L13-Operating Systems

1. An operating system is a type of software.

True

2. Operating systems control the loading of software applications onto the computer.

True

3. All OSs offer user preferences allowing you to customize your computer.

True

4. An operating systems prioritizes the tasks that a CPU does.

True

5. The following devices have an OS: Apple iPod, Dell laptop computer, Nintendo Wii.

True

Job Shadowing

For my job shadowing I visited Tim Campbell at SAS. When I first arrived at SAS I was handed a visitors badge and a few minutes later I was greeted by Tim and he offered to buy me breakfast and for breakfast I had a bowl of grits. While we were eating our breakfast we talked about the AOIT program and football. After breakfast he gave me a tour of the basement which is where he works. After the tour we arrived to his office and he explained his employee benefits and he informed me on what I was going to do that day. After we talked he took me to one of the people who works for him who's name was Brian and I was with him for a couple hours. First he had to go repair a server that was not working correctly. We went into the database room and he showed me all the servers and other high tech things I didn't understand. The room was very weird because there was AC that was coming from the floor and then all the servers were hot so you had hot air coming from the sides and cold air coming from the bottom. It took him about ten minutes to do the repairment and after we finished we went to his office. There we were talking about college and how he just went to UNCW for the women which I thought was interesting. He then had a phone call and they were debating on whether to buy Dell products or Lenovo products. After the phone called occurred two others showed up in his office one was name Sanjay and the other guys name I couldn't remember. They then also debated about whether to buy Lenovo or Dell. Then the two other guys left and we went to another office where two people sat and Sanjay and Tim showed up and they were debating about Lenovo or Dell again. We then went back to his office and we talked about college and high school again. I then went to see a guy named John Noel and he looked like DJ Khaled. He went through what he did and I was extremely confused the entire time and I understood little to none about what he was talking about. He then talked about football with me which I was definitely not confused about. Tim then showed up after about 45 minutes and we went over to the Executive building to eat lunch with two other AOIT students Suvid and John Duffy. I got fresh made pizza for lunch and a lemon cake. The people John and Suvid were job shadowing were talking to Tim about business so we left with their premisson and sat with Jake who is also in AOIT who was job shadwoing a family friend. After lunch  we went to look at Dr. Goodnight's collection of rocks and we looked at a auditorium that looked like the UN headquarters. After lunch I went with these other two guys (one of them was in AOIT) to go put together a server and I watched them do that until I left. Overall I had a good time at SAS.
http://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html

Lesson 11-The Internet

What is the internet?
The internet is the largest wide area network in the world. The internet is made up of millions of smaller networks that all have the same protocols which allow them to communicate freely with each other. A big part of the internet is the world wide web which is sets of documents linked together by hyperlinks and URLs and sent using HTTP. On the internet a computer is either a server which is a computer or computer program that manages access to a central source or a client which is a desktop computer or workstation that can gather information and applications from a server. Back in December of 2011 there were more than two billion regular internet users.



What is a protocol?
Network protocols are rules for how computers in a network communicate with each other. Protocols control or enable the connection, communication, and they transfer data between two computing endpoints. The first network protocol was established on the ARPANET network in the year 1969 and by 1971 this system was being used for email. In 1983 a new set of protocols called TCP/IP became the standard that networks used to exchange data. Transmission Control Protocol uses a set of rules to exchange messages with other Internet points at the information packet level, and Internet Protocol uses a set of rules to send and receive messages at the Internet address level.


What is DNS?
Domain Name Service (DNS) looks up a host name and returns an IP address, or the other way around. When you type in a website the application has to go to a DNS server to find the IP address associate it with the website. Each part of the Internet has DNS servers, and each computer is configured to a specific DNS server. A DNS lookup means the DNS server has info about a limited number of host names and IP address. If it doesn’t have info about the requested domain it queries other DNS servers which are all linked in a network, and then they linked to a root server. 

Explain what an ISP is and what it does?
Data on the internet travel through internet service providers or ISP. They connect through the routers that interconnect the local area networks and the wide area networks on to the internet. As data travels it moves from router to router to reach its final destination. Trace-route is a utility that shows how data is routed throughout the internet. Computers are connected to the router the router that is connected to the cable modem which is than connected to the internet service provider which is finally connected to the internet. 

What is a PING and Firewall?
A ping is a utility that is used to check the connections to the network. The utility sends test packets over the internet and then it sees if the machine they are sent to gets them. Pinging a computer will tell you if your connection to the machine is functioning correctly. A firewall will protect you from threats you receive on the internet. Firewalls are either software or hardware based.


Connecting to the internet

The internet is just a group of individual networks communicating together so it is not networks liking to the internet. The smallest networks are the ones that individual internet users set up at their own households. Those networks are connected by their ISP. The ISP is then connected at a network access point to the other networks. Backbones and routers are responsible for moving data at the highest levels. Backbones are big fire optic cables and routers are responsible for moving data between networks and sections.

An ISP or an internet service provider helps individuals and companies connect to the internet,  Web hosting services help manage a website you chose to run. ISPs allow customers to choose the service that suits their needs. DSLs or digital subscriber lines are the most common type of connections for consumers. You can be connected trough telephone lines, cable TV lines, or other wiring.

There are many options to connect your computer to the internet but all of them are basically the same at the basic level. The most basic way is to get a modem and an ISP and plug the computer into the modem and turn it on. There are a lot more complicated ways like if you have a broadband connection. When you get a computer you can choose to connect internet wireless. Once your computer has connected to your ISP, your ISP will assign your computer its own IP address, the number that is used to identify it on the Internet.