Technology and Information System

First class of Technology and Information System, I get lots of knowledge about the relationship between computer and end user, the Internet, the Web and others from this lecture. I learnt something new and this made me have more interest to learn more.

In chapter 1, I was get to know the different type of operating systems, components, the specification that have to observe when buying a computer and types of computer which included supercomputer, which is a high level performance computer that has processor and can perform billions and trillions of calculations or computations per second. I also know that SSD is better than HDD because SSD can process data faster and the components in SSD are not so easily broken like HHD.

In chapter 2, I learned the differences between Web and Internet, Web is our browser or multimedia interface that can access to resources that available on Internet while Internet is physical network that connect small network and computers all over the world. But I am a bit confusing about Internet Service Provider (ISP), I think they are maybe Digi, Umobile or Wi-Fi? I also learned about Plug-Ins such ad Acrobat Reader, Flash Player and others.

At the end of the lecture, sir also briefed us about the group assignment regarding prototype, It sounds fun and I hope I can do well in the group assignment. Our group decided to do about e-commerce for the prototype assignment and I can't wait to start the group assignment! For the overall, the class was quite fun and I really enjoyed the class.

This is my second lesson for Technology and Information System. Like the first class, I still learned many new knowledge from the lesson and my classmates. For this week, sir go through wuth us about chapter 3 and chapter 4 because this 2 chapters are quite familiar for us. It is more to the technologies that will be used in daily life.

Chapter 3 was about the basic applicant software to deal with datas such as Microsoft Words, Excel, Google spredsheet and others. Besides that, there are also specialized application that focus more at specialized specific disciplines such as graphic and web authoring programs.

Chapter 4 is more on operating systems for gadgets such as smart phones, smart watches and computers. The operating systems that are well-known for smartphones or tablets are IOS and Anroid, while operating system for computers and laptops are Mac, Windows, Linux and Unix. Sir actually gave an idea on how the operating systems are actually downloaded in our gadgets, some of my classmates actually had amazing experience to download the operating systems to their gadgets by their own and I think that was cool!

After that, sir gave us time to prepare discussion on chapter 5 in our groups. We took about an hour to decide who took which part, how to do and when to do. I hope the discussion of my group can be carried out smoothly!

In this lecture, sir has covered Topic 6 (Input and Output) and Topic 7 (Second Storage). Chapter 6 was quite easy because input and output gadgets and machine was frequently used in our daily life. For example, input devices are keyboard, mouse, touch screen, gaming controllers, scanning devices, card reader and cameras while output devices are monitors, printers, audio devices such as headphones, and many more. Input devices translate our data to the form that system unit can process while output devices will display the processed data or infomation. 

In chapter 7, we learned about storage. There are two type of storage: primary and secondary. Primary storage is a volatile storage as it loses content when the computer turns off, so it is classified as temporary storage. Eg: RAM. Secondary storage is a non-volatile storage or also called as permanent storage which can permanently save information for future use regardless of power. They have physical materials to store data and programs, has larger capacity, and faster access speed. Eg: Hard disc. Hard disc will crash when its read-write head makes contact within hard disk surface or with particles like human hair, dust particle and fingerprint. This causes the data in the hard disc will to lost. But now, we have solid-state storage, a storage that has no moving part so that will not crash easily and is more faster than hard disc. Besides SSD, we also has Flash memory card and USB drives and optical disc to store information but optical disc is really used long ago. To store information and data, we can also use Cloud Storage which this service is a online storage. This is better because it is more easier to do maintenance , hardware upgrades and for file sharing and collaboration. But the access speed might be slower when more people access and the file security might not be safe as the hard discs. Eg: Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and others.

We had our quiz one for this course. The quiz has total 10 question and we have to done it within 15 minutes. I feel bad and terrible because I was not well-prepared and I know this is all my fault. I used too much of time focusing on other subject's assignment and this gave me a lesson. I should manage my time well and be fair to all the subjects. But I will try my best to score the next quiz and the tests. I will get myself ready for the coming test and quiz.

After that, sir taught us a little on Chapter 8, which is about communication and networks. We are quite familiar about the communication application because we used them frequently. For example, email, texting, video conferencing and electronic commerce. Communication system is a type of system that transmit data from one location to another. We have two type of communication channel: physical (use wire or cable) and wireless connection. Examples of physical connection are twisted pair cable, coaxial cable and fibre-optic cable. Wireless connection usually uses radio waves to communicate. Examples of wireless technology are bluetooth, Wi-Fi, microwave, satelite and many more.

We also learned about connection devices, which is devices that need to convert digital signals to analog signals. For example: modems. There are few types of modems, such as digital subsriber line (DSL), cable and wireless. I think most common modem used nowadays are wireless type. Sir also told us about the TCP/IP, which is the transmission control protocol/ Internet protocol. He teach us how to know and identify our IP address of our computer because every computer has their own IP address.
Then, we have an Industrial talk on Augmented Reality, which is given by Dr. Ruzimi, the founder of Ozel Sdn. Bhd at 9am. It was an amazing talk.

