Project 1 – Information about Me and my Computer
This intention of this short note is to provide you with information about me, my educational and
career goals, why this course is important, my experience in the information technology field,
jobs I have had, my interests, and the computer hardware and software I use. Education never
stops and teaching provides the incentive to continue to learn. CIT 120 is a good breadth course
that attempts to keep students informed about information technology and since computers seem
to be a driving force in today’s economy and society, it is definitely a worthwhile course.
Teaching is my second career. After working at a single company for 33 years, I retired and
started teaching full time. So between my stint at Lucent and my years here at CLC, I have been
in the computer field for 48 years. My interests are varied including sports, grandkids,
woodworking and woodcarving, and technology.
One of the goals of a college education is to teach students how to learn throughout their life.
Since technology has made change the ever-present drive in the world, it means we will need to
continue to learn to stay up with change or get left behind with jobs requiring lower skill and
lower pay. When I was industry and because the company I worked for liked to stay at the
leading edge of technology, I was forced to continue learning more and more about computers
and how they interacted with our company business. Now that I teach, especially in the field of
information technology, I need to keep up with changes in the information technology field to
provide my students with current and meaningful knowledge about hardware, software, and
business. So my educational and career goals combine to drive me to provide an excellent
education in information technology for my students.
My current educational goals include improving my teaching techniques and acquiring
information about new techniques in programming, system analysis and design, web
programming, and networking. The latest craze in education is collaborative learning primarily
using Web 2.0 applications. This places the burden of learning on the student and changes the
role of the teacher to that of a facilitator rather than a lecturer. As my daughter is a doctor in a
small office, I am also interested in how computers have insinuated themselves into just about
every aspect of medicine. The medical information systems field will continue to grow for years
as health organizations meet federal standards, decrease costs, and improve communication
between the different entities involved in providing medical services for patients.
CIT 120 is an excellent course for supporting my educational and career goals. It is a breadth
course covering many aspects of computing while attempting to keep up to date with advances in
technology. So this course permits me to examine hardware, software, communication, system
and program development, and the impact these have on society. I enjoy this course because of
this breadth and its incentive to keep learning.
My first career contributed quite a bit of computer knowledge. I have programmed in
Assembler, Cobol, Fortran, PL/1, Pascal, Basic, Snobol, Spitbol, Awk, Icon, C, C++, and Visual
Basic. I have worked with database management systems since 1969 and was a member of the
American National Standards Institute's Database System Study Group. I was the Chairperson
for the IEEE Computer Society in Chicago and worked on several national conference
committees. My second career has helped expand my knowledge base about computers. The
computer field is constantly evolving introducing new programming languages such as Java,
JavaScript, C#, and Python. One of the problems with teaching computer courses involves the
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Project 1 – Information about Me and my Computer
constant modification to the course content as new languages, database management systems,
distributed processing, and layered architectures must be incorporated into the existing material.
Of course, it is this constant change that keeps my interest piqued.
I worked at Lucent Technology in my first career. My various positions included programming,
system analysis and design, system architecture, project leader, database administrator and
internal consultant. Most of the projects I worked on supported telephony systems but several of
the projects supported manufacturing, ordering, and warranty. A couple of the projects included
where our development team was responsible for every aspect of the information system
application while in the other projects our team had only a small portion of the overall
information system and we needed to incorporate our application into a much larger information
system. The best project I worked on was the Enhanced 911 system. Our team had full
responsibility for every aspect of the system except one. It was a small project using about 20
people to develop, implement, document and train. E911 has been sold to another company but
my brother-in-law is still involved with the product. Working at Lucent provided a broad
understanding of business as I developed systems for engineering, customer ordering and
support, manufacturing, field support, and products.
As I was still working at Lucent, I began to think that I would like to teach. To check whether
teaching would be a good profession for me, I taught part-time at the College of DuPage. I loved
teaching and determined that I would get a full-time position somewhere when I retired from my
programming career. I am in my sixteenth year of teaching full-time here and still enjoy the
challenge of teaching and the chance to develop new courses. I figure I have about 5 to 10 more
years of teaching in me.
My wife complains that I spend too much of my time on teaching but I do have other interests.
Besides acquiring new knowledge about the computing fields, I enjoy gardening, photography,
woodworking, and woodcarving. I am not an expert in any of these fields but I am continually
learning more about them. My kids and their families keep me busy as well. Unfortunately, they
have now moved further away from my wife and me so I really do enjoy the time when we are
able to get together. My exercise consists of playing volleyball every Wednesday night at the
Advanced Power Volleyball class here on campus when they are conducting the class.
I develop most of the course material on my computers at home. My primary computer uses an
Intel core i7-4820K processor, a SSD, and a high end video card. My secondary computer uses
an Intel core i7-3770K processor. Both processors have been overclocked. I do have four
computers in my home office area – my primary and secondary computers described below, my
wife’s previous laptop running Win XP Pro, and my wife’s new laptop running Windows 7 Pro.
Besides that I have a Windows 8.1 Pro tablet, an Android tablet, and an iPod Touch. You might
say I have too much technology.
