Task 2: Alan Cooper - Visual Basic

The Human Factor

Bill Gates

Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school's payroll system and founded Traf-O-Data. A company that sold traffic-counting systems to local governments. In 1975 Gates, joined his hometown friend to develop software for the first microcomputers. They began by adapting BASIC, a popular programming language used on large computers for use on microcomputers. After they formed Microsoft. Gates's sway over the infant microcomputer industry greatly increased when Microsoft licensed an operating system called MS-DOS to International Business Machines Corporation - then the world's biggest computer supplier and industry pacesetter - for use on its first microcomputer, the IBM PC. After its release in 1981, IBM quickly set the technical standard for the PC industry, and MS-DOS likewise pushed out competing operating systems. While Microsoft's independence strained relations with IBM, Gates deftly manipulated the larger company so that it became permanently dependent on him for crucial software. Makers of IBM-compatible PCs also turned to Microsoft for their basic software. By the start of the 1990sw he had become the PC industry's ultimate kingmaker.

Since the introduction Windows 3.0 almost decades ago, Microsoft's real innovations have been in ways to stifle competition. Gates did a little history revision himself in this regard in his farewell, saying "When we got it right, betting on graphics interface, even though we told our competitors that they should and tried to get them to do it, they didn't.By the time it was clear that it was a mistake, they were in deep trouble because we had done the work and we were there."

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016). Bill Gates | American computer programmer, businessman, and philanthropist. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bill-Gates [Accessed 29 Oct. 2016].
InfoWorld. (2016). Bill Gates and PC history. [online] Available at: http://www.infoworld.com/article/2639623/techology-business/bill-gates-and-pc-history.html [Accessed 29 Oct. 2016].

Early Interaction

Pascaline

Blaise Pascal develops a mechanism to calculate with 8 figures and carrying of 10's, 100's and 1000's. It was more likely to be found in the living rooms of their owners as a conversation piece rather than in the office. He develops the machine because he had to help his father with his work as a tax receiver. 

How the machine worked, when it comes to addition, is was performed easily. These are moving the horizontal slat up to cover the red row of digits. Eliminating the value from a preceding operation that may still remain by rotating with the hand the numbered drums inside the small windows of the machine to zero. Then dial the numbers in and the result will appear in the windows on the surface of the machine.

When it comes to subtraction, the user needs to move the horizontal slat down to cover the black row of digits. A new set of numbers is revealed on the nines complements. Eliminating the value from a preceding operation that may still remain, by rotation with the hand the numbered drums inside the small windows of the machine to zero. Dialling the subtrahend to produce the subtrahend's nines complement. Return the horizontal slat up to cover the nines complements row of digits. Adding the subtrahend's nines complement number with the minuend. Finally, performing mentally an end-around carry, adding the leftmost digit of the result of the last addition to the number that arises from the other digits of the number.

When it comes to multiplication, the user needs to move the horizontal slat up to cover the red row of digits. Eliminating the value from a preceding operation that may still remain by rotating with the hand the numbered drums inside the small windows of the machine to zero. Adding the multiplicand as many times as the first digit from the right of the multiplier says. Each time the next wheel in the row from the right as you move on to the next digit.When it comes to division, Pascaline accomplished it by repeating subtraction several times.

His invention of the counting machine grew out of necessity but also opened the way for more complicated counting machines by later generations of inventions. In practice it was very complicated and the weighted ratchets have a tendency to jam. Pascaline is considered nowadays, as the first calculating device that the human race has discovered.

Thocp.net. (2016). Pascaline. [online] Available at: http://www.thocp.net/hardware/pascaline.htm [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].

Macs.hw.ac.uk. (2016). Pascal's Adder - About Pascaline. [online] Available at: http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/calculators/pascal/About_Pascaline.htm [Accessed 21 Oct. 2016].

Researching an interaction-based marketing scheme, discuss the problems they solve and justify your reasoning.

The SNCF "Europe. It's Just Next Door" commercial is an interaction-based marketing scheme. In this commercial, certain doors are placed in different places of a city. Each door represents a country from Europe. So with curiosity, people will open this door and on the door a country is displayed. The countries are Geneva, Brussels, Milan, Stuttgart and Barcelona. When people open a door of a particular country, an LED Monitor covering the whole door is displayed, showing people from that particular country and start to interact with each other. If the door is showing the country of Milan and a person opens the door, it shows a place from Milan and another person communicating with each other from different countries. If the door is showing the country of Barcelona and a person opens it, it shows a place from Barcelona with a group of dancers dancing to certain music and the person will start dancing with those dancers. Or else, if the person opens the Stuttgart door, in order to interact with other people. The Stuttgart people will be on a bike and the other persons are also on a bike and the Stuttgart people take the people for a bike ride around the famous places in Stuttgart.

In this matter people can explore different cultures without having to travel, to explore Europe. People can interact with each other from a monitor as it brings peace throughout the world. Hence, different countries are doing different activities, according to the country's culture, from other countries.If we place at least one door in each county from different countries, the world becomes united and in a better place. Like that, we can decrease wars and people appreciate different cultures from different countries without even paying any money to travel to that particular country. It can be also a form of education because if children have a geography lesson, the teacher can take them to this door and learn about the culture of that particular country. Like that the students will enjoy learning and get more interested in the subject.

YouTube. (2016). SNCF "Europe. It's Just Next Door". [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGW6Rm437tE [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016].

Why I chose this course?

Since when I was in Form 3 I have always wanted to work in the IT section but hadn't decided on which job. From there I started studying Java programming (as we were the first group to have Java programming) for the o level practical. Before the o level I thought that programming was a good sector to continue in. So I got my o level and applied for the Extended Diploma in IT (Software Development) course. During the first year of the course we got basic knowledge of both software development, programming using C#, system analysis, html, css and java script, and hardware development, communication technologies and operating systems. Once we progressed for the second year we had the opportunity to choose between software development or hardware. In my case I chose software development because of programming.

During my second year in Extended Diploma in IT, I started to realise that programming wasn't my cup of tea and became more interested in web development and web design. As during the lesson we were learning back-end and front-end of web development (php, SQL and css). During my web assignment, as part of a distinction criteria, we had the opportunity to host our website and the satisfactory behind that assignment, seeing your work done on the internet, was and still is a satisfaction. In fact that assignment was one of my highest grades that I have gotten. Then when I finished the course and had an opportunity during this summer to work as a junior web developer within a small company using php object oriented programming based on Yii framework and SQL. There again, the experience was satisfactory and would have liked to keep my job but I din't want to limit my studies on just Level 4 Certificate showing that I have only gotten an Extended Diploma in IT (Software Development), so I applied for a Level 6 B.A.(Hons) in Interactive Media course this year, to get more knowledge about the designing and creating process behind a website. In other words, I chose this course to become a web designer and graphic designer in the near future.