Failboat Captain's Weblog

Digg

failboatcaptain — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:11:08 +0000

Very creative advertisement from WWF http://www.flickr.com/photos/32895514@N02/3472074417/sizes/l/

Someone at Microsoft is Taking LSD… [PIC]

http://digg.com/microsoft/Someone_at_Microsoft_is_Taking_LSD_PIC

Another Reason why Time Warner Sucks

http://digg.com/tech_news/Another_Reason_why_Time_Warner_Sucks

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1′s Best Surprise New Features

http://digg.com/microsoft/Windows_7_Release_Candidate_1_s_Best_Surprise_New_Features

Coolest Damn Web Design Ever

http://digg.com/design/Coolest_Damn_Web_Design_Ever

Another Reason why Time Warner Sucks

Time Warner and Embarq were offering bad service for high prices and people had enough. They decided to make the own public owned utility. Instead of bothering to compete, Time Warner and Embarq are instead lobbying to make what fed up citizens did, illegal. This is another story of greed overcoming fairness. Every deserves the best they can get and instead of allowing that to happen it is simply [trying to be made] disallowed

Coolest Damn Web Design Ever

That web design is awesome. It completely changes everything and how it reacts to mouse movements is unbelievable.

Google SketchUp

failboatcaptain — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:39:20 +0000

SketchUp is a 3D modeling program designed for architects, and civil engineers. It can also be used by filmmakers, game developers, and related professions. It also includes features to facilitate the placement of models in Google Earth.

It was designed to be easier to use than other 3D CAD (Computer-aided Design) programs. A feature of SketchUp is the 3D Warehouse that lets SketchUp users search for models made by others and contribute models. SketchUp was first released in August 2000 as a general purpose 3D content creation tool.

Internet Privacy Concerns

failboatcaptain — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:20:49 +0000

Google Latitude is a great product, with serious flaws. Although you can let others know how you are doing and where you are, this can be easily abused. The main concern is predators. Even if you do not give out your location, the data is still there and a hacker can track you. This creates enormous concerns in regards to privacy and well-being. The same applies to facebook. With images of yourself on the web, it makes it even harder. Predators will impersonate someone else and get to know you as you know them and when it comes to meeting them, only a world of pain will await you. Predators will always be there and now, it is easier than ever.

Employers should use social networking sites to research possible employees. This provides more insight into the person and the best descisions need to be made. Anything put on the web is public knowledge. However, employers will have to realize that no one is perfect. Everyone will have flaws, hard or easy to find, on the internet. Once something bad is found, a job may be lost and given to no one else. That is a problem that may be caused by social networking. Employers must realize that everyone has flaws but it is the performance that counts.

site/IP

failboatcaptain — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:19:48 +0000

When any website is typed into the address bar, it is sent into the Domain Name Server. The DNS take a look at the address name and matches it to an IP. Computers see addresses and IPs. For example, http://holycross.bc.ca is matched to 23.45.239.70. The Tracert is the path that is taken to the destination IP address or website. It is the command given that takes a browser to the site and changes with different companies.

Binary Arabic

failboatcaptain — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:55:46 +0000

Binary -> Arabic

Computers understand numbers as we do, but see them differently.

Computers work on a base of 2 (they understand numbers by powers of 2 eg. 2^2, 2^5…) through 1s and 0s. The number 58 is seen by a computer as 111010

2^5 (32)

2^4 (16)

2^3 (8 )

2^2 (4)

2^1 (2)

2^0 (1)

1

1

1

0

1

0

The 1 acts as ON telling the computer to include the number and the 0 acts as OFF.

The computer adds up the numbers that are indicated as ON to determine the number.

As shown above 2^5+2^4+2^3+2^1 which is the same as 32+16+8+2 which equals 58.

Therefore; 58 is 111010 in Binary.

Arabic -> Binary

This is not as easy, it is a matter of trial and error.

We are given the number 73.

The first step is to subtract the biggest power of 2 equal to or less than 73 in this case being 2^6, 64.

73 – 64 = 9

We know that the first of 7 numbers is now a 1 so we have 1******

The next number we can subtract by is 2^3 which is 8

9 – 8 = 1 therefore we have 1001***

The last number is 1 so we subtract one from one and get 1001001.

1s act as ON and 0s as OFF for each increasing power of 2 from left to right, starting at 2^0.

Digg Articles

failboatcaptain — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:18:39 +0000

Digg

First Look at Windows 7’s User Interface

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-first-look-at-windows-7.html

The latest product concocted by Microsoft is the new Windows 7. This new computer is much more personal and interactive. The use can now set more settings up such as the taskbar and can peek into other windows for short periods of time without interacting with them. These computers are very different from Vista is that they are not made up of all new files. The security here is not as high as it was in the Vista which many believed were too high such as Mac which cleverly exploited this problem in one of their infamous commercials. I think that this new computer will be a good balance of everything that a user wants. I also think that Mac will no longer be able to take advantage of the system’s flaws (as well as they could).

Apple to oppose anti-gay marriage ballot question

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10074793-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Gay people should not be allowed to get married, period. Marriage is an institution of the Church which very validly is not allowing gay couples to get married in the Church. Who supports it doesn’t really make a difference but it is nice to see corporate giants show good morals, whether or not they really mean it.

