Monday, March 19, 2007

Homework: Bits and Bytes

1. The USB 1.1 specification supports transfer speeds up to 12Mbps. How many MegaBytes per second is this?

Answer:
1.5 Megabytes per second
(
12 Mbps X 1 MBps/8 = 1.5 MBps)


2. The USB 2.0 specification supports transfer speeds up to 480Mbps. How many MegaBytes per second is this?

Answer:
60 MegaBytes per second
(480 Mbps X 1 MBps/8 = 60 MBps)


3. Firewire, another external bus specification supports data rates of up to 400 Mbps. Translate this to MegaBytes per second.

Answer:
50 MegaBytes per second
(
400 Mbps X 1 MBps/8 = 50 MBps)

4. How many seconds will it take to transfer 100 MegaBytes using the Firewire bus, assuming a transfer rate of 400Mbps?

Answer:
2 Seconds
(
100 MBps / 50 MBps = 2 seconds)

5. How many seconds will it take to transfer a 4 MegaByte file on a 56K modem (assume a transfer rate of 56Kbps)?

Answer: .028 Seconds
(56 Kbps / 1000 = .056 Mb
.056 Mb X 1 MB/8 = .007
.007 X 4 = .028)

6. How many seconds will it take to transfer a 4 MegaByte file on a Broadband line
(assume a transfer rate of 5Mbps - comcast residential service)?

Answer: 6.4 Seconds
(5 mBps/8= .625 Mb
4 Mb/.625= 6.4 seconds)

Monday, March 12, 2007

Unreal Tournament 2004 Installation Process


The computer I am using to install UT2004 is a Dell Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.00Ghz 1.99 GHz, 515 MB of RAM.

I inserted Unreal Tournament 2004 into my computer and a window popped up saying you are about to install Unreal Tournament 2004 on your computer. Click next to begin setup or click cancel at any time to exit. I clicked on next.


After I clicked next, I then came to a window that read the licensing agreement. It told me that the installation of this program requires you to agree to the licensing terms. After skimming over the terms, it aked me if I agreed to the above licensing terms. I clicked on "I agree."


After I agreed to the terms, a window came up asking me to enter the 20 digit CD key found on the back of the manual. It asked me to type the CD key exactly as it appears including any dashes. I typed: 7CXDD-LQC8F-A4YUQ-FNDKA.



After I typed in the CD key, I hit next. This brought me to my next window. Here in this window it told me that setup will install Unreal Tournament 2004 in the following folder. To install in this folder, click next. The destination folder read: C:\UT2004. I then proceeded by clicking on the next button. My space available on drive read: 64471 Megabytes.



The next window came up telling me to sele
ct the components I wish to install. All of these components were selected already, so I just clicked on the next button. My space available on drive now read: 64469 Megabytes.




The next window said that setup was ready to install Unreal Tournament 2004. Click install to begin installation or click cancel to exit without installing Unreal Tournament 2004. I then clicked on install.



It then began installing UT2004 and all of its components onto my computer. I felt like it took forever, so I walked away from the computer for a while until the installation was just about finished. A window popped up that read at the top, UT2004 Editor's Choice Edition Mod Installer-Install Shield Wizard. It said that the InstallShield Wizard will install UT2004 Editor's Choice Edition Mod Installer on your computer. To continue, click n
ext. So, I clicked next.


The next window that popped up said to click next to install to this folder or click change to install to a different folder. I clicked next.

This was all a little confusing to me because I thought I had already done this and the installation was complete. It said that the wizard was ready to begin installation, so I clicked install to see what would happen.


I ended up clicking out of this window because nothing was happening with the installation, It started to install but then it froze. I ended up clicking out of this and just finished up with the installation process by pressing on the finish button because it said the installation was sucessfully completed.



Installation is now complete and UT2004 is
ready to be played!! Ahh, thank god.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Motherboard's: How they Work

Unfortunately I had no clue what a motherboard was before I enrolled in this class. I wouldn't say I am completely computer illiterate, but when it comes to what holds and molds computers together, I am clueless. This is why I chose to do my findings on the motherboard. From what I took in, I guess this is what ties everything together. Their main job is to allow all of the parts of your computer to gain power and communicate with one another. No computer can operate without the motherboard because this is what holds the microprocessor chip and allows everything else to connect to it.

Motherboards have done some major growing up in the last twenty years. They now hold a very wide variety of built in features as oppose to twenty something years ago when all they held was very few components like a processor and card slots which users would then have to plug floppy drive controllers and memory into the slots.

Motherboards are available in a variety of form factors. Form factors refer to the size and format of the motherboard. Here are some of the different PC motherboard sizes available:

PC/XT-This is the original motherboard standard created by IBM

AT form factor- The first form factor to gain wide acceptance

Baby AT- This was functionally equivalent to the AT, but gained a lot of praise due to its smaller physical size.

ATX- This is the most popular form factor available today.


Motherboard Review: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
While researching the different types of motherboards, I came across one that got my attention. This motherboard is known as the P5W DH Deluxe. This is ASUS' third designed motherboard, and from what I have read, it appears to be their best one yet. This motherboard is designed using the Intel 975x chipset. The P5W DH Deluxe has many features that make it suitable as a workstation, a gaming platform or a small office or home office computer.

ASUS has also included a feature in the Deluxe model which they refer to as EZ-backup. What the EZ-backup does it secure the data on your hard drives through the SATAII interface and RAIDO.

Check out ASUS' new version by clicking here:
http://www.techspot.com/review/12-asus-p5wdh-deluxe/

Monday, February 5, 2007

Robot Nurses Ready for Hospitals Soon

Scientists from universities in Germany, Ireland and Britian are among the experts taking part in the IWARD project. So, what is this project all about? Well, project leader Thomas Schelgal from the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany came up with an innovative idea that could potentially help with the shortages of nurses in hospitals. These robot nurses, that he hopes will be ready for 2010 would eliminate some stress on human nurses by providing robotic help within hospitals. These robot nurses would help to clean up spills, deliver messages and guide visitors around the hospital, bringing them to their correct destination. Schlegal hopes that these robot nurses will even in some time, be able to distribute medicines to the specific patients and even monitor patients temperatures with laser thermometers!

This project aims at specifically helping out in hospitals by eliminating some of the stress nurses undergo each day. By having these robot nurses, the human nurses are able to focus on more important tasks while their robot nurses are able to focus on the less important ones. These robots would work in teams to communicate with each other and be able to coordinate duties among each.

So what will these robots look like? Well, each robot would consist of a mobile platform mounted with a module of sensors, cameras and equipment for different tasks. These sensors and cameras would help the robots to avoid collisions while traveling throughout the hospitals. These robots would also come with voice and face recognition technology to communicate with patients.

Interesting idea Schlegal, but it will be more interesting to see how badly your idea fails.