Thursday, May 31, 2007
Final Farewell
Hey everyone, my last blog for this course…. Overall I thought this subject was pretty enjoyable. Although I only picked this course because I didn’t know what I wanted to do at university, I think it was pretty good course. I came from having little knowledge in anything covered in this subject to knowing things like where the internet came from, media theories, virtual reality and free and open source software. If you had asked me about these a few months back I probably would laughed. What I liked about this course was the lecture we had last week on free and open source software, I really found that topic interesting and found I could relate to it a lot. The topic I found boring and irrelevant was the lecture on public relations. I see how it related to the course but not a lecture on it, maybe 10 minutes at the most. I think I found it boring as I have no intention of going into public relations, so hearing a typical day in their lives didn’t faze me much. The practise revision questions and the revision sheet were VERY helpful. I knew where and what to study. My other subjects have not done this and I have found studying these subjects a bit harder to study for. I think doing a weekly blog helped me, it helped me understand the topics covered in lectures. In future classes I think it would be more helpful to blog purely on the lecture, it would encourage students to revise each week so when exam time comes up they will just have to go over their blogs. To conclude, I’m not sucking up but I think Chris was an excellent tutor, and was a great help when I was working on my assignment. :)
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Week 11 – using Microsoft excel
Hey everyone,
The tutorial task was basic to advanced tasks using Microsoft excel. To be honest I can’t say I’ve used too much of this program, learnt a little of it in high school a few years back and can’t really recall much. This year I have only used in once, I had a whole bunch of figures from a psychology assignment and I wanted to work out the averages and put it into a chart. To be honest I think working it out on a calculator and making a chart would have taken around the same amount of time anyway. Like the Microsoft word task last week I found the beginning tasks very easy, just simply adding data into cells which is simple. Then the formulas weren’t too difficult, I already had some basic knowledge in that area, I had never just written the formula though, I had always selected the formula button from the toolbar that does all that hard stuff for you. The graphs weren’t too difficult, as I said before I had already used this tool this year in another assignment. Now macros, I was LOST. Makes sense now, sometimes I open up excel files at work and it asks me to enable/disable macros and I had never knew what that meant. I now know it allows you to record certain functions in excel which can result in saving time at a later date. I did find this section a little difficult because I was not familiar with this at all, it was all new. I don’t think this software would be as useful to be as Microsoft word, as I said before in the whole year I have only used it once and I really could have gotten around that by using something else e.g.) calculator and making a chart in word. If I were to use it, I think it would only be good for personal reasons like personal finance or if I happen to have a small company and wanted to keep track of things such as wages, costs, hours ect….. I think it would benefit students doing subjects like accounting… more business orientated courses :)
The tutorial task was basic to advanced tasks using Microsoft excel. To be honest I can’t say I’ve used too much of this program, learnt a little of it in high school a few years back and can’t really recall much. This year I have only used in once, I had a whole bunch of figures from a psychology assignment and I wanted to work out the averages and put it into a chart. To be honest I think working it out on a calculator and making a chart would have taken around the same amount of time anyway. Like the Microsoft word task last week I found the beginning tasks very easy, just simply adding data into cells which is simple. Then the formulas weren’t too difficult, I already had some basic knowledge in that area, I had never just written the formula though, I had always selected the formula button from the toolbar that does all that hard stuff for you. The graphs weren’t too difficult, as I said before I had already used this tool this year in another assignment. Now macros, I was LOST. Makes sense now, sometimes I open up excel files at work and it asks me to enable/disable macros and I had never knew what that meant. I now know it allows you to record certain functions in excel which can result in saving time at a later date. I did find this section a little difficult because I was not familiar with this at all, it was all new. I don’t think this software would be as useful to be as Microsoft word, as I said before in the whole year I have only used it once and I really could have gotten around that by using something else e.g.) calculator and making a chart in word. If I were to use it, I think it would only be good for personal reasons like personal finance or if I happen to have a small company and wanted to keep track of things such as wages, costs, hours ect….. I think it would benefit students doing subjects like accounting… more business orientated courses :)
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Using microsoft word
Microsoft word… I think everyone has used this program from one time to another. I’ve been using this program for years, since the early days at school to get in those assignments, so by now I thought I was an expert at it. Until I did this tutorial task, I would say I was fairly confident at Microsoft word. I was doing well with everything until I got to the Advanced Exercise 1: Track Changes. This is when I started to struggle a bit. The only problem I really had with the task all up was just the directions on the day of the actual tutorial. Luckily some people from the class knew what was going on and helped me through it (the directions were just missing some steps). Any other problems were solved using the Microsoft help button (which was VERY useful). They gave a step by step guide to how to get my through my issues. As I was saying before, I found the earlier tasks simple but the advanced exercises I found a bit difficult. I had never needed to use them before so it was all new to me. This software probably won’t be useful for me now but in the future it may become an useful tool. I will eventually need to write up a cover letter and resume for an employer so this will help. This would be a good program for large companies by allowing them to save time.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Essay - Music file sharing
The debates of music file sharing
In recent years file sharing has become an increasingly popular trend for people of all ages to download songs of their favourite artists for free. This essay gives details on how file sharing started off as a peer to peer program and how it was created. It explains the positive and negatives of downloading free music and how music copyright is actually a serious crime and what current penalties are in place.
