Week 5

I recently came across an article that describes 13 easy tips to attempt to get a handle on social media overload.  I feel that this article is very helpful because it provides tips on alternatives to constantly obsessing over forms of social media.  

1) Schedule Your Social Life: Schedule specific times to check social media sites.  Mark these times into your calendar and stick to them like they're a meeting.  

2) Work Offline: Create a list of important jobs to do that day and complete them first before you even get online.  Prioritize and learn to manage your job from a different location other than your inbox.  

3) Just StayFocusd!: Use StayFocused by Chrome, where you can set your own limits for the amount of time spent on a website.  

4) Find A Way To Concentrate: You can simply block websites that will distract you.  It is also available to set a timer until you are able to access these websites.  Save time by not switching back and forth between contexts.  

5) Get Yourself A Nanny: By this I mean, Chrome Nanny, as well as the Chrome plug-in "babysitter" which automatically blocks certain websites when you try to type the URL address.  

6) Push Those Notifications Away: Change those settings that you have where e-mails are automatically displayed on your desktop and notifications are sent directly to your phone.  

7) Batch Your Tasks: Accomplish your important tasks first, and tell yourself that your Facebook friends will still be there next time you log on.  

8) Cross The Finish Line Daily: Force yourself to accomplish a considerable amount of work each day.  Once this limit is reached, then use the remaining time to observe social media sites.  

9) Is It Time For Recess?: Divide your day into one-hour increments and play your day accordingly.  For every hour, spend 45 minutes on work, and the remaining 15 minutes on e-mail, social media, and music.  

10) The 'Billboard' Effect: Try placing your goals for the day on a giant white-board.  Whenever you feel pressured to check a social media website, take a glance at this board.  

11) Clean Out Your Smartphones: Remove the apps for Facebook and Twitter as well as other apps involving social media.  This will make it more difficult to access these sites.  

12) Go Unplugged: Turn the phone and internet completely off.  If composing e-mails, write them out first, and then log in to send them.  

13) Why Are You Insecure At All?: Find out what you are trying to avoid and what is driving you to constantly check social media sites.  If encountered with a large task, try dividing it up into little pieces to make it more manageable.  

Here is the link for these tools:

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/09/11/13-tools-to-tame-social-media-overload/

Week 4C (solvetheissues)

The site's purpose appears to be simply bring people together and analyze certain problems that can be defined.  The site intends to focus equally on all sides of the issue including left, central, and right, concerning political party stances.  The site is simply searching for effective input from a general audience that can be used to move toward optimized solutions.  The website also brings to attention several current political issues that can be of importance in today's culture.  

The intended audience appears to be everyone who cares about our government legislature.  By analyzing the main posts found on the site, we can see that all elements of interest center around political issues.  The site appears to be focused towards members of the public who truly want to make a difference in the political world.  The site strongly feels that people should reform from the 'norm' and not simply elect someone based on ideas that do not make sense.  

I feel that the site does reach its intended audience for the most part.  The site presents strong information on several important topics.  However, I'm not sure how high this site would be on a google search results page.  I feel that it would be hard to find and that the site may not attract visitors as  frequently as a major political site such as fox news.  

This site does not prove to be useful to me personally.  Due to several personal reasons, I choose to not follow major political issues of today's world.  I generally feel that politics have no hold on my life and that no matter what I do, the political response would not be affected.  

I feel that an interesting issue that this site presents is that the political machine has paralyzed our government from making significant progress on our problems.  I agree completely with this previous statement and I feel that money controls all politics.  It seems that money controls all aspects of politics in today's world.  

I would not encourage others to view this site for several reasons.  First of all, this site could be improved in many ways.  The color scheme and the layout appears to be designed for a child-aged reader.  The website could also improve the 'support us' tab at the top of the page.  When advancing to this tab, the link takes you to ads supporting amazon...  

Week 4B

Closely related to my last post is the discussion of internet surveillence by government agencies.  Within the article, Building in Surveillance, written by Schneier on Security, we can see some of these examples.  He tells us about China's Green Dam which is a ploy by the Chinese Government to monitor every computer in China and block certain websites.  It can also be used to follow reading patterns and to enlist computers into a possible form of cyber warfare.  China may come off as harsh and rude, but they are not alone, as other nations are also performing the same acts including the US.  Other nations are looking to get on board as well with Germany looking to control the power and censor the internet.  The United States appears to be the worst with these new forms of power.  As of 1994, the FBI has had control over the phone companies to eavesdrop on phone conversations.  To make matters worse, post 9/11 the NSA has built a national security surveillance system to monitor e-mails and phone calls in the US.  But what does this mean exactly?  Simply put it means that the government has several programs that catch e-mails that 'sound bad.'  So if you want to have some fun one day, take a second and compose an e-mail that includes some great words like, bomb, president, White House, and chemicals.  This might get you a nice visit from some guys in black suits and earbuds driving black inconspicuous vehicles, or it may not... 

(Warning: Please do not attempt statements above.)

