Final project

THE SCIENCE OF COMPUTER

 

        Today, college is almost the final step in our pursuit of education and we are learning many things that add to our knowledge. When I was young, I was very eager to be a college student and now I am. At this time, if I would study in Korea, I would still be a high school student. So I am really excited that I am now in college. This term, I have seven subjects and COMPSCI is one of my favorites because it’s something new and amazing for me. This subject is about the world of computer and it has given me information which I did not know.

         Before, I used to think that the computer is only for playing, social networking and researching assignments. And I did not care about any computer when they are broken because my brother was the one who fixed it always. Even when I bought my laptop, I just chose it basing on its design. Maybe most of girls’ mind would be the same as mine. Simply, I just didn’t know the importance of computers. But now, if I buy a new computer, I know what to check on its component. I have to consider the processor, ram and hard drive. And also I have to check the other parts of the computer. Usually it’s the keyboard, mouse and printer that I am interested as well. If I wanted to have larger memories, I have learned that we can buy removable secondary media. Now I can recommend hard drives to my friends. Here in the Philippines, there are 2 terabytes (TB) external hard drives and that is big enough for space especially if they are into movies.

         I want to be a career woman and someday I will manage our company. At this time, obviously I should need a programmer for our company’s own site. Because of my knowledge from this course, I have now a basis on how to choose future programmers or if not, I can just out- source for our company. When the time comes that I get to have my own company, I will sponsor programmers to advanced programming schools so they will be able to learn more and equip themselves in the world of programming. I believe that they should be trained enough so they can make better results not only for my company but for their future employers as well.

Today when I turn on my laptop and visit Facebook, I am reminded of the advantages of social networking. I appreciate how the internet helps me not to be homesick. Whenever I want to chat with my friends, I just go online. Social networking helps me to communicate with my loved ones far away from me. This is all because of the computer!

There are many stories also that I read in the internet of how they become successful in their businesses because of social networking. I believe that not all of these people went to school and studied computer science. But they became successful. So I think that we students who have enrolled this course have higher possibility of becoming successful. Of course that is if we use the computer to our advantage.

         Through the COMPSCI class, I have learned to appreciate the power of the computer. For me it is not just a gadget that each student should have. This is one of the inventions which helped man become industrial and successful. Let us use it for our success!

Advantage of social networking (5stories)

A Social Networking Success Story

BY Lynne d JohnsFri Nonov 10, 2006

On Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit, Hyun-Oh Yoo, a CEO of SK Communications based in Korea, spoke about his company's social network, Cyworld, which he said was the largest social networking site in the world. Started in Korea, the site has attracted many first time Internet users who are in their 20s.

As reported by GigaOm, Yoo stated that "Cyworld2 has 20 million subscribers in Korea, which is 40 percent of the total Korean population, as well as more than 3 million users in non-Korean countries."

    "The site has 22 million unique visitors per month, 20 billion page views per month, and $300,000 in daily sales of digital items. He also said the site sells 6 million songs per month and has 100,000 videos uploads daily (bigger than the publicly reported YouTube numbers)."

What's fascinating about Cyworld, is that it's a little bit MySpace, a little bit iTunes, as well as a little bit YouTube. It might even be said that it's a little Second Life, and even Sims, as users set up a virtual room where their avatar lives. Users exchange real money for acorns to purchase wallpapers, clothes for their avatars, furnishings, background music, banners, fonts, and other decorations.

Because of this, the social network's business model is not only an ad-driven one, as many other social sites in the US are, but it also incorporates the selling of digital tools that enable users to enhance their personal spaces. This is something that Wallop, a beta social network and spinout company from Microsoft, has embraced as a business model also.

The corporate world has also embraced Cyworld, setting up worlds there to accompany product launches. For critics asking where's the successful business model in social networking, Cyworld might be the answer.
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/lynne-d-johnson/digital-media-diva/social-networking-success-story

Create super users

Glogster is a social network where users can create interactive posters, or “glogs.” Glogs are very personal, and the Glogster team gets to know a lot about its users. Realizing that some of their users are more avid and opinionated than others, Glogster decided to build a deeper connection with those users by creating a group of super users, or Glogster Commandos, explained Andrew Connelly, Glogster’s Director of Business Development.

After running a series of successful contests, Glogster offered regular users the opportunity to become a commando member. Glogster views its commandos as partners with its development team. Thoughts and ideas that have come from the group have included what prizes to give away (iPods! Glogster bought 100 of them) to what they don’t like about the site (Commandos hated the banner ads so Glogster took them down immediately). “This is an exclusive group that is growing with us to help us make the best, most desirable product,” Connelly said.

http://mashable.com/2009/04/28/grow-social-network/

A social-networking success story

The Voices for the Library story demonstrates how effective social media can be for promotion on a massive scale, collaboration between geographically diverse team members, and giving a voice to people who would otherwise go unheard

By Simon Barron on Feb 09, 2011.

CC-AT Flickr: Margaret Stranks

Voices for the Library is a campaign group promoting the value of public libraries. The team behind the group live in different places. They have only met face-to-face once. Despite this, they have worked together for the past five months to create one of the most well-known library campaign groups in the country. The group owe its existence and its success to social media tools.