In the beginning, file sharing programs were Peer-to-Peer, so when users ‘shared files’ they were directly sharing the file between each other, breaking copyright, and in many cases, ending in lawsuits. Now, a new type of file sharing system has been developed where users download a ‘torrent’ from any given torrent sharing website, example www.torrentspy.com, this ‘torrent’ acts as a link to however many users are sharing the file in question, downloading bytes from various people, which makes it a bit of a copyright loophole, as the user does not technically download the file from a person, but tiny amounts from a number of people.
“Napster, created by a 19-year-old college dropout, Shawn Fanning, was constructed around a simple guiding premise: to facilitate the sharing of computer files though the internet” (Hoorebeek 2003:163). This program was shut down in May 2002 after a powerful legal battle in the United States with well known band Metallica and rap artist Dr Dre (CNN:2001). After the lawsuit, Shawn fanning said ‘I look forward to gaining metallica’s support and respect as we work to develop napster into a tool that can be responsive to both the artists needs to communicate their art and to the desires or music lovers throughout the world.” While industry lawyers are still left questioning the copyright of musical works. Napster was so successful because of its simplicity. It started off with an mp3 on your machine, and your machine was connected to the internet. When connected, the Napster server knew what files were on your computer, and knew what files were on thousands of other people’s machines who were also with Napster. All the user had to do was search for a particular song he/she wanted to listen to and the Napster server did the rest of the work. It found that song on someone else’s computer and started downloading a copy of that material to their computer (Chudnov 2001).
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) claims that downloading ‘free’ music from the internet has affected record sales resulting in a negative impact on musicians and people who invest in the music. They go on to say that the downloading of music without permission doesn’t fairly reward those create, develop and record the music (ARIA 2005). “This will also have an effect on a whole group of people from the retail store employee to those who depend upon music for their income” (ARIA 2005: 1). Computer security is also an issue when downloading music files. Using current file sharing programs puts your computer at risk of viruses or spreading spy ware. This can have a devastating effect on your computer; viruses can interfere with files, while spy ware can track your online activities. Spy ware is common in places that concern file sharing, they can be with the network or packaged with file sharing clients (Get Net Wise 2003). Music downloading resulting in unwanted spy ware has also been linked into being extremely damaging in large corporations. Employees who download music and share music with others are unknowingly downloading spy ware into large company information systems. “Millions of computers can be linked at any one time, providing an unprotected gateway through which confidential corporate information can be accessed” (Mcafee 2006:1).
Although ARIA has claimed that file sharing has had a negative impact on the music industry and is the cause of declining record sales (ARIA, 2005), studies have proven otherwise. A study by Harvard Business School and University of North Carolina have proven that file sharing only has a slight negative impact, if not at all, on the sale of music. “In the file sharing community, it is a common practice to browse the files of other users and to discuss music in file server chat rooms. This learning may promote new sales" (Oberholzer & Strumpf, 2004). They also suggest that file sharing is normally used for getting a sample of music which can encourage the sale of the CD. According to the study, it was found most people only download a few songs per album and more than 50 per cent of the songs from the album were never downloaded. This shows that most people download music as a sample (Murugiah, 2006). It has also been discovered that there is an interesting correlation between the price of CD’s and the decrease of record sales. “Every year after 1999 that it increased the price per CD, less people bought CD’s” (Murugiah, 2006:56). The internet also allows musicians to reach audiences they otherwise could not (Lanzendorfer, 2004). It can also promote independent artists instead of corporate artists. “Musicians such as Jason Mraz claim that half of fans that pay him in concert got to know about him via illegal downloading” (Murugiah, 2006:57). Another musician who recently used file sharing to their advantage is the singer/songwriter Missy Higgins. On the 26th of April she revealed a password in the Daily Telegraph which allowed users to download her unreleased single ‘Warm Whispers’ from the internet. Although this song was only up and running for a week, it is a useful tool for fans to get a sample of some later music (The Daily Telegraph, 2007).
Copyright is a very serious crime and has always been dealt with in a harsh manner. The Australian copyright council provides the following laws on the copyright someone else’s material. “For some indictable offences, an individual who is guilty may be fined up to $93,500 or imprisoned for up to 5 years, or both. For importation of material that infringes copyright, fines of up to $71,500 and/or imprisonment for 5 years may be imposed on an individual. Penalties can be much higher where the infringement involves the digitisation of copyright material from hardcopy (for example, from cassette to CD or from video to DVD). An individual who is found guilty of a summary offence may be fined up to $13,200 or imprisoned for up to 2 years or both. A corporation may be fined up to 5 times the amount of a maximum fine” (Australian Copyright Council, 2007:1).
