Week 14: Clear

This weeks topic was fairly interesting. I am really into corporation and talking about enterprise computing really had me going on this. In computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a data set. On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site. Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads. Mirroring is a type of file synchronization. A live mirror is automatically updated as soon as the original is changed. Striped set with distributed parity or interleave parity requiring 3 or more disks. Distributed parity requires all drives but one to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive. A single drive failure in the set will result in reduced performance of the entire set until the failed drive has been replaced and rebuilt.

an enterprise storage is the computer storage designed for large-scale, high-technology environments of the modern enterprises. When comparing to the consumer storage, it has higher scalability, higher reliability, better fault tolerance, and much higher initial price. A Storage Area Network can best be thought of as a large pooled storage bucket. As servers or applications require more, the storage is allocated as necessary. A SAN centralizes and shares storage for multiple application servers, and optimizes file serving for end users. Each server participates in sharing the underlying storage resources, but the allocations are dedicated to the individual server or application on a server. This allows the organization to manage storage at a more granular level as well as provide a way to provision storage as needed, rather in large blocks to dedicated server like a traditional direct-attached RAID array.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/productivity/howto/san/components.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#RAID_5

Secure E-mail

I didn't find a particular company that used a secure e-mail but I did find articles about banks using secure e mail data protection steps. The article is pretty much about how the banking business does so many transactions and activities online that it makes perfect sense for them to use a secure e-mail system. Or just any sort of security measurements that help protect data. The article talks about if data isn't secure then we can have viruses. Viruses are a major email security hazard that companies simply cannot afford to ignore. Over 11,000 different computer viruses exist to date and some 300 new ones are created each month. Their effects range from negligible to bothersome to destructive. The article also talks about information leaking, various studies have shown how employees use email to send out confidential corporate information. Be it because they are disgruntled and revengeful, or because they fail to realize the potentially harmful impact of such a practice, employees use email to share sensitive data that was officially intended to remain in-house. And one more important thing spam. About 90 per cent of email users receive spam - or unsolicited commercial mail - at least once a week, a survey conducted by the Gartner Group shows. The research results, issued in June 1999, revealed that almost half those surveyed were spammed six or more times a week. The study surveyed 13,000 email users. Banks do a lot of things via e-mail including reaching the customer, bill paying, checking balances, etc. And if the customer sees this kind of stuff they will be turned off and maybe just maybe move to another bank.

http://www.safetysend.com/secure_email.htm

Week 13: Clear

This was one of more interesting lectures. It talked about what is the right way to use a computer. Or in other words the lawful way to use the computer and the information shared on the internet. A lot of us think since there is so much information available on the internet we are free to use without giving credit to the rightful owner. Well thats not how it works. We have to give them credit. Other wise we are ethically wrong and are totally working against privacy. I also liked the part about why people create viruses and worms. I never really understood why they did it.



Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to remain accessible and productive to its intended users. The terms computer system security, means the collective processes and mechanisms by which sensitive and valuable information and services are protected from publication, tampering or collapse by unauthorized activities or untrustworthy individuals and unplanned events respectively.

Ethics, in the classical sense, refers to the rules and standards governing the conduct of an individual with others. As technology and computers became more and more a part of our everyday lives, we must understand that the problems that have always plagued business and conduct will continue to be a problem. In fact, a new medium can provide even more difficult questions of judgement. In other words, since the introduction of the World Wide Web, the definition of ethics has evolved, too. A new type of ethics known as computer ethics has emerged. Computer ethics is concerned with standards of conduct as they pertain to computers.



Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified in the public realm. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something within them that is considered inherently special or personally sensitive.

http://privacy.org/
http://library.thinkquest.org/26658/
http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/02-fall/internet.html

VOIP

My experience with VoIP has always been a positive one. My family and I are very familiar with skype because our family lives across the globe so it's a very effective way to keep in touch and see everyone on a fairly regular basis, not to mention, it's free! It's nice because we are able to see what people are doing, and hear their voices at the same time which makes you feel as if you were there with them. Other than skype, to keep in touch I've also used AIM chat which is another form of VoIP which I find to be more convenient with friends since most of my friends have AIM. However, I feel like when I used Jing, I was having problems recording the video because even though I skyped with my mom for a bit, only about 30 seconds showed up and the quality shown on the Jing link is less than average, freezing up often and with bad sound quality even though the actual video call on skype itself went smoothly. However, I noticed that Jing does a good job with efficiently recording actions being done on a computer. I would say that my experience with Skype was great, as usual, but I'm not too sure about Jing.

http://www.screencast.com/users/hsmbb/folders/Jing/media/0cd5fb00-87ea-4eb5-96f5-f5a6da4e0d43

VOIP

My experience with VoIP has always been a positive one. My family and I are very familiar with skype because our family lives across the globe so it's a very effective way to keep in touch and see everyone on a fairly regular basis, not to mention, it's free! It's nice because we are able to see what people are doing, and hear their voices at the same time which makes you feel as if you were there with them. Other than skype, to keep in touch I've also used AIM chat which is another form of VoIP which I find to be more convenient with friends since most of my friends have AIM. However, I feel like when I used Jing, I was having problems recording the video because even though I skyped with my mom for a bit, only about 30 seconds showed up and the quality shown on the Jing link is less than average, freezing up often and with bad sound quality even though the actual video call on skype itself went smoothly. However, I noticed that Jing does a good job with efficiently recording actions being done on a computer. I would say that my experience with Skype was great, as usual, but I'm not too sure about Jing.

http://www.screencast.com/users/hsmbb/folders/Jing/media/0cd5fb00-87ea-4eb5-96f5-f5a6da4e0d43

Microsoft Access Project

This project was perhaps the most time consuming and troubling. It was really hard to do. I got confused in a lot of parts. But I really liked learning the part where you can import data in pretty much any format in to the database. You can share data between Access and Excel in many ways. You can copy data from an open worksheet and paste it into an Access datasheet, import a worksheet into an Access database, or simply load an Access datasheet into Excel using the Analyze it with Excel command. This topic explains in detail how to exchange data between Access and Excel by importing, exporting, or linking to data. I really liked the part where you had to create tables. I enjoyed that a lot and really learned a lot of new stuff. When you create a database, you store your data in tables — subject-based lists that contain rows and columns. For instance, you can create a Contacts table to store a list of names, addresses, and telephone numbers, or a Products table to store information about products. Because other database objects (database objects: An Access database contains objects such as tables, queries, forms, reports, pages, macros, and modules. An Access project contains objects such as forms, reports, pages, macros, and modules.) depend so heavily on tables, you should always start your design of a database by creating all of its tables and then creating any other objects. Before you create tables, carefully consider your requirements and determine all the tables that you need.

My Avatar

For my first attempt at creating an avatar I used the 'Build your wild self' program in which I had to create a realistic looking avatar and then added animal features. However, I did not like this program because I wanted to make an avatar that was simply a realistic version of myself. This led me to use the program 'Face your Manga.' On this program I just had to go through a series of option tabs where I picked out specific features that were similar to my face to make an avatar that looked like me. It was very straightforward and easy to do and in the end, I was able to make a realistic avatar, just like I wanted!