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This page last updated on Friday, May 06, 2005 16:37:16
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After the Final Exam
Final exams
are graded! I will be stapling them closed, and putting
them in the "MIS 253" hanging folder outside my office door. I curved
the final exam by adding 10 points to your grade.
High score = 140
Low score = 40
Average score = 112
Median score = 118
Final grades are finished and entered! I have added 10 (ten) points to everyone's final grade, in addition to dropping one quiz.
Today at 5:05:05 am & pm the time will be 05:05:05 05/05/005....
05.05.005 comes only once in 1000 years and coinciding with Thursday (5th Day of the week) comes only once in 7000 yrs...
Tuesday, May 2
Final exam time! See you in BA 111 on Tuesday, May 2nd from 4:45-6:00pm for the final.
If you missed either of the two last quizzes, they are online here. You can look the answers up on your own! The questions on the last quiz are likely to show up in the Final Exam.
Update on broken Quiz Ten link - thanks for the heads-up, I have fixed the link at 07:45 this morning.
Update on website grades: If you did NOT receive an email from me about your website, or have a notation on a graded quiz to see me, you received the 50 points possible for your websites. Nearly everyone did a great job, and they were, for the most part, very creative.
Update on Tweetie: We have a new faculty member, Dr. Matt Seevers, starting this summer. Since he is teaching presession, I needed the computer. So, your webpages have been graded and I have reassigned the machine.
Thursday, April 28
Final Exam - the final is scheduled for Tuesday, May 2nd from 4:45-6:00pm in BA 111. Click here for some review notes. You may bring one 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, duplexed, with your review notes. No other forms of notes or electronic devices will be allowed.
President Bush signs the Family Entertainment Act
Watch how you type Google's URL!
Schools do not have to help the RIAA
For your assignment: Here is a link to my main page and you can see how it looks, and it has a link to the bio page. Check them both out. Also, check out this page for help on tags for size, colors, etc. Also, when you come to see me, I won't answer any questions like "What tag do I use for bold?" or "How do I center?" - those are things you need to figure out! I will help you debug problems.
Today is the absolute last day for TechTips!
Tuesday, April 26
What happens to your email when you die and your relatives want to access it?
The end of analog TV? It's coming at the end of 2006...
$10K for a magazine? But it talks about Moore's Law
Microsoft ships Windows 64-bit version
It appears that a French court has ruled that DVDs cannot contain DRM - DRM is Digital Rights Management, and this means that you, as a user, should be allowed to make archival or backup copies of your DVD. Now it is a French court decision, but I applaud them for this.
Bowdler Machines Get Congressional OK
Analysts were unsure whether the motion picture industry gained more than it
lost with the passage of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act on
Tuesday. While the bill makes it a federal crime to use camcorders in movie
theaters or distributing movies and CDs before their commercial release, the
bill also will allow companies to sell DVD players that can filter sex,
violence or indecent language from movies. Passage of the bill is expected
to abort a lawsuit filed against Salt Lake City-based ClearPlay by eight
Hollywood movie studios and the Directors Guild of America. ClearPlay is the
primary manufacturer of players containing filtering tools. "This is
tremendous news for ClearPlay and a real victory for families," said
ClearpPlay CEO Bill Aho. And Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jane R. Eisner
wrote: "Despite the solemn pleas from famous directors, it's hard to oppose
giving parents the tools to exert some control in their own homes." But
Congresswoman Diane Watson of California, who voted against the bill,
disagreed, saying, "While I support family-friendly entertainment, I believe
this method is not only a violation of filmmakers' copyright protections but
also an infringement of their artistic vision."
Story #1
Cleanflicks
Clearplay
Story #2
Thursday, April 21
Today we will have a tour of the machine room in the Old Gym to see the central University servers. Don't be late for class that day! Please come early if possible.
Microsoft patents using 911 to contact emergency services
Gates -vs- Google Hmmm... evil -vs- DoNoEvil?
Behind the doors at AMD's chip production facility
Bush expected to sign legislation with prison terms for prerelease pirates - pretty draconian to me
Microsoft to support Linux in their virtual server product
When doing your
web
design assignment, keep these in mind:
Ishihara Test
for Color Blindness
Color Blindness, page 1
Color Blindness, page 2
If I can't read your page, I can't grade it! Stay away from such color
combinations as "purple on black" or "green on yellow".
Tuesday, April 19
Online subscriptions of the Wall Street Journal are surpassing the print versions (20x more profit!)
It's the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission - read this story. It's long, but shows the management structure and attention to details, and the engineering skills of the ground crew. Also, the movie Apollo 13 is also excellent and highly recommended.
