Teen Tech

When you pull a computer out of a box, it instantly becomes obsolete, or so it seems.  Why is this?  We are in an age where technology is advancing faster than we can adapt.  It is getting smaller, faster and just better, faster than  we can acquire and use it.  Whenever I am about to build someone a computer as a job, I always get the question “Is this going to last me for a few years.”  The base idea behind computers is still there.  To compute.  This idea has simply been built upon over the past few decades, and we are now at a point where we need a new computer about every three years to just keep up.  This will never stop.  When the Comodore 64 came out, I’m almost positive people thought that that was the best computers would ever get.  I have a book on game creation for the computer, and it states in there (it’s an older book) that 256 colors are all that a video game developer will ever need to make a good game.  Now computers show about 16.7 billion (correct me if I’m wrong) colors on the screen simultaneously.  So, even since 1999, technology has been moving at an exponential rate, and it will not slow down.  Ever.  So, how can we fight it?  Basically we can’t.  All that we can do is to make our technological purchases with the future in mind.  It may be more expensive now, but in the long run, it will be less expensive because you won’t be upgrading as much.  That’s about all the advice I can offer on this somewhat grim topic.

Yesterday was the senior’s last day of school here. It’s kind of sad, because what do you say. Goodbye, I may never see you again? Well, that’s where technology comes into play. There are webcams, e-mail and skype to make communication a lot easier. You can go out and purchase a webcam for less than thirty dollars, and use them with MSN. Simple. With this technology, there is almost no reason why people can’t stay in touch in this day and age. OK, so along with the seniors at this school leaving, there is always some sort of prank that is traditionally done during the next week of school. In Adrian schools, the seniors released 2,000 bouncy rubber balls in the hallways.  Back here in Tecumseh, the seniors put 1/4 inch zip-strips in the locker’s padlock hole, so that any student who was hit had to go get some scissors to open their locker.  Back to what I was saying, with cell phones and VoIP (Voice over IP), there should be no reason to have anything to talk about at the ten year highschool reunion :).

I’ve been really busy this past weekend.  It was the wedding of my church youth director and the church’s secretary’s son.  About two weeks ago, I was asked by the bride to film the wedding.  I agreed.  Friday (May 4), I went to the site of the wedding (which was going to be outdoors at a baseball field barring any complications) for the rehearsal at about noon.  It was going to be a great baseball themed wedding with an arch of bats with the bridesmaids on one side and the groomsmen on the other side with the new bride and groom passing through them.  After the rehearsal, the bridal party and I went to dinner at the pastor’s house.  I didn’t get home until about nine o’clock PM.

The next day was the actual ceremony.  They decided to move the ceremony indoors because of the wind and the chance of rain.  Well everything that I had planned for all three cameras was out the window.  I was lucky that the people were coming in from stage left and not the center otherwise, I could not have had my center camera.  We got through the ceremony with very few issues, and even those may be able to be remedied.

After the ceremony is always the reception.  I had to be there for the whole thing getting it on tape.  I didn’t have the agenda, which turned out to be somewhat of an issue, but it worked out.  I was in that reception hall from noon until six o’clock PM.  I thought that my job was done, but no.  The bridal party invited me to go bowling with them, so I just had to go.  I didn’t bowl higher than a 125 which is rather bad for me.  Then I went home after two games.  It was about nine o’clock again.

Then, the next day, I had to go to church to return one of the cameras that I had to borrow and to go to service and youth group.  It was then that I learned that the bride and groom were having an open house where they would be opening gifts, so I had to go to that.  That was another hour and a half of standing to get good footage.

Now I sit at home, tired, and glad that all of the filming is done.  I just have about five hours of raw footage that needs to be edited including the rehearsal, the three cameras from the ceremony, the reception and now the open house, all which needs to be spliced together with the audio seamlessly (the ceremony will be hardest with the three angles), and not enough hard drive space to store all of it.  Fun.  It’ll be done in about a week, but until then, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.

Well,

There have been quite a few updates in the land of technology lately, or at least my land.  First off, one of the top gaming leagues, the WSVG (World Series of Video Games) has added World of Warcraft to the list of games to be played in their professional circuit during the 2007 gaming season (yes, gaming has seasons).

