Website Final Project

I have created an online portfolio showcasing a collection of my artwork.

Check it out!!!

http://www.users.muohio.edu/swindec2/website/index.html

New Twitter Worm on the Rise

New Twitter Worm Targets Celebrities

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/new-twitter-wor.html

Teen Twitter worm writer gets job, spreads new worm

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10222373-83.html

Just when we thought we were safe….

 

You log onto twitter and click on a post mentioning the name of celebrity Ashton Kutcher, unknowingly infecting your own account and sending unauthorized updates to all your contacts. The culprit is a worm that hacks into accounts and instantly sends unauthorized posts with name of celebrities like Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey. Twitter is working as hard as it isolate the worm. The worm spreads by “taking advantage of a common Web programming error, called a cross-scripting vulnerability, on the Twitter Web site…”. It apparently affects accounts accessed through the Internet Explorer browser.

The culprit behind the fifth worm in a series to infect the twitter site is the seventeen yea-old Michael Mooney from Brooklyn, N.Y. who apparently wrote the first four twitter worms because he was “bored and wanted to bring attention to the security holes.” He then caught the attention of Travis Rowland, founder of ExqSoft in Hammond, Oregon, who hired Mooney to create and release the fifth worm. The intent of the duo is not to “aggravate” twitter but simply to expose its vulnerabilities. The teen is now subject to prosecution. Whether or he was hired by the company, the act of hacking was still illegal. Since he is still a minor, the sentencing if he is prosecuted would be directed more towards rehabilitation than punishment, but  Rowland hopes to recruit Mooney into a promising career.

So are social networking sites like twitter and facebook really keeping you safe? The internet is an amazing forum for communication, messaging, information exchange but we can’t forget that it as its limitations. Ultimately we are responsible for what we put on the internet and we will always be subject to things like worms and viruses, especially with young hackers like Mooney trying to expose the security holes in sites like Twitter. Twitter has exploded in popularity and its use has increased drastically – I can’t go a week without hearing mention of the new social messaging site. Perhaps efforts by vigilantes like Mooney will help Twitter increase its security measures.

News Discussion # 11

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay

Writer Paul Boutin offers a direct and clear warning to web loggers and adds his own personal commentary on the state of the blogosphere in 2008 by comparing web blogs to sites like Twitter and Facebook. Boutin’s main plug is that blogs are outdated, their use as a tool of “folksy self-expression and clever thought” has expired and degraded. His advice is simple: Get rid of your blog or cease your efforts to create one. His primary reason for arguing the illegitimacy of modern blogs is the supposed inability to have your voice recognized and heard on the web and the supposed plethora of “cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns” that have sabotaged enthusiastic amateur bloggers. The argument however, comes across much more as an agitated puff of hot air rather than a well-reasoned and backed perspective. Boutin fails to take into account the wide range of reasons that people start and maintain blogs. Placing on the top of a google search list isn’t the main motive of most people to write an online blog. Blogs cover an almost limitless range of topics, many are specialized to specific subjects are trade, some are written by professional writers and journalists and others by teens or amateur entrepreneurs.

The claims the author makes seem somewhat irrelevant to me, especially the commentary on the lack of blog links at the top of a Google search result – instead “a search for Barack Obama’s latest speech will deliver a Wikipedia page, a Fox News article, and a few entries from professionally run sites like Politico.com.” I have no doubt that this is true but I fail to see how this is a negative incidence. Considering the political nature and weight of the topic I want legitimate, professional news sources to appear at the top of the search result list rather than blogs by amateur writers. I agree is it inevitably harder now to have your opinions heard online now due to the explosion of the blogosphere in recent years, but the very essence of the blogging and other Web 2.0 tools is that they are open, unregulated and consumer-generated and managed. The suggestions that Twitter and Facebook are better options may be plausible if you are simply looking for the most direct way of voicing your opinions and generating a quick response but they sites have their own limitations. Blogs, especially if you understand a little about html and web design, can add profitable informative content to the web and allow a more personal, thorough touch than any social networking site.

Wikipedia - Exploring Fact City

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html

Wikipedia as an online city.

It is one of the most frequently visited, maintained and updated innovations available through the world wide web. Although not always upheld by its users, there is some form of a code of conduct and a common protocol that regulates the establishment o this online city. The metropolis has interesting connotations. I imagine a metropolis as a site of buzzing of buzzing interaction, hectic traffic, constant stimulation and raised level of progression. Wikipedia has "millions of visitors and hundreds of thousands of volunteers" and an "ever-expanding total of articles and languages spoken". Wikipedia, unlike traditional cities, is not defined by physical or geographical boundaries. Its contextual source, the web, has accelerated its exponential growth. It reaches worldwide, across cultures and remains open to all users. It is truly the landmark of web 2.0. So what is the growth capacity of this city? Could it become so expansive and be edited and tweaked so many times that users no longer have worthwhile content to add?

