Module 7 - CST 311

This week we began our exploration of both the link layer as well as network security. It was very interesting to look into the operation of the link layer, which lies partly in software and partly in hardware. It was quite interesting to listen through the lecture on network security, and the chapter 8 assignment was a little tricky but very informative. The lab this week focused on Ethernet and ARP which were quite interesting to see in action. I am looking forward to the final week and will continue to prepare for the final this weekend.

Module 6 - CST 311

This week was quite interesting as we continued our foray into the networking layer. I really enjoyed the lab this week where we worked with ICMP messages to check targets on the other side of the world. I repeatedly was unable to reach the provided University in Hong Kong and so used a University centered in Tokyo instead for the first half of the lab. It was quite interesting to learn about the Algorithms used in routing and to practice using them on a very small scale in the assignment. There was one things I found confusing in the quiz this week with the fragmentation of the IPv6 addresses as I thought fragmentation was possible as long as it was done in the ends of the system, I will continue to research this in my spare time this week. I look forward to the last few weeks and the final exam.

CST 311 - Module 5

This week we began our foray into the Network layer. It was very interesting to cover the difference between routing and forwarding and seeing how a router accomplishes its forwarding process. I found Longest Prefix matching to be quite interesting and it was fun to work in binary for a few of the questions this week. I found it somewhat surprising that it only took 20 jumps with the traceroute to reach the school in India. The lab this week was also quite fun and it was interesting to see the DHCP process in action.

Module 3 - CST 311

This week we covered a variety of topics including multiplexing and demultiplexing, UDP, reliable data transfer, and congestion control. While I was expecting to learn about how a connection would be established with TCP, the three-way handshake we studied seemed like a surprisingly simple yet elegant way to complete the task. I found that it was very interesting to learn about congestion control and how TCP handles this issue. I enjoyed going through the lab this week, especially working on a linux machine and seeing the resulting IP and Port addresses from schools across the world. Before I head out of town I am beginning to look through the study guides for the midterm and am planning on taking the practice exam soon.

Module 2 - CST 311

This week we covered quite a few topics. We covered HTTP and FTP, learning what these protocols are and how they function. I was not expecting to learn about cookies, but it was interesting to see how they can work to enhance a users browsing experience. It was particularly interesting to work through the wireshark lab. Going through them I begin to feel that I am understanding the information we receive through wireshark.

Module 1 - CST 311

This week we covered a variety of topics including a network overview, delays in transmission and propagation and even some aspects of security. While I did expect to get an overview of networking, there was a lot more interesting aspects that were covered in this weeks lesson. For instance, I was not expecting to learn anything about security so early but I am excited to begin covering this topic. It was interesting to see the goals of CIA and learn about some of the basic concepts of what security is attempting to protect. I found the layout of the videos and video quizzes quite helpful, and the early opening for the week's work very helpful.

Module 8 - CST 363

Overall, I really enjoyed this course. Going into it I was not entirely sure how I felt about SQL and databases from my brief exposure in our prior course. However, this course was really quite fun and very informative. Our professor and TA were both helpful and clear, the textbook was easy to read and understand, and the assignments were straightforward and interesting. I feel fairly confident in my SQL skills now and see how they it can be used as a very useful tool. I look forward to my next course beginning soon, and am glad that I was able to take part in this one. Thanks again.

Module 7 - CST 363

This week was mainly spent working on our final project. My teammate did a great job on the ER diagram and establishing the model we would be using. I had fun coming up with queries to use that utilized subselects and joins in their statements. It was interesting to cover some new topics as well including BI, OLAP, and the NoSQL movement. Later this week I will take my final and that will finish up the course. I feel like I've learned quite a bit in these few weeks and honestly really enjoyed the course work, as well as all the effort the TA and Professor put into the course.

Module 6 - CST 363

This week we received our instructions for the final group project of the course. It looks like it will be an interesting exercise to complete with my teammate. This week I we covered some interesting topics such as security, users, permissions and creating functions. It was quite interesting to see the various levels of permissions that were available and how granting and revoking worked on various users. It was also useful to learn about groups and how they can be used to create a general template for permission granting.

