You have just entered room "cil102sidbury."
drjamessidbury: marianne what are you doing here :-)
drjamessidbury: As I hope you know your project was due at midnight last night
marix3anne: well i upgraded my aim, so hopefully i won't have any problems this time!
drjamessidbury: and the drop dead deadline is midnight tonight
drjamessidbury: I did some grading noonish today and I can tell you the following:
drjamessidbury: I have all four parts from the following people:
drjamessidbury: jesse
drjamessidbury: molly
drjamessidbury: paulina
drjamessidbury: marianne
drjamessidbury: I'm missing excel from Donald and Amy
drjamessidbury: and PowerPoint from them as well
BB uu GG 22 44: its on my web page isent it?
drjamessidbury: if you put stuff up after noon today I have not looked at it
borysboy: I still have to update my excel and power point so what you have isn't the finished version
drjamessidbury: OK, I'll check tomorrow morning if you remind me (e-mail)
rtzjm8: I had a quick question about the B project.
BB uu GG 22 44: I put my PowerPoint and Excel on last night under assignment one
drjamessidbury: Your "B" project is due on your Web site by midnight tonight
rtzjm8: Is it supposed to be a description of the capabilities of the software/computing tool? I am trying to finish it.
drjamessidbury: ask away Molly
drjamessidbury: Yes
rtzjm8: I was wondering do we have to include all the versions of that software/computing tool?
drjamessidbury: with perhaps a review or comparison with other similar products
drjamessidbury: what are you doing?
rtzjm8: iTunes
drjamessidbury: You should only include the most recent version (or the version that you're currently using)
drjamessidbury: if you're using a very old version you should explain why you didn't upgrade to a more modern one
rtzjm8: Ok, because there were many changes and the presentation was getting long
rtzjm8: I use the most updated version
BB uu GG 22 44: Dr.. sidbury I put my PowerPoint and Excel up on my website last night under assignments one did you not see it? because that is where it is...
drjamessidbury: OK, Don, I see yours now
drjamessidbury: I'll check it after class
drjamessidbury: Amy is yours in some strange place?
BB uu GG 22 44: okay thanks
rtzjm8: one more question for the B project
drjamessidbury: yes
amyo8x2: ahhhh. im in maine visiting my mother and i have suhc limited computer access
rtzjm8: should we cite every statement we make or just do a general list of sources
amyo8x2: io brought my laptop but its a project to come by internet
drjamessidbury: a general list is OK
rtzjm8: cool! Thanks!
drjamessidbury: if there are specific points then they can be cited but generally I'm relatively lax about this
rtzjm8: but general defs are ok not to specifically cite?
drjamessidbury: amplify?
drjamessidbury: for example you might typically look at wikipedia for any project to get general background and other places to search
drjamessidbury: and you don't need to cite those sources or dictionaries or general encyclopedias
rtzjm8: that's what I was wondering.
rtzjm8: Thanks!
drjamessidbury: if the work is done by you such as measuring temperatures or rainfall or doing a survey then you need to mention how you got the data but that's sufficient
drjamessidbury: any other questions?
drjamessidbury: any questions about lab?
drjamessidbury: OK I hear none so
drjamessidbury: ROLL CALL
rtzjm8: Molly Hritzo
PaulinaM2012: Paulina maida
amyo8x2: amy o'connell
marix3anne: marianne patterson
borysboy: Jesse Borys
BB uu GG 22 44: donald belcher
drjamessidbury: Let's finish up software
drjamessidbury: there are two topics
drjamessidbury: distribution (and creation)
drjamessidbury: and speed
drjamessidbury: since none of you will probably be software developers the info in the web site is sufficient
drjamessidbury: distribution and licencing covers how you get software and what you can do with it
drjamessidbury: first is proprietary
drjamessidbury: that's stuff you buy in the usual way more or less
drjamessidbury: like Word or PowerPoint or iTunes
drjamessidbury: even if it's free
rtzjm8: that's the license u have to agree to before you download/buy a piece of software right?
