Technology of the Future (extra-credit)

Technology of the Future (extra-credit)

I have really enjoyed my information technology class this quarter at the University of Washington. Or professor sometimes mentioned the trajectory of technology, So I decided to do a little research on the future of our technology and while doing so I decided to combine the definitions of both trajectory and technology.

Trajectory is defined as “the path followed by a projectile flying or an object moving under the action of given forces.” And technology is defined as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry "advances in computer technology” (Oxford Dictionaries). I found this to be very interesting. I deduced from these definitions that we as the human race are applying our sources of scientific knowledge to advance computer technology. The question is, where are we going?

According to the News of the Future.com “December 15, 2030 - There's no doubt that space trips will be the most popular Christmas present of the year. Influenced by the launch of the first manned mission to Mars next month, you will most likely get a present with stars, a gift card for a space trip.” When I first read this my thought was why would I want to travel into space? After all there are enough places on earth that I have not seen. Plus, I already do not like to fly in airplanes.

The article goes on to say, “November 19, 2040 - Today was a historic day for Iceland when their President this morning at a symbolic ceremony officially shut down the last gasoline pump in the country. Iceland is a model country when it comes to the fuel transition from gasoline to hydrogen and became today the first country in the world to complete it.” Now this transformation from gasoline to hydrogen actually makes a lot of sense. At the rate in which we burn fuel especially in the United States we probably will not have a choice. However, I wonder how this transformation will affect our environment? Will we have an ozone layer in 2040? Do we need more man made carcinogens floating around in the air?

Finally, we make it to Mars in 2050. Sorry but this is just not my type of vacation. The author posits, “September 21, 2050 - At a press conference today it was announced that the first tourist heading for Mars will be the 38-year-old US businessman Patrick Clifford. He will leave the earth in the launching window of June 2052 and set his foot on the surface of Mars in November, together with the other 6 astronauts assigned for the mission to further explore the planet. I assuming that by 2050 the human race will have explored the entirety of the planet earth and just began to get bored. However, just as we see in sci-fi movies maybe we will be on the hunt for natural resources.

These were just a few stories that I found to be interesting about the future of our technology. I just hope that a lot of our scientific knowledge will be applied to taking care of mother earth and its people first!

3 Things That I would not buy online

3 things that I would not buy Online

1. One thing that I would never buy online is jewelry. It seems like every time I see jewelry online; the price is just too good to be true. For instance, I once saw a Rolex watch for $450. Sorry but buying jewelry online seems like the perfect platform to ripped off. Counterfeit jewelry turns green. My advice to everyone is don’t do it!

2. Next, I would never buy groceries online. Maybe I am just old fashioned or way to old school, but I like to see the freshness of my meats and vegetables in person before I buy. Plus, with the price of food rising steady, why would I want to add a delivery charge on top of my grocery bill. Therefore, I say no thanks to the “virtual supermarket.”

 3. Finally, I must say that I would never buy clothing online. In this day and age there seems to be a large variance in sizes. For instance, for me boots seem to run big in size when I purchase them they are usually a half size to big, and sometimes a whole size depending on the brand. Furthermore, I have noticed that some shirts that are made for adults look like they were made for kids. Again no thanks. I like to try my clothes on. Plus, if I have to return something I would rather keep the receipt and head back to the department store

Thus far, I have had success purchasing books, a calculator, and cologne online. I think that I got lucky with the cologne it was the real deal and about half the price. As far as books they are usually cheaper than the local book store. Personally I would rather buy everything in person, but sometimes the price is just unbeatable.

Presentation Post

Cybersecurity

Recently me and the other students of our information technology (presented) presentations on different types of technology, and we were instructed to present something that most of us were not aware of or very educated about. The other aspect of this particular assignment was to blog about another student’s presentation that as presented on a different day than the day that you had your presentation. I must say that out of all of the very interesting presentations “Cybersecurity” was the topic that fully seized my attention.

With that being said, whenever I am interested in something like to do a little research of the subject on my own, so I looked up cybersecurity and a few of the topics that were included in the presentation. I found that Cybersecurity can be defined as “the body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access.” (TargetTech.com) I also found that one of the most problematical rudiments of cybersecurity is the rapidly and continuously progressing nature of security risks. I must say that this makes an abundance of sense to me. Especially at the rate in which technology is moving and not necessarily improving simultaneously.

