Social Bookmarking 2

Well, one of my previous posts is about social bookmarking and how I totally don't understand it. Good news: I do understand it now because I've started using it too and it really does help! I used to use Noodletools to kind of bookmark my pages but then I would have to do the long citing process and in some cases it would be totally useless and I would end up deleting that citation... was such a waste of time basically. I used to think that I didn't need to use any social bookmarking site because I can always find the page that I visited earlier by using the same keywords. Well, in some cases that is not easy or simply impossible when you have used a chain of websites to get to the page that you want. The easier to do it all is to bookmark it online, using del.icio.us or any other social bookmarking site. I personally use del.icio.us because I think it is really good and I like the fact that it is popular because there is a larger network and sometimes I find interesting pages that other people tagged...
So yea, I recommend all students and teachers as well to use online social bookmarking!

Study shows that teens do protect their profiles online

While most people think that teenagers are not aware of the dangers of posting information on social networking sites, a study by The Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that teenagers do care about what they put on the internet. the study says that teenagers are particulary careful about putting extremely personal information on social networking sites such as their phone number, email address but they feel free to put pictures of themselves on their pages. This to me makes a lot of sense because having a profile on a social networking sites without a picture of yourself is totally useless because no one will be able to recognize you and you will not be able to connect with friends as easily as it would be if you had a picture of youself on there. Also, it is a lot of fun to put pictures of yourself on social networking sites and have people comment on them... it is really fun. Posting pictures of yourself on social networking sites is dangerous but not as much dangerous as putting your phone number or email address...
In my opinion, I think this study shows the long way teenagers have come and prove that they do care and understand what goes on on social networking sites and the internet in general.

Citation: CNN

Students Sue turnitin.com

Turnitin.com is website used by teachers to help them check the students papers for plagiarism. It works this way: students send their papers on the website where the teachers can access it, the software then assesses the paper and provides a percentage of plagiarism in the paper. Then it is up to the teacher to make the decision (whether the student should be punished or not, kkk).
Well, turnitin was recently sued by two students of McLean High School for violating the property rights of the students because the papers are published and can be read by others. The interesting fact is that these students and their lawyers were claiming $150,000 for each of six papers written by students!!!
For us students it could be a great news because some of us would be billionaires right away!

Citation: The Washington Post

I love Wikipedia!!!

I love Wikipedia and I am not afraid of telling it! That is because I am a kind of person who shows gratitude to people who help. Wikipedia has saved me numerous times when I was doing my research and I couldn't find anything anywhere else, Wikipedia was there to give me some hints to make a better research. There are a lot of articles in Wikipedia that you will never find on any other website (apart from Encarta which copies from Wikipedia). That's just because Wikipedia is a place where all kinds of information is gathered and made accessible for free to anyone on this planet with internet! I love Wikipedia because it has saved my time when I was meant to do research on a topic I had no idea what it meant and Wikipedia provided me with a sweet summary that I'm sure without Wiki, I would have spent at least 3 hours trying to get all that information. One of the things that make me love Wikipedia is the fact that it is written by anybody so in other words it portrays the view point of us -- not just one elite.
Sadly, Wikipedia has been misunderstood by many because of they believe that it contains inaccurate information. Well, how do you define what is accurate or not? When Galileo said that the world wasn't flat, he was executed for wanting to spread inaccurate information but wasn't he right? Also, where is the freedom of speech! I don't want to say that all information on Wikipedia is accurate but even if there is (inaccuracy), it just shows the weak points of our society and it brings the issues forth so that we can face them, instead of ignoring them by having just one educated person controlling the information and making us think that everybody is like that. I think Wikipedia is just an alarm to how badly education needs to be improved.
I would like to clarify an important point too: Do not use just Wikipedia as your source for essays and other professional/academic stuff. It is good to take a look at Wikipedia at the beginning of the research to have an idea of what you need to know and get some keywords from the articles but Wiki is not strong enough to be an independent source. You need to find other sources that provide information in more details and that are more reliable.
In a few words: I don't know how my life would be without Wikipedia! (aaawww)

".xxx"domain?

Well well, I might be living on another planet (is it called Earth?) but I just discovered that an ".xxx" domain exists!! :o
To some it seems to be an obvisouly serious issue but to some others it just isn't because it means that there will be a way of classifying those websites (cough cough) so that no one will visit them by mistake. Others believe that creating an ".xxx" domain is like an encouragement for the people who make those website so it should be banned. But this argument doesn't seem to be reasonable because those websites existed anyway even before the domain was invented. Personnally, I think it is a good idea because it would classify them harmful webpages so that they can be easily blocked (think about that 12 year old who doesn't understand what the whole issue is... the social/ethical impact).
It's interesting isn't it the ".xxx" domain issue.

