Thursday, 15 December 2016

People of the Computer Age! 20th - 21st Century

1st, 2nd, 3rd Generation

 Robert Noyce 

Robert Noyce was the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor (1957) and Intel (1968). Along with Jack Kilby, he created the integrated circuit. He was also called the "Mayor of Silicon Valley," long before California had the name Silicon Valley. Robert Noyce was born on December 13, 1927. Noyce grew up in Grinnell, Iowa. He earned a bachelor of Arts in physics and mathematics from Grinnell College, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

4th Generation

Michael Dell

Michael Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell Inc. (1984). Michael Dell was born on February 23, 1965, in Houston, Texas, he had a love and interest in computers. In college Dell, decided to sell PCs directly to the customers. Unlikely at the time, he wanted to eliminate the middleman and markups, so he saved up $1,000 and started building computers for people he knew in college. Sooner or later he had been receiving many orders, which proved that his business was booming. He later dropped out to focus on the business and gain a huge success not only for directly selling the PCs but also with excellent customer service.

WWW Generation

Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin is the co-founder of Google (1998) and president of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. (2015). Sergey Brin was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow, Russia. In his early life, Brin and his family emigrated to the U.s to escape Jewish prosecution in 1979. Brin enrolled in the University of Maryland and earned a degree in mathematics and computer science, he then entered Stanford University where he met Larry Page (co-founder of Google and CEO of Alaphabet Inc.). As a hobby and a research project, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, created a search engine that listed web pages based on their popularity, which would be most useful. Then they decided to raise $1 million from family, friends, and other investors to launch the company, Google (based on the word "googol", 1 followed by 100 zeros, to be based on the many web pages of the internet).

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Computer Generations Table!


Generation
Examples of Computer (Name)
Electronic Components
Years
Used for?
Size
Interesting fact about each
1



Vacuum Tubes
1940-1956
Vacuum tubes are used for radios, television, radar equipment, and telephones.
Took up a Room
Today some vacuum tubes are used for speakers, which audiophiles say that the audio quality is better than normal transistors.
2

Transistors

1956-1963
Replaced vacuum tubes, allowing computers to be faster, smaller, power efficient and cheaper.
Took up a room but still less than a vacuum tube computer.
Transistors still used punched cards for input and printouts for outputs,
3



IBM 1311

Chips
(Integrated Circuits)

1964-1971
Just like the transistors, the integrated circuits replaced them being much faster and efficient. Now they can store many data and can make more calculations.
Took up half a room.
Most integrated circuits have gold in them. Now as they are obsolete, some people extract gold out of the chip and sell them for money.
4




China's Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer
Microprocessors
(Computers on a chip)
1971-Present
Replacing the old integrated circuits, most computers only have one microprocessor which made them a lot more compact, faster, cheaper and efficient.
General computers took a small portion of a room. A supercomputer would take a whole room.
Microprocessors were made by many companies before. Now there are only two companies that take up most of the microprocessor market, Intel and AMD.
5.



Networking
Parallel Computing
Fibre Optics

Present - Future
Unlike a physical hardware state, computers are accessing the cloud for information, apps, communication, and many more.
Servers would take up a room, but computers accessing the cloud would take no space at all.
The cloud is mainly servers from around the world. Most servers still use microprocessors. But since this is just the beginning new technology are starting to be developed by engineers/scientists all around the globe.



Monday, 12 December 2016

History of Computers: Day 1!

1. There is no real answer to when the computer was first created. The word "computer" was first used in 1613, to describe a person who performed calculations. The first programmable computer was created by German Konrad Zuse, called Z1. It is considered to be the first electro-mechanical binary computer. The first commercial computer was made in 1942, by Konrad. It was called the Z4. There are different classifications of computers so they will be linked here.

2. The most important History pioneer is Tim Berners-Lee. Tim invented the World Wide Web (WWW), which we all use today. Without the World Wide Web, we would've not been able to connect to the cloud or collaborate and communicate with anyone around the web. 

3. The first video game was called Spacewar! The game was programmed by Steve Russel and published the game in February 1962. The game had two spaceships that were being pulled by a star. The objective of the game was to avoid the star and shoot missiles at the other ship. The game ran on the DEC PDP-1 computer.

4. The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee.

5. The computer mouse was created by Douglas Engelbart. He released his demo on December 9, 1968. You can find more on the video here.

6. The first programming language was called Plankalkül. It was developed by Konrad Zuse, used for the Z3 between 1943 and 1945.

7. The "Father" of computing was Charles Babbage. He created the Analytical Engine in 1837 and contained an Arithmetic Logic Unit (performs mathematical operations on binary numbers), basic flow control, punch cards, and integrated memory. It essentially was the first general-purpose computer.

The "Father" of the computer was Konrad Zuse. In 1936 to 1938 Konrad created the Z1 in his parent's living room. The Z1 had more than 30,000 metal parts and was considered to be the first electro-mechanical binary programmable computer.

