I Do Not Like Blogging. (sometimes)

So I just wrote a blog not to long ago and then the internet failed and I lost all my work. Im pretty mad about this situation because I am forced to write another blog. I guess that gives me a sort of intro to this new blog but it leads into a point I would like to make. That is that I wonder how much data has been lost due to computer problems. How much research and time has been lost because a computer lost a small fragment of information or just simply malfunctioned.
Wouldn't it be interesting if know one ever lost any data on the computer. Do you think we would be more scientifically advanced. Possibly, acutely most likely but wouldn't we be less advanced at having methods to back up our work. By this maybe our storage wouldn't be as advanced as it is. Maybe cloud storage and cloud computing would be non existent. Cloud storage really is not anything new its simply online storage I think that would be gone who would need to back anything up. Cloud computing maybe be around but the speeds would be slower. With the need of online back up that is just another factor forcing internet companies to research new technologies to increase the transfer speeds. The interesting thing is that uploading is significantly slower on most home services. I would say its probably 6-11% of your download speed which really blows if you are trying to back up large files. Its decent if you are just uploading word documents and smaller files. Most people don't even know about caps on there internet. Thats ok because the internet is already fast enough to support what ever anything anybody would want to do. You can do so much more now of days than we once were with dial up. That was pretty much the stone ages back n the day of dial up.... Thankfully we are gone from that basic technology that was replaced with drastically better technology. Over all for college purposes we have fast enough internet to do the assignments we need to do.

First Semester.

Coming into college for my first semester I scheduled my classes for a total of 17 hours. I know now that was to many hours to take for my first semester while playing a sport. I thought I was good at time management but ultimately it wasn't enough. I will most likely be going down to 10 hours because I am forced to drop two classes because I fell behind while trying to do so much other stuff.

Students Without Their Parents and Twitter as a Way of meeting people

    I realize that college freshmen do a lot of stupid stuff when let loose of the grip of parental control. Some kids party more than they should. Some even party at every opportunity they get in college. The most interesting topic I have seen has by far been the lighting in dorms. I know someone that has black light for the main lighting in the room. Theres is also a strip of lighting that goes across the ceiling for even more light.When you are given the room there is only two lights. Not including the desk lights that some rooms have built into the desk. I know some one else that taped a upside down reindeer to there ceiling along with a lot of Christmas lights. This may be a tad obsessive but really if you walk around a college campus there are some strange things you will notice. Even better walk around the campus at night its a whole different experience that during that day. Even now in october before Thanks Giving there are Christmas lights on campus.
    Ever sense professor Barry had that guest speaker that told the class to start networking I got a twitter. I never have had a twitter before. I had no idea what you could use it for. I went in with a open mind and came out with something quite interesting. Saying it was a project would be appropriate for the situation. Going onto Google I searched for top 50 developers to follow on twitter. Developers being people that produce programs and such for computers. It seemed appropriate because I am currently registered as a computers science major at TLU. So I look on my twitter occasionally to see what they are saying and doing. I have deducted that many of them are either CEO's of medium sized company or have wrote a book about coding. They often talk about stuff that is not related to computers. When they talk about technically issues I often have to look up terms. I guess this is a good thing for me. I am learning more and more just by getting on a simple twitter account.

Computer Programing as Puzzling.

    I was first introduced into programing my sophomore year of high school. It was a required class that I had to take because I went to a magnet school that was stationed at Roosevelt High School in San Antonio. The class was called Object Oriented Programing or OOP for short. The class was by far not a good intro into computer science. Which is what I would assume to be the goal of such a class like that. Most days in class we would just get a program assignment but, we would just end up typing instead of thinking of how to solve a problem. The code put in front of us to copy mostly; not a very effective way of learning a programing language at all. For a good Computer Science based class (CS class) you must be able to think logically to solve a problem.
   Some would call it the equivalent to solving a puzzle. The pieces are put forth in front of you; although it is up to you to put them together. You can go about the solving a puzzle in many different ways. Numerous attributes to look at and analyze most likely you are noticing the end pieces first (The pieces with a flat edge). Lets go threw this logically, first I would go about sorting threw all the pieces. Finding all the flat edged pieces and placing them into a pile. Next sorting threw to find a the corner pieces or the pieces that have two flat edges. Judging by the picture on the box I could figure out which corner pieces go where. I will eventually start noticing color patterns on the pieces which will lead to more of the puzzle solved. The puzzle will gradually start to take form. Repeating to look at the box and try to put the rest of the pieces together. Eventually you will end of with something complete.
    The process of solving a puzzle would be considered a algorithm in computer science. Every program needs a algorithm to function. In computer science you thing of the algorithm as the way you are going to accomplish your goal or to solve the problem. The pieces represent the bits of code that you start to learn taking certain classes. Eventually I will become a fast and effective problem solver.

Internet Security Advice.

