1.  Cataloging CD collection

-You can search records for all of the CDs you’ve entered within the system.  The thing is that all of this has been taken over by the internet.  If you think about iTunes, it’s just a more advanced version of an Access Database.  And honestly, I have a ton of CDs, but they are all contained in my iTunes Database.

2.  Address Book

-You can search a persons name and if you’ve entered them into your system, their address, phone, email, etc. will pop up in your “Address Book Database.”  Once again though, this has been taken over by newer technology.  I actually put my addresses in my iTouch, which has it’s own Database like Access.  (It’s much more convenient to put them on a portable hand held device than putting them on my stationary computer.)

Changes in Communication

Communication has been one of the major changes around the world for the last hundreds of years, thanks to technology.  We went from writing letters to be delivered by a pony or donkey, to being delivered by a car from the post office, to UPS by air plane, to telephones, then to cell phones, and slowly but surely, the past ways of communication, dissolve into nothing.  Our parents were amazed by the telephone when they were children, and now, home land lines are slowly reducing due to cell phones.

Technology has not only changed within communication by phone, but by internet.  The internet was created, probably for most of us, in our early child hood, and desktop computers shortly before that.  It seems as if computers are going to start “dissolving” as well, with all the hand held phones, black berries, and iPhones.  Lap top advancements are getting more compatible and easier to travel with, but they too are taking over home and work computers.  Why call someone on a home line when you can shoot them a quick email from your blackberry without disturbing others around you?

A rapidly changing way of communication that is really affecting relationships between people, is of course, text messaging.  I am, and I’m sure others are too, constantly lectured about how you can’t hear the inflection in ones voice or see the expression on their face when you are texting.  I believe that texting is an excellent way of communication for some cases (when it’s impolite to leave the room and talk on the phone, or when you are working on homework and forgot what the page number was to read), but I do believe it is the cause of many bullying situations and arguments.  For some reason, people will say a lot more with their thumbs than with their mouths.

The first game I chose was Invest Quest.  There was no particular reason why, but I did learn about government security in banking and investing.  I learned of the information you need and need not supply and the research that needs to be done before investing in a particular company. You should run some searches and do some background checks on investment companies to learn more about them.

The second game I chose to play was the Case of the Cyber Criminal because of its appealing look. I learned that you should set your computer to automatically download security protection for your internet browser and search engines.  And that hackers are “very sneaky,” but can’t do much without their tools.

Mission Lap Top Security was the third game I chose because I would like to learn how to keep my lap top as secure as possible!  I learned, from their extreme stressing, that if it is possible, you should always keep your lap top with you.  Even if you can lock it in a secure place such as a safe or car, it’s still safer right by your side.

The last game I played was Invasion of the Wireless Hackers.  I picked this game because the ones that were left I knew more about than wireless hacking.  I definitely learned the most from this game.  I learned a lot about encryption, and that it is not enough security alone.  I also learned about broadcasting, and that even when it is turned off a hacker can still identify your ID.  This was the most educational game in my opinion!

Through my high school education, technology has been used strongly in some of my classes (such as Information Technology) and in others it is slowly developing.  When I started high school, one of the “cool” new ways to help students keep up with their homework was Homework Hero through the schools network, where each teacher would submit their daily lesson plans.  The trend was cool for about a year, if that.  They stopped keeping up with it (although some still reliantly do so that students can’t use it as an excuse), but students don’t use it.  Our school is very small, and very short on money, so it’s hard to begin where to talk about the ways technology could be helpful.  One that I have thought about in the past is my W131 ACP class I take from a teacher here at school for college credit.  This class would be great if we could submit our papers directly to her, even if we do see her every day of the week.  Whether it would be a blog, email, or whatever, it would be a way we would submit our papers to her consistently and she would know for sure who turned them in on time.  The problem with plans like this is that our school cannot require everyone to have an internet, even if they can afford it, it’s not reliable in this area.

There are many ways that my school could upgrade their technology, and of course they are with slide shows and projecters, but it’s very hard to do when you live in such a small community that’s spread out and located so far from internet providers, libraries, etc.

