CMSC 102 Fall 2005 Leonardo's Laptop Individual Paper




Read Chapters 1, 2, 5-9 of "Leonardo's Laptop" by Ben Shneiderman.

On Friday, November 4th at the beginning of your lecture section, you need to turn in a paper based on your reading of the specified chapters of the book, as well as the other readings and materials for this course. This is an INDIVIDUAL assignment. You will be able to turn the paper in late with a 50% penalty. Late papers must be turned in by the beginning of class on Friday, November 11th.


Answer each of the following based upon material presented in the book and class discussions:

  1. Explain what Dr. Shneiderman meant by the "old computing" and the "new computing". Give definitions in your own words, and practical examples to assist your explanations.

  2. There are times when an application crashes in Windows XP and you are presented with the opportunity to send an error report to Microsoft. Discuss the pro's and con's of this feature within the context of Chapter 2, as well as in the context of security and privacy.

  3. Select *ONE* of the following areas:
    • eCommerce
    • eHealthCare
    • eGovernment
    • eEducation
    and all within that *ONE* area that you selected, explain/discuss each of the following based on what you read in the book, in the other reading where applicable, and you own experiences:
    • What are benefits/drawbacks to the public users (eg: the customers, patients, voters, students)?
    • What are benefits/drawbacks to the providers (eg: the sellers, doctors, politicians, teachers)?
    • What, in your opinion, are the most important issues to consider in this area when trying to implement the types of things discussed in the book?










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