New technology enables ancient manuscripts to be read
Do you have computer rage? To paraphrase Sheriff Walter Thibido (Harry Morgan) in "The Shootist" (one of my favorite John Wayne movies) - "What I will do on your laptop won't pass for flowers!"
THAT WARM, SECURE FEELING: Auditors for the U.S. Treasury Department tested computer security at the Internal Revenue Service. They called 100 random IRS employees claiming they were from the tax agency's computer help desk to see if the employees would change their passwords to one suggested by the caller. That sort of ruse would allow an identity thief to hack IRS systems and get private taxpayer information. "We were able to convince 35 managers and employees to provide us their username and change their password," auditors said. The audit was a follow-on to a similar test in 2001, when 71 of 100 IRS employees fell for the tactic. (AP) ...What do you expect? They only fired 36 of them in 2001.
Just a reminder: only three more classes to get your TechTips in on!
Thursday, April 14
Australian ISP disconnecting infected customers - could this be you?
Tuesday, April 12
Indian call center employees (outsourced) steal account information
Connecticut court says using a GPS in rental cars to track speeders is illegal
Gateway to receive $150 million from Microsoft as settlement
What does GW Bush have on his iPod?
Apple to release "Tiger" on April 29th
RIAA is going to file suit against Internet II users soon
Mark your calendars! Thursday, April 21st we will have a tour of the machine room in the Old Gym to see the central University servers. Don't be late for class that day!
Thursday, April 7
Star Wars geeks waiting in the wrong line!
Interesting article on a Motherboard Upgrade How-To - would you be willing to upgrade your system, or do you just buy a new PC?
Tuesday, April 5
Interesting twist on the Nigerian 411 scam that I received in my Yahoo email account
Should I grade in a different color?
Appeals court rules that you can use a companys name in a domain name that disparages the company
Cell phones are the newest thing to smuggle into prisons
World's largest Linux supercomputer
Hey, check this out!
Sparrow.creighton.edu
Tue Apr 5 08:40:07 CDT 2005
8:39am up 365 days, 46 min, 12 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Thursday, March 31
How do you respond to a computer crash?
Don't try this at home (or anywhere else!)
HP sues two companies that refill ink cartridges
Internet study finished - 7 years later! Well, at least it says that DNS is good :-)
Tuesday, March 29
We will not have class on Holy Thursday, March 24th. Since classes are cancelled for Easter starting at 5:00pm, I will be observing the spirit of the closing and we will not have class.
How suggestible are you to social engineering?
Supreme Court weighs in on Internet filesharing
Tuesday, March 22
Star Wars in 3D? I hope it's better than the Star Wars Holiday Show (#1) (#2)
Is that a spreadsheet or your screen, or Solitaire? The state of North Carolina wants to know, and may ban it from their computers.
Phishing with VOIP (and SPIT)
Students make better progress without computers - hmmm, should I turn them off today?
Broadband networking on your body?
Is IBM set to spam the spammers?
England is the country with the most-hacked systems (USA is #2)
Holy Thursday, March 24
Thursday, March 17
Is Hell freezing over? Apple is getting ready to introduce a two-button mouse!
Google as your desktop? Also, check out this Google cached page - it made it's appearance and was withdrawn within 24 hours. Hmmm....
IRS workers are prone to social engineering
More than one million zombie computers on the 'net?
Tuesday, March 15
Welcome back from break!
Network powerpoint slides for 3/15/05
The British want to replace their TV tax with a computer tax
A concise guide to the major Internet bodies
Who is the parent of MS-DOS? Slashdot discussion and Digital Research story
Kevin Mitnick says: better security is not about technology - beware of social engineering (more)
Want to see on eBay in Ohio? You will need a license!
Linus Torvalds is using a Mac?!!!
US Government agrees allowing IBM to sell it's PC division to China's Lenovo
Would you pay 5 cents a song to download music?
Uh-oh - Microsoft is acquiring Groove Networks (Slashdot discussion) (MS press release)
The Unix Philosophy, explained
The "decay" of online references
If you use AOL's IM, do you give them the right to use whatever you say? (Slashdot discussion) Latest update
Today: Networks! Tomorrow, the Internet!
FYI: We will not have class on Holy Thursday, March 24th. Since classes are cancelled for Easter starting at 5:00pm, I will be observing the spirit of the closing and we will not have class.
Association of Information Technology Professionals - AITP
Dr. Chen is starting up the CU chapter of AITP again, and is holding an
informational meeting on Thursday, March 17th at 3:30pm in BA 315.
At the meeting they will be giving away five one-year national memberships
($35 value) and will have refreshments. If you are an MIS major or
are interested in MIS, stop by!
On a related note, when you email me something, please use a subject line that is relevant to the message. I would prefer something like "MIS 253D Assignment One" or similar. I get lots of email and it is easy for things to get lost in the clutter. Also, please put your name in the "from" line, or in the body of the email message.