The "Father" of the personal computer was Henry Edward Roberts. He came up with the idea of a "personal computer". When he released the Altair 8800 on December 19, 1974, he was considered to be the father of the modern personal computer. The "personal computer" was published n the front cover of Popular Electronics in 1975 became an overnight success. The computer was sold as a kit for $439 or assembled for $621 and had different add-ons. By 1975, over 5,000 Altair 8800 was sold.

8. Alan Turing was so important to Computing history because, during the second world war, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School. He was responsible for 
 deciphering many German ciphers. He cracked many intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis. He created a machine (the Bombe) that help break the code of the Enigma machine that the Germans created.

Sunday, 11 December 2016

Internet Archive and Collaboration!

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a website that saves the history of most web pages around the web. There are currently more than 279 million saved web pages. They also save numerous images, software, audio, text (books), and videos. The Internet Archive holds more than 10 petabytes of data. 


The Internet Archive organization made a backup archive in Canada because as technology continues to grow the risk of security is far greater. Making a backup in Canada will save the history of everything we've done in the past years. 


Collaboration


  1. Collaboration - When you work with other people to achieve a common goal.
  2.  People usually communicate when they are together in the same area talking and working with each other.
  3.  This method will not work properly when a member of the group is not there with them.
  4.  The benefit of collaboration on the net is that you can work with someone wherever you are (as long as you have the Internet). You also have access to the Internet so you can use different mediums if you want too.
  5.  Three benefits of using Google Docs and Spreadsheet are: you can edit each other's work, you can work on it whenever you want, and  you can share ideas and comments.
  6.  From Google A-Z there is an app called e-books. It’s an official Google Play store category, so instead of buying physical copies of books, you can keep many books on your phone/tablet.


Thursday, 8 December 2016

How does Google search work?


Mostly everyone around the world uses Google today. Many know Google as the largest search engine, and we all take it for granted. But do we really know how it all works? For Google, there’s more than meets the eye.

As far as what many people know, Google is a software company mostly based on its search engine. But Google is far BIGGER than that. They also create hardware like phones, speakers, WiFi routers, VR headsets, creating renewable green energy, and they even have their own AI.

Apart from all that, let’s get a better understanding of Google’s search engine. After all, that’s how they started. When you search up a question, a person, or a thing, they are all being located on more than 100 trillion web pages. Google uses a software known as “spiders” that would “crawl” around the web to find pages and follow links to find even more pages. Once the “web crawlers” are done with all the pages, they all get thrown into an Index to be used later for the final product of the search items. Once you have searched an item it goes through Google’s algorithms. Google’s algorithms, use many factors to find your search. They make sure it’s relevant to the search item, the quality of the web page, how popular the page is (page rank), spelling if the website is safe and much more. Google uses over 200 factors, to find what you're looking for in a matter of seconds (1/8th of a second to be precise)! But don’t forget that Google is also hard at work fighting spam. This ranges from weird links to hacks that can harm your computer.

Google’s search engine is probably one of the best things, humanity has ever created. You can find any information you want in a matter of seconds. Now that we know most about how Google’s search engine works, we can better appreciate how we take Google’s hard work for granted.




- Anthony, Ali, Luis, Lawson and Romulo

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10lRNyvwCSM3ym-9VPrmgnhTrpoxikjX5CG4EcxMxASg/edit?usp=sharing

Thursday, 6 October 2016

HTML Cat Table!

CATS!

CATS!

Item Price Weight Picture
Litter $56.75 20lb
Cat Food $12.99 15lb
Toys $2.99 5lb
Total $72.73 40lb

Wednesday, 5 October 2016

New Google Hardware!

 Google Pixel Phone


Google has introduced their new phones. Usually branded as "Nexus", built by partnered hardware companies, Google decided to manufacture their own phones. The phone comes in two versions, Pixel which has a 5" screen and Pixel XL which has a 5.5" screen. Pixel and Pixel XL comes in three colors: Quite Black, Very Silver, and Really Blue. It has an aluminum unibody and a top of the line new Snapdragon 821 processor with 4GB of RAM, a fingerprint sensor, and a 12-megapixel camera (said to be the best). This new phone will be mostly competing with other high end android phones like Samsung and also the iPhone 7. Pixel will cost $899 and Pixel Xl will cost $1,049 in Canada.


Google Daydream View

Google has also entered the virtual reality market with their new Daydream View headsets. Just like the Samsung Gear VR, the headset will work with Daydream compatible phones but comes at a cheaper price. The headset has a very comfortable cloth-like material and comes with a remote that can be used with the headset. Google wishes that everyone will experience a VR future and be available for everyone at a comfortable price. Daydream View will cost $79 in the US and will come to Canada at the end of the year.

Google Wi-Fi

Instead of acting like a single router, Google created "Wi-Fi" to act as a modular router that you can set up around your house to boost your wi-fi signal around the house. This is great for large houses that need a greater wi-fi range. One Wi-Fi costs $129 and a three-pack costs $299 (US). Google WI-Fi comes to Canada in 2017

Google Chromecast Ultra



Google has updated their old Chromecast to support 4k and HDR content. Chromecast Ultra will compete with other 4k and HDR streaming devices and will come at a higher price at $90 (US). Chromecast Ultra will be available around November.