The group began on Twitter. During the summer of 2010, a media narrative developed claiming that libraries were failing and that the internet was replacing the need for libraries and trained library staff: these assertions are not true. This reached a nadir when BBC’s Newsnight mistakenly reported that the total number of loans from the UK’s public libraries in 2006-2007 was 314,000: the actual number is approximately 314 million.

The library community has a very active presence on Twitter—over 400 library workers use Twitter regularly—and soon, a small group of librarians began to share ideas about how to counteract traditional media’s misrepresentation of libraries. By September, Voices for the Library was set up: a platform to spread information about libraries and let users share their stories about the value of libraries.

As a team of volunteers spread across the UK with no budget, we relied on our technical knowledge and expertise to promote ourselves using free and functional social media tools. Within three weeks, we were using Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, and a website built on WordPress to spread the word and gather supporters. We now regularly use these as platforms for spreading information about local campaigns, events across the country, the latest library news, and even recruiting new team members. To these, we have added a paper.li webpage to collate library news everyday and a Google Maps API to show which libraries are under threat. Our online presence requires a great deal of commitment and effort from the team members maintaining the profiles—particularly on Facebook and Twitter which require updates 7 days a week—but it is necessary to keep the campaign strong and build on momentum.

Behind the scenes, we use a variety of tools to co-ordinate efforts: a PBworks wiki, Doodle, Chatzy, email. These allow us to hold team meetings, share materials sent to us by supporters, work together on promotional materials, and formulate effective strategies for developing the campaign. Our team communication through social media tools has been so effective that we’ve only had to meet face-to-face once so far.

WIth over 400 libraries now under threat, it's even more important for the team to react quickly and spread the word as far as possible. The power of social media for promotion was demonstrated on 16 January when library user, mardixon, asked Twitter users why libraries were important. Within a few hours and some supporting tweets from Voices for the Library, the #savelibraries hashtag got over 5000 tweets and became a trending topic first in the UK and then worldwide. Thousands of people heard about the threat to libraries that day, many of whom would never have heard about it via traditional media.

Social media has allowed us not only to set up a national campaign group that otherwise could not have existed but also to spread the word effectively and cheaply and to reach people we would otherwise not have reached – politicians, journalists, celebrities, and most importantly, library users. Voices for the Library will continue to use social media and experiment with new tools so that we can give voices to people who value the UK’s public library service.

http://zine.openrightsgroup.org/comment/2011/a-social-networking-success-story

Give something away that’s customized for the user

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 One of my first experiences with this technique was when Andy Sernovitz, author of “Word of Mouth Marketing” sent me a luggage tag that had my business card laminated inside. I had met Sernovitz a few weeks earlier at an event and had handed him my card. I assumed he would just keep it. I didn’t expect him to send it back. On the other side of the luggage tag (the backside of my business card) was an ad for his book and some advice that explained what he just did: “Word of Mouth Tip #33: Do something special and surprising.”

Another great example of personalized customization was what Dr. David Klein, a San Diego chiropractor did at a WordCamp conference in San Francisco. He had a representative photograph people holding up a sign of their dream profession along with their Web address. In turn, a cartoonist drew a caricature of that person in that profession. Here’s mine: (While I thought this was a great idea, since his business was local, he should have done it in San Diego, not San Francisco.)

Personally greet new members

 Veronica Alvarez is the founder of FertilityTies, an online community for those trying to conceive or going through infertility. Since fertility is a very sensitive and sometimes uncomfortable subject, Alvarez went out of her way to greet all new members personally through the site. “I believe this was instrumental for new members to feel genuinely welcomed and to have a higher inclination to come back and visit the site,” said Alvarez. Soon after, one of the site’s fertility doctors helped out with the personal greetings. And a few months after that, the site’s veteran members continued the good will by greeting new members themselves.

The warmth of the community has become infectious and last Christmas, some members got together and surprised one of the site’s fertility doctors with a personalized gift, plus a gift basket to Alvarez for building the community to help them through their difficulty journey to conception. With 85,000+ monthly visitors and 20% monthly growth, Alvarez still makes as much time as possible to greet new members, plus gladly sees other members join in as well. As Alvarez chimes, “We’ll continue to grow one warm greeting at a time!”

Law and order (Access Nation)

 

Hacking

Originally it came from the verb Hack which means” To cut into repeatedly and/or irregularly”. Hacking can be breaking it means breaks the programs. For usage as a Slang Term or Jargon for the act of breaking into (hacking into) computers and computer networks which adopted as a common term in Computer Science.

A computer virus

It is a computer program that can copy itself and infect to the computer. It is written specifically for corrupting of the computer files and programs and it can also carry out its tasks based on the users’ activities or the works with the computer. And if it’s not controlled it will be attached in the files and the programs and spread it everywhere throughout a computer or a network. A virus created for windows affects only windows systems and not any other systems. Lastly, they infect only computer software.

