The Project Collaboration in the Cloud is a team project that requires your team to do the following:

1. Explain a Google Slides Presentation on a topic assigned by your instructor. Folder and File Sharing in Google Drive is required. (Download your slides or assignment and share with your teammates)
2. Deliver the Presentation during class time. Instructors may also require you to record the presentation in a Zoom meetings with your team members and then post the link to the recording in a Discussion Form for the class to review.
3. Provide a Self Evaluation email to your professor to evaluate your participation in the team project. After evaluating yourself, rate your additional team members by first and last name. Give them a grade of 1 to 100.

Your instructor will divide the class into teams of 2 to 3 members in each team. All team members are responsible for contributing to the content and success of the project, but there are roles to assign to team members. Remember if you can not resolve a dispute through compromise or reason, you can always flip a coin, or play a round of scissors, paper, stone; or guess a number between 1 and 10, and an idea or person will eventually win.

Assigning roles and responsibilities:

The Team Coordinator is responsible for the following: (All students do not need to present, Use your strongest presenter for the class presentation)

• Encouraging participation among team members which means that everyone on the team must participate to ensure the success of the project. All members should be fully involved in team meetings and decision making. Everyone must have a shared understanding of the goals, and the decisions (technical as well as managerial), and the reasoning behind decisions.
• Coordinate communication with the instructorand group memberswhen needed.
• Overseeing effective meetings and resolving problems and issues. This requires participatory, orderly, short, and effective meetings in the ways that decisions are made and members are aligned with team goals. You can meet by Zoom or Google Hangouts or share information through your NOVA email or a combination of any and all meeting technology that works for the group. The Team Coordinator is responsible for scheduling meetings and ensuring that members know the technology being used.
• Setting up a shared folder and files in Google Drive where team members can share files for the Google Slides presentation.
• Ensuring that your instructor has access to the shared folder and files at the email address specified by your instructor.

The Artistic Coordinator is responsible for the following:

• Advise the team on design issues related to the cosmetic appearance of the Google Slides presentation. This includes choice of themes, slide layouts, fonts, color schemes, animation, and transition elements in the Google Slides presentation.
• Gather visual, audio, and video content images, (All group should find at least on online video that help explain their topic) YouTube is a great first step
• Lay out the elements within the Google Slides presentation. Who will discuss what slides or topics.

The Content Coordinator(s) (1 or 2 people) is/are responsible for the following:

• Research the topic assigned to the team
• Write the textual content that the team members will discuss
• Check accuracy in the spelling, grammar, and factual content.

List of Topics (Your Instructor will assign each group a book chapter or assignment to discuss or present)

Grading Google Drive Collaboration Requirements - 10 Points Google Slides Presentation or assignment demo Requirements - 20 Points Presenters knowledge of the content - 40 Points Class engagement (Did you engage the audience by asking a question or answering a question they answered) - 20 points Team Member Evaluation score - 20 Points

Please note that deadlines are extremely important in this project. If your group misses a presentation deadline you get a mandatory 10 overall deduction from the final grade on the Group Collaboration Assignment. If your miss your second scheduled presentation then the entire group receives a zero for the assignment.

Group Assignments (Week of) - Student Sample Presentation

Spiller - January 17 - Chapter 1 Computer Technology: Your Need to Know - PPT - Professor Spiller Group 1 - January 30 - Chapter 2 Introduction To Systems Architecture PPT(ARYAL, ATIKI, BIJEAU) - Discussion Question 2

Research Problem

The instructor might want to make this exercise more challenging by imposing budgets for each user type - say $500 for the home user and accountant and $750 or $1000 for the architect. Software selection may or may not be incorporated. If it is, OS selection is an issue for the accountant and architect.

1. Home user: This system tends to emphasize graphics performance at the expense of other components. However, the budget is more than adequate for the purpose, although it can be consumed quickly by peripherals (such as a high-quality inkjet printer and scanner) and software.
2. Accountant: The system features to focus on include faster memory, a high-powered CPU, and a network card. An upgraded OS might also be considered.
3. Architect: A large monitor or a dual-monitor setup is a must in this situation, but fitting it in the budget will be tough. The applications also demand large amounts of fast primary storage, secondary storage, and a high-powered CPU. An upgraded OS might also be considered.

