#1–> people are becoming more concerned with their facebook info.  and its not just the privacy issues in class that we’ve talked about, i didn’t even bring it up! a couple of girls i know are jacking up their privacy because 1) they dont want people to be able to  track them down this summer after they move and 2) they are getting annoyed with poeple knowing when they are online with facebook chat.  

i wonder how long facebook will last, if the trend will nosedive, or if my circles of friends will simply stop using it once we ‘settle down’

#2–> i dont think that technology makes us less personable to one another.  i totally think that by having a cell phone, for texting especially, just facilitates my f2f social life.  when i’m working and going to school all over tarnation, i can easily track down, or be tracked down by those who i want to be tracked down by! if i didn’t have my cell phone the other day, i wouldn’t have known that my friend steph was right around the corner at school and would have missed out on a lovely lunch.  thank you technology.

i would like to thank 2p26 for helping me get over a bit of technophobia that i had for social media such as blogs and twitter.  its easy to be afraid of something that you don’t understand and i am grateful for the pressure to dive into these mediums.  i have also been exposed to several tools that i was previously unaware of: wikis, linkedIN, social bookmarking… these three i had either never heard of or had no idea what they were.  i look forward to encountering the delicious symbol in my free time and knowing what it means!  finally, i am pleased to say that i can see myself making use of several of these social mediums in the future, once i feel so inspired.  the format of this course was fun, i liked your non-traditional teaching style professor k.

from this course i have learned that people are ‘plugged in’ to the internet in more ways than i ever thought possible.  i can’t imagine how someone could juggle more than a few social mediums at a time, but i can see their specific usefulness to various jobs or projects. for example,  i can see people using linkedIN much more in the coming months because of all the layoffs.

the internet provides us with a plethora of information and tools.  our information society requires its members to possess some level of technological skills in order to participate in it.  technology has relieved mankind many labour intensive skills, but demanded of him new skills of processing, searching, sharing and protecting.  as with our tools of the past, the Internet is a good servant but a bad master.  the better we understand it, the more use and less harm we can make of it.

You’ve got to consider your privacy on the internet because if some undesired information leaks out, it can hurt your reputation, your pride, your chances at a job (classic example), your bank account…  My concerns would be mostly just keeping a good reputation with my friends, identity theft and some random creeper knowing where to find me in real life.  

Because the internet grew as i did, i dont feel like it holds any information about myself that i couldn’t get other ways.  i feel like most information that is on the internet about me is only there because i put it there.  It would be cool if the local paper from my hometown had its archives on the internet.  If i could search for articles that i was in when i was like, 7 that would be fun.  i also think it would be cool to see the government’s file on me… if one exists?  i’d like to know how much they know about me and how much of that info has been gathered into one place.

i don’t want the whole world seeing my personal photos, my personal communications or schoolwork on the internet.  i would say that the only information that i would want to be publicly available about myself on the internet is something that a newspaper might write about.  if i google my name, several sports scores show up from highschool cross country and rowing competitions, thats alright with me. i’m also alright with anyone who cares to be able to see that i’m on facebook, but nothing more then that.  this week’s lecture made me double check and jack up my privacy settings on facebook.  

even to my facebook friends, i am still particular about what i’ll post on my profile.  i don’t have a public wall that any of them can write on because i think if someone wants to tell me something, why don’t they just private message me? why does my entire network need to be able to see what my sister did today?  its not like i have highly confidential information, i’m just private about it because i have 200 FB friends and i don’t think its their business !  also, i might make private photo albums for friends that are a part of a particular event.  i won’t post more than generic pictures for my entire list of friends to have access to.

story about privacy infringement: before i had facebook, an undisclosed individual posted pictures of me at the beach on her facebook.  i didn’t want everyone that is a member of this person’s friend list to be able to see pictures of me in a bikini, so i made her take them off!  some photos are still meant to stay in your real life albums, you know? 

this story tells me that privacy is very hard to come by over the internet, as you are not the only one that has control of your personal information.  its as if every camera lens now has facebook creepers on the other side of it.  i feel like that is an invasion of my everyday privacy!

i made myself a google account a few days ago so that i could track my google searches.  knowing that i was collecting my searches for this week’s blog made me more conscious of what i was searching for.  i didn’t search for anything that i wouldn’t have otherwise, it just ran through my mind.  i don’t think that many people have this type of awareness or concern when they use search engines.  the case of thelma (was it thelma? beatrice? betty?) that we discussed in class shows us how easily search engines can and do have access to drawing user profiles through our search words.  

heres a reverse chronological list of what i’ve searched for in the last few days

