Blog #22: Senior Project Reflection

Positive Statment:
From my senior presentation, I am most proud of being able to show how much knowledge I have acquired throughout the 9 months of work and research put into the project. It was great being able to just talk about all that I have learned in a clear and concise manner to both my class mates and underclassmen and showing them what they are going to have to go through their next year.

Questions To consider:

1. I would give myself a P on my presentation

2. On my senior project I would give myself a low P, or high AP due to some assignments and such

3. What worked for me in my senior project was having an abundant amount of resources and material for research purposes since my topic is such a common and widespread field. Once I knew what I wanted to research about, there were no problems finding a ton of information pertaining to it.

4. If I could go back in time, I would probably force myself to get mentorship sooner. It was a growing concern throughout the first semester of the year, and was also affecting my research quality as well due to having no guidance. So I would definitely fix that as early as possible.

5. Senior project has broadened my horizons to the possibilities of what fields of study I would like to undergo in college and ultimately what type of careers to explore as well. In the Information Technology field, what I focused on was databases mostly. There are plenty of other branches that I have not yet looked fully into, but I definitely intend to so that I truly explore all my options and choose to pursue exactly what I would love to work on in the future.

Exit Interview

1. My Essential Question is: What is the best way for a small business to tackle system-wide IT issues in order to run as efficiently as possible?
Answer 1: Technicians should write a formal report to the CEO of the small business which will consist of collected and analyzed data that would then be used to create a solution to an issue.
Answer 2: Programmers should work alongside the CIO and people under them in order to find problems within a system and to create new ones.
Answer 3: The business should have a carefully set up SDLC, systems development life cycle, when creating of bringing in a new system, in order to ensure that it meets standards such as feasibility, requirements, and if the business is able to or needs to take on the project in the first place.
Best Answer: Answer 2

2. I arrived at this answer in early January just after the 2nd presentations. I had only one answer while presenting, but I apparently spoke about much more than one answer could have fulfilled, and my answer was then split up into my first and second. After seeing it, though, I knew I already had quite a bit of research on it without even realizing it. Also, since it focused  on project management, and also integration of a business with it's respective parts, I knew it would most likely end up as my best answer later on, which it did.

3. The problems I have faced in senior project have been not having a mentor nearly all of the first semester. I resolved that by finally finding Dr. Carlton, a professor at CalPoly, who allowed me to meet with him and mentor me. Another problem would be that I did not have enough mentorship hours nearing the deadline, which I have resolved by asking Marco Gonzalez if I could go to his mentorship with him since his mentor owns a small business, fitting into my project perfectly. Overall, there have been quite a few challenges I have overcome in this project.

4. My first most significant source of information is my mentor, Dr. Carlton, a professor at CalPoly, with experience in business for more than 20 years. He has helped me in many ways, and basically directed my project and what I was going to do with it. He also gave me my other most significant source, "Managing Information Systems" by Baltzan Paige. It is a college level textbook which I used in my Independent component 2 when sitting in on a class my mentor allowed me in. It is very detailed with all the different things needed to know when dealing with business information systems. One of the best sources of information I have had over the year.

Independent Component 2

Literal:
a. I, Brandon Beghtol, affirm that I have completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
b. Mentor, Gregory H. Carlton, and his class CIS 305.
c. done
d. I have completed 30 hours of work, by attending the lectures for the class as well as completing a majority of the first project assigned in the class
Interpretive:
My independent component represents 30 hours of work, due to attending the class each time it met, as well as doing any notes necessary, and the first project given out and the 3 deliverables that are a part of it.

Applied:
This class has helped me represent my EQ because it has to do with database management and creation using the Erwin data modeler and Sequel Server. These are valuable programs to learn how to use for anyone working in a business because they help manage systems and create them. It also helped by supporting some of my answers which have to do with proper management of IT systems being necessary to help keep a business running. It helped a lot!