Module 5 - CST 363

This week covered some interesting topics including concurrency, isolation transaction levels, and normalization. Some of the exercises utilizing mySQL workbench to simulate two users modifying a database at the same time were quite interesting, and it was interesting to see the differing ways the database had of handling transactions depending on the isolation level that was used. It was also interesting learning about normalization and its uses, and also when denormalization may actually be beneficial to a database manager. Overall it was a very interesting and engaging week.

Module 4 - CST 363

This week we had our first exam. It was quite interesting and I enjoyed going through the exercises and reading the articles inside. We also worked with MySQL workbench to create diagrams for our JRJ database. This was quite an interesting exercise as it showcased some of the issues that can arise when designing a database. Overall, it was an interesting week and I look forward to the next assignments.

Module 3 - CST 363

This week we began our foray into html and php programming and utilizing it to make SQL queries to our databases. Our previous courses really helped this week as I could make use of the practice gained when learning html and php in our internet programming coursework. It was interesting also to read up on various data structures and create examples for the questions in assignment 7. I look forward to the coming week.

Module 2 - CST 363

This week we continued our exploration into SQL. It was quite interesting covering some of the more advanced statements such as JOIN and COUNT. I had quite a bit of fun learning about inner versus outer joins and their applications. The assignments were interesting and the results which you receive from an odd query can be quite humorous. I look forward to beginning on next weeks assignments soon.

Module 1 - CST 363

This week we began our studies in CST 363, Introduction to Database Systems. So far I have enjoyed this course and look forward to the next few weeks as we get to work more with databases. I felt the our overview of databases in the previous course was very brief and am looking forward to getting to practice with them more. This week we set up our MySQL workbenches and began working with more simple SQL statements. It was interesting to go through the exercises in the book and practice creating statements for specific results. I look forward to the rest of the course.

Module 8 - CST 336

Overall, I really enjoyed the content of this course and what we learned throughout our 8 weeks. However, sometimes I did feel that the explanations and instructions for assignments were somewhat vague and feedback was at times unhelpful. I still enjoyed the course and feel that I have learned quite a bit. I look forward to utilizing the knowledge I have gained in this program in order to design my own websites in the near future.

Module 7 - CST 336

This week we began our foray into using AJAX to update a webpage while we are still viewing it, without reloading the entire page. It was interesting to use this in both our lab and assignment this week to update the pages we were viewing. I am somewhat amazed how quickly this course has gone by. It feels like such a short time ago when we first started learning CSS and yet we have covered many different topics in this short time. I will be preparing for the final in the next week by studying all that we have reviewed in the past few weeks.

Module 6 - CST 336

This week we began learning how to use jQuery and JavaScript in our webpages. It was interesting to create functions during the lab portion of this week's assignments. Building the quiz for our lab this week was both interesting and enjoyable. I also enjoyed taking the practice quiz in preparation for our final test. Once I get my scores back from the test I will have somewhat of a better idea of what I will need to study in preparation for our final. This course seems to have gone by rather quickly as we are already on week 6. It has been quite enjoyable thus far to cover so much material in this relatively short amount of time.

Module 5 - CST 336

This week was quite interesting. We we're able to continue working with our teammates on the group project where we created tables on movies and directors and made php sites for sorting, viewing, adding, modifying or deleting these entries. We also learned about php sessions and utilized them in our lab. Sessions seem to be very useful as they can be used to create the all important login page, and handle the information securely.

Module 4 - CST 336

This week we began working with mySQL. While the lessons for how to properly use the language were relatively straightforward, I had a little difficulty getting the phpmyadmin hosting site working properly and setting up my work for the assignments. Otherwise it was an interesting week with relatively straightforward coursework. I enjoyed learning about handling various databases by adding to, editing, creating and deleting entries as well as learning how to use the hosting website. The lab was very interesting and using the NFL databases and created a fourth one for user entries was really enjoyable. I look forward to the next week's work and am excited to continue working on the group project.