For today's lesson, we continue Chapter 8 and Chapter 9. Chapter 8, we continued at the "Networks". Networks is a communication system that connects two or more that connect two or more computers so they can exchange information and share resources.  There are 6 type of network:

-LAN (local area network that interconnects computers within a limited area)

-home (LAN that used for home or apartment)

-WLAN (a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form LAN within a limited area)

-PAN (personal area network is a computer network for interconnecting electronic devices within an individual person's workspace, such as smartphone and tablets)

-MAN (metropolitan area network is a computer network that interconnects users with computer resources in a geographic region of the size of a metropolitan area)

-WAN (wide area network is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area for the primary purpose of computer networking)

We also have several types of  network architecture, such as ring network, star network, tree network and mesh network. There are 3 type of commonly used technology for the network security, which are: Firewall, Instruction Detection System (IDS), Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Chapter 9 is about privacy, security and ethics. Privacy is the concerns of the collection and use of data about individuals. When people are browsing or surfing Internet, critical information are stored in History files (store the address of site that is recently visited), Browse cache (save files from visited website and offer quick redisplay when return to the site), Cookies (small data files that are stored on hard disk from web sites visited, third party cookies could track of your Internet activities). Hence, it is very important to block the cookies from other website. We can actually turning on the privacy mode when surfing Internet by turning on Incognito mode or privacy browser. Security involves protecting individuals or organizations from theft and danger such as illegal hackers. Hackers are very dangerous as they can imitate free Wi-Fi and receive the important messages such as password or username, they can also manipulate the data stored in the computer. Internet scams could happen if we are not aware of these things. Hence, we have the restricting access technology such as fingerprint and iris scanner, password and others. There are also ways to perform important security tasks. For example, we can download the security suites in computers, enhance firewalls, and use strong passwords and enable encryption.

Today we start our lecture right after the last industrial talk, which is industrial talk #7: Introduction to Data Visualization by Mr. Isma Redha. The talk was a short introduction on how to do data visualization on Microsoft BI and also some knowledge on the type of chart and data.

After the talk, we continue our lecture that covers chapter 10: Information System, and chapter 11: Database.

Chapter 10 is about the information system in an organization. There are 3 types of structure: 5 Fuctional Area, Management Levels, and Information flow. Functional Area is made up of Accounting, Marketing, Human Resources, Production, Research. Management levels is divided into 3 levels: Top management(long term planning), middle management (tactical planning) and supervisors (operation mananagement). There are four type of computer-based information system: Executive support system (ESS), Dicision support system (DSS), Management support system (MSS) and Transaction processing system (TPS). TPS is to record daily transaction for accounting, MIS produce standardized report, DSS analyse data while ESS is the s immediate access to a company's key performance indicators.

Chapter 11 talks about database. Data is made up of character, field, record, table and database. Primary key act as a unique identifier such as IC number, Student ID and others. Datas can be processed in two ways: batch processing (data is collected and process later at one time) and real time process (Data processed immediately).

Today's lecture covered the last two chapters: Chapter 12: Systems Analysis and Design and Chapter 13: Programming Languages.

In chapter 12, I learned about the system life cycle, the problem-solving procedure for examining and improving an information system. There are six phases in the procedure: Preliminary Investigation (determine the need of the system), System Analysis (Data collected and analyzed to determine the new requirements), Systems Design (Select and write a system design report and evaluate systems according to the economic feasibility, technical feasibility and operational feasibility), System Development (Acquire software and hardware, test new system), Systems Implementation (converts old system to the new system and train people to use the new system) and Systems Maintenance(includes systems audit and periodic evaluation). Prototyping alternatives to the system life cycle when the system is not feasible. Prototyping is building a model of the software.

Chapter 13 is about programming, the computer's procedure or list of instructions to process the data. There are six steps in the procedure: Program specification (Program analysis that involves objectives, desired outputs, input data, processing, document for the software design), Program design (Plan solution using structured programming techniques by Top-down design, pseudocode, flowcharts and logic structures), Program code (Code a program that produces the correct output), Program test (Debugging process), Program documentation (Describe the program to let others understand) and Program maintenance (to make sure program is efficient and error-free). There are five generations of programming languages: Machine languages(1st Gen), Assembly languages (2nd Gen), High-level procedural languages (3rd Gen), Task-oriented languages (4th Gen), and Problem and Constraint languages (5th Gen). The greater the generation, the easier people understand the programming language.

After finish covering chapter 12 and 13, sir had a short brief about the assignments and project with us. Sir then announce that next week(13/1/2022), we will had our quiz 2.

We had our quiz 2 for TIS subject today at 9.10 am to 9.25 am.

Ater the quiz, sir discuss with us on what and how to do assignment 4 (Data visualization using Microsoft BI) and also how to do project 2.

After the short briefing session, sir let us to sit in group and discuss about the project and assignment. I become more clear on what to do after the briefing session. Then, our group start to discuss on part distribution and what to do.

Today, sir show us our carry marks for quiz 1, quiz 2 and midterm test. After I calculated my carry marks, I feel nervous and scared because it was really low. Luckily, the carry marks have not added the marks for assignments and projects yet. Hence, I will try my best to get marks for the assignment and project so that I could maybe get an A- or B?