1. Konami Cancels Game About Iraq War – http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/04/fallujahkonamicancel.html

2. URL Shortening Now More Secure And Private With Tini.us- http://www.smashingapps.com/2009/04/28/tini-will-change-the-future-of-url-shortening-service-with-more-power.html

3. Phone Lets you kiss and make up- http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-42194-97.html

4. Top Ten Coolest Touch Screen Applications -http://www.protouchblog.co.uk/2009/04/top-ten-touch-screen-uses%E2%80%93now-you%E2%80%99ve-seen-it-all/

It was a very intersting article. I found it significant because I plan on getting an iphone too, so i’m very curious as to see what new things apple has come up with.

5.  Best Video I’ve Seen Today Will Make You Smile- http://gizmodo.com/5231112/best-video-ive-seen-today-will-make-you-smile

It entertained me.

Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create 3D models of anything you like. A lot of people can use it, such as: architects, civil engineerers, film makers, game developers, and other related professions.  It helps architects design buildings and is modeling software that empowers designers  to explore their ideas. There are many useful tools that come out of this software– from learning about area and volume to studying building and community design.  Theater and film students can use SketchUp to conceptualize their sets. Students can use it to participate in community development projects. SketchUp can help math students at all levels to better understand geometric concepts. It could be used for future buildings to be made, and improving to make learning easier for children. (Geography, 3D models, etc).

MS Windows XP

Windows XP is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers running x86 and IA-64 processors, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. The name “XP” is short for “experience”. Windows XP is the successor to both Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Me, and is the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture. Windows XP was first released on 25 October 2001, and over 400 million copies were in use in January 2006, according to an estimate in that month by an IDC analyst. It is succeeded by Windows Vista, which was released to volume license customers on 8 November 2006, and worldwide to the general public on 30 January 2007. Direct OEM and retail sales of Windows XP ceased on 30 June 2008, although it is still possible to obtain Windows XP from System Builders (smaller OEMs who sell assembled computers) until 31 July 2009 or by purchasing Windows Vista Ultimate or Business and then downgrading to Windows XP.

-          Windows XP 64-bit

-          Widows XP supports 4GB RAM

-          $187.99

-          October 25, 2001

 
MS Windows Vista

Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and digital media between computers and devices. Windows Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for software developers to write applications than with the traditional Windows API.

-          32-bit or 64-bit

-          Windows Vista supports 4 GB-16GB of RAM 

-          $174.99 – $250.00

-          November 30 2007

 Ubuntu Linux (latest version)

Ubuntu is a community developed, linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need – a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more. Its latest version in January 2009 is ubuntu 8.10. Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition delivers the features you need for an increasingly mobile digital life, including 3G wireless support and guest sessions that lets users temporarily share computers without compromising security. Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition consolidates its support for virtualization with an integrated Virtual Machine builder, and brings with it a fully-supported Java stack and support for per-user directory encryption.

-          Supports 32 bit or 64-bit

-          Supports 4GB of RAM

-          $20 Ubuntu 8.10 desktop edition

-          January 2009

 BeOS

BeOS was an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing modular I/O bandwidth, pervasive multithreading, preemptive multitasking and a custom 64-bit journaling file system known as BFS. The BeOS GUI was developed on the principles of clarity and a clean, uncluttered design. The API was written in C++ for ease of programming. It has POSIX compatibility and access to a command line interface through Bash, although internally it is not a Unix-derived operating system.

-          64-bit graphical user interface

-          $99.95

MAC OS X (latest version)

Mac OS X^] is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems. It is the successor to Mac OS 9, the final release of the “classic” Mac OS, which had been Apple’s primary operating system since 1984. Mac OS X, whose “X” represents the Roman numeral for “10″ and is a prominent part of its brand identity, is a Unix-based operating system,^[4] built on technologies developed at NeXT between the second half of the 1980s and Apple’s purchase of the company in early 1996. Its sixth and most recent version, Mac OS X v10.5 is certified UNIX 03 while running on Intel processors. The first version released was Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999, and a desktop-oriented version, Mac OS X version 10.0 followed in March 2001. Releases of Mac OS X are named after big cats; for example, Mac OS X v10.5 is usually referred to by Apple and users as “Leopard”. The server edition, Mac OS X Server, is architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart, and includes tools to facilitate management of workgroups of Mac OS X machines, and to provide access to network services. These tools include a mail transfer agent, a Samba server, an LDAP server, a domain name server, and others. It is pre-loaded on Apple’s Xserve server hardware, but can be run on most of Apple’s computer models.

