Sunday, November 28, 2010

Week 14 - Muddy

Another muddy week for me this was a lot of techniqual terms in this week that took getting used to there was a lot of information about storage however that can benefit a lot of people if utalized the right way

RAID
Raid stands for Redudant Array of Inexpernsive Disks and the main focus of RAID is to run multiple drives and treat them all as one. This will increase capacity, speed, and even reliability. It works a lot faster on Hardware then software. There is 4 including one new type of RAID
RAID 1 - aka mirroring
This means there is two different drives with the same data written on both of them which is good if one single disk fails you still have the same exact data with no errors backed up on the other disk, so there is no data loss and still runs at full speed. RAID1 also has a hot spare disk which is idle till one disk fails then it kicks in and backs up the data.
RAID 0 - Striping
Two or more drives and spreads the data across all drives evenly which makes the disk run a lot faster but there is no redundacy so if one disk crashes they all lose the data
RAID 5
This bridges the gap between RAID1 and RAID0. Data spreads across all disks except one which is used as a backup so it runs like RAID0 but if data is lost on one disk it runs like RAID1 and has back up disks to help out this one also has a hot spare.
RAID 6
Is a new version being started that is like RAID 5 but instead of running if only one disk dies this one can run even if two disks die.


There was a lot more information in this section as well which went into depth about the best storage choices for your business.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Week 13 - Clear

There is so many risks that you computer has when it comes to maintaing it to its full potential and making sure it does not get a virus or something else on it that can erase your information, download bad bugs into it, or make your hard drive crash all together.

Security Risks
Internet and network attacks such as virus or worms
Unauthorized access and use
hardware theft
software theft stealing program usage such as Microsoft, which raises the prices on software for everyone else
information theft such as identity theft
system failure - hurricanes, floods, etc.
wireless security - Don't connect to unknown networks

Ethics - The standard that determines whether an action is good or bad - Piracy, Information accuracy, intellectual property rights/copyrights.

Privacy - information privacy refers to your right to deny access or restrict collection or use of your personal information, limit personal information you give out, don't reply to spam.



 However if you are smart with your online usage, downloading, and information sharing you should have no problems with your computer there is many ways to protect your computer from these problems. They have anti-virus software programs that can block spam and pop ups so that it is less likely for you to get a problem on to your computer. Sharing your information is to up to you, find out exactly who you are talking to before you send out personal information such as social security numbers, driver license numbers and other information that can be harmful if given to the wrong person.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Secure email

I found a Q&A page from The University of Kansas that has a bunch of information about how they use secure email in there medical field. This helps to hide health insurance information from other users who should not have access to it as well personal identity information and financial information. Then this informational page goes over the steps to encrypting messages and how you know if your messages are encrypted or not. As well it tells you how/who you can message to see if you are doing it right. Its interesting to know that medical colleges use it to hide patient information from the curious world.

http://www2.kumc.edu/security/secure-email/se-faq.html

Another similar page I found was for the Commerce bank and goes over questions about there online security with their email which is another very important business to have this because they can send out bankers information such as social security number or bank account number over email and if some one can hack into this it can cause a lot of problems such as fraud or identity theft

http://www.commercebank.com/about/security-center/secure-message-center.asp

Over all secure email can benefit a lot of companies if used right. Banks, schools, hospitals, even day cares are all important business's in our community that I am sure we all want the information going into them to be secure but still be able to have easy access to the information that is important to us so email is convenient way of transferring information and as long as we can make this secure we can transfer data with no problem.




Sunday, November 14, 2010

Week 12 - Muddy

There was a lot of information in this week it was a little diffecult to keep up with it all. over all learning about everything was pretty interesting however. Learning about all the types of networks we have PAN which is personal area, LAN local area network, MAN metropolitan area, and WAN wide area network which is the internet. also learning about all the addresses that keep you connected to the internet like how your TCPIP address consists of 32 bits. there was a lot of information about the LAN and WAN area networks. How with LAN there is multiple ways to get LAN such as ethernet LAN twisted pair of copper wire but you can fall into problems with this because it needs to be installed the right way or it may not work also it is not to good if you decide to extend your internet access width because it is only for a certian length. Fiber opics is another form where there is no electromagnetic interferance such as a lightning storm.

Also it was interesting learning about NIC which is a network interface card this connects nodes to networks it can be integrated on your computer or even on a USB port and every NIC is unique. The NIC knows who you are but not where you are kind of like a social security number. The hub is where all computers are hooked up to one network and everything that is sent out is sent out to every computer this can have security issues that is why a lot of people will pick switch instead where you can pick who you want to send information to.

