April CIS200 blog

Thursday-last day

2005-03-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

To Mr.Hardin and to my classmates may you all achieve your goals and be the best in whatever you are striving to achieve. May God bless you all forever more.

Wednesday-wk10

2005-03-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

One more day to go and school will be out, today we are going to take the programming part of the test. Here is some information from http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=31328

Gadget of the Week: Assistive Mouse Adapter

Posted March 16, 2005 1:10PM

IBM's assistive mouse adapter filters out the shaking movements of the hand in a manner similar to the way camera lens stabilizing systems work. It also can filter out unintended multiple clicking caused by a shaking finger.

For the 3 million people in the UK who suffer from a form of tremor condition, such as Parkinson's, using a computer mouse is anything but easy.
The assistive mouse adapter was invented by IBM researcher Jim Levine after he saw his uncle, a Parkinson's sufferer, struggle with using a computer mouse.

"I knew that there must be a way to improve the situation for him and other tremor sufferers around the world, including the elderly," says Levine.

The device is plugged in between the computer and the mouse and can be adjusted depending on the tremor severity.

It can also filter out unintended multiple clicking caused by a shaking finger. It filters out the shaking movements of the hand in a similar way to the stabilising systems of many camera lenses.

It may look simple, but for millions of people, the assistive mouse adapter may be a mechanical miracle.

Tuesday-wk10

2005-03-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Today we will work on our project so here is some information from the http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120050,00.asp

WebTV Virus Writer Sentenced to Prison

Virus had caused WebTV users to dial 911 instead of their local access number.

Paul Roberts, IDG News Service
Tuesday, March 15, 2005

A Louisiana man was sentenced to six months in prison for sending a malicious program using e-mail that caused Microsoft WebTV customers to call the 911 emergency service without their knowledge, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California.

David Jeansonne, 44, pled guilty in February to charges of intentionally causing damage to computers and causing a threat to public safety.

He was sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte and will have to spend an additional six months of home detention and pay $27,100 to Microsoft after he is released, the U.S. Attorney's Office says.

WebTV, which is now known as MSN TV, is a Microsoft service that allows subscribers to browse the Web and connect to the Internet through their television sets.

Malicious E-Mail
In July 2002, Jeansonne sent out e-mail messages to around 20 WebTV subscribers with an attachment that he claimed would change the WebTV display colors when opened. The attachment was actually a computer script that reprogrammed the recipient's WebTV box to dial 911 instead of the local telephone number to access Microsoft's WebTV servers.

Around 10 users fell for the ruse, and local police departments around the country responded, sending officers to the homes of WebTV users in response to the 911 calls.

Jeansonne was caught following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United States Attorney's Office.

Monday-wk10

2005-03-14T00:10:00.000-08:00

Here is some information from http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Mar/gee20050314029581.htm
do not know what we are doing today I hope we will work on our project some more.

Apple wins trade secrets lawsuit
Ruling forces online reporters to divulge sources

posted 10:27am EST Mon Mar 14 2005 - submitted by Brian Osborne
NEWS
In a decision that is expected to have a "chilling" effect on leaks about upcoming product releases, a California judge ruled that three online reporters must divulge their sources regarding a product code-named "Asteroid." The ruling comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by Apple against those responsible for publishing online what the company considers to be trade secrets.

According to an AppleInsider article (and one at PowerPage), Asteroid was rumored to be a device that would allow a user to connect external instruments or other audio devices to an Apple computer for use with the GarageBand 2.0 music studio application. It is Apple's belief that the websites' reporting on the Asteroid device violated California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act and non-disclosure agreements, while the three reporters who wrote the article contend that their actions are protected under the first amendment.

Apple also claimed that the authors of the articles were not journalists, but "merely people who disseminated product releases and other data, adding little analysis or journalistic context." The presiding judge, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg, declined to say whether the three were journalists or not, but wrote that even if they were, "The journalist's privilege is not absolute. For example, journalists cannot refuse to disclose information when it relates to a crime."

The three reporters are being represented by an attorney from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The attorney, Kurt Opsahl, stated that the ruling will be appealed.

Friday-endwk9

2005-03-11T17:55:00.000-08:00

Today I just worked on Project4 and look up some information that might be helpful for project 4 here is what I found at http://www.codeave.com/asp/code.asp?u_log=120

To see an example of the code go to the website above.

Daily Hit Counter

There are many ways to track usage of a website. The simplest way is with a hit counter, which will give you a raw count, but will not tell you how many people are visiting on any giving day. Utilizing the current date function a text document will be created utilizing the date as part of its naming convention in the same directory (providing that directory has user write access, you may need to place the documents in your cgi-bin depending on your provider) as the page we want the counter to appear on. The .txt file is first read to gain the value of the last hit count, one is added to that number, written to the .txt document, closed and the counter value is written as text to the page. If there is no text document (counter) for the current date one is automatically created. Refresh the content of the output page for a more complete illustration of the working counter.

Thursday-endwk9

2005-03-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

Today I think we go over Chapter 15 so let let me share some information with you from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/10/amd_turion_launch/ website.

AMD details its Turion mobile processor

By Tony Smith
Published Thursday 10th March 2005 21:18 GMT
CeBIT 2005 AMD today introduced its Turion 64 processor, the chip it hopes will help it wrest dominance of the notebook CPU market from Intel's Centrino.

