5th entry

There is some debate on why Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering do not have a board exam just like other technical courses. The result of this is that there is no way for future employers of Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering to gage the difference in skill between the vast amount of graduates. This is a huge disadvantage for talented students looking for a job.

However, in class it was said that there are certain certification exams that students can take that can be used to tell how good a programmer really is. It was also said that it does not mean that if you pass the exam you are a good programmer. There are still average or even poor programmers that pass the exam.

So is it really worth it for the Department of Education to impose a board exam to all Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering graduates? Will this filter out the good programmers from the bad or will this just separate which students are good in taking exams from the bad exam takers but good programmers?

4th entry

I thought the topic about marketing strategies was quite interesting. I thought that knowing such marketing strategies will be useful in the future when I go buy not just computer hardware/software but other products too.

So is it safe to think that higher priced goods are better than lower priced ones? I think that this is not always the case. It was said in class that some companies price their products high to make people believe that their product is superior to others and of a higher quality. But in truth their products only costs less than half of what they charge to produce. Given that it is hard to know whether a highly priced product is indeed better.

I think that research and experience about the product is a good way to truly figure out if a certain product is worth it.

3rd entry

As we have discussed as technology gets better the price tag that comes along with it gets cheaper and cheaper. Also, the rate at which technology improves gets faster and faster. This phenomenon could be considered positive or negative. It is positive as this improvement advances our society more and more. However, for consumers, it is a headache to keep up with what is new, still OK or obsolete.

Whenever I buy something that is considered "techy" the question of whether or not to buy a certain product, a computer for example, at this time and at this price comes to mind. There is always this feeling that if I buy the computer now, in a few months what I have bought would be replaced by something better and would be much cheaper. Therefore, why would I want to buy something that will be old in a few months. I am probably not alone in this.

So what do people like me do to finally make up our minds and decide whether or not to buy. My answer is to specifically define what I am going to use that certain product for. This includes my current needs and potentially what I will need in the future. Also, how soon do I need to obtain this product. By answering these two questions I can pretty much make up my mind to whether buy the product now or wait a little and then buy its better version in the future.

2nd Entry

What I found very interesting in our last lecture was the possibility that Babbage was competent enough to finish his work back then. It is nice to imagine what our lives would be like if computers today was invented a century earlier.

If computers were invented a century earlier then the possibilities of what we could be using today is mind boggling. Innovation in the past decade or so has been so fast that it is easy to imagine that if Babbage finished his work that life today would be so much different.

Interesting as it may be to imagine what could have been the fact that Babbage was not competent enough to finish his work is so disappointing. We could have been so much more advanced today. It is also frustrating that during his time the government did not support him as much.

I just hope that governments around the world learn from this mistake and is not quick to dismiss arising technologies or theories. By being more vigilant in identifying what could be a great idea is extremely important as it can better our society exponentially in the future.

1st entry

I think that the practice of not quickly adopting new technologies should not only be practiced by business/corporations but also by individual users as well. By doing this, a person can save money and avoid the headache if the new technology fails to meet the functionality that it is supposed to do. I say this because over time I noticed that most new technology is filled with bugs when it first comes out.

In class I gave the example that when Microsoft XP first came out it was filled with bugs and was eventually fixed to make it run smoothly. This same issue happened again when they released Windows Vista. This makes me believe that the practice of not adopting new technologies right away is a good practice because consumers that automatically bought and installed Vista are now having problems with it and probably having to do a lot to keep their systems running the way they want it. I also think that this practice doesn't just apply to software but to hardware too. I bought an mp3 player once that had a very difficult user interface.

All this combined makes me believe that the conservative approach when it comes to new technologies is a good rule of thumb.