This experience has taught me many things about the internet such as how powerful it is. But first of all I want to talk about the group project. I feel we came a long way in just a few short weeks and really pulled together. At first we all were so to speak computer illiterate and did not know such about how to create a successful webpage. We, well especially me were really looking forward to creating a Second Life avatar which did not work out, but all was not lost we instead found lots of Second Life articles and reflected upon them. We found the HMTL part quite hard and struggled to understand at first but we obviously got there in the end. In all we did have difficulties getting started and spreading the work between us but I feel Papiya, Karina, Raquel, Jess and myself created a colourful to say the least but informative webpage...Well done galsS!
What have I learnt from this? Well truthfully I was always a bit weary about the World Wide Web. I think the only real use I ever gave it was when I watched Who wants to be a Millionaire with my family and miraculousy I knew every answer. But jokes aside I still am not a fan of the internet, the virtual identity task proved my fears even further especially when I asked my friends to do the same as mentioned in my last blog. Identity fraud is my biggest fear along with the cash machine swallowing up my card. Hackers trying to get information from online bankers and shoppers are increasing as they are succeeding to; even facebook is under threat now even though I don’t know who may be stupid even to use their bank details on there! And for what too? examplehttp://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=68614&in_page_id=34another
Social networking I think is the key reason why people log onto the internet and we all know what I’m talking about, good old facebook. But how far are people taking this obsession. We have already mentioned Second Life users meeting in real Life and getting married but this is a positive attribute of the social networking isn’t it? Well everyone is entitled to their own options. But what about when a night can affect your career or education and it’s not strolling into work or class hung over and smelling of alcohol that’s the problem but actual photographic evidence...yep you guessed it thanks to good old facebook. Gone are the days when we could disguise a banging headache with breath mints and extra makeup because thanks to facebook students at one of the top universities in the world are getting into trouble for celebrating at Post exam parties. Yes staff members are not fox hunting but student hunting on facebook, to catch them out for...well being a student actually! http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=57499&in_page_id=34
Well I suppose I can’t only bad mouth the World Wide Web one aspect that impressed me was the recent earth quake. The news had been shared and spread across the world by a social network called Twitter where people from the UK had changed their status which ended up informing everyone else across the world beating journalists and BBC radio by 10 minutes in reporting the event. And shamefully I must admit I was one of these people who did change my status too out of the excitement of being in my first ever earth quake.http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=105741&in_page_id=34
Overall I have enjoyed this course and my eyes have been opened up to many new aspects such as how to design and create my own webpage. Working within a group was really fun because we all got on well and listened to each other. We did not argue or fight which is quite weird amongst a group of 5 girls. I learnt to be punctual and responsible as I turned up to every lesson in fear of letting my group down. Even some members were not in some weeks we communicated via email and I really enjoyed working alongside everyone even though I don’t like computers or internet.
Monday, 10 March 2008
WEEK 8:
The group work is coming togather nicely, everyone has their tasks set up for the next week.
But besides the avatar idea going up in flames everything else has worked out nicely for this project. I was abit disapointed when I realised this whole Second life avatar would not work because it was the bit I was looking most forward to the most. But we have been coming togather as a group in the past few weeks and sitting down and discussing all our research has really opened up my eyes to how powerful the internet is. Up untill now the net had very few uses for me such as doing my Tesco shop every few weeks, Yell.com for those takeout places and of course MSN messenger to keep intouch with people I do not really like.
The online identity task in week 6 I tried on my friends who were quite freaked out like myself when their facebook profile popped up like as if they had been searching for the closest Wagamama restaurant, it was as easy as that.
Online identity is not secure and anyone including an obessive ex boyfriend can find you or know what your up to just by googling your name as proved by this article below http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=110853&in_page_id=34
I feel this has made me feel even more afraid and cautious about displaying my personal details online. I will not be using online banking anytime soon.
But besides the avatar idea going up in flames everything else has worked out nicely for this project. I was abit disapointed when I realised this whole Second life avatar would not work because it was the bit I was looking most forward to the most. But we have been coming togather as a group in the past few weeks and sitting down and discussing all our research has really opened up my eyes to how powerful the internet is. Up untill now the net had very few uses for me such as doing my Tesco shop every few weeks, Yell.com for those takeout places and of course MSN messenger to keep intouch with people I do not really like.
The online identity task in week 6 I tried on my friends who were quite freaked out like myself when their facebook profile popped up like as if they had been searching for the closest Wagamama restaurant, it was as easy as that.
Online identity is not secure and anyone including an obessive ex boyfriend can find you or know what your up to just by googling your name as proved by this article below http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=110853&in_page_id=34
I feel this has made me feel even more afraid and cautious about displaying my personal details online. I will not be using online banking anytime soon.
Sunday, 9 March 2008
WEEK 7:What do the US, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia have in common?
A blogger has been jailed in Iran for writing about the arrests of his fellow journalists.
Read the article byBBC for more details:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4292399.stm
We can see straight away from the link above what the countries have in common: CENCORSHIP.
Different countries have different rules on what their population can see in its country. Often this can lead to sever consequences, such as the man mentioned in the above link. This limits an individuals human rights and freedom of speech, and hence making it communist soceity. The countries in the title all say they give their people a democractic soceity but in reality there isnt one.
Recently the whole of YouTube wnet down for a few hours because an IT specialist in Pakistan was trying to limit YouTube from the country and accidently limited it to the whole world. This shows that Pakistan is against YouTube sue to its content against the muslim world, however Pakistan is meant to be a democratic soceity allowing individuals the oppurtunity to express themselves.
I think there shouldnt be a restircted soceity and everone should be able to express themselves in the way they want to, without any cencorship.
Read the article byBBC for more details:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4292399.stm
We can see straight away from the link above what the countries have in common: CENCORSHIP.