The chip family provides much the same feature set as the 754-pin Mobile Athlon 64 for thin'n'light notebooks, such as 64-bit processing, AMD's PowerNow! power conservation system, on-board memory manager and so on. All of which suggests Turion really is just an exercise in branding. As is calling it a "Mobile Technology" rather than a mobile microprocessor.

Turion chips contain either 512KB or 1MB of on-die L2 cache. All the versions offer 128KB of L1 cache, support for a HyperTransport bus clocked at up to 1.6GHz, and the ability to deal with single-channel DDR SDRAM with ECC running at up to 400MHz.

The 90nm chips have a maximum power draw of 25 or 35W, with CPU clocks running from 1.6GHz to 2GHz. They support Intel's SSE 3 SIMD multimedia instructions, along with 'no execute' bit anti-virus support.

AMD introduced yet another model numbering scheme, separating the Turion line from both the Opteron and Athlon 64 ranges. The new chips have an 'M', for mobile, followed by a second letter, the higher up the alphabet it is, the more 'mobile' the processor, apparently. After that comes a number designed to convey how clock speed and cache size combine to give performance.

Wednesday-9

2005-03-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

Today we went over Chapter 14 maintaining and supporting a web application. The system.diagnostics namespace provides various classes that help in managing and monitoring a web application. We focus on three of these classes the process, eventlog, and the performance counter. The process class provides information about the processes running on a computer. EventLog class allows you to read from and write to a windows event log. PerformanceCounter class can be used to get performance data for running processes. We discuss working with event logs and writing to event logs and reading performance data of running processes. We also discuss designing a web application for performance and than we worked on our projects for the rest of the class period.

Tuesday-9

2005-03-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

Today we went over chapter 13 deploying a web application. XCopy Deployment, FTP Deployment, Microsoft Windows Installer, and the CAB files are the four types of deployment tools. Registry Editor allows you to specify registry keys, subkeys, and values that are added to the registry in the target machine during installation. We also discuss that public/private key pairs can be easily generated using the Strong Name tool (sn.exe) available in the .Net framework SDK. Global Assembly Cache Tool (GAC) the (GacUtil.exe) is a command line tool that is especially useful to add or remove assemblies from the GAC from a program script or a batch file. A Web farm takes the concept of a Web garden and extends it to multiple computers. In a Web farm, your application runs on multiple Web servers at the same time. Clustering provides a second method of combining multiple computers for a single purpose than we work on our projects.

Monday-week9

2005-03-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

We have a test today. Here is some information from http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Google-Launches-Desktop-Search-10-41134.html about Google Launches Desktop Search 1.0.

By Robert Jaques
VNUNet.com
03/07/05 9:32 AM PT

The Google desktop tool can be used to recover accidentally deleted information. For instance, a user who deletes a Word document or PowerPoint presentation can use the tool to find the text. All results are accompanied by cached snapshots of each Web page and document.

The full 1.0 release of the free downloadable tool, which was previously available as a beta test version, adds functionality including the ability to search the full text of PDFs and the meta-information stored with music, image and video files.

Additional enhancements include support for the Firefox and Netscape browsers, Thunderbird and Netscape e-mail clients and new Chinese and Korean language interfaces.

Web Page History
Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product management at Google, said: "It's like having a photographic memory of everything you've seen with your computer, right at your fingertips. We're proud to take Google Desktop Search out of beta, and we will continue to extend the utility of desktop search for users worldwide."

In addition to searching a range of computer files and e-mail, Google claimed that its offering is the first desktop search tool to access the full text of Web page history.

Thursday-end wk8

2005-03-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

Here is some information from the http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1771921,00.asp
website.

Intel Dual-Core Architecture
By Loyd Case

SAN FRANCISCO—Dual core processors are in. Intel is shifting most of its focus in the processor market to dual core CPUs, suggesting that by the end of 2006, better than 75% of the CPUs Intel ships will be multicore processors. ADVERTISEMENT
We sat in on a dual-core architecture session at IDF, presented by Intel's Benson Inkley. Inkley covered the fundamental concepts of how Intel will be building dual core CPUs.

Dual core CPUs from Intel will ship in two primary classes. The first class will ship with two execution cores on a single semiconductor die. The first iteration of this is the Pentium D ("Smithfield"), which will be built on the company's 90nm process, similar to that being used for the current Pentium 4 600 CPUs. Each core will have an independent interface to the frontside bus.

Further down the road will be a product code-named MP Paxville—two cores sharing one bus interface. Paxville shares a single bus, and represents an update to the architecture. Paxville is a server CPU, and will need the Intel 8500 chipset. The 8500 supports up to 4 Paxville processors (8 cores total). Two processors share one of the two processor buses built into the chipset.

Pentium D replicates the P4 pipeline almost completely, in a single, 230M transistor die. Note that the Pentium D will require a new motherboard, built around the upcoming 945/955 core logic. If you insert a Pentium D into a current 915 or 925XE motherboard, the system simply won't boot—neither the CPU or motherboard will be damaged. It simply won't work. Note that the current LGA775 CPUs will work in 945/955 chipset boards.

The Pentium D and Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 will max out at 3.2GHz. Each CPU offers 2MB of L2 cache, with each core being allocated 1MB exclusively. The front-side bus clock is 200MHz (800MHz effective), rather than the faster 266MHz FSB with the current P4EE.

