Week 5 - Topics and Readings

This week we continue the individual project presentations and we start focusing on Computing. I like to discuss the history, evolution and improvements in the computing industry. We'll cover a number of simple computing terms and definitions by taking a look inside the computer. Glenn Santa (Computing Specialist) will help us discuss the "guts" and "uses" of computing parts. After the basics we'll dive a little deeper into processing power, Moore's Law and miniturization. The main ideas here are today computers and components are generally smaller, faster, and more powerful/capable.

I am also pleased to have Ryan Elstad (System Admin) and Peter Pizzimenti (System Admin) as guest speakers this week. Ryan and Pete are bright lights in the world of computing and IT infrastructure here on campus. I've asked them to discuss servers (file vs media), storage, backups, green computing, data centers and virtualization. And of course they will discuss costs and companies involved. This will be a great session. I learn something new every time I talk to them.

Download Reading Assignments Here

*Your paper is due 2/12.