Although copyright breach is a serious offence, and should be punished as it robs the owner of profit, constituting it as theft, there are positives to file sharing. These positives include providing the average internet user with samples of music from artists that they may later intend to purchase. Missy Higgins has recently used file sharing to her advantage by providing an unreleased song onto a webpage that people could download. File sharing has become an increasingly popular trend due to the distribution of freeware software. The only problem with this is that when you leave the power to share such files in the hands of just any individual, with no one to moderate the content, chances are it will end up with copyrighted material being shared, simply because people like to get things for free, many not realising how serious a crime they are actually committing.
References
Australian Copyright Council (2007) http://www.copyright.org.au (accessed 25 April 2007)
Australian Recording Industry Association (2005) http://www.aria.com.au/ (accessed 25 April 2007)
Chudnov, D (2001) 'Opinion paper: docster- instant document delivery' Interlending and document supply 29: 23-27
CNN Money (2001) http://money.cnn.com/2001/07/12/news/napster/ (accessed 26 April 2007).
Get Net Wise (2003) http://www.getnetwise.org/ (accessed 26 April 2007)
Hoorebeek, Mark, V (2003) 'Napster clones turn their attention to academic e-books' New library world 104: 142-148
Lanzendorfer, L (2004) ' Internet Issues' Emerald journal article 55: 106-112
Mcafee Antivirus Software (2007) www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/white_papers/threat_center/wp_virtual_criminol ogy_report_2007 (accessed 25 April 2007)
Murugiah, Seravanen (2006) Griffith university school of arts :The debate of music downloading. Griffith university thesis.
Oberholzer, J and Strumpf, C (2004) ' Peer to peer discussion paper' Emerald journal article 31: 55-59
The Daily Telegraph (2007) http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,21584396- 5001026,00.html (accessed 26 April 2007)
In recent years file sharing has become an increasingly popular trend for people of all ages to download songs of their favourite artists for free. This essay gives details on how file sharing started off as a peer to peer program and how it was created. It explains the positive and negatives of downloading free music and how music copyright is actually a serious crime and what current penalties are in place.
In the beginning, file sharing programs were Peer-to-Peer, so when users ‘shared files’ they were directly sharing the file between each other, breaking copyright, and in many cases, ending in lawsuits. Now, a new type of file sharing system has been developed where users download a ‘torrent’ from any given torrent sharing website, example www.torrentspy.com, this ‘torrent’ acts as a link to however many users are sharing the file in question, downloading bytes from various people, which makes it a bit of a copyright loophole, as the user does not technically download the file from a person, but tiny amounts from a number of people.
“Napster, created by a 19-year-old college dropout, Shawn Fanning, was constructed around a simple guiding premise: to facilitate the sharing of computer files though the internet” (Hoorebeek 2003:163). This program was shut down in May 2002 after a powerful legal battle in the United States with well known band Metallica and rap artist Dr Dre (CNN:2001). After the lawsuit, Shawn fanning said ‘I look forward to gaining metallica’s support and respect as we work to develop napster into a tool that can be responsive to both the artists needs to communicate their art and to the desires or music lovers throughout the world.” While industry lawyers are still left questioning the copyright of musical works. Napster was so successful because of its simplicity. It started off with an mp3 on your machine, and your machine was connected to the internet. When connected, the Napster server knew what files were on your computer, and knew what files were on thousands of other people’s machines who were also with Napster. All the user had to do was search for a particular song he/she wanted to listen to and the Napster server did the rest of the work. It found that song on someone else’s computer and started downloading a copy of that material to their computer (Chudnov 2001).
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) claims that downloading ‘free’ music from the internet has affected record sales resulting in a negative impact on musicians and people who invest in the music. They go on to say that the downloading of music without permission doesn’t fairly reward those create, develop and record the music (ARIA 2005). “This will also have an effect on a whole group of people from the retail store employee to those who depend upon music for their income” (ARIA 2005: 1). Computer security is also an issue when downloading music files. Using current file sharing programs puts your computer at risk of viruses or spreading spy ware. This can have a devastating effect on your computer; viruses can interfere with files, while spy ware can track your online activities. Spy ware is common in places that concern file sharing, they can be with the network or packaged with file sharing clients (Get Net Wise 2003). Music downloading resulting in unwanted spy ware has also been linked into being extremely damaging in large corporations. Employees who download music and share music with others are unknowingly downloading spy ware into large company information systems. “Millions of computers can be linked at any one time, providing an unprotected gateway through which confidential corporate information can be accessed” (Mcafee 2006:1).
Although ARIA has claimed that file sharing has had a negative impact on the music industry and is the cause of declining record sales (ARIA, 2005), studies have proven otherwise. A study by Harvard Business School and University of North Carolina have proven that file sharing only has a slight negative impact, if not at all, on the sale of music. “In the file sharing community, it is a common practice to browse the files of other users and to discuss music in file server chat rooms. This learning may promote new sales" (Oberholzer & Strumpf, 2004). They also suggest that file sharing is normally used for getting a sample of music which can encourage the sale of the CD. According to the study, it was found most people only download a few songs per album and more than 50 per cent of the songs from the album were never downloaded. This shows that most people download music as a sample (Murugiah, 2006). It has also been discovered that there is an interesting correlation between the price of CD’s and the decrease of record sales. “Every year after 1999 that it increased the price per CD, less people bought CD’s” (Murugiah, 2006:56). The internet also allows musicians to reach audiences they otherwise could not (Lanzendorfer, 2004). It can also promote independent artists instead of corporate artists. “Musicians such as Jason Mraz claim that half of fans that pay him in concert got to know about him via illegal downloading” (Murugiah, 2006:57). Another musician who recently used file sharing to their advantage is the singer/songwriter Missy Higgins. On the 26th of April she revealed a password in the Daily Telegraph which allowed users to download her unreleased single ‘Warm Whispers’ from the internet. Although this song was only up and running for a week, it is a useful tool for fans to get a sample of some later music (The Daily Telegraph, 2007).