Today
11:02am	Searched for  setanta  -   Viewed 1 result
11:02am	Searched for  chelsea march 15, 2009 final score
11:01am	Searched for  chelsea march 15, 2009  -   Viewed 1 result
Yesterday
9:24pm	Searched for  Nguyen, D. (2008). Information Privacy
9:24pm	Searched for  Nguyen, D. (2008). “Information Privacy in Institutional and End-User Tracking and Recording Technologies”. Discussion Paper, Ubicomp 2008 Conference in Seoul, South Korea.
9:07pm	Searched for  st. catharines protest group  -   Viewed 1 result
9:05pm	Searched for  st. catharines green committee  -   Viewed 1 result
9:05pm	Searched for  st. catharines green
8:47pm	Searched for  brock university activist group
8:46pm	Searched for  brock activist group
8:36pm	Searched for  st. catharines activist group  -   Viewed 1 result
Mar 13, 2009
8:55pm	Searched for  restaurant tony de luca  -   Viewed 1 result
8:52pm	Searched for  job gym  -   Viewed 1 result
7:44pm	Searched for  list of endangered species
6:52pm		Searched for  brock spring 2009 courses  -   Viewed 1 result

An outsider would probably reach the conclusion that i’m a Brock student living in St. Catharines, interested in causes related to endangered species or green initiatives.  They would also say that i’m a soccer fan who is interested in going out for dinner soon.  

It is easy to draw the conclusions that I have made these searches out of personal interest.  But I know that i’ve been searching for activist groups in st. catharines for my presentation at the end of the month, and that i was searching for a football score on behalf of my stepdad.  

My searches could be especially valuable to online advertisers.  By gathering my search words, they can advertise to my specific interests better than they would if they based it on the demographics that i belong to.  But, there is no way that this hypothetical marketer could know the reason why i was performing these searches.  

My search words were ‘ontario university spring courses’.  

GOOGLE:  the first and third results were for western university.  queens was second.  fourth and sixth were general ontario university websites and OUAC.  fifth was guelph.  sponsored links were www.UToronto.ca and www.guidetoonlineschools.com

YAHOO: first and sixth results were for queens.  second and third for western. fourth was for guelph.  fifth was for charles sturt.  first sponsored result was online-education.net

LIVE:  first is charles sturt. second and sixth is a general site for norther ontario colleges and universities, third is western.  fourth and fifth are guelph.  first sponsored link is for dale carnegie business courses.

the search results explicitly show that western, queens and guelph have the most pull in ‘ontario university’ searches.  i wonder how much they have had to pay to be so high on the results list.  its interesting  to me that queens, for example that was a top hit on google and yahoo was absent on the first result page for my live search.  

i notice that i unconsciously have begun to ignore the sponsored results on my searches.  most of the time they do are not what i’m looking for anyways and something like amazon trying to sell a book on ex) ‘ontario university spring courses’ which is not at all what i’m looking for.  so the sponsored link advertisers are not reading my search profile very well! i ignore them as much as banner ads.

The following are three cool things/ideas that i have learned in this course sofar

1)  We must structure the internet so that masses of information can be navigated.  Of course, we must also learn how to navigate as well.  The internet is huge.  If the knowledge that we throw into it is inaccessible, then its useless.  As prof. K has pointed out several times, one of the major skills of the 21st century is those who are able to learn, unlearn and relearn.  I think that this will be (or is) the great divide that separates those who have the means to access info via the net and those who do not or do not want to.  

the internet cannot reach its true democratic potential if some are still unable to take part in it.  

wikis and flickr are two examples of bottom up creations (ie. made by the people) that are formed by collaboration and interactions over the net.  web 2.0 is social and has opened floodgates of interaction around the globe.  who knows what this rapid transmission of knowledge will mean for our cultures?

2) discrimination is still a problem, even on the internet.  gender still matters on the internet.  why else would professor tracy be studying women in gaming?  i find it very interesting that women will pose as men on, say second life in order to experience more equality.  i can see anonymity as a way of handling gender discrimination but it isn’t a soloution to the core of the problem.

3) the virtual world is crossing  into the physical world. we’ve recently looked at mobile phone apps like dodgeball and today in class we looked at some type of google earth twitter (i forget what it’s called, forgive me)?  tools like this tell us that location still matters as well.  once again, technology is making the world smaller.  the major concerns for this type of thing is PRIVACY.  but i don’t believe that we’ll be becoming robots any time soon.  as with many things in life, take it in moderation.  its not like every human will be using every tool we’ve looked at this semester (that would be terrifying).  we can the devices that work for our lifestyle and leave the rest.

the linked in website is quite user friendly.  having updated my resume recently, my info was fresh in my mind and i was able to whip up a profile very easily.  i especially liked the different sections that are outlined the profile for you to fill out.  it helps you to include relevant achievements, experience and education, giving your resume more oomphf.  

i entered some of my past experience out of chronological order and the site arranged them properly for me.  its nice to work with a site that has been designed to arrange this specific type of publication.

two other features i like are 1) the box that tells you how complete your profile is (ex. 75%) and 2) it allows you to request recommendations.  this feature is like a 2.0-esque reference list.