My ATM Steps, attachment

My chart got cut off just a little bit, couldn’t get it to fit right, still workin on it…. but you can tell what it says for now.*****

—I get my chart fixed and it’s fine when I view it from the blog, but if I log off and back on it changes!!! I don’t know why… so I’ve put an attachment too, to make it easier to read if needed. chapter-11-discussion1

                The only question marks I had were within the ‘subscribing to a website’ column.  I didn’t know if it meant subscribing as in paying to have access to a website, or just subscribing to a site such as facebook or myspace.  I think that if it is a purchased site that most of the question marks would be ‘R’s.  If it’s a free website to visit whenever, most of the question marks should be ‘Ok’s. 

Other than that, the only thing that was questionable, I made note of within the chart, such as opening a bank account;  if you are going to be doing some online banking, you would need to provide your e-mail address.  If not, there really is no reason, it would just be optional.  The “making in-store purchases” column I added also mattered if you were going to pay with credit/debit card or with cash.  A lot of these boxes needed to be able to be marked with NOs, because I think it would be pointless to put some of this information in certain places.

1. Would you prefer online voting to voting at a polling place?  Yes.  It’s not excessively inconvenient to go to a polling place, but I believe more people would vote if it was an online option.  There is always the risk of hackers, but yet I think the government would have it very secure before it became a trend.  Yet another way to view it, is the people that really care about it are the ones that take the time out of their day to go to a polling place and submit their decision.

2.  Do you think online voters would disproportionally vote for Republicans?  No, I believe that saying that democratics won’t have the access to computer and Internet connection could definitely be false.  I believe that it is possible that as many republicans could be in poverty as democratics, wihtout access to computer or internet, and yet there is still this wonderful invention that contains computers, called the library.  As I said, people that really want to vote will.  This gets very political and opionated, and I am not very knowledgeable about a lot of these type of issues, so please don’t take my statements personal… Politics is not my strong area.

3.  Should online voting be available only to specific groups, such as elderly voters and military personnel stationed abroad, who currently have trouble readhing polling places?  Yes, I think that is a great idea, especially for the troops stationed abroad.  Who needs to vote for offices more than the military that serves right under them?  I think it would benefit the elderly also, but I believe that there is less of a chance that an older person is going to have a computer, let alone the internet.

I use an information system everyday at school.  My first period class in the morning is called Office Practice; I am an assistant for our athletic director.  Each class teacher submits their own attendance every period throughout the day by the use of their comptuer.  In my first period class, I am the only student in their and submit my own attendance when I am present (every day pretty much).  You first open the program the attendance is sent through (it’s kind of like email), then you have tabs at the top, one says grades, another discipline, I don’t remember the others, but one says attendance.  You click on that and within that I select first period, check that I am present, and submit as perfect attendance.  It is then sent to the secretaries desk who, if I was absent, would post my name on her sheet of absentees for the class of 2009.

    I searched for careers for the first part of this lab.  I plan on attending Ball State and majoring in Graphic Journalism.  Some other areas I have been interested in that are related are Telecommunications and Graphic Design.  One career that is completely unrelated but it has always been a kind of dream of mine is marine biology. 

     I searched through Ball State’s website and other career websites about Graphic Journalism, Telecommunications, and Graphic Design.  All of these careers can be found as majors through Ball State and other colleges.  I found, a while ago when deciding what I wanted to do, that Graphic Journalism actually incorporates telecommunications and graphic design within it’s studies.  Marine biology on the other hand, can be found at colleges such as University of California, Florida State, and many others.  Most of these schools offer it as biological sciences and ocean studies, instead of an actual Marine Biology major.

    My personal computer fits into the big picture of using the internet through a Wild Blu Satellite Dish and Modem as shown in Chapter 5 lab.  From that modem, we have an IP address that gets sent out by a router to the different computers so that each one can connect to the internet at various times.  The router handles the internet connection.  Every web site that I visited for my searches on careers has it’s own IP address, just like my interent service gave me.

