Wednesday, April 27

Although it seems like a weird test to conduct, it seems like the Turing test is a legitimate way to test a machine's intelligence. Since it is a human that is conducting the test and the human is comparing the conversation with the other human to the conversation with the computer it would make sense that it would be a good way to test the computer's intelligence. Some tasks that humans do better than computers are tasks that consist of intellectual reasoning, such as writing essays and making artwork based on emotion. Some tasks a computer can do better than humans are factual things such as solving math equation immediately and state facts about a specific subject. A characteristic that distinguishes these two lists is the fact that the human has the ability to think and judge when the computer only does what it is programmed to do.

Friday, April 15

There are many advantages and disadvantages to using e-commerce to start a business. An advantage to selling clothes online using e-commerce to start your own business is that you do not have to go to work. You can just easily stay home and have a stay at home job. This would be more efficient than going to work. Another advantage to using e-commerce to start an online business is that you are your own employer. You do not have to be under anyone or follow any guidelines that an employer puts on you. You are free to do as you wish as far as a job goes. A disadvantage is that you have to ship all of the clothes you sell yourself and that can make things a little bit harder on you versus working for a company that ships things for you.

Reading Questions: Chapter 13 (contd.)

6. The main purpose of this technology is to let the outsiders for the firm to communicate with the organization as when required.Extranet use the same protocols as intranet for the sake of data sharing and communication through web with little enhanced security and privacy.

7. In order to successfully conduct business with consumers on the internet, companies must ensure to the user that they have legit business transactions, because people do not want to be scammed. The main issue is trust in the website, and if a business can get a consumer to trust them, then they are good to go.

8. E-commerce software should provide an easy way for users to buy and sell the products that they are trading, for this is the most essential part and the foundation of e-commerce. It should provide users control to edit prices, items, etc.

9. There are a few, but two that immediately pop into mind are integrity and global equalization. As for integrity, the e-commerce sites must make sure that it is nearly impossible to hack them, because people can get scammed and that will lead to a lot of trouble. As for global equalization, if an e-commerce business wants to exceed, they must make sure users all over the world have access, so they must set up global shipping.

Wednesday, April 13

If someone found the cure for the common cold I would think that they should first make it theirs and copyright it before they make it public. I could see why the person would hide it to protect the jobs of people who work in that industry. I think that instead of hiding it, that person can just put the cure in medication and the industry can distribute it that way. The other thing that person can do is make it public. That would cause the jobs in that industry to decrease so that might not be such a positive thing. People may react negatively to these type of things because they do not see the positives in the long run, they just see the short term goals and argue based on those.

Reading Questions: Chapter 13

2. E-commerce is not possible without the Internet, because that is the foundation of e-commerce. Without the internet, it would just be a normal business. That is why there is an "e" before commerce

3. -B2B: E-commerce transactions between businesses

-B2C: E-commerce transactions between businesses and customers

-C2C (consumer to consumer): the e-commerce model which represents individuals, organizations, or companies that are selling and buying directly from each other via the Internet

4. The intranet popular type of network used by many organizations around the world to keep their businesses more paperless and their employees more productive. It features networking protocols that the standard Internet uses, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

5. Companies use intranet to allow information access for employees, internal businesstransactions and in order to work together effectively.

Wednesday, April 6

- They are capable of doing both. They may increase efficiency at work because they might cause the employees to do less work and get a better outcome and they might decrease efficiency if the employees are getting distracted by things such as the internet.

- There is a lot of private information and someone might steal that information and also, there is a fear of getting a virus or the memory getting erased.

- (a) Map makers have been replaced by online maps

(b) Secretaries have been replaced by automated voice recordings that take messages

(c) Paper boys have been replaced by online news websites

Reading Questions: Chapter 11(contd.)

2. The major components of the modern automated factory are robots, web cameras and computers.

5. De-skilling and Up-skilling. De-skilling is when a job is automated, where it requires less skill, and Up-skilling is when a job is automated where is requires more skill.