Skype

(My internet did not want to upload the video to this actualy blog but here is a link to it via TechSmith)



This is my Skype video with my dad and his girlfriend. I had used Skype back home at his place a lot because my sister and two nieces live in Canada, and my brother and three nieces live in Amsterdam so this is a real cool way for us to interact with each other seeing as we dont get to see each other very much. I had never tried it on my own since I moved to Gainesville so its kind of cool I downloaded it so my dad can talk to all three of us while he is in Clearwater.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Avatar

 

Making an Avatar was rather interesting I went to a couple different sites messing around with them but meez.com ended up being one of my favorite. I could make the Avatar pretty much any way i wanted to by adding all kinds of different hair styles, and cloths style. you can even pick over 40 shades of skin tones. On this site you can make the avatar look almost exactly like you. Another cool feature about this web site is you can add all kinds of backgrounds and animations to your avatar, you can add almost anything from a skull chasing you around biting you in the but, to almost any dance move you can possibly imagine, I went through a whole bunch of them as just "try on" where you can try on anything because in the long run you are supposed to by the items with points you gain. It was pretty interesting and entertaining messing around with the avatar sites.


Monday, November 8, 2010

Microsoft Access Project

I defantly learned a lot on this project and it did take a lot longer then I thought it would. Using almost all microsoft products before and knowing how to use most of them from powerpoint to excel I did not think that I would have much problems with this project, but to my suprise I had no idea what I was doing. If I had tried to open this up and just work in it on my own I would have failed, I went step by step with the lectures and videos and it helped a lot. Learning how to make your own table was probably the easiest part because it was a lot like excel, but as we progressed into the Query's things started to get harder it was interesting to see how you can group information and make them line up in the order you wish. Then with forms and reports you can make your presentation very understandable to others. Showing each member of the gym and what all their information is.


There is many ways you can enhance this project and only a few of them were even went over in the lectures. You have multiple tools you can use to make this project even more understandable. You can add colors and cool fonts to make it more appealing to the eye. You could also separate the member by their age if you would like or even the city in which they reside in. by adding even more detailed information it might be easier for some one else to view your database sheet especially if they have never worked with one before.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

week 11 - clear

This week was pretty easy, the material in this week was pretty easy to follow. It was pretty interesting to learning about how much time and effort is put into planning. Also how many different people and processes there is put into it as well. From starting off with planning by reviewing project requests and prioritizing how to get them, analyzing the data and conducting preliminary investigations, designing by developing details of a system and acquiring hardware, implementation to train your users and convert a system, operation and security, all the way to the ongoing activities.

Listening to how much a system analyst has to do was also pretty interesting its amazing how much stuff they can keep up with. Smaller organizations have one system analyst or even one person who assumes the roles of both system analyst and programmer. Larger organizations often have multiple system analysts, Some refer to them as system developer.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Week 10 - Muddy

This week was a little bit harder for me I do not know much about databases when it come to this kind of stuff I usually just use excel. There seems to be a lot more information that is needed to know in DBMS how ever. There was a lot more different terminology then normal.

Learning about all the different types of information you need to put into a database was amazing, as well as knowing the difference from information and data where data is unprocessed items that you just put into your computer such as writing, pictures, and videos where as information is processed data that actually is important to you and others. as well it was interesting learning about how different everything is labeled in DBMS compared to programs such as excel where characters are the smallest part and consist of numbers, letters, spaces, or symbols then next is a field which is a combination of one or more characters, next is the record which is a group of related fields and the primary key is the field that uniquely identifies each record in a field. Last is the data file which is a collection of related records stored on a storage medium such as a hard disk or optical disk.

Over all this week was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be and a lot more information as well I will defiantly have to do some more reviewing of this chapter next week as well.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Week 9 - Clear

The world wide web has been a big part of my life for a long time, I do most my research and work on the internet so this was another easy week for me. Luckely for people who havent been using it for a long time can learn it pretty quick especually because it is getting easier and easier to navagate the interent with more advanced search engines. I really enjoyed using new software in this week like Web 2.0 I had no idea this kind of software existed online and I am glad I found it so I can upload future project via the internet to show to a wider audience.

Navigation of the internet is pretty easy for many people as long as you know what it is you are looking for its pretty easy to find it. However it is important to find out if your sources on the internet are credible or not because almost any one can post almost anything on the internet and that's not saying its true in any sense.


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Presentation Project


Doing this project was pretty easy for me, I enjoy working with power point and love doing projects off of it. I actually just ran out of my free trial of Microsoft 2007 when I started doing it so I had to buy the 2010 version and with this project I got to do a lot of experimenting around with all the new features they had on it. i learned how to do voice overs which I have never done on a project before because most the time I am face to face with the people showing them the slides and then discussing it so this was fun for me. I also got to figure out how to make the pictures match up with my voice in good timing.