Another attributes of the cybersecurity presentation that caught my attention was the story about “Max Ray Vision”. According to wired.com the “skilled San Francisco computer intruder was sentenced here to 13 years in federal prison for stealing nearly two million credit card numbers from banks, businesses and other hackers — in what is the longest hacking sentence in U.S. history”. Furthermore, he was also ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution, and to serve five years under court supervision following his release, during which time he was allowed to use computers only for legitimate employment or education.

As I continued to read this article I thought, “was the risk worth the reward?” I do not know about most people but restitution bill of $27.5 million sounds like a heart stopping event to me. So I just had to find out how much Max Vision was making during his cyber-crime spree and I found that he was caught with 1.8 million stolen credit card numbers belonging to a thousand different banks, who tallied the fraudulent charges on the cards at $86.4 million. I could not help but to think about all of the hard working innocent people who were burned. I guess my question would be, “how did he stay so far ahead of the law?”. I mean that is a lot of money and a lot of people.

What Makes a Community and does Tech Provide

What Makes a Community and does Tech Provide?

When I first read this question I did not really understand it, and I can honestly say that I still do not. However, I feel that me not understanding the question gives me an opportunity to do some research. So the first thing that I did was look up the word community and Oxford Dictionaries defines community as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” So along with that definition and the question I feel that we have a group of people living in the same place and our professor wants to know if and what technology provides for them.

As I begin to think about this question I thought about my virtual neighborhood. Sometimes I get a weak signal from the icon for my internet connection and I have to click on my “Network Settings.” I noticed that there are about fifteen different networks to choose from to get on to the internet. Furthermore, I noticed that some of these networks require a code or password and some do not.

So out of curiosity I decided to look up online communities and virtual communities. Social Media Today describes an online community as “People, who interact socially as they strive to satisfy their own needs or perform special roles, such as leading or moderating. A shared purpose, such as an interest, need, information exchange, or service that provides a reason for the community. Policies, in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, protocols, rules, and laws that guide people’s interactions. Computer systems, to support and mediate social interaction and facilitate a sense of togetherness”. (Jenny Preece)

After I read this particular article the online community seemed to be exactly like a physical community. I noticed that it “provides” similar needs. However, we know that the information spreads faster. Plus, I would think that the online community has more unity than our physical community because their agenda is based on need and information exchange. With that being said I never joined an online community, so I do not know if this if a fact. I also noticed that there are laws and I was wondering about the punishment for breaking one of their laws. Would it be banishment or will your local police show up at your front door? Another thing that stood out to me was “rituals”. I thought to myself, “what kind of rituals are we talking about”?

Convergence

Convergence

While studying the dot.com boom and bust in my information technology class our professor explained to our class the importance of convergence. Here are a few of the main attributes of convergence that he talked about data throughput, access, computational speed, and memory usage.

Now if you think at all like I think we know that there were numerous attributes that contributed to the boom and bust. However, these attributes that my professor mentioned are actually pretty interesting. In fact, data throughput, access, computational speed, and memory usage are a few things that most of us either take for granite, or do not even pay any attention to.

Data throughput was defined as “The speed in which we receive and send data.” It began with 14.4, 28.8, 56, 112, kilobytes per second, and then we had T1, T3 lines. After that the satellite connections, and finally wireless. Dictionary.com tells us, “Data-Throughput refers to how much data can be transferred from one location to another in a given amount of time. It is used to measure the performance of hard drives and RAM, as well as Internet and network connections”.

Of course with all of this booming business and technology everyone had to have access to the information highway. Therefore, we all begin to join in by purchasing all the gadgets and devices that we needed. However, I am willing to bet that only a few people even thought of the fact that everything that we were purchasing at the time would be outdated in less than two years. “Mind blowing right.”

Next we visited the topic of computational speed which is the speed at which a computer can process data usually defined as MIPS or Millions of Instructions Per Second. I must add this topic may be better described as the increase in computational speed. As the boom continued the world desired smaller and faster ways of communication.

Finally, our memory usage and yes you guessed right if you were thinking that this increased as well. According to dictionary.com memory usage is, “a part of a computer in which information is stored for immediate use by the central processing unit.”  But of course today we do not use that fancy language we just want to know how much “RAM” does the darn thing have?

