About Me

Hello everyone,

My name full name is Muhammad Hanan Zahid and I am 19 years old. I was born in Pakistan and came to America when I was 2 years old. When I first came to the United States, I was living in California. I have lived many places like around the big redwood trees or Sacramento in the city.  In 2008 my family moved to Cresco, a small town in Iowa. My Family consists of 5 people, but I only live with 4, which include, my dad, mom, and a little sister who is still in elementary school. My brother recently moved to Texas after finishing college and getting a job. I have completed middle school and high school at Crestwood in Cresco. I was involved in playing football since 6th grade and carried out through my senior year. I would say the best year for football was when I was a junior since we made state playoffs. I am currently enrolled in RCTC as a full-time student. Living in the city is very expensive so I commute daily for 1 hour and 20 minutes. It felt like a long ride at first, but I am used to it now. Going home is a completely different story. It’s usually the boring ride since I am not in a hurry as compared to the morning where I find myself rushing to get to college. I am hoping to get a degree in computer engineering after transferring to Iowa State University.

Some of my hobbies include fishing, riding my bike outside, or just programming on the computer. I have a really high interest in computers/technology. Throughout high school, people would usually ask me for help about something more than they would with the actual tech department. I also built my own desktop computer which was very expensive and cost $2000.

I hope you learned at least something after reading my blog.

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Week 5 Final Post

At the beginning of the Semester, I was not too fond of Blogging. I thought that it was going to be hard. Setting up a blog was a fun experience since it let you be creative. Making a couple new blog posts every week was not very difficult. I found it very easy. It was just a matter of time before I figured out how to use the correct word choice for a blogging format. I realized that blogs are meant to be more casual and relaxing and not very structural. It is a way to connect with other people just like social media sites.

The first half of the semester was about reading different articles, taking notes, and writing reflections. Some of these articles were very lengthy and not too interesting. As we moved on in the semester, it wasn’t that bad after all. I was about to relate to a few of the articles such as the selfie posts or articles about social media.

During the second half of the semester, I enjoyed blogging a little more since it was about a topic we chose. I chose to do my blog on technology since I read multiple blogs about phones and computers every day. I tried making my own blog about similar things, but sometimes it is hard to choose what kind of topics I should post. There are many factors that come into play such as having an interesting topic or enough content.

It has been a very long semester and now that I look back at all my posts, I’m very surprised at how everything turned out. I have learned a few new writing techniques and how to blog.

In the future, I will not be posting to this blog anymore since I will be busy and not able to update often enough. I think that it is important to be consistent when doing something if you want to succeed in something. Making one blog post here and one there is going to make you lose viewers since no one will know the time of the next post. If there was a set time for each post, you would have an engaging audience that is willing to wait for the next post causing growth in your interactions and making progress.

Week 5

This week I am going to be talking about electric cars. There are many different types of cars made by many of the top auto manufacturers such as Ford, Honda, Chevy, or Tesla.  I am going to be talking about Tesla Specifically this week

Tesla has the most advanced cars with many new features. Some of these features include autopilot. This is where the driver can just relax in the driver seat and not do anything. There is a lot of technology used to make sure it is secure and not cause accidents. Just like any other product that was ever made this isn’t perfect. There are many cases in which this went wrong.

One of the most recent cases was a driver’s car lighting on fire. This was caused by a defect in the battery. Tesla was not very happy about this since it damages the companies reputation. It also caused a lot of money to be lost by Tesla due to fighting a case in court. Tesla offered the individual a new car ASAP for free to make up for compensation. I think that this was a very good offer since he just got a brand new car for free.

There was also an earlier case in which a driver was drunk. This is a bad use of the auto-pilot feature in my opinion since the driver could fail to operate the vehicle under intoxication. There was an error which occurred causing the car to wind up in a bad accident. When the police arrived at the scene the driver responded that he thought he was safe to drive since he wasn’t the actual driver of the car. He claimed that the car was driving itself. This also led to another court case.

In my opinion, if you use the autopilot feature on the public roads, you should be following the same rules as every other driver. This is to maintain a safe environment for everyone.

