2011年12月6日火曜日

Best and Worst Aspects of the Internet

          I'm going to discuss about the best and worst aspects of the Internet. The Internet connects you to the global audience. Also it has made things more convenient. Clearly the Internet has brought us a lot of benefits. We depend on it so much that we cannot live without it today. However, at the same time it has brought a lot of problems, too. In my opinion, the best two aspects of the Internet are the ability to connect people global wide and its convenience. In contrast, its worst two aspects are privacy issue and the danger of malware.

          Firstly, I'll talk about the best aspects of the Internet. The Internet connects you to the global audience. A good example of this is SNS such as Facebook. Facebook enables you to stay keep in touch with people and make new friends from all over the world. You can see its popularity from its growing number of users. According to Wikipedia, it has more than 800 million users on globe (July 2011). Also, Facebook is not only for individuals but also for organizations and companies. According to this article "Why Facebook matters", Facebook plays a big role in maintaining social relationships, as it is referred as "utility":
"Zuckerberg thinks of Facebook as what he calls a "utility." More than 60 percent of members return at least daily, to see what friends are doing, check messages, send messages to others or to amplify their own profiles."
Now, Facebook is really important to everyone. Not only individuals use it to communicate with friends but companies and organizations also use it for their promotion. The Internet has become the vital communication tool today.

          Second best aspect of the Internet is its convenience. You can do almost anything online and there are a lot of useful services. People use the Internet for daily bases like ordering take out for today's lunch, and for special occasions like planning and booking holidays.Shopping online is a great help for Christmas as shopping season is just around the corner. There are some sites that allows you to compare prices thus saving your time and energy as well as money. Also, in other areas the Internet makes things very convenient and efficient by many useful services
  • Education: there are range of education available online from college degree to free online course online like ds106 that we actually used in this class. This opens up students for many options and learning style. In Japan, learning languages online is pretty popular.
  • Search Engines: You can find almost any information instantly by just clicking on search engine like Google, Yahoo and wikipedia. (Here is the list of the top search engines)
  • Skype: This enables you to chat, and call to your friends. Also it is a great help for international companies to have video conference that has branches in different countries.
  • Entertainment: listening to music on Youtube, watching movies, reading magazines, playing games.
  • Banking: It allows you to transfer money, checking accounts. Also it gives you more choices and saves money and time.

         Although the Internet has many advantages, it also has disadvantages. They are privacy issue and malware. I’ll talk about privacy issue first. Because the Internet connects you to the global audience, it also connects you to dangers online. For example, SNS like Facebook are treasure trove for hackers and ID thieves. People often share their photo or personal information with public without thinking carefully. Therefore there is much personal information online as this article points out. Because of its nature of social sites, there is little wonder why SNS like Facebook has a lot of privacy issues. In this article, it explains that:
Face it--"Facebook privacy" is an oxymoron. It is a social network. The name alone implies a network of connected individuals who are social with one another. Asking a social network to concern itself with privacy is like asking a rock concert to try not to be so loud, or asking a swimming pool to not be so wet.
Hackers and ID thieves exploit this advantage.When we are online, our privacy is at risk and it is very difficult to combat this issue since hackers’ knowledge and skills continue to develop as good technology improves.


         Malware is another worst aspect of the Internet. According to this article, there are a lot of dangers related to Facebook such as spams, hackers, and phishermen. Not only individuals are targets of malware. Companies and organizations are at risk as well. Most recent cases are that Kawasaki Heavy Industry Ltd had a unsuccessful cyber-attack in August and Japanese parliament had attacked from China. It is very difficult to avoid malware and the number of malware is on rise. People have to be aware of the danger of malware not only for computers but also their mobile phones now. Recently, Get Safe Online reported that malware on smart phone has risen by 800%. Malware is seemingly everywhere and users have to be very careful with it. The Internet is very useful but at the same time it has the same level of dangers.

         To sum up, the Internet is great and still worse. It all depends on how you use it. The Internet opens up you to a global conversation. Also thanks to the Internet, everything has became more convenient that now we can shop, book online and even earn college degree. However, the Internet contains dangerous aspects as well. They are privacy and malware malware is very difficult. Although its best and worse aspects of the Internet seem controversial, if you have proper knowledge and equipped to use it, the Internet gives you a lot of benefits and possibilities. The bottom line is that it totally depends on how you use it. Whether you spend time looking useful and trustworthy information and using it properly, or you waste your time reading junk information and downloading suspicious software.

