Excel

So far this class has taught me a great deal about excel. Coming into the class I barely knew the basics of excel, but so far this semester I have become pretty sufficient at operating excel. Excel can be used for an endless amount of different things, from planning a vacation, as we learned last week, to just simply managing a budget. Excel can be an extremely useful tool in life.

Even though at the moment I don't have the biggest need to use excel other than for completing my CSC 175 assignments, there are plenty of things I could use it for. One of the best things I could think of using excel for, would be to make myself a schedule of all my classes and also my work hours. I would be able to just check my schedule and figure out when would be the best time to do my homework and when the best time just to relax would be. And because of this class, I would also be able to add different styles and formats to make each time block on my schedule distinguishable from each other. Other reasons I might use excel for my personal use is for creating a table for my budget. I can include school expenses, expenses for gas and the  amount of money I make a week for working. Clearly as a student I wouldn't have a lot to include in the budget but I feel like making one, would be a great way for me to monitor my expenses and maybe even devise a plan to save money.

I will however be using excel a lot in the future. I am majoring in finance and whatever job I end up with, I am sure using excel will be a big part of my job. It is likely that I will be creating budget spreadsheets and using excel to input other types of financial information. There are also many different ways that excel can be used to help control financial data to help with investments. So as I progress through college and into my future field, I am sure that I will only use excel more and more. The most important part for me is to not lose my knowledge about excel in the time between this class and my future job, especially if I am not required to use it a lot in my other classes. But I have a feeling that I will be using it some journey to receiving a finance degree and hopefully it is enough to keep me sharp enough on all the ins and outs of excel for my future job. 

Operating Systems and Viruses

Computers can be very fragile pieces of equipment when it comes to their operating system and viruses. Without the appropriate anti-virus software, computers can become easily infected with viruses. Even with some anti-virus software, computers can still become infected and are a hassle to clean up. Some computers become so infected that they are impossible to clean up, except maybe by a professional, which is the case in my personal experience of computer operating systems and viruses.

When I was younger, around middle school, my family had a desktop Dell computer. My brother and I downloaded a program called Limewire, which was a file sharing program, to help fill up our ipods with music. Apparently Limewire was later sued and forced to shut down in the fall of 2010. But, after about a year or two of using the program, our computer steadily declined in speed. I'm not sure what it was that caused the decline in speed, if it was a virus or not, because we did have ant-virus software and it claimed the computer was clean. The anti-virus software that we had was Mcafee, which we had since we first got the computer but it just didn't seem to do the job. I would not recommend Mcafee to anybody that is looking for a reliable anti-virus software. With the continued decline in speed and increasing problems on our desktop computer, we finally decided to get rid of Limewire and try to clean the computer of any viruses it had. But even with the file sharing program gone, the computer would freeze often and would sometimes take upwards of 20 minutes or more just to bring up internet explorer. The final attempt to clean the computer was to re-install the operating system to an earlier time when the computer was supposedly clean of any viruses. This seemed to increase the speed a little bit, but it was only a short amount of time before our computer was back to its usual ways. Then one day I went to turn it on, but while it was at the "windows are loading" screen, an error popped up and it never would go to the home screen. I can't remember exactly what the error said but I'm pretty sure it  had something to do with the hard drive and it was damaged. Every time we tried turning it on this error popped up. I don't know how this occurred or what it was that killed our computer but I have a pretty good feeling it had to do with the file sharing program and the lackluster anti-virus software called Mcafee.

It is safe to say I've learned my lesson though when it comes to any file sharing programs. Now that I have my own laptop I am in charge of making sure my computer stays safe and virus free. The anti-virus software I have is Kaspersky and after two years it has kept my laptop running like new. 

The Future of Input and Output Devices and 3-D Printing

With the increases in technology, more and more input and output devices are becoming available. And even though some of these devices seem futuristic or just simply unbelievable, some are coming closer and closer to reality. Some of these devices include a text to brail reader, which is a device that scans the text in a book or can even be hooked up to a computer to translate the web page to brail. Another output device that is being worked on is a projector for cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices, that could project high quality video on a screen or a wall. But one of the most common new output device is the 3-D printer. The 3-D printer is a device that can be connected to a computer and print a solid object. To someone like myself, who has only ever witnessed a regular printer print writing onto a piece of paper, the idea of printing a solid object seems crazy. But it is becoming more and more common and one day it could be everywhere we turn, in schools and even in homes.

The first 3-D printer was based on a technique called stereolithography, created by Charles Hull in 1984. 3-D printing is an additive technology, where the object is built up by adding many thin layers. Since then, there has been  3 or 4 different techniques created and used in 3-D printing. Since this time, and after lots of developments, 3-D computers have become commercial  through a wide range of manufactures. The two largest companies in 3-D printing are 3-D Systems and Stratasys. 3-D printing has become a huge market and these two companies alone created a revenue of $3 billion dollars in 2012. The major problem with 3-D printers is the price. 3-D printers start out in the 10 to 20 thousand dollar range and only increase depending on the type of printer. The most high end machines that can build metal parts can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Along with the price another problem with 3-D printers is the amount of space that they can take up. Most of the printers are floor standing models  and are often very large. 

It is still unclear if 3-D printing will ever become successful enough to reach the average household, but the amount of popularity the 3-D printer has received in its short life looks very promising. Prices will have to drop drastically and the size will also have to get a lot smaller. But if we look back at the early models of televisions, and how they were also floor models , and computers, which were often as big as a room, it is a real possibility. 

Source: http://www.explainingthefuture.com/3dprinting.html

Internet Hoaxes

All over the internet are different types of hoaxes, from spam that you receive in your email inbox to fake news being spread across social media. With the accessibility of the internet to most all people and the easiness that comes with creating a website, hoaxes are all over the web. One of the most widely used websites for research can contain hoaxes at anyplace and anytime. Wikipedia is one of the most used web encyclopedias because of its wide range of information, but one thing that hinders the website is the ability for any user to edit the information. Even though I get a lot of my information from Wikipedia, it can be dangerous because of all the false and misleading information being displayed on the website. Sites like Wikipedia may seem like good places for research but in reality they could exhibit the most obscure and false information.

In my personal experience of using the internet, I haven't ran across a lot of websites that turned out to be hoaxes. The most common hoax I come across when using the internet is spam email. But thankfully, Yahoo and Google do an excellent job of collecting those emails in a separate folder marked spam. Just a quick look at my spam folder and it has collected emails titled "The Best Way to Build Bulk", "Save up to 85% off" and other spam emails that are a little less PG. Other hoaxes that I have ran across have been on twitter. Since I am a soccer and when the transfer window opens from June till September, I am always reading rumors and hoaxes about certain players being traded or sold to certain teams. This comes with any sport and sites such as twitter or facebook, where such rumors or hoaxes can spread like wildfire. Overall I try my best to stay away from any sites that I may believe to be a hoax.

After doing some research about internet hoaxes, I came across a very funny and interesting hoax. It was said to have been an advertisement claiming that the iOS 7 update included waterproofing. Considering the iOS7 was simply a system update to your already used iphone, people still believed the hoax. Some that actually believed the hoax, proceeded to test out the new upgrade by dropping their phone into water. Even though this almost sounds fake because the amount of stupidity required to believe an update would waterproof your phone, it was not, as it was reported by major news outlets such as ABC, Telegraph and Business Insider. I have included the link below.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/fake-apple-ad-claims-ios-update-waterproofs-iphones/story?id=20369832