Google Home


Last but not least Google has decided to compete with Amazon's Echo. Just like Apple's Siri, it is used much like Amazon's Echo for voice commands. You can ask it to play music, order things online, book an appointment and much more. Paired up with Google's largest search engine, Google Home will be a very competitive "smart" home assistant product. At $129 (US) it is cheaper than Amazon's Echo at $179. Google Home will be available in Canada in 2017.


Christmas!

If I were to choose one of the newest Google products for Christmas it would be Google Home. It is a convenient device to own, and you can ask it many questions and tasks. Out of all the newest products, owning a Google Home will be a new experience, and will definitely make my life a bit easier. But mostly because it's cool to talk to an A.I robot like in the movies.

Friday, 30 September 2016

What is a Supercomputer?

Supercomputers!

Scavenger Hunt

Place a small image here if you can find one
Who invented the Cray Supercomputer? (First & last name please)


 Seymour Cray invented the Cray supercomputer.


In what year?


 The first cray supercomputer was installed Los Alamos National Labratory in 1976.


What is a FLOPS




 A FLOPS stands for Floating-point Operations per Second. It is unit of computer speed, equal to one operation per second.


How many flops did the Cray 1 have?


 The Cray 1 supercomputer had 80 Million FLOPS.


When did the Cray 2 come out?
 The Cray 2 came out on 1985.


What is a Kiloflops?
 A Kiloflop is 1 thousand FLOPS


A MegaFlops?
 A Megaflops is 1 million FLOPS


How much is a Gigaflops?
 A Gigaflops is 1 billion FLOPS


How much is a teraflops?
 A Teraflops is 1 Trillion FLOPS


How much is a petaflops?
 A Petaflops is 1 quadrillion FLOPS


What’s next in the flops pattern?
 The next FLOPS pattern is Exaflops which is 1 quintillion FLOPS


What is the name and FLOPS of
the fastest Supercomputer of today?




 The fastest supercomputer today is the Sunway Taihulight supercomputer which runs at 93 Petaflops.


Thursday, 29 September 2016

Digital Footprint!




Questions
3 points
2 points
1 point
0 points
-1 point


1
How much of my online footprint represents the reputation I would want a college, internship or job recruiter to know about?
All of it
Most of it
Some of it
There’s nothing there
Some of my footprint does not represent the reputation I want.
2
Can I find online comments, posts, etc. about me that I would want a college, internship provider or possible employer to see?
Many
Some
Very few
There are no comments about me
There are comments which  do not represent what I would want seen.
3
Are there online images of me and/or online videos that convey what I would want a college or internship or job recruiter to know about?
Most
Some
Very little
There’s nothing there
There are images I would prefer were not seen by a recruiter or admissions office.
4
How many online profiles have I created that I am proud of in places like Google, LinkedIn, About.Me, Facebook, Twitter?
More than 2
2
1
None
I have created profiles that do not portray me in a positive light.
5
If I do an image search of myself, how many images appear that present me in a positive light? (Subtract any images that you think might be inappropriate for a potential employer, internship, or recruiter.)
More than 10
6 to 10
1 to 5
There’s nothing there
Most images do not present me in a way that will help my college or career success.
6
If I do a full name search of myself via search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., how many positive results appear about me? (Subtract any results that you think might be inappropriate for a potential employer, internship,  or college recruiter.)
More than 5
3 or 4
1 or 2
There’s nothing there
Most of what appears does not present me in a way that will help my college or career success.
7
Are there key words or an alias connected to me that admissions officers or business recruiters could use to find me online?
Yes, and it would be positive.
There are some that would be positive.
Some, but not sure it would have a positive influence.
No
Yes, but what they found would not be positive.
8
Do I regularly check up on my digital image and see if other people have posted comments, videos, or images about me on publicly viewable sites?
Yes.
I often do by using  
services such as Google Alerts and it is mostly positive.
Not regularly.
I might sometimes do an online search of my own name.   
Rarely.
I usually find out if other people let  me know.
No
Yes, but most of what I find is not positive.



How’d you do?

Negative Score: Clean up time
Congratulations for knowing how to create a footprint. Your next step is to clean up your image to get on track for college and career success.

No Score: You’re off the radar 
You’re a digital unknown or “digitally anonymous.” As you consider the benefits or disadvantages this can have in your academic and career pursuits, you’ll want to be deliberate in your decision about whether or not you want to keep it that way.

1 - 10 points: You’re a New “Foot” on the Block
You are at the beginning of your journey. Plan it well.

11 - 15 points: You’re Making Strides
You are moving in the right direction. Keep going.


My Digital Footprint is starting to form who I am. I should be more aware when I'm online and to make sure that my image on the internet doesn't represent me in a bad way. I can further improve my digital footprint when I am online.


16 - 20 points: You’re a Rising star! (or “Digital Weaver”)
You are developing a positive digital footprint. Keep working on it and you’ll move up in no time.

More than 20 points: You’re Web Wise!
You have curated a strong digital footprint. Keep it up!