March Extra Blog Post

    It is the end of March, and we have just completed our Expert Source Analysis, in which we must find data based around our answers to our EQ and create a statistic based around that, while making sure that they are a credible source to be using in the first place. It is more difficult than it may sound to find data, in the form of graphs or charts or any other form, over a period of years to compare differences. Some people tend to have a lot harder time with this, especially when your topic and answers have to do with something there may not be much data for. However, this exercise in finding credible sources and data is very helpful for later on in our projects and will help us with sounding like we know what we are talking about, even if we might not know ourselves, and helps prepare ourselves for some more collegiate work in using only sources that are credible for papers, projects, etc. So overall, ESA is helpful, though most people would tend to argue it is quite annoying to do, including myself at times.

Blog #18: Third Answer

1. EQ: What is the best way for a small business to tackle system wide IT issues in order to run as efficiently as possible?

2. The business should have a carefully set up SDLC, systems development life cycle, when creating or bringing in a new system, in order to ensure that it meets standards such as feasibility, requirements, and if the business is able to or needs to take on the project in the first place.

3. The systems development life cycle applies to the building, implementing, and acquisition of a new Information System for a business. It applies to the entire life cycle of the said system, and includes every detail of it's life cycle, including the retirement of the system. There are many different approaches that can be taken based on the type of business when actually transitioning from an old system to the new one, each of which have their own benefits and issues.

4. Independent Component 1, "Business Driven Information Systems" by Baltzan Paige, Mentorship: Gregory H. Carlton.

5. When creating a new system in any business, it is quite imperative to follow a set of guidelines created for the new system, including the cost, and numerous amounts of details that will help ensure no major problems arise during the process of creating it, the implementation, and even the retiring of that system as well, and this is known as the SDLC, or System's Development Life Cycle.

Blog #17: Fourth Interview Questions

1. What do you think are some of the best ways for a business to handle IT issues in different areas/levels, etc?
2. What are some of the issues that arise with IT projects a business might undergo?
3. What are the responsibilities a CIO has when it comes to a business's information systems?
4. Where do businesses tend to acquire their technical support for issues with their systems?
5. Are there different levels of integration businesses might have with technology? what are they?
6. What are some of the most common IT projects businesses conduct?
7. How much do these tend to cost? (specify more)
8. Is it extremely important for programmers working on the systems of a business to also work with experts in the business?
9. What are some of the factors that a CEO might look at before deciding to have an IT project undergone?
10. Markets? (something about the market the business is in, not sure yet)
11. How important is the automating of tasks within the business?
12. What are the most common things that tend to become automated?
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need to write more answers/ideas, will come back to finish these.
(working from my 2 answers, also automating of information, markets a business is in,)

Blog #16: Advisory Meeting #2

EQ: What is the best way for a small business to tackle system-wide IT issues in order to run as efficiently as possible?

 Answer 2: Programmers should work alongside the chief information officer in order to find problems within the system and build new systems. Since technology is so integrated into business and has a major effect on how they might operate, it is very necessary to have both the programmers and the business in conjunction with each other in order to create a working system for a specific purpose or to find issues, such as mixing of programming and business terminology so the employees can use it properly. Regulations need to be put in place for projects undergone in a business as well, or else they tend to go out of control in cost such as black swans,  and having the CIO of a company keeping track of anything going on and working with the programmers would help prevent any major issues from arising. Also, having the CIO or any people directly under him or her working alongside the technology experts is really the focal point of where business meets technology, and they help bridge the gap between the two so that the business overall can operate to it's fullest potential, without any issues of misunderstanding or miscommunication between different departments, levels, and areas of the company.

 With all that said, the mixing of technology and business is mostly done through the great communication between the experts of both fields and it is the CIO's job of ensuring that a system is working and functioning properly in accordance with what the business needs it for, else the business lose money through many possible issues arising from miscommunication between the different sectors of the company.

Blog # 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1. What I plan to do for my second Independent component is to be sitting in, once again on a class my mentor teaches at CalPoly if possible. I still need to finish this first class and then he will be letting me sit in on another in the spring quarter at the beginning of March I believe. So it includes the sitting in on the class, as well as the labs or any homework he assigns along with the class.

2. I can take pictures of the assignments, any notes I happen to take, the labs, and even turn in the labs I complete as evidence as well.