     At home, I typically use a Sattellite Modem connection to the internet, because I have no other choice besides dial-up.  At one time, our satellite connection was so poor that we had to have both connections and use dial-up for back up.  At school I use the T1 cable connection that is provided.  I have learned from reading that the T1 service we have at school is a dedicated line provided by the telephone company in the city, and they are not shared with other customers.  The speed range is not as fast as DSL, but it’s still more reliable than satellite.

     Security issues at home can be covered a lot by a firewall turned on from the personal computer.  Some internet modems actually have a firewall built into them, so if you turn on your computer firewall, you’ve got two layers of security already.  Having a wireless internet at my house, a username and password is always required before a user can access our network.  These different types of protections block ouside users from hacking into our computers and network.  Our router also processes network address translation which is accessed when the name and password for usage of the wireless internet.

The experiences where I come in contact with the most inaccurate data is using Wikis, especially Wikipedia.  Like we have already discussed, anyone can post on a Wiki, which is not a real good background for a research or scientific paper.  One way to verify inaccurate data is to find the name of the author.  In my W131 writing class this year, we have to cite all of our papers, and we are always supposed to have background information on the authors.  So the first step would be to make sure the site has an author, then if it does, do some quick googles on other work they have published; see if they have a good solid background of intelligent or factual information. 

Spend some time surfing the Web looking for sites that you consider well-designed and those you consider poorly designed. What characteristics do well-designed Web sites share? What common mistakes do poorly designed sites make? Provide us a URL of a well-designed site and one from a poorly designed site.

Nike.com has always made a big impression on me when I visit it.  Not only are their grahpics attractive, but they have an optional music setting, and quick links to other Nike related product sites, such as Nike ID, where you can create your own Nike if you cannot find what you like (which is another very well laid out website).  Their colors are all coordinating and appealing, words all seem to be just the right size to find things, and the links are easy to see with the pictures that go along with them.  How it looks is usually the first thing to attract viewers/customers, but no matter how good it looks, if it’s not easy to find what you want, the time spent there will be short.  Apple.com is another well-designed web site.  Once again, their colors are appealing and coordinating and their graphics are very eye-catching.  I think that color and graphics do a lot for both of these sites.

One website I found that I cannot stand was through an assignment we had for this class.  I cannot use Intel.com.  If you go to the homepage, it starts out very organized, asking if you want to look for work, play, or info about Intel.  After you select your language and one of those categories, it takes you to a page full of words!  WORDS … Lots and Lots of ovewhelming WORDS!  It would be such a more organized site if they just showed some categories, instead of listing every topic under every category!  Poor search engines are also a downgrade for web page quality.  No one likes to have to read a lot when they are trying to find things quickly and efficiently.  I have definitely found that graphics can make or break a website.  I also googled, “What makes a poor Website?” and found that everyone of them said, “Don’t Make people READ!” 

What My Network Diagram Shows:

Follow the arrows……

Our home network IP address was accessed to us through the Satellite connection called WildBlu.  Our Modem is also WildBlu.  It contains four connections that are represented by lights.  All four lights must be lit for the satellite connection to work. 

Our WildBlu Modem then connects to a Lynksis WIRELESS router.  There is a layer of firewall built into the router, the IP address is made private there, and more than one household computers can access the IP address from it.  A wireless router is actually in many ways more secure than a wired router.  With a wireless router, you can set up your network so that a name and password must be verified to access the IP address everytime someone tries to log on through your wireless connection. 

Our router then is connected to a Switch Board.  We use that in place of a hub.  Our Switch has wires flowing from it to all the connected computer networks throughout our house with an ethernet wire.  With the wireless router we also have access to a wireless internet that can be connected to laptops and network printers.  My diagram shows wireless and wire printers and how they connect with the system.

File Sharing Security is not an issue because the first layer of firewall is built into the wireless router (Network Address Translation).  On top of that, a second layer of firewall is turned on in all of our computers.  If we plugged our Modem directly into the computers, the IP address would never be turned from Public to Private; therefore, leaving the IP address available to anyone who could even then hack into our computer.