The key difference between the Pentium D and the dual core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 is Hyper-Threading. The Pentium D will have two cores, but each core only supports a single thread at a time. The Extreme Edition supports Hyper-Threading (simultaneous multitasking). So the dual core P4EE will support four threads simultaneously.

One key aspect of dual core CPUs: They behave just like dual-processor systems, but take up a single socket. So software must be written to take advantage of multiple cores. The good news is that applications that have been written to take advantage of Hyper-Threading on the Pentium 4 are already architected to take advantage of dual core CPUs.

Power dissipation is more complex than with single core CPUs. The operating system assigns the load to the processor, so predicting the load on the CPU is problematic. Thermal diodes built onto the die track the temperature in real time. The Pentium D and dual core P4EE use an enhanced power management capability, similar to what's built into the Pentium 4 600 series.

This includes dynamic voltage identification (VID). The processor can vary frequency and voltage on the fly, as determined by the workload on the CPU and the thermal environment. This happens in the hardware, with no intervention or knowledge by the OS. No drivers are needed to take advantage of VID. This feature is built into 600 series and Smithfield CPUs with native multipliers greater than 14 (faster than 2.8GHz).

Note that dual core CPUs have to communicate with each other when deciding on power management states. The voltage reduction in the case of the Pentium D only occurs when both cores are ready for the voltage drop. The Pentium D supports the C1E enhanced halt state. This can happen thousands of times per second—even between keystrokes—to maximize thermal management.

Performance Potential
What about performance? Given power dissipation issues, the initial dual core CPUs from Intel will ship with a maximum clock rate of 3.2GHz, whereas the current P4EE clocks at 3.73GHz. It all depends on the application mix. Applications which are designed for multithreading will generally run faster on the dual core CPU. In addition, a system with a significant multitasking load may be more responsive.

In the end, multicore CPUs are better suited for today's multitasking environments. Windows XP often has as many as 500 threads running, ranging from system services to device drivers to end user applications. So CPUs with multiple cores will likely increase the responsiveness of systems and, in certain cases, raw performance. Accurately measuring performance in these systems will be a major challenge, however.

Wednesday-8

2005-03-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

Here is some information from the http://forevergeek.com/security/8_vulnerabilities_discovered_in_firefoxmozilla.php website

8 Vulnerabilities Discovered In Firefox/Mozilla

March 02, 2005 | Category: Security | jeremy

"Today, the security firm Secunia has released 8 more security bugs it has discovered in Mozilla products, including Firefox and Thunderbird.
If you have downloaded the Firefox 1.0.1 update, you have nothing to worry about. The Mozilla 1.7.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.1 released should be out this week as well.

The exploits "could be used by criminals to spoof, or fake, various aspects of a Web site, ranging from its SSL secure site icon to the contents of an inactive tab."
This announcement comes 1 day after iDefense announced a vulnerability is Mozilla 1.7.3 and Firefox 1.0 that would allows hackers to "create a memory heap overflow, which then allow remote code execution and a compromise of the system."

In other Firefox news, Asa has been covering the rollout of automatic updating by the Firefox crew for updating to 1.0.1."

Tuesday-8

2005-03-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

Here is some information from http://forevergeek.com/geek_articles/index.php or http://www.wincustomize.com/Articles.aspx?AID=66798&u=0

Brad over at Wincustomize.com has put together a list of things that he believes all operating systems should have. These include: Seamless Distributed Computing, Seamless Distributed File System Databases, Global User Managment, Universal Environments, and Component Based Operating Systems Only Brad over at Wincustomize.com has put together a list of things that he believes all operating systems should have. These include:

Seamless Distributed Computing
Seamless Distributed File System Databases
Global User Managment
Universal Environments
Component Based Operating Systems

Only one that really interests me is #1 since I have 2 other computers that at times are sitting idly doing nothing. I should have them crunch how much money I am going to make per second for the next 80 years. What am I talking about? I can do that on my own. $0.0000005 seems about right.

#1 Seamless Distributed Computing

In an age of gigabit internal networks, it is striking that I can't simply tell my operating system that I have "access" to Machine A, B, and C on my network and to use their memory, their CPU, and other resources to ensure that my local computer remains always responsive. Instead Windows users are quietly bumping up against the "User Handle" limit (which most people don't even know about yet, they just discover their programs start to crash) of Windows XP. So if I felt my machine was getting slow, I'd just bump up more machines on my LAN to use or toss another machine under my desk or even (gasp) throw some tasks at my home machine via the Internet (where the OS would be smart enough on what tasks it farmed out based on the connection speed). This sort of thing should be built into the OS, today.

#2 Seamless Distributed File System Databases

To be fair to Microsoft, WinFS has the potential to become this but it keeps being delayed. I should be able to create "cabinets" on my desktop (or anywhere else) in which I set a few parameters and from then on, files show up there as if they were any other folder. I should be able to set the scope of my cabinets -- local, network, worldwide. The physical location of files should be irrelevant. I should be able to arrange things however I want without it affecting anything. Instead, move something from c: \program files\ and you're asking for trouble. Why? I should be able to organize things however I want without it affecting anything. This should be part of the operating system, today.

