Fraud Online Relationships

Be very careful when you meet someone online for a friendship or romantic relationship. The person you think are talking to may not be the person you think it is. It happens all the time people not only pretend to be someone else by lying about their age, gender, physical looks, or even personalities. I read an article about a woman who had an online romance for a year which turned out to be a fraud. The woman got an email from someone saying they had a mutual friend that said that they would get along. She contacted the friend and she said that the man was a good person. She had a online relationship and would text message each other too. The man always wanted to meet but always made an excuse last minute. Her parents got worried so they found out through the telephone number that the man was actually a woman. It was her friend that had said that the man was a good guy. She was fell in love with this old friend but did not realize it. She had known personal things about her and used it to her advantage in trying to get her to fall for her. The woman broke it off when she found out it was her old friend. She never found out if it was a joke or if the woman really loved her but could not or would not be honest about her feelings. She tried to get her to fall in love with her on the pretext that she was a man online, which was a lie. So be careful who you trust online because it may not be the person of your dreams. Online relationships can be a good way to start a relationship for some people but the final aim is to meet face to face and you may be not be happy when you finally start one in the real world. If you do get into a relationship online and plan to meet them in reality always meet them in a public place with a trusting friend to help you in case it does not turn out the way you expected. Especially younger users should be very careful about who they meet because they can be taken advantage of even easier. Love can happen online but don't take everything they say as the truth. Be honest yourself and be critical of how they act online. There are lots of good stories of people meeting the right mate for themselves but don't become one of the bad stories. Be careful and always protect yourself online and offline. It is great to fall in love but it hurts when you are taken advantage of and your dream person online falls short offline. Romance is not perfect in any setting but give it a shot and it may turn out be great but don't be too disappointed when it turns out badly.

self mowing lawn mowers

I checked out the self mowers online and they look very useful. These mowers are the wave of the future and can put many landscapers out of business in the future but they are not there yet. There are still very expensive and there are still some bugs in them. You need to have a pretty open backyard and can't have any little objects in it's path. Major things like bushes and trees it will avoid. I just worry how much they will scare off your dog in the backyard. It is a great tool for busy people to have their lawn mowed without having to do it yourself. I still enjoy mowing the lawn but if I am too busy this machine is very interesting. You don't need to even be there it will dock itself when it needs to recharge itself. You need to instal an invisible fence around your lawn and it is still pretty pricey but the convenience is there. This is the same technology as the self vacume cleaner. It has a smart intelligence computer and sensors that allow it to mow your lawn without a human control. It is where artificial intelligence is going but it may have some negative effects of people becoming more lazy in doing simple tasks that are apart of our lives. It may eliminate jobs and the fear is when too many machines do these jobs they replace our labor force. If it starts here it may not stop at that. What other jobs will they replace and how far will we let it go. It is difficult to see a future of robots doing every simple task and even more difficult ones. If they begin to replace our jobs and tasks will we use this extra time in a productive way or will we just become more lazy. This technology is here and it is not going away but has not really diffused into mainstream because of the price and some people still enjoy mowing their lawn. If the machines do the job better will we prefer a machine over a human doing the task? Would you buy one for yourself? Is it worth the money?

Navigation on cell phones

The mobile cell phones started out as an emergency use only. Then they became more diffused into society with broad use. Then is became to combine new features that have combined many features to one unit. It added text messaging, email, internet access, camera that can be video or or still pictures, audio recording, many other new features like the navigation features. The navigation units were individual units that were installed in their cars, then they became standard in cars. Then newer units started to come out making it easier for people to carry them around and small enough to keep it in their pockets and having a good battery source. Now the navigation can be applied to telephones that can be carried around with you much easier than ever before. The new navigation devices allow more freedom in finding out where to go without getting lost. There are some negatives about pre-programed journey's that can limit on where we go and how we get there. It does not allow for us to meet new people or to find the scenic route that may be found by getting lost. This is a new way of traveling focusing on finding the destination and not focus on journey. These new devices do make lives easier, saving time, money, natural resources, and stress. It still is not perfect and the maps may not show the best routes to go because it is software based searches on finding the best routes with maps and don't always account for traffic, lights, and views. There may be better advantages to having this technology but it does limit how we travel and changes our reliance on a device instead of having the knowledge of maps, navigating or knowing the area. This technology is great if we do not rely solely on this and if we depend on it in the future there may be more consequences that have not been investigated and we will not know if this will be a positive or negative effect on the public. I do have a portable navigation and it does help when traveling to a new place especially a DJ because maps and online directions are not perfect. It may give you a longer way around to get to places but you will get to the place you need to go in a timely manner. The options with traffic conditions and other applications will be developed to help. 