3. Since he teaches mostly business related classes, that include the technology necessary to running businesses and how to go about using the information systems and producing databases, etc, it should apply directly to my topic.

4. will be completed by the time you read this.

Blog # 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

1. Positive Statement: The Lesson 2 has showed me how prepared I actually am for the end of the year, and helped solidify exactly what I will be researching and needing information on by the time the last presentations come around. I am most proud of being able to make time in this presentation because I was unable to in the first lesson. The powerpoint I made this time helped me accomplish this by giving me a set of information to go along with and make sure I didn't skip or forget too much.

2. I would give myself a P on this presentation, mostly for making time, talking about mentorship, having cited sources to talk about, and basically hitting all the necessary requirements for the presentation. I even printed a poster which is now useless since my EQ will probably be changed, but it happens.

3. Having 30 minutes to talk helped me, I was able to expand as much as necessary on certain topics and ideas, and I liked the activity idea but it wasn't my favorite thing to have done. Having a powerpoint worked a lot more than I thought it would have, keeping me knowing how much time I have left to speak and what else I needed to talk about as well.

4. What didn't work for me, at least not my favorite part, was the activity. I felt like it should have been more of the focus of the presentation because a lot of them could have been better or even more feedback centered around the activities so people know if they should build upon it for their next presentation or simply try something else. For my case studies, they were very simple and took up the time, but if I could use them again with a lot more ideas and information they could be used later again but improved.

5. Talking to my house teacher I believe it will be : Programmers should work alongside business associates in order to solve information system problems or issues or when creating and establishing new ones.

Independent Component 1

Literal:

1. I, Brandon Beghtol, affirm that I completed my Independent Component which represents 30 hours of work.
2. My best source throughout the Independent Component has been Dr. Gregory Carlton, my mentor, whose class I have been allowed to sit in on and accumulate hours. The book for the class: "Business Driven Information Systems" by Baltzan, Paige has also been a very helpful source of information.
3. Done.
4. I have completed 30 hours of work that have helped me understand how integrated technology and business have become through listening to the lectures each class, as well as doing the labs which were very helpful and interesting. 

Interpretive: The most important parts of the Independent component have been taking the CIS 310 class, which Dr. Carlton allowed me to sit in on, which being two hours twice a week have added up to most of my hours. The rest of the hours were taking notes for a couple of the next classes, which will be added to my cornell notes, and doing the lab 2, which was about 4 spreadsheets using data and connecting each of them to provide different information for different purposes and other things that a business might use to increase performance.

Applied: With my EQ being about business and technology, and my mentor having the experience in both of those and the class also having to do with the integration of technology into businesses, it has helped me tremendously with learning about how businesses are structured and really how important the technology they use is to the success of them, at least in this day and age.

Blog # 12: Third Interview questions

1. What is most important to providing computer support to a small business?

2. What are some common issues with technology businesses tend to have?

3. How much do businesses tend to spend on their technology?

4. What determines a business using a certain type of technology? i.e tablets, laptops, desktops, etc.

5. How do businesses keep their technology up to date since it is constantly changing and advancing?

6. What tends to happen if a business doesn't keep up to date with current technology?

7. How do companies and businesses train all of their staff to use all the different types of technology they are using within their business?

8. Do most companies tend to hire and keep on staff their own IT experts for issues with business management or technological issues, or hire them when they are necessary only?

9.

10.

(i need ideas QQ)

Blog #11: Mentorship 10 Hours

1. I am doing my mentorship with a professor on the campus of Calpoly Pomona.

2. Gregory H. Carlton

3. I have only done 3 hours total with my mentor as of now. And this is shown in the link on the right hand side of my blog.

4. I have not completed 10 hours with my mentor yet but will in time. (this post will be updated then :) )

5. We have already given our contacts information to our house teacher in south, Ms. Melogno, but I will send her the information again now.

Blog # 10: Senior Project, The Holiday

1. What I did over the winter vacation was simply research things such as small businesses and how they might need assistance with certain computer technologies and some of the most major issues they might call someone in for help on to kind of get an idea of what I can talk about in future presentations. I also pondered quite a lot over what I can do about my independent components since I haven't come to a complete idea that sounds great as of yet which I need to do. Also, I thought about the 2nd presentation we will be doing sometime later and what I could do with a hook activity to get an idea of exactly where I want my senior project to go.