#3 Global User Management

When I activate Windows (or MacOS) I should be given a unique account global account where my preferences and other key settings are stored along with any data I would choose to store there for an additional fee. There should be a Bwardell.Microsoft.net (or Bwardell.Mac.com). I shouldn't be forced to use it so that the privacy nuts are kept happy. But if I choose to use it, all my preferences, email, favorites, and other system specific "stuff" could be kept there and synchronized and accessible from any machine I'm on. Moreover, it would also act as a re-director between machines. If Machine A has my spread sheets and I'm on Machine B then I would be able to get to those files through my Microsoft.net account re-directing my files from Machine A to Machine B. The system would need to be plugin-able so that Microsoft could avoid any DOJ issues. So a Yahoo or Google or even Apple could provide alternative Network cordinators (i.e. use Bwardell.Google.net instead of Microsoft.net). (DWL: I'm not talking about a domain controller here, we're talking about a global system that's seamlessly part of the OS).

#4 Universal environments

Following #3, I should be able to have a universal user environment. If I go to a public machine, type in my UserID and password, it should then be able to pull my environment from Bwardell.Microsoft.net so that my program settings, etc. are there. If the local machine is missing a program, it would simply be grayed out. But if the local machine does have it, then I would be able to launch it from the normal place in the Start menu. All my files would be accessible here through the re-direction of Microsoft.net. What machine my files are physically located on should be immaterial as long as as they are safe and secure and backed up (all handled by the OS without me messing with it).

#5 Component Based operating systems

Part of the problem with Windows and MacOS is that the OS vendors make it hard for third parties to enhance the OS with their own code. Rather than worrying about locking everyone out for security reasons, they should come up with a secure way for legitimate software developers to be able to enhance or replace components of the OS. For instance, in Windows I get 5 choices on how to view a folder (icon, tile, thumbnails, details, and list). Third parties should be able to extend this (I can think of a dozen ways I might want to display data in a folder). There should be APIs so that developers can replace major or minor components to the OS. The web browser engine, parts of the shell, the display rendering engine, the built in search, and dozens of other things. The OS should be broken down into parts that the OS vendor bundles their parts and third parties can try to innovate those areas. In that way, everyone wins, including the OS vendor (particularly closed-source vendors). Windows has "API hooking" but what we need is something more robust and secure to make use of that is well documented and accessible to developers.

The closed source vendors should be looking at Linux. It has managed to keep up on a tiny fraction of the resources. It does this through open-source. Anyone can update any part of the OS and if it's a good thing, it can be put as part of a distribution. If the major closed-source OS vendors started providing documented ways for third parties to easily extend virtually any part of the OS without a lot of pain, they could harness their considerable third party developer base. OS/2 was working in this direction with SOM where OS features could be "inherited" by app developers, extended and then updated. Object Desktop on OS/2 was coded entirely by a single individual because he could inherit the base features of the OS and then start from there. And then other developers could go from there. (DWL: I know COM can do some of this but it's not what I am talking about, if you've done any serious OS extension development, COM doesn't apply here much).

Now you might be thinking, "Well if you think these ideas are so great, why don't you do them?" The answer is, only the OS vendor can, as a practical matter, do this. If a third party makes these things and it's successful, it's only a matter of time (probably one version) before the OS vendor puts in one of these on their own, wiping out the "low hanging fruit" part of the market. As soon as some third party, for instance, put out a really good distributed computing product that "did it right" and started to make good business that targets consumers (DWL: Armtech is not a consumer product and isn't what I'm talking about), you could be assured that the next version of the OS would have some basic implementation of this put in. And the OS vendor's fans would chime in, "That should be part of the OS anyway!" In short, there's no business case for a third party to invest the money to develop these things because the pay-off isn't there.

But if these features were part of the OS, you could imagine how it might lead to dramatic changes in the way we use and think about computers. And to add to that, imagine the kinds of additional innovations that would present themselves if these things were already taken as a given?

Monday-Week8

2005-02-28T10:12:00.000-08:00

Here is some news from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-02-27-raskin-obit_x.htm
about "Macintosh creator Raskin dies at 61"

By Matthew Fordahl, Associated Press

"SAN JOSE, Calif. — Jef Raskin, a computer interface expert who conceived Apple Computer's groundbreaking Macintosh computer but left the company before it came to market, has died. He was 61.Raskin died Saturday night at his home in Pacifica, his family said in a statement. In December, he told friends he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer."

"Raskin joined Apple in 1978 — as its 31st employee — to start the young company's publications department. At the time, computers were primarily text-based and users had to remember a series of arcane commands to perform the simplest tasks.In 1979, Raskin had a different idea: A computer that's priced affordably, targeted at consumers and extremely easy to use. A small team, under his command, was put together at Apple to pursue his concept that would eventually become the Macintosh.
"His role on the Macintosh was the initiator of the project, so it wouldn't be here if it weren't for him," said Andy Hertzfeld, an early Mac team member.Raskin also named the Macintosh after his favorite apple, though the name was slightly changed because of a trademark issue with another company."He believed in having fun, too," Burstein said. "The people who worked with him at Apple talk about how important were the toys and the games and the sense of joy that he demanded."

Here is some more information from http://www.boostmarketing.com/story.php?id=698

Microsoft Hands Out Free Security
Posted by Clare Greenway on: Monday 28 February 2005

"Microsoft Corp. needs to step up its security game if it plans to keep its customers happy. The question is: Will it play nice? Bill Gates recently announced the company's plans to sell its own security products last week. Microsoft's antivirus software and free antispyware tools will be available to both consumers and big business by the end of the year. The move is aimed at pleasing the company's increasingly anxious customers.

