Security

In the movie Fight Club, the main character works for a vehicle company and assesses the number of car accidents caused by faulty auto parts versus the cost of a recall and this determines whether the auto company authorizes a recall. If the cost is too high, they won't do it, and this applies to security measures. If the probability of a threat is low and the cost is high, then a threat will be ignored. This diagram is about the closest one on the internet that reflects the paradigm of impact versus cost. The biggest factor for me with security is a different paradigm: that of risk versus hassle. If a security measure takes up too much of my time I won't bother with it. I'd rather just not put risky information in any source than my own head if it will be too much of a hassle to secure. Ultimately simplicity is more important to me, so like a big company, the cost of security is too high.

Audio and Video

I've always preferred mp3 files when it comes to music, but apparently .wavs are inherently better, due to better compression rates and storage capacity. .midi is just organ type sounds with no possibility for vocals. Youtube uses .flv files which are Flash Videos. I usually end up converting this file type. Multiple programs exist that allow downloading Youtube videos. I have always preferred .avi: Audio Video Interleave via VLC Player. VLC Player is a handy video player that recognizes multiple file types and allows the audio to be enhanced further (though there may be some distortion). And of course for demonstration purposes, here is a .flv:

Searching for Searches

Today we have Search Engines on the table, and I am mostly spitballing to help myself better understand how they work. When you search a keyword, the search engine pulls up relevant links based on past data about what people have clicked when making this search before. Web Crawlers analyze and coagulate all this data. The search engine determines which link are relevant based on content, accuracy and date of creation. Stemming allows search engines to widen their search parameters to match different verb tenses and pluralities of a keyword. Directories, which Yahoo used when it was made sort websites into categories to provide related searches, which are generally less effective than search engines. I feel like I've got all this down.

Telnet

Telnet is one of the most interesting and archaic Internet protocols that I have seen. It reminds me of the old adventure rpgs from the late 80s. You'd have a blank screen with a few words of texts the required commands like "Head South". All the imagery has to happen within your head, like reading a book. The same goes for telnet. As opposed to seeing all the pretty browser buttons and tabs you have a basic command prompt box. Despite its simplicity, telnet can be used to access email, websites and even hack into other users information. Like a transformer, there's more than meets the eye.

Text adventures can be found at this website: textadventures.co.uk

Post Number Two: Electric Over Used Sequel Title.

Never knew the difference between bits and bytes before. I always thought advertisers were mispronouncing bytes because they're old. Bits are the units of data transmitted on Internet transactions, while Bytes are the stored data on drives. One Byte is the same as eight bits, so it takes eight times longer than I expected for a file to transfer. Bytes are supposed to use a capital b while bits use lowercase, e.g. MB vs. Mb. While looking for one of these commercials, I found a video going more in depth on the Bit vs. Byte issue:

Let's Get Started

Well, it's official. Joe Grzzly now has a blog, a specific method of Internet media that I have abhorrently avoided in the past.The purpose will be to cover the subjects discussed within CS101 that I am experiencing, which I feel excuses and justifies my use of a blog site. So let's get cracking to the info.

The biggest thing established in these first classes is that the computer system a person uses is the 'client' which is used to connect to the 'server' or the Internet. Websites use protocols to determine interactions between the client and the server, like HTTP or FTP. Websites are written up in HTML to display information accurately and aesthetically.

Browsers are the software used to access the Internet. I use Opera, because I like its interface. Other important ones are Chrome, Firefox, Safari and the incompetent IE.

Time to write up some HTML, so we'll get back to this later.