Computer Science Stuff

2008 has been a year of bad relationships and shady moves. Is it because of the economy? Who knows but what we do know is that during this year Apple and Google pulled some interesting moves against companies that really didn’t deserve it.

Apple created the iphone which grabbed a huge market of the cell phone market and has some of the most amazing features on it. Since Apple created the Iphone and it is mandatory to get a data plan with the phone and works magnificently with the internet guess what they forgot to put on there? FLASH!!! Oh and how can I forgot Java, the people and over at Sun haven’t really made a big of fuss as Adobe mainly because Adobe  exists on 98% of the websites on the internet.  Even though this is wrong we have to identify why they did it. Iphone is a platform which gives developers the chance to develop their own applications without anyone else stealing their thunder through other means. Now if Apple allows Flash and Java to make its way to the Iphone it will divide the Iphone market causing Apple to lose control of the application development of the Iphone which could open a whole new realm of possibilites. In Apple case it is understandable why they made such a move.

Google on the other made a move in which I understand and don’t understand. Google has been supporting Mozilla Firefox, which is the leading open source browser today which rivals the almighty internet explorer. After a number of years of a good relationship Google ups and decides to create a internet browser called Google Chrome which would take away from the market share of Firefox and still support Firefox in which I don’t understand. What I do understand is that Google is a power hungry company that wishes to control everything information wise. They wish control internet advertising, search engines, information in books and even user generated content because of their thirst for power.  We even see it evident when they bought youtube and doubleclick. They are also planning to create and distribute an operating system to further this goal.  Due to this urge of theirs they will sour any relationship to further the greater good of Google.

If you feel any different I challenge you to write a comment.

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I want to thank the readers for constantly visiting compscistuff.com and helping our website skyrocket over 14,000,000 websites!!!!!!!!! Just for helping our website get to this level I will unveil our keys to success.

Search Engine Optimization – by using these techniques it will bring your website a long way google alone brought 300 people to our website each month.

Fast loading times – by using gzip and picture compression techniques this allowed our website to load up in considerable amount of time on just about any internet connection.

Search Engine Submission – by submitting our website to yahoo, google and msn live it allowed regular internet users to explore our page without any knowledge of our page.

25 articles – by writing 25 articles on computer technology that readers are normally attracted to it appealed to an already large market of people out there.

Giving free information that generates money or saves money – Giving out free information to strictly benefit people always grasps people attention.

Using a wordpress – wordpress is a beautiful content management system for managing information in your blog and contains several extensions that can take your page a long way!

Passion – Always writing about your passion always produces results. So no matter what it is always follow your passion and pursue what makes you happy!

A note from M.E. Conwell – As the co-writer on this site I too would like to thank all of you, our valued readers, for helping Mike and I make Compscistuff what it is today. Now we want to hear from you our readers on what it is that we can do to make this site even better. We want to know what it is you like or dislike about the site or what you would like to see added to the site. This feedback would be greatly appreciated and will help us take Compscistuff to the next level. Mike an I are committed to making Compscistuff as helpful and useful as possible so be on the look out for more great articles and a few surprised in 2009.

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Lately, times have been getting kind of hard for the American economy and even the world’s economy for that matter. When times like this occur and you still need to carry out tasks and buy essential elements where do you turn? Well one web application I have turned to is Retail Me Not. Retail Me Not is a web application in which you input a particular website such as a shopping website, computer website, jewelry website, etc. and it will return coupons or codes that will give you discounts. One feature I particularly like about this website is the percentage in which each individual code work. So check it out when you get the chance it has all the major stores and online businesses and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

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Ever since one of my friends saw the iron man movie they have ever been so fascinated with his house causing him to accelerate on one of his projects of building an operating system. Reason being he one day wants a house with its own Linux base operating system to obey all of his commands. So he calls me up one day ask me how does he get started?

I have personally never built an operating system and did some researching and found a voluminous amount of resources. But the best place to  start is at this website http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/. They have a manual which is downloadable on the website that caters to:

LFS teaches people how a Linux system works internally
Building LFS teaches you about all that makes Linux tick, how things work together and depend on each other. And most importantly, how to customize it to your own tastes and needs.