Copyright is a very serious crime and has always been dealt with in a harsh manner. The Australian copyright council provides the following laws on the copyright someone else’s material. “For some indictable offences, an individual who is guilty may be fined up to $93,500 or imprisoned for up to 5 years, or both. For importation of material that infringes copyright, fines of up to $71,500 and/or imprisonment for 5 years may be imposed on an individual. Penalties can be much higher where the infringement involves the digitisation of copyright material from hardcopy (for example, from cassette to CD or from video to DVD). An individual who is found guilty of a summary offence may be fined up to $13,200 or imprisoned for up to 2 years or both. A corporation may be fined up to 5 times the amount of a maximum fine” (Australian Copyright Council, 2007:1).
Although copyright breach is a serious offence, and should be punished as it robs the owner of profit, constituting it as theft, there are positives to file sharing. These positives include providing the average internet user with samples of music from artists that they may later intend to purchase. Missy Higgins has recently used file sharing to her advantage by providing an unreleased song onto a webpage that people could download. File sharing has become an increasingly popular trend due to the distribution of freeware software. The only problem with this is that when you leave the power to share such files in the hands of just any individual, with no one to moderate the content, chances are it will end up with copyrighted material being shared, simply because people like to get things for free, many not realising how serious a crime they are actually committing.
References
Australian Copyright Council (2007) http://www.copyright.org.au (accessed 25 April 2007)
Australian Recording Industry Association (2005) http://www.aria.com.au/ (accessed 25 April 2007)
Chudnov, D (2001) 'Opinion paper: docster- instant document delivery' Interlending and document supply 29: 23-27
CNN Money (2001) http://money.cnn.com/2001/07/12/news/napster/ (accessed 26 April 2007).
Get Net Wise (2003) http://www.getnetwise.org/ (accessed 26 April 2007)
Hoorebeek, Mark, V (2003) 'Napster clones turn their attention to academic e-books' New library world 104: 142-148
Lanzendorfer, L (2004) ' Internet Issues' Emerald journal article 55: 106-112
Mcafee Antivirus Software (2007) www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/white_papers/threat_center/wp_virtual_criminol ogy_report_2007 (accessed 25 April 2007)
Murugiah, Seravanen (2006) Griffith university school of arts :The debate of music downloading. Griffith university thesis.
Oberholzer, J and Strumpf, C (2004) ' Peer to peer discussion paper' Emerald journal article 31: 55-59
The Daily Telegraph (2007) http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,21584396- 5001026,00.html (accessed 26 April 2007)
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Photo- News
This is exactly what i think everytime i think of the news. A reported out there interviewing someone about some news worthy story. This one actually reminds me of local news, it looks more friendly.
Photo - Unconventional
Well to be honest, i had no idea what unconventional ment, but i was told it was like weird, bizarre, different. So this is where ive tried to go with this photo, yes they are bubbles in his eyes.
Photo- Summer
Having grown up on the Gold Coast all my life, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of summer is of course, the beach! This is a great photo that shows exactly what Gold Coast beaches are like, beautiful beaches with the massive buildings in the background.
Photo- News Worthy
For most forms of media focusing on war everyday i think this picture related well with news-worthy. It related to alot of Australians who know of someone who has been to Iraq, hey even some of my friends have gone.
Photo- High Tech
For high-tech i have actually put up a photo of a motherboard, may not be high-tech for some but for me i think thats pretty up there in the list.
Photo - Games
For games, i chose the classic snakes and ladders, very popular back when i was young but not so popular with todays younger generation. Todays kids get into the console/computer games.Photo- Celebrity
This is probaly one of the biggest celebrities of today, although Paris Hilton is probaly famous for some of the wrong reasons she is an idol for many young girls.Wednesday, April 25, 2007
photo - Australian
This pretty much represents one of the most known Australian animal, the kangaroo, most people from over seas think thats all Australia is, full of kangaroos. Its pretty funny, its probally shows like skippy that set that off.photo - Communication
This is the image i chose for communication. Although its alot simplier than todays forms of communication it still represents todays ideas.Virtual Chat Sites
Hey all,
Just went on Active Worlds ( http://www.activeworlds.com ). It claims to be the webs most powerful virtual reality experience. Its actually quite cool. You can visit the hundreds of thousands of users to chat and play with them. With the variety of camera angles you can really get a good look around the place. You can do a whole bunch of things such as swim, drive cars, just on boats and fly. You can also go into different worlds and meet new people. I didnt exactly like the graphics of this one though, it was like 'choppy' and had a slow frame rate. I rate this virtual chat site a 5/10.