2. I have learned nothing specific with what I have done as of yet. I mostly was trying to clarify and specify in my mind where I am going with the senior project and what I will want the end results to look like, which can not be expressed in mere words without a paper long explanation.

3. I would probably talk to my mentor, because he has had years and years of experience in the field I am focusing on and even more with businesses, and he has tons of valuable information he could probably provide for me if necessary.

First Semester of Project

Throughout this semester, I began with the thought of doing my project on Information Technology, specifically helping people and clients who had computer issues. It seemed to be specific enough and has worked the first half of the semester, but recently with the finalizing of the essential questions and finally finding a mentor with years of experience in the field of information technology, it has completely changed my narrow perspective on the world of IT. My mentor, Gregory Carlton, who is a professor at CalPoly Pomona, has explained to me how specific I am being and how IT is so much larger and encompasses so much more than what I am focusing on, that it really won't help me in the future to simply learn about one of the smallest sections of the field. It would be much better for my senior project to be a focus on the many different fields and career paths possible in order for me to not go into college thinking IT is just the people who go to help people at home with computers, which will probably result in choosing the wrong major and classes since it is broken up into many sections within colleges. He has said how many students have had this issue due to their high schools always encompassing everything under "computer sciences" when colleges split each section up into its components.

However, because of the structure of the senior project, I have been unable to focus on a more broad scale than what I would have liked, and have instead had to narrow my essential question (which was more done by the teachers than myself, which was a major dislike of mine) down to simply how to provide computer support to a small business. Adding the small business portion at the end was my victory and only choice in how the essential question was finalized, and will definitely help broaden my project a bit as well in the final product. Unfortunately, I won't be able to focus on all the different parts of IT such as programming, engineering, etc. but I can definitely see how the senior project has to be so narrow and structured to prevent a great many issues from arising. 

What I have learned is that the senior project itself really isn't going to be as difficult as I thought, and definitely not as important after realizing how structured it is, but really, the best part of the project is going to be the mentorship aspect, which really does seem to be the most major freedom next to actually choosing a topic in the beginning of the year. Without it I would've gone blindly through the year without knowing the important things to watch out for when choosing a possible major in this field, and probably waste money and time going into the smallest aspect of the IT world when the business side seems to be much more interesting than the at home calls and support aspect. 

Computer Shutdown Error

      Just recently, I was receiving an error occasionally, either when my computer shut down or was starting up saying something along the lines of "IAstorlcon.exe has failed to shut down correctly" or something similar to that. It may be a different file name but It will usually mean that a program in the Windows Registry is fragmented, or doesn't contain all of its components to work properly. They could've been deleted or simply saved in another area, leaving only the executable part of the program. So when windows goes through the registry to start up or shut down all your programs, it will attempt this one and find that it can't be due to the missing pieces. Don't worry, this isn't a serious issue and can be easily fixed with a registry cleaner program. The one I chose out of many happened to be ccleaner, which happens to be free. The layout of the program can be seen below. 

      How this program is set up is pretty straightforward, and the type of scan you want to use can be selected on the left hand side. For this, you would simply go to the registry section and at the bottom select scan for issues. It'll go through the registry and then show you all the fragments and pieces of programs that can be deleted and what you would like to do with them. It also gives an option to back up your registry before doing the changes to ensure nothing important was accidentally deleted, which you should probably do beforehand. 

     After you have deleted the issues in the registry, the error should have disappeared and your problem should be solved. No need at all to go pay money for someone else to help you, just type your error into your web browser and there usually is a simple way of fixing it. 

Blog #9: EQ

1. I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ.

2.    a. It is not a good eq, because it doesn't sound right and is missing something. Better if it said "what is most important for helping someone lose weight healthily?" or something along those lines.
b. It's good because it provides a clear point of view and is very specific, not broad.
c. It is very specific and not broad, and is very clear in what it is asking. And is not a yes or no question.
d. It is a good start, but not specific enough of where the pain may be or what caused the chronic pain. It needs more specificity.

