Week 7 Clear: Software in Flux

This week's material was so jam packed full of good stuff it is hard to contain and will probably be hard to retain! We began with Open Source Software (OSS) and learned about the many types, the benefits, and the essentials. It appears that there are so many benefits to using OSS such as: great quality, high reliability, great flexibility, low associated costs, and an end to predatory vendor lock in. Also the access to the source code gives it a great advantage over commercial software as there is the ability to fix bugs yourself, modify behavior of the program, and add features.

Here is a brief history of Open Source Software!

Image Created by: (Mark Fidelman)  http://www.flickr.com/photos/fidelman/4523518468/

The Economics of Open Source Software
Learning how companies can afford to distribute this type of software was very interesting. I have used open source software applications in the past where they were given to me for free. Though most of the applications I got my hands on were of lower quality and I have not really kept using. But they were free, I now know why, as the companies either take donations (smaller companies that have this type of software for use) or they charge for support, which can get very pricey.

The Cloud
Another topic that was pretty clear to me was somewhat new to me, at least most of it was. When the new iPhone 4s came out, it was all about the "Cloud" and I was like what is this cloud stuff they are talking about? Is this something new? But after reading this material and watching the lectures I just found out it was basically the Internet, in a way. Personal cloud based computing, such as, Gmail, YouTube, and Spider Oak are just a few examples of this type of computing. So many of the services we currently use are cloud based and most of us don't really know it, or pay attention to it. Enterprise cloud based computing now, is a little different, there are monthly subscriptions, they are highly scalable, and you can write your own.

Cloud computing options seem infinite and are the way of the future, as it frees up disk space on your physical machines and is ever evolving. It also frees up IT staff and costs to focus your resources.

Virtualization
I can't lie...this week wasn't all clear! When it came to virtualization, it was like I got hit in the head and was left dazed and confused. It actually started out very confusing, but as I went on in the lectures and reading, it started to become more clear, though I know I am not ready to jump in to try doing this on any of machines at this time and probably not in the near future either.

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Week 6: Clear - Understanding Software

This week I watched lectures and did some reading on Understanding Software. Most of the information was clear and simple, while some of it seemed pretty intense and complicated. Learning and understanding the types of software was pretty easy, I seem to have a better understanding on the differences between System Software and Application Software. System Software, such as, Windows 7 and McAfee Antivirus are needed for the smooth functioning of a computer and it's peripheral devices. Application Software, such as, Microsoft Word and Quickbooks, help accomplish a specific purpose.

Probably the most interesting thing that I learned this week was about Version Numbers of software.
Version Numbers consist of :  Major # . Minor # . revision # . build #
So a version of an application may look like this.
Version: 1.6.4356.41199
This is actually the version of the Bing application that is running on my Blackberry.
Version 1 means that this is the first actual version created for my phone, then the 6 is the minor version number which means it has had 6 minor upgrades to fix bugs and to improve performance, the 4356 is basically how many times it has been tweaked to fix bugs, and the 41199 is how many times the developers have gone in just to check to make sure everything is still ok and secure.

This information was very important to me because when I see a new version of something I have the tenancy to want to upgrade as soon as it is released, but now knowing that the new versions could be full of bugs and such helped me to understand that I should probably wait a while to make sure everything, or most everything, is worked out before jumping in to something especially when there is a large investment involved.

The muddiest part of this week's lesson was about Writing Software, this seems so confusing, that I am turned off by it even though I am very interested in learning more about it, it just seems like too much to grasp! Hopefully it isn't, because I know I am going to have to learn more about it as the semester goes on!

Wish me luck!!

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