Blog 3:15/02/2018

15/02/2018

Lecture:

For this weeks lecture we had focused on 'Managing IS Infrastructure & Services' with Haider Zuhair Bilal. Firstly within the lecture we had watched a video on 'The future of technology and humanity'.
This was spoken by Gerd Leonhard who has explained that humanity would change more in the next 20 years than the last 300 years. He had explained on how technology is moving inside of us and would become a part of us. One aspect that I had found really interesting and had made me think twice was when he had told us a prediction that by '2027 computers would likely be match the capacity of a human brain'.

This had shocked me as I did not know that it would take roughly only 10 years for technology to possible reached at awareness or emotional intelligence. This made me think on how fast technology is moving and in the future we could move forward to transcend humanity. This made me feel uncomfortable as it may be beneficial but it would also have a lot of consequences. The advances can be dangerous as through this we would be losing our privacy and  if we had failed to consider the unattended consequences this can cause a intelligence explosion. I didn't realise this as if we we are careful with technology then this can cause technology to be dangerous to humanity. This video was shown in order to make us realise how fast technology is moving and made me think if this really is a positive or negative.

After the video we had focused on lecture which was about the components of information system (IS) infrastructure. I had learnt that the IS infrastructure would enable us process, store and transmit data through hardware, software, DB, communication/network & people. As for hardware there are a range of computer types that are used for different uses and would have a typical cost. Hiader Bilal then explained about the systems software vs application software. Systems software would be more based on controlling the basic operation of the computer such as hardware, coordinating. Whereas application systems would be performing specific user tasks such as creating a presentation. This was interesting as I do use a computer and I realised that they are different software that would control different aspects. Haider then moved onto computer networking where he had explained that is used to share information which can be through cable or wireless. Although I knew about this already, one aspect that I had found interesting was digitisation (Binary code). As every letter within the computer has a number code.

Haider then explained about the internet and web wide web (WWW) which is used through the internet. One aspect I found interesting was that the internet uses IP numeric addresses which is IPV4 (old system) and IPV6 (new system). He then went further onto the issues of managing the IS infrastructure. There were a range of issues based on managing the IS infrastructures as one of them were software obsolescence. This aspect was interesting as I had learnt about 'Vicious circle' as this enhances the capacities of new applications. Overall  this lecture was very interesting and made me realise on how fast technology is moving and the varies components of IS infrastructure and its issues.

Seminar:

In today's seminar we had focused on excel activity, we had focused on how to find out the average, maximum and minimum formulas. I had realised how easy it is to use excel as I always had found it a a lot complicated. In order to find the average I was told that we would need the formula '=AVERAGE(B2:B5)' and just like that if we needed to find the maximum or minimum you would just add MAX and MIN. For instance in order to find the maximum we would need the formula '=MAX(B2:B5)'  and to find the minimum we would need the formula to be 'MIN(B2:B5)'.This was very useful as next time in my assignment, it would save me a lot of time to calculate the average, minimum and maximum.

We had also done the timetable analysis worksheet we had had on how to calculate the total hours , average hours.,maximum hours and minimum hours. This was done in order to put the formulas into action so this way we know how to use the formulas in real life situations. This seminar was very useful as I am starting to understand how excel works. I was able to successfully complete my activity within the seminar. I had found this interesting as I found it easy to calculate the amounts using formulas.

Groupwork:

My seminar teacher Susie Wolstenholme had asked every group on what stage they were at. I had told her that we have found a company who is willing to give us information and have done one interview with the manager. She then had asked us on the roles of each group member and told us that as we are a group of 5 we need to make sure that every group member knows what is going on.

As we had recorded the meeting, I had then sent that to the group chat in order for everyone to listen to the audio and think of problems and solutions by next week. For the interview me, Mumtahin and Veroica had attended the interview and asked questions to the manager. Within our group, we had set a meeting for the group on where we can share ideas of the possible problems the company may have. We had composed a meeting on Monday after our lectures. As we had more time, we had decided to think of the possible problems that the company has. We had then taken the time to get information about the company online and had found some problems.

For our teamwork, we have found a business 'Games and Gadgets' who would be willing to give us information about their business. We had a meeting with the manager and had asked questions based on their information system. According to our plan we are on track with the group work but can fall behind because of our group members. I would need to make sure to keep in contact with my group members. Next week we would have a meeting to see what findings each individual has found.

Suman Tanveer