Don't get mad Cora

Mash-up your world

2006-11-22T02:20:00.000-08:00

Today we're going to talk about mash-ups. A mash up is a combination of several applications or techniques in one new application.
For instance, Travelistic is a good example of a mash-up. It includes the video technology such as You Tube and the Google maps technology. The risk of this kind of activity is to mash-up stuff that doesn't fit together, or is not creating a new useful activity.
Mashable is a blog about mash-up that I can read every day to keep myself informed about what is new in the world of mash-ups.

The right teacher, the right class, the right learning

2006-11-22T01:04:00.000-08:00

In this year's class, I learned 3 important things.
First, I improved my ability to be patient with new tools, technologies, e-communications, and to communicate using a e-media .
Also, I learned a couple of technical words ans concepts I didn't know, such as identity theft. In general, I know how to translate e-technologies vocabulary in english.
I learned an important thing too: that american and european view about new technologies are different. It's a good training for me, since I'm thinking about working in an american company someday.

Then, there are a couple of things I found interesting:
first, the fact that we try to diversify the class using different tools (wikis, blogs, msn messenger, cameras...). For me, it embodies the idea of convergence and multi-media. We are now almost capable to do several things at the same time with a computer: talking, writing, reading, watching...
Then, I really enjoyed the work we made about social networks. I want to develop ideas about that.

I have a dream today...

2006-10-25T03:05:00.000-07:00

...I have a dream that one day, all the students could use Netvibes as a central place for the english class.
I have a dream that we create a netvibes page for everyone, and that everyone could personalize our page, add infos and RSS feed from pages they like.
This is our hope...

RSS: Relations, Socialization, Syndication!

2006-10-25T02:41:00.000-07:00

RSS means Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary.

it allows you to broadcast in live the content of your blog or your information website to your reader's computer, or to another interface, without them having to go to your webpage.

For instance, I use Netvibes to syndicate all the blogs and information websites I like, to avoid going to every page, everyday. I syndicated my buddy Fred Nassar's blog, and other blogs about new technologies like Cyberjournalist and JDN.com which are good information sources for my personal e-culture.

In order to syndicate your blog or webpage, either you change your options in your blog properties, either you create a RSS feed by yourself (very easy).

RSS is for me, the future of broadcast for newspapers on Internet. They will have to adapt themself to RSS feeds, because it's the way more and more people read web contents today.

Here is a video that shows you how to use Netvibes:

Gootube, Yougle and myself

2006-10-25T01:44:00.000-07:00

You Tube, now part of the Googlesphere, is an online video community. It allows you to upload your own videos and other videos from medias or music videos, to share it with the entire world. It was founded in february 2005. According to the website, "YouTube is a place for people to engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting on, and viewing videos. YouTube originally started as a personal video sharing service, and has grown into an entertainment destination with people watching more than 70 million videos on the site daily".

The key of its success is probably a high level of personalization and the creation of a community of interests. With You Tube, you can get your own profile and "broadcast yourself" on the web. It means that YOU are the provider and that you can show the entire world who you are!

Consequently, for You Tube, in economic terms, it's a cheap way to make money because the content provider is the internaut. And more than that, it's a good medium to attract advertisment and announcers because they can reach specific targets.
For instance, if your profile shows that you are a urban culture fan, they can adapt the ads to your profile. It's probably part of the reason why Google bought You Tube: a global expansion logic. They want to be part of the video trend to always attract more and more and more public.

Personnaly, I use You Tube to watch programs I normally can't watch, like american stuff and music videos which are hard to catch on TV. Frankly, I think that I use You Tube when i'm bored. I don't think I would create a You Tube profile, for instance. But I really like the idea of a website that borrows TV and Radio imaginaries. It's the embodiement of a converging medium.

In the future, You tube will be a strategic place for brands to broadcast specific advertisement, as they do in the movie industry, in personal videos (created by You Tubers). Stars emerge on You Tube, and brands could use their production to place their name and products.
Then, You Tube will be connected to all the Google services.

