IT101

Prior to registering for IT101, I was apprehensive. I was just filling a pre-requisite and was mostly uninterested in the class. It thought it was going to be a lot of memorizing and dry course information. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was proved incorrect. The course was very relevant, interesting, and practical.

    The first and possibly most important skill we learned in this class is how to effectively use Microsoft Excel. I would be very surprised if any reputable company would hire anyone without skills and knowledge in Excel. It is such a widely understood software, it is almost taken for granted that students know how to use Excel. Also, not only did we learn many of the simple functions Excel offers, we learned some of the less common functions like conditional formatting and icon sets. These features are fairly easy to use, but can make a spreadsheet significantly more aesthetically pleasing.

    In addition to learning Excel, I think learning how to use Microsoft Expression Web is a very good skill to have. I consider students more marketable if they are experienced in web design. They can possibly help with a company's website and even create their own. Having the ability to create and modify a website is relatively rare and this class has informed its student on how to do so.

    Thirdly, I was very interested in learning about mashups and Microsoft Popfly. I think there is a lot of potential in the Web 2.0 as a business platform and by giving us some general knowledge in the software and industry, students of this class are equipped with the abilities to create a possibly marketable program. It was also a pretty cool surprise that the creators of Microsoft Popfly came to class…

    All in all, I have learned a lot of extremely useful information in IT101. I was unsure of how I would like the course material before the class started, but soon found that I was very interested in it. I learned many things that I can carry with me through the rest of my education and through my career as a professional. I was not sure this class should have been a pre-requisite prior to taking it, but now I see why it is. The class was great and I would recommend it to anyone interested or uninterested in information technology.

CIS Presents(3): All things Google

Google is changing the definition of a web browser. What was once a tool only used to search the internet for different information is now an instrument allowing people to go way beyond simply searching the web. Not only is the company of Google itself expanding rapidly, its ideas and web innovations are as well.

    IGoogle is the first noticeable and user-friendly feature I have seen in Google's extensive bag of ideas. This site allows you to change your Google page to display basically anything you want. You can show weather, time, date, quotes, financial information, news, and much more. You can customize your background to many different things including a beach, a winter scene, a country, and much more. I have made IGoogle my homepage. It displays the time and date, financial information, and a gadget that gives me new and updated brain teasers everyday…it was a great idea on Google's part and the site is gaining much popularity.

    In addition to IGoogle, the Google docs application is a genius idea. Before this program, members of a group had to write their part of a paper, email it to each group member, then one of the group members would have to compile all the information to form the paper. With Google docs, each member can simultaneously edit the paper. There is only one paper, so everyone is reading the same thing, and all members can add their parts, without the long process of compiling each separate part. I had not heard of this application before my it101 class and have since used it for group work. For my gb102 term paper, I was assigned to a group and our group was assigned to write a paper on a certain theory. I introduced my group to Google docs and they were all very happy with it. Each member edited it until we were pleased, then we copied it and pasted it into Microsoft word to change the text and format the paper to our discretion. In my experience, Google docs is a very useful tool and will grow as long as people pass the word along.

    Another interesting Google application is in the same category as Google docs, but it allows multiple people to edit a spreadsheet instead of a document. This may be even more convenient than the document editor, because it is more difficult to compile spreadsheet data than it is to compile text. The spreadsheet editor is just another innovative Google idea.

    Google is a very 21^st century company. It is based on the internet, however seems to be a more powerful company than many other companies. The stock is very strong and it is my prediction that it will continue to go up, which shows the growing strength and popularity of the company. What will they do next?

 

Linux vs. Windows

I found Linux Office to be surprisingly accommodating. Almost every
tool that I use frequently while typing in Microsoft word is available
on Linux's word processor. For example, on the top left toolbar,
where the most common links are, include: new page, open, save, and an
interesting one that I don't remember seeing on Microsoft office,
which is "document as email." The name is self-explanatory, but it an
interesting idea, especially for people who don't have spell check on
their emailing program. Also, using this word processing program,
users have the ability to save the page as a pdf just by clicking a
button rather than saving the file and changing its format. Unlike
Microsoft word, the Linux word processor does not have all the
different types and styles that Word '07 has. For example, users have
to manually change their paragraph and spacing by choosing alignment
and spacing, whereas in Word '07, the user can click on one of the
displayed settings and the page will automatically format to whichever
format the user chose. All in all, the Linux word processor can do
everything the average person will ever need. The interface looks a
little outdated, almost similar to an older version of Microsoft Word,
but for free, I would most certainly recommend it.




