class blog 3

classblog3
Are our on-line identites relevant to who we are off-line?Is online even a real place?


More and more people are spending an increasing amount of time connecting with others in on-line environments. Virtual spaces are becoming more and more realistic, and our kids would rather text than call.Other's have found that the identities they create in cyberspace have proved to have negative consequences on their life.Are our on-line identities relevant to who we are off-line?Is on-line even a REAL place?I think our on-line identites are relevant to who we are off-line. I have seen it alot and have read a great deal about these negative consequences of perhaps creating an identiy online that is not quite you. It not only says a great deal about a person but it is sad at the same time. I have been a memeber of myspace and facebook and have found lots of profiles of people who tend either make them selves appear nice,meaner or even more Risque in real life. I have also have fallen prey to getting creepy mesages from strangers on these types of sites and it is always kind of scary. Sometimes you dont realize that you have to make your profiles private or people can send you what ever they feel like .You can give off the wrong impressions on people who perhaps known you all your life and leave bad tastes in their mouths. I do think on-line is a real place because of how many people use to connect with one anther. I have gone back on forth on the that notion but as I sit here writing, I have my msn running, my facebook just in case I get a message that I have been waiting for. Today I was playing the game World of warcraft and you wouldnt believe how many people play that game but depend on your character do certian things and not only can you play this game , you can chat with people . It becomes a real place to many of these players just as "on-line" becomes a real place for us who are just browsing

class blog 2

Are we alone?
Our kids love to chat on-line...mostly because it seems like they are away from prying adult eyes. But just how "alone" are they?Do you feel like the Internet is private? Who do you think can / is watching us?I dont think that the internet is private. We think it is but if we are not computer savvy we can fall prey to more then we know. I was aware about spyware but something that I became aware of recently is this thing called fishing . The spelling on it could be wrong. But apprently alot of big companies do this. They have what are called fishes that latches on to you and follows you to what ever site you are on so that they are able to see what you are viewing. Of course its to help them market them selves better to the general population. I found it has made me more aware of just what I go on.

class blog 1

Is technology a necessary evil or a powerful tool for positive social change

Technology is embraced by some who see it as a panacea for creating a global environment that liberates and democratizes. Others see technology as an evil that permeates our culture with filth and is fraught with dangers. Where does the truth lie? Is technology a necessary evil or a powerful tool for positive social change? Talk about this from your own experiences? What do you see in the community around you?I think it is a powerful tool for positive social change. It makes us in many ways more open to other cultures. We no longer have to pick up a book or look at pictures. Not only can we talk with people from various cultures but we can teach them about our own. We can witness archaeological digs online, that are being performed in different parts parts of the world. There are many positive things I can say about technology but personally I find the fact that now we can have tours online of things like mayan temples and priamids facinating. Many of us are not able to afffored to travel to places like egypt, or mexico, so now it seem just a mouse click away. I do have to agree with some negative aspects, I have watched endless television shows about child predators. I see the vast difference in kids today and when I was growing up. I find children are more inclined to stay inside and play on the computer then go outside and run around. There is more of an up rise in childhood obesity then there ever was before. Sites like paypal have to exist because you can not just put your personal information on the web.I feel to on the fense about this subject to really say im on one side more so then anther.

Flickr

I find at time it so hard to keep up with technology. But it never stops be amazing how it makes our world smaller. Flickr is something I heard of before. My boyfriend mother took a class that taught her all about different terms and programs. She kept on talking about flickr and how great it is. I would of kind of dismiss her...as bad as that sounds. I thought I knew a bit more then she did and it was just anther site. I didnt bother checking it out. I thought its just anther something that is fad that everyone will be over in a couple of months. Then I learned it was a site that can hold your pictures with out taking space up on your computer. I was already on photo bucket and I said oh whats the point of joining anther site. I became kind of sick of different sites and getting emails of people trying to add me to them. I have a ton of photos on my computer among online games and stories. My memory space is low and I rethought my stance on sites like flicker. I may consider joining the site now that I see all that it can do