IMVU (http://www.imvu.com) was really good. The graphics were good, it was alot like the game, the sims. Unline the last game, i think this games graphics were alot 'smoother'. What I enjoyed about this game was you got to choose who you actually were, you had a selection of people and you could modify them by clothes, hair, eye colour, skin colour ect... There is a bit of a market in this site though, when you first sign up, you get a free 1000 credits, which is like money there. But once you have used all those credits you have to buy things with actualy money Eg) Different hair styles range from about 60 cents to $1 in Aus money. I spoke to some new members to the site and asked about what they thought. The few i did speak to said they hated the fact the conversations are in speech bubbles. One of the cool things about this virtual chat site is you have a ton of different actions and emotions you can choose. You can even do a 'kissanova', thumb wars and smack people in the face.... You can do some violent moves. Its a chat site you can get addicted to. I rate this virtual chat site a 8/10.
Habbo (http://habbo.com.au) was a nightmare registering, it took forever loading. Then told me it could not load, from what i saw it was very simple and pixelated. It also looked like it was made for younger people. I rate this a 2/10.
The next one tried was second life (http://www.secondlife.com) I agree with what the tutorial task said, it is annoying to get into if you only want a quick look. It took a little bit to download but by the time i got on there it would not log me on. I tried a few times but it continued to say log on failed. Then at the bottom of the screen they have a news and announcements section with an article saying they were having problems with increased traffic into the site which may result in log on failure. I will defiently give this one a go later on, it looks like it will be a good one. Rating 4/10.
I find virtual chat sites very interesting. Inconvient to the dial up user (yes thats me, hopefully broadband will be up by next week). They are more entertaining than the original Msn Messenger, but some people do enjoy the simplicity of it. My favourite one would have to be IMVU, but as a fan of the sims i cannot speak for other people. Some people in the class were saying how everyone says they are young but in reality beleive they are old, ill have to agree, everone asked my age first then amazing they were the same age.
Just went on Active Worlds ( http://www.activeworlds.com ). It claims to be the webs most powerful virtual reality experience. Its actually quite cool. You can visit the hundreds of thousands of users to chat and play with them. With the variety of camera angles you can really get a good look around the place. You can do a whole bunch of things such as swim, drive cars, just on boats and fly. You can also go into different worlds and meet new people. I didnt exactly like the graphics of this one though, it was like 'choppy' and had a slow frame rate. I rate this virtual chat site a 5/10.
IMVU (http://www.imvu.com) was really good. The graphics were good, it was alot like the game, the sims. Unline the last game, i think this games graphics were alot 'smoother'. What I enjoyed about this game was you got to choose who you actually were, you had a selection of people and you could modify them by clothes, hair, eye colour, skin colour ect... There is a bit of a market in this site though, when you first sign up, you get a free 1000 credits, which is like money there. But once you have used all those credits you have to buy things with actualy money Eg) Different hair styles range from about 60 cents to $1 in Aus money. I spoke to some new members to the site and asked about what they thought. The few i did speak to said they hated the fact the conversations are in speech bubbles. One of the cool things about this virtual chat site is you have a ton of different actions and emotions you can choose. You can even do a 'kissanova', thumb wars and smack people in the face.... You can do some violent moves. Its a chat site you can get addicted to. I rate this virtual chat site a 8/10.
Habbo (http://habbo.com.au) was a nightmare registering, it took forever loading. Then told me it could not load, from what i saw it was very simple and pixelated. It also looked like it was made for younger people. I rate this a 2/10.
The next one tried was second life (http://www.secondlife.com) I agree with what the tutorial task said, it is annoying to get into if you only want a quick look. It took a little bit to download but by the time i got on there it would not log me on. I tried a few times but it continued to say log on failed. Then at the bottom of the screen they have a news and announcements section with an article saying they were having problems with increased traffic into the site which may result in log on failure. I will defiently give this one a go later on, it looks like it will be a good one. Rating 4/10.
I find virtual chat sites very interesting. Inconvient to the dial up user (yes thats me, hopefully broadband will be up by next week). They are more entertaining than the original Msn Messenger, but some people do enjoy the simplicity of it. My favourite one would have to be IMVU, but as a fan of the sims i cannot speak for other people. Some people in the class were saying how everyone says they are young but in reality beleive they are old, ill have to agree, everone asked my age first then amazing they were the same age.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
History of the internet
Hey everyone,
I think I may be a blog behind so ill talk about my last lecture. Last lecture we covered ‘the history of the internet’ and ’virtual philosophy’. Ill just cover ‘the history of the internet for today’.
Many myths plague the internet, myths such as we are experiencing an epochal transformation that changes our common beliefs about time, space and power. There is particular interest in the golden age, the golden age is the idea in looking back in a period of history where everything was bright and beautiful. If there ever was a gold age of the internet, ended with the dot.com crash in 2000 and the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11 2001, ushering the age of digital surveillance. Digital mythology continues to generate the memes of an Internet Golden Age that has shifting spatial and temporal boundaries.
