Week 14- Muddy

A cloud. It just kind of floats up in the air on its own. It doesn't need any support. It doesn't need to be physically connected to something. "Cloud technology" applies some of these same concepts to the computing world. Cloud computing is an Internet based technology that connects the resources, software, hardware, and other parts of individual computers together. Using this technology someone might only need a computer monitor and keyboard, no storage hardware. Everything that you do on your computer can be stored elsewhere. Power can be shared and distributed as needed from different sources. It is refered to a cloud because of the picture of multiple computers being virtually connected.

This cloud technology is very helpful and useful in the business environment. It can be very economically benefical. A business can allocate its resources efficiently. If a business has only a limited need for a computer, it does not have to fully invest in a complete storage system that is made for a lot of information. It can simply use power and storage as needed through a host source. Also, a business can buy software in a way that may be best for them. Say a company would only have two or so people using a program at a time. Then they can purchase access to that program accordingly. For example, the use of five Excels at a time. 

Week 11- Muddy

Information. It is what drives society today. Think of everything we use that is technological. How would our lives be without smart phones, televisions, ipads, and  more. If you think about it, information technolgy is amazing and the people who develop these gadgets and ideas are mindblowing too. Who is going to come up with the next big idea? How does an idea turn into an actual product that you see on the shelves in the stores ready for sale? And then how do designers explain to the public how to use this new divice that is a change?

These are all parts of the system development cycle. This is a five step cycle. The first step of the cycle is planning. During this stage you would gather a team together, go over your plans for the new information system, and take suggestions on what should be done. The next step is analyzing the plan. Here you would investigate your idea, figure out the cost/benefits. Then you would design a new system. The next step would be toimplement your design. Here you would install, test, and train people on the system. Finally, develop maintainance and support progams for the system. Also, set up some kind of security to ensure that your system is safe.

Week 10- Muddy

Many people are familiar with Microsoft Word and Excel, but have never used Microsoft Access. I was one of those people. Access is a database software program. It is used for filing data and information. I had never used it for anything before, so everything about the program was completely new to me. It was very confusing to try to learn how to use a complex software program in one lesson. I think that actually doing some of the applications in the Database project will help me feel more comfortable with the program. Also, I have never really had the need for a program like this yet. I can see how this can be helpful in a business environment because you are using large amounts of related information. But I found that even though I was amazed at all that this program can do, I still wouldn't use it very much for personal use.

Some of the concepts behind using Microsoft access are that databases store all data in tables. The data can be categorized into different fields and the fields can be connected to each other if they have a relationship in common. When entering data make sure that the data is not being redundant. That is, that it is not being entered in more than once. This is called Normalization. There are different data types that you can record. You can have text, numbers, dates, objects, and so on. In Access you can also create reports of the information and forms. You can work  your way through Access by using the ribbon bar at the top of the screen. It has different tabs to help you through, just like in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

Week 6- Muddy

If I were to go back in time, I would be excited to tell people all about the innovations and technology that we have in today's time. But take image technology for example. As I think about it, they would ask me "Well, how does that work? How did they do that?" and quite frankly, I wouldn't know. I see pictures and use cameras, but I didn't know any of the concepts behind what makes these things display images. After some research and gaining knowledge of the subject, I found it interesting how images appear in our everyday lives.

Images are made up of many little dots of color, or pixels. These pixels arrange in a way that come together as a picture. A common type of graphic is called Raster. It uses the groups of pixels to create a "bitmap" which we perceive as a picture. Using Raster graphics, problems occur when you try to expand, zoom, and scale pictures. If you zoom in far enough, the picture gets distorted because you start to see the groups of pixels instead of one clear picture. This is when you get blocky or jagged pictures. Vector graphics gets rid of that problem. It arranges the picture using "primitives" or by geometric shapes that can be created mathematically. This way if you want to zoom in, math can be using to scale the picture down while keeping the quality of the image.Video: Raster vs. Vector Images



Jagged Raster Graphics


Images can also be compressed to save filing space. Technology has found different ways to make image files simpler. One way is called lossless compression. This method eliminates redundancy in the pixels. Lossy compression, which is another compression technique, discards some unneeded things in the image. Like images, audio and video files can also be compressed. This is an important fact to know in the business environment. Because a business has to keep record of many things, it is always key to know how to save space, which can help you save money.

Week 5- Muddy

Confused about Excel?

Technology is changing the world. And although technology is making tasks easier for us, getting to know how to use the technology is not always easy. Microsoft Excel is a program that more and more people are using in a variety of fields. Excel is a spreadsheet program that has become an essential part of the business environment. Because Excel can do so many complex things, I have found it confusing sometimes just to figure out how to get it started on the simple things I want it to do. Often times after multiple attempts of trying to apply formulas, I end up manually doing the calculations and then typing them in. After studying the Excel program some, I found these tasks to be much easier than before.



Once you learn what you are doing, Excel will make your business life so much easier. Formulas in Excel can be very helpful. To make a formula type an equals sign in your cell. Then simply tell the computer what formula you want to perform. For example, if you want the sum of cell A1 and cell B1, in another cell type =A1+B1. Excel will do the calculation for you. If you want to do this function for multiple cells, you can drag to copy the formula to other cells too. Excel follows the order of operations. The order in which it performs calculations is parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and then subtraction. Excel also has functions. Some of the more common Excel functions are AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, and SUM. In a cell click the equals sign, select one of these functions, and then select a range of data. Learning how to work in Excel can really be beneficial.   

Week 2- Muddy

Most people in today's society know how to use a personal computer, but most people do not know the different components that make up the computer. I found computer hardware to be somewhat of a difficult concept to understand. I think what makes this subject challenging is that to gain a true understanding of the material it will take years of studying and learning. So I can only scratch the surface of the concepts about how a computer's hardware works because by trying to get a deeper understanding, I get into things that are over my head.

Although computer hardware is a subject that can be tough to learn, after watching some lectures and doing other research I have a better understanding of the components of a computer. First, there are the obvious harware parts of a computer like the monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse. Inside the computer there are more parts that are stored on the motherboard. One of those parts is the CPU or central processing unit. This is the peice that syncs all of the computer functions. Processor cores read and run program information. Computers today often have dual and multiple cores. A turbo boost is the computers way of saving energy by only running the necessary core processors. Another way the computer saves energy is through caches. Caches remember recent and frequently used data. A computers memory is stored in its RAM and video can be connected through things like VGA and HDMI.