My Last Post

When first entering this community partnership for the Boys and Girls Club in the Tenderloin I already had an idea of how it was going to be working with them as I had volunteered for them previously at the Ernest Ingold location by Haight Street. Volunteering at this new location with a different, more technological motivation was a different dynamic. Working in the Tenderloin did sadden me a bit, as walking through this underprivileged area it’s distressing to realize that children have to grow up in a neighborhood, where on some streets crack-heads outnumber regular pedestrians and people are doing drugs openly on the street. It was disturbing to see that part of the B&G club (the section where we were volunteering) was located across from a gentleman’s club. After volunteering, I still have the same opinions about myself and my abilities; I enjoy volunteering and working with kids - I am going to continue my volunteering, but I’ll probably return to the Ernest and Ingold location because their schedule is a bit more flexible. I have learned through this experience that you don’t have to be interactive with the kids in order to help them (as we helped predominately by setting up software on the computers), but it is still my favorite part.

Ethics

When it comes to software where security is critical or the software plays a role of significance (life/death situations), then the software should be thoroughly tested as not doing so could lead to terrible repercussions. For instance, if computerized accounting system were to have bugs, people’s finances could be at risk; balances emptied out or information leaked. The money people use to pay the bills and buy groceries – gone.
What about situations where software does not play a life or death position, where no one will starve because there are a few bugs. Is it better to hold the release date until the software is debugged or is it better to release the software sooner and distribute patches later on? Many companies have chosen to go with the latter solution, but this could put the company’s reputation at risk. Just because several companies have chosen to this route, does not make it right. In most other industries a faulty product is unacceptable, why should software be any different? Companies should refrain from releasing buggy software and test their software properly and thoroughly, as it could harm future sales.

Community Partner

The Boys and Girls Club was first founded in Connecticut in 1860, now with over 4,000 locations nationwide as well as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands along with domestic and international military bases; over 4.8 million boys and girls have been served. They serve nine different communities in San Francisco. I currently volunteer at the center in the Tenderloin.
The Boys and Girls Club was established to provide a safe sheltered place for children in underprivileged communities. Their mission: "To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens."
This semester we do more technologically targeted volunteering than typical volunteers. We have set up a little mini tutoring session for the kids about how to use the computers, specifically the dangers and precautions to take on the internet. As B&G recently received new computers, we have installed software to maintain them against spyware; along with parental software to prevent inappropriate websites from appearing while the kids are on the internet. We have future plans of instructing the old kids how to use Microsoft Word and Powerpoint as it will be useful to them in school.

Writing Assignment

Everyone is at fault.

The Technician was supposed to know how to use the program, testing it and putting in the proper value.
The Programmer was supposed to debug the software adequately.
The Purchaser was supposed to be knowledgable of the software prior to making the purchase, perhaps check reviews of the software's performance. The purchaser could have asked for a trial run of the software, as many companies offer, to test it and make sure it was in working order.
The Software Company was supposed to make sure their products were working properly before putting it on the market for sale. Putting out faulty software could mar their reputation and name.
The Captain needs to have be in constantly updated and completely knowledgable as to the activites on the ship, including software being installed on it. He is supposed to keep in communication with the technician to make sure the software was running properly, tested before and after installation. Also, he is in charge of overseeing that everything on the ship is up to par, fitting the quality and standard required, from having a capable technician to having working software.


Roadblocks ahead

We had some difficulty in the beginning getting started with our service-learning project. The book notes it as "flexibility in the face of rapidly changing conditions", where we had to be flexible, as all our schedules conflicted, to find a time that would fit all our schedules to come in to meet and volunteer.

D-U-E process

Describe the situation
The community partner's schedule did not mesh well with ours.
The event coordinator was incredibly busy and was either unavailable or had to reschedule for many of the weeks we had planned on meeting.
My partner's and my schedule were also very tight, so that we were only available on Fridays.
Friday's is the community partner's slowest days, they do not open until 2pm and children do not start coming in until the hours of 3-4pm. This was later than the time we were hoping to volunteer, between the hours of noon-2pm.

Understand
There were schedule conflicts, which was frustrating when we were trying to meet with the community partner, but it was no one's fault. Everyone has things they need to get done. I understand that, as my schedule personally is pretty hectic and packed, I can identify with those whom have similar schedules.

Encourage Communication
Communication was essential. The volunteer coordinator, my partner and myself had to exchange e-mails for several weeks before we were finally able to meet. My partner and I also had to be flexible with our volunteer times, and agreed to come in between the hours of 3-5pm, later than we had hoped. My partner and I also have to keep up communication with each other, as on certain fridays either one of us may be unavailable due to prior engagements, so we have to notify each other and the community partner.

