My reflection
This course writing and reading 1103 was very helpful to me. In the beginning I have learned how to write very good summaries. Our instructor Mr. Gregory has taught us how to pick up the main points in an article and how to write it in the correct form. We also learned how to reference our work and that stealing other peoples work is very wrong and usually a student would get caught doing it and would get expelled for doing so.
After that we have learned how to write essays, I used to think that writing them
were tedious and boring and sometimes hard since I didn’t know how to write
long essays, but I realized after our instructors help that writing it by making
an outline and cutting the essay into different important parts makes things
much more interesting and easy and I have successfully wrote 1000+ word essay
which I thought I couldn’t. This skill that I have learned not just helps me at
college but would help me at my work place when writing reports and presenting
important documents.
So I would like to thank the great work our teacher did to make us learn all of this, sometimes he was tough on us by giving us many things to read, but usually its interesting since it’s some new information that we didn’t know. I hope to keep on learning new skills and try to improve on myself.
(241 words )
Essay #1
Abdullah
Ahmed Al Marar
H00234757
CID
Cloud Computing
Introduction
Imagine using your laptop anywhere in the world where internet
connection is available and be able to access your important files and
software? For many it seems like a dream since it would greatly help in many
fields may it be business, designing software and many other industries. That
is Cloud Computing in a nutshell It’s a method of using the internet to access servers
that has the information or software that is installed in it so you won’t have
to install a certain software on your own computer, it greatly helps with
memory capacity, processing and bandwidth.
History/Past
In the beginning of the introduction of computers you would need
extremely big spaces to store the hardware and storage system, but there were
another concept of doing things. The earliest concept of cloud computing was in
the 1960’s by John McCarthy who said that "computation may someday be
organized as a public utility"( Wikipedia, 2012). The name cloud came from
an old representation of internet or communication as a cloud drawing, the
first uses were financial transactions and census data. One of the biggest
companies like Amazon helped on developing Cloud Computing to be used in their
data centers since it made it more efficient and reduced cost. Google and Yahoo
are also users of cloud computing; an easy way to explain one of their uses of
cloud computing is emails you don’t have to as a user to install software or
buy a hardware specially to access the email and retrieve the information you
need.
Present
Cloud computing has become widely accepted in the computer world
today since it has many advantages, large companies and small alike use it for
storing their data and make the flow of work easier. The first benefit is
reduced costs since you wouldn’t have to buy any hardware, software or pay for
network management you just pay for what you use as a service. Since it can be
accessed remotely, if an employee has to add or update something he can do it
anywhere with an internet connection, if you need to expand your cloud capacity
it is extremely easy and at a lower cost since you wouldn’t have to buy extra
hardware or expensive software licenses it works on month to month basis. Cloud
computing apps allows you to select what your business exactly needs you
wouldn’t have to have extra information or data that you don’t need.
Generally Cloud Computing has three sections “Applications”,
“Storage and “Connectivity” Each with their own use, usually the type of
business you have would help you make the decision of which to choose.
Future
The rate of people, companies and Governments is increasing in
using cloud computing, but most of them just use it for storage, "But when
it comes to federal records, agencies have a job that is more than just
preserving them. The records they preserve have to be organized, follow
disposition schedules [kept, transferred or deleted according to set standards]
and they have to be accessible" (What is the cloud?,2012). This is the
direction Cloud Computing heading to. Since the interest is high development of
the uses, speed, storage and reduced cost is also increasing.
Conclusion
Although the concept of Cloud Computing is old, it’s still
considered a young system that is growing, we are seeing it being implemented
in smart phones like the IPhone you can store documents and pictures which can
be transferred to any of your Apple products, Microsoft also offers it to your
personal computer which indicates that in the future we won’t spend much on
extra hard disks space since your important files can be with us everywhere. (608 Words)
References
Cantu, A. (2011,
December 20). The History and Future of Cloud Computing - Forbes. Information
for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012,
from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dell/2011/12/20/the-history-and-future-of-cloud-computing/
Cloud computing.
(n.d.). Concept. Retrieved March 22, 2012, from www.wikinvest.com/concept/Cloud_Computing
Cloud computing
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Retrieved April 26, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing#History
Hoffman, M.
(2011, April 6). Top 10 List: Top Cloud Computing Benefits for Your Small
Business | InfoStreet's Small Business Blog. InfoStreet's Small Business
Blog. Retrieved March 22, 2012, from
http://smallbusinessblog.infostreet.com/2011/04/top-10-list-top-cloud-computing-benefits-for-your-small-business/
Strickland, J.
(n.d.). HowStuffWorks "How Cloud Computing Works". HowStuffWorks
"Computer". Retrieved April 12, 2012, from
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing.htm
What is
the"cloud?". (n.d.). EBSCOhost. Retrieved March 22, 2012, from
0-web.ebscohost.com.library.hct.ac.ae/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=126&sid=3b81a82e-cf01-4171-8d41-264635596a15%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ufh&AN=69935349
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Essay # 2
Story of stuff
H00234757
: Abdullah Al Marar CID
Introduction
Have
you ever wondered how things are made? What steps are taken to create them?
Annie Leonard had the same questions in her mind, but text books had a very
basic system layout; so she had to find out for herself and it took 10 years, which
became “The Story of Stuff” In the video which is 20 minutes long, she gives us
insights on things the average person doesn’t know or even realize. She talks
about how the system right now is greatly affects the environment; the natural
resources are draining quickly. People health and happiness is declining over
the years. So this video makes us realize that this system should be changed.
