Computer Architecture-OS Activities

These are the activities that I completed for the Operating System activities:
Talk to a "Techie"-I called my brother who works in computers. He fixes, installs, and updates computers for companies and homes. He was forever a PC guy, until he bought a MacBook. What switched him to the other side? He says that Apple has a superior operating system, no viruses, and their computers come with far more than a PC does. The main reason that he likes PC is that it keeps him employed with all the problems it has. Most of the time he is re-writing hard drives. He said that only about one percent of his cases are for Macs and they are typically old models.

Use an alternative OS for regular daily tasks- For this activity, I borrowed my mother's PC laptop for the day. Let me start by telling you that I have forever been a Mac girl. Every school I attended had macs and we had one at home since my dad was in education. I have very little experience with PC's. So, I tried to switch for the day and tried Windows XP. At least I only had to do basic operations, because that was easy. It was not very organized to me. I felt like I took too many steps to get to a place. I am used to just going to my dock and launching an application. The other thing that I did not like was how plain the interface was. If anything, this activity confirmed why I continue to be a mac girl.

Learn 5 new features of your operating system- On my mac, I have OS X (10.5.8). I went into system preferences and learned about Spotlight, Parental Controls, Spaces, Universal Access, and Sharing. In spotlight, I learned that you can actually block spotlight from searching some applications and folders. Parental controls is great, because you can limit the amount of time a child spends on the computer, applications, and what they do on the internet. Nice for the future! Spaces is great because you can manage all of the windows that you have on your desktop without having to move them over and minimize them. You can adjust the rows and columns and how to switch between spaces. Universal Access allows you to change settings to help people with impairments. You can zoom in, add audible sounds, and change the display. This is helpful if I would ever have a student with special needs that needed an adjustment so that they could use a computer. Sharing is fun, but dangerous because you can make your computer open for others to share files with. I tried this out with my brother who lives in Colorado. He had some files that he wanted to share with me and I with him, so we went to the sharing function and shared our files!!

Pirates of Silicon Valley- There were a few things that stuck out for me in this movie. First of all, Steve Jobs was basically the voice behind Apple, but not the inventor. I was also amazed at what a difficult person he was. The movie portrayed Bill Gates as more of the calm, cool, collected guy, and I always thought the opposite. Second, it was interesting that both guys had "sidekicks" that were with then through out the process. Third, after watching the movie, I understand why PC and Mac are so different. Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were very different people. Steve being the holistic type and Bill Gates being more of a mathematical genius. However, the one similarity between them was their drive. They had to go through a lot and sacrifice to get where they are, but they were both very driven individuals. "Good artists copy, great artists steal." No wonder I am a mac girl; great name for a computer (LISA)!!