Week 7: Clear

Computer Software, many people think its nothing. Its just a small 'thing' in your computer. BREAKING NEWS! Without software you computer is just a collection of expensive computer parts.

The most important program that runs on a computer. Every general-purpose computer must have an operating system to run other programs. Operating systems perform basic tasks, such as recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping track of files and directories on the disk, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.

An operating system is a program designed to run other programs on a computer. A computer’s operating system is its most important program. It is considered the backbone of a computer, managing both software and hardware resources. Operating systems are responsible for everything from the control and allocation of memory to recognizing input from external devices and transmitting output to computer displays. They also manage files on computer hard drives and control peripherals, like printers and scanners.

For large systems, the operating system has even greater responsibilities and powers. It is like a traffic cop -- it makes sure that different programs and users running at the same time do not interfere with each other. The operating system is also responsible for security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system.

Operating systems can be classified as follows:
- multi-user : Allows two or more users to run programs at the same time. Some operating systems permit hundreds or even thousands of concurrent users.
- multiprocessing : Supports running a program on more than one CPU.
- multitasking : Allows more than one program to run concurrently.
- multithreading : Allows different parts of a single program to run concurrently.
-real time: Responds to input instantly. General-purpose operating systems, such as DOS and UNIX, are not real-time.

Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs, can run. The application programs must be written to run on top of a particular operating system. Your choice of operating system, therefore, determines to a great extent the applications
you can run. For PCs, the most popular operating systems are DOS, OS/2, and Windows, but others are available, such as Linux.

As a user, you normally interact with the operating system through a set of commands. For example, the DOS operating system contains commands such as COPY and RENAME for copying files and changing the names of files, respectively. The commands are accepted and executed by a part of the operating system called the command processor or command line interpreter. Graphical user interfaces allow you to enter commands by pointing and clicking at objects that appear on the screen.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-operating-system.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/operating-system.htm

Week 6: Clear

This weeks lecture which was combined with last weeks was long and very enduring. It was a lot of information to grasp. But I did understand some of the information. And those topics included memory and flash storage.

What is memory? How does it work? Although memory is technically any form of electronic storage, it is used most often to identify fast, temporary forms of storage. If your computer's CPU had to constantly access the hard drive to retrieve every piece of data it needs, it would operate very slowly. When the information is kept in memory, the CPU can access it much more quickly. Most forms of memory are intended to store data temporarily. All of the components in your computer, such as the CPU, the hard drive and the operating system, work together as a team, and memory is one of the most essential parts of this team. From the moment you turn your computer on until the time you shut it down, your CPU is constantly using memory. Fast, powerful CPUs need quick and easy access to large amounts of data in order to maximize their performance. If the CPU cannot get to the data it needs, it literally stops and waits for it. Modern CPUs running at speeds of about 1 gigahertz can consume massive amounts of data -- potentially billions of bytes per second. The problem that computer designers face is that memory that can keep up with a 1-gigahertz CPU is extremely expensive.



Flash storage, sounds fancy doesn't it? Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It is a technology that is primarily used in memory cards and USB flash drives for general storage and transfer of data between computers and other digital products. It is a specific type of EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) that is erased and programmed in large blocks; in early flash the entire chip had to be erased at once. Flash memory costs far less than byte-programmable EEPROM and therefore has become the dominant technology wherever a significant amount of non-volatile, solid state storage is needed. Example applications include PDAs (personal digital assistants), laptop computers, digital audio players, digital cameras and mobile phones. It has also gained popularity in console video game hardware, where it is often used instead of EEPROMs or battery-powered static RAM (SRAM) for game save data. Since flash memory is non-volatile, no power is needed to maintain the information stored in the chip. In addition, flash memory offers fast read access times (although not as fast as volatile DRAM memory used for main memory in PCs) and better kinetic shock resistance than hard disks. These characteristics explain the popularity of flash memory in portable devices. Another feature of flash memory is that when packaged in a "memory card," it is extremely durable, being able to withstand intense pressure, extremes of temperature, and even immersion in water.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/21/flash-emc-seagate-technology-cio-network-storage.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/computer-memory.htm
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-computer-memory.htm

Web 2.0 Tools

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This project was fairly confusing to me in the beginning. I mean like I got it but it was too much and that discouraged me. But with a help of a friend it all turned out good. I really liked this project. It brought a lot out of me. I could say whatever and use whatever I wanted as long as it looked presentable and professional. Playing with different tools was also very interesting and got me thinking like wow, there are a lot of tools out there that can help me with a lot. I talked about my family and I moving to the United States of America. I shared why we choose to move here, about my family, and how things are now. I hope this presentation tells everyone a story of my life, a very important story. I really liked one true media tools. They were easy to understand and doable. Enjoy and please comment.

Week 5: Muddy

The computer, one of the most important things to have in today's world. Computers do everything and it is really important everyone has one, depending on the financial situation. One of the reasons why I found this weeks lesson muddy was because there was so much that was covered. It was a lot of information to understand, especially for someone who doesn't go into the very deep of computers. One of the hardest sections for me were the processor. Pipelining was fairly difficult to understand, maybe because I've never heard that in the computer world. It was also hard for me to understand RSI. Again I think it was because there was too much information to grasp.

I found a few websites where they had video tutorials on how everything computer related works. They went in depth and the videos were not that long. And at the end of each video tutorial they had a mini quiz. They didn't have small points on hardware or input/output storage. They went into details. I understood the websites lectures better because I learn with more words written on a power point. The class lectures were mostly the instructor talking.

Our PC is a system, consisting of many components. Some of those components, like Windows XP, and all your other programs, are software. The stuff you can actually see and touch, and would likely break if you threw it out a fifth-story window, is hardware. The system unit is the actual computer; everything else is called a peripheral device. Your computer's system unit probably has at least one floppy disk drive, and one CD or DVD drive, into which you can insert floppy disks and CDs. There's another disk drive, called the hard disk inside the system unit. The floppy drive and CD drive are often referred to as drives with removable media or removable drives for short, because you can remove whatever disk is currently in the drive, and replace it with another. Your computer's hard disk can store as much information as tens of thousands of floppy disks, so don't worry about running out of space on your hard disk any time soon.

There's too much "stuff" on your computer's hard disk to use it all at the same time. During the average session sitting at the computer, you'll probably use only a small amount of all that's available. The stuff you're working with at any given moment is stored in random access memory (often abbreviated RAM, and often called simply "memory"). The advantage using RAM to store whatever you're working on at the moment is that RAM is very fast. Much faster than any disk. For you, "fast" translates to less time waiting and more time being productive. All of the information that's "in your computer", so to speak, is stored on your computer's hard disk. You never see that actual hard disk because it's sealed inside a special housing and needs to stay that way. Unlike RAM, which is volatile, the hard disk can hold information forever -- with or without electricity. Most modern hard disks have tens of billions of bytes of storage space on them. Which, in English, means that you can create, save, and download files for months or years without using up all the storage space it provides.

http://www.coolnerds.com/Newbies/Hardware/hardware.htm
http://www.pccomputernotes.com/