The sample information below is from two computers in my house, not one of the lab computers.
This is done purposely to eliminate students copying the information from the first column below
to your document as the information about the lab computer. So please do not copy it and send
it in with your submission. You will receive a zero for Project 1.
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Hardware and Software Information List
Information about the lab
computer done during
class
Information about your
computer
Desktop
Desktop
OS Name
Windows 7 Professional
Windows 8.1 Enterprise
OS Version
6.1.7601 Service Pack 1
Build 7601
6.3.9600 Build 9600
JOHN-OC
JOHN4820
Requested Information
Type of computer: Desktop, allin-one, laptop or notebook,
netbook, tablet, etc
System Name
Processor - Intel/AMD dualcore/quad-core
Total physical memory
Total virtual memory
Drive letter, type of drive,
capacity, free space, filesystem
Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.50 Intel Core i7-4820K @ 3.70
GHz, 4 cores, 8 logical
GHz, 4 cores, 8 logical
processors
processors
8 GB
16 GB
15.9 GB
31.9 GB
HD - C: NTFS - 99GB /
29GB,
SSD - C: NTFS - 223 GB /
103 GB
Drive letter, type of drive,
capacity, free space, filesystem
HD – D: NTFS – 931 GB / USB3.0 HD – F: NTFS – 698
806 GB
GB / 383 GB
Drive letter, type of drive,
capacity, free space, filesystem
eSATA HD – G: NTFS –
465 GB / 171 GB
NAS HD – W: NTFS
\\NASDRV\My Book
Drive letter, type of drive,
capacity, free space, filesystem
NAS HD – W: NTFS
\\NASDRV\My Book
BD-RW/DVD-RW – D:
Drive letter, type of drive,
capacity, free space, filesystem
DVD-RW – E:
Drive letter, type of drive,
capacity, free space, filesystem
Software: CloneDrive –
DVD-RW – F:
Front – 2 USB3.0,
microphone, headset
Number of connectors and types
--------of connectors on your system box
Back – 4 USB2.0, 4
or case
USB3.0, 1 PS/2, 1 D-Sub, 1
DVI-D, 1 HDMI,1 RJ-45, 1
S.PDIF Out, 5 audio jacks
Type of monitor: CRT or flatpanel
Size of monitor measured
diagonally in inches
Screen resolution
John R. North
Front – 2 USB3.0, 2 USB2.0,
microphone, headset
---------Back – 8 USB2.0, 2 USB3.0,
2 eSATA, 1 PS/2, 1 RJ-45, 1
optical S.PDIF Out, 1 coaxial
S.PDIF Out, 6 audio jacks
2 LCD
2 LCD
24”
21”
25”
21.5”
1920x1080
2560x1080
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Project 1 – Information about Me and my Computer
1600xx1200
1920x1080
AMD Radeon HD 7700
AMD Radeon HD 7900
None
Blank
Monitor – 45 minutes
Sleep - never
Monitor – 1 hour
Sleep – 3 hours
Mouse – shared via MS
software: Mouse without
Borders
Mouse – shared via MS
software: Mouse without
Borders
2
2
Scroll wheel - vertical and/or
horizontal scrolling
Vertical
vertical
Wired or wireless mouse
connection
Wireless
wireless
Number of keys on keyboard
104 + 11
104 + 11
Straight – shared via MS
software: Mouse without
Borders
Straight – shared via MS
software: Mouse without
Borders
Wireless
wireless
Networked Inkjet
Networked Inkjet
4 – Black, cyan, magneta,
yellow
4 – Black, cyan, magneta,
yellow
No
No
Name of Internet Service Provider
Mediacom
Medicom
Download speed/upload speed
19.71 / 2.71
24.01 / 2.28
Wired or wireless connection to
this computer
Wired
Wired
Home network – wired, wireless,
both – or how are all the other
computers in your home network
connected
1900AC router – wireless
and wired
1900AC router – wireless and
wired
USB2.0 hub, 2 speakers
USB2.0 hub, Wacom Bamboo
graphics tablet, Logitech
Webcam, 2 speakers
Word 2013 – 15.0.4675.11
Word 2013 – 15.0.4675.11
Video card or display adapter
name
Screen saver used
Energy saving settings for display
and drives
Type of pointing device
Number of buttons used by
pointing device
Straight-across or U-shaped layout
Wired or wireless keyboard
connection
Type of printer: inkjet, laserjet,
dot-matrix
Type and number of ink supplies
Printer photo capable
Other devices such as webcam,
speakers, hubs, graphic tablets
Version of MS Word
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Project 1 – Information about Me and my Computer
Name and version of Virus
protection package
AVG 2015 Free Edition
2015.0.5577
AVG 2015 Free Edition
2015.0.5577
Preferred web browser and
version of this browser
Firefox - 32.0.3
Chrome – 39.0.2171.95
Visual Studio 2012
Version – 11.0.50727.1
Visual Studio 2013
Version – 12.0.30501.00
Update 2
Name and version of one other
application on your computer
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