Different countries have different rules on what their population can see in its country. Often this can lead to sever consequences, such as the man mentioned in the above link. This limits an individuals human rights and freedom of speech, and hence making it communist soceity. The countries in the title all say they give their people a democractic soceity but in reality there isnt one.
Recently the whole of YouTube wnet down for a few hours because an IT specialist in Pakistan was trying to limit YouTube from the country and accidently limited it to the whole world. This shows that Pakistan is against YouTube sue to its content against the muslim world, however Pakistan is meant to be a democratic soceity allowing individuals the oppurtunity to express themselves.
I think there shouldnt be a restircted soceity and everone should be able to express themselves in the way they want to, without any cencorship.
WEEK 5 - social networking and its uses
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi?redirect=fs.stm&news=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nol_storyid=7265871
Social networking can be detrimental to yourself and many organisations are using it to research about people. For instance if I was to apply for a job at a company, there is a good possibiltiy the HR department will search for my profile on social networking sites and try understand my personality from it. This usually leads to a negative impact as most things on these sites are based on events from a night out, such as pictures from a drunken fall. The example above shows this. It limits the freedom individuals have in their personal lives. Organisations take this information they see from a small percentage of your life and use it against you. This person probably just went out to have some with his friends, but could not get a job because of his antics, however the company should really have considered his actions throughout his life. Everyone is entitle to some fun.
Other uses:-
The police are using these social sites to investigate the 'teen suicide' craze and trying to turn these teenagers against it.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=94582&in_page_id=34
The article above shows how the police are doing this.
Social networking can be detrimental to yourself and many organisations are using it to research about people. For instance if I was to apply for a job at a company, there is a good possibiltiy the HR department will search for my profile on social networking sites and try understand my personality from it. This usually leads to a negative impact as most things on these sites are based on events from a night out, such as pictures from a drunken fall. The example above shows this. It limits the freedom individuals have in their personal lives. Organisations take this information they see from a small percentage of your life and use it against you. This person probably just went out to have some with his friends, but could not get a job because of his antics, however the company should really have considered his actions throughout his life. Everyone is entitle to some fun.
Other uses:-
The police are using these social sites to investigate the 'teen suicide' craze and trying to turn these teenagers against it.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=94582&in_page_id=34
The article above shows how the police are doing this.
Monday, 18 February 2008
FAILED VIRTUAL LOVING
After much effort by each group member in trying to create the perfect avatar, we have decided there is not enough time to achieve this. We think it will be better to move onto other research for our project instaed of trying to create something which is draining our energy and not benefiting us as a group.
WEEK 6:ONLINE IDENTITY
When i typed in ''urvi patel'' in google search engine it came up with 11,400 hits, which was like ''wow''. so then i thought just type in ''urvi'' to get less results but i got 82,200 hits. The websites for ''urvi patel'' ranged from simple personal blogs and webpages to girls who had won awards for their work. I didnt find any of this interesting as it felt like when you see someone with the same shoes on as you and you dont think much of it.
everyone else in class found their facebook or myspace profiles somewhere in their hits but I couldnt find mine. Even though i had thousands of hits shouldnt I be somewhere in the first few pages?How is online identity measured?How does one make themself be on the the first few pages of the results hits. Does popularity determine what number we are on the results page?
In http://www.192.com/search/search.cfm I think i found myself. The year of my first was correct as was the town I was born in but inorder to have a detailed search I needed to become a paying member.
But it is not only fun finding youself online but also scary, if we as a class can stumble across online work from years back then a hacker can work miracles. This exercise reinforces the fear society has about online identity fraud.
everyone else in class found their facebook or myspace profiles somewhere in their hits but I couldnt find mine. Even though i had thousands of hits shouldnt I be somewhere in the first few pages?How is online identity measured?How does one make themself be on the the first few pages of the results hits. Does popularity determine what number we are on the results page?
In http://www.192.com/search/search.cfm I think i found myself. The year of my first was correct as was the town I was born in but inorder to have a detailed search I needed to become a paying member.
But it is not only fun finding youself online but also scary, if we as a class can stumble across online work from years back then a hacker can work miracles. This exercise reinforces the fear society has about online identity fraud.
Monday, 11 February 2008
Whats Happened so far?...
Our idea to a get a avatar has sort of not worked due to the fact that we did not register properly. they wanted us to provide a form of ID such as a passport number. after a week of confusion and trying to use the second life website we figured out what to do. we inputed a 'fake' passport number as ID and hoped for the best. to out supprise the fake passport number worked! a message popped up saying this passport number has been checked against goverment records and so on and so on....what bull!! (pardon the french).
If we were real second life users we would be given a false sense of authority into believing we are valid members of this comminity. How can a fake ID pass through a so called goverment checking sytstem without being caught out. We have a basic free account which we are always reminded to upgrade to a paid premium account. Without being a paying member we have no chance to be authenticated against actual records.
How can a website be allowed to do this especially when some of its members are treating this second life as a real life . Some of the members have lost the sense of realism and created a financial losses by investing real money into a virtual banking system.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18842021
the dfinition here that needs to be looked up is VIRTUAL. virtual banking creating REAL losses.
If we were real second life users we would be given a false sense of authority into believing we are valid members of this comminity. How can a fake ID pass through a so called goverment checking sytstem without being caught out. We have a basic free account which we are always reminded to upgrade to a paid premium account. Without being a paying member we have no chance to be authenticated against actual records.
How can a website be allowed to do this especially when some of its members are treating this second life as a real life . Some of the members have lost the sense of realism and created a financial losses by investing real money into a virtual banking system.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18842021
the dfinition here that needs to be looked up is VIRTUAL. virtual banking creating REAL losses.
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