Class Instructions Feb. 3rd

Finish your OS presentation

or

Finish your OSI Model presentation.

Chris F. and Chris B., take everything under the tables (computers and monitors) and stack it neatly against the wall in the hall between our door and the corner of the hall where it turns toward the bathrooms. Please: neatly and safely, so nothing can fall over on anybody. Leave the Epson printer in the room on a back table. Thanks.

What to do May 30th

I have to be over at New Tech High because I’m giving two student awards at the annual awards ceremony. So, please check which Xubuntu installations are complete from yesterday and try to add Xubuntu to more of the iPaqs. If you move the CD-ROM drives from iPaq to iPaq, please be sure that the computers are off when you remove them or snap them in. Also be sure they are in tight with a Xubuntu disk in them.

For some reason, installations go well on some iPaqs and not on others. Just do your best and restart the installation if it fails. Sometimes they work okay on the second try.

Remember to choose English, then Install Xubuntu. Also, choose Tijuana for the time zone and USA for the keyboard layout.

Remember to prepare the disk with Manual setting. Be sure to choose top setting and “Edit Partition Table.” With the free space make a ext3 partition with a “/” mount point, but save about 512 MB or more for another partition as “swap area,” which has no mount point.

Then continue with the installation. Name the computer xubuntu (no caps) and use xubuntu for the password. The final user name with be xubuntu, with the computer name xubuntu-desktop.

I’m asking Jean, Zak, Rikki, and Ralph to help be leaders. Please follow their instructions. Everybody else who isn’t installing Xubuntu, be good and quiet.

Good luck and be good to the sub.

Today’s assignment with a substitute

While I’m away today, I want you to write a 200-word report on streaming audio in general and Pandora.com in particular. Here are the instructions:

1. Post this on your 21classes.com blog as a new entry.
2. First, explain what streaming audio on the Internet is and how it works. Do this by researching on the Internet.
3. Then, give me the history and origin of Pandora, the Internet radio station. Also explain how it works, and explain what the Music Genome Project is.
4. Make sure that the report is at least 200 words.

If you finish early, work on your “Creating a LAN” assignment that the substitute teacher gave you on Tuesday.

Do a good job. I want a good report from the sub. Thanks.

Please write about Creating a LAN with Internet Connection

Your assignment is to make a new entry on your 21classes.com blog about “Creating a LAN with Internet Connection.” Please explain all steps and all equipment needed to put together a working network.

We’ve done it before more than once. You should be able to write this from memory. Work together quietly to help each other. Use the Internet for research.

Don’t forget to include:

1. All the hardware needed.
2. The network configuration needed to be done in Windows.

This is part of your final. It counts towards your final grade.

Be very good to your substitute and do your work. Thank you.

Networking tasks

1. Make sure all computers are on the network.

2. Choose someone to go to the master computer (near Mr. Ross). Have him create a new folder on the root drive (C:\) called User Share.

3. * That folder should be shared on the network.

4. * Each person in the class must create a sub-folder in the User Share folder on the master computer, naming it using their first name. Then share it on the network. Question: Can you do it from your own computer by logging on remotely?

5. * Each student then returns to their own network computer. Map a network drive using your folder on the master computer. Agree to use drive letters from E to Z, based on your last names’ initial letter.

6. Attach the HP LaserJet 5n to Joey’s computer. Install it on Joey’s computer. Then take steps to install it on every computer on the network. Print a test page from each computer and show it to Mr. Ross.

7. Share the HP 2000C on the network (if it isn’t already), and then install it on all the network computers. Print a test page from each computer and show it to Mr. Ross.

Assembling a Computer

Here’s Jonathan and Josh, captured by Mike:

Hope this works…

What are the top ten most important computer buses?

Post your answers as a comment, by teams, not individuals, please.

Once you’ve all posted, we’ll discuss and then use the answers to help organize your “Get on the Computer Bus” project.