Samuel Butler in the late 19th century predicted the development of the ‘machine language’ and computer code would become ‘a speech as intricate as our own’. This development began in the 1940’s but did not really come to fruition until 30 years later in Silicon Valley. In 1959 a program called sketchpad on a TX-2 mainframe was demonstrated. This integrated circuit cost $1000 back in 1959 costs less than $10 today. In 1968 the word processor was demonstrated, it is now still a common computer application. The late 1960’s recorded a Swiss computer scientist developed the first of many computer programming languages. His first language was called Pascal. 1970 was the year that Fairchild Semiconductor introduced a 256-bit RAM chip. 1K RAM chip and the 4004, a 4-bit microprocessor was introduced by Intel during the late 1970’s. Two years later came the 8008, an 8-bit microprocessor. The role of Silicon Valley was the incubator of consumer-directed digital technologies. Heres a timeline of 1970: Intel Inside
Mid 1960’s - Third generation computers came into being
1971- Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Traf-O-Data
1971- Intel released first microprocessor
1975- The Altair was released, it was easy and affordable for the small but growing hackers community
It is predicted the future of the internet will be like a television with thousands of channels, not just hundreds. The mouse will just become another remote control.
Sorry i couldnt go inot too much detail, 300 words isnt enough to outline the history of the internet.
I think I may be a blog behind so ill talk about my last lecture. Last lecture we covered ‘the history of the internet’ and ’virtual philosophy’. Ill just cover ‘the history of the internet for today’.
Many myths plague the internet, myths such as we are experiencing an epochal transformation that changes our common beliefs about time, space and power. There is particular interest in the golden age, the golden age is the idea in looking back in a period of history where everything was bright and beautiful. If there ever was a gold age of the internet, ended with the dot.com crash in 2000 and the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11 2001, ushering the age of digital surveillance. Digital mythology continues to generate the memes of an Internet Golden Age that has shifting spatial and temporal boundaries.
Samuel Butler in the late 19th century predicted the development of the ‘machine language’ and computer code would become ‘a speech as intricate as our own’. This development began in the 1940’s but did not really come to fruition until 30 years later in Silicon Valley. In 1959 a program called sketchpad on a TX-2 mainframe was demonstrated. This integrated circuit cost $1000 back in 1959 costs less than $10 today. In 1968 the word processor was demonstrated, it is now still a common computer application. The late 1960’s recorded a Swiss computer scientist developed the first of many computer programming languages. His first language was called Pascal. 1970 was the year that Fairchild Semiconductor introduced a 256-bit RAM chip. 1K RAM chip and the 4004, a 4-bit microprocessor was introduced by Intel during the late 1970’s. Two years later came the 8008, an 8-bit microprocessor. The role of Silicon Valley was the incubator of consumer-directed digital technologies. Heres a timeline of 1970: Intel Inside
Mid 1960’s - Third generation computers came into being
1971- Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Traf-O-Data
1971- Intel released first microprocessor
1975- The Altair was released, it was easy and affordable for the small but growing hackers community
It is predicted the future of the internet will be like a television with thousands of channels, not just hundreds. The mouse will just become another remote control.
Sorry i couldnt go inot too much detail, 300 words isnt enough to outline the history of the internet.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Photoshop and flu :(
Hey everyone,
I’m sorry I won’t be in the tutorial today, I have been so sick with the flu this past few days and I think I just need to rest. I’ve started on some antibiotics so hopefully ill be as good as new next lesson.
This week in our tutorial we used the program PhotoShop. I’ve always wanted to learn about PhotoShop because I’ve seen some people do some pretty cool things with it. We had to start off by getting some personal photos of things such as uni life, friends, summer ect… But unfortunately I don’t own a digital camera so I guess google photos will just have to do. I started off by doing the basic tutorials in PhotoShop, getting rid of red eyes and learning to cut backgrounds away from focused images. Then I pretty much experimented with different tools and seeing what different things were there. I would have to say my favourite was the filtering tool, you could give the photo a whole different look by the filter eg. You could make it look like honeycomb. Ill post some pictures of my experiments with PhotoShop next time I’m using a university computer.
We were asked to write an introduction of our essay (I’m warning you, this is only a very rough draft).
I usually do my introduction at the end so I can cover everything I’ve spoken about, I normally start off with the body. (My references aren’t in correct format yet I have just written the sites for now).
File sharing is the practice of making files available for other users to download over the Internet and smaller networks. Usually file sharing follows the peer-to-peer (P2P) model, where the files are stored on and served by personal computers of the users. Most people who engage in file sharing are also downloading files that other users share (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing). The problem with file sharing is that it’s stealing. It’s a group of people "sharing" files such as movies, music and books amongst a large array of people whom they do not know. Its programs such as morpheus, limewire, kazaa, bearshare and napster that make this possible. File sharing has been a hot topic of the news in recent years with some saying its equivalent to stealing a car. (http://media.www.beaconnewspaper.com/media/storage/paper540/news/2003/11/18/Opinion/FileSharing.Is.The.Moral.Equivalent.Of.Stealing.A.Car-560417.shtml)
**As I said it’s a very rough draft, its just I’ve got some books on order at the Gold Coast Library on order and I want to start this assignment with as much information as possible, they should be in late this week, early next week. **
I’m sorry I won’t be in the tutorial today, I have been so sick with the flu this past few days and I think I just need to rest. I’ve started on some antibiotics so hopefully ill be as good as new next lesson.