Big Brother is stealing your name!

2006-10-19T04:27:00.000-07:00

Hi there,
today many people think that the Internet is a wonderful place, with many opportunities and many ways to get a better life. This is true. But come on: this is also a place where it's easy for web-hackers to steal your name and identity: identity theft. Your money can be spent, your name can be used for bad activities or by illegal organizations.

The 2003 survey from the Identity Theft Resource Centre found that :

Only 15% of victims find out about the theft through proactive action taken by a business
The average time spent by victims resolving the problem is about 600 hours
73% of respondents indicated the crime involved the thief acquiring a credit card
The emotional impact is similar to that of victims of violent crime.

The most famous identity theft victim, Michelle Brown, was stolen her name and $50000 in goods and services. A movie has been made about her story.

As far as I'm concerned, I've never been a victim of identity theft, since I'm very careful and never give my information without a guarantee. I've been told about that and I know how to use the Internet carefully. But beginners and people who don't know everything about the web can easily be screwed up. Even a book has benn realized in the "things for dummies" collection. It shows how important it is to be taught how to use the networks!
I would recommend it to anyone that starts using the network.
Here is a good link to know quickly all about identity theft and how you can avoid it.

So watch out! Never give your name and bank account number without knowing about the person or company that asks for it.

The english global village

2006-10-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

How can I improve my english online?

The first thing I'm doing to improve my english online is to use Skype in order to keep in touch with american friends. Thanks to that software, I can practice my english with the people I like almost every day. It's very simple and moreover, it's free.

Then, I can read stuff in english, like newspaper and personal blogs. It's a good way to practice my reading and written understanding.

I can also view videos of english-speaking programs. For instance, I really like to watch the american Daily show with Jon Stewart. I also watch Dave Chapelle in the Chapelle's show. Comedy Central is a good channel to watch in english and it's easy to find. More than that, it's a funny way to learn because these guys are reaaaally funny. I also like the Family Guy program.
Internet is for me the best way to "keep in touch" with these programs that are not broadcasted on french medias.

Anyway, I think that the main language on Internet is english. So you almost use it everyday naturally. Internet is definitly an english speaking place. So just get to any web page and read, listen, watch stuff in english. You'll improve quickly.

A world of qualities

2006-10-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

Generosity, Patience, Discipline, Insight, Perseverance, Comprehension.
These are the 6 qualities for a good english class. For each of the qualities, we can find examples that represent it in an online, e-communications context.
Generosity
A good example of generosity on the network is a website that provides you a free service, like Imageshack. Imageshack allows you to upload your own pictures for free, to be able to link it anywhere and anytime you need to show a picture online. It is very quick and easy to upload a picture, and they keep your file a long time so that you can keep all your links and use it later.

Patience

Patience is a necessary quality for using e-communications. Indeed, sometimes it doesn't work, or you need to wait in order to get an improvement or a new application. In ten years, the network improved a lot. Things are getting better and better, and the Internet users needed to be patient until they could view online videos or being able to create a blog without technical skills. The Internet as it is today is nothing compared to what i'll be in ten years. All of us have to be patient until we can reach a complete interactive medium. Also, when you don't understand an improvement or don't know how to use something, the best quality to get is patience because without patience you get angry and you can't learn.

Discipline

Discipline is a major quality in e-communications, because Internet would tend to be an anarchy without discipline and concentration. Since everyone can publish informations, people need to be responsible and moral. For instance, the website Wikipedia would be a total mess without discipline and moral qualities from the persons who provide information (you, me, everyone).

You need to respect the service that is offered to you. If you are not disciplined, then, the Internet will be a total fake space. It is the same with blogs. Discipline is the key for the quality of information. I need to be disciplined in order to write this blog, as well as journalists are disciplined when they publish information online.