The Linux spreadsheet program also proved very useful. The main
difference I found was in the field of conditional formatting. Yes,
the Linux program does have conditional formatting, however, it is
nowhere near as comprehensive as that of Microsoft Excel. Instead of
having a seemingly unlimited amount of different formats to choose
from, the Linux spreadsheet program only has a few different types of
headers to choose from. So instead of having different colors, icons,
and texts using Microsoft Excel, a user only has a choice of a few
different headers. Also, the graphical options of the Linux
spreadsheet are nowhere near as detailed, aesthetically pleasing, or
inventive as those of Microsoft Excel. Users have the option of pie,
line, and bar graphs using the Linux application, but once the graph
is made, options of changing it are very limited compared to Microsoft
Excel. However, for free, the Linux spreadsheet program is very
practical and can do everything that the average user will need.
As far as user interface goes, I feel Windows delivers a very
user-friendly product. Windows is easy to navigate, aesthetically
pleasing, and has been around for long enough for programmers to sort out
almost any problem that could occur. However, the interface found
while using Linux is comparable. It reminds me of an older version of
Mac OSX, which is the os found on MacBooks. It took me a while to get
used to this interface, but just like anything else, I got used to it
and found that it exceeded any Microsoft os. Who knows, if I
continued to use Linux, I may find that I prefer it over Microsoft as well.

The file organization system is very similar to either windows or
mac. There is a hierarchical organization system with a home section
with separate files that contain other files or information. The
names of each file are different, but they stand for the same things.
For example, instead of saving something in /c/windows on a pc, a file
can be saved as /home/demo using Linux. Again, this is not a drawback
to using Linux, it is just something different that users will have to
get used to.
A problem that I did find with Linux, however, is that I had a very
difficult time trying to open my Excel project. I tried to find it by
opening the sda1 file as root and couldn't because no files came up.
After trying that, I saved the spreadsheet on a flash drive then
tried to open it with the Linux spreadsheet, but it didn't work. I
tried many different ways to open it as different kinds or archives,
but I couldn't figure it out. However, if a person had created the
spreadsheet using Linux from the beginning, they would not have run
into this problem.
I will say that it is very likely that if people are properly informed
about both operating systems, they will choose Linux. The first and
most attractive of Linux is that it is free. That is the first thing
buyers will look at; they will be more apt to buy a $200 computer that
runs on a different os than they will be to spend considerably more on
a computer that runs on an os that costs hundreds of dollars. All the
user has to do it get comfortable with the interface, and considering
I have been playing with it for about an hour and am already
comfortable with how to do many things, it will not be very hard for
users to familiarize themselves with this open source operating
system. Even though I have been brought up using Windows and OSX, I
will definitely consider buying a Linux based computer the next time
I am looking to buy a computer.

CIS Presents: Meet the Majors

    The CIS Presents presentation on meeting the majors was fairly interesting. The main point that was stressed during the presentation was that IT is an all encompassing field that is applied to all sectors of business and people who receive a degree in information technology or computer science are not always employed by technology companies. The list of available alternatives is extensive and spans from: consulting, public accounting, information technology to aerospace, insurance, energy, security, finance and many others.

    An interesting example that was presented at the meeting was that of a group who dedicated themselves to spreading emailing capabilities throughout Cambodian villages. This group of people went into villages and installed modems, cable, and other hardware needed for the internet to work, and their plan was successful. Another group called E-Choupal, which is based India is working towards a more competitive market for information technology. The analogy the speaker gave was: it is as if all the independent coffee shops around the world banded together to compete against Starbucks.

    Now for what most students care the most about…salaries. It was quoted in the presentation that CS majors are the most highly sought after students in the job market today with starting salaries ranging from 52,500 to 102,000. In addition to salaries, signing bonuses are becoming increasingly present in the process of hiring CS majors, which illustrates the growing demand. Brand name companies such as IBM, KPMG, Liberty Mutual, PriceWaterhouseCoopers have been hiring more and more CS and IT majors for positions such as financial leadership positions, leadership development programs, technology development programs, it development programs, performance IT programs, systems analysis and much more….there are plenty of jobs out there for technologically inclined persons.

    The main classes for a CS major include but are not limited to: CS150: intro to data and info management, which can go towards a minor, CS180: programming fundamentals, and CS:240 business processing and communications infrastructure. These classes shape students to be valuable assets to their team and it forms an excellent foundation for a long-term business career, whether it be in technology or not.

    Another point that was stressed at the presentation was that an IT minor adds a very valuable dimension to one's resume. Many students are not up for a whole major in CS, but a minor in IT gives them a very strong understanding of information technology and the material learned in the minor can be carried over to almost any profession. The three most common IT minor classes are: cs150, cs213, cs359, cs476, however, this minor is fairly flexible and there have been many cases where students pick their own classes that apply to the minor. Just make sure the choices get okayed by an academic advisor.