drjamessidbury: yes
drjamessidbury: EULA
drjamessidbury: end user license agreement
drjamessidbury: basically it says that the software isn't yours
drjamessidbury: it belongs to the guys that wrote it
drjamessidbury: you are buying the right to use it
drjamessidbury: so you can't give it away or sell it or ...
drjamessidbury: UNLESS THE LICENSE ALLOWS YOU TO DO THAT
rtzjm8: that's why there are so many anti-pirating laws
marix3anne: what license would let you do that?
amyo8x2: i was just going to ask that too
drjamessidbury: anybody that pirates software is a fool
rtzjm8: me too
drjamessidbury: because most of the copies available on line are filled with viruses
drjamessidbury: pirating by borrowing from a friend is safer but ethically equivalent to shop lifting
drjamessidbury: Well I have several software programs that allow me to give it away or sell it AS LONG AS I DELETE IT FROM MY COMPUTER
drjamessidbury: so if I'm tired of playing some game I can sell it to a friend
drjamessidbury: but if I keep it then that's against the EULA
drjamessidbury: probably
PaulinaM2012: who can monitor such actions?
drjamessidbury: there is also a web site that I mentioned a few days ago that gives away software (with the permission of the publisher) on a one day at a time basis
drjamessidbury: www.giveawayoftheday.com
drjamessidbury: monitoring can be done in several ways:
drjamessidbury: when a piece of software is installed it can be trained to "phone home" with info about where it is installed
drjamessidbury: also lots of software has to be activated
drjamessidbury: which means sending your serial number to the publisher to turn on the software
drjamessidbury: windows, office, photoshop, flash and a gazillion other programs are like that
drjamessidbury: and if you send in a serial number of a program that they've already activated then it wont activate for you
drjamessidbury: sometimes they set it up so that it will
drjamessidbury: typically when you activate it the activation sends in the MAC address of the network connection that you're using to send in the activation
drjamessidbury: that way if your computer crashes and you have to reinstall the program it will see that the code has already been used
drjamessidbury: but it's being reactivated on the same computer so that's probably OK
drjamessidbury: and several times my stuff has screwed up and I've had to call the manufacturer to get them to reactivate
drjamessidbury: they probably figure that a thief hasn't got the guts to call them about an installation:-D
amyo8x2: lol. probably not
rtzjm8: but you never know!
PaulinaM2012: i agree with molly
borysboy: idk some shop lifters get caught cuz they come back to the store to return the stuff they stole that wasn't working right
drjamessidbury: but if they catch you they'll throw the book at you
drjamessidbury: there are other licenses "open source" in which you get the software for "free" and you can sell it or do what you want with it
drjamessidbury: free has two meanings: no cost and no restrictions
drjamessidbury: no restrictions example "freedom of speech" doesn't mean that you don't have to pay to talk
drjamessidbury: it means that you are allowed to say pretty much anything you want with a few restrictions
drjamessidbury: fileZilla and KompoZer are open source
drjamessidbury: so you can sell the copies that you have or do other things with them
drjamessidbury: but there are some restrictions such as when you transfer them to others you must give them all the stuff
rtzjm8: How do the creators make money then?
drjamessidbury: details are on the web site and its links
drjamessidbury: some of them do it as a hobby
rtzjm8: interesting!
drjamessidbury: there is also shareware and freeware
drjamessidbury: shareware is software that you typically download and try out
drjamessidbury: after trying it out then you have to pay for it or remove it from your computer
drjamessidbury: Also for example I have a LARGE DVD collection and use a program called DVD Profiler to catalog my collection
drjamessidbury: it's no cost
drjamessidbury: but when you run the program it shows advertisements on your computer
rtzjm8: really?