Module 3 - CST 336

This week we continued our foray into PHP and discussed some of the ways of handling input from end users. It was interesting to see how $_GET and $_POST worked and were used to handle the input differently. We also went over arrays in PHP and utilized them and some built-in functions to make a page which would manipulate some input on a previous page. It was fairly open to what exactly we could do so I did a few operations with changing a string to an array and manipulating it as well as playing around with a set of numbers provided by the user. Overall it was an interesting week that covered some useful topics, and I look forward to the next assignments.

Module 2 - CST 336

This week was very interesting. We did not utilize much from the previous week’s lesson other than hosting our new assignment pages and adding a few lines of css styling to give our projects some flavor. It was quite interesting to learn about PHP, it seems to be a relatively straightforward language and seems easier to learn. I used it to create two pages, assignment 2 and lab 2 for my course portfolio which I linked to from my homepage. For my assignment, which we were given some creative freedom on, I created a grid that would randomly print out numbers check if they were prime or composite and collect the number of primes and composites, it was similar to the lab but I needed another for loop to check whether the number was prime or not and I also threw in something special for a lucky number.

Module 1 - CST 336

This week I got to undertake my first serious foray into HTML and CSS. My prior experience with HTML and CSS was quite minimal in its scope and a few years in the past so I do not remember much from it. I found it quite interesting to learn about the style rules and how versatile these languages can be. I had little to no prior skills in building and hosting webpages before this and it was quite fun to create my first three webpages. It was a little tricky at first figuring out how to link to the other files from my homepage, but I believe that I have it set up properly now. I'm excited about the coming weeks as I'll be able to learn more about internet programming and gain new skills which will be useful to me for years to come.

Module 8 - CST 338

They say hindsight is 20/20, what advice would you give to the next cohort regarding this course?
Be prepared to communicate constantly with your teammates and let them know about your schedule, what you will work on, and whether you need any help or not.

How much do you envision using the skills you gained in this course in your career?
I will definitely use the skills I learned in this course. I was able to study a new language, learn more on multithreading and building GUI interfaces, and perhap most fun was utilizing Android Studio to create my own app.

Good job this session!  You are well on your way to finishing your degree!
Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 
This week we were able to work on our final project for the course. We had quite a bit of freedom in this project and I decided to expand on the subjects we covered in the last week with Android Studio. For the final I utilized some of the concepts I researched and designed and implemented a game using Android Studio.

Module 7 - CST 338

Have you ever created an app before, either for Android or iPhone?  How did it go?
No, I had not previously attempted to create an app for either Android or iPhone.

Do you have any ideas for apps that you could create for recreation?  What about business?
I haven’t thought very much about any apps I would create, but I would like to expand my skill set by creating more apps. Perhaps starting out with something simpler like a dice throwing game would be an interesting project.

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 
This week we went through a series of tutorials on Youtube on how to use Android Studio to create our own apps. It was a very fun and interesting series, and I am really glad to have gotten to get a taste of working with Android. I’m thinking that I may utilize the topics we covered this week for my final project and create and Android app for my submission.

Module 6 - CST 338

What experience do you have with UML diagrams?
My experience with UML diagrams has been primarily in coursework where we have crafted UML’s for our projects.

Are they used at your workplace?
No, I do not use UML diagrams at my workplace.

Have you done multithreading in any language before?
Yes, I have done some multithreading in C++ before when working with a GUI interface game.

Did you find Patterns to be helpful? 
Yes, simply the idea of creating more generic chunks of code that can be reused multiple times in different instances is appealing, and the possible applications for Patterns is quite expansive.

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 
This week we had an interesting job working on our GUI card interface from the previous weeks. We learned about and applied multithreading in order to add a timer to the GUI card game and also update the game itself to a different game which was quite fun. Overall the project was interesting and engaging and it is somewhat sad that, I believe, this will be the last group project we have in this course, as my teammates are all quite amazing and fun to work with.

Module 5 - CST 338

GUI is learned late in the game with Java.  Do you think this is helpful or harmful and why?
I think it is helpful to wait a little while to learn GUI after going over the fundamentals in a language because from personal experience I find it much easier to understand and comprehend the language. One can easily get caught up more in the appearance of the GUI rather than the programming itself, and I personally found it much more interesting to work with the code than focus on looks.

