Week 6 BOC: There's an App for that!

After looking at many at many resources across the web, it is in fact true that there is an application that will allow you to check to see if you have a sexually transmitted disease. Doctors in the United Kingdom are developing the app. It will allow you to submit a sample of saliva or urine to a microchip. Plug it into your computer or smart phone and you get a diagnosis within minutes

This is after a brief journey across the internet looking for the other apps that were in question. Those being a “Ring-a-ding” app that just opens your default phone app. And also the nonexistence of an IQ app that I could find nowhere.

Week 5 Midterm: What is IPv6?

What is IPv6 and what does it do? When I think of the internet and its components, I think of a cluster of streets and neighborhoods. And every house that resides on those streets needs to have an address. IPv6 is much like each one of those distinct street addresses with maybe some slight differences. “Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer protocol that enables data communications over a packet switched network. Packet switching involves the sending and receiving of data in packets between two nodes in a network.”(http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-v6)

Also known as the backbone to the internet IPv6 is the newest version of the protocol. It is actually not widely used yet today and industry professionals are just now starting to get concerned about the limited number of distinct IP addresses that are still available. Before IPv6 and what we use more commonly today is IPv4. You might say “hey what about IPv5, what happened to that standard?”  IPv5 ended up being implemented by a lot of private industry like Apple, IBM and NeXT. Another reason that the industry is moving to IPv6 is it increased the number of bytes used in addressing from 4 bytes to 16 bytes. That can and will increase the available number of IP addresses for people and organizations to use. With all of the new devices and appliances now coming out on the market like smart phones, video game consoles, and new internet TVs the need for more distinct IP addresses is greater than ever. One bad thing to note about this unfortunate circumstance is that a lot of the internet’s routers and switches in both the home and throughout the rest of the web will need to be updated.

Week 5 Midterm: What is the octet?

When we talk about the word “Octet” it actually has several meanings. Of which there are octets in music, engineering and chemistry. But the one that I am talking about pertains to computing. The word’s root “octo” means eight. There are eight bits inside of an octet. So in a way you could say that an octet is the same as 8-bit and if you think about it a megabyte is also called a mega-octet. But the difference between a byte and octet is the number of digits in an octet is 8.“Computer networking standards almost exclusively use "octet". It is prominently used in Request for Comments (RFCs) published by the Internet Engineering Task Force.” (http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/2060979) An octet commonly is used in a numeric value form, although it can be used in a variety of ways like hexadecimal, decimal, and other number systems. It can also be used as a string which uses only letters instead of numbers.“The OCTET STRING type is used to specify octets of binary or textual information. There is no limit to the maximum number of octets in a value of this type specified in SMI v1.”( http://www.webnms.com/net-snmp/help/developing_management_applications/datatypes/smi_datatypes/octetstring_datatype.html) Octets are use in across the internet and even on your home network. “Octets most commonly refers to any of the four bytes of an IPv4 address. In dotted-decimal notation, an IP address appears as follows - [ octet ] . [ octet ] . [ octet ] . [ octet ] “ (http://compnetworking.about.com/od/workingwithipaddresses/g/bldef_octet.htm) Each one of the octet in a IP address should and do add up to a total of 256, that being a number anywhere between 0 and 255. So as you can see this complicated use of a combination of numbers can provide many different possibilities.
You can actually identify, based upon the first or the last octet whether it represents a “Net” or a “Host/Node”. A “Net” is always contained in the first octete while a “Node/Host” is always contained in the last. So just by looking at computer or a device on the internet or network we kind of can tell what type of a system it is and what it does. As you can see this important when looking at “Class A” networks. “In the “classful” IP addressing scheme, a Class A network contains addresses for about 16 million network interfaces; a Class B about 65,000; and a Class C, 254.” (http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_IPAddressClassABandCNetworkandHostCapacities.htm)
If we take a look at other aspects of computing we can see pretty much the same thing, for instance, file compression. One popular form of file compression is MIME attachment.“A MIME attachment with the content type "application/octet-stream" is a binary file. Typically, it will be an application or a document that must be opened in an application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor.”( http://kb.iu.edu/data/agtj.html) In order for file compression to work both the sender and the receiver must use the same type of compression. The algorithms on both ends have to be the same meaning each octet in the algorithms should line up.

Week 4 EOC: The Deeper Meaning of the Movie Big

Imagine if one day that you worked at a toy manufacturing company designing toys.
But that you had something that helped you to think very differently than the rest of the people that you worked with. Lets just say that you where an adult one day that thought about all the things that bring most adults stress. You know things like how we are going to pay for things like the lights being on. And in the next moment you are magically changed in to a child and you think about everything in the opposite way. Like how the toys that you are to design can be more meaningful to the children that actually play with them.