drjamessidbury: lots of other programs like limewire and it's ilk put spyware on your computer to tell them where you're going on the web and then they sell that information to advertisers
drjamessidbury: anyhow DVDProfiler also has the option of paying for it and you get it without the ads and a few extra features such as high resolution scans of the covers
drjamessidbury: I paid for my copy simply because I thought that the program's authors deserved the money
drjamessidbury: they also have another program designed to allow you to put your collection on your PDA and it wont work without the paid version
rtzjm8: I agree
drjamessidbury: I have both since I've become tired of buying duplicate copies of DVDs when I see them in the store at rediculously low prices
drjamessidbury: And for those of us with macs there are a couple of organizations that bundle a bunch of shareware titles together for a rediculous amount of money and sell them as a group
drjamessidbury: I have purchased in the past 18 months or so about 2000 dollars worth of mac software (at retail prices) for about 200 dollars
amyo8x2: woww
drjamessidbury: some of the programs are worthless to me but others are worth the total amount that they cost me
borysboy: what's that website again?
drjamessidbury: for example for 50 dollars I bought about 500 dollars worth of programs about a year ago
drjamessidbury: one of them was a CSS editor which cost 50 dollars by itself and I use it all the time.
drjamessidbury: another one allowed me to copy stuff on my computer screen and make it into a video
amyo8x2: you mean with like pictures and that sort of thing?
drjamessidbury: so I could for example create a tutorial showing you how to use KompoZer and it would actually have my voice and show what the screen looked like while I was working on it
drjamessidbury: that program costs 75 dollars
drjamessidbury: videos not just pictures
amyo8x2: thats cool
drjamessidbury: so for 50 dollars I got 125 dollars worth of stuff that I use all the time plus a computer golf game and another game and a password managing program and lots of other stuff
drjamessidbury: If any of you are mac users (and I know that some of you are) and are interested, the next time one of those offers comes up I'll send you an invitation
drjamessidbury: just send me an e-mail requesting that I do so.
rtzjm8: I would definitely like that!
drjamessidbury: So far neither of the places that do that have abused the info from me (e-mail address etc)
borysboy: yea so would I
drjamessidbury: just e-mail me with a suitable e-mail address for the invitation. It doesn't have to be your U e-mail but it could be
drjamessidbury: OK lets go to how fast computers can run programs
drjamessidbury: The hard part of this is called "computational complexity"
drjamessidbury: this refers to how long a program takes to run
drjamessidbury: Consider the following example
drjamessidbury: you have a list of 1000 names to alphabetize
drjamessidbury: "obviously" that will take longer to do than to alphabetize 100 names
drjamessidbury: so computational complexity typically measures how long it takes to perform a task in terms of how much data needs to be manipulated.
drjamessidbury: it may not be obvious to you but eventhough a 1000 name list is 10x as long as a 100 name list, the time to alphabetize it is not 10x as long
drjamessidbury: it depends on the method needed to do the alphabetizing.
drjamessidbury: for reasonable but slow methods it may take 100x as long
drjamessidbury: for really good methods it may take 30x as long
drjamessidbury: we use the term ALGORITHM to describe the method used to perform a general task
drjamessidbury: and there may be different algorithms to perfom basically the same task
rtzjm8: does the user get to choose?
drjamessidbury: for example to look through a list of names for a particular name can be done in a variety of ways
drjamessidbury: Well the user sort of gets to choose
drjamessidbury: by that I mean if you're using a particular program then you're stuck with whatever algorithm the program uses
drjamessidbury: but you can choose what program you want to use
rtzjm8: ok
drjamessidbury: You may have some kind of address book on your computer and I may have a different one on mine
drjamessidbury: both of them can sort the items in the book by name or by zip or by area code or whatever
drjamessidbury: the algorithm that your program uses may be different from the one that my program uses
drjamessidbury: AND IT'S VERY LIKELY THAT NEITHER PROGRAM WILL TELL US WHAT METHOD IT'S USING
rtzjm8: because that's copyrighted material
drjamessidbury: well algorithms can't be copyrighted
rtzjm8: but the software they are contained in is
drjamessidbury: implementation of them can however
drjamessidbury: yes
drjamessidbury: they don't tell us because typically the user doesn't care
drjamessidbury: and often it really doens't matter
drjamessidbury: how many of you have an address book on your computer?
