More on Networks

Our Friday Special will again be based on networks. Initially, we will be revising some of the concepts we learned last week by means of the Ethernet Tutorial at TechNick. Once we go through this tutorial and we learn more about network toplogies and how to improve speed, our objective will be to try to answer the Multiple Choice Quiz within the WebLan Designer Project.

You need to research and find the answers to questions 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,19,21,22.

E-Commerce

Our next topic in the sequence is E-Commerce. We are all somewhat familiar and have some first-hand experience on E-Commerce, however, we need to analyze some of the technical and theoretical background related to its development and evolution.

Two web sites that provide general information on e-commerce are:

• Basic Guide to E-Commerce
• Business Link Guide to E-Commerce
  
  Another article from Business Link is interesting to alert users about the Risks of E-Commerce.
  

ASSIGNMENT
Our assignment for the day, to be covered in class, consists in answering the following multiple-choice questionnaire:

• Introduction to E-Commerce Multiple Choice Quiz

In pairs, research the answers to each question until you score all right answers. When you have done so, check your answers with me since I will be asking you a few oral questions on the topic. DO NOT LEAVE THE CLASS WITHOUT ME TICKING YOU OFF THE LIST FOR HAVING COMPLETED THE ASSIGNMENT

Networking

The next topic that we will be dealing with is networks. We will be analyzing the fundamentals of networks, different topologies and other technical concepts as a first step towards discussing the implications of networks on society and individuals.
We will start, as an introduction, by watching the following animation that depicts graphically how Internet works:



Then we will cover the basics and fundamentals of Networking through How Stuff Works.

How Ethernet Works

Assignment 6

We have covered several technical topics lately, and this assignment will focus on discussing some of the implications on individuals and societies of the their technological applications.
Working in groups of 3 students, you will develop a PowerPoint presentation that addresses one of the following topics/statements:

- Users are forced into buying expensive computers in order to sustain operating systems that do not give extended functionality. Open source operating systems would not require a constant upgrading.
- Most organizations or firms do not adequately address the issue of ergonomics and as such millions of dollars are lost every year as a consequence of repetitive stress injuries.
- In the future, most people will work from home and many important social interactions will be lost, as well as the ability to function as a team.
- Passwords are an unsafe and inadequate method to gain data access. Biometric recognition will be the standard in the near future, since affordable and accurate biometric recognition methods are now available.

Each presentation must address the above issues including external links, at least two multimedia elements (videos) linked from the presentation, and arrive at a conclusion with respect to the statement presented. You must email your finished presentation to itgs.sass@gmail.com before Wednesday, April 23rd. (PLEASE REMEMBER TO NAME IT “AS6 SURNAMES OF GROUP MEMBERS”) During the first lesson, the plan for the presentation must be drawn up and approved. You will not actually start working on the presentation but rather identify how you will tackle it as well as finding the links and resources that you plan to include.

Ergonomics – Telework – Password Protection – Biometrics

During the next few classes, we will be discussing some general issues related to technology use and access, as well as their implications.
Ergonomics: is the application of scientific information concerning objects, systems and environment for human use (definition adopted by the International Ergonomics Association in 2007). However, the field of Ergonomics is mostly associated with the design of hardware in such a way that it prevents commonly known repetitive stress injuries RSI. Healthy Computing is a web site that contains interesting and easily readable information on Ergonomics as applied to computer software.
Teleworking: Globalization and recent changes and technological advances have made it possible for an increasing number of people to be able to work from home. Managing Strategies For Telework - The Virtual Workforce is an article that provides a good summary of the advantages and disadvantages of working from home.
Password Protection – Biometrics: Any organization that possesses valuable information needs to put into effect some sort of validation process that ensures that only authorized users can gain access to relevant information. There are many different authentication methods, from the very simple and straightforward Passwords) to more complex ones based on biometrics. We will watch the following two videos to jumpstart our discussion:

Assessment Exercise 1

INSTRUCTIONS
Read and answer all questions carefully. Answers must be written on a Word file, spell-checked and submitted before the end of the lesson to itgs.sass@gmail.com DO NOT LEAVE THE CLASSROOM UNTIL YOU HAVE RECEIVED DIRECT CONFIRMATION FROM ME THAT THE FILE HAS ARRIVED.

Marking criteria
Each question is worth 10 points. Assessment criteria include:

• Answering to the point. Read the questions carefully and answer what is asked, not more, not less.
• Clarity and precision of answers.
• Ability to apply the concepts learned revealing good technical knowledge of concepts involved. Do not include definitions, no credit will be given for definitions. No copy/pasting is allowed, I will check for the originality of your answers.

1. A computer user operating at our school (from one of the terminals within the school network) types in the address www.google.com and then performs a search. Explain, including all relevant technical details, how information arrives back at the computer with the desired results. The following terms need to be used in your explanation: crawler, inverted index, server, router, DNS, IP, packets.
2. You are about to start up a new business that sells dog food in Buenos Aires with plans to extend to the rest of the country. Explain how you would make sure that your page ranks high when potential clients (dog owners) are searching for places to buy food for their pets. What specific strategies would you use?
3. Choose one of the following statements and discuss it:
   a) Search engines have a great influence on society but they were not created with that purpose in mind.
   b) Individuals can suffer the consequences of search engine manipulation.
   c) The extended use of search engines has resulted in misinformation and users being tricked into wrong decisions.
4. Explain clearly how you assess the validity of a given source when performing a search.
5. Give a brief summary of the contents of the Yahoo! Search video lecture.
6. Go to Google and search for Vitamin supplements and then for “Vitamin supplements”.
   a) Take the first and the tenth site on each search and explain why the difference in the order of appearance.
   a) Explain why the results returned by Google in the first search were different from the second one.

Introduction to Technical Concepts

During this subsequent unit we will cover some technical topics that we need to cover so as to afterwards be able to discuss and analyze the implications of computer systems on individuals and societies.
We will approach this unit by first reading about these issues and then working on a series of assignments that will let us derive and infer their implications based on a sounder technical base.
Analog and digital data: How Analog and Digital Recording Works, from HowStuffWorks, an interesting tutorial on analog and digital recording that covers well the difference between analog and digital data. If you Google “analog and digital data” you will come across many reliable sources that will yield information on the differences between both types of data.
Difference between data and information: Again, a very clear distinction can be made between data, that is, recorded numbers, readings, etc. which in themselves are meaningless as opposed to information which can be derived from the processing and analysis of that data, in our context through computer software in a process known as data processing. There are abundant sources on this topic, a well-summarized and concise reference can be found at Understanding the Difference Between Data and Information.
Operating Systems: We will once more be referring to HowStuffWorks for a general introduction on How Operating Systems Work. It provides a good and thorough introduction to this very important concept.