2011年11月24日木曜日

WeeklyBlog#5: Facebook Privacy

There is no doubt that facebook is very popular and growing rapidly.
According to this Youtube video:
  • Facebook has 400 million users all over the world (Actually it reached 800 million right now)
  • Americans spend 7 hours per month on average (more popular than wiki or google)
This is only a few facts about Facebook and you can see clearly that Facebook has now a big impact on people daily lives.

Facebook connects people all over the world, enabling you to communicate with your friends who are in different countries for example. All you have to do is just to log in Facebook and Find friends there.

However, Facebook also has a big issue.
It is privacy issue.

There is little or no privacy on Facebook.
Facebook contains numerous personal information, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, birthday, educational history...etc And these information can be accessed by developers, advertisers, and even hackers easily, according to this.


Information has got a power in this information technology era.
Personal information is very valuable to a lot of different advertisers and hackers who are trying to collect personal information as much as possible.

One of examples is this:
When you are surfing on the web, these ads pop up. These ads are not displayed randomly, but know your preference and interests. Ads are customized to you by cookies and so on. This helps advertisers to sell and promote their products and services. Thus, you have to be very careful and be wise that you are always been watched and tracked online, that your purchase decisions could be influenced by them. According to the youtube video that I mentioned earlier, 33% of users are fans of brands because they can get discounts and special offers.

Also, hackers and identity thefts are looking for your personal details.
They try to steal your banking card number or use fake personal information.
According to her blog,
 "The danger that has become most apparent on the Internet in recent times is the threat of identity theft and misuse of personal information. Many people trust their personal information being shown on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but that personal information can be used against you without you even knowing any other person had access."
One more thing. People often misuse Facebook and they get into troubles.
According to this article, Facebook could ruin your future job interview or even your future. In this article, it says that:
"Facebook has been known to destroy some reps and even get people fired and/or arrested. That's why it's so important to protect your privacy, especially if your idea of fun involves strange drinking rituals and casual sex with old women."
Some people make fun of themselves and upload funny pictures or write things that might be considered to be inappropriate. You might think that you are just joking, but some people may take it seriously and this can get you to be in troubles.  Also Facebook can hurt relationships as well. This happens when you write about bad things about people that you do not like or making fun of them or mentioning their personal information.


So when you are using Facebook, you have to be very careful what you write and upload there. Protect yourself and your personal information by setting private settings and do not add people who you do not know.


Lastly, I don't really like Facebook to be honest. This is not only because of privacy issues as I said earlier. The main reason I do not use Facebook is because I don't feel Facebook is a reallly "social" networking. It is much better to talk face to face than using facebook. This way, you can know each other more, sharing the same experiences, not sharing "like" buttoms on Facebook. Why do you need to talk online when you can call them or meet up for lunch or something. I think this is more socializing. It is more meaningful to spend time with your friends or family than chatting with people online who you really don't know well in real life.
I know facebook is great that you can keep in touch with people no matter where you are. But I feel that some are spending too much time online and not interacting with real world.


_____________
Question for final:
How many hours Americans spend on Facebook on average??

2011年11月19日土曜日

Google Translate Fail2: WebAssignment

This assignment is called "Google Translate Fail" by Steven Q. Dangerfist.
Here is the description of the assignment.
Find something in a foreign language and use Google Translate and laugh about how awful it is. Its pretty easy to do if you use Google Chrome. Just go to a site in another language and select the translate to English button when it pops up (options - under the hood - check the box that says to offer translations). I think you can also use the main google.com to translate pages as well. If its a language you know, give an explanation of what it should be and list possible reasons it got messed up.

So here is what I did:

I put text「今日は雨が降ってます(kyou ha ame ga hutte masu)。」in Japanese.
In English, that means " It is rainig today."
I put this text just because it is rainig today.
Google translate fail txt1
The answer I got was
Google translate fail result

I rainig today??? lol
If you read this weird sentense, you might kinda get a sense what it's about... but this translation is not good...
I knew that Google Translate does not work well, especially between English and Japanese but I did not expect this bad. (worse than my horrible English... :P)
The original sentence was so simple and I thought this couldn't go wrong.

The subject sentence is 今日(today), not 私(I). I have no idea why it translated like this.
Google Translate might be fun to mess up and laugh about but it is not for academic use like many people point out that google translate cannot be depended on :(



Well, I tried a second try changing a little bit of the original sentence.
I rewrote it from spoken language into formal, written Japanese, just adding 「」.
「今日は雨が降ってます。」
 ↓
「今日は雨が降ってます。」

Google translate fail Text2


The result I got was this
Google translate success :)


Google Translated successfully for this time!! :)

Maybe Google Translate is not so bad??? 
or is it just an miracle? :P

_________________________
The process of this assignment:
I used Google Translate and tried some translation from Japanese into English. I took these pictures step by step with my iphone and uploaded to Flickr and then embeded here.

