The opinions expressed on this page are not necessarily those of Creighton University.
Click here to send email to the instructor
This page last updated on Friday, December 17, 2004 14:39:11
Click here to get current CU network stats
It won't be long before wintry weather threatens the Omaha area. If poor weather conditions force the University to close for all or part of a day, your most reliable source for accurate information is the Creighton University weather hotline at 280-5800.
After Class Information
Final exams are graded and are in the box outside my door. I am still getting together the remaining grades for the semester. My plan is to have them done before Sunday.
Brad Stradley - please contact me about your final. My message to your Creighton email address bounced back with an error, so please get a hold of me.
ICANN has approved two new top-level domains: .mobi for mobile users, and .jobs for job sites. Also under discussion are .asia, .mail, .tel and .xxx The new domains should go live sometime next year.
Tuesday: December 14, 2004
Here's an interesting story about passwords
Nextel talking about a merger with Sprint
Pennsylvania U advises users on their network to NOT use Internet Explorer
Hollywood is getting ready to sue server operators - so those of you who use eDonkey, BitTorrent, etc. could see some changes...
Final review For the final you may bring in one 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, double sided, with notes on it. Some of the material for the hardware chapter may slightly duplicate material found on the midterm, as we finished up the hardware discussion as we went into the networking area. Be sure to study your old quizzes! I've greatly reduced the number of T/F questions from the midterm, and added a few short-answer questions. Sorry, no questions with the "ipconfig /all" display - didn't want to overdo it. I've also added the last two quizzes in the quiz page.
Thursday: December 9, 2004
It's official - IBM sells their PC group to Lenovo - Under the terms of the $1.75 billion deal, International Business Machines Corp. will sell its once vaunted personal computer business to Lenovo Group Ltd., the leading computer maker in China. IBM will retain an 18.9 percent share of Lenovo when the deal is finalized, which is expected in the second quarter of 2005. Headquarters for Lenovo's PC business will be in New York, but its principal operations will be in Beijing and here in North Carolina, where 1,900 of the 10,000 IBM employees expected to switch to Lenovo now work. RIP IBM PCs (1981 - 2004) Check out 1 2 3 (PS: Dell, the market leader in PCs, has a 15% share of the market. That shows that PCs are really a commodity)
Malware authors working with hackers and spammers....
One in four broadband customers buys it for.....
Hey guys, when you use your laptop, does it sit on your lap or on a table?
TECHNOLOGY ALERT from The Wall Street Journal.
Sprint and Nextel are in merger talks that would treat the two telecommunications companies as
equals, but a deal is not certain, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tuesday: December 7, 2004
A date which will live in infamy
It looks like IBM is looking to sell their PC business
How many domain names are there?
Ken Jennings to become a spokesman for Microsoft's Encarta
Firefox users are 4 times more likely to ignore banner ads
Who knew it was still around? Intel is ceasing production of the Pentium II
My eyes! Geez, some of the colors you chose for your websites hurt! Be sure to use colors that those of us with color blindness (total or partial) can see! About 8-12% of males have color blindness problems, and about .5% of females do. Check out this site for the test and this site for some other info
Grade slip in your returned webpage grade form:
Quiz1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8
Extra Credit One (if completed)
TechTip1
Assignment1, Assignment2, Assignment3, Assignment4
Midterm and Midterm Adjustment
TOTAL is 560 so far, so divide your score by 560 to get the percentage you
have at this time
Thursday: December 2, 2004
Ken Jennings - Stories #1 #2 and the Ken Jennings Watch Nancy Zerg, a one-hit wonder
Outsourcing the dorm network. This is an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, and it hits home. This is what is going to happen here at CU soon. Those of you who live in the dorms are going to be moved off the Creighton network, and switched to the Cox Cable network. The TV system will also change, moving away from SCOLA to Cox.
Spyware removal is big business
Some interesting Google statistics
Extra credit opportunity! I will give you up to 50 points for a research paper. You must identify an information system, and apply the SDLC to the computer system. This report must be at least 5 pages in length, double spaced. It must have a title page, page numbers centered bottom right (no page # on title page) and must use footnotes (not parenthetical references or endnotes). You must include a separate bibliography page listing at least six references as well. It will be due at the time of the final, which is Tuesday, December 14th.
Don't forget - only two more days to do tech tips. If you don't do one, you are losing out on the 50 points.
There will be a bonus quiz on Tuesday over the questions most-often missed on the midterm - that is, the check boxes for Computer Generations and Computer Classifications. Study up!