This week in our tutorial we used the program PhotoShop. I’ve always wanted to learn about PhotoShop because I’ve seen some people do some pretty cool things with it. We had to start off by getting some personal photos of things such as uni life, friends, summer ect… But unfortunately I don’t own a digital camera so I guess google photos will just have to do. I started off by doing the basic tutorials in PhotoShop, getting rid of red eyes and learning to cut backgrounds away from focused images. Then I pretty much experimented with different tools and seeing what different things were there. I would have to say my favourite was the filtering tool, you could give the photo a whole different look by the filter eg. You could make it look like honeycomb. Ill post some pictures of my experiments with PhotoShop next time I’m using a university computer.
We were asked to write an introduction of our essay (I’m warning you, this is only a very rough draft).
I usually do my introduction at the end so I can cover everything I’ve spoken about, I normally start off with the body. (My references aren’t in correct format yet I have just written the sites for now).
File sharing is the practice of making files available for other users to download over the Internet and smaller networks. Usually file sharing follows the peer-to-peer (P2P) model, where the files are stored on and served by personal computers of the users. Most people who engage in file sharing are also downloading files that other users share (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing). The problem with file sharing is that it’s stealing. It’s a group of people "sharing" files such as movies, music and books amongst a large array of people whom they do not know. Its programs such as morpheus, limewire, kazaa, bearshare and napster that make this possible. File sharing has been a hot topic of the news in recent years with some saying its equivalent to stealing a car. (http://media.www.beaconnewspaper.com/media/storage/paper540/news/2003/11/18/Opinion/FileSharing.Is.The.Moral.Equivalent.Of.Stealing.A.Car-560417.shtml)
**As I said it’s a very rough draft, its just I’ve got some books on order at the Gold Coast Library on order and I want to start this assignment with as much information as possible, they should be in late this week, early next week. **
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Hey this is kind of a bunch of ideas and sites i have collected for my essay:
Ive decided to do my essay on 'Issues regarding filesharing online'. I chose my topic because filesharing has been such a hot topic latley. Filesharing is kind of like a loophole in the system, its computer users basically making their files avalible for others to download and visa versa.
Basic idea of what i want to include:
Ive decided to do my essay on 'Issues regarding filesharing online'. I chose my topic because filesharing has been such a hot topic latley. Filesharing is kind of like a loophole in the system, its computer users basically making their files avalible for others to download and visa versa.
Basic idea of what i want to include:
- Napster/ kazaa/limewire
- Copyright laws
- Define the topic
- What issues they cause in society
- Whos against/for it
- Diagrams (found some usefuol ones on this site)
- http://www.answers.com/topic/file-sharing
Thats all for now, take care, till next time :)
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Hello everyone out there,
Here are some interesting facts from our week three tutorial task.
1. What is the weight of the world's biggest pumpkin?
The current world record belongs to Steve Daletas of Oregon. His pumpkin weighed 1,385 pounds (628 kilograms).
2. What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Grant Hackett?
He arrives at the Pizzey Park pool on the Gold Coast at 5am.
3. What is the length of a giraffe's tongue?
A giraffe's tongue is just about two feet long
4. How would you define the word 'ontology'? In your own words, what does it really mean ?
The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. In my own words i think its like a relationship between concepts, got to do with computers.
5. What was David Cronenberg's first feature film?
1969: First feature and first film in 35mm, "Stereo" (produced, directed, wrote, shot and edited)
6. When was the original 'Hacker's Manifesto' written?
7. Why do all phone numbers in Hollywood films start with '555'?
For many years 555 was the unassigned dialling code in the US, but due to expansion the codes been recently re-assigned
8. What is the cheapest form of travel from Crete to Rhodes?
I found this question really difficult. The cheapest form of travel would be by ferry.
9. What song was top of the Australian Pop Charts this week in 1965?
I'll Never Find Another You- The Seekers
10. Which Brisbane band includes Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals?
Stephen Stockwell plays in a Brisbane band called 'Black Assassins'.
That was actually harder than i thought it would be. I noticed when typing in these questions i would get alot of the classes blog entries (don't worry i didn't copy). I'm so used to Google so it was good getting used to a variety of different search engines. I would say a search engine is like an electronic library (that isn't exactly creditable), i think that rank pretty highly though, because without them then how would you find different sites about different things. Example: you have been looking for a particular recipe for ages and you cannot find it anywhere. If you access the Internet, most people wouldn't even know how to go about looking for it, that's when these search engines come in handy.