borysboy: I do but I don't use it
BB uu GG 22 44: YES
amyo8x2: not on my computer just in my email
rtzjm8: yes
amyo8x2: maybe i have one but ive never used it
drjamessidbury: the one in e-mail counts
amyo8x2: ok so yes. lol
rtzjm8: I don't use it though, just email
PaulinaM2012: idk
marix3anne: i dont
drjamessidbury: I have lots of names in mine
marix3anne: okay then i actually do have one in my email
drjamessidbury: and by that I mean maybe 100 entries
drjamessidbury: well the difference between algorithms for 100 entries on a modern fast computer may be the differece between 2 seconds and 5 seconds
drjamessidbury: and most of us don't rearrange our address books very often
drjamessidbury: If you're printing mailing labels to send inviations then zip code sorted is slightly cheaper so you might want to sort the addresses that way once in a while
drjamessidbury: so you spend an extra 5 seconds
drjamessidbury: no big deal
drjamessidbury: if you have 10000 names in your address book then the difference can mount up
drjamessidbury: maybe the difference there is 20 minutes
drjamessidbury: or even more
drjamessidbury: see the examples on the Web page for more details
drjamessidbury: anyhow we typically measure speed in terms of number of steps rather than in terms of number of seconds
drjamessidbury: that way we equalize everything out
drjamessidbury: if your computer looks through a list of names in 3 seconds and mine does it in 1 second the reason might be because my computer is faster than yours in general rather than because my program roolz and yours sux
PaulinaM2012: lol
amyo8x2: lolll
drjamessidbury: so typically we look for how many steps
drjamessidbury: and that's how we measure computational complexity
drjamessidbury: some algorithms are constant
drjamessidbury: this means that the number of steps doens't change regardless of the size
drjamessidbury: Quick tell me if the following numbers are odd or even
drjamessidbury: 5
PaulinaM2012: odd
drjamessidbury: 002384029384023804923840932804
rtzjm8: even
BB uu GG 22 44: even
borysboy: even
drjamessidbury: and it took about the same amount of time to do each
amyo8x2: even..
drjamessidbury: because you only had to look at the last digit
borysboy: same amount of steps
drjamessidbury: now how long will it take you to square each of the above numbers
rtzjm8: much longer
amyo8x2: as long as it takes me to punch it into a calculator lol
PaulinaM2012: the second will take much longer
drjamessidbury: for 5 it's easier than for 2384029384023804923840932804
drjamessidbury: in fact it took you longer to be sure that the second number was the same both times
drjamessidbury: on the other hand looking through a list is often a linear algorithm
drjamessidbury: to look through a list of 100 names to find a particular one will normally take about half as long as looking through a list of 200 names
drjamessidbury: not always because you may find the name at the beginning of the second list and near the end of the first list
drjamessidbury: but on average...
drjamessidbury: but if the list is in alphabetical order you can use the binary search to look through the list
drjamessidbury: in that case you look at the name in the middle of the list
drjamessidbury: if it's too early then you throw away the first part of the list and just concentrate on the last part of the list
drjamessidbury: and a binary search has complexity "log n" which means that the time is proportional to the logarithm of the length of the list
drjamessidbury: simply put to look through an alphabetized list of 200 names is almost as fast as looking through a list of 100 names because you look at the middle name in the 200 name list and (if it's not the one you're looking for) then what you have left is a list of 100 names
drjamessidbury: so it only takes one more step
drjamessidbury: other algorithms can be much more inefficient
drjamessidbury: see the traveling salesman problem or the chess problem on the web site for examples
drjamessidbury: Questions?