On Tuesday I will have a review of the final exam and what will be on it. Same type of test and you can bring in one 8.5x11 sheet of paper with notes. The final is on Tuesday, December 14th in the normal class time. You can go until 6:10pm if you want or need to.
Tuesday: November 30, 2004
Google is muscling into Microsoft's turf What is Google's motto?
Keystroke logging isn't wiretapping
Unprotected PCs can be hijacked in 4 minutes
A lonely few hold out on cell phones
Do you own a lava lamp? If so, don't sit it next to me!
Satellite glitch shuts down Powerball sales
Grilled cheese final sale: $28K!
Thursday: November 25, 2004
Thanksgiving Holiday!
Tuesday: November 23, 2004
No class! Work on your assignment.
Thursday: November 18, 2004
Here's what happens when you roll out fiber!
Want to go hunting over the Internet? Here is a link to his website, http://www.live-shot.com, but it appears to be slashdotted.
China plans to completely cover their country via satellite - how does this compare to the Great Firewall of China?
In addition to being the richest man in the world, Bill Gates is the world's most-spammed man
Tuesday: November 20, 2004
How It Works - the Computer - hmmm, should this be our new textbook?
RFID on your medicine bottles?
A story on Wal-Mart, and their data mining A much better story on their technology (local)
Some Omaha snowplow drivers will be tracked via GPS
Happy 100th birthday, vacuum tube!
Study links heavy PC usage with glaucoma
An interesting article on passwords. How secure are your passwords?
You gotta love some of the stuff people auction on eBay!
TechTip reminder! We only have a few more classes left, so get yours in soon or lose the 50 points.
Classes remaining: Today, Thursday the 18th, Tuesday the 30th, Thursday Dec 2, December 7th and December 9th. Our final is Tuesday, December 14th. NO CLASS on Tuesday, November 23rd - use that day to work on your assignment.
Who's that knocking on my door? Looks like
user-24-236-85-124.knology.net is infected and is trying to find an
exploit in my servers. I saw this on all my *nix boxes today:
Nov 12 04:23:53 tweetie portsentry[372]: attackalert: Connect from host:
24.236.85.124/24.236.85.124 to TCP port: 2000
Nov 12 04:23:53 tweetie portsentry[372]: attackalert: Ignoring TCP response per configuration file
setting.
Nov 12 04:23:53 tweetie portsentry[372]: attackalert: Connect from host: 24.236.85.124/24.236.85.124 to
TCP port: 2000
Nov 12 04:23:53 tweetie portsentry[372]: attackalert: Ignoring TCP response per configuration file
setting.
Thursday: November 11, 2004
For assignment three - I will cover the last page, the Tweetie server, first thing in class on Thursday.
Schoolboy sues his mother for not buying him a PC
Arizona kid was charging $10 to change student grades in the school computer system
WTO says the US can't ban cross-border gambling
NTSB to require "black boxes" in all new cars?
UNANIMOUS RULING: FCC, NOT STATES, WILL REGULATE VOIP
The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that the federal
government -- rather than state regulatory bodies -- has the authority to oversee phone service offered over the Internet (known as Voice over
Internet Protocol, or VoIP). FCC chairman Michael K. Powell says, "This landmark order recognizes that a revolution has occurred. Internet voice
services have cracked the 19th century mold to the great benefit of consumers." (Washington Post 9 Nov 2004)
Tuesday: November 9, 2004
Sorry about ending class so early on Thursday. My word of advice to all of you is to eat the Nachos Grande at cJays grill.
Want to work for Google? You need to practice on your brain teasers!
Best Buy and how they analyze their customers Are you an angel or a devil? A "Barry" or a "Jill"?
Software monoculture - What happens when all of your company runs on the same software? Is it analogous to planting all the same variety of potatoes? (Ask the Irish (1) about that)
Testing Service to Unveil an Assessment of Computer and Information Literacy
Chicago parks workers may be GPS-enabled All the Werner trucks are, and so are many of the Omaha Police cruisers. The new digital radio system for the county is also GPS-capable.
In the last class, we watched a nifty video called Warriors of the Net. You can follow that link to download it (it's free) in many different formats and languages, if you want to watch it again.
Help for the assignment
due on Thursday
Thursday: November 4, 2004
Well, your age group didn't turn out to vote - again. Unhappy with Bush and thinking about moving to Canada? Who won the election? Online bookies!
Happy 16th birthday to the first Internet worm
Harrison County, IA - new E911 system
Watch what you name your pictures on your website!
