Chris Beks Faculty Blog

No longer teaching for UAF - Tanana Valley Campus

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:17:00 GMT

As some of you knew, last semester my temporary contract with UAF - Tanana Valley Campus was not being renewed. Instead, a search was started for a permanent position with the IT Specialist program, since Steve Cysewski had retired in our department. Although I did apply for this permanent position, I did not make the final round of interviews.

Therefore, I will not be teaching classes for UAF - Tanana Valley Campus. In the future, I might teach a class here or there as an adjunct, but I don't expect to be teaching full-time. This site will stay up for the coming semester, but will change to a more personal site at the beginning of next year.

Thank you everyone for making the past 8 years a wonderful experience. I have really enjoyed teaching for so many students, and I will miss you all the most. Thanks also, for all of the encouraging emails I have received over the past few weeks. Good luck in your classes this semester, and keep in touch!

Chris

Class materials no longer available

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:06:00 GMT

A few days ago, I received an email from Cengage Learning, telling me I was in violation of copyright law by material on this site that was theirs. According to them, I did not have permission to publish this on this site, and I was asked very firmly to remove the materials from this site.

As I have had a good working relationship with Cengage Learning for the past 8 years, and do not want to violate any laws for that matter, I have removed all of the material in question, including all of the links to the material. If your a student, and have a need for anything that was previously available, please contact me by email.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anybody, but I believe that this was the best thing to do for all parties involved.

Have a great semester everyone!

CIOS 210: Homework for Thursday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:44:00 GMT

I hope last night's lecture gave most of you some new information in dealing with your multimed ia devices, like your digital camera's, camcorders, and web cams. It was nice to hear some of your recommendations, and able to share some of the tools and software other use. I highly recommend Picasa2 or Adobe's new Photoshop Express for photo editing and sharing on the web. Flickr is another service I use from time to time.

Homework for next Thursday:

Read Chapter 9 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news stories to share in class
Post to the forum topic (new one this week)

CIOS 210: Homework for Tuesday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:31:00 GMT

Thanks for all of you who submitted Project 1. I appreciate that very much and will do my best to get them all graded by next Tuesday. Until then, below is the homework for Tuesday:

Read Chapter 8 from the book (ppt)
Find two IT news articles to share in class
Post to the forum topic (same as Tuesday's)
Be prepared to take a quiz on chapters 7 & 8 of the book

CIOS 210: Homework for Thursday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

So tonight was pretty dry material. I know, I hope that the video, and some of the stuff I showed around class, made it a little more bearable. We'll do quite a bit of lab time on Thursday, making up for lost time today. Below is the video I showed in class, some of you asked to have that link.

Homework for next class:

Read chapter 7 (ppt)
Find two IT news articles to share in class
Post to the forum topic (new topic)
Project 1 is due at the beginning of class

CIOS 210: Homework for next week

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:18:00 GMT

I hope to memory chapter help with Project 1, and made some sense. I've been teaching this chapter for a while now, and tonight, I felt you guys got the whole concept. Of course I hope that's true. I've listed the sites below to which I showed some of the memory specs on, and a few sites of memory manufacturers. See you on Tuesday!

ZipZoomFly.com
Newegg.com

Kingston
Crucial
Corsair

Homework for next week:

Read Chapter 6 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news articles to share in class
Post to the forum topic (same one as Tuesday's)
Continue working on Project 1
Be prepared to take a quiz on chapters 5 & 6 of the book

CIOS 211: Homework for next week

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:13:00 GMT

Alright, enough talk about ethics. Although I'm very happy most of you joined in to the discussion and conversations. For this week, a whole different assignment, talking about providing customer support. The book an actually help a lot with this assignment as well as a few articles I have below. They're a little dated, but I believe they can help provide you with the right mind set to write the paper for assignment 7.

Homework for next week:

Complete Assignment 7
Find two IT news articles to share in class
Post to the forum topic
Be prepared to present Assignment 7 to class next week.

CIOS 210: Homework for Thursday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:25:00 GMT

The motherboard chapter is not as long as some of the other chapters, and it ties in to what we're talking about last week. Plus, it also is a good chapter to read while starting on your Project 1! I hope some of you have got started on that, I think you'll see it works good in relation to the current material in class. It can almost be like a lab outside of class. BTW, I did modify that Project 1 assignment, and it now reflects that you also new a POWER SUPPLY. Thanks for pointing that out Robert.