    In conclusion, there is a very high demand for CS and IT people in the job market right now. Salaries and signing bonuses are just two examples of incentives businesses offer to try to hire more people. Also, if you are not up for majoring in CS, you can always minor in IT, which will add significant value to your resume.

Del.icio.us vs. Digg.com

    In general, I am not a big fan of social bookmarking. I admit that it is interesting and may prove useful to some people in certain situations but after using it for two weeks, I do not see myself continuing to use it. I feel that social bookmarking serves as more of a tool to aid in procrastination than it does in constructive internet searching. Thus, social bookmarking is a great tool if you are looking to procrastinate, but if you are looking to productively browse the internet, stick to old fashioned google or yahoo.

    Even though I do not support the cause that social bookmarking stands for, I admit it is pretty cool. The first thing I like about del.icio.us is that it automatically installs a tag and home button on the internet toolbar of the user. This makes it extremely convenient for the user to tag sites on their delicious account. In addition to the ease of tagging, delicious is good because the buttons in the toolbar allow the user to search normally using google or whichever search engine they prefer; the user does not have to be restricted by needing to search on a foreign internet browser. Also, I like delicious's interface. It is aesthetically pleasing and very easy to personalize. I am also a big fan of the many features offered by delicious; the coolest one is tag rolls. It was a really good idea to enable users to insert a tag cloud into any web page, be it a blog or a personal site. Lastly, I found the facebook integration tool interesting. I doubt many people will use this feature, however, it is a good idea and it wouldn't surprise me if some people did use it.

    The partner I chose to share del.icio.us tags with was Shaan from the x17 section. His del.icio.us name is shaanaga and I was impressed by the ease of sharing on this social bookmarking site. I found some of Shaan's articles interesting such as the article on India's attempt to catch up to leading countries in the technology world. It was very easy to share information with Shaan. All I had to do was click the "your network" tab, type his name in the box and click "add."

Once I added Shaan to my network, all I had to do to view his information was click on his name. Upon doing so, all of the sites Shaan tagged appear on the screen and delicious allows me to view anything that he has tagged.

    Digg.com was the second social bookmarking site which I chose to test drive for a week. I chose this site because I have heard my friends talking about it and was interested to see the differences between digg.com and del.icio.us. The first difference that I noticed right off the bat was that digg.com did not insert a new button onto the web browser's tool bar. This is bad for two reasons; first, it is not as easy to tag sites because the user does not have the button on their task bar, but the more important drawback to this is that to tag a page in digg.com, the user has to be using digg.com's search engine. In my opinion, this takes away from the amount of usage digg.com receives because users are less likely to sign into digg.com when they begin to search the internet. Delicious didn't have this problem because the user does not have to be signed into delicious to tag something to their account. In contrast, the fact that user's have to use the dig search engine may help digg.com in that user's will switch from their prior search engine choice to digg's. Another feature I noticed about digg.com is that it gives the user a choice of frequently viewed videos for that day. As I said before, most of these videos are mindless and only exist for the sake of entertainment, but a lot of them are worth watching if free time needs to be filled. In addition to the videos, Digg.com has a list of different subject users may be interested such as business, world news, technology, science, and entertainment. These features further underscore a user's need to search via the digg.com search engine.

    Sharing information between different users on Digg.com was not as easy as it was on delicious. The process of adding friends to my account was very similar to that of delicious in that all you had to do was click add friends, search for them, then add them to your network. The difference is that using Digg.com, when you click on a friend, their profile comes up, which shows not only their recently tagged items, but their other recent activity such as when they got an account with dig or who they are adding to their network. This feature is great because it makes internet stocking even easier. !!

    All in all, my opinion on social bookmarking remains unchanged. For the most part, I think it is a waste of time and only serves as a tool to further delay our already procrastinating generation from doing what they need to get done. However, I do recognize some practical uses for these sites such as accessing previously viewed material on the internet from another computer and displaying a tag cloud on your blog to let people know who's interested in what. Furthermore, I rate del.icio.us an 8 out of 10 because they deliver a good product, but could offer some better searching tools and I rate digg.com a 7 out of 10 because even though they have an extensive search engine, I think it will be hard convert people from using their favorite search engines such as google and yahoo.

CIS Presents: Electronic Voting

    In 2000, the United States endured a painful and embarrassing election. As a result of electronic voting, counts from many states came back inaccurate and recounts were time consuming and sometimes impossible. I figured the United States had learned its lesson after this embarrassment, however, after attending the CIS Presentation, I stand corrected.

    The first problem pointed out in the CIS presentation was that most electronic voting machines don't supply the voter with a printed receipt, which can cause problems because many people don't know how to use the machine and choose to vote for someone without meaning to. Also, many of the people who volunteer to work at the voting births aren't exactly technologically savvy; if there is a problem with one of the machines and nobody knows how to fix it, it is unusable. In addition to the workers not knowing how to fix the machine if it breaks, it is very common that voters don't even know how to use the machine. Many gen x'ers and baby boomers aren't comfortable with computers; they are used to checking a box with a pencil and paper and when they are confronted with a computer and a keyboard, they get stage fright and don't know what to do.

