4.30.2007

Downloading Songs.

A very unethical deed. "Indeed"

Musicians make very little cash wen it comes to making profit. According to my teacher, her brother made only $1000 from a tour and that didn;t come from the music alone. He had to do some other sales. Musicians have their porducers to pay and some other expenses to pay and their income from just selling the CD might not help. They put it on the net for a faster propagation.

Other mailcious humans crack the protection of the commodity and make it more of a freeware. People can now download the songs without paying to te artist.

If you would ask me, Piracy is as deadly as Al Qaeda. More attention is meant to be given to it compared to the attention focused on the Iraqi war.

The question is: "How can we stop Piracy?"

The answer is : "Piracy can't be stopped!"

Illiterates now possess downloading softwares that help them propagate piracy. They just type in what they want and the software finds "users" that have such media and download it. It musn't always be "users", some other softwares download it directly from sites. In improved countries, these pirates may be tracked but in underdeveloped countries, the pirates go unpunished.

What can our everyday improving technology do about this?

4.17.2007

The Stingy Friend



"Now what?!" Carl exlcaimed

"A friend of mine wants to upgarde his PC with only $300 but wants to be able to play games, listen to music, use Mirosoft Office confidently, use internet explorer without choking the processor and all worth more than $300. How in the world am I to help such a human?" Earl complains.

"There are two things involed" Carl said advinsing Earl. "Either you back out and tell him he's sick or crack possibilities out of your head and try to help him out. Which do you feel like plunging into?"

"Well..." Earl said counting the stars in the sky, "I think I would help him out. He sounds desperate. Let's see what we have here. I have an:


  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Windsor 2.0GHz 2 x 256KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Processor - Retail for $72.99,

  • Asus A8V-E SE Motherboard ATX - Via Vt8237r - Athlon 64 X2 - DDR motherboard for $84 and
  • OCZ EL Series 256MB DDR400 (PC 3200) Computer System Memory OCZ400256EL, 184-Pin, DDR SDRAM, Non-ECC, Unbuffered. Retail Box -aa for $29.99.


That should cost him about $190 tax inclusive. That way he can save as much as he wants to."

" Impressive...but, what if he wants an Intel processor in AMD's stead?" asked Carl objecting.

"In that case, I think he wants to narrow his PC usage to mainly media. I've done some research and i came up with these:

  • Intel Pentium 4 1.6 GHz CPU Socket 478 - Bus 400 MHz - 256 KB L2 Cache - Sku: BX80531NK160G processor for $40 at CompuVest.
  • Intel D850MV Motherboard (Pentium 4/Celeron, Socket 478, Intel 850, ATX, 2GB RDRAM, 400MHz Bus - MPN: BOXD850MVL) for $96 at Spartan Technologies and
  • i860 Dual Xeon 400MHz Max-2GB RDRAM 6PCI AGP4X LAN U160 RAIDSND for $74.99 at Merchant Hound.

That should do."

"He better not change his mind to sometihng else." Carl said looking concerned.

"He better not." Earl agreed.

4.11.2007

Our friendly enemy!


THE COMPUTER.

The computer is a tool that aids the human brain in completing tasks. It can accept a wider range of data without misplacing any, process more data into information in less time and still retains a high level of accuracy. It is a tool that has some severe adverse effects on its users despite its wide range of useful applications. Recent research has it that the computer have generated a new breed of lethal diseases. As the computer is updated, the diseases are "updated". In this article different advantages and disadvantages of computer usage will be outlined and properly explained.


ADVANTAGES OF USING COMPUTERS
  1. Flash cards have been replaced by computers when it comes to reading and writing. A faster means of learning (this is because of the audio-visual aspect of a computer). Mistakes could often be made with flash cards when it comes to archiving and retrieving. But in the case of a computer, archiving is done on the hard disk and cannot be misplaced.
  2. Computers increase the confidence of individuals. As an individual uses the computer more, his literacy increases. As his literacy increases, he becomes smarter. As an individual becomes smarter, he becomes more confident and can address an audience because he is confident in the power he has acquired via the knowledge computers.
  3. Mastery of computer skills gives the individual a wider range of skill. Knowledge of computer skills enables the individual to fit into some jobs perfectly. Having this skill is also a life time investment. When every other job fails, a basic IT job can always be fallen back on.

DISADVANTAGES OF USING COMPUTERS
  1. It is addictive. Using computers can open an individuals eye to more fascinating things than those he has always seen. Variety of programs, different audio-visual outputs and most especially, the media. Most computer (internet) literates spend hours on the world wide web looking for information. Sometimes their ambitions are ambiguous.
  2. Parents don't spend more time with their children. Since computers have taken over most of their learning, they allow the computers to do all the upbringing. Computers are dummies and they cannot do what they are not programmed to do. I am yet to see a computer that is programmed to take care of a child's upbringing; completely teaching the child good morales. This makes the children feel they are not loved and when they have pondered on this thought for years, they can constitute a nuisance to the society.
  3. Some health issues also are connected with computer usage. The radiation from the monitor affects the eye, increasing the volume of the speakers to a ridiculous level (especially when the individual is using headphones) damages the ear drums. Outdated computer parts are not eco-friendly. Elements in the motherboard (using it as an example) are radioactive and if disposed wrongly, the radiation can be harmful to the skin. Bending over on PCs (as a result of being addicted to it) can truncate or skeletal structure. It causes hunchback in humans.

All these are the 'goods' and 'bads' of using computers; our friendly enemy!

4.10.2007

Well, don't really know what to write on this blog page since this is my first post on my blog. I'm in a computer class and this is the first class. Guess what? We were asked to create blogs. Later, I found out its going to be the medium by which she dissipates scores. Oh well, that's about that. Till next post...bye.