I stated earlier that most of these attributes of the boom are things that we do not really ever pay attention too. and I think that is true about most computer users or customers unless they are really up on technology.

Dot com to Dotcom to Dot com to Dot

Dot com to Dot com to Dot?

Today in our Information Technology class our professor took us on “a personal journey through the technology revolution of the 90’s to today (which has just begun to affect and change the world and individuals) using slides, props, and horse racing made up of plastic dinosaurs” that ate each other on their way to success.

The lecture was very interesting. We learned about a company named Prodigy that was owned by Sears and IBM. I thought that this was very intriguing because I always thought of Sears as a department store that nothing to do with the big business of technology. Another fact that I found to be odd was that CompuServe was owned by H&R Block. I thought wow I guess the money follows success, but that makes sense to me.

Boom!!! It is 1995 and the world wakes up to the world wide web. We learned that this was the year that Netscape with Jim Clark and a student Mark Anderson go public and become the most valuable company according to the “Dot.com” Boom, but had no revenue! This is unbelievable how someone tells the masses something is worth a large amount of money and we follow like sheep.

Furthermore, in 1995 “Wired and Hot Wired”, MCI, How to Publish on the Internet, Pathfinder launched Time Warner, and the Advertising Age Magazine were all birthed. During 1995 Bruce Jacobson and Rob Glazer visited Cole and Weber and Real/ Audio launched along with the NFL’s web “The Chat before you Spat”. Later funded by SPRY and EDS Free Zone was launched. At Free Zones peak it had up to 450,000 registered users. The yahoo.com domain was created on January 18, 1995

In 1996 CompuServe bought Spry. “Acquiring Spry "demonstrates our commitment to place CompuServe at the forefront of the Internet industry"(New York Times). and Free Zone goes to Thompson Target Media along with their business with Baywatch and Nikken. The NFL had Star Ware which became Espn.com. We also learned about the US web. It was a web company that would buy up smaller struggling web companies, give them a bonus, and even let them continue their operation.

Finally, in 1997we seen the insanity begin to take place. Unfortunately, one the biggest problems was many investors were willing to overlook the traditional metrics of investing and begin basing their confidence on technological advancements.

The era was marked by the formation of numerous new Internet-based companies. Some of these companies were successful such as Amazon.com and E-bay, but some of them failed and completely went out of business.

Erik Hanberg

Erik Hanberg

On November 9^th of 2015 our Information Technology class had the privilege of guest speaker Erik Hanberg. Erik was born and raised in Tacoma, he attended Bellarmine Prep high school and then he proceeded into his collegiate career at Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota where he graduated with a degree in English.

Erik is an elected official of Tacoma Washington, web developer, and an accomplished publisher and author. He is also the former Managing Director of the Grand Cinema and founder of the The Horatio Theater project.

During his visit Erik spoke on numerous topics on of topics was about the pros and cons of working online. It seems like the risk of working online definitely is worth the reward. For instance, he drew a graph on the board and I noticed that the potential of making a robust income is very feasible.

He spoke of when working online there is “no physical labor” however, this working online can lead to some people becoming lethargic, so he stressed the fact that it is imperative that you love what you do for a living. Another aspect that Erik mentioned about working online is that some of the things that you say may be taken out of context and him especially as an elected official he has to watch what he says. I like the quote that he used about working online “The amount of privacy you have right now might be the most privacy that you will ever have”. This is true and very disturbing in my opinion. Furthermore, he explained how 90% of your waking day is spent looking at rectangles. That is comical it seems like I am at about 60% already.

Overall I enjoyed our guest speaker. I have found that college has numerous avenues for education and this was a good example of that. The aspects of self-publication of writing materials, web development, and entrepreneurship are just a few prosperous attributes that you can pick up on while in college.

Epic Video 2015

Epic Video 2015

At the beginning of the film I was not able to deduce what was actually fiction and what was fact. However, during the introduction I did notice the narrator mention the death of the newspaper. I know that the circulation of newspapers has slowed down incalculably, but not entirely.

