Group Presentation: Smart Mobs

The next book presented in our TINST207 class is titled “Smart Mobs” by Howard Rheingold. These five gentlemen did an awesome job in their book presentation (hands down!). I found this book very riveting and this book is my favorite of all case studies in this class. The author talks about how people from Manila (in the Philippines) used text messaging to ignite an ouster of the their corrupt Philippine president. They used their wireless devices or cellphones through text transmissions to convene and circumvent military barricades. They successfully deposed their president and the rest is history: all because of the high-tech digital revolution. In conclusion, the author tells about the capabilities of network technological gadgets such as cell phones, SMS, pagers, and Web on transforming, changing and shaping different parts of the world such as Tokyo (in Japan), Helsinki (in Finland), and our very own World Trade protest in Seattle. I'm telling you, aside from buying “Burn Rate” by Michael Wolff, I have plans on owning this book too. I love this class! Thanks Professor Fry for giving us this wealth of knowledge!

Group Presentation: Against the machines

Thanksgiving Day is over and it's time to write my blog again. Before the holiday, the other group in my class performed their book presentation entitled “Against the Machines” by Lee Siegel. They did a nice job in presenting their stuff. From what I understand, the book is all about the world's dependence on the internet. It talks about how living in a virtual world can affect one's lives in different aspects. Ever since the evolution of digital era, pornography has never been the same because of its high-tech utilization of computerized images and permeation of immorality through the internet. The author exposed the adverse impact of the internet usage such as manipulating others by promoting half-fantasy and half-real life world. These are only some of the portions that he sighted and I will not delve more on that. I somewhat disagree because I saw some people who became millionaires through internet usage; they were formerly unemployed individuals who were fired or layed off from their jobs and if not for the succor of the internet, their life would be like a hopeless trash. From my understanding, the author is giving us a warning to be moderate in using the internet because it may “eat” us as a person (which reminds me of what happened to a teen-age girl who committed suicide because of a blogger, who is an internet hoaxer, told her “Life would be better off without you!”).

Book Report: Burn Rate

The Fall Quarter is almost over (yehey!!), and our book presentation is due to start sometime next week in our TINST207 class with professor Andrew Fry.
Our group, which is composed of six students decided to present a summary of the book entitled “ Burn Rate: How I survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet” by Michael Wolff.
This book tells the rags-to-riches story of Michael Wolff on how he survived lots of obstacles on opening up an Internet business during the early days of the computer web, then became one of the modern Rockefeller of the cyberindustry. The reason why the title is burn rate because he was losing money as fast as the fire burning up any things into ashes. Yet, Wolff turned his ashes of failure into gold. It is kind of interesting because this book is quite different from any entrepreneurs' story wherein he put some humors and fancy audacious things about it.
I reckon that some readers who will peruse this book might get vexed of his too-good-to-be-true stories. Well, c'mon, everybody is entitled to their own opinion. No matter what they say, he has an outstanding writing style, I enjoyed reading his book, and I learned a lot from his perspectives! For me he is the cyberbusiness guru because in spite of what he had gone through in his life, he still had the resilience to face the chaotic and fast-paced cyberworld with chin up and without batting an eyelash! Now that's what we call the real fighting spirit! Some additional information about our presentation can be read on some of my group members blogs.

Livin' La Vida Digital
Scott1223's Blog
It's Only After You've Lost
Simply Complex


Kudos to Michael Wolff and cheers!