2011年11月17日木曜日

Disney Troll Quoting: Visual Assignment

This assignment is Triple Troll Attack, Go! by Darth Ba'al. What I had  to do was to create a misleading image that confuses viewers.

Here is description of this assignment:
The assignment is to take a photo, a quote from a different character than the one in the picture, and a name from a third character different from the other two, place the quote in the picture, and "sign" it with the third person's name. The three characters are to be from three different, but similar in genre, series. It's known as "troll quoting". For an "official" definition, go here: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/troll-quotes
 And here's my work :)
Image: Peter Pan from Peter Pan
Quote: Woody from Toy Story
Signature: Genie from Aladdin

I decided to do a combo of Disney characters because I like Disneys since when I was small and I went to Tokyo Disneyland recently :)

I used Abiary to create the image. I  took Peter Pan image from google, then added the quote and signature and stars around peter pan using Abiary tools ☆★☆

It was fun making the image and I hope you like my work, too! :)

 

2011年11月14日月曜日

1 Quote A Day: Writing Assignment

This assignment is 1 Quote a Day by mome.
This is the description:
Quotes are awesome. They recall a time, a trend or can identify you with a certain group. Type up a simple line/quote/text-based meme today without divulging the source (or completing the quote). People who recognize the line can respond in the comments!    
As mome says in the description, quotes are great and they help remembering the happenings of the day.

I was soooo happy today.
Why??

I got a call from one of my friends. I have not talk to her for a long time since she lives in Niigata where it is a little far from Tokyo and we both are pretty busy.

She called me for no reason, but said to me that she was wearing the pierced earrings which we bought them together a few years ago. And that reminded her of me and wanting to call.

To my surprise, I was wearing the same pierced earrings and thinking of her on the day. Actually,  I lost the earrings few months ago and just found them under the desk last night!!


We talked on the phone for 4 hours (!!!) because we have not talked for ages and we both had lots and lots of things to talk about :D Many things changed since we met last time, she got a new hairstyle, changed her job, living in a new apartment, etc... It was really nice to talk to her (even though I had class from 8:00am next day and we were chatting till 4:00 am... but if i had no class, i think we talked longer...!!)

Recently, I have been pretty busy and stressed out to be honest, but a call from her really cheered me up :)
She made me to realize that there is a happiness all around. People often look for only special things or events make them happy. But true happiness is everywhere in ordinary days. It's the matter of whether you can realize and appreciate it. Like Mai quotes the similar idea in her blog :)

After 3.11, the Great East Japan Earthquake, I think everyone are feeling the same way.

So here's my 1 Quote a Day for today

"So easy to forget our love the little things we do like calling for no reason just to say the words I love you."
(((☎))) <3
------------------------
Here's how I did this assignment:
I took a picture of the earrings with my iphone and uploaded to Flickr.Then I editted the photo with Aviary ( this is my favorite app- it's pretty easy to use it and useful! ). And embeded the photo here.
This is how I editted my photo :)
For the image of the quote, I searched with GoogleImage. Then put the quote and changed the font size, color, and style. It was a simple assignment but I really enjoyed doing it.

Hope you can figure it out who wrote this :)
It is one of my favorite songs. 

2011年11月10日木曜日

Name That Single: DesignAssignment


Is it too easy?? :P

This assignment is called "Name that Single".
The task is to:
Create a design for a favorite song by using just simple designs and NO WORDS...Basically a design assignment with the rules in charades. IE: for No Doubt's "I'm Just a Girl" I would just have a symbol of a girl.     
So for this assignment, what I had to do is to create a design for my favorite song by using simple image. No words are allowed, so I designed the image as simple as possible to make it easy to guess! :)

Hints:
This song is my favorite since I visited Liverpool a few years ago.
I was not a particulary big fan of them before visiting Liverpool. But I really had a good time there and learned about their history.
_______________________________
The process I took for this assignment:
I searched the image using GoogleImage search engine and then decorated with Aviary. I looked up stamp tool but it didn't have stampe that I wanted so I used text tool instead. Using text tool, I typed ☆ and changed colors. And here's what I got!
Aviary is such a simple and easy to use, still does great work. I really enjoyed using it :)


Original image
Decorated image with Aviary