Class 9: My Favorite 3 Prezi presentations

Class 9: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

            HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language is a computer language made to allow website creation. Unlike how it sounds, HTML is relatively easy for everyone to use to create websites. Once you created a web, everyone who is connected to the Internet can obviously view your website and share contents within the space. Those computer language and what they can create in cyber world are powerful and potent. HTML is constantly undergoing revisions to meet growing demands and requirements from Internet audiences. W3C is the organization charged with designing and maintaining the language.

            Just like our speaking languages, HTML is also a computer language so in order to learn HTML, it takes a few days of reading and learning the codes. It is quite simple to master the codes and everything else to create a website but it is not hard to create a good website. Creating a good website not only requires the code but also require good design skills along with one’s own creativity that nobody can teach.

            Using HTML and coding the website does not always require online environment. Users can store all the progresses on their computers so that they just have to transfer all the files onto the web. Having a good personal website and lots of audiences means having a great power. It is our responsibility to present factual and creative contents to the audiences.

Class9, Deleting Colorado World

This was me working on the glass walls and fixing some part of the floors. I also set up some wall behind.

This is me deleting the server.

I completely deleted the server.

Class 8, The Bitcoin Blockchain

           Bitcoin is a form of digital currency created and kept electronically. Unlike real currency in our society, bitcoins are not printed, instead, they are generated by people online and businesses, running computers all around this world, using software that solves mathematical problems. One major difference from normal currencies is that bitcoin is decentralized. No one has control over the bitcoin network, which makes the users comfortable since no large banks can control their money.

            The blockchain is designed so that each block contains a hash drawing on the blocks that came before it. Bitcoin stores details of every singe transaction that ever happened in the network in a huge version of a general money record, called the blockchain that I mentioned. Anybody can tell how many bitcoins are stored in certain address but they just would not know that it is yours or somebody else’s. There are measures that people can take to make their activities within the network more opaque by using different addresses.

            Normal currencies are based on gold and silver, while bitcoins are based on mathematics. People around this world are using software programs that follow a mathematical formula to produce bitcoins. Since the mathematical formula is freely available, anyone can check them out. Not only that the software is also open source, meaning that anyone can look at it to make sure that it does what it is supposed to. In conclusion, bitcoin network is really easy to set up, anonymous, transparent, and fast to operate.

Class 8, Peer to Peer (P2P) & BitTorrent

            Peer to Peer, also known as P2P, is a distributed application between peers. Peers are equally privileged and equally powered participants in the application. Files can be shared directly between systems on the network without the need of a central server. Each computer on a P2P network can become a file server as well as a client. The only requirements for a personal computer to join P2P network are an Internet connection and P2P software. Widely used P2P software programs are Limewire, Morpheus, and Torrent. These famous programs with so many users let the user to access thousands of other systems on the same network.

            BitTorrent is one famous example of Peer to Peer file sharing program. BitTorrent uses Peer to Peer network system to distribute large amounts of data over the internet. It is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files through P2P networks that are estimated nearly half of all Internet traffic. In order to share or receive files through BitTorrent, users need to have BitTorrent client, which is a computer program that implements the BitTorrent Protocol. Some popular clients are Xunlei, Transmission, uTorrent, and Media Get.

            I personal have been using one of the BitTorrent clients, called uTorrent for few years. It was little bit hard for me to first start using P2P program but I got used to it eventually. Since this is Peer to Peer system, larger amount of users receiving the same file would make faster downloading speed for each one of them. Therefore, it is somewhat easier to download newer files than downloading older files. 

Class 8, Botnets & zombie networks

A term botnet is a combination of the words robot and network, which is also known as the zombie network. Botnet is a gathering of Internet connected programs that communicate with other similar programs. It can affect many features that are connected with Internet such as Internet Relay Chat, spam mails and service attacks. There are legal botnet, where IRC bots are linked and set channel modes on other bots for users to keep the channels free from unwanted users, while there are many illegal ones including distributed denial of service attacks, adware, spyware, spam mails, click fraud, and scareware.

Computers become part of zombie network through malwares that are unexpectedly installed by users or automatically installed through a security network’s back door. The malicious software leaves specified networking ports open, allowing computer access by outside users. They run similar types of malware that might be multiple networks operated by different criminal entities.

One of the best defenses from such threats is to run anti-virus and anti-spyware software on our computers. It is also important to keep those programs updated since the malware initiators constantly update and revise their attacks to avoid detection and bypass anti-virus programs. Users also need to make sure that they keep their operating system and applications patched against known vulnerabilities and use a personal firewall program to shield their computers from unauthorized access. 

Class 8, The YouTube Network and ISPs

YouTube takes the most efficient and fastest way to stream videos to ISP.

Once ISP takes videos from YouTube, it sends them to individuals. If ISP has not enough space to take videos from YouTube, the quality of the videos might be lowered. 

The quality of videos can be varied due to the ISP network status, connectivity between ISP and Individuals, and status of home network or WiFi. 

Too many people sharing the same contents can also cause the quality of videos to be lowered and slower.

My result of Streaming quality is that I have no trouble seeing 360p at all but I might have some loading time viewing 720p.