-          64-bit graphical user interface

-          4gb + RAM

-          $109.00 to $129.99

-          April 13, 2007

1. Research “Google Latitude”

Google Latitude allows you to share your location with friends and view their locations on a map. Latitude is completely opt-in, so you must enable it before you can start sharing location and can disable it at any time. Google Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. It’s also an iGoogle gadget on the computer. Once you’ve opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and family who have decided to share their location with you. And with Latitude, not only can you see your friends’ locations on a map, but you can also be in touch directly via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating your status message; you can even upload a new profile photo on the fly. To use Google Latitude and accept location sharing requests, you must sign into Latitude using a Google Account. Google Accounts include Gmail usernames, Google Accounts you’ve created for other email addresses, and Google Apps accounts*.

2. Possible Privacy concerns

Google Latitude notifies the user of the device that it is sharing the location of the device. The service allows the user to decide how much information to submit, who to, and also allows the user not to share any information at all.
All this sounds fine, but, although it allows the user to control their privacy settings when they are running Google Latitude, what if the user doesn’t know they are running it? One example of this would be a company providing its employees with phones, which come with Google Latitude pre-installed, and all setup to share user information with the employer. This is the concern that Privacy International has been raising. As the program doesn’t notify the user that it is running, depending on the situation, the user could be completely oblivious to the fact that their location was being broadcasted to whoever the employer set it up to broadcast to.

3. Possible implications of Facebook privacy concerns

Things such as, photos, images, wall-to-wall’s can be publically placed on the news feed, where strangers are able to creep. Secondly, if you don’t put the privacy “lock” on your facebook (like me) random strangers are able to look through your profile, wall, images, etc. as if they were your “friend.” Secondly, your bosses at work are able to see what you’re up to, and they may even judge you from what they see on your facebook. Also, when facebook asks you to put your email, or mobile number, or your work place, or birth date and current school, it is very easy to be tracked down.

4. Concerns of my image being added into social networking sites

Strangers are able to see you, and even send that picture to even more of his creeper friends…It can get around, blogs can be made about you. They will start researching you. It is a very scary thing…

5.  Do you think that employers could and/or should use the internet to research possible new hires or current employees?

I do not think that employers should use the internet to research possible new hires or current employees of they are going to use it against them or to judge them. Firstly, there is that whole story Mr. Cabralda shared that if a women was almost pregnant and the employer saw it on her facebook status or wherever and chooses not to hire her, that would be discrimination and that is unfair. Secondly, if you’re having a good time at some sort of club, or getting drunk, and your employer sees that and decides to fire you, it is not fair because what you do on your own time is your own business. Just because one parties and has fun, does not mean they can not perform their job well. (unless they came to work drunk, but assuming they don’t).

What happens when you type in the holy cross website in your broswer?

 when you type in a web adress such, the name goes to a DNS (Domain Name Server) which translates that into the IP adress of the website.  The information sent back and forth is called HTML which is like the language that websites use. After that its sent to different places and eventually to the server, and the server sends the data you want in little bits back the way it came.

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. Its use for retrieving inter-linked resources led to the establishment of the world wide web. HTTP development was coordinated by the World Wide Web and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). HTTP is a request/response standard between a client and a server. A client is the end-user, the server is the web site. The client making a HTTP request—using a web browser, spider, or other end-user tool—is referred to as the user agent. The responding server—which stores or creates resources such as HTML files and images—is called the origin server. In between the user agent and origin server may be several intermediaries, such as proxies, gateways, and tunnels. HTTP is not constrained to using TCP/IPand its supporting layers, although this is its most popular application on the Internet. Typically, an HTTP client initiates a request. It establishes a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to a particular port on a host (port 80 by default; see List of TCP and UDP port numbers). An HTTP server listening on that port waits for the client to send a request message. Upon receiving the request, the server sends back a status line, such as “HTTP/1.1 200 OK”, and a message of its own, the body of which is perhaps the requested resource, an error message, or some other information.

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource participating in the Internet. It associates various information with domain names assigned to such participants. Most importantly, it translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical (binary) identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices world-wide. An often used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves as the “phone book” for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses.

IP addresses An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification (logical address) that is assigned to devices participating in a computer networkutilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes. Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers, they are usually displayed in human-readablenotations,such as 208.77.188.166 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:1:1 (for IPv6). The role of the IP address has been characterized as follows: “A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there.”
Tracert: traceroute is a computer network tool used to determine the route taken by packets across an IP network. An IPv6 variant, traceroute6, is also widely available.

Binary ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), pronounced /ˈæski/^[1] is a character-encoding scheme based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. Most modern character-encoding schemes—which support many more characters than did the original—have a historical basis in ASCII.

Historically, ASCII developed from telegraphic codes. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services. Work on ASCII formally began October 6, 1960, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association’s (ASA) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published in 1963,^[2][3] a major revision in 1967,^[4] and the most recent update in 1986.^[5] Compared to earlier telegraph codes, the proposed Bell code and ASCII were both ordered for more convenient sorting (i.e., alphabetization) of lists, and added features for devices other than teleprinters.