I set my profile as available to people in my network.  i’m guessing that this will require some sort of acceptance on my behalf before someone can enter my network.  i thought about providing a link to my blog on my profile but hesitated.  i don’t want to come across as too casual to a potential employer.  ironically, i have to problem being more formal with my 2p26 peers (by allowing them to view my linked in profile)

this tool could be useful for finding work in the future (obviously).  if you’re looking for work, the more avenues through which you expose yourself, the better, so why not linked in?

this has nothing to do with course work, just a thought my sister and i threw around over reading week.   

what if facebook had an application where you could tell who and how frequently people were creeping your profile!?

facebook is really useful for ‘stalking’ people, ie) looking at pictures of their personal lives.  most of my FB friends have several hundred FB friends, most of who we dont keep in regular contact with at all.  and how fun is it to look at drunken pictures from last night of acquaintances from highschool?? i know that most of us find this type of thing amusing. SO we (my sister an i) were thinking, oh my, what if this person knows that we’re FB stalking them?? our creeping behavior would TOTALLY change if we could tell who had viewed our pages and at what times, etc.

just a thought.  i hope this app doesn’t ever exist.

Moblog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/178779981/     so moblogging seems to be most popular with people who want to post pictures on sites like flickr from their cell phones.  this one got some excited political discussion going which i think is cool.  you could make the argument that this is evidence of our society becoming more democratic.  i can see travellers using moblogs to post out of the ordinary pictures that they’ve taken from their cell.  also, if theres some extraordinary event occuring, the public can get a visual immediately over the internet if someone posts it through their cell.

Photoblog:  http://www.photoblog.com/Crustopher/2009/02/07/quick-walk-around-campus.html    Photoblogs remind me of facebook, flickr and the moblog i just looked at.  good way for photographers to share their pictures and a good resource for images.  anyone know if there would be copyright issues if someone were to publish pictures off someones photoblog?

VideoBlog: http://villagegirl.typepad.com/    this is blogging through use of video.  another version of how people can journal online.  more personal than youtube.

Audioblog: http://nickbrendon.com/2008/09/04/audioblog_942008/   This guy has got an audio application on his blog along with text, so you can read it or listen to him talk.  reminds me of podcasts.  convenient if you want to give your eyes a break or if you’re doing work in the house and can multitask.

overarching trend:  there seems to be aLOT of overlap in these spinoffs of blogs.  we have a lot of avenues through which we can express ourselves through the internet!

Here’s a couple of corporate blogs that i found

1. http://www.cwf-fcf.org/en/resources/online-articles/news/issues/the-climate-change-blog.html
2.  http://www.brewster.ca/blog.aspx                                                                                                                          Blog #1 looks like an abandoned attempt at creating a blog for the Canadian Wildlife Federation website.  They provide links to other aspects of the non-profit organization.  It looses its effect as it hasn’t been updated since sept 2008.  Blog #2 is a travel log on canadian destinations.  this blog includes pictures and has been updated regularly.  it’s current, appealing and a major feature of Brewsters website. #2 wins.

i commented on one of karla’s blog posts. is this the type of trackback that we need?  http://karlakkd.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/wikis/    my comment isn’t up yet b/c she needs to approve it.

enjoy the rest of R week everyone!

what’s is going on this week…

Managing My Bookmarks Right Now: i really make use of the bookmarking tool on my browser.  the frame can only hold about 10 bookmarks at a time.. this is where i keep the sites i frequent like hotmail, rbc, brock portal, 2p26 blog.  the rest of my bookmarks i have tucked away in files.  these are sites that i’ve found interesting and want to look at when i need to (post grad info, career, shopping) or when i find the time to read up on (100 mile diet).  this semester i’ve started to make bookmark files for papers as well. I’ve got a pretty good system going, it works well and i don’t have trouble keeping my bookmarks organized, i only keep the ones i know i’ll ever look at again.  the bookmark tool is also good for short term use if i’m shopping (which i hardly ever do..) yea, about that M

the following are the 5 course related sites i bookmarked on my delicious account.  it was quite easy to add them, tag, sort.  as you’re typing in a tag, a note will pop up to tell you how many times you have this tag already on your account.  i can definitely use delicious to store all my sites and search for other people’s tags.  i wonder why people feel inclined to share what they have found with strangers though.

i like this older gentleman who does his own podcast about sailing.. very cool, i’m surprised to see this age bracket into this kind of thing before me! haha.  i was inspired to find out what podcasts were.. downloaded a few on environmental issues through iTunes and i think i’ll actually listen to them, very cool.
My search word:  miniature schnauzer

what i found on

Delicious: mostly clubs, pictures, tips, breeders, groomers.. advertising sites?

Digg: no results.  when searching for just ‘schnauzer’ i got a few.. mostly sponsored links though.  got a highlighted result, that looks cool and it tells me that someone else found it worth sharing.

Diigo: also, no results except two when searched for ‘schnauzer’ alone.  i’m surprised, when i search mini schnauzer on YouTube, there are tons of results.  people are nuts about their pets and talk about them aLOT on the internet. 

i really like the highlighting tool on diigo.  as someone said in class, i would find it most useful for doing research online when i don’t want to print huge sources off.  i chose to make a delicious account because it seems to be the most popular.  i don’t know how interested i would be in other people’s sticky notes, but i would like to make my own.  not sure if diigo will generate the same following as delicious has.  i think it’s too complicated.  its like cell phones that have too many features and people only want talk and text…