Blackpro®™

Success

2011-03-02T21:14:00.001+08:00

Success

"One of the secrets of success: do not be discouraged by failure." Catherine Pulsifer A collection of words to inspire you to be the best that you can be.

Final Exam

2009-09-24T13:57:00.004+08:00

Team members
Israel
Vallescas
Masagnay
Plaza
Kapirig

"Advanced flashdrive"

In the group my task is to find out what is the content of flashdrives and what is inside a flashdrive.

A USB Flash drive is a small device that stores information and files from a computer. Flash drives are very useful because you can carry them anywhere, and if you want to open files from the flash drive, all you need is a computer. Flash drives are connected to a computer using a USB port, which is usually on the side of a computer screen or the box. Flash drives use flash memory to hold files. Flash memory is a type of memory that does not need any moving parts, unlike a CD or Floppy disk.

Flash drives can hold a lot of memory! It can hold anything from 1 Gigabyte all the way up to 64 Gigabytes! One gigabyte itself is a billion bytes which is a lot of memory! (A byte is a form of measurement used for storing digital data.)

Other common names for a flash drives include: memory stick, keydrive, pendrive and jumpdrive or simply USB.

USB flash drives have many advantages over other storage devices that are portable (meaning you can carry them around with you). Many of them have been raplaced because people think the flash drive is much better. They are much smaller than floppy disks, and can hold much more data. They are designed in such a way that inside, they do not have moving parts.

This is the parts of a USB:

The internal components of a typical flash drive
1	USB connector
2	USB mass storage controller device
3	Test points
4	Flash memory chip
5	Crystal oscillator
6	LED
7	Write-protect switch
8	Unpopulated space for second flash memory chip

My Report (System Software)

2009-08-28T09:40:00.007+08:00

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

The world's leading open source application platform

On one certified platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers your choice of:

Applications - Thousands of certified ISV applications
Deployment - Including standalone or virtual servers, cloud computing, or software appliances
Hardware - Wide range of platforms from the world's leading hardware vendors

This gives IT departments unprecedented levels of operational flexibility. And it gives ISVs unprecedented market reach when delivering applications. Certify once, deploy anywhere. All while providing world-class performance, security, and stability. And unbeatable value.
This is why Red Hat is the platform of choice.

Eliminate barriers to adoption

Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions, in combination with other Red Hat technologies-such as JBoss middleware solutions - provide the easy, no-risk path to open source cost savings. Use commodity hardware. Interoperate easily with existing UNIX and Windows infrastructure. Deploy applications you know and trust. Reduce system administration costs through high server/admin ratios and desktop-to-mainframe consistency.

Eliminate economic constraints

Basing your solution on open source technologies wherever practical - from the virtualization hypervisor to the SOA middleware to the end user application - guarantees you'll make the most of your IT budget. Despite what vendors of single solutions tell you about their product’s cost - it’s the overall total cost that matters. And open source solutions offer lower total costs:

-Lower capital expense and operational expense
-Elimination of vendor lock-in - puts the customer in control.
-Proven superior product quality - better security, higher performance
-Technology leadership - driven by industry-wide collaboration
-Flexibility - deploy what you need, when you need, how you need it

Broadest open source ecosystem

Customers using new deployment paradigms, including virtualization, need the confidence they can deploy on the widest range of hardware and applications - now and in the future. Red Hat’s open source development brings you the world's largest open source ecosystem of certified hardware and software.

Applications: Certify once-deploy anywhere

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a standardized environment for your applications so they can be deployed however your business requires. And Red Hat application partners need only certify their applications once.
With thousands of applications certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can run the application you need, where you need it, today.

Choose your preferred way to deploy

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the most flexible operating system environment available. Enterprise Linux solutions are ideal for all of these deployment types - using the same applications. Deploy whichever environment best suits your business:

-Standalone or "bare metal" systems

This is the most common environment for servers today. Red Hat Enterprise Linux scales from desktop and laptop systems, to small servers, to the largest SMP servers and to mainframes. And, of course, it is ideal for blade and rack environments - especially today's popular 4-CPU quad-core systems.
Learn more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers
Learn more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop clients

-Virtualized

Virtualized systems, which offer improved resource management and operational flexibility through features such as live migration, dynamic resource allocation, high availability, and clustering. Enterprise Linux provides the industry’s highest performance, complete virtualization capability, for no additional charge.
Virtualization is the fastest growing method of deployment - up to 15% of all servers are expected to be virtualized in the next five years. Virtualization lets you maximize your resources and increase deployment flexibility and responsiveness.
Learn more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualization

-Software as a Service

Software-as-a-Service, or cloud computing deployments, allows customers to extend their compute resources outside the walls of the data center - providing an on-demand infrastructure that can scale to up or down to meet business requirements. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available as a certified and supported platform deployed on Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud - EC2.
Learn more about Red Hat and Amazon