Why do think that coding the Swing elements in Java would be more difficult compared to some other languages?
The syntax for the Swing elements maybe a little harder to grasp initially then other programming languages such as python, but the versatility of being able to build layer upon layer of the interface rather easily makes the Swing system very fun to work with.

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 
This week we learned about GUI interfaces and how to write them in Java. One really interesting part of the week was working with the Swing elements to create the card table for this weeks assignment. I also created a video presentation this week on my thoughts for assignment 5. We created a GUI High Card game for the assignment this week and I really enjoyed working on this project.

CST 338 - Module 4

Give an example of polymorphism and what what be inherited between classes.
One example of polymorphism would be to have an “Animal” class. This class could contain such aspects as whether the animal is carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous, as well as how many legs it has. Then we could create a class called “Bear” which extends from the Animal class and it would set itself as omnivorous with 4 legs.


After the learning this week, can you identify the difference between Abstract classes and Interfaces?  Be specific.
Interfaces are a sort of empty shell filled with names for methods which will not be filled until later when the interface is used.
Abstract classes are actual classes and can have both method signatures and definitions inside, unlike interfaces which just lay out the signatures for methods.

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 
This week we spent some time discussing interfaces, inner classes, polymorphism, abstract classes, and UML design. It was quite interesting to learn about the flexibility afforded using techniques such as polymorphism where you could establish general guidelines for parent classes which could later be built upon as more and more specialized descendent classes were created. I also enjoyed learning about UML’s as they seem a clean-cut way too quickly grasp how a group of classes are interacting.

CST 338 - Module 3

What is the largest multi-dimensional array that you have used?
3

What is the largest that you think would be unwieldy and why?
If you use a vector to access the elements than my understanding is that it does not matter how many dimensions the array is.

What does inheritance do for your classes?  Have you used it in the past? How?
Inheritance makes it easier to write more generalized classes, with methods that will be useful to a variety of different, more specific classes. Yes, I have used inheritance in the past when working on projects similar to this week’s in simulating card games for example.

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 
This week’s project was quite fun. Working with my team we created three different classes, Card, Hand, and Deck, which simulated how playing cards would be used. It included methods for multiple decks, shuffling the decks, drawing cards, and more. Besides the project we also reviewed such topics as the enum type, class inheritance, and references. Overall there were a lot of different topics covered.

CST 338 - Module 2

OOP is not in all languages.  Have you used one that does not?

No I do not believe I have spent any significant amount of time with a non-OOP language.

What was your experience?

N/A

How extensively have you used OOP outside of the classroom?

I have used it a few times on personal projects, but not extensively.

Are you experience with UML diagrams and do they help?

I am somewhat familiar with UML diagrams, but I don’t know if I have enough experience to state one way or another.

This week was quite interesting. We have a large amount of reading to go over and that took a bit longer to finish than I anticipated. The casino game was fun to create with my teammates, and it will be interesting going forward to see what projects we will complete together.

CST 338 - Module 1

Have you used Eclipse before?
Yes I have used Eclipse in previous courses when working with C++.

What languages are you proficient in at this point?
I am proficient in Python and C++ thus far.

What is your desired field of Computer Science at this point?
Personally, I am interested in general software engineering and perhaps looking into video game development specifically.

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 

This week I took my first foray into Java. It seems interesting, and similar enough to C++ that it does not feel completely alien. I look forward to learning more about this language as the course progresses. Overall, I am enjoying the course and am highly anticipating the next few weeks of learning.

CST 205 Module 7

This class was overall quite enjoyable. We learned through hands on projects by manipulating and using pictures, sounds, and even some html, all while learning about the python programming language in the JES. Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the course was the group projects in which we learned through experience what it takes for a team to plan, execute and accomplish programming tasks. I believe the practice working with others programming is very applicable to a career in computer science, as it will be necessary to review and rewrite programs together with co-worker to achieve the desired results. To any future students who take this course, I would suggest that they keep on top of the workload, as the fast pace nature of the course can leave you feeling overwhelmed if you are not careful.