15. Several ways people use home computers are education, business, entertainment and communication.

16. A smart card is a card that looks like a standard credit card, but instead of a magnetic strip, it contains an embedded microprocessor and memory. Smart cards can contain critical ID information and can automatically record each transaction for later retrieval.

Reading Questions: Chapter 11

3. Because automation allows for tighter integration of planning with manufacturing, reducing the time that materials and machines sit idle and automation reduces waste in facilities, raw materials, and labor.


6. De-skilling is when you have an automated job you transform it so that it requires less skill. And example of a de-skilled job is working at the cash at the counter at restaurants. The machine allows the employee to input orders with the push of buttons and it calculates the price using a database. Up-skilling is making an automated job more technical. An example of this is making databases, spreadsheets and email systems.


7. (a) The working conditions bring to mind the oppressive factory sweatshops of the 19th century.
(b) It causes many health problems.


8. Because students need to learn how to work comfortably with all kinds of knowledge tools.

Reading Questions: Chapter 10(contd.)

3. The typical computer criminal is a trusted employee with no criminal record who is tempted by an opportunity.


4. The most common computer crime today is theft. It is usually committed by intruders.


7. a. A computer does exactly what it is programmed to do, including reveal sensitive information. Any system that can be programmed can be reprogrammed by anyone with sufficient knowledge/
b. Any computer can do only what it is programmed to do.


8. Some different computer security techniques are:
- Install an anti-virus and run scans frequently
- Make sure your firewall is properly running

Reading Questions: Chapter 10

2. It is hard to estimate the extent of computer crime because most of them are undetected and those who are detected are usually not reported.


5. Intellectual property laws grant owners certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets. They can apply to software because the owners of the software have right to their product and it is theirs to do whatever they want with it.


6. Different types of programs that can be used for software sabotage are viruses, worms, trojan horses, and spyware.


9. Because if they do not save it on an external device, there is always a risk that the hard drive in the system might become corrupt so it is always good to have that back up device to save it on.

Reading Questions: Chapter 9(contd.)

2. It is hard to determine how big the internet is today because it is constantly growing and networks are constantly being created.

5. It interracts in the sense that information is sent through the server to the client. Different users might experience different interfaces while accessing the same data because they might be in different areas and they might experience delays.

7. - ActiveX: A collection of programming technologies and told for creating controls or components. It is similar to a Java applet.

- eXtensible Markup Language (XML): Enables web developers to control and display data the way they now control text and graphics.

- Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL): An HTML-like language designed to make it possible to link time-based streaming media such as sounds, video and animation.

11. With push technology, you subscribe to a service or specify the kinds of information you want to receive and you will receive it automatically from the provider, versus normally where you have to subscribe to i and go find it yourself. It is used to send notifications and alerts to the client.

Wednesday, March 23

List of top-level domains

1. .com (commercial)

2. .org (organization)

3. .net (network)

4. .edu (education)

5. .gov (governmental)

6. .info (infoirmation)

7. .mobi (mobile devices)

8. .mil (U.S. military)

9. .jobs (companies)

10. .int(international organizations)

Reading Questions: Chapter 9

3. They allow cross-network communication for almost every type of computer and network. They are important because they define how information can be transferred between machines and how machines on the network can be identified with unique addresses.

4. It influences the limits and abilities placed on you while you are using the internet.

6. They are both used in the domain naming system.

9. It shrinks the file size but keep it as it is at the same time so it causes less traffic.

Wednesday, March 16

DQ: Suppose you have an important message to send to a friend in another city, and you can use the telephone, email, real-time teleconference, fax, or overnight mail service. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. See if you can think of a situation for each of the five options in which that particular option is the most appropriate choice.

Telephone

The advantage of using the telephone to communicate with your friend is that it is a very reliable device and you can talk to your friend as if you were face to face with them, no matter how far you are. Unlike sending emails, or anything of that sort, using the telephone has the best response time. The disadvantage to using the telephone is that you might be a great distance away from your friend and the signal might get interrupted or might just drop and you cannot do anything about it.

Email

The advantage to email is that when you send the message to your friend you don't need to sit and wait for a response. The message is stored in a database and your friend can choose to read it whenever they wish. You can go do whatever you want and come back sometime later to check whether you have received a message. The disadvantages to using Email is that you must be connected to the internet to be able to send messages to your friend. If you do not have internet connection then you are unable to send a message.