    In Oakland County, Michigan, a lot of money was invested to improve the electronic voting situation. The Automark, which is supposedly one of the best electronic voting machines, was installed in almost every voting location in attempt to eliminate discrepancies in vote counts. The main advantage of this machine is that it enables disabled people to vote, specifically blind people. However, there have been numerous problems just in testing the machines. There have been paper jams, miscounts, and miscellaneous errors that prevent people from voting. Also, this machine does not give a paper receipt of the vote, which makes it nearly impossible to perform an accurate recount. Just in the first testing period of the Automark, over 100 errors were found; are these machines helping or hurting the voting process?

    Avi Rubin is a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University. He has taken a stand against current electronic voting machines and to prove his point, he has conducted multiple experiments to back his argument. Professor Rubin has concluded that it is possible to render votes to swing a close election. Although he made his findings public, Maryland proceeded to purchase the very same machines that Rubin proved he could rig.

    After learning the facts about the electronic voting world, I am not so sure a repeat of the 2000 election is impossible. I thought we would have ironed out any problems or adopted a new system of voting to avoid further embarrassment, but it is evident, after going to the CIS presentation, that we have not. It is great that we are allowing for less able people to vote, however, there has to be a better way. Problems dealing with technology are inevitable; there will always be glitches, power outages, and errors to question the results of an election. Should we go back to the old school pen and paper approach? I think so.

RSS Feeds

In his article on RSS feeds, Dr. Shaw claims that these feeds have the potential to one day be the main way people use the internet. I could not agree with this statement more. In my experience, the internet is used primarily to check information such as financial information, stocks, emails, sports, facebook, myspace, and things of this sort. If RSS feeds expanded to where they could provide information for the most used parts of the internet, this new technological phenomenon would definitely take hold. Main websites such as yahoo finance, cnn, and facebook would have to focus heavily on advertising their new way of operating. RSS feeds would need to be explained and justified before people would start to take advantage of them and that could be done through online tutorials and other sources of information. If people were convinced enough to start using them, I am sure the use of RSS feeds would spread like wild fire.

It is easy to explain why companies would want to take advantage of RSS feeds; in using these feeds, websites can control what information is given to subscribers. In controlling the information subscribers can view, companies can publish different information that may put them at an advantage. For example, if CNN.com has incentive to publicize a certain story in the news, they may put that at the top of the list of stories that get sent to subscribers. Also, in addition to controlling information, companies or websites can regulate and observe how many subscribers they have. Many website based companies are valued on how many hits or views their site gets and by sending podcasts or other information to subscribers via RSS feeds, companies can control not only the information they give to people, but the number or people they give it to. For example, if a certain person visits a website once a week and decides to subscribe to the RSS feed for that site, the site will receive more hits because they control how many times people receive the information; that person who subscribed would give the site more hits than just one a week.

A very popular site that offers RSS feed subscriptions is www.nytimes.com. As seen in the screenshot above, people can subscribe to pretty much any portion of the website/newspaper that is offered. This may foreshadow what is in the future. If technology follows the same trend as newspaper, it will move to the internet, from there it will go to RSS feeds then who knows.

Another site that uses RSS feeds is npr.org(above). Npr.org is the website for the national public radio (npr) and offers many different types of RSS feeds. These RSS feeds are similar to those displayed on nytimes.com; they encompass fields from arts and culture to world news.

The last site that I frequently visit offering RSS feeds is surfline.com(bottom). The RSS feeds offered on this site aren't as broad as nytimes.com and npr.org. Surfline offers surf news, alerts, and an RSS feed called surfwire, which talks about upcoming events and issues having to do with events. The other RSS feeds on this site offer surf reports for most of the big surfing spots in the world. If surfline wanted to add some RSS feeds to improve their site, they could add an RSS feed that offers the newest videos or one that shows pictures of recent pictures or tours.

Lastly, I think RSS feeds are an ingenious way for people to get information without having to search for it on the internet. It is becoming easier and easier to do things that were once unheard of, and RSS feeds are an example of this. Instead of going to a website and searching for information, one can just click on a tab and all the most recently updated information pops right up on the screen of the subscriber. At the same time, I cannot see RSS feeds completely taking over the way people use the internet. There are still needs for non current information. For example, it would be very difficult to create RSS feeds that would allow a user to research old information such as old news articles or critiques. In conclusion, yes, I do think RSS feeds may grow to be the main vehicle in which people use the internet; however, as a result of the need for non current information, I cannot see RSS feeds completely taking over.