Course Reflection

In the past several weeks, I've learned so many things about computers that I either didn't know before, or thought I knew but really had no idea. There were so many components to a computer that it is necessary to do a lot of research to find the right thing for the job that is needed.

I'm not going to lie, this course was a lot of work. But I don't think there is much to be done about that because every assignment had a purpose that must be covered in this course before we move forward. The only other thing I could think of doing as an alternative would be to lengthen the course slightly to give a little more time for the reflection aspect.

For almost each assignment, we needed to reflect on our process in our blog or comment on other students' work. This was necessary for some sort of "classroom discussion," but it was also time consuming given the other massive assignments. Don't get me wrong, after thinking about it, it makes sense to have that portion of the course. However, I had a hard time keeping up with the reflection part.

This was a great course and I learned a great deal about computers. I am excited that we are all now on equal footing when it comes to computers, so now the program can move forward together and we can keep learning as much as possible.

Holy Computers Batman!

I'll just go on the record right now by saying that I "thought" I knew about computers, but really it was just a fantasy. The course I'm currently taking, Computer Systems: How They Work, really opened my eyes to ideas and technologies I had not known about before.

It it an understatement to say that I've learned a lot. This particular course offers a wealth of information in a very short period of time. I am surprised at how much we have done these past 6 weeks. All of the information we have learned has connected to my personal and professional life. Although I am not allowed to take apart a computer at school and fix it (replacing memory or hard drives, etc), I am now comfortable doing that on my own home computers. I have even begun researching how to update my current 4 year old desktop. With the knowledge I learned in this course, I realized that I will be able to update the computer by only updating specific components and not the entire computer. This knowledge will be extremely useful in the future and give me the confidence to do minor repairs at home.

We all know that technology is always evolving, but what I have learned recently has built my confidence in my computer knowledge and many of the day to day tasks on the computer and/or network. My wife and I have a wireless network with a networked printer, 2TB RAID backup drive, 3 owned computers and 1 business computer, and 2 gaming systems that use the wireless network. We have a new daughter in our family so of course we are taking loads of pictures. Learning about backup and security has just reaffirmed my philosophy of maintaining proper home security. I hope to teach my daughter this when she gets older so that she is safe when technology is advancing all around her. As parents, we will need to make plans to keep her safe and keep our information secure.

Managing My Computer

Managing a computer can be a lengthy task. So many aspects of it come into consideration. Perhaps one of the biggest reason why some of us have difficulty managing our computers is time. We believe that this process takes so much of our time, yet we fail, or maybe just forget, to understand that the alternative can and will be much more time consuming that we ever imagined.

For those of us who have ever had a computer crash or get a virus, we understand what time it takes to get your system up and running again. What about the files you ask, well if you hadn't backed up your system or protected your files, you have just lost it all.

The funny thing is, many of the things we should do to protect our computers really don't take all that much time at all. Something that I do to help me keep my system in good shape is that I setup calendar reminders. Simply set up a task item in your calendar and have it repeat itself every two weeks, or every month. Doesn't matter, you set the schedule however you feel best.

One of my favorite programs to run is CCleaner. This program scans your system for unnecessary files and deletes them. Files like cookies, internet pages, and yes, it will even scan your registry for those lines of code that weren't removed when you uninstalled that program.

Beyond using the CCleaner I also protect my computer using Nortan Symantec security systems (download from the US Army - only the best), and more recently my wife and I purchased a network drive to back up our computers. I have never felt that my files were more safe than they are right now. (Hopefully making that statement didn't just jinx me!)

We were able to purchase a RAID drive so everything is backed up twice, without us having to do it manually. If you don't know about RAID, it is basically a redundant drive that mirrors another drive. So we have a 2TB hard drive, but since it is mirrored, we have 1TB to back up our files and the second drive is a mirror. This is helpful in case one drive fails for any reason, we still have our files.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming classes regarding our component research. I was just given the okay from the Mrs. to update our desktop computer so that it runs much faster. I can't wait to get started but I am also waiting to learn what some classmates have found on their research.