Day Six
Today’s lecture introduced us to the new theory which is called free and open source softwares. This theory is based on that everyone can use the softwares like other utilities in community without any contorol or limitation. The creators of this idea believe that it is a kind of freedom. In most countries like United State, people are monitoring when they using the internet. The government has right to check every thing on the internet to secure the community (or maybe itself!!!). No one wants their privet emails checked by some one or organization, it is the first right of the users, but unfortunately it is happen in the countries which called themself first world and talking about democracy and freedom!?!
This theory is developed by introducing the Linux as a open source software, which is exactly like Microsoft windows and do the same function, but it is free for everyone to use. The open source softwares have their own security and licences but gives everyone the opportunity to use.
Based on this open source softwares like Linux, other software were created to have a compatibility with this softwares. Like open office which is the open source version of the Microsoft office.This idea is develop by other people to other fields of activities. They call this community the creative commons. However the use of others works or information should be with referencing them.
In the last part of lecture the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is introduced as an organization to support the idea of creative common and open source things against the low which limits people to have access to the network and common information. These organizations are free and anyone can join and work for them.
Day Five – Part 2
In this part as a tutorial activity we asked to attach some photos to our web-log.
Good time with good friends never can forget.
The picture shows the new construction method for high rise uilding, I think it is a good example of high tech.
Good memories on summer, no more study(exept the people doing summer courses!!!!), the bright colors and sunny days of summer.
Is it Fair?
University Life! maybe University night! but it is a little bit diffrent for gold coast campus students.
As reference, the first pictur took by canon S3 and the other pictures are collect from the google immages or use from my own albums.
Day Five
The first part of today’s lecture was about Instant Massaging (IM). IM’s are familiar to most of people using internet. They are good example of new communication technology which let the internet user to contact each other easily. IM’s are developed by different companies with different names. The most popular IM are MSN, ICQ, AOL Instant messenger and yahoo messenger. All of us use the chat or being in a chat room. The new version of this kind of technologies is voice chat and video chats.
The second part of the lecture was about Audio portable devices. Again these days everyone knows IPods. The new generation of technology gives people the ability of listening to their favourite music or radio station – or maybe the lecture of their relaxation class – anywhere. All of us see someone with something on their ear in university, street, bus stop (and sometime in quiet section of library).
The next part of this lecture introduces the video games as a new communication technology. For so many people playing video games is like a habit. They use hours in front of their computer or television for playing. The new generation of video games whit high quality of images and sound are very attractive. They can send their message or show something true in a format of game that everyone loves it.
Day Four – Part 2
As it mentioned in previous section we had an experiment of using one 3D Instant Message program which is called active world. It was based on the virtual life theory and based on computer images. It was quite different from using the messengers or normal chat rooms, because most of the concentration is on the pictures and activities. It was interesting but after one hour playing I fill headache and could not continue. However like other chat rooms it makes the socializing easier, because you do not know who you are talking to.
Day Four
Today’s lecture was about very interesting topic, which was virtual philosophy. If we think deep it is very wide topic. But what is virtuality and what is reality? According to the lecture the definition of virtual is “the things which are in our memory that is to say, the things not exist now, include our memory from past or our dream about future.” The example is if we think about doing something is in virtual stage and when we are doing it is real. From definition it can be seen is most about our observation. So what about our feelings? Are they virtual or real?
It is a little bit more confusing if we only judge from what we can see right now or what is happening now. This definition is true if we talk about materials, however the things like our soul or our feeling cannot be virtual, they are real because they are exist. In other words, there is a very thin line between reality and virtuality.
There is another question for me, our night dreams are virtual or real? We have feeling and everything is real in night dreams, but they do not exist in our world. Maybe we are virtual!!!?!!!
However, the main topic of this course is about communication technologies, so we concentrate on this part not philosophy of virtuality. On new generation of 3D games which called “Second life”, was presented in the lecture. It was interesting, all different activities of human life simulated on computer based program. Like playing game or being in a chat room, users can live in a world and have ability to do all the human activities such as shopping, trading, having fun and etc., But in virtuality. Second life is not the first idea of this kind of virtual life; they are developing from movies and games and now they are trying to simulate the life. The previous version of second life was presented in tutorial session.
