For starters, I would like to pick the topic of computers. Like the beginning of the text "The Computer Continuum" we are to use for the course, I was especially impressed with the subject of mechanical and electronic computers, digital verses analong computers. I was equally impressed to learn while in the text, all the terminology at the end of each chapter had pages you can flip back to, referencing the entry of the term into the text for it's use.
What's odd about the terminology links, everyone of them are two pages off. If you flipped back two more pages, you'll find the term. I paid a lot of money for a college text book that had consistent errors in it.
I learned of the errors after I missed many questions on my second online quiz. I thought I knew the answers until I saw the results of the quiz. I thought I had better go back and re-read that section to see why I missed those answers. Ok, I got caught with my pants down. So, upon studying even harder and using a pencil to write my answers in the spaces provided by the publisher, I of course would refer to the page number listed next to each term. This is when I learned of the obvious errors.
Now, the question is, why are they still there? I percieve that the text has been used for several class terms now, and still the publisher has not corrected this error. Hence, I have to pay a lot of money for such errors.
From now on, I shall turn back two pages more to go to the entry the term is refrencing.
Update, April 6, 2002, the link above, "The Computer Continuum", is the web site for the text. It is updated, and downloadable to update the changes of the hardcopy I have. Their is a new chapter, and many of the chapters have been re-arranged to reflect the current headlines of today, that were not part of the picture at time of publication of my particular hard copy then.
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My first computer was in 1993. I rented a Packard Bell 486sx25. It had a huge hard drive that had a whopping 400 plus megs for storage. The RAM was 4 megs. The modem was a fast 1200 baud external modem. The computer was rented from Rent-A-Center. It came with software in order to use it. The software came in the form of cd's, such as an encyclopedia, learning software, multimedia software and most important of all the operating system was calledMicrosoft Windows 3.1.
Of course, you couldn't use it until you had Microsoft Dos loaded first. The version of Microsoft Dos that came with the computer was version 5. You had to have MS Dos loaded first; and then you loaded Win 3.1 next.
The problem was, I didn't know how to use the darn thing! My wife convinced me we at least should rent to own one for the children's sake; because they were starting to use them in the schools back in '93.
Once we got the computer in the home, I of course was interested in how it worked. I was so interested, that I made it crash quite regularly and had to have Rent-A-Center come out to the house and get me back up and running.
You'd think I would have learned to make some boot disks to get my system up and running with out having to have Rent-A-Center come out and reboot me. Nope, not smart enough yet. After about 15 reboots; Rent-A-Center told me that if they had to come back out and reboot it for me, they would charge me $25 for the service call. I agreed to the new terms. The next day, I made it crash.
You can bet, I was not about to have them come out and reboot me for $25 bucks. Nope, I spent the entire next week reading the material that came with the system and learned how to create my own boot disk, learning the dos commands, and buying a floppy to store the commands on, one by one, to create the boot disk. After a week had gone by, between my job and family responsiblities, I finally got my computer booted on my own.
What an incredible feeling that was! Ha!!!!! I didn't need the services of Rent-A-Center any longer to reboot my computer! After I got the computer up and running, I then learned how to create a better boot disk in case I crashed it again, so Windows 3.1 would be loaded as well.
I found that Windows was way more cool than Dos. Sad thing though, I could have learned Dos better. I only learned enough Dos commands to get me by, because I was hooked on the GUI of Windows. Windows 3.1 was cool back in it's day. It was a great file manager and easy to use. I explored that user interface thoroughly. Most programs that were loaded onto the computer were Dos based; but in Windows, I could at least control file management. As time went on, programs were written more for Windows and less and less for Dos.
Because of finances, we lost our computer. After a year or so, we were able to rent-to-own another computer from Rent-A-Center again. This time, the computer was still a 486 but it had a dx math coprocessor instead of sx at the end of the name. It was a 486dx66 from Packard Bell. It had a math cruncher and was way faster than a 25 megahertz, now it had 66!
At that time, my wife and I were managing a motel, (my part-time job on top of my regular job). We decided, to better manage the motel, we ought to get another computer to keep better records.
My wife learned how to use programs in college like Microsoft Excel (r), to become a secretary, so she had the experience and know how to use the programs that came with the new computer. I on the other hand, was glad to see a computer in the house again. Not for the use as a tool for business; no, it was a tool to get on-line!
