Monday 27 September 2010

Topics

the effect of ICT on their personal and social life
the effect of ICT on the way we communicate
the effect of ICT on the way we entertain ourselves
the effect of ICT on the way people work
the effect of ICT on the way we bank and shop

Thursday 16 September 2010

Email

Email is a method of exchanging digital messages and a way of communicating electronically online. You can compose and receive messages to contacts of your choice and it also allows you to send attatchments, such as pictures or files.

Email is used in day to day life as a way of communicating with your friends and family. You can send and recieve messages to each other, at any time from anywhere in the world. It is quick and easy to use and with new technology, it is very easy to access your inbox from almost anywhere. You can also use email as a way of communicating with other people such as your peers and employers. It is free to use, and although you do need internet access, the emails are delivered immediately, making it a very quick way to communicate.

Gmail is an email provider. It is good to use because it has a priority inbox which filters your inbox to find the important messages. It automatically brings the important ones to the top of your list so it is easy to see if you have important emails or not. It is based on the emails that you have already read and replied to, however, if it has labeled your email as important or if it is not including one you would count as important, then you can manually change it. This makes it easier to check your messages as you do not have to waste your time looking through your entire inbox, trying to find the important ones.
It also has a star feature. If you want to see an email later, it allows you to put a star on it and it seperates it from the others so that it is easy for you to come back to it later. This feature is not available on other email providers such as hotmail. You can also automatically put a star by an email from a particular person, so that if you need to always read all the emails from this person, it will filter all of future received emails and put them into a 'star' folder with other important emails.
There are also many filters which filters the information better, reducing information overload. This means that it takes up less space on a computer. It also saves time as it has a spam filter. It automatically puts all of the spam in one folder so that you do not have to trace through your entire inbox trying to seperate the spam from the rest of your messages. This makes it better than other email providers as it makes it more enjoyable while browsing through your inbox as it saves your time.

Hotmail is another email provider. It is good to use because it has a 'one-stop inboxing' feature. This is where you can bring all of your different accounts together to make it quicker to view all of your emails. If you have various email addresses for different things, then you can use this feature to bring them all together. This is good if you need to read all of your emails quickly as you do not have to waste time in logging into each email account.
It also has a spam filter which as well as seperating the spam from your important messages, it also has advanced security protection from Microsoft, so it also protects your computer. This is good to have as it makes it easier to read your emails as it is simpler. It would be quicker for you as you do not have to scroll through lots of spam emails.
Hotmail also offers a 'hotmail for mobile' feature. As most people now have a mobile phone which allows them on the internet almost anywhere, this feature allows you to take your email with you. This makes it easier for you as you do not have to have access to a computer in order to check your emails. This makes reading your emails more simple.
When you log into Hotmail,it has a news feed of all of your contacts 'personal messages' on Windows Live Messenger. This is a chat feature that is built into Hotmail. It allows you to talk to your contacts when they are online. You can play games with them, send each other pictures and have a video call, if you have a microphone and webcam.
Hotmail also puts all of your emails into different folders so that it is easier for you to sort through them. All emails from social networking sites go into one folder, and all of the important emails from your contacts go into a different folder. There is also a calender to show when all of your friends birthday is so that you do not forget.

Advantages of email are that it is free and easy to use. It is easy to setup and maintain. It is also a reliable and secure way of communicating with people. It is easy as it is very quick as the emails are delivered instantly anywhere across the globe. It is also environmentally friendly and easy to refer back to if you need to.
Disadvantages of email is that many computer programmes have the potential to harm a computer system and you could get a virus. There is also the chance that your account can be hacked or your emails can eb misinterpreted. Also, in order to keep up to date with your emails, you need to check your inbox regularly.

"Man charged with sending terrorist material by email"
A man has been charged on many accounts after sending an email which involves terrorist material by email.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153742/Man-charged-sending-terrorist-material-email.html

"BT suspends 30 call centre staff for circulating Irish joke by email"
30 people at a call centre have been suspended from their job as they sent around a joke which was labelled as being offensive.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1152302/BT-suspends-30-centre-staff-circulating-Irish-joke-email.html

"Bank of England hit by email hoax"
The Bank of England was the victim of a hoax email that asked business and the public to download software to protect their cash accounts.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-204914/Bank-England-hit-email-hoax.html

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Topics

The topics I will be covering are:
-Blogs
-Email
-Social Networking
-Entertainment
-Online Education

Monday 13 September 2010

Social Networking

Social networking is a new way of communicating and sharing information between two or more individuals on an online community. Social networking sites offer a people a new and varied way to communicate via the internet. These sites allow people to easily and simply create their own online page or page and to construct and display an online network of contacts.

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. There are over 500 million active users all over the world.
Facebook is so popular because it is free to use. There have been many rumours that facebook was going to charge their users, but they confirmed that Facebook will always stay free.
Facebook is good to use as it has a chat feature. This allows you to talk to any of your contacts if they are online at the same time. It is used as an instant messaging feature so that it is an easy way to communicate with other people. It is also quicker than sending messages to each other.
On Facebook, you can also play many different games. Theres are hundreds of applications that you can use to play virtual and other games. You can play these against your friends. This makes using Facebook very enjoyable.
You can message people privatly, or write on their 'wall' which is viewable to all, so others can join in too. This is a good way of communicating with your friends.
There is also a feature which helps you to find friends and family from the past. You can enter information about yourself and it will give you suggestions of people that you may know. This makes it good to use as you could catch up with people that you may have lost contact with.