Assignment Three to be handed out today
Tuesday: November 2, 2004
Thursday: October 28, 2004
There will be a quiz today, and 50% of the quiz will be one question: How do you display the header information in your MUA? (MUA) We talked about this in class, so let's make it part of the quiz. More on headers
Here's some information on "Meridian Mary"
Dell to preinstall SUSE linux on servers
Bush campaign website is blocking access to non-US surfers
Gateway to tap out photo, MP3 player beat The PC maker is coming out with its own hard-drive-based MP3 player--a miniature unit that displays color photos. Wednesday October 27, 2004 09:00PM PDT Story here
Tuesday: October 26, 2004
Welcome back from Fall Break!
Intel is not going to make 4mhz P4 processors - instead they are going to concentrate on revamping what they have by adding more onboard cache.
FCC approves Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) - this is bad news, as power cables are not shielded and they are incredibly noisy. What happens is that BPL interferes with amateur radio bands, bands which have been in use for nearly 100 years. Also in the article is a comment from Commissioner Coops, who was here on campus last week.
Dell executive says that 90% of all PC's are infected with spyware. Yeah, it's not 100% since the remaining 10% are all either Mac's or are running some version of Unix!
Steve Jobs (bio) is back at work after cancer surgery
BBS list for Omaha and a Short History of the BBS
Tuesday-Thursday: October 19-21, 2004
Fall Break - have a good time and read chapter six!
Exam results will be posted here by Monday evening.
Thursday: October 7, 2004
Reminder! Quiz Five is due outside my office door (BA 112A) by 4:30pm today, unless you have contacted me about it.
Midterm exam is complete. It's made up of true/false, multiple choice, a few short answers and a page of matching. I am of the "more questions, fewer points each" school of testing. Be sure to study your class notes as I have taken material from them as well as the book for the exam. The midterm is Thursday, and you will have from 4:45 - 6:00pm.
Tuesday: October 12, 2004
TYPO ALERT! On assignment two I mistakenly put the name of our old
server, Grackle, instead of our server for this semester, Tweetie. You will have a lot of problems logging on to Grackle as you don't have an
account on that server!
FYI for Tuesday morning - I will be out of
the office for an appointment. I will be back around lunch time, in
case you are looking for me.
FTC files first spyware case. Look who is being charged, it's our old spammer buddy Sanford "Spamford" Wallace (1) (2)
Thursday: October 7, 2004
Microsoft flaw can bypass user passwords in websites
Information on the midterm exam is here (one week from today!)
TechTip reminder! If you have not done one yet this semester, Tuesday is your last day. You must do one before midterm and one after - you cannot do both after midterm.
Tuesday: October 5, 2004
Reminder about the extra credit opportunity - it's Tuesday morning, 8:00am. Don't be late! The event is scheduled to end at 9:00am so you can make your 9:30am class. If you attended, email me your impressions of the speech and the subject matter.
Inside Wal-Mart's IT - interesting article. They promote from within, work everyone hard (7:30am Saturday meetings) and are very frugal. You can read the Slashdot comments here.
Scientists find that coffee is addictive. Next, they will find out that water is wet and knives can be sharp.
Sony is abandoning their copy-protected CD market. It seems that consumers do not like the technology (duh!) and more music is being sold in digital formats.
Do you own an I-Pod? If so, Steve Ballmer says that you are a thief.
North Korea is training computer hackers to attack the US and South Korea
Want to ask the co-creator of Unix some questions? Here is his partner, Dennis Ritchie.
Thursday: September 30, 2004
IBM has built the world's largest supercomputer!
Not computer-related, but it looks like Mt. St. Helens is about to erupt again
Post office orders stamps.com to stop taking orders for personalized stamps
Gateway now allowing consumers to customize their PC orders again
Tuesday: September 28, 2004
George
Lucas does not want you to parody Star Wars, at least not in a live format.
Wonder what they would think if MST3K
did it?
Want to send an email after you die? Well, now you can!
You hear about companies moving away from Windows, here are some moving TO windows
The virus to exploit the Microsoft jpeg vulnerability is in the wild. Very interesting information - this could be a bad one. Side note: hackers are using pornographic images to distribute the code via Usenet. Oh, and it has a name now - The JPEG of Death Virus' created from this are imminent.
Student settles with RIAA for illegally downloading and sharing music - what do you think of this?
Extra credit opportunity! (also emailed to the class list)
Thursday: September 23, 2004
Code to exploit Windows graphics flaw is now public. Oh goody - now we can wait for the viruses, worms and other assorted malware to hit.
Ireland is blocking telephone calls to 13 different countries to block redirecting dialers.
Will WiFi vendors have to pay a patent fee?