Claymation

I may have spoke about my brother before and how I admire how much he knows about technology. The topic of claymation came up and it made me think about my brother. He makes his own clay movies. He post them up on youtube. I believe he wants to be a movie director when he gets older. Well before I get to talking more about his videos... I had taken a multi media course and we watched a claymation movie. It was a short film and it had alot to do with the term "fire in your belly". We spent several class talking about the film and it made me admire my brother short movies. He would buy clay from the dollar store and mold them into people. He then would begin a painful process of making the video, he would move his men or women a little at a time and take a picture. He do those steps for every little thing he wanted to do in his movie. In the end he would have over three hundred photos. He could make the movie slower, faster and add music and text. I'm always amazed at what I dont know.

shareware,freewear...blah

Im a little behind but I thought I still write.In monday class (feb 6) when different terms were brought up like spyweare,sharewear and freewear. I wasnt a completly new to the terms. My fiance is one of the guys that like to go on lenix. I think we can get very caught up in spywere and freewere. From experience I have downloaded many games that have only lasted three months. Then I would wonder why I have no room on my computer after awahile. I have let in virus many times through these little programs and had to sit through some mini lectures about downloading. Through a business point of view, its great, you get your product out there for everyone to test out. I find the more we rely on these sort of products, we become a bit more lazy. I know I have downloaded stuff and removed it so that I could try to download it again for free and many times have I gone looking for different sites that offere the same thing. We take almost advantage of quality and start looking for qualities that are less poor but we can perhaps get away with getting for free. I believe soon people are going to stop putting out quality programs because people are not only pirating so much but are not willing to spend the money on a program.

The world of Online games

did not attend this class because it was snowing and I wasnt sure if I should trust the roads.I want to talk about the world of online games and just video games in general. I never had a real intrest in playing video games growing up but I rember when my father had bought a saga. His friends would come over and they would just all sit around and play for hours. As I got older and my intrest grew in to computers I would play a few online games once in awahile and try to download the occasional game.What came as a shock to me was how much my brother took to computers and video games. We have about an 8 year age difference. So All these fancy new games are things he growing up with and what kids are demanding to have these days. One year he asked for a playstation and I think I laughed and asked him who he thought was going to teach him how to play those games. There wasnt a whole lot of kids around with games like that. He taught him self and then it began. He had to have the latest in video games and machines. One day I had to decided to sit with him and play one of his games. I felt lost and resorted to making characters run backwards for fun. I always said that I wouldnt be one of those who just sat around and played games online or at home on the t.v. Now I feel im eating my words. There is game that some may be aware of and its called World of warcraft. It took me awahile to get use to playing it but now I spend more time on it then I should. For anyone who doesnt know it, its an online game that you can buy and it cost "40" for three month subscripition but cost even less if you have it on a credit card. There are over six million people who play this game and it only keeps growing.I never thought how competitive this business is because for a long time I didnt give it a real thought. You must really love it to keep at it because its ever evolving.

What we expect now a days

One thing I have noticed now,that I havent notice before, is that we expect all business to have websites. It seems that the days where we would pick up a phone book and call a business and ask them directly any questions we had are gone.I remeber growing up it was all about finding flyers to my favourite stores. Now we can go online and find what ever answer we are looking for or as the popular term goes "google it". It was just last week when I had deciede to check out if a place I use to go to had a website. Which is a martial arts place in moncton. At one point they had a book out and it gave all this wonderful information, so naturally I thought they would have a website. I searched and found no website but just some numbers. I was almost shocked that there was no website up for the club. I believe its almost becomes an annoyance when a business does not have a website. I find not only do we expect websites but we expect them to be top notch. They must show all their products at every angle and they must have tools so that we can zoom in on the product. We must have multiple emails and numbers at our disposal and we must be able to purchase anything they offer online as well. Now alot of business have to compete with things like "ebay". I will be the first to admit I'm and avid ebay shopper and notice that alot of business are putting their products on that site stratight from their stores. We dont have to go into a store anymore to be customers and we dont need to leave our homes to start new business.