Scavenger Hunt

It’s been a while since my last blog entry. Anyway last Wednesday, Nov 19, we had a Scavenger Hunt in our TINST207 class (Living and Working in a Virtual World).
Professor Andrew Fry gave us a list of items that we need to gather and seek out online. It was a lot of work and searching but in the long run, it was fun and amusing. Here are some of what I’ve found during my web hunt.
I discovered lots of matchmaking websites depending on your religion or your intelligence status. I found 2 dating sites exclusively for atheists: freethinker.com and atheistpassions.com. So for pagans, agnostics, and other non-religious free-thinkers who are looking for partners, these websites are for you! Then, there are Catholic online dating sites for singles who want to search lifetime partners who are as devotedly religious and pious as them. These catholic sites are: 4marks.com, catholicmatch.com and avemariasingles.com. On the other hand, there are dating sites exclusively and strictly for very smart, brainy and mensa-like people. In order to become a member, you have to take a very tough IQ test and you can take it only twice. These specific websites are: intelligentpeople.com, GoodGenes.com, educatedsingle.com and rightstuffdating.com (for graduates and faculty of top-ranked universities). So for lovelorn nerds and even scientists out there (scientificsingles.com) who are looking for compatible special someone, you can check these sites out!
One of the items is about general search engine sites that are NOT Google, Yahoo nor MSN. I found three great sites: ask.com, about.com, and the new search engine on the web block, gigablast.com. There are also search engines sites that are geographically limited to certain countries such as Yehey.com (Philippines), Sohu.com or Sogou.com (China), and Exalead.com (France). They are all quite fascinating and entertaining!
These are only some of the interesting websites that can evoke curiosity and awe. Living and working in a virtual world is, indeed, very exciting, fabulous and, stupendous! Our next class activity is our class book presentation.

Enter My Virtual World

I am a penguin aficionado. My fetish for penguins engender my penchant for Linux's most popular virtual game called "Super Tux". Super Tux, which is available in Ubuntu and Suse Linux, has the same concept, aim, and style as the Super Mario Brothers. It is cute, fun, and interesting since whenever I gain powers, I will turn into a sturdy Emperor penguin. If I got bitten or attacked by enemies, I would turn into a small Adelie penguin. Whenever the penguin, reaches a goal or go into another level, instead of going inside the castle which is the case of Mario Brothers game, the penguin will go automatically inside the igloo to go to the next stage. My goal is to save Tux's penguin girlfriend called "Penny" who was kidpnapped by "Nolok", an evil dragon-like creature. The background music is amazing and mind-boggling as well. I am sure you will be hooked too!

Penguins are always my favorite animal. I am widely fascinated by penguin's wiliness and swiftness in swimming through the Antarctic Ocean. They are monogamous in nature, and the father penguin is the one responsible for the egg until they are hatched, while the mother penguin looks for the food for her family.

Do You Live in Tacoma, WA

Do you live in Tacoma? Have you visited and seen Tacoma, Washington before? If yes, then you should definitely check this website (www.feedtacoma.com). If not, you are more welcome to visit the site.

Mr. Kevin Freitas, the owner of this site visited our class last week and talked about his website and what is it all about.

I don't reside in Tacoma but this website gave me a lot of information regarding the place. Everybody can contribute or write just about anything regarding Tacoma, like local events, local shops, restaurants and bars, post some photos and videos, and all that jazz.

So then go ahead, visit the site and learn more about a great community called Tacoma, WA.

Banking Online Anybody

Online banking greatly changed the way people do their money dealing.

I used to remember when I was young, my parents brings me along to the bank to make a deposit or withdraw some funds. In every transaction you need to fill-out a slip (Deposit slip, Withdrawal slip or Fund transfer slip) that you would give to the bank teller.

Online banking changed all that. People now can do all that transactions anytime, anywhere with just a click of a mouse (Imagine yourself, going to the bank whilst it is raining or snowing).

You can also pay your bills online so that there's no need to send check to pay your bills. The convenience and easiness outweigh the security risk in doing transaction online.

With all the security measures and features that the banks put in their website, I can say that online banking is definitely safe.