In addition, the first negative point of them is they are most kid of commercial stuffs, they trying to take a market. That is to say, the idea is good but it was not developed well. Next disadvantage of all games generally is their physical and mental side effects of them.
Day Three – Part 2 – Answering questions:
The second task of today’s tutorial is to answer some question by using search engines. The interesting thing when we use the search engine is there are thousands of answers or websites related to our search. But the question is, all of them are right answer? How can we know which one is the right answer? And if the answers are right, which one is the most relevant to our question?
Basically all of above questions are depended on how we search or what key word we using for our search. That is to say, a little knowledge searching techniques can help us to narrow down our search to the clear answer. There are lots of tips and skills for searching, but do these skills enough to find all of our questions in Internet? Of-course not! All of us have an experience to try to find something on Google and was not successful.
In this section the answers of following questions are searched form different search engines which introduced in tutorial session, the best answer with its link will be presented:
Questions:
1. Who was the creator of the infamous “lovebug” computer virus?
2. Who invented the paper clip?
3. How did the Ebola virus get its name?
4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake?
5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte?
6. Who is the creator of email?
7. What is unique about the political organisation of the Kingdom of Nri?
8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of australia directly, what is the most efficient way?
9. Which Brisbane punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School
of Arts) a member of?
10. What does the term “Web 2.0″ mean in your own words?
Answers:
1. Onel de Guzman. (www.cbsnews.com)
2. Samuel B. Fay in 1867. (www.ideafinder.com)
3. Ebola is one of the two viruses classified as Filoviridae, viruses made of RNA. Filo is Latin for ‘worm’, an apt name, as filoviridae look like worms and threads under a microscope (Oldstone 134). It could be that Ebola is ancient, as RNA is the most basic ‘code’ of life (Preston 85).The Ebola virus, named for a river near the place of its first outbreak (Tomlinson 1), is divided up into strains, which are variations of the virus. (en.wikipedia.org)
4. Chile. (www.extremescience.com)
5. 1 TB = 1024 MB = 1048576 KB. (en.wikipedia.org)
6. Early 1970’s, Ray Tomlinson. (www.openmap.bbn.com)
7. The leader exercised no military power over its subjects. Douglas chambers were the first white person to be made a royalty in the NRI government, after he spent time researching on the eastern Nigerian. (www.nri.org)
8. By post and the address which gives by government is:
The Hon John Howard MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
9. Black Assassins. (www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au)
10. Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as soial-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. (en.wikipedia.org)
Day Three
Today’s lecture was about media, it has three part, media definition, history of media studies, and new media studies. The first part of the lecture was mostly about definition of media. Media comes from word “medium”, which is related to something allows communication between other sources. The things like newspaper, films, CD, DVD, and…. are good examples of media. However, nowadays internet is known as media. Also TV, Radio which are related to news, known as mass media because of their capacity of information they can exchange.
According to the lecture, development of broadcasting information and mass media was in twentieth century. However, if we want to talk about the history of media, we should analyse the different discipline derives from communication, which can divide to communication studies, media studies, and cultural studies. Also, in parallel to these discipline establishments, number of practically jobs focussed on disciplines have emerged, such as: Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Design, and etc.Also by developing the computers and other new communications technologies, more disciplines have been established such as: New Media Studies, Cyber Studies, Internet Studies, Cyber culture Studies, Web Studies, and etc.
In addition, according to the lecture, the followings are the brief history of media:
Media studies:
-1900, Ferdinand de Saussure Studies the role of signs as part of social life.
Communication Studies:-
1920, Bullet Inoculation Theory of Maximum effects
-1930, Application of Statistical Method
-1940, Minimum Effects
-1950, looking for effects – connections to psychology
-1960, Marshall McLuhan
-1970, Mixed Effects
-1980, Return of Maximum effects
Culture Studies:
-1930, Walter Benjamin
-1940, Frankfurt School
-1950, Situationists Society of the Spectacle
-1960, Habermas
-1970, Louis Althusser
-1980, Baudrillard Simulacra
-1990, Fraser – Subaltern counter publics Finally, by developing internet and cyber culture theory around the world, the new media studies is take a place, and it is developed so fast.