rtzjm8: nope
BB uu GG 22 44: no
PaulinaM2012: nope
amyo8x2: no..
borysboy: nope
marix3anne: no
drjamessidbury: OK hearing none lets take a break and come back to social issues. BUT FIRST
drjamessidbury: I'll probably ignore most of the items on the social issue list and attack Google after the break
drjamessidbury: go
amyo8x2: ok
marix3anne: k
PaulinaM2012: ok
BB uu GG 22 44: kkk
rtzjm8: k
drjamessidbury: OK let's begin
borysboy: k
PaulinaM2012: ok
drjamessidbury: How many of you have a gmail account?
rtzjm8: sure
rtzjm8: no
amyo8x2: i do
PaulinaM2012: no
borysboy: it's my main email
marix3anne: no
drjamessidbury: when you look at an e-mail message in gmail what do you notice?
borysboy: ads
drjamessidbury: I realize that the quesiton is vague
drjamessidbury: what kind of ads?
borysboy: based on my emails
borysboy: like the content of my emails
drjamessidbury: yes, ads that pertain to the contents of the mail
drjamessidbury: which means???
marix3anne: they screen your emails?!
borysboy: they are spying on me
rtzjm8: they are scanning your emails!?
borysboy: probably data mining
amyo8x2: im looking now. lol
drjamessidbury: google is screening your e-mail
amyo8x2: weird
drjamessidbury: I'm sure that it's data mining and not human intervention but it worries some people
drjamessidbury: It worries me
amyo8x2: do a lot of emails do that?
amyo8x2: yeah it kinda worries me too
rtzjm8: big brother
drjamessidbury: but I have two gmail accounts
BB uu GG 22 44: It's a good thing I don't have Gmail... lol
drjamessidbury: so I'm not quite paranoid enough
rtzjm8: me too!
drjamessidbury: how many of you have google toolbar in internet explorer (or safari or firefox for that matter)?
marix3anne: i do
rtzjm8: me
PaulinaM2012: i do
rtzjm8: but I don't use it
borysboy: I always get rid of it
rtzjm8: easier to just use google
borysboy: so many programs try to install it
amyo8x2: i dont have google toolbar i think its annoying
amyo8x2: yeah
borysboy: I hate all those toolbars
amyo8x2: me too
drjamessidbury: are all of you familiar with cookies?
drjamessidbury: strike that question
marix3anne: just from this class
amyo8x2: yeah
rtzjm8: yes
drjamessidbury: it was part of your assigned readings so you must be
drjamessidbury: With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking.
drjamessidbury: This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.
drjamessidbury: all of this comes from:
drjamessidbury: http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
PaulinaM2012: appropriate name
drjamessidbury: they save EVERYTHING
borysboy: wow I knew it spys on you but I didn't know it was that bad
rtzjm8: how do you remove the toolbar
amyo8x2: would that be in add/remove programs?
drjamessidbury: google it8-)
borysboy: lol
rtzjm8: lol
BB uu GG 22 44: Didn't google get in a lawsuit awhile back when the government that the government wanted to look at all the files that Google had because they were busting down on online porn or something?
drjamessidbury: yes
drjamessidbury: and google was one of the companies (maybe the only one) that refused to comply with the request
BB uu GG 22 44: exactly that's what I thought
drjamessidbury: so they aren't necessarily bad
drjamessidbury: but they are wearing grey hats
drjamessidbury: or at least very off white
drjamessidbury: they also routinely break copyright law
rtzjm8: how so?
borysboy: with that image search?
drjamessidbury: go to google right now and type in the search phrase Dr. Sidbury
rtzjm8: or the whole intellectual property thing?