In my annotated bibliography I evaluated the rise of online journalism and its assets comparative to traditional journalism generated by professionals rather than everyday citizens. Citizen journalism uses outlets like wikipedia and online user-friendly news sites to generate an open forum of news, research and personal response. If these sites are open-source it falls on every user to regulate and police the content. Wikis like wikipedia follow a general code. "Wikipedia encourages contributors to mimic the basic civility, trust, cultural acceptance and self-organizing qualities familiar to any city-dweller". Wikipedia citizens can see records of amendments made to their virtual city and navigate in almost any direction though its content. Traffic at least will not be a hindrance to this online metropolis, the more traffickers the better. More visitors and navigators to tis thriving city means more citizen police, so the more popular articles or controversial articles will get more views and be better tweaked.  

Wikipedia - Exploring Fact City

The Future of Broadband: Building It Out

News Post #9

http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/dual-perspectives/2009/03/23/Building-It-Out

Every day I open my computer and log onto to the Internet in a matter of seconds – I check my favorite sites, read the email, do a few searches, and visit social networking sites. The Internet is undeniably one of the most widely used resources across the globe, and in the past five years is has grown to nearly 75 times its size. The number of global Internet users is quickly growing, so much that “global Internet traffic is likely to quadruple by 2012”. An interesting point is that most of the content accessed by web users is in the form of video files streamed through user –generated sites like You tube. The dominance of video streaming – in whichever context it is utilized for, as means of exchanging information, vocalizing opinion or data, or simply for entertainment, is more than apparent when considering that it will account for more than 90 percent of global traffic by 2012.
The capabilities of the Internet however may have challenges keeping up with the demand of its users. The pressure is on the providers now to come up with the necessary bandwidth. The softwares are available and ready to be put into use if the company is willing to make the effort. With the growing demand of consumers, Internet providers will make the necessary improvements. One of the most impressive of these improvements mentioned in the article is a system of Internet cables being laid “to, form and within Asia…that will boost international connection speeds and reduce network latency”.
An interesting point is the responsibility of the Internet users. Not all users play but the rules of Internet traffic and many don’t know how to navigate the roads properly. The unreliability and vulnerability that has hindered the functioning of Internet is generated largely by ill-equipped traffickers. As the article briefly suggests, he future of the Internet lies not only in the expansion of bandwidth but also in the knowledge and capability of the user.

My Favorite Things

I'm going to write out some of my favorite things, so you can learn more about me. I hope you like it.

• Watching movies with friends


• Traveling


• Visiting art museums


• The color GREEN


• The site Ted.com

News Post 8

To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-08/ff_gannett?currentPage=all

The article from Wired News presents an interesting situation that is very relevant to the topic Web 2.0 and journalism. Ganett, the company owner of The Cincinnati Enquirer and 85 newspapers nationwide, has realized a clear fact about the future: the newspaper business is going to have to reinvent itself. The facts are in: Online news is in demand and the number of citizen journalists is steadily growing. Traditional news media had a few choices, but not all newspapers are eager to take the leap. The Cincinnati Enquirer is one newspaper that has gone to great lengths to change its agenda and gotten up to speed with recent trends in technologies. Top editor Tom Callinan spent two years earning a degree in new media to put his newspaper a step ahead and Michael Maness and Jennifer Carroll of the Enquirer traveled around the country visiting Gannett newsrooms and talking about the need for change. Gannett is one of the first publishers to take such a huge initiative. It is the proud owner of cincyMOMs, an informal site for forums and posts moderated by staff from the Enquirer. It proved to be a hit, and in the past few years the Cincinnati post of Gannett has become the producer of 270 niche publications including Web sites and regional publications. The paper has gone even further than these endeavors; The Enquirer is has taken a hold of capabilities posed by citizen journalists. On the localized news site such as the ones created by the Cincinnati Enquirer citizens are providing most of the submissions. They are becoming a new type of generalized. The news being fed to the sites is inevitably of a different genre, since the rules governing citizen journalism are far different from the steadfast guidelines of traditional journalism. Readers are jumping the gun to take their part and share the news they care about; The results seen by the monumental are clear and undeniable. Whether other newspapers will join in the tech-based emergence of online journalism is uncertain, but the demand and the benefits of implementing hyperlocalism is certain, as those at The Cincinnati Enquirer have seen.
It is still to be determined what the boundaries and guidelines of this new type of journalism will be. A few question that came to my mind:
How much control will be given to the reader? Are we destined to be receiving our news off of internet posts and blogs? Who will be responsible for maintaining ethics and quality? How long will traditional print media survive?