A computer worm

It is very similar to a virus, a computer worm is self-replicating computer programs. It can use a network to send many copies of itself to other computers on the network without any user’s intervention or agreement. It can also self replicate sending out hundreds or thousands of copies of itself to mails or contacts in our messengers.

Common Computer Myths and Misconceptions

Have you heard someone telling you something about your computer that doesn't sound quite right or that sounds a bit odd? Don't feel alone. This is the birth of computer misconceptions. It is also your clue that the information isn't correct. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of these misconceptions out there, so writing about all of them would make an article that was difficult to read and far too long. So I will address just a few of the more common things heard.





MYTH: I don't need an antivirus program because I'm using a firewall.


Truth: Antivirus software and firewall software are two different things, designed for different purposes. A firewall is designed to help prevent unauthorized entry into your computer from the internet. It is not designed to prevent virus infection, nor is it able to determine if there is a virus nor to remove one. So, you always have to have a reliable antivirus program to protect your computer.





MYTH: I use a free anti-virus program, so I don't need to pay for one.


Truth: Free antivirus software can only detect major threats and ignore minor ones while the antivirus software that you purchased can provide a better protection in your computer since it can track down the hundreds of new viruses that are produced each week. The companies that make the antivirus use their revenues for researching the new viruses and produce software and updates capable of addressing them.



Major computer and Internet companies use paid anti-virus programs because they have more money to spend. They use them because they do a better job of finding and removing the viruses, if they are found.





MYTH: Restarting the computer is the same as shutting it down completely then powering it back up.


Truth: Shutting a computer off completely and waiting at least 30 seconds before powering it up again allows electrical current that is still in the wiring and circuit boards to be drained out. Restarting doesn't do this because there’s still current in the wires. Turning a computer off regularly is a good practice.





MYTH: Monitors wear out faster if you turn them off when they are not in use.


Truth: Powering down the monitor isn't much different than turning off the TV. Turning off the monitor saves money as well as wear and tear on other internal components. A monitor left on will usually wear out far faster than one that is turned off when it isn't in use, just like the TV.

COMPSCI proj 01

It is just right to recall the history of computer which has made the world smaller in my very first blog. This machine has made it easy for us to store bulk of files, do series of mathematical computation, reach the other side of the world and freely express our minds through the advent of the internet.

Although it was not clear who and when the computer is invented, we people can sum up its history this way: First, there was only the mechanical calculator that Blaise Pascal introduced in 1960’s that was later modified into the first multiplying calculators before the American Revolution. Several other mechanical computing machines were then invented, yet it was in 1936 when Konrad Zuse, a German construction engineer designed the first programmable computer. On the other side, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford (John) Berry had been working on the first digital computer whose function was to solve linear equations in physics. Next was the fast development in the advancement of computer. Here is the significant chronology of events in the history of computer based on http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm.  

1944- Howard Aiken & Grace Hopper-  The Harvard Mark 1 computer

1946- John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly- ENIAC 1 Computer

1948- Frederic Williams & Tom Kilburn-Manchester Baby Computer&The Williams Tube

1947/48- John Bardeen, Walter Brattain & Wiliam Shockley- The Transistor

1951 -John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly- UNIVAC Computer

(First commercial computer & able to pick presidential winners).
 
1953- International Business Machines- IBM 701 EDPM Computer (IBM enters into 'The History of Computers'.)

1954 - John Backus & IBM- FORTRAN Computer Programming Language (The first successful high level programming language.)

1955(In Use 1959)- Stanford Research Institute, Bank of America, and General Electric-
ERMA and MICR (The first bank industry computer - also MICR (magnetic ink character recognition for reading checks.)

1958- Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce- The Integrated Circuit (Otherwise known as 'The Chip')

1962 -Steve Russell & MIT- Spacewar Computer Game (The first computer game invented.)

1964- Douglas Engelbart-Computer Mouse & Windows (Nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end.)

1969-ARPAnet (The original Internet)

1970- Intel 1103 Computer Memory (The world's first available dynamic RAM chip)

1971- Faggin, Hoff & Mazor- Intel 4004 Computer Microprocessor (The first microprocessor.)

1971 -Alan Shugart &IBM- The "Floppy" Disk (Nicknamed the "Floppy" for its flexibility.)

1973 -Robert Metcalfe & Xerox- The Ethernet Computer Networking (Networking.)

1974/75 -Scelbi & Mark-8 Altair & IBM 5100 Computers (The first consumer computers.)

1976/77 -Apple I, II & TRS-80 & Commodore Pet Computers (More first consumer computers. )

 
1979- Seymour Rubenstein & Rob Barnaby- WordStar Software(Word Processors.)

1981- IBM- The IBM PC Home Computer

1981- Microsoft- MS-DOS Computer Operating System

1983- Apple Lisa Computer(The first home computer with a GUI, graphical user interface) .

1984- Apple Macintosh Computer(The more affordable home computer with a GUI.)

1985- Microsoft Windows(Microsoft begins the friendly war with Apple.)

          The two leading names in computer technology dominate the computer industry in period of information technology. What will come next will be for the consumers who always want to be updated with the latest model to look forward to.