Citation: CNN

iPhone

I couldn't have an ITGS Blog that doesn't say anything about the oh-so-praised iPhone!
To tell the truth, I like it and I wouldn't mind getting one but I hate the publicity that it has created. Those advertisers should be more aware of the effect of their ads on the sells of the product because in some cases it does the opposite effect of what it was supposed to be. That is the case of the ads of the iPhone found on MySpace -- I received a million of them, so did my friends. It simply gives a bad image of the iPhone and the people who made it because it makes them look extremely desperate -- not to talk about the Mac vs. PC issue that it raised. People seem to forget the technological advantages and disadvantages of the item. Like some say, technology has turned into religion.

Social Bookmarking!!

Social bookmarking is the easier way of tagging articles and webpages on the internet. I like it, though I'm still learning how to use it. Actually, it requires a software, I'm using del.icio.us and I recommend it for anyone else who is interested in social bookmarking. The difference between social bookmarking and adding a page as a favorite is that you can always the tagged page from any computer and you can add comments to the page. Nice eh?! I'm enjoying it.

Newsfeed

Some people seem to be very excited about them... well, I am not. I like the whole idea of having everything for you on just one button but I personally really don't need and I enver felt a need for it. That's because I visit a few common websites so I just click on them and the rest are new websites (usually for my research...).
I don't really have that much to say about newsfeeds but I'd love to hear (read) your ideas. Feel free :)

Surprise on MySpace

On MySpace, we usually find celebrities' profiles which is totally comprehensible because they want to be known and they want people to feel like they can be their friends through myspace...
But it seems like it's not just hollywood celebrities who are interested in MySpace but also PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES!
I've already visited two profiles of presidential candidates, well, they didn't look that great. Personally, I find it a little weird because it shows how much of a big deal MySpace is in the American society. Maybe too much of a big deal?... I don't know.

Citation: CNN

Dogllywood introduced in France

The French society was introduced to the Dog Dvd industry last week and there seem to be a lot of interest from the French people. They're now being sold even online on French websites.
J'aime mon chien!

Citation: Here

Paying for MSN?

It has been a hot topic and I'm sure you've already received a message on hotmail warning that MSN is closing down or becoming a paying service and you thought to yourself: "whatever..."
Well, I never took it seriously too until yesterday when one of my friends helped me discover a link from BBC News that talks about MSN switching to a paying mode! :S
I don't know about you but I'm certainly not ready to pay for MSN and if we'll soon going to have to pay for using it, then for me it means no MSN. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's not ready to pay for MSN and that shows what a financial scandal it would be to impose a fee on MSN users. Plus, that would mean that people like me and I would just start using Google, AOL or Yahoo...
Personally, I believe that it would be a big mistake to try to impose fees on MSN users. Here's the BBC link.

Blogs

I think everybody who knows what a computer is knows what a blog looks like. Blogs are a revolution and they have had a big impact on our lives because we get to share our thoughts, our problems our good and bad times with the rest of the world. A person from Ireland and share their problems at work with a Japanese woman in Tokyo. Now isn't that amazing!
But I've realized one thing with my friends: people seem to create blogs just because they want to because anyway they won't get famous. There are millions of blogs that were never visited by anybody but still there are more being created! It's like an obsession people! Well, I must admit that I share this obsession... nothing shameful... not.

New Tech

There's always something new in technology everyday, that's the fun of it.
Today I was reading an article from CNN that talks about Microsoft's new invention that allows people to send pictures of buildings to databases and get a map of where they are. Isn't that cool?
How about a an answering machin that's in form of "bubble board" that allows you to listen to different messages not necessarily chronically. This touch-screen device also displays a picture of the caller on the bubble. Nice!
Technology's really intriguing and we love it. It makes our lives easier and more FUN!

Citation: CNN

Google Earth controversy

This week we've been working on Google Earth in my class and I really enjoyed to manipulate the software. But I also found out an interesting fact that I want to share with you and I want you to share your opinion. Some images on Google Earth were blurred because they showed "sensitive" locations such as the White House or the US Naval Observatory and some actualy believe that providing images of such locations will be a threat to the national security. But Google Earth has received several other demands from countries that wish to censor images of different locations, some were done and others were rejected (or still undecided).

Now this makes me wonder, who determines what is sensible or not? Did we all agree that images of our houses be shown on Google Earth (and I'm not trying to go against Google Earth)? But we all have right to privacy though. And doesn't blurring some images contradict the statement that is found on the official website of Google Earth and that is also a very popular description of Google Earth: "point and zoom to any place on the planet that you want to explore"?

Citation: Wiki, Google Earth

Welcome to my ITGS blog!

My first entry in my ITGS blog, yey!

I'm an ITGS student and I love ITGS class. ITGS stands for Information Technology in a Global Society. It is basically a class where we analyze the impact of technology on our society, social/ethical issues on technology, etc. It is a fun class too because we get to do a lot of useful/fun activities such as making podcasts, etc.

So this blog will serve as a reflection on different events that are related to technology, including different things discussed in my ITGS class. Of course, I'll talk about some interesting tech news of which I'm sure you all can't wait to find out about.

I aslo want to encourage you to make comments to give me your opinions on my blog, maybe a particular post that you have suggestion to make about, do not hesitate!

And once again, welcome! :)