Album Cover

Old Christian, Delay, but time will not












I altered the color using a Birghtness/Contrast Adjustment Layer and three color gradients on separate layers. I added a Lens Flare and used the Lighting Effects FIlter to render the effect of a spotlight, with 81% opacity. I added style effects to the text. I applied the bevel and emboss effect to the artist title "Old Christian" and a Drop Shadow effect to the album title Delay, but time will not.
I then applied a Noise filter to the background image at a low percentage to resemble film grain.

Google Earth gets Better

On the go with Google

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10158429-92.html?subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&part=sphere

Google has incorporated even more into the imagery of Google-Earth. Its maps are created with “comprehensive real-time data on Earth’s surface with information on the oceans, the stars that we see, historical maps, and topographical information on Mars.” The coolest feature, which seems somewhat unbelievable, is the ability 5.0 gives the user to view real and simulated 3D images of Mars as easily as you could view images of our own planet. Google Earth’s endeavor was launched in conjunction with NASA in order to encourage the exchange of knowledge about our space companion between researchers, scientists and public users. This step by Google furthers the effort of Web 2.0 to create a seamless, data-driven interface increasingly utilized and realized by the web user. The article On the Go with Google further stated new capabilities for users, such as viewing recent satellite imagery from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other crafts, and somewhat surprisingly the ability for users to “add their own generally sharable content to the larger map of Mars.” A few questions come to my mind when reading this – What exactly meant by the phrase “generally sharable” and how easy is it for users to add their content. This new feature will truly test the capabilities of Web 2.0 and Google itself. Keeping up such a service is definitely a costly investment, as the article points out “it’ll cost dearly in server hardware and network bandwidth” but Google plans to balance the cost with revenue from advertising.

Web 2.0, Technology, Politcs

When Web 2.0 Meets Politics

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/61156.html?wlc=1235094177

Obama Gets to Keep His Blackberry

http://www.internetnews.com/breakingnews/article.php/3798011


The article is a bit outdated, but the issue it raises may be even more relevant today. Many journalists, writers and bloggers have looked back since the burgeoning of Web 2.0 to comment on the impact of the newest internet-related sensation. The article "When Web 2.0 Meets Politics" suggests the newer version of the web, while giving more power to the individual, creates “massive stimulation” so that web users become increasingly satisfied to adhering to opinions and facts they can obtain at the click of the mouse and complacent in their desire to search any further than the latest blog.
Web 2.0 is clearly crafted to be user-friendly. It allows people to quickly exchange opinion and information through a countless number of networking sites. Blogging sites have clearly put a new spin on journalism, personal, subjective commentary through online posts is to most a much more appealing form of communication than traditional news media. We all know it. We’re wired in for good. This trend articulated in the term Web 2.0 holds many more possibilities and its byproduct, News 2.0, will become even more prominent. Its not just the everyday user that’s jumping to use these terms. Government leaders are quickly realizing their capabilities. The article entitled “When Web 2.0 Meets Politics” states that Barack Obama “used professional networking site LinkedIn to ask “How can the next president better help small businesses and entrepreneurs thrive” and Hilary Clinton suggested the creation of a “government blogging team”. Social networking sites like facebook and Digg have established partnerships with news sources CBS and ABC. Speeches from our last presidential election were streamed and watched by an incredible amount of users and President Obama himself made a fuss when fellow White House officials tried to persuade him to give up his blackberry.
So are we in danger of becoming a complacent, overstimulated society? I would say no. I think the new wave in web technology has more often than not helped people to become more aware of current issues and affairs. I can see the light and dark in the issue – too often personal opinion and commentary posted as blogs or journals entries are taken unchecked as fullproof truth. Most web users don’t make the extra effort to research their facts or consult more than a few sites. Still, the web is increasingly accessible and customizable, and if manipulated and utilized in a correct, accurate way, on the part of both the content provider and the user, the results will beneficial to both sides.
Another point in the article was the idea of government as a form of entertainment, with the real issues disguised as a “star watching game” put on by Youtube. I can see how you could argue that Web 2.0 can become a distraction from the true political agenda, yet politics doesn’t need the web to be made into a sensationalized game.