Group 2 - January 30 - Chapter 3 Data Representation PPT(BROWN, CHEKONIK) Discussion Question 3 Research Problem

The following is data on the Intel Core 2 processor family at the time of this writing. Students' answers can vary based on date or choice of another microprocessor.

What data types are supported? How many bits are used to store each data type? How is each data type represented internally?

Answers are in the following table:

Data type	Length (bits)	Coding format
Unsigned integer	8,16, 32, or 64	Ordinary binary
Signed integer	8,16, 32, or 64	Twos complement
Real	32, 64, or 80	IEEE floating-point standards (1985)
Bit field	32	32 binary digits
Bit string	Variable up to 232 bits	Ordinary binary
Byte string	Variable up to 232 bytes	Ordinary binary
Memory address	32, 48, 64, or 80	Ordinary binary
MMX (integer)	88, 416, 232	Packed twos complement
SSE (integer)	168, 816, 432, 264	Packed twos complement
SSE (real)	432, 264	Packed IEEE binary32 and binary64

Group 3 -February 6- Chapter 4 Processor Technology and Architecture PPT (HASSAN, JAMES, JONES) Discussion Question 4

Research Problem

The emphasis of RISC processors is on increasing the speed of instruction processing by using a small number of simple instructions. Intel Core and Itanium processors are generally categorized as CISC. They use more complicated instructions but try to accomplish more work with each one. In practice, both processors actually use a hybrid of RISC and CISC architectures to maximize performance. Current versions of both types of processors use advanced techniques, such as pipelining, speculative execution, and multiprocessing.

Group 4 - February 13 - Chapter 5 Data Storage Technology PPT (KELLUM, LOPEZ, LUNA-LEON) Discussion Question 5

Research Problem

Answers will vary based on the computers selected for the investigation, but students might note some of these general findings: Older computers might not be able to accept a 1 GB memory expansion. The cost of 1 GB of memory for most current desktops and laptops is similar. The cost of 1 GB of memory for most servers is higher because memory must often be added in groups of four.

Group 5 - February 20- Chapter 6 System Integration and Performance PPT(MANSARAY, NATIVI, NAVEED) Discussion Question 6

Research Problem

Answers can vary, depending on the PCs that students choose. In general, high-performance workstations use RAID and/or SSD storage and have faster RAM and processors, more processor cores, and a much more capable video subsystem. Whether the price difference is warranted is a judgment call. If users need workstation performance to do their jobs, the extra cost is probably warranted because it's small in relation to employees' salary costs.

Group 6 - February 27 - Chapter 7 Input/Output Technology PPT (OMAR, POTE, RAHAT) Discussion Question 7 Research Problem

Answers will vary, depending on the product chosen and the features available at the time. Students should point out that for graphics-oriented applications, graphics storage can offer distinct advantages over processing into text and numeric data (and major advantages over physical storage of documents). Graphics generally require more storage space than text or numeric data (and, therefore, higher hardware costs), but storing graphics data in its native form can facilitate data search and retrieval. Software solutions also generate a dynamic online index of relevant document index fields as the document is encoded into a digital image file.

Group 7 - March 6 - Chapter 8 Data and Network Communication Technology PPT (Naimee, RYAN, SAADOUNI, Mekonnen) Discussion Question 8

Research Problem

Answer can vary, but students should conduct research on a memory manufacturer's Web site, such as Samsung. The added expense of memory incorporating parity checking or ECC might be required when running applications in which data integrity is critical (such as banking, national security, or health care monitoring). Group 8 - March 20 -Chapter 9Computer Networks PPT(SINGH, SINGH, TANUDJI) Discussion Question 9

Research Problem Most students will assume that in-home network should be entirely wireless. However, the specifics of the case indicate that a substantial amount of streaming media applications will be in use, which taxes the capabilities of any current 802.11 standard, especially if many users access the network simultaneously or there's interference from nearby networks or other devices, such as cordless phones. In practical terms, wired performance is typically 20 to 100 times better than wireless performance at the same cost. In addition, multimedia and streaming media continue increasing in size because of higher and higher resolutions. Therefore, at least some wired connections should be included in the network design, particularly for TVs and devices that will store/serve multimedia or streaming media files (such as a home server).