Insight

Perseverance

If you give up at the first problem, you'll never learn anything. Actually, perseverance is the key of success, otherwise you're going to fail. For instance, all I've done well in my life has been possible when I was motivated and positive. I've travelled, I'm in a good school, I've done exhanged programs, I've met people, I've done cool stuff when I was perseverant. When I wasn't, I focused on negative ideas and gave up my aims, focused on myself. In a e-communications context, perseverance is important to learn the use of new tool, for instance. I've always hated to learn about softwares such as Dreamweaver, etc. But when you are perseverant, you find a way to apply it to a positive aspect of your life. When I finally created my own website, I was able to present my resume online. Now, I use more blogs and free tools but it's still useful to know about softwares.

Comprehension

Challenge number 1!

2006-10-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

A few things about podcast and vcast:

- It was inspired by peer-to-peer, Ipod, blogs and radio
- It allows us to download audio and video documents (digital content) about many subjects: interviews, sport, news, cooking, wirting, movies, private life, and so forth
- It's supposed to be the future of radio, because you can listen to it anywhere and anytime
- it's a good innovation because it develops personal creation: anyone who can reach the Internet can imagine its own podcast
- It's also a good mean for artists (singers, actors...) to present their work to many people for cheap or free
- It's pretty easy to create, like blogs
- podcasts don't include advertisement: at the present time, podcast is an independent media.
- the word podcast doesn't belong to a company. However, the word is inspired by the brand iPod: it's a contraction of iPod and broadcasting. The developer of podcasts, Adam Curry, chosed this word because iPod id the most popular mp3 player. Those who don't like this name often call it "blogcast".

There are tons of video casts on You tube. One of my favorite podcasts is the Lonely Planet podcast.

Also, an interesting vcast was the lonlygirl15 vcast : it was first broadcasted on You Tube and it became so popular that there are more fake ones that real ones now. Some people say she's actually fake and works for a company.

The NETVIBES revolution

Netvibes is for me an amazing development in e-communications. It allows you to create your own personnal page, "in live", just by driving and droping the stuff you want to add. Then, it saves the modifications instantly. Netvibes is connected with My Space, Gmail, medias and other websites: it's like a basic website which work as an entry to everything that is possibly interesting for you in the network.
For me, it's the most interesting website for personalisation of your online space and Internet experience, because you have the power to create a unique space for your activities. Moreover, it centralises all the stuff you need, instead of opening 10 pages for each application. That's the embodiement of what we usually call "web 2.0"

Web neutrality: a ancestral debate

Internet neutrality involves the idea of global independance of the networks, from governmental and economical organizations. It pretty much says that the owner of a network, ideally, should not give more bandwidth to an application, just because it's considered as "more important" or because the company would pay for that. It says that the government should not have the power to decide what is good or not. Applications should be equal, free and independent. The sides is this debate are clear : people who promote web neutrality, and political and economical actors that want to keep the networks in their hands. I think that the debate on web neutrality is very intersting cause it's a revival of first Internet ideals and Mac luhan theories. It looks like after ten years of economical development of the networks, the public has lost those ideals and a movement is growing again. "Nerds are back". Now I think it's more another way to fight certain political acts.

I want to quote my dear american friend Jon Stewart (the Daily show), who says so much in this video:

DRM : not a problem for pirates

A DRM is a technology which allow to control the rights of the user.

DRM is Digital Rights Management. It is like a protection on a musical or video file, that stops you to download it illegally. You need a right to open the file.

It affects mostly legitimate purchasers, because the pirates always find a way to remove these protections.

My Own Personal Social Network

Social Network is a place where you can "socialize" yourself throught the media. It means that you can be connected with tens, hundreds, thousands of other internet users that are on the same network, and talk, exchange stuff, share. It your personal space that you can personalize. The best example of social network for me is My Space, because I use it and it's a huge network. I have a very specific use of My Space. I principally use it to keep in touch with friends who live far away from here (USA, Latin America). I think that these tools will be used as basis for keeping in touch with friends, even in your daily life. When I was in California, I saw young americans who where using My Space to plan meetings, instead of their cellphones. It looks like social networks are replacing other communication mediums.
In the future, I think it will be used in a professional context, inside the company, almost as an intranet.
My "my Space" adress