But what about its allies. The companies who currently provide an extra layer of security for Microsoft products may be edged out. Most welcome healthy competition while some believe a level playing field is impossible with Microsoft as a direct competitor, noting that smaller companies cannot afford to be as generous as the software giant, who plans on giving some of its security tools at no cost.

Microsoft says they are the ones who get the blame when security products breakdown. Customers see it as a fault with Windows or Internet Explorer and do not recognize it as an outsourced software problem.

Microsoft has promised to continue sharing security information and working with other security companies. "

Thursday-wk7

2005-02-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

Today in class we worked on our class project. Since, that is all we did in class today here is some news from http://p2pnet.net/story/4045 about "Multi-zone home music streamer."

"p2pnet.net News:- The Sonos Digital Music System is the first and only hand-held, multi-zone digital music system with a wireless, full-colour LCD screen controller that lets you play all your digital music, all around your home.That's what Sonos says in its web page. But the systems aren't cheap.There's an introductory bundle of two Sonos ZonePlayers and a Sonos Controller for $1,200.The system is scalable up to 32 zones, additional ZonePlayers retail for $500 and additional controllers go for $40."

Here is some more news from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59632-2005Feb28.html about "Downloading: The Next Generation
As Digital-Music Market Grows, Services and Listeners Face Tough Choices"

By David McGuire
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, February 28, 2005; 8:16 AM

"Kelly is the type of person who gives music industry executives hives. She arrived at college in 2001 having never downloaded music -- illegally or otherwise -- in her life. Within a week of her arrival, a classmate turned her on to Kazaa and she was well on her way toward building an illicit library of 500 songs. Dislodging Kelly and millions of her peers from services that give them all the copyrighted music they want, free of charge, is challenge enough, but the record labels realize that it's also only half the battle. Entertainment-industry leaders know they'll never stamp out illegal file swapping on the Internet, but they hope they can tarnish the experience enough to drive otherwise law-abiding users off of the underground peer-to-peer -- or "P2P" -- services and into the waiting arms of licensed digital services like the remodeled Napster, Rhapsody and Apple's iTunes."

"Kelly, who said she has "absolutely no qualms" about downloading the major labels' latest releases, is a little uneasy about all the lawsuits that are being filed against song swappers, and about the nasty "adware" that's been gumming up her computer since she started downloading. For all the fun she's having, Kelly said she'd probably quit stealing music after college, in large part to avoid the mounting dangers and hassles that go along with it."

"The entertainment industry is doing everything it can to encourage that sort of thinking. In a multi-pronged campaign against illegal downloading, the industry has taken on everyone involved with file sharing, from the companies that distribute the software to the people who use it."

"Meanwhile, the options available for licensed downloading, including the size and quality of online music catalogs, are getting more attractive for potential users. Consumers can buy or rent their songs, pay as they go or in one lump fee, and pick from more than a million tracks, all for less than a dollar apiece. But as far as the licensed services have come, they still have to clear some major hurdles if they are going to evolve into the vibrant alternative to online piracy that the record labels need them to be."

"It's not realistic for anyone to think that they can eliminate piracy online," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. "The ultimate success of the online marketplace is going to be, first and foremost, a matter of marketing and business models. Control of piracy is imperative to support that, but in the end it's the business model that has to work."

"In a phone survey of 2,201 U.S. adults, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 11 percent owned digital music players. This means at least 22 million players are in the hands of Americans over 18 years old, while millions more are likely blasting tunes into adolescent ears. Spurred by the enormous popularity of its iPod players, Apple Computer Inc. has seen its iTunes Music Store sell more than 250 million songs as individual downloads for about 99 cents apiece since its April 2003 launch."

Wednesday-7

2005-02-23T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today we discuss chapter 8 web services. Disco is a Microsoft standard for the creation of discovery documents. Disco document is kept at a standard location on a Web services server and contains paths and other information. You can generate proxy classes for a Web service manually by using the Web Services Description Language tool. We also can generate classes for a Web service automatically by setting a Web reference to point to the web service. You can test and debug a Web service without a client application by using one of several SOAP proxy tools. For the rest of the class period we worked on our project.

Tuesday-7

2005-02-22T22:47:00.000-08:00

We went over Web Services which is cool. The SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)provide the formats for the requests and the responses containing remote procedure call (RPC) or data or both. The WSDL (Web Services Description Language) it describe what you need it includes methods exposed, parameter inputs required and data types of return values. The UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) enables a business to quickly and easily and dynamically find and transact with one another. We did a lab that return the weather from a web service.

Monday-week7

2005-02-21T23:44:00.000-08:00

We work on our project and on our retest and if we finish everything we study. Since I have nothing else to talk about Well, let me share some information with you about "New Technology to Use Human Body As Digital Transmission Path" at http://www.physorg.com/news3153.html

"Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) is pursuing research and development of an innovative Human Area Networking technology called RedTacton (*1) that safely turns the surface of the human body into a data transmission path at speeds up to 10 Mbps between any two points on the body. Using a novel electro-optic sensor (*2), NTT has already developed a small PCMCIA card-sized prototype RedTacton transceiver. RedTacton enables the first practical Human Area Network between body-centered electronic devices and PCs or other network devices embedded in the environment via a new generation of user interface based on totally natural human actions such as touching, holding, sitting, walking, or stepping on a particular spot."

The three major functional features of RedTacton are highlighted below.