Back in the days of the 486sx25 computer, I learned of the electronic bullitin board services that were all over Portland. I was already a member of several BBS's and the popularity of the internet was also intriguing.
Also to be noted, my wife wanted us to use an online service like AOLorProdigy.
I made a bet with her. "Ok Pam, we'll get an online service but, I'll bet I'll be using the BBS's more than the online service."
So, we got a cd from Prodigy and installed the software to begin using an online internet service provider; free for the first 30 days. I told Pam, that after 30 days, we'll see if it's worth keeping or not.
I was right, back in those days, the internet was nowhere near what it is today, and the cost to have online access was not cheap! I was comfortably having access to the BBS's for free; and when the bill came in after the free 30 day trial, we decided not to have access until we could better afford it.
With that new 486dx66 Packard Bell in our office at the motel, (from Rent-A-Center)Pam set it up do do business with, and I set it up to get online with the BBS's and download games.
A few months later, I shall never forget this, I downloaded a virus along with a game. I know which game it was too. It was a virtual 3D Pool game. As soon as I installed the game, the virus went to work and rendered our nice computer useless.
Keep in mind, that I didn't know much about the guts of the computer, I just learned how to create a boot disk, download games, install different software etc. etc.
I did not know how to format my hard drive squeaky clean, and start all over from scratch, which I've learned how to do in the years that has gone by since then. All I could do is just return the computer to Rent-A-Center, and told them we were no longer interested in the computer any longer.
It's a good thing it was a rental at the time! For, if it were a bought and paid for computer, then I would have been stuck with a dead horse. Essentially at the time, I just unloaded my problem on to Rent-A-Center.
Just before the virus rendered the computer useless though, I feel it important to mention one more thing. Windows 95 just came out, and many people were having so many problems with the new Operating System (OS). What the public was learning and as well as Microsoft, you needed lots of ram to run the software.
A couple of years later in 1996, Pam and I found ourselves working for a different company, and we also lived out in the suburbs of Portland, called Hillsboro. It was while here in Hillsboro, we decided to rent another computer again. Only this time, it will be from someone else.
So, I poured over the local free computer related magazine called Computer Bits Magazineand searched for a reputable outfit that would allow us to rent, rather than buy. They wanted to know why, and we simply stated, "If we didn't like it, we would return it; why be stuck with something you didn't like? If we find we really liked it, we could make arrangements to own it." They agreed to the conditions, and we became new renters of a computer that was an MMX 200 with 32 megs of ram and almost a gig of hard drive space. The company who rented the computer to us was based out of Tigard, called National Rent-A-Computer.
By then, in 1996, Microsoft Windows 95 OSR-2 was out, and that was loaded on our brand new rental computer. What a change in software, for an operating system. I had never seen the first version, and now that we had Win 95, I went through quite a learning curve exploring the new OS. I spent many hours checking it out. It was more than a year since we had a computer in the house, and consequently, I forgot the necessity of having a boot disk made in case of a computer crash. Games were cool, the speed of the computer was way cool, and also, we made sure to make arrangements for an ISP to get on line again. The ISP in this case was then calledGTE. I would surf a little, but ultimately I found myself exploring all I could about Win95. I found the OS to be much larger than Win 3.1, and there were many more things that can be done with the OS than it's predecessor.
One day, while on the internet I discovered a place called Arachnebhobia.com(no longer available on line) at the time, it was just a web page some programmer put up, and his software was free for anyone to download and try out. I of course had to download the software, and check it out. It was useful software but; one day while I was using the program I had downloaded, I was working with the files on my computer, the program hadn't finished, and I had to go to work. I asked Pam to watch the computer and watch the program; when it said to do so, it needed to be shut down. She said she'd watch it, and I went to work. All I could think about that night was getting back home to the computer to see how things turned out with that new program! I was shocked when I got home. The computer was turned off (no surprise there); and everyone was in bed asleep. So, I turned on the computer only to find that there was absolutely nothing on the hard drive for the computer to boot into. I tried everything I could think of to get it up and running, to no avail. Well, there was absolutely nothing I could do until the next day.
The next day, I called a neighbor of mine who lived a couple of blocks away. My wife had a friend she worked with who had a husband that knew computers better than I did; and I gave him a call. He came over to the house with all his software he personally made for his computer, for just in case his crashed, and commenced to work on my computer. He tried and tried all he could do and yet, he could not get the computer up and running. He too could not get it going.