Well welcome to the movie “Big” in which all the preliminary happens. In the movie “Big” Tom Hanks self promotes himself from doing data entry and eventually becomes VP of Product Development. As he is still a kid at heart, he fully understands the toys to be tested like most children will. There is a scene in the film where he is playing with a toy piano in the mall and fully understanding it like a child would play with it.


This is an example of deeper marketing research, Tom Hank’s character actually shows the big boss that he understands how most children interact with most toys.

Week 3 EOC: 3 Time Internet

There are many ways to connect to the World Wide Web these days. There are wired and wireless connections. Both of which are very valuable these days when it comes to connecting to the world and getting things done. When I think of my access to the Internet I think of my iPhone and my Mac. Apple has made it really easy for folks like me. At home or on my Mac it is through a wired connection either DSL or Cable. “DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is a technology for bringing high- bandwidth information to homes and small businesses over ordinary copper telephone lines.” http://whatis.techtarget.com. I prefer Cable Internet. “There are a few limitations to cable Internet. If there are many subscribers browsing the Internet in your area, your speed may be reduced due to the capacity of the cable line.”eHow.com. Ya may be reduced is the operative word here. Where I live I hardly experience low bandwidth. 18mbs down, 6mbs up, I love it it works great for me!

When it comes to mobile Internet I would suggest two methods. One of which that I use is wireless on AT&T for the iPhone. Now this is great if you just only want to surf on your phone. What I prefer is another method by 4g wi-max via “Clear Wireless”. Through a Mobile wireless modem that fits in your pocket you can share your connection with up to 5 computers or WiFi enabled devices. “4G is the short name for fourth-generation wireless, the stage of broadband mobile communications that will supercede the third generation (3G)” searchmobilecomputing.com. Whatever method the method you choose all are great but wired will give you the fastest speed. And wireless will give you the most flexibility.

Week 2 EOC: Internet Privacy

“Nobody knows who I am as long as I don’t log In right?” (Ignorant Internet participator).
Come on, I know that you have thought that very same thing at some moment when you first purchased a computer and got online for the first or second......or ok maybe you still think that right know. In any event, after you read this I hope that you will really know whats going on, when you are trolling the web. Did you know that websites like “Facebook” and “Gooogle” track the data you send and receive. “TimeTracker() creates a category with the name "TimeTracker," records a start and end time, computes the difference, and sends that value to the Google Analytics reports” (http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/eventTrackerWrappers.html)



It seems to me that a lot of what we do is actually the payment for the services that we enjoy for free. “Facebook” is willing to give us connection, gaming, and all manner of interaction to are friends and family for a small price. That small price is the things that we are in to as far as hobby's. If I have a flickr.com account, well it’s connected to my yahoo.com account which was purchased by google I think. I also own a facebook.com account, and they all are inter-connected in one way or another.


But through the use of cookies, facebook.com can track me and will ask me if I will allow it to access information from other sites for its own purpose. I can’t but help to think that they are just going to use my information in an inappropriate way. With that said , I have been using these very same services for their true craft. And I have to say, I don’t feel that violated. They do what I was told they do, and I enjoy thier services.

Week 1 EOC: Mordern Internet

At my place of work, the fellas seem to have a limited and also childish perspective of the Internet and what it is used for. Let me explain, anytime one of these co-workers see me on my smart-phone (iPhone) and they assume that I am surfing the web, the first thing out of their mouth is “Hey what-cha you look’n at Porn?”. Look, I don’t know if it’s just these guys that I work with or that its just that alot of people really don’t know that the internet can be used for more.

It is amazing to me that this wonderful piece of technology is right there in front of us and is getting more available and easier to access, but some individuals only see one use for what could be called a “Collective Thought Stream for Pleasure”. I would like to rename what I just called the “Collective Thought Stream for Pleasure” the ““Collective Thought Stream for Knowledge”. And that’s just what it can be used for, shared knowledge. I know what your thinking this is starting to sound like the “Borg” from the classic TV series “Star Track”. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I am trying to say is that we should be sharing knowledge across the Internet. I love Franklin’s perspective on shared knowledge “This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me.” Ben Franklin. Franklin believed in public library's. And the Internet is the modern version of the library in my humble opinion. Actually it has become more than just that. You can shop for shoes, clothes, insurance, talk to others, back-up your computer, gaming, and even “Google” and “Facebook” can spy on you and then call it marketing research. I think it is exciting to think what all the new uses the web can be used for like making Money!