(1)" A communications path can be created with a simple touch, automatically initiating the flow of data between a body-centric electronic device and a computer that is embedded in the environment. For example, two people equipped with RedTacton devices could exchange data just by shaking hands. A wide range of natural human actions -- grasping, sitting down, walking, or standing in a particular place -- can be used to trigger RedTacton to start a networked process."

(2) "Using a RedTacton electro-optic sensor, two-way communication is supported between any two points on the body at a throughput of up to 10 Mbps. Communication is not just confined to the surface of the body, but can travel through the user's clothing to a RedTacton device in a pocket or through shoes to communicate with a RedTacton device embedded in the floor. Unlike wireless technologies, the transmission speed does not deteriorate even in the presence of large crowds of people all communicating at the same time in meeting rooms, auditoriums or stores. Because the body surface is the transmission path, increasing the number of connected users directly increases the available number of individual communication channels."

(3) "RedTacton can utilize a wide range of materials as a transmission medium, as long as the material is conductive and dielectric, which includes water and other liquids, various metals, certain plastics, glass, etc. Using ordinary structures such as tables and walls that are familiar and readily available, one could easily construct a seamless communication environment at very low cost using RedTacton . (Note that constraints are imposed by the length and environment of the propagating conductor, and by the thickness of the dielectric.)"

Thursday-wk6

2005-02-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today we went over chapter 6 cosuming and muipulating data. There are two main ways to submit T-SQL to a SQL Server database for processing. First, you can write ad-hoc queries, SQL statements that are executed directly, Second, you can write stored procedures, SQL statements that are stored on the server as a named object. We also discuss select, insert, update, and delete statements. The @@identity variable returns the most recently assigned identity column value. I think this is all that we discussed about data consumption, so that is all for now until next time.

Wednesday-6

2005-02-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

Today we discuss chapter 13 multitable data sets. The benefit of the dataset being standalone is that no one can touch it and that is its drawback as well. You can create a dataset by declaring it first Dim Ds dataset, DS = New DataSet, this creates a dataset and the second part copy the dataset from the database. DataView is different view of the data, changes what you see. We did chapter 13 lab that lab was pretty long and then we worked on Project 3 for the rest of the class period. We also discuss the Appendix: SQL in the back of the book because we must know how to do some of these things on our next test, so we just highlighted the things we needed to know in the appendix: SQL.

Tuesday-6

2005-02-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

We went over chapter 12 we discuss dataset which is a collection of tables. DataTables is information being stored and about relationship how data is related to each other. You can have one to many relationship one person have many addresses and many to many relationship which is many people in the same house having many addresses. Constraints are unique they cannot have the same value within that field. We also did an example on the board on how to write the code for the dataset. First, we must connect to the database by using the sqlconnection then connect to the dataadapter and then to the dataset. We did chapter 12 lab then we work on our project 3 for the rest of the class period.

Monday-week 6

2005-02-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

Today in class we did the programming part of our midterm over to earn some more points on the test. We review excute nonquery that allows you to execute a sql command and return data. ExecuteReader returns data and store it in a datareader and the ExecuteScaler returns a single value. DataAdapter handles everything for you the database immuter put data in the database then manipulate the data. I think we went over some of this before so most of this is a review.

Thursday-5

2005-02-10T23:37:00.000-08:00

We took our midterm test today, and that is all we did today. So let me share a little Valentine History with you something I read on the history channel website.

http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valentine/?page=history

To read the rest of this article go to the website above.

The History of Valentine's Day

"Every February, across the country, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine's Day -- and its patron saint -- is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred."

"One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men -- his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death."

"Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured."

"According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl -- who may have been his jailor's daughter -- who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France."

Wednesday-5

2005-02-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

Today in class, Mr.Thompson discuss Chapter 10. We talk about the SQL Command, DataReader that brings back information, and there is no () in the SQLDataReader. We also talk about the CommandTimeOut how long it wait before it gives up. We went through some of the examples in the book. Managing Transaction set of commands that are run and you select the isolation level. The isolaional level has five different levels: IsolationalLevel.Serializable,IsolationalLevel.RepeatableRead,
IsolationalLevel.ReadCommitted,IsolationalLevel.ReadUncommitted,
IsolationalLevel.Choas, after the Chapter 10 discussing we did Lab10 this was a very long lab.

Tuesday-5

2005-02-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

Today in class we talk about dataview which is a different way to look at the data table. Relatonal database, SQL, and ADO (active data object) is how to manipulate data, execute query, store data. OLEB talks to the database and the ADO talks to the OLEB and the application. Five objects of the ADO is the connection, DataAdapter, Command, DataReader, DataSet. Four methods for the command object is the executenonquery,executereader,executescaler, and the connectionobject. We also talk about the Primary key and then watch the new version of visual basic the 2005 visual basic video on the MSDN website. Well, that is all for now until next time.

Mon-Week5

2005-02-07T18:14:00.000-08:00

Today we took a quiz. I could not remember anything but I thank God for being here Saturday that really did help me out. We talk about databinding that is creating a link between the data and the interface. We also talk about simple binding that is when you bind to one data element. Complex binding is bind to a collection of data. We also talk about XML and about Project3, it does not sound to hard but I always make things harder then they really seem. :)

Thursday-w4

2005-02-03T23:30:00.000-08:00

Today in class we went over chapter 4 we discuss error handling. This was a very short chapter. We did the guided practice on page 298 and than we went over HTML.We work on our project 2, Thanks Mr.Hardin, for some of the code. Here is some information that I read today from http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=8370_0_5_0_C that is copied and pasted below.