I ended up calling National Rent-A-Computer about the problem. They were surprised to hear that my computer was unbootable, even after the extensive over the phone help from their technician who actually did all the work on their computers. He too, couldn't walk me through my delemma. We made arrangements to bring our computer in to the store, and we would get a loaner to take back home with us, until he could figure out what happened to it. We had to use the loaner for a couple of weeks but, he got our computer up and running again.
He told me, that the computer had absolutely nothing on the hard drive. Duh, that's what I've been trying to say all along. What ever happened to it, he told me, he fixed it; reloaded all the software, and told me how to get into the .cab files to reload sections of software in case I needed to do so. He also showed me how to go about creating a boot disk as well. Normally they don't show their customers how to do these things, for most people screw up their computers way bad. He could tell from our conversations that I knew what I was doing and decided to show me a few tricks. I was greatful for that, for I immediately made a boot disk, and back in the days of Win 95, getting your cd-rom drive to work was no piece of cake either.
Before long, I had to return the computer back to National Rent-A-Computer. Our finances once again, caused us to return the computer, we lost what we put into it, to own it. We simply could not afford to keep the payments going, as well as the internet access.
But, before I returned the computer, I made sure any downloaded games, programs etc. was all backed up on floppies and cleaned the hardrive and loaded the computer exactly the way it was before we got it. I made copies of my Hotmail account and went to my job's employee internet computer and continued my e-mail access with Hotmail keeping in touch with people everywhere. Bad thing about that was the fact, being a company computer, with lots of employees who want to use it, you had to sign in, or just plain wait your turn. I then had to go to the local library when I learned they had internet access. That worked for a while.
My small circle of friends at work began to notice in our conversations that I was learning by leaps and bounds to catch up with them when it came to computers. I subscribed to
I bought a 6 gig hard drive and installed it into the 486 machine, and learned that I couldn't see the entire drive on my computer. I was mad. I also found out the Bios in the motherboard didn't know how to address so much space of that size of hard drive. I had to use a boot disk that came with the hard drive in order to make the bios make use of the addressing of the hard drive. I say boot disk, because you had to have the disk in your floppy drive and boot into the floppy program so it could do it's thing so your computer could use the entire drive. Since the hard drive was made byIBM, and the floppy had a program called EZ Bios, I was able to boot into the 6 gig drive and reload all my programs onto the new drive. I had more breathing space for a while.
In 1998, he upgraded to Windows 2000 and gave me his copy of Windows 98 SE. I was glad of that. I explored every detail of the new OS, and learned that there really weren't a whole lot of changes from Win 95 as compared to Win 3.1 was to Win 95. But, there were significant changes to be sure; especially the idea of sharing more than one computer on the same modem for your internet access. That was the major upgrade to me.
I built more computers since then. I built two pentium computers. One is a Pentium 233 based machine. The motherboard on that one just fried, but it was my son's computer. I gave him my 6 gig drive as well. My computer I built for myself, has a 15 gig drive in it, and an 8 gig drive as well. It is a Pentium 400 based machine. I just can't afford to keep up with the industry. You see, for those of us who love computers; computers are nothing more than a money pit! It is a vicious cycle of upgrading to better, faster computers.
I currently now have an AMD Athlon 1.7 XP system bought from Systemax. The system is about 4 times faster than my P2-400 system that has 512 megs of ram, 2 hard drives totaling 23 gigs of storage, running Windows 2000 Professional connected to a router that is connected to a DSL modem. My new system is connected to the router and both boxes running on DSL for access to the internet. The AMD box only has 256 megs of DDR memory and has a 16x DVD Rom drive, a 20x10x40x burner, 60 gig hard drive, nVidia video card has 32 megs of memory and is of the mx 200/400 family of cards, but a generic board at that, running Windows XP Professional. Not a bad machine actually.
A couple of years has passed by now, and the 1.7 gig machine has since been handed down to my 19 year old. The motherboard, ram and cpu has been handed down to him to upgrade his Abit P2-233 system to something a bit faster, wouldn't you say?