Everyone is at fault.

The Technician was supposed to know how to use the program, testing it and putting in the proper value.
The Programmer was supposed to debug the software adequately.
The Purchaser was supposed to be knowledgable of the software prior to making the purchase, perhaps check reviews of the software's performance.
The purchaser could have asked for a trial run of the software, as many companies offer, to test it and make sure it was in working order.
The Software Company was supposed to make sure their products were working properly before putting it on the market for sale. Putting out faulty software could mar their reputation and name.
The Captain needs to have be in constantly updated and completely knowledgable as to the activites on the ship, including software being installed on it. He is supposed to keep in communication with the technician to make sure the software was running properly, tested before and after installation. Also, he is in charge of overseeing that everything on the ship is up to par, fitting the quality and standard required, from having a capable technician to having working software.


Roadblocks ahead
We had some difficulty in the beginning getting started with our service-learning project. The book notes it as "flexibility in the face of rapidly changing conditions", where we had to be flexible, as all our schedules conflicted, to find a time that would fit all our schedules to come in to meet and volunteer.

D-U-E process
Describe the situation
The community partner's schedule did not mesh well with ours.The event coordinator was incredibly busy and was either unavailable or had to reschedule for many of the weeks we had planned on meeting.My partner's and my schedule were also very tight, so that we were only available on Fridays.Friday's is the community partner's slowest days, they do not open until 2pm and children do not start coming in until the hours of 3-4pm. This was later than the time we were hoping to volunteer, between the hours of noon-2pm.

Understand
There were schedule conflicts, which was frustrating when we were trying to meet with the community partner, but it was no one's fault. Everyone has things they need to get done. I understand that, as my schedule personally is pretty hectic and packed, I can identify with those whom have similar schedules.

Encourage Communication
Communication was essential. The volunteer coordinator, my partner and myself had to exchange e-mails for several weeks before we were finally able to meet. My partner and I also had to be flexible with our volunteer times, and agreed to come in between the hours of 3-5pm, later than we had hoped. My partner and I also have to keep up communication with each other, as on certain fridays either one of us may be unavailable due to prior engagements, so we have to notify each other and the community partner.

Digital Information

Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/) is a popular website that offers free media, such as music videos, movie and television clips, along with amateur video sharing. Youtube makes their revenue through advertisements that are placed throughout their pages, which is how many other high traffic websites seem to generate revenue such as myspace and facebook so that users may still use the websites free of charge.
The consumer has the freedom to share the video with others whether by posting the clip on other websites or emailing it. Users are also able to comment on the videos, posting their personal input as to what they thought of it and rate it, which sometimes turns out to be more interesting than the actual media itself.

Radio websites such as Yahoo! Music (http://new.music.yahoo.com/), offer free access to individual music videos that they can put together into a personalized playlist or listen to the radio online. They also make profit through advertisement but with additional placement besides just webpage ads, where an advertisement is played before a video, or played in between songs on the radio. In order to avoid the ads, have a larger range of radio stations and be able to skip through an unlimited number of songs while listening to the radio, users may pay a monthly subscription fee.
Consumers are able to pick playlists (songs they are interested in listening to) either by music genre or selecting individual songs. Similar to Youtube, users may embed the video on other websites, email the video and rate it. While listening to the radio, users may skip past 3 songs of their choice, but in order to skip through more, they have to join the monthly subscription.

Certain television websites such as NBC (http://www.nbc.com/) offer full version reruns to consumers via online. They too generate revenue through advertisements, similarly to the radio websites, they have ads plastered on their pages and a 30 second commercial plays while the video loads.
Consumers are able to view the reruns as if it were on dvd, going back or skipping forward certain parts (when skipping forward, a commercial comes on while the video loads). Unfortunately, we cannot skip forward, past the commercials. *joke*

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

What does Raymond mean by the 'cathedral' and the 'bazaar' style of software development?

A 'cathedral' style is based on a skilled individual or a small group privately developing software, without releasing it before it is completed and ready.
With 'bazaar' style, the software is released early and often and different approaches are taken by different people to develop the software; those submissions form a single stable system.

According to Raymond, what is necessary for a successful bazaar-style project?

A successful bazaar-style project starts with a base program that was written by the will of a skilled individual developer that understands certain key ideas like, it is better to start from a good partial solution from nothing and be ready to start over if needed. It is also important to treat your users like your co-developers as they are a good source of quick code-improvement and effective debugging. By releasing early and often, the new software and its updates can be 'tested' by your 'co-developers' and they can give you new feedback.