Want a secure IE? Sorry, only for Windows XP users. Everyone else needs to upgrade - at least according to Microsoft. How about switching to Mozilla Firefox?
Is your USB drive a tool or a fashion accessory?
Tuesday: September 21, 2004
Want to bid on one of the few remaining artifacts from 2001: A Space Odyssey? (site) If so, bid here!
Viruses aimed at Microsoft increased by 400% during the first half of 2004 Is this any way connected to the rise in zombie networks?
Remember to password-protect your digital media. If it gets lost, someone might just do this to it...
Got a Kryptonite bike lock? Got a Bic pen? If so, ten seconds and your lock is open
Want to see an original IBM PC, model 5150?
Google to develop it's own browser?
Students hang up on dorm phones. OK, poll time: how many of you have cell phones and how many do not use their dorm (sorry, "residence hall") phones? I know it's quite a few, based on the times I have tried to call students.
Are you an AOL user? If so, they are testing a "two password" system, one using a security card. Check out the Slashdot article with links here.
The five major changes in the Star Wars DVD set. Lucas is releasing them early, he says, to combat piracy. Blooper and picture
Thursday: September 16, 2004
Theme Park Tracks It's Patrons. No, it's not Wally World, but the park does track where everyone is. Useful or invasion of privacy? Check out RFID
From France: Windows XP fails 8% of the time
Using
supercomputers to predict storms. Wonder what the prediction is
for snowfall this year?
What's a workstation?
One company sees a future
for this class of machines.
Is AMD the new Intel? and Intel and AMD - parallel time lines
Assignment One is handed out today
Tuesday: September 14, 2004
Judge nixes Internet law dealing with porn in Pennsylvania
Colleges give out iPods, etc. So, what should CU give out? How much of a tuition increase are you willing to pay for "more stuff"?
An interesting article on how films are digitally restored
Sun to open-source their Solaris operating system version 10 next year. Story here.
Microsoft premium customers get early notices of vulnerabilities. Great - so what about the rest of us?
Attack Windows XP with a picture file! Geez.
Groove Update: Nothing! Nada! Zilch! Those no-talent clowns have not responded to my requests for accounts for you three, nor fixes for the other two of you that cannot get on. Very disappointing.
Thursday: September 9, 2004
Cancelled checks are soon to disappear
I have a few GMAIL invitations. If you are interested, email me.
Jeopardy fans: Does Ken Jennings lose on game 75? (he is on game 40 or so now) Story here. USA Today story here. Alex is not talking!
Link to POPG/GROOVE information (found on the Supplements page) Here is a link to login to their system - http://www.popg.net/creighton.html Unfortunately they did not follow the CU guidelines and use the NetID as the login name.
Longhorn will allow admins to block the use of external storage devices so don't take those USB flash drives to work!
Tuesday: September 7, 2004
Quiz One is available - check out the Quiz Page
Want to rent some time on a supercomputer? Check out the stats - how does that compare with your system? ha!
The changing face of campus tech - What do you want to see around CU?
A Day in the Life of the Internet Storm Center
Do you still use your floppy disk drive?
Hardware slides available on the Supplements page
Thursday: September 2, 2004
Are you on our class mailing list? If not, you missed a great message today.
Got some free time? Of course, this is from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - the best of all the movies in the series.
Today's handout, Commands You Have To Know, in PDF format.
Philadelphia is considering making the entire city wireless
Tuesday: August 31, 2004
Have you tried to get tech support lately? Off-shore tech support is very common. Let me regale you with some tales of local companies using offshore support.
FYI: Tweetie accounts are set up - we'll start using them soon.
The Internet turns 35! Story here.
Want to spoof your Caller-ID information?
Thursday: August 26, 2004
Welcome to the first day of class! Please check
back here at least every day as I update this page with class items, interesting
things, and whatever else
or else or else
or else or else
comes to mind. You can check out my interests at my main page at http://eden.creighton.edu.
You will need to join our class mailing list. At the present time the mailing list is mis253d@creighton.edu. You will need to be on this list for important class information. To join, send a message to majordomo@creighton.edu, leave the subject line blank, and in the body of the message (on the very first line) put the phrase subscribe mis253d email@address - where email@address is your email address where you read your mail every day. Then send the message. Once I get the request, I will add you to the list. You will need to do this before the next class. UPDATE: I have subscribed everyone on the roster with their CU email address.
Intro questions for today. Don't write your name on the paper!
Happy birthday Linux! Yesterday, August 25th, Linus Torvalds made the first Usenet posting, saying "Hello everybody out there using Minix" and the rest is history... (announcement here)
This page best viewed with a web browser
