Entry for final week: presentation of Diana, Murat and Dina.

Here is another presentation that was interesting to listen to during the classes.

The student’s name that I mentioned gave a presentation on dating online and all the aspects of this service.

In their presentation, Murat, Diana and Dina gave real life examples about how people dated online and actually married! It is interesting because how can a person not see the other and then decide to actually marry that person? It is fascinating….

Also they gave information about different websites that offered such services and asked questions whether anyone used these dating services online… and actually no one reaised their hands! Well, maybe some did but a few, I think… as I recall…

But my opinion on this is that it is impossible to fall in love without seeing the person… how can you not see and fall in love… on the net this person may seem okay and all but in reality this individual may have personal problems that prevent him from building relationships with others so he resorts to the Internet as a comfort and finds friends there… So that is the problem…

But overall, the presentation touched upon intersting aspects of online dating and I especially liked the pictures that this gourp chose… those were animation pictures and they were so funny!

In addition, in the end they produced a short video clip about the New Yorkers’ opinions about online dating… what I found amazing is that most of them think that it is not safe or that they don’t really like… I thought their answer would be the contrary becaue they are like the “Information society of the WORLD”, well not really, but thinking in terms of pioneers they are the ones how started the Internet and all other things connected to it… taht’s why I thought they most likely would like online daitng and would all for it! But that wasn’t the case…

So anyways, the main idea is that presnetaion was real interesting and I liked the fact that they kept it simple but fun at the same time.

Entry for week 30th April -4th of May.

Hi there everyone, this week so there were several presentations on New Information Technologies!

And all of them were very interesting!

The most I liked was Gaukhar Baimulinova’s presentation because it was so organized and well prepared. She just learned the whole presentation and I really liked listening to her because her English is so good and the grammar and structure were so correct that it was just cool!

Moreover, I learned so much about the Online Education of KIMEP that I even considered studying online! I think it is a rather good idea because I can open the Internet at any time and do not have to physically be in classes. In addition, as Gaukhar said, online education and distance learning are a good choice for people who work… well, it is a good option for third and second year students who really want to earn money and gain knowledge at the same time…

Anyways, the presentation was really good and it was fun listening to Guakhar…

Third Mini Project: “Open source and Collaborative Production”

This is an interesting topic for my third mini-project: “Open Source and COllaborative Production.”

Mr. Frederick Emrich talked about open source and collaborative production and explained that there are people who can create and use different things together in open sourcing.

The term “Open source” means the following according to Wikipedia article:

“

Open source describes the principles and methodologies to promote open access to the production and design process for various goods, products, resources and technical conclusions or advice. The term is most commonly applied to the source code of software that is made available to the general public with either relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions. This allows users to create user-generated software content through either incremental individual effort, or collaboration.

“

For exmaple, they can use music over the Internet and they can post their own version on the Internet and others can take it and download it. For example, theLimewire allows people to downlaod its software and then it allows people to download books, music and other things that users are interested in.

Not only is music is a part of open source but also

“Food, Content, Health and Science, Technology, Computer Hardware, Society and Culture”

and many many other more areas can be used as open source or collaborative production.

In the area of food, for exmaple, accoriding to the Wikipedia article, there was a brewery that made beer in Australia called “Brewtopia” and this company allowed the consumers to contribute to its creation of the beer and amny of the people really did give good feedback on the companies achievements in making the beer.
Today this company is considered to be

“

the only beer company in the world that allows the public to design, customise and develop their own beers online.

“

Therefore, the use of open sourceing is so interesting in many different aspects.

As for collaborative production it is also very useful because I think it is this idea about many people contributing to one particular issue their own ideas. This is so good because carious types of consumers can contribute their own ideas to one specific issue and if one person missed something there is a possibility that another will contribute the precious idea and the final produc is so good because all areas of concern have been taken care of.

So collaborative production is also good but also not really good because I think there would be an issue of who getting what protion of the profits and that is kind of difficult to determine because in the end one person may receive more credit than the other and everyone may say that they contributed also so it may cause a conflict.

So Open source and Collaborative Production are really good things but not in all cases.

In conclusion, the Open Source and Collaborative Production are a very good idea and it is a democratic approach to creating products and gives the society the freedom to develop something which they couldn’t develop by themselves. However, despite these facts, “Open Source” and “Collaborative production” in my opinion are still not really good for the whole society because some people may take advantage of it and use for their own purposes and businesses may not go well.

So I think that these two aspects in NITs are still developing and need more time determone whether they are a useful tool for vairous companies or are they simply a service to the general public? or is it allowing others to use this opprtunity to use these two aspects for their own gains? It is intersting to find out as time will pass…

Well, Have a nice day Mr. Frederick Emrich, Thank you for teaching us many things this semester and I hope that you will have many more students in the future!

And thank you for showing us different techniques on the computers and the Internet! It was an intersting course and I learned a lot from this course… I hope that many other students will gain as much knowledge as I did this semester!

Well, good bye… and hope you have wonderful summer holiday!

Trends this spring!

THe fashion trends this spring are blue and yellow color… really it is not a real good combination… I think people whouls wear what they liike and the way they like it…

Plus, the designer clothes are really beautiful when they are in the shops, however when they are on catwalks I really didn’t get the fashion in the beginning… then I understood that it is the “unusual” stuff that counts and is considered pretty.