Do you think Raymond's characterization of these styles of development is accurate? Why or why not?

I think Raymond's characterization of these styles of development is accurate as with 'cathedral' style software development, which is closed source there is a small group of working togther towards a single direction while with 'bazaar' style of software development it is open source, where different people can input their various code for different improvements.

In your opinion, what sorts of projects tend to be successful open-source projects? What is it about them that causes this?

Projects that are not specialized and can be flexible are best for open-source projects. Developing software is also prime to be open source as being open source will help them penetrate the market; they are able to become established and gain a competitive edge, as users, 'co-developers', would feel empowered and a sense of ownership from the resulting product.

In your opinion, what sorts of projects are better suited for commercial development? Why is this?

Projects that are complicated and specialized like Photoshop or many games would be very difficult to complete through open-source projects. Projects may also have a certain reputation and standard which must be upheld, like how great the first version of a software or how good the first game was, which is best kept up through commercial development.

LAMP

LAMP is an acronym which stands for an open source web platform consisting of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. Some of the positive factors to LAMP is that its components are free and though these components were originally not designed specifically for working with one another, they still work efficiently together as a reliable platform. With LAMP being open source, people can program their own additional data to applications and manipulate its text streams from different sources; it allows more developers to play with the source code. The pro to this ability is that there is a larger pool of developers who can work on the application which equates to a larger pool of talent.

Situation Analysis

• The assistant chief of police insisted that the religious images in the mural be painted over as he did not want anyone to be offended or feel discriminated against because it was not images of their religious beliefs on the mural. This factor is particularly taken into consideration because the mural was supposed to be displayed on one of the walls of the police station. People may feel that the police favor those of a certain religion if that mural is on the wall of their station. The police are supposed to be unbiased; there is a separation between church and state- the police are a part of state.
  The artists responded ideally to the demand by not changing their vision. Their right to paint religious figures on their mural goes along with the first amendment. They should not have to stifle or censor their creativity and work. The beauty of the mural is that the artists are displaying their heroes including their religious figure heroes. The beauty of this world is in the differences between people and artists should be able to present that. The students should continue to support the artists, whether they choose to edit the mural or not. After all, the students were not necessarily there to make the mural, but to help mentor the group of artists who were. Ideally the community partner should discuss with the police department as to where the mural should displayed . Where it can be shown publicly without offending others. The instructor should continue to motivate the students especially during the low points when they need it most. In an ideal world, people would be able to view these religious figures on the murals as a positive thing, not because they partake in the same religion and have the same religious figures, but because these figures show that the artists have faith – they have beliefs and heroes.

• The I affects the We in how we view, perceive and deal with the We; based on who we are as individuals, with our unique personality, traits and backgrounds, we all interact with the We of community differently. Obviously someone who is rich, old and female would intermingle in the We contrastingly to someone who is poor, young and male. The I and the We are separate in that a single person can be different from how he/she would be when part of the We; this could be a good or a bad thing. When individuals come together they build a whole new entity, if it is a positive combination, synergy is formed; if there is a negative combination of the We, the outcomes could turn out worse than if there were only the I. “Individuals are smart; people [collectively] are not.” The I and We are separable as they are two separate entities. If a person disapproves of the We’s results, they can choose to leave the We and still be their own individual. For instance a person who joins a group to work on a project feels that the group is not working productively, that person can choose to leave the group and be by him/herself. The same works vice versa, if the group, We, feels that an individual has a negative impact on the group by not holding their own weight, the group can choose to dismiss that member.
  
  In this incident the multiple I’s are the artists, the students, the instructor, the community partner and the assistant chief of police, each from different backgrounds and different jobs but with one objective tying them together to form a We, a mural that celebrated the growing Latino population. Each “I” had different reasons for achieving this objective, and had different opinions as to the content of the mural. But the I’s had to communicate, work together and compromise in order to achieve their goal; the I’s forming a We.

More Privacy

In this technologically growing society, where internet and computers have become faster, easier and more accessible, privacy is a thing that has become harder to keep. With our negative rights to digital privacy, we should be protected from people obtaining our private information on the internet. For instance, people should not be allowed to look through our e-mails, which is why we have passwords. As though there may be no incriminating evidence that the person is doing something wrong, there is still a lot of personal information in a person’s email, such as billing information, passwords and private conversations.
As with a topic discussed in class, with Facebook, a person’s digital privacy is a positive right. Facebook profiles are often loaded with personal information about a person such as photos, birth date, school attended, current job, etc. but a person can choose the information they post. Also by default a member’s profile is viewable by anyone, a person can change their settings to permit only their networks and/or friends to be able to view their profile. A member even has the ability to specify how viewable their profile is by being able to decide the privacy restrictions per application (ie - photos, comments, gifts, etc.).
It is nice for people to have the right to choose what they wish to keep private or not, but in general I believe negative rights are more important to digital privacy as people need to be protected on the Internet, as the World Wide Web is so large with so much information.