Ipod touch new games touch screen

The new ipod touch has a new interactive games that you can buy and play on your ipod touch. This is different because you play games by moving the ipod touch or by touching the screen to play. This is a great new feature to the ipod allowing cheap new games to be easily played on the ipod. This is another direction to take with the ipod that has been inspired by cell phone games and applies it to the ipod touch or the iphone. These type of games work on the same ideas that the wii uses with hand movement instead of buttons or standard controllers. These games allow you to touch the screen and move the ipod which can be more interactive and exciting way of playing games. The games are fairly simple and are either inspired by older games or are brand new games that were designed for the ipod touch. There will probably be several new games that will come out to increase the ipods flexibility. Not only can you listen to music, watch TV  shows or movies but now you can play fun games on them. This might have created new competition for the other mobile games units like the PSP. These new ipod games can create more popularity because of the new use it adds to this all in one unit. Converging more software and new applications for a single device. The next thing may be to add the navigation to this unit just like the mobile phones have recently added this feature.

Ipod new software means new hardware again

The  new software for the ipods is great because it will organize your music in new and different ways. You set up a type of playlist and will continue to fill in songs as you get them into that category or genre. This is the wizard option. The problem with upgrading software is that your old ipods cannot handle it. Then you don't have to upgrade but now if you want new music on itunes you can't download unless you get upgraded software that is free. If you don't have an ipod that can upgrade than you are stuck. You either have to buy a new ipod or be stuck with less music and less options. The company is making improvements to their products but again it forces people to have to replace their old music and video storage devices quicker than they should have to. If they can't make the hardware break after the warranty is up they get you by the software upgrades. Some of this I knew from online and the upgrade problems were told to me by a fellow student. Don't let them catch you in the upgrade traps and it would be great to have new options but I do not and cannot afford to buy a new ipod. These upgrades should be compatible with all ipods. Does anyone feel frustrated with these new ploys to keep us consuming. Instead of making more trash keep it, sell or give it to someone that wants an ipod. We are still stuck in this consumer and throw away society and we really need to recycle in a environmentally safe way. What happened to the reduce, reuse, recycle. Now it is buy more, use more and throw away more.

New President for a Change

I am very exciting because I have voted since I was old enough and this is the first President that I voted for that actually won. This is not going to be an easy term. Obama has one of the hardest Presidency in recent history and he will have a huge array of problems to deal with. I will support this President and I hope that he will surround himself with good intelligent people that will help him face off these difficult times. He will not only have to deal with the economy, foreign relations, two wars, and health problems but has to work extra hard to unite this country and keep our citizens safe and prosperous. I would love to see him help with the same sex marriages but there are still so many issues that he will have to deal with. In these modern times the President will have to make a law that protects people's rights and allow them the privileges that many of us take for granted. I think that it was a historical event to elect a President that is black but it is more amazing that we elected  the right man for the job no matter what his skin color is. I hope that all of our citizens are as proud of their vote as I am. I consider myself a liberal and usually vote democrat and it is interesting that there are no republicans in office in New England but I am an independent and I hope that the party lines will break down and work together. I think that Obama will reach across party lines and really unite the country no matter if you are red or blue. Colors should not represent differences anymore but unite us in a multicolored world of peace and love. This was a great election and I hope that our new President is protected and safe to get the tough job done. We will all have to work with him to help get this country back on track and to help the rest of the world instead of trying to intimidate them. I really feel proud of my vote and I am exciting to see what is in store for us in the future. I hope that everyone even the ones that did not vote for him help to support him because even though I did not vote for Bush and do not agree with how he ran things I still respected that he is the President. The competition is over now the work has to start in January to get everyone that American Dream that we love so much and to bring our troops home. I hope to see Obama have a great Presidency and maybe even two great ones.