Although these cases make a bad reputation for the company, I think that Tesla is very successful still. These cases are just a few out of the thousands of cars on the road. There is still much more potential for this new technology to improve and be widely adopted by the mass public.

Week 4 Post 2

The second blogger I am going to be looking at is Tatum. By reading a few of her posts, I can infer that this is going to be about her life. There are many different hints you would find just by skimming through. One of the first things that appeared was “Dear Diary”. It means that this is a personal diary she is writing. Another detail I noticed was that she used a lot of first-person words such as “I”. This is how most diaries are when they are talking about something personal or about oneself.

So reading the first few lines I can already tell that this is going to start off by talking about her morning. She states that she woke up around 9:30 to 10 am. Then she goes on about eating breakfast and what she ate. A few more lines down I read that she watched a movie with her family and friends. She also continues to implement some more facts about herself such as hating to watch movies before reading the book. After the movie, she said they went to the store to pick up a few items. They later watched a football game and had a happy ending to the day.

In my opinion, this blog had a very good structure to it starting from the beginning of the day to the end. One thing I didn’t like about it was that some topics were too long. It would have been easier to read if there were more paragraphs for each topic. I learned a lot about Tatum just by reading a few posts. They contained a lot of information and a few of her interests.

A blog about someone’s life may not be for everyone. Some people may lose interest after a while. There are many ways to keep an audience engaged such as posting weekly. Otherwise, if you make more than necessary posts, it is going to make everything sound boring unless you are living a life which is more interesting and superior than everyone else’s.

Week 4 Post 1

This week I am going to do a tour of my classmate’s blogs. I will share what their topic is and my opinions on their blog.

The first Blog I looked at is Mustafa’s Blog. Looking through all the posts I can tell that it is about basketball. After skimming a few posts, I realized that he is talking about different formations in basketball. He included some pictures which made everything he was talking about more understandable. Here is an Example of a post where the picture was very helpful.

I noticed a common layout throughout the blog. There was an introduction in the beginning. After that, there was a question followed by a picture. The question would be the main idea of the post. Then there was a description underneath that basically answered the question. For someone who doesn’t know much about basketball, I think that he did a good job explaining everything about the formations. I learned a lot from his explanation. Going towards the bottom of the post he discusses some advantages or disadvantages of the formation that was being talked about.

While most people have watched basketball at some point in their life, they might not pay attention to different formations. The average person would just look at it as if they made the shot in the basket or missed. This blog is helpful to those who might be interested in playing basketball or just want to know more information. This blog might also be useful if you are starting a basketball team but don’t know the different formations.

I have watched basketball games many times such as the NBA, but I’ve never really thought about what the players are trained to do. To me, it looks as if they are just running around on their own. I was interested in reading this blog just because it was very informative.

Week 3 Post 3

This week I am going to be talking about the PC I built and why I chose the parts.

To start off with the case, I chose to get a mid tower case with one side glass panel. This case has a very good design with a lot of airflow to keep the PC cool. There is also a lot of space to work with inside the case. I have an AIO pump (water cooler) mounted to the top of my case. It brings outside air in from the top and exhausts from the back. I chose to go with a Razor Kraken x72. This is the highest end model and the looks are very appealing. It has an infinity mirror which looks very good. Since I was building a gaming PC, I chose to go with 16gb of ram. This is enough to have a few programs open while also playing a game at max capability without any throttling. The graphics card I chose was also very high end. I am building a gaming PC and after all, I would like to get the best performance out of it. The CPU I chose was an Intel Core i5 8600k. This was the best processor I could even afford at the time for the money. This is a component that I would like to upgrade in the future. I run my operating system off an SSD. This is a Solid State Drive meaning there are no moving parts. It is also very fast at opening every program comparing it to a traditional hard drive. I also have a 1tb hard drive, but this is just for storage. A hard drive is fine for big file storage since speed is not the top priority for it. The motherboard I chose is an Asus Z-370 A Prime. I don’t know much about motherboards, but so far I haven’t had many problems with it. The monitor I chose for this PC is a curved monitor by ASUS. The curve is not very noticeable after a while, but it is very pleasing to look at since it is very subtle. Since I was going to play games on here I got a 144hz monitor. It is important to have a high refresh rate monitor since it can help improve the response rate between actually moving the mouse and the time it takes to move on the monitor.

