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Entries Tagged as 'Computing'

3D? I Want 2D

May 2nd, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Call me too literal, call me too geeky, but I want to have actual 2D anything. 3D! 3D! 3D! Everybody wants 3D everything. We want… 3D printing 3D user interface on the smartphone 3D movies 3D gestures for control of computers 3D integrated circuits The list goes on. Silly me, I want […]

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Tags: Computing · Expectations · General Systems Thinking

Buying and Building an Intel NUC

April 21st, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I replace a large home computer with a small Intel Next Unit of Computing. Our kitchen home computer was failing, so we decided to replace it. A colleague had spoken to me about how he uses the small Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) machines. I did some research and bought a […]

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Tags: Computing

Software Engineers and Software Engineering

March 17th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Being a computer programmer does not make me a software engineer. Deep sigh before I begin. This is yet another post borne of frustration in talking with recruiters and hiring managers. Now that the sigh is out of the way. A computer programmer is not a software engineer. There. Wrote that bit. […]

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Tags: Computing · Engineering · Programming · Work

CompTIA Security+

December 7th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Over the weekend, I passed the test for CompTIA Security+ certification. It was probably the worst test I have taken since my junior year of college (back when we scratched answers on cave walls with colored rocks). Anyways, I memorized a bunch of stuff and passed a test. Perhaps this will come […]

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Tags: Computing · Education · Learning · Security

The Return of the $50 Computer

November 23rd, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Thirty years later, the $50 computer is back. I think that is a good thing. In the early 1980s (yes, I am that old), we had the Sinclair Research made by Timex ZX81. It was a computer you could buy for $50. No, it wasn’t powerful, but it was a programmable computer. […]

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Tags: Computing

ITIL Foundation Certification

October 29th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I earn a ITIL Foundation-level certification. For the past six or eight years I have heard of ITIL  certification. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I wasn’t an Enterprise IT person and did see a way that I could qualify for it. A recent look at it changed my mind. […]

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Tags: Change · Computing · Education · Employment · Knowledge · Learning

A Home Computer

July 20th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In which I try to understand why I own a computer. I bought my first personal computer in 1983. It was a Kaypro portable (luggable) that ran CP/M and had two new-fangled floppy disks that held 360KiloBytes of information each (a huge upgrade to the prior model that had 180KB floppies). I […]

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Tags: Computing

How to Build a Secure Computer Voting Machine

May 18th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Want computer voting? Want it to be secure? Here is how to do it. Just about everyone in America today votes on some sort of computer. Now and then, someone writes a story about how someone discovered that their computerized voting machines are insecure and easily subject to election fraud. Here is […]

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Tags: Competence · Computing · Programming · Technology

Self-Applying Information

March 19th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Mankind is searching for that self-applying information so we can life the good life. Perhaps this is a silly fantasy, perhaps it is a dystopian future. Is this the singularity? Is this beyond the singularity? Consider this future. The computer mines information and doesn’t present it to a person, but uses it […]

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Tags: Computing · Ideas · Magic

Efficiency from Laziness

March 5th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some of today’s more efficient technologies are efficient because we are lazy. FORTRAN is an efficient programming language. The executable files are small. The programs execute quickly. There is a simple reasons why FORTRAN is an efficient programming language: the compilers were created at a time when computing resources were much less […]

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Tags: Choose · Computing · Excuses