Anyhow, my new systems are one: The Systemax case remains the same,and running off Windows XP Professional only now it has a DFI motherboard that has upgradeable options that is USB 2.0 compatible. It now consists of one Plextor 24/10/40A cd burner, the original 16x DVD drive, a 64 meg GeForce 3 video card with S-Video out, 1 gig of ddr 2100 ram, the hard drives from the P2-400 machine, a Creative Sound Blaster Live card, onboard nic, lots of USB ports, 2 serial ATA connections, only I'm running IDE drives for now, same 5.1 surround sound speaker system from Computer Associates, same floppy drive, and instead of DSL access, I'm running cable access connected to a new router, . Yes, a new router, my third one actually.
And two:in my bedroom, a friend gave me a computer for starters, and a few other things of which are all connected to the box. Running on 350 watts of power,and running off Windows XP Professional the box has an Asus board, a P4 2.2 ghz cpu, 768 megs of RIMM Ram, onboard nic, a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum Sound card, a 64 meg ATI 8500 DV video card for dvd editing, USB 2.0 ports, (too bad there are no SATA ports either), it has a 2x HP DVD burner, a Pioneer 16x slot loading DVD player, a Plextor 40x cd burner, a floppy drive, a 60 gig drive,another 60 gig drive, a 40 gig drive, and for Christmas I received a 120 gig drive, all connected to that 350 watt power supply. I needed to use a Promise I/O card to make it all happen though.
My living room box is used mainly for the family to log on and off to do their stuff, mostly chat, e-mail, gaming, and music. My bedroom box, is not only for that, but geared to doing DVD. I've been totally consumed in the DVD thing lately. Every now and again, I'll get on the living room machine to manage it, perform maintenance, and then use it for the surfing and music, and gaming while my bedroom box is churning at it's maximum cpu intensive chores I give it doing DVD stuff.
This brings to mind, that I shall begin creating a tutorial on how to copy a successful DVD back-up.
One thing for sure, I'll never be satisfied with what I have. It's always behind the times, always 3rd generation and older, and it takes money to be constantly on the bleeding edge of technology. I wish I had it to burn! If I had it to burn, you can bet, I'd be right up there with the readers of Maximum PC Magazine, showing pictures of my latest contraptions I just got done building, saying, "Top that!"
Now, my favorite magazine that seems to put out better content than Maximum PC Magazine, is CPU Magazine (Computer Power User Magazine). One of these days, I need to purchase a year or more subscription to that mag, because one advantage to subscribing to it, you get to read the online version and extra content that's not in the printed version, as well as access their sister site.
You just can't keep up with the Jones'in this industry. You have to be content with what you have, and in a few years down the road, maybe upgrade to a new computer that can carry you down the road further that can be upgraded a piece at a time according to your wallet.
But, I can't. What I can do though, is utilize my computer for such things like taking online computer courses.
Now, what a concept. I used to have to physically attend a college in some classroom and watch some boring instructor lecture for hours, while I madly scramble with pen and paper taking notes. Reading those notes over and over to hopefully pass the test, and hopefully get a good grade out of the class.
But, to take a class on the internet is a whole new concept altogether. For one thing, you don't have an instructor lecturing you, and you aren't taking notes as fast as you can either. What you have is a syllabus to follow as best as you can; you follow any advice that is given, and the rest is up to you.
I've never done that before. It's an extreme challenge to undertake. Why? Because, I am paying out of pocket for this experience. I never had to pay out of pocket for my learning experience like this before, other than paying for my online internet access, hardware, and software and go to it, learning all I can about the situation.
Now that I am paying out of pocket, I also have a time frame to do it in as well. That puts lots of pressure on a person. And to make things worse, it's a summer term course, cramming a 10 week course in less time, than the average student gets during a regular school year.
What's worse than that, you may ask? Trying to work other courses along side the online course as well. They too, need attention in order to get a decent grade. The pressure is on, and the fire is stoking high! Learning how to do html, is no piece of cake either. It is a steep learning curve to take this course. I thought I knew something about computers until I enrolled into this course as a distance learning course from Porland Community College. I'm finding out very fast, I don't know much!
So, where are computers taking us today? They've made a profound impact on the world at large. The selling tool by far, to get the public to purchase their first computer, when you get right down to it, is for two reasons.
The MP3
revolution has the world turned upside down, and the RIAA up in arms as well. RIAA has yelled hard and long enough, and with lots of money were able to bring Napsterdown.
Because of Napster and the MP3 revolution, it has caused me to go to the music store and purchase many a used cd to add to my collection of music cd's. Because I have the cd's in my cd library, and converted to MP3 format and residing on my 120 gig drive, no one can say they've been bootlegged!