Extraction
Extraction is “taking the planet’s resources- wood, minerals, coal, fossil fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil out of the earth“(Story of stuff, 2007). There are many problems facing this part of the system, first the resources are decreasing greatly and the numbers of forests are decreasing all over the world. Fuel reserves are decreasing too, these things mostly happen to 3rd world countries so people who used to live near forests or country sides are forced to move out. The environment is also being affected by extraction, since the ways of extraction needs a lot of fuels and chemicals which pollute the earth and people get affected by it and it increases the amount of illnesses spreading. The process of extraction is also hard so people are getting killed either in coal mines or oil extraction. Right now companies and people are being more conscious on extraction to be greener and more efficient.
Production
Production is a stage where we apply toxic chemical products to the natural resources which in effect create toxic products. First the factories are responsible for creating these products which have many negative impacts on the environment, a large amount of natural resources are used, the chemicals used pollute the air, change the climate, deplete the water and toxic waste. The US released a statistic showing 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released each year. (Story of stuff, 2007) It greatly affects the low income communities. The people who work at the factories are the most people exposed to the toxic chemicals and what’s alarming is most of the workers are women in reproductive age, they are working hands on with reproductive chemicals which would affect the health of the baby and their own health. Production should be clean, use less harmful chemicals; it should produce less waste, be more durable and use renewable energy.
Distribution
Distribution is the part where you sell the products that you produced, the main goal is to sell as much as possible, even if it means to sell the product cheaper than how much it costs to make and distribute, because you want to keep the product flow moving. This impacts the health of the environment and people; you would need to transport the entire product all over the world which would increase greenhouse gasses and use resources. Distributors would need low cost workers with little or no health care benefit who are already in need of money and care, it adds to their stress. Distributors are usually located in malls so the numbers of malls are increasing and they would make them near living area’s which would increase the noise pollution because of the cars. A way to fix these many problems is first to have a better plan on locations of the distributors, greener buildings, fair trade agreements and better workforce healthcare and salaries.
Consumption
Consumption is when you buy products from the distributors. Studies show that people consume more than they did in the last decade. The impact of this high amount of consumption affects the environment in many ways. It increases greenhouse gasses and barely recyclable waste. People don’t have time to even enjoy since they usually work long hours just to be able to pay for products they don’t really need and usually just spend time watching TV. This leads to many depressed people since this trend of buying the latest gadgets is increasing and we never feel satisfied. We should care more about balancing our lives more, we have to be more social time with the family gather with friends and care less about getting the latest product and get what we really need.
Disposal
Eventually the things you buy either become old or break. So you would throw them in the bin, once you throw it the waste goes to incinerators and landfills. Incinerators incinerate the trash melting those toxic materials. This produce very toxic smoke that goes to the air and it pollutes the air. Landfills are simply just dug out land that holds the waste they usually compress. First they usually destroy forests just to make a landfill so it has many negative effects on the environment. Reports say that the workers that work in similar places usually are exposed to toxic materials which affect their health and also reports of many injuries occur. Regulations in poor countries are lacking so usually the disposed waste is sent to these countries and destroys the environment there. We have to introduce new ways to dispose this waste; there is the zero waste system and linear system. Also they in factories less toxic materials should be used and in return we get less toxic waste.
Consumerism in the UAE
Consumerism is “a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater amounts” (Wikipedia, 2012). Consumerism in UAE is rapidly increasing in the last decade with the increase of population mostly expatriates. (Gerson & Richardson, 2008)This leads to increase the waste produced all over the country and in response to that the government have introduced recycling and making people aware of how it harms the environment around us. Also a company named Masdar has invested $22 Billion to make Masdar City which they say would have zero emissions and zero-waste and it would be completed by 2020 With the help of people like Annie Leonard people are opening their eyes to this trend and make people think twice before getting any product and making sure if it’s really needed.
Conclusion
This trend that is increasing daily is becoming a huge problem. Not just to our pockets but to the world. It destroys beautiful forests, it kills animals, and it creates greenhouse gasses and makes us a lot less healthy. I think all the major countries in the world should really study this situation and make standard rules to decrease all of the side effects of consumerism and make a clear line for those big companies not to cross. Because of this keeps on going on by the next 100 years this world and its people will suffer.
(1134 words)
References
The Story of Stuff Project. (2007). The Story of Stuff Project. Retrieved May
16, 2012, from http://www.storyofstuff.org/
A Word A Day (in
the UAE): Consumerism. (2009, February 27). A Word A Day (in the UAE).
Retrieved May 16, 2012, from
http://word-a-day-uae.blogspot.com/2009/02/consumerism.html
Gerson, J.,
& Richardson, A. (2008, October 4). 'Consumerism and foreigners' greatest
identity threats - The National. Latest and breaking news | thenational.ae -
The National. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/consumerism-and-foreigners-greatest-identity-threats
Jahan, F. (2011,
November 8). Ethical Consumerism can steer sustainable living. arabiangazette.com
- Middle East and North Africa News and Headlines | Extensive coverage of
Business, Economy, Finance, Arts & Culture, Society, Technology and
Environment. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from
http://arabiangazette.com/ethical-consumerism-steer-sustainable-living/
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