Fox Coverage of election campaign

It was interesting to hear news reporter bad mouthing Obama so much about his half an hour campaign show. Then praise McCain for the rest of the show even though he got equal free time on another show. It is interesting to see the conservatives trying to pull apart  his campaign. They had a McCain speech on the news that sounded exactly like Bush. He kept on saying that he will find the terrorist and stop our enemies from ruining our way of life. I wanted to pull my hair out, the only ones that are ruining our lives today is our own government. This administration has used terrorism and fear to kill and hurt more innocent people than any terrorist. They have ruined our economy, hurt our relations with our allies, they don't try to solve or find compromises with our enemies and have made jobs harder to keep. The administration has taken away our homes and gave money to the companies that will only keep it for themselves. McCain will continue to mismanage our country because he is unwilling to compromise and admit the trouble that we are in. Obama is not going to make miracles happen over night but I think that he is more willing to try to help the education, health care and fuel crisis. These are the problems that have hurt people more than any threat of a terrorist who is horribly wrong but probably was created by our own ignorant views that we can do whatever we want and others have to listen to us. I am not unpatriotic but I think real discourse is more important than being proud of where you live. We need to pull together and fix our problems over party lines and try to fix the mess that we are all in. I hope that this election goes smoothly and that change will actually happen even though it will not happen as quickly as we would want. It is much easier to blow something up than to rebuild. It is much easier to hate than it is to get along. It is harder to work together than to point the blame anymore. It is easier to fight than to get along. We all need to work together in the world and it will be hard to make things better for everyone. No more scapegoats or insults but lets get some real dialog and real policies that help unite this country with the rest of the world in peace. 

New Ipod Mixer

There is a new ipod mixer for DJs which has a great new feature.  This new mixer allows you to take multiple songs off of one ipod and get them ready to mix together. For people who do not know much about mixers it does basically what the name is. The mixer mixers two different sources of music players together. It could be  a record player, CD player, ipod or any other type and you can transition one song to the next without any break in it. This is a great tool to have especially being a DJ at a party. You never have to have dead air. Now the new mixer is different than the old way because in the past you needed two different playing devices that are playing difficult storage units like music on a CD. The new one only requires that you have one unit that plays the music and holds it. The real benefit is that this mixer can take several songs off of this single device and temporarily store it on the mixer. Now you can mix the different songs that are already on the ipod. The ipod has this feature when connected to the computer by setting up playlist but this new mixer allows you to do it easier and on the fly. It has made it easier for DJs that know how to use this equipment to have a larger amount of music on a single device and can access it faster and easier. I do not have one yet but I will soon. I love the use of CDs and it is more free and less restrictive than ipods in my resistance to learn a new way of playing music but with this new mixer I will be willing to spend money and learn a new skill. In the end it will be easier for me to find songs that I may not play as often and reduce the chance of not being able to do my job to my best ability in playing the songs that the audience has requested. This is just like the leap from records to CDs and this may become the new way of how people hear their digital music at parties.

New Online World New Online Problems

The more information that we put on our online world will creates more problems in the real world. The push to do online billing and make everything digital will make it more difficult to conduct any business without the aid of the computer. All of our stores are computerized and this is leading to a complete monopoly of technology in business. It is increasing our dependency on computers and especially the internet. The laws do not protect the consumers rights over privacy of his economic persona. The laws about theft do not fully keep up with online theft. It is sometimes easier to convict a person who physically robs a store for a few hundred dollars. The people who steal millions online, get away with it and it is harder to prosecute them. There needs to be a huge adjustment to have we view the network and internet crimes. Not just money, but copyright information. There are many new problems out there because we are connected in this online community. There needs to more policing of the internet but also safeguards to stop a new government rule online that can become corrupt. This new world has to be controlled but not ruled by the elites. It is a very tricky situation. When online problems get out of control they will become our real world problems. The distinction between these two worlds are becoming more narrow by the day. I hope that the internet will be in control but not under control. This is a brave new world and I hope that we don't go back to 1984. This is a loaded statement but our direction of the world may depend more than ever on how we handle this online world.  