-Appliances

Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based appliances allow ISVs to distribute applications pre-packaged as complete solutions, including the operating system, simplifying deployment, management, and maintenance. Red Hat's appliance strategy covers a wide range of deployment opportunities, including:
Fully featured application stacks available through Red Hat Exchange
Lightweight portable media solutions - self-contained, easily provisioned tokens such as USB keys and live CDs providing a portable, low-cost application environment.
Learn more about Red Hat Appliance Operating System

Screenshots:

ORACLE BUYS SUN

2009-07-31T10:30:00.000+08:00

Questions:

1. What do you think is the effect of Oracle buying Sun?

-According to Mr. James Sugrue. He said that "The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up." and "This is a fantastic day for Sun's customers, developers, partners and employees across the globe, joining forces with the global leader in enterprise software to drive innovation and value across every aspect of the technology marketplace," said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO, "From the Java platform touching nearly every business system on earth, powering billions of consumers on mobile handsets and consumer electronics, to the convergence of storage, networking and computing driven by the Solaris operating system and Sun's SPARC and x64 systems. Together with Oracle, we'll drive the innovation pipeline to create compelling value to our customer base and the marketplace." And I think that Oracle has the resources to take Java to the next level, but we can probably expect Java's emphasis to be even more focused on enterprise computing as a result of this acquisition. One thing is certain, Oracle definitely knows how to make money from middleware - a challenge which Sun has struggled with. ( http://java.dzone.com/news/oracle-buys-sun )

Oracle doesn't care about hardware. They do care about margin dollars – and control. Thus, as they control RedHat from a sales and support (revenue) stream – without that costly development burden – they could do the same thing here. The HP data warehousing system is another good example – HP gets preferred treatment but only 25% of the deal. Oracle gets the rest of the dough and controls the hooks to the system. Oracle doesn't gain any new customers on the systems side, they already have them all. ( http://esgblogs.typepad.com/steves_it_rants/2009/04/oracle-and-sun-expanded-thoughts.html )

2. What do you think would Bill Gates do about this?

- Now we all know that Bill Gates have a new rival in the business world. I think he should create more and new softwares for the customer. Software that will help the customers in their major problems.

3. To you as a student using Java, how will this later affect your learning on the language?

- As a student for me java is free to use. The fact that there are so many Java resources accessible to students is both a benefit and a hindrance. Java source code is freely available at many Internet sites, which can assist the students in learning about Java, but it also produces a strong temptation to plagarize. There is also no guarantee that the source code they examine contains good programming practices! Another set of resources is the Java newsgroups, which can assist students in trying to learn Java. Far too often on these kinds of newsgroups, though, a student posts a message asking how to do his or her homework. The best policy in both of these cases is to make it clearly known, in advance, how each resource can and cannot be used.

Storage

2009-07-13T14:42:00.000+08:00

Seagate's Latest Desktop HDD has 1.5TB Capacity

REVIEW:

1.5TB is a lot of bytes! (Damn your right. hahaha. ^^) now I can store more files, music, and videos. (wahahaha. :p) And recently the outrageously-fast Velociraptor was introduced, and now this hard drive arrives with an unbelievably-large amount of space. (Super cool!!! and huge. hahaha. :D) But I believe we are witnessing the end of the mechanical storage device...their last-hurrah. SSD's are on the horizon, and it is not about how big you are - it is about how fast you can go! (Nice!! Need for Speed. hehehe. ^^) But I still believe we still are going to be using the mechanical drives for at least a year longer before the SSD,s capacity and price point makes it worthwhile to make the change. Probably will be mix and match using both at first. But I'm looking forward to the speed and capacity not to mention the durability! ^^,

And I think most people will mostly stay with mechanical drives for a while yet. SSD drives are very fast in most areas, but are severely limited on size and price. That size and price limit will cause most mainstream people to stick with the far cheaper and larger mechanical drives, which are more than fast enough for their needs. ( you have a point. hehe. ^^ para maka tipid. )

Well, I guess I have nothing to say. hahaha. :D Just keep it up and thanks guys. God Bless. ^^

Output

2009-07-11T11:24:00.000+08:00

ASUS VH242H 24-inch LCD monitor

REVIEW:

