Day 9

1. Steve Jobs Picasso quote explains why he felt it was okay to steal ideas from other companies. He said that most of his success stems from ideas he has taken from others and made them even greater.

2. In 1988, Apple sued Microsoft claiming the look & feel of their GUI was too similar to Apple's Lisa GUI. But Apple's Lisa GUI was already a copy of one previously developed by Xerox. The suit was finally settled in 1994. Apple lost.

3. I believe Jobs thinks he is the great artists. Since he sta

ted that the majority of his ideas were stolen and not just copied. He stole the Lisa idea from Xerox. He didn't legally borrow or copy it, he outright stole it. He believes the Lisa GUI to be the greatest thing to ever happen to the computer world.

4. I found a pie chart representing the market share. I've posted it below. Here is the link as well.

Day 7: Lab 2

After cracking the code we found the text to be: Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. We converted the binary using an online ASCII converter.

In the code, each 8 numbers is one letter. So:

01000010 = B which decimal equivalent is 68

01100101 = e

00100000 = Space

01110011 = S

And so on.

Day 7: Lab 1

We decided to use a system similar to the binary code. For example, the first word in the latin phrase, lorem, would be punched like this:

L O R E M

12 15 19 5 13

Here is exactly how it would be punched on the card (the highlighted numbers are punches):

Day 6: How to Read a Punch Card

Deciphering punch cards is as hard as it looks. I don't know how anyone ever decided this was an efficient means of storing information. Nonetheless, today in class we attempted to read these cards. These are the steps used:

How to use a punch card:

1. Find a punch card key that looks similar to this (I have also posted a similar picture below). We used IBM 80-column punch cards.

2. Notice they ABCDEFGHI... at the top of the card.

3. Now look at the holes punched under the letter A. There is 1 hole in Row 12 and 1 Hold in Row 1. That is the punch code for the letter A. The rest of the alphabet has its own corresponding holes (or punch code). Numbers 0 - 9 and a few extra symbols also have their own punch code.

Good luck!

Day 5

Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing the construction and operation of a product in order to manufacture a similar one. In the film, Compaq studied the design of IBM's computers in order to create identical versions of their own.

According to Wikipedia--which I usually find to be a legitimate source for information--referse engineering software or hardware systems is usually legal.

But I do know, in the ethics of fashion design, producing garments identical to that of another designers is illegal and frowned upon. Stores like Forever 21 and H&M have been accused and even sued by designers like Trovata, Diane Von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs, and Gwen Stefani for recreating items from their collections and selling them for next to nothing.

Day 4: Fellow Student's Burning Question Answered

Here is a link to my answer to Jess' question about internal hard drives vs. external hard drives.

Day 2: Hardware

After today's talk, what is the one burning question you still want answered about hardware?

I used to play a lot of computer games in middle school. I was that one girl in the pitch black gaming station with a hot pocket and a Diet Coke playing Age of Empires or WoW. But middle school was years ago. I was wondering what kind of expansion pieces gamers are adding to their computers today to get the most out of gaming.

Revenge of the Nerds

The documentary proliferated 3 stereotypes of computer nerds:

1. diet consists of stale pizza and Coke
2. four-eyed males clueless about hygiene and girls
3. used their garages for computing instead of cars

Many of these stereotypes remain relevant today. And only because many of them still hold some truth. If you walk into a gamer store today you'll see over weight men with glasses, eating things like hot pockets, pizza, and Coke. They have little social skills and almost not hygenic routine. One thing I've found true about computer enthusiasts is that there is no specific age range. I've seen people from age 13 to 30 having discussions about computers.

CSC 111: First Post

I am a Strategic Communications major/Women's Studies minor. My name is Dawn. I am currently a sophomore. I chose this class to fill the Science requirements for graduation. The course catalog description seemed feasible, or more so than others, so I added it to my schedule. Hopefully I won't end up too disappointed or overwhelmed.