Google

After listening to this news about Google trying to create it`s own OS I have this thought. While I`m sure that google will make some kind of money from this I think most likely it will not be a profit. They already are making a huge profit from their interface that runs on windows now. Why do they want to ruin that. I don`t believe that any OS will overtake windows in the near future or ever for that matter. From what I have heard and have been reading there are alot of other people way smarter than me that have that same opinion. A great man once said " If it ain`t broke don`t fix it ". I agree.

Linux

What is Linux ? Linux is a operating system cloned after the OS Unix. This OS was invented by Linus Torvald and he had assistance from a bunch of hackers from around the world.

Who uses Linux ? Well from what I have read it seems that Linux with it`s open - source operating system is growing ever more popular in the Corporate world here in the US and around the world. Even the Military and Intelligence agencies in US, Canada, France, England, Spain and other countries are now running this OS along with China`s post office.

Would I use this OS ? I think once I get more computer savvy that I might use some of it`s software that is cheaper and from what I have read works just as good. For right now I think I`ll will stay with good O`L Windows.

Fighting Cybercrime

After listening to this interview with Joseph Minn and Barrett Lyon I was shocked. I cannot believe that these people from Russia, China and other parts of the world are software savvy enough to figure out how to get into our computers. I would think that our Government would have been on top of this along time ago. Thank goodness for Mr. Lyon. It also amazes me that the very people doing this are helping China steal our military secrets. This I think is scary.

Multimedia devices

After doing some research I found a new multimedia device being introduced by NEC in June. This device is an projector that is designed to be used in small spaces. This projector is the WT600. It uses no lenses like the projectors that are being used theses days , but uses aspherical mirrors that bounce the image back and forth until it is projected on the screen. This will project a large image up to 100 inches diagonally even as close as 8-10 inches away from the screen. This unit weighs around 10-12 lbs. and it has all the inputs and ports to connct to your laptop or PC. You can also use it wirelessly. I think this will be great for small venued presentations as well as large venues. The cost of this projector is expected to be around $7000.00 to start. You can find more info on this device at http://www.pcworld.com/article/110222/multimedia_devices

Hard drive

From the BIOS setup on my computer these are the settings related to my hard drive.
Drive configuration : Diskette Drive A: The size of my installed driver is 3.5 inches at 1.44 MB
Primary Master drive: is my Hard drive
Primary Slave drive is off
Secondary Master drive is my CD-ROM Device
My secondary Slave drive is off
IDE Drive UDMA is on
Hard disk drive sequence is as so: #1.System BIOS boot devices
#2 USB Devices (not installed)
Boot sequence : #1. Hard disk drive C:
#2. IDE CD-ROM Device

DMA - (direct memory access) This the fastest way of transferring data to the memory because it don`t have to go to the CPU 1st.

Low level formatting - Creates the physical format that defines where data is stored on the disk.

SATA - Serial ATA is a drive interface that is a flat and thin cable. One end connects to the driver and the other end to the motherboard connector.

ATA - Is an AT attachment. Parallel or Serial.

IDE (Intergarated drive electronics) is a 40 pin data cable that conncts to the motherboard. Used for CD or DVD Drives.

The History of Memory

In this weeks blog we were asked to research the history of Memory. Give some timelines and some interesting points that we learned from this research. Here is what I learned :


In 1932 in Austria, the magnetic drum was invented. It had 1o KB in capacity and was widely used in the 1950`s- 60`s.


In 1946 the Selectron tube was invented. It had a capacity of 256-4096 bits (32-512 bytes) but had to many problems and was very expensive to make therefore it never really succeeded in the industry.

The magnetic Core memory was introduced to us in 1949 by Jay Forrester. This dominated in the 1950`s and remained popular through the 1970`s. This was a small donut wired into the grid that passed 1/2 of the current through 2 wires that met back at the core.


The Hard disk drive was invented in 1956 by IBM. It had 50 24-inch disks that held 5 million characters, just short of 5 MB.

The 1st DRAM chip was developed by Intel in 1970. It was the best selling semi conductor in the world by 1972. It was 1st used by HP in their 9800 series.

In 1984 Apple came out with their 128 KB memory Macintosh computer. The 1 MB chip was developed at this time.

In 1995 Extended Data Out EDO DRAM is developed and IBM released the 64-bit AS/400.

Double data rate DDR SDRAM 266 MHz was introduced to us in 2000.


In 2004 the DDR SDRAM was increased to 533 MHz. Intel introduces its Pentium 4 processors.

This brings you up to todays advanced state of Memory that we are learning about.


I researched all this material on the following sites : Pingdom.com, About.com, wizcraftcomputerservices.com and Timeline Help.

Innovations for the disabled

There are several tools these days to help the disabled with operating a computer. I will tell you about a couple of these in this blog.
Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed an eye-tracking device. This was developed to help astronauts dock the spaceships in orbit. Now this device is a tool to allow people who cannot type with their hands use their eyes to do so. This system uses an infrared beam to illuminate the user`s face and a small video camera to record the position of the eyes. It calibrates itself while the user stares at a series of markers that appear at specific locations on the computer screen. Then the markers are replaced by an onscreen keyboard. By moving his eyes, the user can direct a small red dot around the keyboard and "type" specific letters by holding his gaze for a half a second. The cost of this device is around $2500.00

For people who cannot use a mouse there is TetraMouse. The TetraMouse is a low cost full featured, dual joystick or mouse designed to operate with the lips for those with little head movement or with the tongue (special cup shaped knobs available) for those with no head movement. There are two joysticks on this device, one positions the mouse pointer and the other performs left, right, left click and hold, right click and hold and middle scroll button functions. There is no additional software required. The computer sees it as a standard mouse. The cost of this device is $250.00.