Midterm grades were composed of:
4 quizzes at 20 points each
1 TechTip worth 50 points
1 In-Class Assignment worth 50 points
1 Assignment on PC pricing worth 50 points
1 In-Class Assignment on creating your web page worth 50 points
1 Midterm Exam worth 150 points
1 Midterm Exam adjustment of 16 points (everyone got a bonus of 16
points)
Tuesday, March 8 and Thursday, March 10, 2005
SPRING BREAK - no classes
Thursday: March 3, 2005
Tuesday: February 22, 2005
R.I.P. Jeff Raskin
Today's plan: Work on our websites by practicing some HTML code. Midterm is on Thursday.
Apple CFO Gives Info on Company Direction
"Mac World is reporting a recent talk given by Apple's Chief Financial Officer (Peter Oppenheimer) at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium. The article illustrates several things about about Apple's business plan, much of which is totally new information about the company's current and future direction. Here's the nutshell summary: iPod "Halo" effect is causing some Windows switchers, little demand for satellite
radio/iPod integration, iPod shuffle margins below HD ipods, happy with rate of growth - no plans to license OS X, margins on Mac mini equal to eMac (both below corporate average), retail store to expand to 125, no plans for media center PC - prefers to stream multimedia to TV from primary computer over wireless network, no video for
iPod, portable media centers a failure."
Midterm notes The midterm is at the regular class time on Thursday, March 3. You can bring in one 8.5"x11" paper, simplex or duplex, with notes. No other material can be used. Check the link above for more information.
Thursday: February 24, 2005
Judges rule that the broadcast flag is illegal
Self-censoring search engines in Germany?
Dell is being sued for "bait and switch" advertising practices
Tuesday: February 22, 2005
"Town gives the brave new world an F"
In Canada, a business email address is considered private and may not receive unsolicited email
Poor Paris! Her phone was hacked into - Story #1 and Story #2
A teenager in the US is the first arrested for spimming - story here
The TOP 100 GADGETS of all time
Thursday: February 17, 2005
Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf are getting the 2004 Turing Award for creating TCP/IP
Microsoft and Phizer are suing spammers over illegal Viagra sales
RFID tracking in that grade school is out
Peter Jennings goes one-on-one with Bill Gates (printable version)
Copy protection on Napster has been cracked
Smile, Mr. Burglar - you are on candid camera!
A Florida court ruled that a wife cannot install spyware on her husbands computer Here's the software (Spector) that she used.
Tuesday: February 15, 2005
Carly Fiorina is out! Carly Fiorina is out as HP chairman Interesting to note that HP's stock price rose 11% on the notice of her leaving, adding $7 billion to their value. Slashdot discussion here Carly leaves with a severance package of $21.4 million and will gain another $21 million more - (story #2) not bad for driving a once-great company down (stock price has dropped 50% since she took over in 1999). Official HP biography page and HP press release of her leaving. A good overview article is here A great Salon article (PDF) is here. Did she fail because she was a woman, had no operational experience, or was just a marketer? Maybe she just didn't understand The HP Way An interesting article from 2002 on Losing the HP Way. In the last Salon article, who does Walter Hewlett remind you of (hint)?
Is Microsoft poised to collapse? An interesting read....
Meanwhile, Apple is going for a 2-for-1 stock split
And there is a new trojan out there that attacks the Microsoft spyware program that was just released
Yahoo and the French and Nazi artifacts - the latest update
Here's how to hack the new Pepsi i-Tunes promotion
The Typo Millionaires - have you ever landed on the wrong page because you typed in the wrong URL?
What kind of pictures can you take in public?
Gates to talk about trustworthy computing
The end of the college landline? OK, how many of you have cell phones? Interesting Slashdot discussion here (especially the part about what faculty members do when phones ring in class)
Orbitz TOS prohibits deep linking - hmmm, does that link violate their linking policy? Anyone who uses their website has to follow rules about linking, such as notifying them and to take down a link if Orbitz wants. Slashdot discussion here. Oh, and the W3C says "any attempt to forbid the practice of deep linking is based on a misunderstanding of the technology, and threatens to undermine the functioning of the web as a whole."
CA: Tax drivers by the mile, not by how much gas they use
Gates announced new version of IE (7.0) with a beta version to be out this summer. Hmmm, could this be a result of this?
Thursday: February 10, 2005
Class is cancelled today due to illness. I will see you all on Tuesday, when we will continue our hardware lecture.
Tuesday: February 8, 2005
Microsoft Product
Lifecycle dates
Mainstream support for W2K server edition will officially end June 30, 2005. Redmond's standard policy is to provide Mainstream
Support for 5 years after a product was released, and after that you get 5 years of Extended Support, if you are willing to pay
for it. No further service packs will be released for W2K after June 30-th this year. After that, you will be joining NT users
and no longer have regular free hotfixes.