Overall this PC is a very good build even though it was not cheap. It is a high-end PC and cost an average of $2000 after adding up all the prices.

 

Week 3 Post 2

This week I am going to be talking about different accessories that can be added to a PC. One of the most common ones is a water cooler for the CPU. If you have a high-end processor I would recommend getting one since it will increase the lifespan. There are other things that can be added such as LEDs for the fans.

One of the most popular water coolers is made by the company NZXT. They have many different models but I think the Kraken also looks the best out of all the coolers. One benefit is that It will run cooler making the temps lower. If you overclock your CPU to make it fast then I definitely would recommend getting an AIO. The water block has an infinity mirror with LEDs on it. These LEDs can be customized from the software on the computer. There are many different choices to choose from colors or just different patterns. When the PC is off, it shows as a normal mirror.

I think that the Razor Kraken is also the best option because they have different models ranging in price for cheaper builds or a higher end system or just the space to install provided by the case. They range from $90 to $200. The only main difference you are paying for is the size of the radiator. A bigger radiator is going to make your system cooler.

Having fans with LEDs can also make the appearance of your PC look good. LEDs can be added to any component in the PC, but for some items, it is going to increase the price drastically making it not affordable anymore. LED fans are the easiest upgrade to do. This might not be expensive but for some components such as the radiator fans on the water cooler may cost you an extra $100. In my opinion, this might not be worth it since I am not going to be getting any better performance spending this extra money. I would rather spend more money to get better performance than having a better visual appearance.

Week 3 Post 1

This week I am going to be talking about different Computer parts. There are many different computers to choose from when building a new PC. One of the semi-important things that might only be important to you is the case. This is what is going to be on the outside which most people are going to see. The average person probably doesn’t care about the specs if they don’t know anything about it. There are many different cases you could choose from including metal cases or a glass side panel case to show off the internals.

The first step is to pick a motherboard. This is like the center of the PC since everything else is going to be on here. Normally there isn’t much to a motherboard so it doesn’t have to be the most expensive thing. The CPU is the next important thing to consider. This is how fast your pc can do daily tasks which are opening programs. A decent CPU such as the core i5 8th gen is good for a mid range PC. This part should cost around $260 and it is a good processor for the price. The next part to choose is RAM. This is an important component as this is where all of the programs you have open at once are stored. Having 8gb of ram is good for computers as of today since it will be plenty for doing everyday tasks. If you would like to play games and some newer titles I would recommend getting 16gb of ram. Going for this size may be pricey and cost you $150-200 depending on the company you choose. The most important part of the build if you want a gaming PC is the graphics card. A good card will cost you around $400-$500 if bought new. An example would be Nvidia GTX 1070. This card is more than enough to handle any new game on 1080p resolution with max settings. For a storage option, I would recommend having an SSD since it will make your PC so much faster than a traditional hard drive. This is because there are no moving parts to it. A power supply is the last thing needed to build a PC. I would recommend having a gold rating plus since it will be the most reliable. It is important to have a reliable PSU because if something gets shorted out because of power, it could destroy other parts and make the PC worthless.

Overall I think that a good PC that can do gaming and normal tasks can be built around $1000. If you are not a heavy gamer and just need a PC, a decent one can be built around $500-$600 but with a few sacrifices. There are many options to choose from when building a PC.

Week 2 Post 3

This week I am going to post my review for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

I think that it is a very good phone. It can do all the basic features a phone can do such as calling, texting and much more. I would like to start off with the design. This is a very good design since the phone is made of glass on both sides. It makes the phone very fragile and slippery. There is a slight curve to the edges of the screen. I really like this feature since it feels so natural swiping from the edge of the display. There are some useful features to it such as lighting up edge lights when getting a notification. It is very subtle but it adds a nice touch to the device. This phone also has great battery life and at the end of the day, I still have around 30-40% of juice. It can also be charged up quickly with the quick charge. This is always a good feature to have.