"Coming soon: event programming
Alex Moskalyuk [ITFacts.biz] | POSTED: 02.03.05 @15:33"

"The latest issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal briefly talks about the promised event programming language coming out of iSpheres, a company "originated from a 10-year military sponsored project at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which yielded the underlying algorithms and framework for dynamically reconfigurable command and control systems", according to their Web site. From the information on their Web site it's not perfectly clear what the new programming language would be and how would it differ from interrupt-driven programming in C."

"CNet Asia in October last year came up with this article about the iSpheres EPL. The description of benefits is not very clear either:

For example, rather than wait for a computer system to do a batch process update of the day's financial transactions overnight, an event-driven design provides up-to-the-minute statistics to managers.

Apparently, for event-driven applications like reporting or triggering external events based on some criteria, EPL is a perfect match in terms of increased productivity:

Rather than write 100 lines of Java code, iSphere's EPL can reduce that to 10 or 20 lines of code.

Last, but not least, this site promises the language to be released for free into the wild in the near future:

iSpheres’ Event Programming Language (or EPL) should be available royalty-free soon. A server version of EPL is already available. However, the migration to event-driven software will require careful consideration. For example, any application written with EPL will require a specialized “event-processing” server."

Wednesday-Week4

2005-02-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I do not know what else to talk about, so, let's do an overview of what we discussed last night continue discussing Chapter 3 we talk about QueryString which is helpful for project 2. A string which is a series of characters. Request information comes from the client to the server and the Response information is data that is sent to the client and is stored. We also discuss sessions and sessions ID and do not forget about state management which is "the process of maintaining the state of a Web page across round trip". Cookies is stored information on the client's computer. There is a lot more information but to much for my brain.

Tuesday-4

2005-02-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

Today we went over Chapter 3 we discuss navigation, response object, request object, QueryString and a lot of other things. Cookies is where information is stored a session stores objects which is everything. Sessions is stored in memory and out of process. I am just rehashing what we went over in class, maybe I can remember something. We discuss view state it maintain its state and round trip which process information and request information, I believe that is right. PostBack is when you post data to the server and AutoEventWireUp is what cause the form load to occur twice, I think, Well, I did get it right on the test, I think. We will discuss the rest of Chapter 3 tommorrow. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

Week 4- Monday

2005-01-31T23:08:00.000-08:00

Today Mr.Hardin was not feeling good,I hope you feel better Mr.Hardin,so we redid our test in order to get some more points on the test because we did not do as well as he thought we should have done. Hooray,yes, more points!!! :) We also finish our take home lab and worked on project 2. Well, as you can tell I do not have much to say sooooo....... I will sign off now. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

week3 - Thursday

2005-01-27T00:31:00.000-08:00

Test day is today we had a review and then we started the test at 8:10. I think I did kind of good. Mr.Hardin is a very nice and smart guy. Well, here is something I actually read it is a very short article about Microsoft at:

http://news.com.com/

To read more interesting articles like this go to the website above.

" Microsoft landed another big fish today when Verizon Communications agreed to use its Internet-based TV software. Verizon rolling out a fiber-to-the-home network called Fios and, like other Baby Bells, is spending a fortune trying to become a TV provider. Last year, Microsoft struck a similar deal with SBC Communications.

Years of Microsoft's efforts to elbow its way into the living room could be paying off huge now. BellSouth is also testing Microsoft TV for its upcoming IP video service. The question remains whether there's any room for smaller guys now that a huge portion of TV real estate could be occupied by Redmond.

Persistence pays off."

--Jim Hu

week 3 - Wednesday

2005-01-26T01:23:00.000-08:00

We finish up going over chapter 2 and did some labs then reviewed for the test Thursday. Here is an article you might be interested in "Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age (2000)" at:

http://www.aauw.org/research/girls_education/techsavvy.cfm

To read more go to the website above.

"As violent electronic games and dull programming classes turn off more and more girls, the way information technology is used, applied, and taught in the nation's classrooms must change, according to a new report, Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age, published by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.

Tech-Savvy is the culmination of two years of work by the AAUW Educational Foundation Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education. The report combines the insights of its 14 commissioners (researchers, educators, journalists, and entrepreneurs) at the forefront of cyberculture and education, findings from the Foundation's online survey of 900 teachers, qualitative focus group research with more than 70 girls, and reviews of existing research.

"The commission makes it clear that girls are critical of the computer culture, not computer phobic," said Sherry Turkle, professor of sociology at MIT and co-chair of the commission. "Instead of trying to make girls fit into the existing computer culture, the computer culture must become more inviting for girls."

"The same reasoning applies to computer games," argued Sharon Schuster, then president of the AAUW Educational Foundation. "Computer games don't have to be the virtual equivalent of GI Joes and Barbies. We have to think less about 'girls' games' and 'boys' games' and more about games that challenge our children's minds. When it comes to computer games and software, girls want high-skill, not high-kill." "

Tuesday - week3

2005-01-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

We discuss Chapter 2 in the QUE book. We talk about HTML controls, HTML anchor, and Web controls. HTML controls are tags in HTML and here is a HTML anchor example - . Runat = "server" makes a HTML control a server control. We also talk about validator controls that holds javascript. Five validator control we discuss is required field, regular expression, range validator, comare validator, and custom validator. We also talk about validation summary control which is a summary of all of all validation errors. We did labs and will finish discussing Chapter 2 tomorrow. Thank you Lord for another day.