I am glad to see there is away to add projects online which I had no idea there was away before taking this class, this can extend my work out to a wider audience and I loved working on new project sites.



Here is my story board for my project


Monday, October 4, 2010

week 7 - Clear

This was another clear week for me, I have done many presentations in my life and I love using software like Microsoft power point. I just recently bought the new version 2010 and have been getting used to using it. I look forward to doing this next project because I do like making presentations much more then I like making excel spread sheets.

My major is telecommunications so learning about making presentations is very important especially if I plan on using it in Advertising or Marketing. I liked to learn the 5 key steps in making a presentation which were making the audience king, I think is very important because in the long run they are going to be the ones examining your work. Spreading ideas and moving people is another big thing in your presentation you want your audience to leave the presentation with some new knowledge. Make sure you see what you are saying when you are showing slides or information on a computer screen make sure this is what you are talking about as well. Design not decorate make sure you make your work appealing to the eye but don't over do it. Lastly make sure you have a healthy relationship with your audience keep eye contact and be interactive.

I found another good video about giving presentations rather comedic as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whTwjG4ZIJg&feature=related





Sunday, October 3, 2010

Excel Project

When I first opened the excel project and started reading all the things I was going have to do on the instruction sheets I thought for sure I had my work cut out for me. However I slowed down and watched the videos making sure to take notes on information I had read I would be doing on the instruction sheet and had a list of the questions from the Scavenger Hunt in hand. Once I slowed my pass on it and went through the information word for word and step by step my mind eased a little.

Starting off with all the simple things like making it presentable was what I stated off doing as well as the page layout on print because I knew how to do a lot of that and would be easy for me to do. Then I went back and started working on the more complicated steps like the pivot tables and making new columns on the raw data sheet. Over all the project was not as hard as I thought it was going to be just a little time consuming I am very glad I started it early and did not leave it to the last minute. I am also glad I got the chance to do this project so that I can use excel more often in the future I have already made a budget plan for my expenses on excel so I can watch my spending better!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Week 6 - Muddy

This week was a little more difficult for me, I didn't really know a lot about all the different aspects of multimedia there is a lot more behind it then I ever realized. From learning about all the different sizes and types of multimedia software and knowing which ones to use to best utilize your data. As well knowing which ones can be used on multiple hard drives with out being distorted.

Images was interesting because I knew that some times when I enlarged pictures off my computer they some times look distorted and I learned why this happened because there is two different types of graphics. Raster graphics which are array of colored dotes these are the ones that come out distorted if enlarged and then there is vector graphics which use primitives such as curves, lines, etc. It was also very interesting to know that they use a 24bit for color depth which means there is 16 million different possible colors that can be used in a picture.

The major thing to know about when saving data was whether or not the file will be lossless or lossy. Lossless means its not throwing away any data just reducing its redundancy and lossy means that it removes data that most people will never notice.

For audio the major things to know is its file format there is four different types of file formats for audio data WAV, AIFF, WMA, and MP3 it is important to know which one you are using because of CODEC which is coding when you make the file but as well it needs to be decoded by another computer and you will need to use the same format in order for it to be decoded by some one elses computer.

The video section of this week had a lot of information on it and made you realize how much is put into making sure that your videos can be compatible with multiple computers. Some major things you need to look out for is the aspect ratio which is the size of the video using W:H there are two kinds normal (4:3) and large (16:9). Also you need to know the resolution there is two types interlaced which shows even rows first the odd and has a flickering motion and then there is progressive which goes down the rows in sequence. Then there is frame rate which is the bit size normally ranges from 24-30.


Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Week 5 - Clear

This was another pretty easy week for me I have worked on excel before with another computer basics class I took my Freshman year in college. I had to do a more basic version of the project we are doing now. I have always been intrigued with Microsoft systems and enjoy learning new versions. I feel like every time a new version comes out there is so many new features in it.

Excel especially comes out with new information to use one difference in the 2007 version then the old version is you can add a lot more data if needed although I cant imagine any one going to column XFD or row 1048576 its good to know that the technology is here if its needed. Another cool feature on the 2007 version of excel is the ability to easily access the f1 button functions by just entering a question mark and start typing what it is you want to do for instance if you enter =aver .... average will appear up.