MySpace is also a social networking site. In 2006, it was the most popular social networking site used in the US. MySpace is very well known for making many bands and solo artists well known.
On MySpace, you can add applications to your profile. These could be games, quizzes or polls. You can use these for your own entertainment benefits. They will appear on your profile so that people can see it if they go onto view your profile.
You can also add a song onto your profile. This can be off of a band's direct profile or from anybody elses. This makes viewing your profile more enjoyable as when anybody goes onto your profile, your song will start playing.
You can also make and join events. You can make an event and invite your friends to it. It can be both private or public. This could be easier than inviting everybody directly. It is also an easy way of keeping up with everything.
MySpace is a very good way of communicating as you can comment people and send them messages. This is quick as your messages are delivered immediatly and you can get a quick reply.
This social networking site is a good way of keeping up to date with everybody as when your friends update something or add new pictures, it will automatically come up on your home screen in a news feed. You can then click on it to go straight there.
You can also post bulletins which are there for all of your friends to see. This is a good idea if you need to get a message t all of your friends, as it is quicker than sending it to them indivdually. Bulletins that your friends have posted will automatically appear on your home screen.

Advantages of social networking site are that they are usually free, therefore they are low cost. They are a very good way of communicating with others as they usually offer a chat feature. You can also message people. Another advantage is that as well as allowing you to stay connecting with your friends, they are also a good way of finding old friends and catching up with them.
A disadvantage of social networking sites is that it can be seen as being an invasion of privacy. You are putting out information about you that you would not wish for other people to know and you can never be 100% sure who your details are visible to. There is also a chance that you can get harassed or scammed. There is a potential for failure of security in both personal and business context.

"Paedophile postman used Facebook and Bebo to groom up to 1,000 children for sex"
After creating at least eigh fake profiles, Michael Williams targeted youngsters he met on his post round, on school runs as a taxi driver. He was arrested with around 460 different cases against him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282157/Facebook-grooming-How-pervert-postman-used-site-groom-hundreds-children.html#ixzz0zPo372U8

"Bridgend bully spared jail for driving friend to suicide using networking site to form fake relationship"
A cyberbully who drove his best friend to the brink of suicide by tricking him into starting a gay relationship on a social networking site has been taken to court.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-515757/Bridgend-bully-spared-jail-driving-friend-suicide-using-networking-site-form-fake-relationship.html#ixzz0zPp3NcF4

Friday 10 September 2010

Blogs

A blog is a shared online journal where people can post diary entries, share opinions and allows people to reflect on various topics.

Blogs are different to normal sites as they allow people to share information and not just view it. They can easily be edited and they allow you to comment on other people's posts. You can share posts with people from all over the world. Websites, however, are more static and in order to update it, you have to upload a HTML.

People use blogs to share information with other people. They can be used as a way to express your opinions and can be used as a source of information.

The advantages of using a blog is that they are easy to access and therefore you can quick and easily create or update a new post. They are also easy to create. Also, most blog hosts are free.
Disadvantages of using blogs are that there is no confidentiality as it is a public forum. Also, you need to have a computer in order to see it. They also take a lot of time to update.

There are also microblogs. Twitter is an example of this. Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service which allows users to send and read other peoples 'Tweets'. It allows you to follow other people so you can see what your friends and celebrities are upto. Twitter is free and easy to use and you can use it on any device that has the internet, such as your mobile phone and on an xbox. This makes it very easy to use and a eacy way to communicate with people where ever you may be.

"Police officer resigns over internet blog where he listed 'Muslims and chavs' as the things that most annoyed him"
The police officer lost his job after posting 'foul-mouthed rants and racist slurs' on his blog.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1109622/Police-officer-resigns-internet-blog-listed-Muslims-chavs-things-annoyed-him.html

"How writing a blog helepd a woman cope with cancer"
A woman started writing a blog when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which helped her to get through it.
"The outrageous blog insults that led to Labour MP being carpeted"
Because of what the MP wrote on his blog, he was carpeted.
Comments are useful on a blog because they give you feedback on your work and this may help you to improve it or change something for the better. People can also give you other ideas on how to make improvements. It is also a way on communicating.

Entertainment

There are many different services online that you can use for entertainment. Some examples of these are games, radio and websites such as 'Love Films;.

Online entertainment has been around for many years, but it is only in the last ten years that it has become a phenomenon. There are many websites that you can go onto that will provide you with different online services for entertainment purposes. Many people visit online games such as 'Runescape' in order to play and compete against friends. There have also been an increase in technology which means that it is easier to play games online, such as through the Nintendo Wii and Xbox.

An example of an online service that you can use for online entertainment is YouTube. It is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share and view other videos. It is the most popular video sharing website and it used worldwide by millions of people.
YouTube is free and easy to use. It is very simple to create an account so that you can upload and rate videos, but this is not necessary if you do not wish to do this, and you simply just want to watch different videos. Another good feature is that when you watch a video, it will come up with suggestions of other videos on the side based on what you have been watching.
You can also embed different videos onto other things such as social networking sites. This is where you copy the code, and you can share the video with others.
If you have created an account, you get an inbox where you can message other people. This is a way of communicating with other users and keeping up to date with the videos that they have uploaded. There is also the option to suscribe to their pages so when they upload a new video, it will tell you and you can easily view it when you wish to.

Another way of online entertainment is listening to the radio. It has become very popular as most radio stations have websites where you can listen to it via your computer.
On each website, you can listen to free streaming direct from the radio stations through your computer. This is good as if you do not have a radio, you can listen to the different shows easily.
Usually, you can also download podcasts which you can have on your computer or put onto your iPods. This makes it easier to listen as you do not have to be by your computer in order to listen to the radio. You can keep updating newer podcasts so that you can stay up to date.

Advantages of online entertainment is that