Week 6 - Topics and Readings

This week we concluded the Computing section. Can I get an amen? Not my favorite part of the course, but I will never deny the power of the personal computer and their purpose. On Tuesday we looked at hot topics like virtualization, thin computing, and cloud computing. Also, we finished up with some US and International sales info for the industry. Simply said Acer improved, Dell hasn't been impressive, Lenovo is down, HP is respectable and Apple only made the US list. Oh yeah, Virtualization, Mobile Computing and Cloud Computing are hot topics and very relevant. The benefits are pretty obvious depending on the situation.

Thursday we will dive in head first into Digital Media. We will meet in WSOM 009 and "kick the tires." My plan is to attack Photoshop, Flash, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker and Powerpoint, this class will help you as you work on your second project. You are required to create a digital media advertisment (see syllabus). Next week we'll get into the details and power of digital media, drivers, formats, definitions and issues.

Oh yeah, three more things:

1. We'll keep cranking on the individual project presentations. I'm hoping you are seeing the pattern.

2. Twitter is silly, see here. Why are people following my useless comments?

3. Quiz and Project grades should be posted on Blackboard by Tuesday.

Download Reading Assignments Here

Mac vs. PC

As we are entrenched in the computing section of this course we need to enter into the Mac vs. PC battle.

1. Which is the better personal computer and why?

2. Which is a better enterprise computer? What I mean is which does CPU Inc. need - They have 500 PCs (towers and notebooks), need integrated file and communication systems.

3. As the Director of Technology I am very interested in the future of the Mac vs. PC battle on the student level. Which computer are students going to bring to campus over the next 2-5 years. Mac or PC?

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.