Secondly, and most importantly, I received a  letter on Friday from Davenport University.  It wasn’t an acceptance letter (I’m only a junior, so I can’t apply anywhere yet), it was a scholarship award letter.  Because of how I did at the Business Professionals of America State Conference, I received a $2,000 scholarship to Davenport, with a chance for that money to grow next year depending on my performance at the BPA conferences.  I was shocked for getting this, and maybe this university is in my future.

First off, I’m building an Operating System (an example of an operating system is Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux).  Well trying too anyway.  I get colored text when you boot from it.  That’s it except some BASIC typing support.  Another project that I am helping to build is a bedroom.   This will be my new bedroom in my basement.  With that, I was going to do all wired networking through the walls and make it nice, but I decided to go wireless.  It is great for that small of an environment, and it’s cheaper because you don’t have to buy cabling and such.  The WiFi might not reach the speeds of a wired network, but hey, it’s cheap.  Well that’s what’s going on.

So, On Google today, April 1, i saw a link for some free highspeed internet:

http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

go check it out :).

Short post today

OK, so what is a virus?  What do they do?  Are there different kinds of viruses?

First off, a virus is some code that does something malicious in a computer.  That’s it in a nutshell.  As for types of viruses, there are several:

• Boot Sector — These viruses go into effect when your computer boots up.  These can modify certain system files, or go as far as wipe out you entire computer.
• Executable — These viruses attach themselves to your programs and do their stuff when that program is run.
• Macro — Macro viruses are not complete programs, but can attach themselves to documents such as Microsoft Word documents, or Excel.  These cause damage when the file is opened or executed (ran)
• Trojan — A trojan virus masquerades as a true program that should be used.  It may even do what you think it is doing, but underneath, it does damage to your system.  It gets its name from the famous Trojan Horse, as it acts in the same way.
• Worm — A worm doesn’t attach itself to files or programs, but instead it simply replicates itself throughout your computer, and even the network that your computer is on.

That’s a basic run down of all of the virus types out there, with more to come most likely.

On a completely non-tech related note, I passed my road test today, so I now have a full license (albeit temporary until it can be mailed).  I’m happy about that.

Ok, I’m going to jump right in the middle of this series of which I will continue a little later so that I can re-cap this weekends events.  I attended the Michigan Business Professionals of America State Leadership conference and comptitions.  This conference included all of the topsix competitors in over 60 buisiness related events from the regional conference, of which there are nine regions in Michigan.  I competed in VB.NET Programming and an open event (anyone can compete regardless of placement at regionals) Information Technology Concepts.  I unfortunately did not place in VB.NET programming at the state conference.  I did however come in first for Information Technology Concepts out of about 400 other competitors.  I was the only person at my school to qualify for the National Leadership Conference which will be held in New York, New York this year.  The state conference was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was spread out between the Amway Grand hotel and Davenport University.  I plan on going to Nationals, so there will be a post in the future all about that.

Well, I took the ACT today + the Writing portion.  That is one hard test.  On the math portion, they gave you 60 minutes for 60 questions, and most of the questions could not be solved in under a minute.  This was worse on the reading portion.  I want to get at least a 27, but realistically, I see myself receiving a 23-24 (it is graded out of 36).  Tomorrow, I take the Michigan Merit Exam.  It starts at 7:30 AM and ends at 2:30 PM with a half-hour lunch break in there somewhere.  I would not even go tomorrow if there wasn’t college scholarships available.  Well, wish me luck.

What am I doing that requires so much waiting?  I’m upgrading a customer’s computer to the New Windows Vista.  First off, the DVD drive in this system would not read my install DVD, nor any other data-DVD, then their graphics card is only a 32MB Model.  Microsoft recomends at least a 64 MB Graphics card, but I pushed on.  The login screen finally came up at 10:42 PM EST, and I got the darn thing at 7:00 PM.  On top of it all, the darn thing sounds like a jet engine.  Quite Frankly, I’m surpried that Vista runs at all with the Graphics Card.  I’m putting on my invoice that I STRONGLY recommend an update.  Other than that, the computer runs fine, except for the sound drivers, one network card drivers, and a mysterious PCI Input Device :).  I’ll get it running soon.