The order of the search results is pretty helpful, it is pretty much, the more related, the higher the ranking. Example: I'm looking for information on R31 skylines, in yahoo the search results will show the r31 skyline club up there because its the most relevant. I also notices wikipedia being pretty high in the search results as well. My favourite search engine is http://www.google.com/, i think its because its the only one Ive ever really been familiar with. I like how you have choices (most search engines probably do) but they have the tabs at the top, you can search information, images, current news articles. I also have a Google toolbar so its so convenient just to click that.
Some current news stories about search engines include:
Google: Media giants tie up with Google's YouTube rivals for online video distribution
Google: Google's expansion is coming at a price: it's losing its popularity
Yahoo: Yahoo's new ad program clicks
Yahoo: Yahoo! India content head quits
Ill post my information on my essay in another blog, i really don't want to lose everything Ive written. =D
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Communication Tech Tute week 3 10-12
Hey everyone,
Instead of raving on about lectures and movies ill be blogging about the tutorial task. My own experiences with communication technology are happening everyday, its all around me. There is television, portable radios, mobile phones and the Internet. Each one of those can do a number of different things. such as a mobile phone now isn't just made for phone calls, it is also a mp3 player, sound recorder, video recorder and a camera. The ever popular Internet is also used for a number of different communication ways. You can search daily news on various search engines, you can contact friends via msn messenger and sites like myspace.com. you can also post video clips on sites such as youtube.com, where many a musician has obtained a record contract through. One of the many ways to utilise the site.
I said earlier that i used different types of communication technology everyday. Here's just a day in my life and the different types i use:
Instead of raving on about lectures and movies ill be blogging about the tutorial task. My own experiences with communication technology are happening everyday, its all around me. There is television, portable radios, mobile phones and the Internet. Each one of those can do a number of different things. such as a mobile phone now isn't just made for phone calls, it is also a mp3 player, sound recorder, video recorder and a camera. The ever popular Internet is also used for a number of different communication ways. You can search daily news on various search engines, you can contact friends via msn messenger and sites like myspace.com. you can also post video clips on sites such as youtube.com, where many a musician has obtained a record contract through. One of the many ways to utilise the site.
I said earlier that i used different types of communication technology everyday. Here's just a day in my life and the different types i use:
- Get up and watch the news on television
- Check my email on the Internet
- Get the traffic report on my car radio
- Talk/sms my friends/family on my mobile
- Ill also talk to friends/family on the site myspace.com via the Internet
I confess, i am an Internet addict! Ever since i was about 15 Ive also be on chat room sites. i enjoy talking to different people all around the world. There are some people i have been speaking to for years and yet i have not met them because of the distance. Other people on my msn list i have met.
I was influenced to start using these technologies because when i was younger i lived on Springbrook Mountain (yes it got very boring). When my parents finally got the Internet all i pretty much wanted to do was chat to other people and look up things i was interested in. I was always interested in various cars and was never close to a library so Google.com became an excellent way to learn more about my interests. I actually ended up buying my car on carsales.com.
In conclusion if it weren't for communication technology the world wouldn't be what it is today. the things we take for granted wouldn't be as easy and convenient as they are today. Information would be alot harder to come by, news would take longer to get around and communication to family and friends would take longer.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Week 1 Tute 10-12
"Do you have fly buys?" If i have to ask that question one more time i think i was going to EXPLODE! I have been at Target full time for the past 2 years and i had to get out. Although I'm a hard worker and had been promised management for around a year i decided it was time to go to university. Target didn't exactly hold much of a future and i felt like at age 20 my life was headed no where. I ended up grabbing that QTAC book applied straight for a BA since i have no idea what i want in the future. When enrolling i picked 4 of the most random subjects and am hoping one of them is one i really enjoy. I picked New Communication Technology because Ive always enjoyed technology, yes I'm constantly on the Internet, i own an ipod and I'm always on the mobile sending an sms.
University life is very different from high school, although i haven't been in high school for a good three years i haven't experienced anything quite like this. There is so much independence involved, you really take on alot. I like the fact that you are responsible for your own actions. I like that you will not be constantly reminded when things are due, you call teachers by their first names and the study is your choice. People are here by their own choice, everyone is here to learn. I think i will find university life hard trying to do it around work, whenever i wont be here ill be at work. Ive found it hard just buying my text books alone but I'm sure there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
My first lecture for this subject was a bit daunting. It went for 2 hours and i was pretty much lost 10 minutes into it. It went into answering questions like:
University life is very different from high school, although i haven't been in high school for a good three years i haven't experienced anything quite like this. There is so much independence involved, you really take on alot. I like the fact that you are responsible for your own actions. I like that you will not be constantly reminded when things are due, you call teachers by their first names and the study is your choice. People are here by their own choice, everyone is here to learn. I think i will find university life hard trying to do it around work, whenever i wont be here ill be at work. Ive found it hard just buying my text books alone but I'm sure there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
My first lecture for this subject was a bit daunting. It went for 2 hours and i was pretty much lost 10 minutes into it. It went into answering questions like:
- What is technology?
- What is communication?
- The Genealogy of old technology.
I found it easier going back over the notes and text in my own time. I find it easier to study on my own. All in all I've had a great first week at university, I've understood the readings that were required and I'm really beginning to enjoy this subject.
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