ASCII includes definitions for 128 characters: 33 are non-printing, mostly-obsolete control characters that affect how text is processed;^[6] 94 are printable characters, and the space is considered an invisible graphic.^[7] The ASCII character-encoding scheme is the most-commonly-used character set on the Internet.^[8];l

^{GO TO THIS LINK TO TRY IT: http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_to_Text.asp}

^{Converting Hexadecimal to base 10}

To convert a number from base 16 to base 10, you read it like this:

43 in base 16 = 4 X 16¹ + 3 X 16⁰ = 64 + 3 = 67 in base 10.

Do the steps in this order

1. raise the base to the power
2. multiply the result by the place value
3. add the result for each place

Remember that letters just stand for numbers between 10 and 15.

One of the two products that I have found played a signifcant role in the year 2008 was the blackberry Storm. The Blackberry storm is a smartphonedeveloped by Research in Motion (RIM). It is part of the 9500 series of phones. It is RIM’s first touchscreen device and first device without a physical keyboard and will feature a touchscreen which reacts physically like a button via SurePress, a Research in Motion patented technology of providing haptic feedback. It will be available through Vodafone in the UK, Ireland and Australia, Verizon Wireless in the United States, Telus and Bell in Canada. The Blackberry storm was the first touchscreen Blackberry to be released. Now with the introduction of the storm, Blackberry is capable of competing in the ongoing phone market. Touchscreen phones are the newest phones to come out and is known to youth as the “in” thing. The BlackBerry Storm is a world-phone, and one to be seriously considered in the new year of 2009.

The secong product to be released in 2008 that I found played a significant role and made a large impact on the market is the HP Touchsmart commputer. In case you haven’t noticed, « Touch » is all the rage these days. It was only a matter of time before a PC maker was to build a touch-PC, it just happened to be HP. The idea behind the HP Touchsmart is to engage consumers by having them interact with their digital media in a whole new way. It will take some work to convince me to get one of these, but I suppose that in places where a keyboard has no reason to be (living room, kitchen) one might be tempted to use a touch-computer like this one. (Of course, it does come with a wireless mouse and keyboard) Come back to this site to get our first impressions as we play with it today. The Hp touchsmart computer allows one to have physical contact with the comuter while controlling it as if a mouse, all at the same time. However, the HP Touchsmart cannot yet compete with the Mac brought to us proudly by Apple. The HP Touchsmart is not as fast as the Apple iMac.

One significant product that I presume will have a large impact on the tech world would have to be the Google phone. The T-Mobile G1 (known as the HTC Dream during development) is an Internet-enabled smartphone with software designed by Google and hardware designed by High Tech Computer Coorperation of Taiwan. The G1 is the first phone to the market that uses the Android mobile device platform.The phone is part of an open standards effort of the Open Handset Alliance.It was released in the US on October 22, 2008, in the UK on October 30, 2008,and will be available in other European countries including Germany, Netherlands and the Czech Republic in early 2009. In the US, it is priced starting at $179 for new and existing T-Mobile customers if purchased with a two-year T-Mobile voice and data plan, and $399 without a contract. The G1 comes in black, bronze, or white.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackberry_storm

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/touchsmart/

http://nytimes.com.com/desktops/hp-touchsmart-iq770/4505-3118_9-32305738.html

 Go to this site, its fun:

http://www.nickciske.com/tools/binary.php

Computers work on the principle of number manipulation. Inside the computer, the numbers are represented in bits and bytes. For example, the number three is represented by a byte with bits 0 & 1 set; 00000011. This is numbering system using Base 2. People commonly use a decimal or Base 10 numbering system. What this means is that in Base 10, count from 0 to 9 before adding another digit. The number 22 in Base 10 means we have 2 sets of 10’s and 2 sets of 1’s.

Base 2 is also known as binary since there can only be two values for a specific digit; either a 0 = OFF or a 1 = ON. You cannot have a number represented as 22 in binary notation. The decimal number 22 is represented in binary as 00010110 which by following the below chart breaks down to:

| 2^7 |   2^6 | 2^5  | 2^4 |  2^ 3  |  2^2  |  2^1  | 2^0 |

=         |  128 |   64  |   32  |  16    |    8    |    4    |    2   |    1    |

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

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.

Example: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.

Conversions:

1 bit

8 bits – 1byte

1024 bytes – 1 kilobyte

1024 kilobytes – 1 megabyte

1024 megabytes – 1 gigabyte

1024 gigapbytes – terrabyte

Obama uses technology for campaigning!