AT&T Fueled the Tech Boomn Some key dates in AT&T History
Is Gmail gearing up for launch? I went from 6 invites to 50!
Would you pay for season 5 of Enterprise?
A Valentine Poem
Roses are #ff0000
Violets are #0000ff
All my base
Are belong to you
Thursday: February 3, 2005
Some Google news: They now have added the local feature search to the main page. Give it a try! Oh, and they are also getting into the domain registration business.
I wouldn't eat those brownies that were left in the lounge!
The GRE is going back to pencil and paper exams instead of computerized exams due to fraud
Don't put a keystroke logger on your teacher's PC! Want one of your own?
What kind of physical security do you have?
For today's lecture
A brief
history of punched cards and a Punch
card gallery and Punch
cards in the Army. Create
your own online punch card! Punched
cards - the UnDead (or in HTML
format here)
Tuesday: February 1, 2005
Tim Berners-Lee has been named the greatest Briton of 2004. You can thank him for what you are reading right now! If it weren't for Tim, you would be using Gopher instead of the World Wide Web. You can check out one of the few remaining gopher servers at gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/world. See also Hobbes' Internet Timeline for the history of the Internet.
Microsoft to not offer security upgrades on the Windows 2000 platform (like what service Pack Two tries to do for Windows XP)
Do you have a supermarket loyalty card?
Minnesota teen gets 18 months in prison for creating the Blaster Worm.
Bill Gates' handwriting analyzed Actual doodle is here
TechTip dates have been set. Since no one has volunteered, I have assigned dates for you to do your presentations. You must arrange ahead of time with me to change your date. Note that these dates are for your first TechTip, and a second must be done after Spring Break.
| Hardware lecture in PPT format |
| Hardware lecture in PDF - 4 per page |
I have imported your Creighton email addresses into the ELMS system. You will be getting an email from Microsoft within 24 hours about how to access the site. Your account is good on the system until the last day of finals (May 7, 2005) and I have authorized you to be able to buy any of the offered software. If you are interested, take advantage of the program!
Here is what Microsoft says:
Accounts will be created on the next scheduled import.
You will be notified by email once the System has created
the accounts and students/faculty have received their login
names and passwords via email. The System generally creates
new accounts within 24 hours of importing a list.
Thursday: January 27, 2005
Do you drive a Lexus Landcruiser? If so, you can get a computer virus via your bluetooth interface! Story here
Michael Powell to step down as FCC chairman
Will the MacMini spur a petite-PC revolution? Info on the MacMini
Assignment One will be completed in class today, so be sure to show up!
Tuesday: January 25, 2005
Here's a risk: You spend 18 years of your life on a project, 7 of which are part of space travel for a probe. It gets there only to find out that someone never turned on the instrument.
Missing hard drive had personal information - something to think about in regards to physical security of your information technology assets.
How to keep your personal computer personal
Microsoft office for students has arrived! Check your email for the official message.
AOL is pulling USENET access for it's members What is Usenet News?
Thursday: January 20, 2005
Electronics with borders: Can you be prevented from using your hardware purchased here in another region?
A story on Wal_Mart: "Driven by Data"
Microsoft is going to sell a Hotmail Outlook subscription service
Phishing is getting more sophisticated - watch out! Example One and Example Two
Tuesday: January 18, 2005
Some users are giving up the Internet due to viruses and spyware
Coming soon to a campus near you: Movie-industry lawsuits Are you running a P2P program on your computer in your dorm room?
Your right to privacy in a restroom is not absolute, at least according to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
An evening with Google's Marissa Meyer - some interesting facts about our favorite search engine
DOIT VP honored with Top 100 influential CIOs
Bill
Gates in a 1983 Teen Beat photo spread
No comment!
Also, Bill
and Paul Allen, another of Bill
and a 5.25" floppy disk, would you have
invested in this company in 1978 and of course the infamous mugshot
pictures.
Thursday: January 13, 2005
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.
I have subscribed everyone's CU email account to our class mailing list, mis253d@creighton.edu. I have switched from Majordomo to Mailman for listserve service. If you want to join with another email address, use this link. Please use your Creighton email account as CU can guarantee delivery to this account, and not to Hotmail or other services. If you must use a free email service, I have found that Yahoo and Gmail are not bad.
I have emailed your password to your account to the Tweetie server to your Creighton email address. Please retrieve this, you will need it soon. You can change the password to another by doing a passwd command at the $ prompt once you have logged on to Tweetie.
Intro questions for today. Don't write your name on the paper!
Useful link: Random password generator
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