New Economy

The new economy has elements of our old one with some new ways of working and some new products to sell. The new products are not products that you can hold in your hand. These products are software programs and information. Different ways of using our new integrated networks to distribute information and ideas. We are connecting between like minded companies that can help our own businesses grow. These international and national companies have associations with other corporations to streamline these new products that help build up and make both companies stronger. We are selling services that are not as tangible as making a chair but can be transfered by digital means. Yes some of them can be put on CDs but most are just sent over the private superhighways. They may use public internet to connect to some companies but many more companies have these private archives and transmissions.  The big problem with these new integrated systems that are being streamlined in order to prevent barriers to increase productivity make it harder to keep things copyrighted. The new problem is getting paid for these software and information from being taken instead of sold or used within a company exclusively with their other associates. These private companies along with military and government agencies have always been able to get the top of the line equipment and now software. The tipping point to get the public to use them still has to make it affordable and found a use for them before everyone needs to have it in order to keep up with the rest. This lag time always occurs and when something does not catch it is put on the shelf until the public is ready and willing to utilize these new technologies which are more ideas than material things. The office will someday have a more modern version of an assembly line factory system. The office work will be connected to many departments and can have different jobs handle separately done but seen by everyone in other departments that need to see them for their own work. This new economy will improve the production, make it easier to work and eliminate the problems that slow down production. This style of work will affect all big business in the long run. The new economy will not allow one company to focus just on their own profits and success. These companies are becoming more interconnected and reliance will help companies become stronger but also more vulnerable to other companies failures. The new economy will be forced to make sure that other countries economies and practices become more uniform and stable or there will become more unstable businesses with the businesses in the whole world. These monopolies can sink or swim depending on how well they work together as a whole. 

New World with Human Interaction

We continue to push the limits of our imagination. We want to see what we can create because we want control over it. But if we continue to make things more powerful it may go to far. What will happen when the computers don't need us anymore. Will they be able to develop with their own agendas. We will lose control over the technology and it will decide what their and our futures. It may sound like science fiction but it may become science fact. Just like the natural evolution of our own DNA  the computers will be able to evolve without our input.  Manuel Castells and Jan Van Dijk both deal with these issues of if we do not keep ourselves in check we will pay the greatest prices. They have different views but I believe they both understand the power of technology and how it will change our world as we know it. Our technology is a very powerful tool just like a calculator. If we cannot add or do math without it, it does not help us. If we allow these tools to do everything for us we lose that knowledge. Our future generations will lose this knowledge forever. I hope we do not become to dependent on the tools that were there to guide our knowledge seeking and make it faster and more productive. It is difficult to tell what is to much.

Technology Making us strangers

Can we continue to become connected on the internet without losing our connections to each other. They would like us to think that we become more connected to each other with instant communication. This is great but we cannot get that human experience online. There is a huge problem when people have to rely on the internet for dating, friends, work, hobbies, and their lives. If we get so used to being online we will lose that time that we could be outside. If we have to work online do we ever get that human touch to our work. If all our hobbies are online do we ever want to leave. All our friends and family will have to be connected by the internet will we have any more real relationships or love. If we get a date online can we ever fall in love with the real person. If we do all these things online when do we live our real lives. Do we lose our own identity? Do we lose the human touch? Can we no longer be human any longer if everything in our lives is digital copy? A digital copy is compressed and not real. These are very scary realities that we can fall into over time. We would not fall into it if we were not conditioned to in our lives to except technology to be more important than real life. The digital world is becoming more interactive and real but it will never have that human touch to it. I wonder if we will stop ourselves before it is too late? We have a perfect world out there and all around us but we are not satisfied with it because we did not create it. Can't we get back to the beauty of the world and nature without losing our comforts that technology has given us?