However, I did some research and found that Amazon was launched in 1994 with automated personal suggestions and Tim Berners Lee did event the world wide web in 1998. Furthermore, Google was actually launched in 1998. In 1999, Blogger is founded. In 2002, Friendster is released. In 2003, Google buys Blogger. In 2004, the rise of Gmail gives competition to Microsoft's Hotmail. Microsoft's Newsbot comes as a response to Google News. This all makes sense because the “Epic film was uploaded in 2007.

After that the film seems to hypothesize stating, “In 2008, Google and Amazon merge to form Googlezon.” Then he postulates, “In 2010, the news wars rage between Microsoft and Googlezon.” In 2011The New York Times sues Googlezon, "claiming the fact-stripping robots are a violation of copyright law", but the Supreme Court rules in favor of Googlezon.

I have never been the type that was always really up on media, so I had to do some research. However, I was pretty sure that I had never heard of “Googlezon” and it would have actually make sense for The New York Times to sue another media company.

I did find this film to be very interesting. I would like to see one that predicts 2025.

"Internet Scavenger Hunt"

Internet Scavenger Hunt

Now this was interesting our professor assigned the class to conduct an Internet Scavenger Hunt. Some of the items were obviously easier to find than others.

As I began the assignment one of the topics to be found was right up my alley. He wanted us to find an itinerary for 3 adults and 3 kids to a Disney resort. I cannot remember the specific location, but this was easy because whenever my family is going on vacation I do all of the booking.

There was about twenty questions and we worked in a group of three, so we tried to split the work up evenly, but there was one guy in our group that seemed to be able to find everything at a rapid rate. I must say that one of the most challenging questions was trying to find his middle sisters maiden name. It was like playing detective.

It took our group the entire class session and we still did not complete the exercise. However, there was one group that finished extremely fast and our professor was even amazed.

I believe that our professor was reminding the class of how fast and easy it is for us to dig up information online. However, there is a disturbing piece to this assignment. Some groups were actually able to find our professors middle sisters maiden name in about an hour!

"3 Things That I would not Buy Online"

3 things that I would not buy

 Online

1. One thing that I would never buy online is jewelry. It seems like every time I see jewelry online; the price is just too good to be true. For instance, I once saw a Rolex watch for $450. Sorry but buying jewelry online seems like the perfect platform to ripped off. Counterfeit jewelry turns green. My advice to everyone is don’t do it!
   
   
2. Next, I would never buy groceries online. Maybe I am just old fashioned or way to old school, but I like to see the freshness of my meats and vegetables in person before I buy. Plus, with the price of food rising steady, why would I want to add a delivery charge on top of my grocery bill. Therefore, I say no thanks to the “virtual supermarket.”

     3. Finally, I must say that I would never buy clothing online. In this day and age there seems to be a large variance in sizes. For instance, for me boots seem to run big in size when I purchase them they are usually a half size to big, and sometimes a whole size depending on the brand. Furthermore, I have noticed that some shirts that are made for adults look like they were made for kids. Again no thanks. I like to try my clothes on. Plus, if I have to return something I would rather keep the receipt and head back to the department store

Thus far, I have had success purchasing books, a calculator, and cologne online. I think that I got lucky with the cologne it was the real deal and about half the price. As far as books they are usually cheaper than the local book store. Personally I would rather buy everything in person, but sometimes the price is just unbeatable.

I found that creating a html was pretty easy with directions that I had. If fact the only difficulties I had was remembering to close the tags. However, the steps were very easy to follow. I even decided to use the marquee function to moves words across my web page. I also thought that the back ground color was a nice option.
As a visual learning I decided to go online and visit YouTube. On You tube I found more options and information on how to make my web page more impressive. Furthermore, I plan to visit some of the suggested links that were provided in the directions. I plan to keep working on the page and I might even start creating more. I have a number of friends and family that have small businesses, and non-profit organizations that could use my help.

Email vs. Postal mail

 

There are a number of similarities and differences between email and postal mail. However I would like to write about a few attributes of each mail system that we do not really think about. First of all, both types of mail are written or typed. Both types of mail are sent in an envelope to a mail box. Both mail systems acquire and accumulate junk mail.

When I think of the differences, the first thing I think of is the price. A book of stamps can cost $10 to $15 at least. However, with email we just pay a bill which is usually bundled with other services. I mean could you imagine paying for and putting a stamp on every email that you sent. Moreover, both types of mail go to a final destination before reaching the receiver.