CST Module 6

This week we went over lists, dictionaries and working with files. It was interesting to study these and the projects we did were quite fun. We created a madlib, sorted through a txt file and an html file. I also got the chance to create my video for the lab presentation and I enjoyed the process of writing up and presenting my information.

CST 205 Module 5

This week was very interesting. Most of our efforts were devoted to working on the group project. It was interesting and fun to work on the project, a text based game, and I enjoyed the group aspect of it. Using the kobra editor was an interesting break from the JES environment for us to work together in and I am interested in learning about similar collaborative online editors. I’m still very glad I got such a good group of motivated individuals who work well together in the group.

CST 205 Module 4

This week we finished and submitted our Midterm projects. I worked on a CSUMBerize and a Spring themed photo filter. We also took an interesting look into audio files, and worked with .wav file to make our own new noise files. It was relatively simple to change the sequence, volume and even the order of the different audio files. It was also nice to get the opportunity to work in a subgroup with A this week, as we worked on labs 8 and 10 together. Lab 8 was more work in the audio department while lab 10 was creating a text-based hangman game using loops we went over.

CST 205 Module 3

This week we reviewed some interesting material. We began by taking our first foray into git and github, setting up accounts and going over the basics of the system. I look forward to using git more often as we collaborate more on larger projects in the future. I was able to work on creating a St. Patrick’s Day card for the holiday, and quite enjoyed working with the skills I’ve learned thus far in creating the card. We also spent time going over what we will be doing for our midterm project in this course. I plan on working on my CSUMB filter and a Spring themed filter for my project. Besides this we finished our peer and self reviews this week, which helped me to look at my limits and see where I can improve in the weeks ahead.

CST 205 Image Portfolio

Rose-colored glasses

The roseColoredGlasses function takes a picture, cycles through all the pixels and decreases that pixels green and blue values. The result is that the picture takes a pinkish tint as if looking through rose colored glass.

Before	After	Code

Negative

The makeNegative function takes the red, green and blue values and subtracts them from the max rgb value of 255 so that the color of each pixel is switched. The result is the creation of an image that looks like the negative of the original image.

Before	After	Code

Better black and white

The betterBnW function cycles through the pixels of a picture and balances the rgb values to get the luminance of each pixels. This value is then set to the individual rgb values of the target pixels resulting in a very clean black and white image.

Before	After	Code

Bottom-to-top mirror

The bottomToTop function takes an image and cycles through the bottom of the image. It then copies the color of each pixel and sets that color to the pixel opposite it on the top half of the image. This results in a mirroring of the image about the center.

Before	After	Code

Shrink

The shrink function takes an image and creates a blank image that is half the length and width of the original image. It then copies every other pixel from the original to the copy resulting in a shrunken copy of the original.

Before	After	Code

Collage

The collage allows you to choose images that will be modified using previously created functions and places these images throughout a page sized image.

Results	Code

Red-eye Reduction

The removeRedEyeFromPicture function cycles through the pixels in an image and compares the pixel to a few different red colors. If the color is close enough to the red we are looking for, the original pixels color is changed to black, thus fixing the red eye.

Before	After	Code

Color Art-i-fy

The artify function takes the pixels from an image and checks their individual rgb values. Depending on the original values, it will then set the pixels to either a low, medium, or high rgb value. This results in an artistic image in which the colors take on an intense appearance.

Before	After	Code

Green screen

The greenScreen function takes a front image and a background image. It then cycles through the front image and if the pixels is close to a green color, it does not copy that pixel onto the background image. If the pixel is not green however, then it will copy the pixel at the same location onto the background image, thus combining the two.

Before	After	Code

Homemade St. Patrick's Day

The stPatrickCard function takes three images, it first goes through the clover image and if the individual pixel is green, then it copies the pixel into the top right corner of the base image. After that it goes through the cat picture and if the individual pixel in the cat is not white copies the pixel into the bottom left of the base picture. After that the function writes a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” into the center of the image. The resulting card is written into the directory and displayed.