The new ASUS VH242H 24-inch LCD monitor falls into this kind of philosophy. Instead of the conventional 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio that we see with most computer monitors, this screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio, the same that you’d find with the HDTV in your living room. (Nice!! Parang TV na siya. Hehehe. ^^) In this way, it’s perfect fit for multimedia and gaming applications. You can actually watch you DVD’s in a full-screen format and play your Xbox 360 games without a stretched image or that annoying letterbox effect. (This I like. Hahaha. Now I can play more high graphic games. Bwahaha. :p ) As expected, the specifications are able to run the gamut for most consumers as well, while maintaining a sleek and simple appearance that will fit in with any décor. Have 1920x1080 resolutions, which is somewhat higher than some similarly priced monitors. By way of comparison, the typical cost of a product with this high a resolution is $585 (In Philippines it cost P26,325.. What!! Mahal naman!! =( huhuhu. But I think it’s worthy. Wahaha. ) And reduce the clutter on your desk with this monitor’s built-in speakers. It’s wide viewing angle (170 degrees) is useful whenever the screen is being viewed by more than one person at the same time. (Cool naman. :D ) Accepts DVI input, which allows for greater signal clarity than traditional VGA. The VH242H actually uses a 23.6-inch panel with a maximum resolution of 1,920 by 1, 080 and a 16:9 aspect ration, which means you can watch Blu-ray movies in their naïve format. (Sweet!! :p) The panel, with it’s non-reflective, antiglare finish, is housed in a black cabinet and framed by a shiny black bezel with beveled edges that give it a clean, sleek appearance. (Soooo!!! Coooool!! Hehehe. Nice work guys. Keep it up. God Bless. ^^)

Input

2009-07-10T08:53:00.000+08:00

Razer "Lycosa Mirror Special Edition"

Keyboard

High gloss mirror finish keytop

The Razer Lycosa Mirror Special Edition rocks with an awesome high gloss mirror finish keytop that looks good and feels even better for high performance gaming.

Selective Anti-Ghosting WASD Gaming Cluster

The Razer Lycosa Mirror Special Edition addresses "ghosting", signal failure that occurs when you press multiple keys simultaneously on traditional keyboards. The Razer Lycosa Mirror Special Edition provides for selective anti-ghosting around the WASD gaming cluster to allow more commands to be entered at any one time without the signal failure.

Slim Keycap Structure with Hyperesponse™ Technology

The Hyperesponse™ keys of the Razer Lycosa Mirror Special Edition reduce key latency and maximize response for critical actions during competitive gameplay ensuring fast, accurate and consistent actuation response in the intense frenzy of competitive gameplay.

Review:

This is the most advance keyboard that I had seen so far, it has a nice shiny finish that not much keyboard has, or should I say none of the keyboard has a shiny finish as far as I concern, so I think this product was great and excellent for gaming. This keyboard has more flair to command the games. This keyboard looks so glossy. It looks killer and incredibly sexy (Sooo Hot!!) and has all the macro functions in every key. I love the immediate response for the profile switching so you can go from a custom macro set to default set with the push of one key (means you'll go from shooting players to typing instantly. So for the sheer aesthetics with the combination of functionality this keyboard is the best. Sometimes I wonder if Razer didn’t integrate some sort of AI into it, as it sometimes feels like whatever I wanted to do was already done the moment I decided to press the key(s) or have this in an area where it is slightly darker area. The lights are one. This has bright lights and enables you to see at night CLEARLY. Soo!! Cool!! =)) The finish is so smooth and thick you'll find it extremely hard to wear down your keys like other keyboards (W, S, A, D lol). Overall thoughts, I don't know why anyone ever made a keyboard like this in the past... this looks so simple and beautiful and elegant with the macro functions for the hardcore gamers and macro users. Again this really performs excellent and the response is amazing. The macro capabilities are great. Razer has done a lot in this keyboard and they probably put a lot of effort too it. Awesome!! :p Keep up the good work guys and God Bless!! :D bwahahahaha. ^^

Hardware trends

2009-07-03T10:39:00.000+08:00

Combimouse, super ergonomic 2-piece keyboard

It may look odd, but this ergonomic keyboard promises to free up your desk from the tyranny of your mouse. Well, from the tyranny of a separate mouse, anyway; the handiwork of an Australian inventor, the Combimouse turns the right-side of the keyboard into the mouse itself, using cleverly placed contacts to figure out when you’re trying to use it to to control your cursor.

In mouse mode, the I, O, J, K, L and <>

Hardware trends

2009-07-03T09:08:00.000+08:00

EVGA GeForce GTX 295

From a performance point of view, if you're looking for the fastest card there really isn't much choice but to go with the GeForce GTX295 as it offers blistering performance in the latest games with the highest resolutions and settings enabled. EVGA offers excellent support with Lifetime Warranty, Toll-Free Technical Support 24/7 and the 90 day Step Up Program that can't be beat. Buy two of these cards and you'll have the ultimate in performance bar none. One thing to note is the card is $549.99 online, making it expensive but if you want uncompromising performance sometimes you have to pay the price. EVGA also offers Crazy Machines 2 and you get Call Of Duty: World At War if you purchase this card from Newegg. Overall this is one fast card that qualifies for our Hot Product Award, if it had been one of the faster overclocked versions it would have won an Editor's Choice.