Building LFS produces a very compact Linux system
When you install a regular distribution, you often end up installing a lot of programs that you would probably never use. They’re just sitting there taking up (precious) disk space. It’s not hard to get an LFS system installed under 100 MB. Does that still sound like a lot? A few of us have been working on creating a very small embedded LFS system. We installed a system that was just enough to run the Apache web server; total disk space usage was approximately 8 MB. With further stripping, that can be brought down to 5 MB or less. Try that with a regular distribution.

LFS is extremely flexible
Building LFS could be compared to a finished house. LFS will give you the skeleton of a house, but it’s up to you to install plumbing, electrical outlets, kitchen, bath, wallpaper, etc. You have the ability to turn it into whatever type of system you need it to be, customized completely for you.

LFS offers you added security
You will compile the entire system from source, thus allowing you to audit everything, if you wish to do so, and apply all the security patches you want or need to apply. You don’t have to wait for someone else to provide a new binary package that (hopefully) fixes a security hole. Often, you never truly know whether a security hole is fixed or not unless you do it yourself.

Another tool that will help with you building your operating system is using a virtual machine. This tool also you run multiple operating systems under one environment  you can download the tools for from http://www.vmware.com/ and http://www.virtualbox.org/ (This one runs faster in my opinion).  Also before I set you free on your journey to building an operating system there are some things you might want to take into consideration:

1. Remember this is an operating system which controls your hardware, so it best you test if on spare computer first!
2. Select the main architecture you wish to build it for and go the developer section on their website.
3. Always keep backups of your work
4. Focus on booting it up first and security then you can move onto the cool stuff
5. Have fun!!!

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There are times when you will work with individuals who you my not agree with, think a certain kind a way about, or plan just don’t like. Yet, you will still need to work side by side with these individuals on a day to day basis. Trust me no matter where you work or how much you love your job there is a good chance that you will encounter such a person. An individual like that can get to you and could cause you to lose focus if you let them and in the extreme case, where you might really hull of and slap them, could get you fired. Now I touched on this point a little in a previous article, So how much do I ask for when getting a new job? Part 2 , but now I want to go into some preventive measures to keep tension in an office low and decrease the chance of a confrontation.

My first point is to remember to conduct yourself professionally at all times when in the work place or representing your employer. Now this point should go without saying, but I feel the need to bring it up because forgetting this rule is the first step to what could become an unfortunate situation. My next point is, do not alienate yourselves from individuals that you do not care for because you need to work with them on a daily basis. I don’t mean seek them out or be “buddy buddy” with them, but don’t go out your way to not have any kind of contact or work with them. Merely keep it a professional relationship where the two of you deal with each other for work purposes only and are cordial at all time. To conduct yourself in the opposite manner could be noticed by other in your office and may be a bad reflection on you come promotion or rise time. Point three is not to follow the crowd, just because others in your office may act in a negative way towards and individual doesn’t mean you need to go along with it. Treating all individuals in the office cordially including the ones you may not have the best relationship with goes a long way and will speak volumes of your character. My forth and final point for this article is if you have an issue with an individual in the office, pull them out of the office to a neutral setting and talk out your issues when it occurs. Do not attempt to do this at the other person’s desk or in the office where other employees may see what’s going on because that can leads to rumors and other issues. Also if there come a point in the discussion when either you or the other individual are being unreasonable or becoming belligerent, then it is best to remove yourself from the discussion and take the issue up with management.

Following these four simple tips could go a long way toward reducing the amount of tension in an office between other individuals and yourself and reduce your chances of having an altercation. Remember you are in a professional setting not high school, so please act like it. These tips will also show people that you are professional individual who carries yourself in a cretin manner that others will pick up on and acknowledge. If you have any questions or would like advice on how to handle as situation in you office, you can contact me at me_conwell@compscistuff.com and I will do my best to get back in touch with you in a timely fashion.

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