For the most part I believe that Excel is pretty self explanitory when it come to making a basic spreed sheet and does not take much time to get used to. How ever there was lots of features the lectures that I have never even heard about so it was cool to learn new things such as all the different ways you can enter a date as well as all the different ways you can make a formula apply to multiple cell blocks. Such as the absolute average where you enter $ before the column and the row and it will use only the cell block you have entered.



JOKE

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed a desire to become a great writer. When asked to define "great" he said:

"I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, wail, howl in pain, desperation, and anger!"
He now works for Microsoft, writing Excel error messages. - AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Week 4 - Clear

This week was pretty clear for me, even though there is a lot more put into buying software then you think a lot of it does seem like common sense. When it comes to buying application software programs for your business the key is to know what it is your looking for. You need to figure out what the key things are that your business is going to be using this software for. For instance you need to know if you need digital advancement in the program, if you need mutliple programs based off the application software, as well you need to know which program would best benefit your company.

The one section in this week that I didn't know much about was the licensing off the software I always click straight through the set up when ever I install a program and never really take the time to go through all the copyright material and watching the video on licensing there is a lot more to it then just a scroll box. there is many different kinds of licensing from the instant you download the program you have agreed to the terms, as well as there being free trials where after a certain amount of times you use it then you then have to get it licensed.

Here is a web page that lists all the free open-source application software available on the internet for windows

Open Source software



Friday, September 10, 2010

Week 3 - Getting clear

This week was a little more clear then last week although it is still a lot of information. I never knew how much technology was put into a computer. It is things you don't really think about to much when you boot up your computer and immidiatly jump on to the internet or any other site with no worries. There is so much put into it like all the applications needed to run programs and all the different types of memory you need to run different programs.


Another big thing I learned about this week watching the videos is all the different ways to back up your hard drive and how important it is to do this. There is multiple ways such as RAID1 mirror this protects your hard drive when the hard ware fails but not when your computer is stolen or broken. You can use external disk's to back up your information as well such as a USB, firewire, or eSATA. Also you can use a local network or online backup service.

One last thing that I learned about that I found interesting is the BIOS screen when you boot up your computer. Learning new things about my computer and how I can optimize its productivity is very interesting to me and I had no idea about this screen till I watched this video. When you boot up your computer and get to this screen you can do many different things such as enable or disable the motherboard and USB ports which is use full in the business world in case you let some your employees use your computers and don't want them uploading or downloading things. You can also configure your storage in this menu and configure these files. However as the teacher had said its not smart to play around on this screen unless you know what you are doing because you could do damage to your computer.

Here is a website that has frequently asked questions and lots of facts about your BIO's start up menu



Sunday, September 5, 2010

Week 2- Muddy

The information for this week was a little bit muddy to me just because it was a lot of information about a lot of different things. I never really realized how much was put into a computer to make it tick. There is so many different aspects you need to look at when buying a computer, I usually just got for the one that looks the best but in the long run there is so much more needed to establish a computer that is right for the right person such as speed, memory, size, battery life, etc.

Also there is so many different parts to the computer that if your computer starts acting up you usually just take it to a shop and they fix it no questions asked and you never really wounder about what is actually wrong with it or what it is going to take to fix it. Such as a hard drive crashing or a disk being deleted. I learned that it is very important to back up almost everything you have on your computer just in case something like this happens.



This week was a lot of information and some times it was hard to keep up with but it was very interesting to me to learn because I use computers on a daily basis and never really thought to much into it about what makes it work so learning about the mother board and all the USB ports and firewalls was very intriguing.


Sunday, August 29, 2010

Week 1 - Clear

This first week was pretty clear to me. I understood most the material that was presented on the syllabus and through out the elearning web page. I am new to elearning for this is my first semester at UF so it was a little time consuming getting everything set up but once I had everything set up I breezed through most of it.

What was most clear to me was the netiquette rules. I had studied some of the information and more that was posted up on the readings. I believe in all that and that if you do not say exactly what your trying to say many people could translate it wrong. Also you need to be careful about what you post on the Internet because some things you might want certain people to read or see can end up in the wrong hands and get you in trouble. As well there is nothing that drives me crazier (both on the Internet, threw writing, and even text messaging) when people miss use caps lock and punctuation to make a statement sound completely different then how is intended. This is a big thing in the business world because you could make one sentence sound almost opposite of what your trying to say if you do not word it right or use correct grammar and punctuation.

I also enjoyed watching the Disney copyright video it was entertaining and educational I just want to know how much time was put into that video in order to make it! Copyright is a big issue in the business world because if not used correctly it could get a lot people in trouble and even shut down a business. 

Over all this week was a pretty easy week except figuring out the new online education system. To end off here is a funny story and a cartoon about copyrighting.


See you next week !


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