Card	Code

Line Drawing

For the lineDrawing program I used two functions, one to figure out and return the luminance of an individual pixel and the other to actually do the line drawing modification. After cycling through the pixels in the picture we check the pixel to the right and under the pixel we grabbed, we then use the luminance function to compare the luminance of the pixels and decide whether to make the pixel we are focused on black or white.One problem I faced while working on this function was to be sure and check if we had reached the greatest x or y value possible for the picture, otherwise we would be attempting to grab pixels that did not exist for comparison. If this occurred, I made the non-existent pixel point to the pixel we were currently looking at since there would be no difference in luminance.

Before	After	Code

CST 205 Module 2

This week we continued our work looking into photo manipulations with Python. It was quite interesting to create a variety of functions that would transform pictures in different ways, such as mirroring, shrinking, or rotating an image. I personally had quite a bit of fun going through the short lessons given on codecademy. These projects were simple and clear ways to understand Python’s syntax as well as programming concepts in general. We decided to switch our meeting days this week, from Thursdays to Mondays, so that we will have more time to actually work on our module’s coursework prior to our meetings. It was quite interesting to see the collages that were created by some of the other classmates, and the modifications to the various images were at times very amusing.

CST 205 Module 1

This week marked the first week of CST 205, our course in multimedia design using Python. It was interesting to take our first dive into Python programming by first working through a few of the Codecademy exercises available online. We learned about some basic Python syntax for creating functions and loops. Using these, we later worked on our group lab on a number of different problems relating to picture manipulation, such as increasing the red in a picture or making a picture into a negative of itself. Together we went through lab #3 and modified, improved, and clarified any problems we had in our programs. One of the highlights personally was the group photo that one of our teammates created for the Silicon Bay team featuring all of us as superheroes with an explosion going off behind us.

CST 300 Module 8

Part I:
Amazon Prime Air:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdgt_MPFU0&feature=youtu.be
I really enjoyed this presentation overall and felt that I learned quite a bit about the subject. I believe that the topic was covered well, and that it was particularly interesting to include information not only on Amazon’s service, but also similar competitor’s services like UPS. I had a little trouble keeping up with all the information presented during the “Concept of Operations Complexity” slide, but overall I really enjoyed the pacing and look of the presentation. It seems that the team put a good amount of research into their topic and worked well together to create this piece. The quality of the production was very nice, and it helped to keep me interested in the subject matter. Overall, their presentation was geared to a professional audience, and I believe that it provides a clear look at the innovation occurring in the drone delivery sector.

Virtual Reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkuoFz0YPrk&feature=youtu.be
I really enjoyed the virtual reality presentation by the Logistic Solutions team. It was engaging, fun, and informative. Their presentation seemed geared towards professionals, giving a decent overview of the virtual reality products and their applications. The topics discussed were clear, and the teamwork was evident in the creation of the presentation. The research quality seemed quite good, and they covered a wide variety of topics during the presentation. I do think their video presentation was interesting and engaging, and I believe that the team worked well to create a presentation they can be proud of.

Data Loss Prevention:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRlL9boscyg&feature=youtu.be
I found the data loss prevention presentation quite interesting. It definitely was geared towards professionals, and quite often delved into specifics of preventative measures for data loss. The quality of research seemed quite high, and the quality of presentation was good. I felt like perhaps more work could have been invested into the slides and ensuring they matched what the topic being discussed was. I also noticed that it seemed to cut off the speaker at the end of the video, and I am unsure what they were going to finish with. While the teamwork is evident, I also thought that the program was not extremely engaging, and sometimes I felt somewhat lost during the technical overviews.

Part II:

Personally I believe that we communicated relatively well for this project, and the course on a whole. With this project in particular the hardest part for collaboration was to have everyone submit their work in enough time for two of our teammates to create the slides and voiceovers. I enjoyed learning with my teammates, and I am very glad that I was placed in a good team. Overall, I enjoyed my first course at CSUMB. I learned a bit about ethics and the video game industry, and about how the future coursework will be structured. I am looking forward to my future courses.

CST 300 Module 7

On the final research video this week we seem to be collaborating well. The workload was divided up so that we each took a 2 minute slice from the total video and worked on adding that to the presentation. Using google docs to collaborate on our slides and scripts, we were able to easily add our parts and work together to edit and improve our parts of the projects. I personally worked on genetic engineering, and had a good time learning about the new methods for transformations.