The choice of DSL or cable modem will depend heavily on local conditions, most of which won't be obvious or known to the purchaser. With copper wire connections, cable modems usually provide higher raw data transfer rates, but most of these networks share bandwidth with multiple homes in a neighborhood. Therefore, the available bandwidth to a single home can be substantially less than the raw data transfer rate. DSL connections are usually dedicated to a single home, but congestion can occur at the local switching center, where traffic from multiple DSL connections is aggregated for transfer to and from the Internet. If one provider offers copper-based service and the other offers fiber, the fiber-based connection usually has higher throughput, although it might be more expensive. These facts reflect most urban areas in the United States as of 2015. The available options and tradeoffs are much different in rural areas and outside the United States (and much better in some countries, such as Korea and Germany).

A two-level home doesn't automatically need two different wireless APs; if it does, APs are usually best placed at opposite ends of the home rather than one per floor. A 250 square meter home can usually be served by a centrally located AP, although two might be preferred for higher throughput and segregation of multiple access points. One AP could be a combination device that also provides DSL or cable modem connectivity.

Wiring a home during construction is always much easier than doing it afterward. Data connections add little to overall power and other wiring costs, if all are installed at the same time. Given the earlier statements about limitations of wireless for multimedia and heavy use, wiring should be installed to areas near TVs, the entry point for cable or phone services, the location of a second wireless AP (if any), and wherever a server or desktop computer will be located. For connectivity equipment, a combination device providing DSL or cable modem connectivity, wireless access, and a firewall should be placed. If it has wired Gigabit Ethernet ports, all the better. Otherwise, a separate Gigabit Ethernet workgroup switch can be used.

Group 9 - March 27 - Chapter 10 Application Development PPT(TURAY, VELASQUEZ) Discussion Question 10

Research Problem

Answers will vary, depending on the company and tools selected. In general, separate CASE tools and IDEs are being merged into integrated tool sets, which tend to be very large and complex. Students should conduct research on the Web site of one of the companies listed. At present (2010), tools vary in which system development methodologies they're based on, although most support some variation on UML and the Unified Process. Most tools support generating program code based on model definitions and vice versa (that is, reverse engineering). Extensive real-time debugging support is the norm, as is support for distributed environments. Tools from Oracle and IBM are usually targeted to Java and Java-based deployment environments in a UNIX/Linux OS environment. Most tools can target a variety of DBMSs, although tools from a specific DBMS vendor (Oracle, for example) tend to offer more features for their own DBMS.

Group 10 - April 4 - Chapter 11 Operating Systems PPT (WHITE, WISE, YANKAH) Discussion Question 11

Research Problem

A buffer overflow occurs when program instructions are written in such a way that input accepted by a program (for example, entered in a Web form) and stored in a fixed-size storage location (such as a character array or an I/O buffer) can be larger than the storage location size. The "excess" input is said to overflow the buffer, writing data to memory locations beyond those originally intended. When a buffer overflow is possible in a well-known and easily exploitable software package (a publicly accessible Web or e-mail server, for instance), it becomes a possible entry point for hackers. Malicious program instructions can be inserted into the overflow memory locations. If CPU control can be transferred to these instructions, the malicious code runs and does whatever damage it's designed to do.

Buffer overflows are all too common, and exploiting them for malicious intent is widespread. The best solution is programming practices that explicitly check the length of input to a fixed-sized storage area, with truncation or other preventive measures "programmed in" to prevent overflows.

Another approach that can be embedded in hardware or system software is called data execution protection (DEP). DEP prevents instructions at a memory location (or a virtual memory page) from executing unless the location or page has been specifically marked as executable, which is normally done when a program or service first starts. It effectively prevents most buffer overflows because they almost always involve pages used to store data rather than instructions. DEP isn't foolproof, however, because a buffer overflow that runs from a data page to a subsequent page of instructions can still succeed.

Windows DEP takes advantage of hardware-level DEP if it exists (as it does on most current CPUs) but substitutes software-enforced DEP if needed. It can be configured in several ways, including being enabled or disabled on a per-program basis. Some older software packages mix data and instructions in the same virtual memory page and, therefore, don't run correctly if DEP is enabled. If possible, a later version of the software that's compatible with DEP should be used. When that's not possible, however, DEP should be disabled for that program only.

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