took to put together the relationships between the pieces the units, the cities, the percentage of the population that is supporting the scientists, and the money aspect, it’s all very well put together.
Countless hours if not entire days of entertainment are credited to this game, there are even ways to edit the code of the play pieces to create unknown forces for your militaries. Even a detailed map editor and scenerio builders are available for this game. It’s simple complexity explains why it has been an award winning game for many years, and there have been many versions. I have been playing it since the original version was developed for IBM compatible 80-486 computers. I still enjoy it when I can.

CIT112 Ch11 Lab part-3

I wasn’t sure how to communicate a “sketch” I figured this would do just fine.

CIT112 Ch11 Discussion

I think it is very rare that a programmer can place him or herself in the shoes of the “average user”. We see the world how we see it, with our own bias (no pun intended) where we walk through life with our own shoes, and not a single person has the exact same experience as any other person. As computer enthusiasts we see the windows errors as simply annoying, some people might see them as alarming. Computer developers understand the idea that a program can perform an “illegal operation”, mom and dad think the cops are on their way over because their Internet Explorer must have broken some law. The alarmist strategy that Microsoft usually takes makes me worry about the average user’s experience. At home, I have migrated to the Mac os, and I am rarely encumbered with dozens of warnings about sutch and sutch encryption, and someone could be watching what you’re doing. If this mysterious someone wanted to watch me navigate to Downsloapskiing.com, then so be it. If there were a button or a checkbox that said “check here if you want windows to leave you alone” mine would be checked all of the time. things such as the “desktop cleanup wizard” are really annoying, because if I wanted to clean up my desktop, I would, and certainly wouldn’t need a wizard to do it.

I think that there are many opportunties to polish software to make it more “intuitive” not just user friendly. Perhaps the PC can learn how a user looks for files or software. Maybe one person uses the program’s “recent documents” list after it has been opened, the next user simlply clicks on the file, and waits for the computer to use the approporiate program to open the file. Can’t a computer be set to figure these patterns out? Can’t software be written that keep track of common methods? I think that will be the next challenge to operating system developers.

I have read recently that a large difference between the very successful Google search engine, and other online search engines is the fact that when you open google’s search the cursor is ready for typing input in the search field, and without moving the mouse a user can just hit the enter button and the process is complete. Google is successful because they stopped to think about the user interface, and keeping it simple, clean, and helpful is their first priority. MSN.com is on the other side of the spectrum, with dozens of links for info, news, shopping, weather, it’s the WalMart one stop shop for anything, personally I don’t think it’s as useful. Especially since all of those things take time to load in a browser. Not to say that MSN isn’t successful, but I wonder how many people stop to look at the things on their homepage without clicking on the favorites button right away.

Technology can be defined in many ways. Some people would say the latest and greatest features and the more options the better regardless of complexity. Some would say that if a piece of technology is successful if it is simple enough to be used by everyone easily to complete it’s intended purpose. Simple vs. feature rich is a huge compramise. You can’t possibly please everyone all of the time, but setting up a development process that includes testing and getting feedback from every-day users is imperative. Personally I feel that if a product has 101 uses but nobody can figure out how to use it, then it has 101 useless uses. Better yet, 101 tools with a single purpose, that get used is much more helpful.

Since computers are all around us all of the time, we have a hard time remembering life without them. I would have to say that since the computer industry is so young, and changes so rapidly, that it’s hard for average users to become truly proficient at doing regular tasks. I speak to people every day that have a difficult time understanding the difference between a program, and a web icon on their desktop. It’s simply, “I just double click it, and it comes up”, or “I’m not sure what the name of the file is, I just need it.” Microsoft takes blurring the lines between different things to an artform. Take Outlook web access and Outlook 2003. Both are things used to get e-mail, who knows what an “exchange server” is? Who cares? does it have a calendar,contacts, tasks, and e-mail? yes. Do both things need to be “set up”? yes. Yet they are drastically different in how they do what they do.

One way to make computer life easier would be to make fewer ways to do the same thing. Since there are 16 different ways to get to “task A”, it would be hard to help someone remember “your way” when there is no clearly defined “way” to do “task A” in the 1st place. Would the right way to get to the Task manager be right clicking on the clock, and finding the task manager, maybe the “Ctrl, Alt, Delete” key sequence is the right way. I’m sure there is a “run” command that’ll do it too, perhaps it’s in the “control panel”. Just the other day I was introduced to the MMC, a clearly powerful tool built into the windows OS, that does things that I had never even immagined. Do these things need to exist in any capacity for the user to have a positive experience?

A powerfuly intuitive technology that is easy to use, consistantly successful, and simple enough to be learned by a user that doesn’t really care about the tool itself. Computers will evolve into a easily useable piece of technology someday, I just think that the whole thing is just too young.

Chapter 7 Discussion

I’m going to call this one Chapter 7 discussion, even though the directions say to call it chapter 4 discussion. Why the ____ is the timestamp 5 hours fast on this website? Has anyone else noticed the time error on the blogs?

I think that it’s too late to keep piracy from continuing. It would be like trying to put the ring back in the bell. Specifically the recording industry should have kept their promise back in the late 1980′s to ultimately lower the price of cd’s. I remember when a tape was $4-5 and a cd was $25-30. Now days cd’s are only down to $12 if the cd is on the new release rack. I’ve seen classic albums from bands such as Pink Floyd getting up to (drum roll) $25+, and that’s just the LP version, not special gold-remastered etc. I believe that the recording industry has created the monster that they are now trying to fight. Maybe it’s a way for the middle-class to push back and even the playing field. While 6-figure recording industry exec’s hire 6-figure recording industry lawyers, people are just taking what they want and leaving the rest. Perhaps the Music industry should have thought about the ease of duplication, and been the 1st on the scene to distribute music on the internet, but they were too busy lining their pockets with cash to notice the impending future of digital media. Too bad so sad, that’s what I say. “Ya get what ya deserve” Cd’s should be $4-5 by now, and they’re not, consumers are sick of it, period. The fact that piracy exists is almost sure proof of that. Personally I support the musicians and artists, that I respect, directly, by buying from their own “band website” or independant record labels. If I were the record label or movie studios, I would give it away, but attach ads to the music/movies that would be difficult to seperate, some kind of checksum key in the file that would corrupt the file if the checksum was modified or changed. that would ensure that the media was distributed as intended and not modified at all. Of course, as many ways as there are to protect something, there are 10 ways to take, harm, or copy it. Truly the only way to keep it from being stolen is to make it not worth taking.

1) I have had trouble making copies of things because of protections, never had trouble using, listening, or watching something. Honestly Mac, and UNIX make it easier to circumvent anti-piracy efforts. There are a variety of software titles that are free for the Mac that can do just about anything you want.

2) I have had no personal experience with I-tunes website, making playlists or buying/downloading music or movies on the internet. I have over 250 cd’s that I have ripped and put into storage on any of my computers. If I don’t own it I’ve traded for it, or just downloaded it, all in MP3 format with no DRM restrictions. I think that they’re on the right track with the download stores, it’s cheap to host, and that can be strong enough to offset the losses due to piracy. Face it, we can’t stop theives no matter what.

3) DRM is a terrible way to combat piracy, it’s like punishing or threatening registered gun owners. The ones that register are the responsible ones! I think a good way to combat piracy would be to give away the music, and sell the artwork and tickets to the concerts. sell the experience, give away the music.