“Visualize the Computer, Inside and Out” — Part Two, the Presentation

After Tuesday, I will assess how well you performed on the research end of the project. Then Part Two begins: A PowerPoint Presentation recreating in words and graphics all the components of a IBM-PC as we've studied them this year. We've used the Hewlett-Packard Vectra VL as our current study computer, but any of the computers we've taken apart can be used as examples, since they all basically use the same components.

Here's the breakdown of my expectations for your PowerPoint presentation:

1. Use your research to explain, slide by slide, in words and pictures, exactly what goes into each typical computer. You want to present this information part by part, as we've researched them. Describe, if you will, every part, what they do, and how they fit together to make a whole.
2. Include some history of "yesterday, today and tomorrow" that shows where computers came from and where they're going. You should concentrate on "Today," but computers are changing all the time and we should have an idea of their evolution and development.
3. Remember: PowerPoint presentations are best when the slides contain keywords, phrases and "headlines." We don't want to read from our slides but from a script or narrative we compose in the "Notes" section of PowerPoint, which can be printed separately.
4. Don't forget to include an accurate, complete Citations Page. Save your list of Web sites, and use EasyBib to help create your entries.
5. I've always said that effective graphics really improve presentations, but I've also explained that inappropriate graphics will lower your grade. Ones I've warned against or that are clearly inappropriate can get you an F on the spot. Do the right thing.

We will start working on the presentation Wednesday and continue on Thursday and Friday. When STAR testing is done, we may take a break and do lab work, but I hope to have the presentations begin around May 8th. So we'll be working on and off until we're finished. I'll give you a heads-up a few days before we need to start presenting. Remember: Early presenters get extra points for being ready early, as long as the presentation is actually ready for primetime.

“Visualize the Computer, Inside and Out” — Our Major 4th Q Project

I got us started creating a "3D" appreciation of how computers are put together as we canabalized our old HP Vetras. Now I want to focus the effort toward our final push to understand where computers have been, where they are now, and where they're going.

We've gotten an idea of where they've been by looking at the HP parts, and that will be handy knowledge. We're getting a good look at where they are now while we work on the Gateways and the iPaqs, which will take place in the lab. We're learning where computers are headed by building a "state-of-the art" box in our classroom from parts we ordered online.

So here is Part One of the Q4 project.

Research each of the major components of a computer, as found in the HP Vetra:

• Ethernet Card (Network Card) – 1 page
• Graphics Card (Video Card, Display Adapter, Video Graphics Adapter) – 1 page
• Sound Card – 1 page
• Daughterboard – 1/2 page
• Motherboard – 2 pages
• Microprocessor – 1 page
• Memory – 1 page
• Storage – 2 pages
  1. Hard drive
  2. Optical drives
  3. Floppy drive
• Case and power supply – 2 pages

Learn While You “Canabalize” the Old HPs

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we're going to take the old Hewlett-Packard computers apart and strip them of usable parts, and then throw out the power supplies, cases and old motherboards and such. We'll learn which parts can be safely thrown in a dumpster and which need to be saved for the computer recycling event that takes place every May. The Napa Valley College hosts a recycling event at that time and the NVUSD hauls away a lot of discarded gear.

We're going to take the old HPs apart and write one-page, double-spaced reports, one at a time over the next two or three weeks, about the following components:

1. Ethernet Card (NIC)
2. Video Card (video graphics adapter)
3. Sound Card
4. PCI and ISA slots
5. Microprocessor
6. SDRAM DIMMs (memory)
7. Motherboard
8. Daughterboard
9. Power Supply
10. Hard Drive
11. CD-ROM
12. Floppy Drive
13. Case

In writing about these items, we're going to review in depth the main components of the IBM-PC clone in order to understand their generic nature. That means we're going to be able to understand how we can buy those same components to make new computers based on the original IBM-PC model as it has evolved until this day. We'll also try to use many of these parts to create our own computers. Each class will build a "computer on a board" using parts stripped from old computers.