The thing I like about desinger clothers is that they make the blemishes go away and make  accent on the good parts of the body.

So that’s my opinion on designer clothes and trends that they set every season.

Another weblog entry on surveillance/sousveillance.

Now I am writing about surveillance and sousveillance. It is an interesting fact that Mr. Emrich posted on the course weblog about people from below watching the people above. I liked the site about surveillance camera players. The fact that they are addressing the privacy issue is important because common people may not know it and these young people are really informing the society. I like their idea, although it is kind of vulgar to do what they are doing.

 Another interesting thingis about how common people can actually access the surveillance information conducted by the poeple who monitor others. I would like to learn that because really, it is not quite fair that the supermarkets, retail stores, know all information about us but we don’t know anyhting about their inside or other info.

I guess it its also not fair because they hold this inoformation and may use it for their commercial purposes. I think that retail stores are asking for too much information like: names, surnames, address, home phone numbers and other details that may be just personal.

So I guess these societies addressing the privacy issue of each individual are doing the right thing.

Surveillance society

This is another entry of mine about surveillance. THis time it’s really fun.

I guess nowadays, people really do sacrifice their personal information for the sake of convenience and quick access to everyhting.

According to the Wired magazine’s article about surveillance technology and their ability to do different stuff is amazing. I was amazed at how criminals could be caught like that just by their subway cards that they used to get from one place to another!

Well, in Kazakhstan, maybe it is not developed that well yet… but i is a developing country and no doubt there will sonn be devices like that here too! )

It would be good for the security of the citizens living in big cities…

Moreover, now the supermarkets, jewellery stores in Almaty have those cameras that record any suspicious activities. Some apartments do that as I heard. Well, it is getting better every year and Almaty is changing so mcyh with new technologies and buildings!

 Oh, that’s right, Almaty also has surveillance on several roads in the city that record the license plates of cars that violate road rules. My friend researched on that topic and she showed that the police stations record that cars that break the rules and then they are fined. That’s another kind of surveillance there.

But the problem is, like in America, people expose too much of themselves over the NIT’s and then they have problems with that.

Well, I guess that’s it on the surveillance technologies.

C ya’ll later.

Help for posting frequently on weblogs.

Well, thank you for asking that question…

Actually, Mr. Emrich, I think that the topics you give for posting as entries are pretty practical… maybe you could give an assignment about what interests that students? Or maybe some interesting poets, singers, sports that they like?

I liked this one weblog of Natali Khvan… It was nice reading some of her work…

Maybe we could do something like that too…

WEblog as a more effective tool.

Well, I guess I have got almost everything figured out… Maybe I could learn how to make new themes for the weblogs, that would be fun…

I see how new themes are coming up but I don’t know how to make one… I would like to learn that…

Otherwise, I have figured things out that I need to use…

But thank you for your concern and help.

I hope you have a nice day today, Mr. Emrich!

Crowdsourcing as an entry for week April 2- April 6.

I know one type of crowdsourcing: I think it’s called Ireport on CNN. People from around the world report about the events happening in their own coutnry.

This gives the opportunity for ordinary poeple, civilians, not the journalists, to report about what happened and allows them to express their side of the story on the CNN. It is really interesting because I was once watching CNN and the channel showed pictures of a certain person who had his pictures shown on CNN for the best report and CNN chose his or her report and they (CNN) encouraged the viewers (all) to contribute to the CNN website their own stories with their version of a certain story that the journalists themselves might have missed.

I thought it was a goo opportunity for me to practice my skills as a journalist to shoot something and then write or record it and send it to the CNN website.

Who knows maybe I’ll get picked and maybe my recordings will be shown on CNN as a winner.. or maybe not… but still it’s worth a try… the mere fact that I am recording something and contributing to CNN and the reporters or whoever in CNN reading my contributions is really nice…

 Also I think it’s an opportunity for every aspiring journalist to become famous or get his/her talents known to the world and the CNN! )

So I guess that’s one form of crowdsourcing…

There may be a dozen others… wikipedia can one too!… )

Experiencing the NITs

It is intersting how NITs nowadays are used by people all over the world. It’s a very convenient source of Technology because it allows people to access information from anywhere and anytime thye want.

Recently, I read an article, checked out some music and read news and all of these on the internet! Just because techonlogy is advancing and developing further these techinical maneuvers can be made by human beings faster and at more ease!

 Nits are a fascinating creation of human beings and a wonderful source of information for young and old.

Emails, Messengers, ICQ’s, payments, tests, all of thse can be done over the internet and it is truly amazing!!!!

Lately, young poeple have been creating their own websites, weblogs and other things over the internet that have given them access to other people around the world that they couldn’t reach otherwise. The world is connected through the NITs. However, I don’t believe that doesn’t make the world into a  global village.

There are still areas in the world that do not have internet, TV, or maybe even radio! I think it is unfair to say that the world is global village connected through the internet. There are still people whom many of us may not know of and may not have met with thei9r culture. So before saying that the world is global village, maybe poeple shold think first whether it is a global village or not. There are ethnic groups that still live in System 1: Hunting and Gathering system. ANd some people from the “civilized” world shun these people. That is not a global village… I would say… that is just considering the developed or developing countries as a part of a global village but not the entire world.