Homework for next Thursday:

Read chapter 5 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news articles to share in class
Post to the forum topic (new topic for this week)
Continue working on Project 1

CIOS 210: Homework for next Tuesday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:01:00 GMT

Although processors have a lot of specifics, I hope you can see through all of it, and realize there are a lot of commonalities. Just take your time with it, and come prepared with questions on chapter 5 next week.

As far as Project 1 is concerned, just check it out, and I think this can be a really helpful project to apply some of the knowledge from the book and the class into practice. If you're unsure on what to do for Project 1 please email me, or talk to me during a break in class.

Homework for next Tuesday:

Read Chapter 4 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news articles
Post to the forum topic (same as last Tuesday's)
Start working on Project 1
Be prepared for a quiz on chapter 3 & 4 of the book.

CIOS 211: Homework for next week

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:19:00 GMT

Thanks for the good discussion in this weeks class. Ethics are a touchy subject, but they play a big roel in technology these days. As I said in class, I don't believe I can teach ethics, each person has values that they base their ethics on. However, I am trying to make you aware of some of the situations that you may encounter in a IT position. Having thought about different scenarios and situations that you might end up in, may give you insight in what you would do.

Links for the assignment
Infoweek Carlton Vogt's archived columns "Ethics Matters"
Carlton Vogt web site

Homework for next week:

Complete Assignment 6, and be prepared to present your article to the class. This is especially important this week, since you won't need to turn in a paper.
Find two IT news articles to share in class.
Post to the forum topic.

CIOS 210: Homework for Thursday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:44:00 GMT

So tonight might have seen abit boring to some of you. I appologize for that. Some of the lecture stuff is pretty dry material, but I hope that some examples of real work experiences make it understandable and a little more "entertaining". That said, Thursday we'll do two labs one on motherboards and another on power supplies and electricity.

Jack ask tonight a question on backup software and procedures, since Chapter 2 mentions backing up data frequently. I found a review on PC Magazine, that talks in depth about 5 backup applications. I don't use any of them, since I started using Jungle Disk, but that doesn't mean they're not worth a look. Several of them seem to be pretty good backup tools for files and folders. Anyway, follow the links to see it for yourself, and email me if you have any questions.

Homework for Thursday:

Read Chapter 3 of the book.(ppt)
Find two IT news articles to share in class
Post to the forum topic (new topic!)

CIOS 210: Homework for next class

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:34:00 GMT

I hope you guys enjoyed class tonight. We'll be doing labs every Thursday, and maybe a few on Tuesdays. I know it sometimes can be a little intimidating to get right into the computer case with your hands, and start taking things apart (carefully), but it usually is the best way to get more comfortable with it. If tonight was a favorite part, you'll be happy to know that there is a lot more to come!

Homework for next class:

Read Chapter 2 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news articles to share in class.
Post to the forum topic. (same one as Tuesday, only doing one a week)
Be prepared to take a quiz on chapters 1 & 2

CIOS 211: Homework for next week

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Great class tonight! Most of the technology proposal are very good, and many of them are either being done, or have a likely chance of being funded and I was very happy to hear that. I look forward to seeing the final versions of all of them next week. Until then, here is the homework.

Finish the final version of Assignment 5. Use the feedback from the class and the instructor to revise your technology proposal.
Find two IT News articles to share in class.
Post to the forum topic.

See you guys next week!

CIOS 210: Homework from first class for Thursday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:46:00 GMT

Alright, thanks for a good first class tonight! Although don't get too used to getting out early, because most likely this was the first and last time that will happen...
Anyway, below is the homework, with links to the appropriate pages. Email me with questions if you have any. See you on Thursday!

Homework for next Thursday:

Read Chapter 1 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news stories to share in class
Post to the discussion topic

CIOS 110: Homework for Thursday

chris.beks@yahoo.com — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:22:00 GMT

Sorry for skipping a chapter in the book, but I'm actually thinking about not doing much with it, since a lot of chapter 7 is already talked about in chapter 6. It would catch us up a bit in the schedule as well. remember that Project 1 is due at the beginning of class this Thursday. Below is the rest of the homework for Thursday:

Project 1 is due at the beginning of class!
Read chapter 8 of the book (ppt)
Find two IT news topics to share in class
Post to the forum topic