The Bailout

Does anyone else feel that the media is trying again along with the government trying to  scare us into wasting our money on bailing out companies that profit off of our hard earned money. 

This is absolutely crazy to think that they only gave us hundreds of dollars and they will give a company trillions of dollars. That racial seems a little off. I got a great bail out plan. We give every tax payer a hundred thousand dollars and that will stimulate the economy. If we give out the money to them but only let them pay off a house, pay off credit card debt, pay off a student loan, put into savings, or pay off a car loan or some other loan. This money would go back to the banks and would help everyone out. Do any of you think this would work? I know this would be impossible. I know there would be tons of problems with this. Why not set up some kind of lottery way where everyone wins. It would only be for the people who made under a certain amount. This idea is crazy too but I think giving a company all this money and expect to get a tax cut without losing any good programs would be impossible to do. Why is the media feeding into this. Any more ideas on this I would love to hear. Do you think this bailout would work? How do you think this affects our view of the government and their agendas? Do you think our checks would to butter us up to approve this deal? Why didn't anyone catch this earlier? Where is our money going and the economy going? If we don't pay our bills we have to suffer so why not make them suffer through the depression as much as we are. 

election stop campaining

Another off topic subject but is our media trying to change our view of the election and our choice. Why would we stop a campaign that is so close to elections. I think that the republicans are trying to use the media just like with his ads to make his rival look like he does not care about our economy crisis. I think he is concerned about it and that the democrats need to continue to push their message to try to change our economy. This election is a very tight race and if they give up on debates then the media will be the only voice good or bad. Do you think that this is a good idea. Does not matter which side you choose to vote for. I would like to know how you guys view this decision. Do you think the media, blogs and the internet affect this election more than any other? Do you think this election is different because of all the different ways of getting information about the two parties? Is it helpful or hurtful?

rape victims no plan b

This does not really have to do with class but I saw on the news that they just passed a law that made it against the law not to give plan b to rape victims. Wow why hasn't these hospitals not stopped earlier. This is horrible that institutions was able to decide for these victims even though it is their legal right. About time they are held responsible for helping their patients. The world of technology helps people but there is still a problem when personal decisions or beliefs can hurt people that were already victims. I hope this law is never changed. There is a problem when there needs to be a law to protect personal freedoms of choice. What do you about this? Even if the hospital is catholic and does not believe it  contraception they are a public facility to help the sick and should not have the right to decide for the patient what is best for them.

cell phones

Cell phones are getting a little overwhelming. I wander if they will put so much on them that they will forget to put the phone in it. I went to buy a new phone and they wanted to sell me a personal computer for my pocket. I just wanted to buy a phone to make a call. It is great that you can do everything on one little computer but will you be able to just get a phone to talk or will you have to get everything else you don't need.

new media ideas #1

We have discussed many new ideas within class and online. It is very interesting to discuss these new ideas about new technology and how they affect our lives. I believe that there are many times in history when new technology changing the ways in which people understand their world. This is one of those times and I believe that it will not get any easier. In the past our tools have made our lives easier. They still do but they also make it much harder at the same time. We have to constantly learn how to use new technology. It is not that we can accept this fact but that we have to which is scary. 

In regards to how privacy concerns in the article will never go away. I would like to ask the class if they have any ideas on how to slow down these invasions into our lives. Will it have to be a law? Will we just have to get better technology to encrypt our information.? How will the use of this information be used against us? Will it just be used to sell us products or will it be used with the medical industry? Could they decide if we are worth keeping alive or deserve a job based on this information. It is a scary thought.  Also another thought about the other reading. Who should be allowed to show videos on Utube? Who decides what we should see or what is not for our eyes? Even horrible material trying to be used to hurt or confuse people should be seen. We should have the right to know about the threats and horrors that we are usually lucky that we don't have to be in a country with extremist like this. I just hope that we don't become like the people we hate.