Google’s Newest Plane is a Fighter Jet

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/business/Googles_Newest_Plane_Is_A_Fighter_Jet_.html

Google just bought a fighter jet to complement the Boeing 767 and other jets that they own. The Dornier Alpha Jet purchased by Sergey Brin and Larry Page is stored in a hanger at Moffett Field in Mountain View. The plane came with scientific instruments to help out NASA missions. For all of you who made of those nerds in high school, now is the best time to send those apologies, or it may just get bad for you…

NeatReceipts

failboatcaptain — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:29:50 +0000

NeatReceipts

This is a great product. It is useful for anyone who has to manage their spending which is everyone. NeatReceipts® scans your receipts and automatically interprets them, saves them and can move them around from program to program as you need. This can help with business costs or just keeping track of how you are spending. A huge help of this machine would be when it come to tax time. It makes your job much easier.

This machine is great, but it is not human. It is bound to make mistakes and these mistakes will be huge problems if you trust the machine to do everything. Even if the machine does everything, however, you still need to insert the receipts into the machine which is a pain. It is much easier than the old system, but still a pain. If this problem or the problem of incorrect organization arises, you will go back to the beginning of having nothing done. Any faults with this machine will only put you back to where you started without anything lost except time for your stupidity of not watching the machine dealing with your money.

Parts 2 and 3

failboatcaptain — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:24:00 +0000

Part 2

Turing Machine – simple abstract computational devices intended to help investigate the extent and limitations of what can be computed

Apple’s First product was the Apple 1.

It was built by Steve Wozniak.

It sold 200 units.

The Apple 1 was first shown the Homebrew Computer Club.

Bill Gates followed in this business.

The Altair BASIC was his first product.

He made his money from Microsoft’s partnership with IBM.

He influenced the market by Microsoft being a giant in the industry.

November 1985	Windows 1.01
November 1987	Windows 2.03
March 1989	Windows 2.11
May 1990	Windows 3.0
March 1992	Windows 3.1x
October 1992	Windows For Workgroups 3.1
July 1993	Windows NT 3.1
December 1993	Windows For Workgroups 3.11
January 1994	Windows 3.2 (simplified Chinese only)
September 1994	Windows NT 3.5
May 1995	Windows NT 3.51
August 1995	Windows 95
July 1996	Windows NT 4.0
June 1998	Windows 98
May 1999	Windows 98 SE
February 2000	Windows 2000
September 2000	Windows Me
October 2001	Windows XP
March 2003	Windows XP 64-bit edition 2003
April 2003	Windows Server 2003
April 2005	Windows XP professional x64 edition
July 2006	Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
November 2006	Windows Vista
July 2007	Windows Home Server
February 2008	Windows 2008

Part 3

Computer – impresses me because they can do a lot and upgrades are always being invented, so much that one day something unbelievable will come along

Nintendo Wii – this will change gaming because of how interactive it is

Phones – Phones started out as machines that could call and do nothing else, now they come in colour screens, with games, and can surf the web. They will definitely become something more.

Television – TV provides entertainment and there is always a need for it. They are always making clearer signals and bigger TVs with better quality.

iPod – impresses me because its entertains me so well with so much memory for so many things, and being so popular will cause more people to think up more ideas

Part 1

failboatcaptain — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:28:37 +0000

Part 1

ENIAC – Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, First general-purpose computer built. A calculating machine. Used by military to calculate missile trajectory.

Size - was roughly 8.5 feet by 3 feet by 80 feet (2.6 m by 0.9 m by 26 m) 680 ft^2

Switches – ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints.

Data entry – ENIAC used ten-position ring counters to store digits; each digit used 36 tubes, 10 of which were the dual triodes making up the flip-flops of the ring counter. Arithmetic was performed by “counting” pulses with the ring counters and generating carry pulses if the counter “wrapped around”

Use- Making calculations fast. (385 multiplication operations per second) (forty division operations per second or three square root operations per second)

Vacuum tube sizes – 35mm in length and 10mm in diameter

Transistors – a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals, came out after vacuum tubes.

Size advantage – smaller than vacuum tubes before it, could pack more, was much cheaper and faster

Materials used – Metals, conductive stuff

First made by – Austrian-Hungarian physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld who filled for a patent on October 22, 1925

Integrated circuit – Microchip, more uses in one chip

First made by – Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce

Timex Sinclair – collaboration between Sinclair Research and Timex Corporation, released 4 computers

First home computer – The Apple 1

Questions

failboatcaptain — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:50:01 +0000

What are some of the things that you would like to accomplish this school year?

Some of the things that i would like to accomplish this school year are more knowledge, better understanding, and a grade average of B or higher. I am always looking for something thats interesting to me and then finding out more about it and i hope to have some of that this year. Understanding is not something thats easy. To be able to realize whats going on in every situation, from every point of view is a challenge but it is something that i am trying to become better at. A letter grade average of B or higher will not be easy for me because homework is boring and uninteresting and i hope to have that changed.

What types of technology are you interested in? Why?

I am interested in computers, MP3 players, televisions and video games consoles. I am interested in there because they provide a lot of entertianment for many people especially me.

What piece of technology could you not live without? Why?

A piece of technology that I can live without would have to be either computers or toilets. Computers provide me with a lot of entertaintment, but I really need a toilet to make my life a lot better. A very close call but I will have to go with the toilet.

What would you like to learn about this year in this course?

I would like to learn about both computers and how to work on them. I want to know what makes it work but i also want to know how to make it do what you want, no matter what it is.