Perils of Shopping Online

Some people are wary to buy or shop online for a wide variety of reasons. First is the possibility that credit card or debit card might be either exploited or intercepted by hackers, phishers or identity thieves online. We have heard and read lots of tragic stories about people whose identities were stolen or whose credit cards were being used unbeknownst to the true owner. Second, appliances purchased online, specifically electronics, have a high risk of getting damaged or wrecked during shipping. One good example of this is the digital camera and the CD Boombox. Third, clothes that you buy online might be too short, too small, too large, or too long for you because you never had the chance to fit or try it first-hand. In other cases, the product sent sometimes is quite different from what you expected or from what was shown in the online catalogue. Lastly, compared to buying in store, buying online involves paying the shipping and handling cost which sometimes exceed the cost of the product. Once, I bought a knitting book for my girlfriend worth only 85 cents in amazon.com, but since I also have to pay the shipping and handling fee, I paid almost $5.00. In case you don't want to keep the product anymore for some reason and you want to send it back, you still have to pay again the postage of that item aside from the hassle of bringing it to the postal office. There are lots of advantages and disadvantages of purchasing merchandise online. These online companies are burgeoning because of the conveniences they are giving to the customers living in the high-tech world.

Search for Me!

I was quite inquisitive about this class topic. When I searched my name in Google, it says there I'm a famous celebrity in a foreign country. Other Google results show that I have a profile in facebook.com and friendster.com in which I really didn't subscribe to any of those. Quite bizarre and interesting! The ones that I am concerned and really worried in our high-tech world are the licentious digeratis, such as identity thefts and phishing. If most of us are using McAfee and Norton Antivirus to prevent identity thefts, I use Linux in my computer to protect me from hackers. I also don't purchase anything online except for trusted websites like amazon.com, alaskaair.com, jetblue.com, among others. I use spamguard in my e-mail plus I don't believe any lottery or sweepstakes e-mail that claim I won $ 8.5 million or $14.7 million but on a condition that I have to give my full private information and pay a shipping cost of $200 through Western Union! It is so ludicrous and outrageous! Those hackers are driving me nuts! Who knows? Maybe next time you search your name, you'll find yours related to a porn star!

The Future of Newspaper

People's way on delivering news have evolved through times; from the practice of oral tradition in the antediluvian era and the resonation of significant events by carving hieroglyphics on stonewalls in the ancient Egypt to the invention of the printing press machine in the 1800's, humankind has certainly made a stupendous progress in mass media. Upon came the dot-com era which revolutionized the way people are informed about events, news and happenings.

I opine that newspaper will never be passe and will not be fully eradicated, but will just adapt to having both online and paper version because lots of people still have the tendency to print hardcopies of the news article after downloading on the internet because it is easier and convenient to utilize and peruse than just reading it through the computer online. The newspaper, inter alia, is handy, ubiquitous and accessible compared to online news wherein you always need to carry a laptop with you to procure news and information online. Thieves love to steal laptops too, so who wants to carry it everywhere?

For people working or living oversease who want to keep abreast with the current affairs of their homeland, online news is a propitious method of getting to be well-informed on what's happening in their native country. In addition to that, on the environmental and ecological perspective, it is much practical to subscribe and read news on the web to preclude further dissipation of paper.

Email vs Postal Service

For my day to day and up to the minute communications, I prefer using Email because I can send anytime without going somewhere else. Postal mail is popularly known as snail mail because it takes days or even months for the receiver to procure the documents, compared to email wherein it will take only a few seconds to transmit the messages to the other party. With email you can bombard you recipients with plethora of messages and pictures of cute kittens without outrightly paying any single cents (except for the monthly fee for internet, of course!). Whereas in postal mail, everytime you send a letter, it will cost you a stamp. Furthermore, if you put some more stuff in the envelope like picture photos and heavily ornamented cards, you have to pay additional fees for those. However, postal mails have sentimental values, more often timeless, treasured and cherished, especially if it's a hand-crafted, handmade card or a handwritten letter. Email is somewhat artificial because aside from the fact that it is elctronically produced, email messages are very vulnerable to deletion whether unintentionally, accidentally or unknowingly with just one click of the mouse.