Week 4

I must ask, "How much control does the government have over the internet?"  We see that as technology advances the internet thus also advances with it.  Yes, the question of control over sensitive material arises...  Websites that contain material such as The Terrorist Handbook may be somewhat sensitive as we can imagine.  I would also like to discuss the topic of music sharing on the internet.  Since the production of the Ipod and various mp3 players, the internet has made possible the extraction of these files for free.  This action does not make money for the right's holders and is thus, highly illegal due to copyright infringement.  However, this action via several websites continued for years.  In fact, there still exist several websites that are continuously doing this.  What is extremely shocking is that some of these websites advertise on TV and on the radio stating how easy it is to download these mp3 files.  A prime example of this discussion is the YouTube to mp3 website. This site allows YouTube clips to be morphed into mp3 files that can be downloaded.  As we know, YouTube has a large percentage of all music ever composed.  Again, the legality issue is pointed out, and these actions do not make money for the right's holders.  

Week 3B

In the article, The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat, the author describes one of the primary virtual world setups.  The article describes a 'habitat' with human characters known as avatars.  These avatars can perform everyday human activities from carrying objects to performing a job to interacting with other avatars.  By observing the picture in the article that is an actual snapshot of the game, the reader can gain a first-hand look at the game itself.  It is evident that the game has a very simple design and has very low graphics quality.  This is not surprising since the idea is cutting edge among the virtual world.  After the game's creation, several problems arose due to the game's primary existence.  At first it was a challenge determining the number of participants that the game server could handle.  At first 20,000 participants had allowance to play with plans in the making to allow up to 50,000 participants.  It was difficult to create enough different activities for 20,000 people but game creators worked around this problem.  Creators set up different activities that can be performed as well as different settings.  Yes, some apartments have the same appearance, but it's stated that every magical forest has a different appearance.  Creators also ran into problems with weapons and violence as well as wealth issues.  They worked around these problems too by changing the locations where violence was allowed, and they changed the dollar amount of items at pawn locations which created an equal dollar value.  As you can see, game creators ran into several problems after the game's creation but they fixed them as they came about with ease. 

Week 3

Information on the internet can easily fall into the wrong hands since the internet is just that, the interconnected web.  I make this point because I would like to point out the relationship between military personnel and the internet, specifically focusing on the topic of social media.  The government has long been weary and watchful on the release of sensitive information.  However, as of February 2010, the government has granted the access to various social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many others.   This came as a major change because this rule grouped all branches of the military together again.  For example, the Marine Corps had banned the use of all social media sites in the year 2007.  So long story short, the government allows the use of social media sites by members of the armed forces from any unclassified computer system.  But what are the limitations established here?  I have several friendships that exist between members of the armed forces, and since this adaptation to the rules, they have continuously posted update statuses and other pertinent information.    I feel safe that this assumption cannot be stated.  I have seen posts of soldiers with Afghanistan officials and posts with a significant unique background.  I believe that some of these updates are questionable when it comes to the matter of security for the armed forces.   Are we simply assuming that the terrorists of the The Middle East do not have access to the internet?  Simply put, no.  However, I believe that some of these photo shoots from soldiers are giving a little bit too much of the surrounding and thus too much information.

Week 2B

I must first state that the main article listed under week 3 (Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy) is a very difficult read for many reasons.  The location of references among common text is confusing.  Also, I feel that the author has a very difficult time getting his point across.  What could be said in a few simple words, Turner drags out into long, unclear paragraphs with unnecessary uses of difficult English language.  However, on the positive side, I feel like the author has great insight into the future of technology and the idea of 'virtual worlds.'  It is almost like the author has a crystal ball and can view the virtual world of today.  It's amazing that the author can describe the future about as fast as the virtual universe is changing.  This article focuses on The Well and The World Book Catalog.  I undestand that The Well is one of the oldest operating internet-based virtual communities.  However, confusion arises when the author discusses The World Book Catalog.  Are we as readers supposed to interpret this item as a common day Amazon.com or Overstock.com??

Week 2

Every time that I get on Facebook, the first thing that I see in my news feed... a meme.  These funny phrases or statements, sometimes heartfelt, are appearing everywhere these days.  I think that we have all seen at least one meme, whether it featured the Dos Aquis Man, or Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It's possible now to even create your own meme with quite easy with the various meme generations sites.  These funny pictures are found in many locations across the internet from Facebook, Pinterest, and the meme generation sites.


A great definition for a meme states that it is simply something that spreads from person to person within a culture be it an idea, behavior, or style.  Therefore, memes act as a unit to convey a cultural idea, symbol, or practice.  Thus, these ideas of a meme have been around for a long time.  In fact, the word meme is taken from the Greek noun, mīmēma, or something imitated, from mimeisthai, "to imitate."  We all have a general sense of how the modern memes are interpreted.  The phrase associated with the picture is rarely to be perceived literally.  Most often, the phrase has a secondary source that must be pondered over by the audience.  Locating the source of the intended pun will allow the reader to experience the true humor that it was meant to convey.