Service learning

When I read the line “educating students to be responsible citizens”, one word popped out to me - “citizens”. Being a responsible citizen means something beyond being a responsible individual. Educating students to be responsible citizens is teaching them to look beyond themselves and care about their society, help and contribute to their society. I believe it is wonderful that some colleges offer service-learning courses to educate students about engaged citizenship. College academics focus on educating the mind and are positive for the individual; service learning courses educate the mind in other ways and are not just positive for the individual but for society as well. Through service learning, students gain certain abilities and experiences that they could not have attained in an academic class. Service learning offers a step into the “real world”, as students are now working in an environment that is not their school among their peers, but amongst different types of people and situations. It offers students a chance to see how their work makes a difference. Some students may take away from the service learning experience wishing to continue with their volunteering, or be more open to doing additional volunteering in the future. Service learning is essential because it teaches students to be involved in their community, to help others, which make the world we live in a better place; it makes life more meaningful. As Einstein once said "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

Privacy

Google addressed potential privacy concerns due to Street View by having "easily accessible tools for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for review and removal." (CNET News.com) Originally Google required proof of identification (such as a driver’s license or other form of photo identification) and a sworn statement in order to have a picture removed. The picture a person wished to have removed must be a picture of him/her self or of his/her child; a person could not request a picture be removed for anyone else including a spouse or relative. As of August 22, 2007, Google changed its policy so that just simply requesting to have an image taken down and replying to a confirmation email from Google will suffice.
Google did take other precautions to address privacy concerns, as the company had removed images of certain shelters, such as women’s domestic violence shelters and drug treatment facilities before launching Street view.
In Canada and certain European companies the privacy laws regarding public places are stricter, where individuals are supposed to have knowledge and give consent when their image is used, even when in public or when used in the media. Google has responded to these privacy restrictions by blurring individuals’ faces and license plates.
I feel Google’s responses were somewhat inadequate. Why should people have to file a complaint in order to have certain inappropriate or embarrassing pictures taken down? Shouldn’t Google have scanned through the images before launching Street View? I believe Google’s response to Canada’s privacy issues of blurring people’s faces and license plates should have been done for the United States Street View as well; possibly then there would not have been as much controversy when Street View was launched.

future

In the near future I look to find a job as an investment banker back home in New York as I hope to earn enough income to support my mother. I figured this would be a good occupation for me as I have always been good with money and numbers. I'm currently a finance major to help me attain this goal.
Several years down the line, I want to be a stay-at-home mother, as I absolutely love children. Children are most impressionable when they are young and I want mine to learn from me, not from a nanny. This is why I am a Computer Science minor. I would still like to earn an income even when I am home with my children. As I had previously done IT Consulting work, I know the hours are flexible and I can often work from home.

symmetric-key vs asymmetric-key encryption

Symmetric-key encryption (secret key encryption) is different from asymmetric key encryption (public key encryption) in that with symmetric-key encryption, one key is used for both encryption and decryption whereas with asymmetric key encryption, complementary keys are used for encryption (a public key) and decryption (a private key).
An example of symmetric-key encryption is Vernam cipher (one –time pad). It was considered secure because an attacker could only guess what the randomly generated key was because there was no frequency in the ciphertext. In order to crack the encrypted text, the attack could have possibly intercepted the key beforehand as it was being distributed from the sender to the receiver, as new keys are needed for every message. Symmetric key encryption has the advantage of being secure and fast but has the predicament of having to find ways to distribute new keys, which can be very tedious.
An example of an asymmetric-key algorithm is RSA, which uses modular arithmetic. It is secure because it is considered difficult to use the public key and modulus to find the private key. Yet as with integer factorization, with is considered computationally hard, there is no proof that it is in fact that difficult. The capability to crack RSA systems grow by 13-14 bits annually. Using asymmetric-key encryption has made key distribution simpler, but the encryption and decryption process slower, the larger keys are needed, and possible spoofing of public keys by attackers trying to pretend they are the sender or receiver.

This is the first post...

...one of many. Stay tuned!