In Anthony Goldbloom’s presentation, “The jobs we'll lose to machines -- and the ones we won’t”, he discussed how jobs will change in the near future with the advancement of machine automation. It was interesting how he started with the story of his young niece Yahli, pointing to how the job market will be severely different when she is in college from when even he was in college a generation before. He uses this thread as a way to delve into his discussion of how virtually any task that requires repeatable and measurable actions can be given to a computer that can be trained to perform these tasks. In the end he points to how Yahli will probably need to study areas which require novel task solving capabilities, something that machines are not as good as humans at, and suggests that these will be the areas where jobs will still remain even with automation.

Trevor Timm highlighted an interesting question in his presentation entitled “How free is our freedom of the press?” He begins his discussion by introducing us to a writer who discussed the unauthorized government surveillance. Apparently, in search of the whistleblower in the government who leaked this information, they looked though the writer’s emails, phone calls, bank records, and other information and eventually placed the blame on one Jeffrey Sterling. He points to tools that are now being created in order to bypass the ability of the government to find whistleblowers through their communications with the press. It was very interesting to see how he pointed to the importance of press freedom towards the end, and highlighted the need for these services by showcasing an instance where whistleblowers were severely prosecuted.

I particularly enjoyed the “Life After Death” presentation by Don McMillan. His use of humor to illustrate the “don’ts” of powerpoint presentation made the lessons memorable and fun to watch. The general point I gathered from his presentation is to avoid overuse of add-ons in powerpoint presentation. In other words we ought to be moderate in our use of animations, powerpoints and graphs, using them only when we need them and not constantly. The Toastmasters website had some interesting tips for presentations as well. They suggested that you should be prepared, confident, and conversational when delivering a speech. It was also important to maintain eye contact with members of the audience while avoiding insincere gestures.

CST 300 Module 6

I.
During our team meeting this week, we all discussed our ideas for possible capstone projects. It was really interesting to hear what ideas my teammates were considering, and to discuss the various aspects of their possible capstone projects. I enjoyed hearing some of the thoughts my team had on my ideas for possible capstones.

II.
We learned a lot from the career guides this week. In particular it was interesting to learn about the importance of networking and meeting more people in order to look for opportunities. Creating a future cover letter and resume was a nice task, and it gave me some insight into what exactly I should tailor my resume to look like. It was particularly interesting to take a look at the next course, CST 205. I enjoyed brushing up on Python and am looking forward to the course. I was able to review two of my peers’ ethics paper drafts, and found them both well on their way to completion. Both papers were fun to read, and I felt like I got a new perspective on some issues I was not fully aware of previously. This week we also discussed the three possible topics to submit for the final presentation project, and it looks like we will be discussing human enhancement for our project.

CST 300 Module 5

Part One: Support and Comment on Teammates' Goals

1. http://agotter.blogspot.com/2017/01/week-4-of-class-no-1.html

2. http://hmutwakil.blogspot.com/2017/01/week-4-cst300.html


Part Two: Possible Capstone Ideas:

I have always wanted to learn more about front-end development, and I think it might be interesting to provide a service to either an up and coming business or some sort of non-profit by creating a mobile and web app for them.

Working with robotics has always been interesting, and I think a project with that could be very engaging and rewarding.

Automation is also a very unique field, and writing programs that could do certain tasks autonomously, either on time tables or through certain “stimulations”, would be quite interesting.

Part Three: Keep Up With Your Learning Journal

This week we continued by learning about previous capstones and contemplating what we may do for our own capstone project. It was particularly interesting to learn about graduate school this week, and it is interesting to consider continuing my education in order to gain the knowledge and prestige that comes along with extra study. Another aspect that caught my attention was our reading on loaded words and, after reading about it, realizing how often they are used through our world in order to sway opinions. I continued my work on the Ethics Paper, and am enjoying the process of explaining and forming my argument. I submitted my progress report, in which I stated how overall I believe I am on track and plan to have a good draft by next week. It was also very nice to read up on my team mate’s goals, and I hope to aid them during our time together at CSUMB.