I am going to take some time to talk to you guys about internet security. What I'm going to tell you is most likely more in dept that what you have heard before. I have been on both sides of the situation. The attacker and the defender so please take my advice when I'm giving it to you. Lets get started. Email. Everyone has it. But what is your password like. Is it just a set of numbers or letters. If so you are at risk. Bruteforce is a method uncommonly used to crack emails. Most of the time when some one breaks into your email its because the gathered up info about you and cracked your security question. That being said ask your self this simple question. Is my answer on my facebook(or any other social network site). For example my security question use to be "What was your first dogs name" the answer was sheba. My dogs name was on facebook on one of the photos. Someone when threw my facebook because it was on public and figured it out and had access to my email. So change your security question to only something that you know and that cant be found out easily with a few clicks. Second lets change that password. Do you know what a complex password is. A complex password contains minimum EMPHASIS ON MINIMUM Letters lower and UPPER and numbers. In some cases it has special characters (example: % ). Im going to tell you about sandboxing. We have all had to run a sketchy exe at one point in time right? Maybe it was illegal cough keygen or some sort. I am not saying do something illegal its just a example. Something like a keygen with most likely be binded with a virus. Binding is just combining two exe basically so that you have a virus and a regular executable. You can crypt the virus so its not easily detected by virus scans so be warned. Anyway back to sand boxing. It allows you to set aside a chunk of your memory (look at picture). Setting aside that memory you are able to run exes and they don't have access to the rest of your computer like they normally would. Download a sandbox application here: http://www.sandboxie.com/ So you have all done virus scans. What is TR/spy.gen2? This is a virus I am familiar with. It is always binded to exe so you run it in the shadow of another exe generally. Some people just spread it like it is. It can be set to delete its self after you run the application. After you run a exe that has tr/spy.gen2 attached to it. Kiss all your passwords stored in your browser and msn or any messenger goodbye. You just sent all your passwords to a web server or a email. You better hope that web server has been taken down. Or the user dosent look at it. This is why you should never store passwords with your internet browser. If you know you ran virus and your passwords are stored in you browser please change them all. IMPORTANT: Do not use the same password for multiple accounts. Stay safe everyone.

Time Management

I feel like i'm failing at time managment. I try my best some times I feel that I just took on to much at once. I have college, tennis, a girlfriend, and a bunch of new friends. I'm just torn on what to do sometimes. A lot of the times I feel forced to do my homework late in the week. It really screws me over for two reasons. Reason one I suck at doing homework late at night. I was doing homework 8pm to 1 pm. That was the only time my schedule allowed me to do. The second reason being I cant get help if I get stuck on problems. The enlightenment of me realizing this problems was quite late and still really hasn't had a effect. I only can hope at this point that I can turn around the grades I have been getting thus far. My parents expect me to get B's or better. I feel like i'm letting them down right now. Im trying so hard to succeed right now. I get grades that are lower than that thought. I study for my test as much as I can. Thats the key right now I am only human. I can only do so much. Computer science is one of the most frustrating things anyone could possible do. And that just happens to be my major at the moment. I think about switching almost every day. I have one class which the professor refers to as 270. This class teachers the low level stuff of computers. For example the lowest level of programing and such. This class is so hard for me. Ultimately Im jus staring at a bunch of ones and zeros; forced to determine what the heck it means. For the reasons I stated earlier this class is just simply kicking my ass. I have a exam this week for 270. It seems to be make or break for me in this class. IM SOOOOOO STRESSED. You probably know what I'm talking about. On a positive note tennis is no longer going to take up so much of my time. Going from 2-3 hours a day to a hour and a half 3 days a week plus study hall. Im really hopeing this allows me to start working on my homework earlier and get my grades up.

Communicating Thoughts

How do humans communicate there thoughts. Some people only talk about what they see or feel. Rather what is before them at the moment. There is always a select few that questions the world. Why does this or that happen. Why does it have to be this way. What if... All things I think about in a daily dose of thinking. It is interesting to present a person with something they have to think about before they respond. Provoking thought. You are manipulating them with out them even thinking of such a gesture. I try to think of the most complex occurrences occasionally. Starting with something simple and going deeper and deeper. When you share this process with different people it can lead to many interesting out comes. Simple for the fact that everyone thinks diffrently. Thats a good think about the human race. Its what defines creativity. Which brings me to a point that creativity does not seem to be as valued as it should be. If you don't have creative solutions then you would always solve something the same way. How would one go about solving something he had not already solved without thinking creatively. You have to try different stuff without the fear of failure. Saying failure is a bad thing is quite wrong. Sometime you learn more from failure than succes. I know that has been true in my life in certain situations. I worry about failing a college class. But if doing so I will figure out while I failed that class and correct it in the future. To teach some one to fail would be a interesting experiment. To teach that same person to learn from that failure would be even more interesting. By that standard would they be considered smart or not so smart in the society we live in. I wonder what telling some to "create is to destroy" would do to there mind. I bet they would take some time to further think threw they statement they have been confronted with. In actuality you would have to get rid of a old/not as detailed belief to gain a new better idea. So to create really is to destroy.