The use of technology and the internet was unprecedented in the last American election. When Obama announced John Biden was his vice presidential running mate, supporters who had previously registered their phone numbers received the news through text message and email way even before the news media got it. Though both McCain and Obama campaigns have used the Internet and other technologies, Obama is by far the leader in the use of technology today. Obama is also the only presidential candidate to buy ad space in video games, including “Guitar Hero” and “Madden 09.″ He also featured in-game ads from the Obama campaign that appear on billboards and other signage in the game. “Within days of the launch of the iPhone 3g the Obama campaign released a special iPhone applet that allowed his supporters to receive up-to-date campaign news on their iPhone.”  Online social networking sites provide an easy way for like-minded people to connect with one another, share ideas and form communities. This enables people from different parts of the world to come together on a common platform. Online sites, such as facebook and MySpace helped others to connect and reach one another. The Obama campaigns has his presence on Facebook and MySpace. The Obama camp has an official presence on 16 networking and information sharing websites. These range from networking sites such as “LinkedIn” to the photo-sharing site “Flickr.”

Extensive use of online video sharing through sites such as Youtube and Brightcove by both candidates and supporters is another feature of the 2008 presidential race and every speech, TV interview and gaffe is publicly available on the web. Both the candidates have dedicated Youtube channels and thousands of supporters have also posted home-made video clips on the web. In fact, the most-viewed election-related video on Youtube is not by any of the candidates but a small clip by a McCain supporter Iraq war returnee. The clip titled “Dear Mr Obama” attracted 11 million hits. The official Obama campaign website provides registered volunteers a detailed script and a list of voters to call. These voters are largely from swing states and volunteers have the option of selecting the state they want to call. Such tools have revolutionized the extent to which a campaign can take advantage of the volunteer network. Obama’s official site claimed that volunteers using the “online voter contact tool” made 431,645 calls on Nov 1.

Thanks to such online tools, volunteers are no longer required to deal with their local campaign offices and can canvass from their homes. The new technology  has made the election much more interactive and placed more control in the hands of the individual volunteers. The candidate websites have also evolved since the last elections and both Mccain and Obama have campaign websites that act as one-stop shops for supporters. Besides giving information including videos about the candidates and their views on various issues, these also provide online volunteer registration and online fund contribution. Obama’s official website Barackobama.com has sections addressing specific groups ranging from “Mediterranean Americans” to “People Of Faith”. It also features an “Obama Store” selling campaign T-shirts, mugs, sticker and buttons. The site also has an “Obama-Biden Tax Calculator” by which one can find out how much tax cut to expect if Obama wins.

Though technology is no substitute for real-life interaction its use for attracting youth, bringing together people with little effort and cost, organizing volunteer operations and providing an alternative fundraising route is most likely to increase in the future. Also, more groups or videos from fans and the candidates themselves should probably be used more often as well.

3 stories

1) Call centre worker caught out by boss after posting ’sickie’ plan on ‘Facebook’

I found this story very helpful. I can definitely relate because i have done that before where i book days off, or i decide to call in sick from work and yet i still update my facebook status. Luckily, my managers are really easy going maybe because they’re not old and can relate to me. However, after seeing someone getting caught with facebook as their evidence, it has taught me to be more cautious and i will not update my status at all or do any more wall posts when im “sick.” Technology has a way of getting you in trouble, even when you do not expect it. Technology can definetly get you in trouble if not on the computer, but with camera phones (in case your boss ever took a picture of you shopping instead of being “sick”) video cameras, etc.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1080010/Call-centre-worker-caught-boss-posting-sickie-plan-Facebook.html

 2) Gmail’s Newly Launched Emoticons Feature a Pile of Shit

 ”Gmail recently launched emoticons for their gmail service and they have added some fun emoticons to set themselves apart from the crowd. One thing that is quite notable is the pile of shit with 2 flies flying around it. So if you are in a shitty mood make use of it and throw shit at someone via email” This caught my attention because I use emoticons a lot when i’m on facebook or especially msn. Although some emoticons are fairly strange, such as the “pile of s***” it makes my life, and conversations much more interesting. Also, i have more choices to express my feelings!

http://techyshit.com/gmails-newly-launched-emoticons-features-a-pil-of-shit/

 3)Teen Driver on Cell Phone Hits 107mph in a Construction Zone

Apparently, while taking out her cellphone and trying to use it, she hit a contrusction zone. That was confirmed by a police officer. Technology, as useful as it is, can be dangerous. You have to be careful. Textig and talking on a cell while driving is not good, especially when using the iphone which needs both of your hands to hold and text. Also, the officer was able to record her on video for speeding and hitting the construction site. This affects me because I have my L too and are times where when I’m driving (with my mom) i tend to pick up calls or read texts on the cell. NOT SAFE!

http://digg.com/autos/Teen_Driver_on_Cell_Phone_Hits_107mph_in_a_Construction_Zone