There are many opinions on the subject of having MP3 files on one's own hard drive. The biggest thing about it though, is the fact that the big music companies are losing their grip on the public, and their revenues are hurting, so they say.
There are many web sites devoted to the MP3 market. Napster just made it extremely useful for file sharing, a concept that goes back to the BBS days. Free music for the downloading. Not so anymore. Yes, one can still download bootleg music for free, but it isn't as easy as when Napster was extremely popular.
Enough of that, I just wanted to say something about the MP3 wars. Now, on to the next subject. Where are computers going in the near future?
Hard to say, but I can tell you, that there definitely is an OS war going on.
Free verses Bill Gates.
Anyone with internet access can download any flavor of Linux, an OS developed by the man called Linus Torvalds, he made it available as a free alternative to Bill Gates' Windows environment.
There are other OS'es for the picking, I just chose Linux as an alternative to the dominanation of Windows' GUI's all the world over.
I believe Bill Gates has a lot to sweat about. He's crying loud and clear, and making sure Linux is put down his best.
It's just making others flock over to the other OS'es, but first, they need to be sure of a few things before they migrate to the free OS. Will their modem work to access the internet, and will it be a reliable OS like Windows?
Well, I have several flavors of Linux software in my archives. I've tried them all, and in each case, my modem does not work. I am not a programmer to make the hardware work, but I imagine sometime throughout my courses in college seeking my degree in CIS degree, I'll eventually understand how to do that. But for now, Linux, like Windows 2000, my modem is virtually useless. I have to install an external 33.3 modem just to access the internet with Windows 2000, and I'm too comfortable with my 56k modem to switch to the slower access.
Update!!! I am now able to do this.
My new DSL modem still is a shoe-in for Linux, works great with cable access too. Have you tried Knoppix? Knoppix is a flavor of Linux, live on a CD. Yes, you heard me, a live OS on a CD. But, for now, because of the Distance Learning Class, and learning online, I dare not go through all the headaches making it work just to switch to Linux at this time. Believe me, my modem is no longer the major deterrant to making the switch to Linux.
You can put a Knoppix CD in a cd drive and reboot, to the cd and you're running Linux, and by default you can't write to the hard drive; but if you right clicked on the hard drive icon and highlighted properties, you can enable writing to the hard drive. Can you see what that can do in a business environment to pop a Live OS into the company machine and reboot to the cd, and take over the machine?
Linux too, has a steep learning curve, but from what I understand, the GUI is fast becoming so much like the look of Windows, it will be a fast and easy switch. And if that happens, Bill Gates.....you will see my thumb pointed to my nose, and my fingers raised high waving good bye to you, and your OS.
The nerve of making the honest customer go online just to activate a software program we have to buy off the shelf rendered, useless until verified online and activated! Windows XP, is Bill Gate's next flavor of Windows.
At least, a free version of Linux is just that, free. If it has bugs, it will get worked out. Bill Gates makes you buy his software with the bugs in it, and then makes you pay for the upgrades.
Try surfing toWindriver, I think you will be pleasantly surprised where computers may be leading us into tomorrow. This web site is worth exploring.
From my perusal of the site, it seems they have their own type of OS. But of special interest to me, is the concept of the FPGAdevelopment. You can also learn more about what FPGA is at this site,Microtronix.
What it is, is Field Programmable Gate Array. Reconfiguring your hardware on the fly, while in the field. This certainly is an eye opener on what is happening now, and where we seem to be going in the future.
Before you know it, like the days of yesteryear, when we used to watch cartoons of the Jetsons, we all dreamed of the day we would see moving sidewalks, robots, flying cars, computers, video phones, etc. etc.
We do see around us today stuff we only dreamed of back in the days of the Jetson's cartoon. Star Trekis another favorite of mine. It seems more possible today what goes on in the show that has been on the air for more than 30 years.
A lot of stuff the stage crew had to do in filming the show, was just stage sets, but set the minds of many a brilliant person to scheming to make some of those things a reality in our day today, i.e. doors that open up as you walk up to them for example. Some of the ideas like warp speed, I believe we are fast approaching it's arrival. The replicator, like a microwave, only it creates a ready made item, when you talk to it. The transporter, the tractor beam, many things seem more possible to achieve today, if not tomorrow.
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