Real-time teleconference

The advantage to real-time teleconference is similar to that of the telephone. You can directly speak to your friend. You can also add multiple people to your conference and speak with them. The disadvantage is that you can get disconnected from it and it may become hard for everyone to get setup again.

Fax

The advantages of using a fax machine is that you may send the documents straight to your friend if they also own one. The disadvantages of using fax is that your friend may not also own one so that way it might not work. Also, like the telephone, the fax machine goes through telephone service so that may get disrupted somehow.

Overnight mail service

The advantages of overnight mail service are simple. You and your friend may send messages back and forth overnight. The disadvantage is that it takes time to send messages back and forth so this is the least efficient method of them all.

Wednesday, March 9

DQ: What have you done this week that directly or indirectly involved a database? How would your week have been different in a world without databases?

I think that most of the time I spend on the computer while I'm online involves a database. One main thing I can remember and be sure about is using Google.com. Google.com is a big database and when I search something it narrows the options in that database to that specific item and finds it for me. I personally depend a lot on databases so if I did not have a database during this week I would have probably not been able to do many things such as searches and finding solutions to my problems.

Reading Questions: Chapter 8(contd.)

9. - You can send mail over a large network and it would be received faster than normal mail.

- It is not tangible, therefore there is no fear of physical corruption of the mail.

10. - The signal may be disrupted, therefore causing no connection to email or teleconferencing program.

- Not everyone may be able to have access to these features.

11. From my understanding it means that money can be exchanged for anything that might be of information. It relates to communication technology because communication technology is used to transfer money and organize transactions.


13. Netiquettes are important because they keep order on the net and they set a standard for people on the net to follow. Some examples are: - Usenet
- Mailing lists
- Blogs
- Forums

Reading Questions: Chapter 8

2. a. Networks enable people to share computer hardware resources, reducing costs and making it possible for more people to take better advantage of powerful computer equipment.

b. Networks enable people to share data and software programs, increasing efficiency and productivity.

c. Networks enable people to work together, or collaborate, in ways that are otherwise difficult or impossible.


6. a. Terminal emulators: A program that emulates a video terminal within another form of display.

b. File transfer programs: Transmitting files over a computer network or the internet.


7. It can be used to share files over a network to each student's computer station. A software licensing issue that might be raised by using a file server in a student lab is that although the stations are connected through a network, you must still get a separate software license for each student's computer.


8. a. Email is transmitted from the sender’s computer to server and from there to the recipients server from where it can either be viewed or downloaded. IM is short for Instant Messaging and needs the users to be logged in to the same server. Messages are delivered instantly.

b. Email can be read independent of the software that was used to create it whereas the IM requires the users to use the same client.

Reading Questions: Chapter 7(contd.)

3. A database is a collection of information in a file. This collection is stored in well-defined tables. The columns in a database table provide characteristics of the records. These characteristics are called database fields. Each field contains one specific piece of information.


5. A. Create a connection to your database.
B. Query the database.
C. Build a report in advance that would layout where you want to display the data.
D. At the time when you build your report, it would be great if you can tie a display field to a column in the database.
E. In your desktop application, you would pass the resultset to this pre-defined report.


10. We have the right of privacy to a certain extent. We need a certain amount of privacy to maintain our dignity and freedom, but on the other hand, our general information such as mailing address and email address may be of great importance to society so they may take that information.


11. Because people store so much information about themselves and their belongings such as bank information and if those were invaded then it would be very bad for those people.

Reading Questions: Chapter 7

2. A file manager is a program that enables users to manipulate files on their computers and a database management system is a program or system of programs that can manipulate data in a large collection of files. They are similar because they both include manipulating files whether it is in the beginning or sometime down the road.

4. A query is an information request. An example of a question answered by a query is, " Who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln?" in the context of a database on the life of Abraham Lincoln.

7. To sort a data-file means to edit the content of the file.

8. Because it can back up and correct any entries that you make based on the databased.