If you look at the specs on paper, it has the latest and greatest that every smartphone has of the year. I think that this is with every high-end expensive phone these days though.

This phone comes with a stylus called an S-Pen. This is a very useful tool if you are trying to click on a very small spot on the display. It also is pressure sensitive and can be a very good tool for artists. Although I am not an artist, I used it to take down a few notes quickly. This stylus is a feature that you will either use or never touch at all. It really just depends on the person using it.

This phone also comes with 2 rear cameras. This is very nice since one camera is a telephoto lens. It can be used to zoom in 2x without losing quality in the process that you would with a traditional digital zoom. It has a dedicated module to do the job. Samsung also has one of the best cameras on their phones.

At the end of the day, this phones base model starts at a price of $999 and only going up. This is a very hefty price tag for a phone. Some people are going to buy this phone as others are going to keep their last phone or buy a cheaper phone. I would say that it is a small upgrade from last years model, but if you have absolutely no reason to upgrade then I would stick with the previous model still.

Week 2 post 2

Apple iPhone and Galaxy Note 9

There are 2 mainstream phones that people know about. The iPhone is one of them and Samsung Galaxy phone is the other. These are 2 companies which are the most mainstream and generate the most hype. Last year Apple was one of the first companies to release an all screen phone. There was one difference to the design which was a notch at the top. This generated a lot of different opinions. Most people said they didn’t like it at first but then they got used to it. Since Apple is a major company, other smaller companies also want to hop on the trend and make a similar notch. There were phones later this year such as the Google Pixel 3 which also had this notch, and people were also starting to get used to it.

Samsung, on the other hand, is still making phones without the notch. They only made the top and chin of the phone smaller. The newer Samsung Galaxy phones have a curve on both sides of the display. They call this kind of technology an infinity display. I have used the Galaxy Note 9 and from my experience I really like it. It feels so natural when sliding from the edge of the screen.

We all have dropped our phones at some point. Sometimes your phone can shatter if it was dropped at the right angle on impact. There is one problem that comes with having a curved display and that is finding a case or screen protector. Screen protectors are there to protect your screen from scratches or some drops. With a curved display the screen protector cant stick at the right spot, it will start to pry up around the corners. In some cases, it will make dust go underneath which will cause an even more annoyance.

Over the years I have noticed out that if one change occurs on a smartphone, that means that it is most likely to appear on other phones as well. It is just something to think about when you think it’s the right time to adopt the change.

Week 2 Post 1

This week I am going to be talking about smartphones. As time moves on there are many new phones that are appearing which may take the spotlight from the usual yearly phone releases from big manufacturers. These phones usually have a feature that a flagship device may not have. A flagship device is a phone released from a company and competes with all the big or hot new phones. A flagship device usually has the most features and is the most expensive device released. Many of these manufacturers include Samsung, Apple, LG, One Plus, Huawei, and many others.

Each year these phones are coming out with new technologies. Most of the early features was a phone with a screen. This was very revolutionary 10 years ago. Now every phone has a massive display. Many phones have a screen between 5 and 6.6 inches. Another trend phones have had recently was to see how thin they could make it. This might be a good or bad reason depending on the way a person looks at it. It would mean sacrificing some battery life since it would be smaller. In my opinion, I think that I would rather have a little thicker phone just to get a bit of extra juice. A thinner phone could also lead to problems like easily breaking or even bending. This was a case found a few years ago on the iPhone 6 which started bending in peoples pockets. It was known as the bendgate.

In the last year or so, these manufacturers are all hopping on the trend of trying to get the thinnest bezels. As a result of this, there would be more screen real estate. The way Samsung approached this was to have curved edges on the display. I think that this was a nice feature looks wise and it also made the phone comfortable to hold. Apple, on the other hand, decided to put a big notch on the top of the screen. This notch was there just to house the camera. Some people like the design as opposed to others since it might look a little ugly. There is always that one group of people who are going to buy the phone anyways regardless of the looks because they have to have the newest technology on the market.

Apple iPhone X

As time moves on there are always new devices coming which are bringing a lot of innovation. All this technology then gets copied by every big manufacturer as they make their version of the best phone of the year.