Week 3 - Monday

2005-01-24T23:45:00.000-08:00

We continue to discuss chapter 1 and did labs. If you are interested you can go to this website to read this article on New hybrid cellphone-virus discovered.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/electronic-threats/dn6879

Here is a little information to read, to read more go to the website above.

A cellphone virus that uses several techniques to spread is the most sophisticated "mobile malware" yet, but experts say the risk of infection remains remarkably slim.
The malicious software, called Lasco.A, spreads via Bluetooth, a short range wireless networking technology, and can infect smartphones running the Symbian operating system. It arrives as an executable file called "velasco.sis" and, once installed, automatically attempts to send itself to other phones within Bluetooth range.
Analysis of the code shows Lasco.A is based on an earlier cellphone worm called Cabir.H. However, like many desktop computer viruses, the program not only spreads automatically, but also infects other .sis files on a host handset.

Thursday end of week 2

2005-01-20T23:27:00.000-08:00

Project 1 is due but Mr.Hardin was nice enough to let us zip him our Project 1 by friday at midnight. Today we discuss Chapter 1 in the QUE book. We discuss classes, inheritance , and namespaces. We talk about the advantages of ASP.Net and about the HTML the layout on page 37 what each tag does for example, <%@ Page Language=' vb' %> is that asp display this as a vb page. We also had an open book quiz on chapter 1 that was great I like that, Thank you Mr.Hardin. The stages of ASP.Net Page processing was on the quiz page initialization, user page initialization, PreRender, Page CleanUp. Well, we discuss a lot that night to much for me to type and to remember. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

Wednesday

2005-01-19T23:17:00.000-08:00

We finish up with chapter 5 and we will not go over chapter 6 in class we will read it on our own. Well, I do not know if you are interested are not but here is a little info on Instant Expert: Electronic Threats at http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/electronic-threats

"Any computer connected to the internet faces a daunting range of electronic threats. Perhaps the biggest single threat to any computer is the humble software bug. Seemingly innocuous programming errors can be exploited to force entry into a computer and also provide the weak spots that allow computer worms and viruses to proliferate.Many software bugs will simply cause a computer to crash. But an expert programmer can sometimes figure out how to make a computer malfunction in a creative way, so that it provides access to secure parts of a system, or shares protected data."

To read more go to web address above.

Tuesday

2005-01-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

We went over chapter 5 in the AVB book. We discuss files, directories, paths and file access. We also discuss streamReader and streamWriter. Example

 DimReader As New StreamReader(strPath) - Do while MyReader.Peek<>1 - strTemp = Myreader.Readline() - ConsoleWrite.Line(strtemp) - Console.Readline. We discuss the directory class like system.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory( ) and etc. There are a lot of important things or information in chapter 5 and a lot to remember. We did labs and will finish chapter 5 tomorrow. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

week 2 - Monday

2005-01-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

No class today because this day is observed for Martin Luther King Jr. birthday. A day to sit back and meditate on how far the Lord has brought us. Thank you Lord for a another day, May God continue to bless us forever more.
Here is a little information about Martin Luther King Jr. : http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html

"In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure."

Day 4

2005-01-13T23:20:00.000-08:00

Today we went over chapter 4. We discuss object orientation, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. We also discuss properties, methods, and events. We finish the rest of chapter 3 and started on chapter 4. Polymorphism that is a big word so what does it mean the ability to create procedures that can operate on objects from more than one class. We discuss namespaces a way to organize classes and we also talk about classes, overloading that is using the same data type different parameters. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

Day 3

2005-01-12T23:55:00.000-08:00

All is good and all is well. Today we went over chapter 3 and some of the labs in Chapter 3. We review arrays and control statements. Array is a data structure containing data items of the same type. For example,

 Dim students (9) as String which will declare 10 elements. We also talked about jagged arrays now that is something new. Enums is also somthing we talked about a way of handling constant that are reference many times like the days of the week.We also talk about the If statement and Select Case. In chapter three there was a lot of information I think we will finish chapter three tomorrow. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

Day 2

2005-01-11T23:37:00.000-08:00

On the second day, we went over chapter 2. We talked about variables, constants, literals and data types. Most of this I do remember from last quarter. Most of this was a review, so far so good. We went over some code on how to define two variables,

 Dim I, J As Integer - Dim strName As String = "David" on page 24 in the AVB ch1. I do not know what else to talk about so I am going through some of the things we went over in class.We also talk about "casting which is when data must be converted explicitly if Option Strict is on". We also discuss message box and did lab. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.

Class Begin

2005-01-10T22:56:00.000-08:00

I am getting up caught up on my blog because I might need these extra points to pass this class, so why not take advantage of this opportunity. Lets start at the begin, ok, alright, so January 10 was the first day of class mmmm... so what did we do on the first day of class. Oh yeah, we went over HTML and CSS and about HTML tags and other stuff. It is a blessing to have the same teacher I had last quarter. Well I think that is all we did on the first day of class. Mr.Hardin wife had a baby over the quarter break so congratulations to Mr.Hardin and his wife to a baby boy that weight 7lb and 5oz. Thank you Lord for another day, May God bless forever more.