3. What are the most important things to know when providing computer support to a business?

Research And Working EQ

• What is your working EQ?

My Working Essential Question, currently, is: What are the most important things to know when providing computer support to a client?

• What is a possible answer to your working EQ? Please write the answer in thesis format. 

Assume that your client knows nothing about computers. This will ensure that you start from the simplest possibilities for solving the problem and asking questions, which will make your job easier in a lot of cases since the problem is usually more simple than it may sound. But be careful not to infuriate the client with these simple questions or else you may bring the wrath of hell upon yourself for the remainder of your day, and possibly lose a long-term customer. 

• What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ?

The most important source, and also the most informative with information regarding all that is needed to know to get into the IT profession, as of now is my college level textbook written by Mike Meyers. I was allowed to borrow it for the entirety of the year by my first interviewee, Christian Hernandez. 

• Who is your mentor, or where are you volunteering, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?

My mentor is Gregory H. Carlton, a professor at Cal-Poly Pomona, who knows a ton of information about information technology and has actually changed my thought process on how to answer my essential question due to the different sides to my topic, and this is only by talking with him about it really. 

Independent Component 1 Approval

1. Describe In detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

What I am now planning to do for my Independant Component is sitting in on my mentors' lecture class of CIS 310, which is managing information systems. I will also be doing the labs provided by him when I can on my free time, as well as taking extra cornell notes from the actual textbook being used in the class (a slightly older version of the book since he didn't have any extra new ones).

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence. 

What I can do to show my evidence is to, possibly, show unedited portions of what I do or failed attempts throughout the course of me finishing the video(s). And, of course, I will then have a link to the completed and edited portions in their entirety on the side of the blog.

3. Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

Following along with my idea, it will most assuredly help me learn more about my topic because it will be me having to explain everything that I am doing in order to accomplish a task, as well as actually doing it and remembering what I have to do. Fixing some of the issues, and in different ways, will help me get some hands on experience in explaining and solving some common computer issues, which can be very helpful in the long run.

4. Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your mentorship log and call it the independent component log 1.

The instructions were to answer these 4 questions. However, all of them were not questions but rather instructions required to meet an end, especially this last one, but I did address it by adding the desired link to the right hand side of my blog. This was my act of indirect rebellion for the day. :)

Windows Fact: Internet Explorer

Recently, after quite a while of having switched from Internet Explorer to Google Chrome, which I very much prefer, I noticed that Internet Explorer was not actually gone from my Windows 8 laptop, and found that I could not remove the program files from the hard drive. Also, the Icon for Internet Explorer was still around on my laptop, but only when I needed to search for something among all my software as shown below.

This annoyed me to no end, of course. I mean, why would I want IE on my laptop if I never use it and it seems to serve no purpose, right? Unfortunately, after many attempts of deleting the files from my hard drive and uninstalling it, I figured out why it would refuse to disappear. When I finally went into the control panel of my laptop, going to programs, and using the "Turn Windows Features on or off", which is located on the left hand side of the program list, and disabled Internet Explorer,

It seemed to finally be over. But of course, it did not solve this irritating issue. So I finally used the internet to find out why it would simply not go away. As it turns out, Internet Explorer is an integral part of the windows operating system, and without it on the computer, some things would be unable to run or work properly. So luckily I was unable to get rid of it, or I probably would have had issues with my laptop that I most certainly wouldn't want. As for anyone else who have had this same issue, do not distress, because Internet Explorer is very important to the system and helps it function properly!

Blog #6: Second Interview Questions

1.  I will be interviewing Gregory H. Carlton who works as a professor at Cal-Poly Pomona and has experience working with computers, specifically forensics and information systems.

2.  The interview questions I may ask someone are as follows:

• Where did you learn about your profession? i.e. college, independent. 

• What made you want to work in this particular field?

• What are some of the most important things you need to know when working? 

• Where are some of the places you have worked previously and what did you do? 

• How have you kept up to date with the latest knowledge in your profession?