drjamessidbury: notice that the first hit is my home page
amyo8x2: yeah
borysboy: yep
marix3anne: yes
rtzjm8: yeah
drjamessidbury: notice that at the bottom of that item is a link labeled cached
drjamessidbury: if you click on that it will bring up a copy of my home page from some time in the past
rtzjm8: oh my goodness! They know we use it!
drjamessidbury: by the byrne convention my page is copyrighted even though it's not registered
drjamessidbury: more about this next monday
rtzjm8: ok
drjamessidbury: so Google has taken my copyrighted material without my explicit written permission and made it available to you
borysboy: so they're not allowed to have a copy of your web page saved?
drjamessidbury: that's what the copyright law implies
drjamessidbury: well technically they can save a copy of the page
borysboy: wouldn't all archive sites be breaking copy writes then?
drjamessidbury: they just can't make it available to anyone
marix3anne: does facebook do the same thing?
marix3anne: because i get advertisements on that for like stuff relevant to my life
drjamessidbury: their is a flag that I can put on my page that tells search engines not to archive my page and they wont do it
marix3anne: like nursing education and stuff like that
drjamessidbury: BUT the technicality of the law is that it should be the case that for them to cache my page I should have to opt-in
drjamessidbury: I don't use facebook so I don't know
drjamessidbury: but I would suspect that they do
marix3anne: yeah it seems that way
drjamessidbury: I'd also guess that if you read the fine print in the agreement that you had to check in order to have a face book page that they covered their asses by making you allow them to do that
marix3anne: probably
drjamessidbury: Which means that s subpoena from a court could compel them to give up anything that they had
marix3anne: is it a good idea to read those things in their entirety or is that a waste of time?
drjamessidbury: and they would have to do it or suffer the consequences
drjamessidbury: Well you should glance through them
borysboy: you basically need a lawyer though to look over those agreements
marix3anne: yeah really
drjamessidbury: OTOH if you want to use a service or install Word or whatever, you have two choices:
drjamessidbury: agree to their statement or don't do what you want
drjamessidbury: I'm reasonably sure that despite their disclaimers that they could be sued for egregious practices
drjamessidbury: for example, if you signed an agreement with uh .... mcdonalds to hold them harmless when you ate their food that if they deliberately put poison in a big mac you could sue eventhough the agreement said that you wouldn't
drjamessidbury: anything else tonight?
rtzjm8: is the b project by midnight tonight?
drjamessidbury: yes
rtzjm8: I am fixing my project as we type
drjamessidbury: if you're local I'd appreciate it if you'd come to my office sometime next week to do a presentation of your project
drjamessidbury: if you need to bring stuff we may be able to do it in a classroom
rtzjm8: do we sign up for times on monday to "present" to you?
rtzjm8: on that day?
drjamessidbury: but you still need to have the powerpoint/word doc/whatever you did on your web site tonight
marix3anne: im not local, sorry
drjamessidbury: just let me know when you'd like to do it
rtzjm8: i'm not local
drjamessidbury: I suspect that there are probably not more than two or three of you who are conveniently around
amyo8x2: no im farfar away
drjamessidbury: If you want to to an online presentation you can e-mail me and we can set it up for after class next monday or sometime on Tuesday after I get back from golf or Wednesday
rtzjm8: me too!
rtzjm8: I will claim after class on monday in email tonight
drjamessidbury: but for online presentations it's more convenient for me to do it in my office where I have two monitors connected to my computer and can look at the ppt on one and IM with you on the other
drjamessidbury: fcfs
drjamessidbury: anything else?
drjamessidbury: going once
PaulinaM2012: may I come in on Monday morning? what time is good for you?
drjamessidbury: twice
drjamessidbury: what time do you want monday morning?
rtzjm8: no! Have a good night!
rtzjm8 has left the room.
BB uu GG 22 44: goodnight
amyo8x2: goodnight
borysboy: good night
amyo8x2 has left the room.
borysboy has left the room.
marix3anne: good night!
PaulinaM2012: anytime after 9am
marix3anne has left the room.