Microsoft Puts 'Web Sandbox' Into Open Source

Reading this article, I though of the conversation we had in class about Web 2.0 and internet security. Microsoft Live Labs has developed a new internet innovation called "Web Sandbox" which aims to make the friendly user Web 2.0 more secure. WIth more power in the hands of the user and web content constantly changing, it makes sense that these sites could easily come under attack through things like "cross-site scripting attacks". So how does Microsoft plan to bump up security? The term is virtualization and their methodology is to isolate behind-the-scene processes and "virtualize" the separate components that makeup up Web 2.0 sites. Web Sandbox sounds like it can be easily applied to the web; Developers claim that it works on most current Web browsers that support the Javascript standard. The fact that Microsoft is strongly urging Web developers to try to break through Sandbox's security and test the new model is a good sign. It seems that Microsoft Live Labs is just trying to make sure its new technology really is secure.

Diggdot is a mashup of popular browsing and taggin sites Digg, Slashdot and Delicious. It combines the capabilities of each individual site, unifies them under the url diggdot.us and edits out duplicates. Instead of searching and browsing each of these sites separately for updates, Digg dot compiles it all in one place!
pretty cool :)

The Future of Blu-ray

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_7-10142913-82.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.1

I remember not too long ago when Blu-ray and HD DVD were at the peak of their competition for the future of the DVD market. My family had just cashed in on a premium HDTV - as we scanned the HD channels we admired the clarity of the picture. With all the hype surround the two types of dvds I wasn't sure which one finally run out. HD DVD, which I had been told was the better product, just seemed to fall out of place behind Blu-ray and people began to stock their shelves at home with the new, better Blu-ray DVDs. I thought HD DVDs were ahead of Blu-ray, maybe just because the terminology of the disc and TVs was the same, but Blu-ray is definitely higher in definition and really both advantageous platforms for the upcoming progress in disc technology. Now that the competition has subsided I agree that it will be easier for consumers to adapt to the new wave in the realm of disc technology, and with competition gone BLu-ray can be tweaked to be the best disc format in the market. Carnoy's articles is a clear and conscise view on the current position and relative future of Blu-ray. In the end HD DVD will be one in the line of disc technology and as Carnoy puts it Sony will find a way to have Blu-ray "resonate with the public", what with the pressure from being at the top of the market and desire from the consumer for better and clearer picture. The phrase HD DVD had a better ring to it than Blu-ray and Carnoy makes the point that consumers often mispell the name Blu-ray. Whether Blu-ray will succeed in the future, maybe under a simpler, more consumer friendly name, the desire for better, higher quality disc technology will be there, especially with bandwidth holding up digital downloads.

5 Ways the Cell Phone will Change How You Listen To Music

Next Big Change for Cell Phones

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/01/six-ways-cellph.html

Apple already took a big initiative with the release of the iphone not too long ago and since then the iphone model has been at the top of the ranks. You can download music files onto your phone and it converts to a mp3 player, you can surf the web play games and access a variety of other functions. As a user of the increasingly popular online radio site known as Pandora, I can vouch for the advantage of having a free, user-friendly and easily customized radio at the touch of a mouse. Pandora and similar sites take the work out of your hands, finding, streaming and playing songs according to the song you originally searched for. Considering the user support these sites have received, teaming up to deliver interactive radio to mobile phones will most likely be a successful step. I can see both the appeal and the drawbacks of having interactive radio on your cell phone. It would be nice to have the option of a portable radio on “some days”, as the article said, yet I can also see potential kinks. Will streaming always work? Will there be enough bandwidth for all the demand created by the growth of wireless users? Will actions available on the websites, like skip and customizing options, and the sound quality translate in a cellular context. It seems logical that using such services on the phone will be slower than on a computer. I don’t think such a service wouldn’t shove regular mp3 players out of the picture. Although it does offer many new, appealing options for the cell phone, mp3 players allow you to play specific songs and maintain a generous music library available at hand without any wireless streaming. The initiative that Omnifone plans to take with Gracenote, however could become future replacement. The idea of unlimited music services being brought to every connected device platform, including car audio systems, with the capability to “automatically synchronize you existing music collection with Omnifone’s unlimited service of millions of tracks” seems like a far of reality, but in a few years it could be the norm.

Green Tech

Make You Personal Computing Carbon Neutral: 12 Easy Steps

http://greenwebhostingcoupons.com/2008/make-your-personal-computing-carbon-neutral-12-easy-steps/

It’s easy to subscribe to green beliefs but many people have little idea how to actually implement green ideals in their day to day life. If you wanted to make your house more green where do you start? You could change your lightbulbs, reduce electricity use, regulate water use, but will it really make a difference on society’s carbon footprint? I found this article on a Green Blog hosting site. The article is direct in its intent. It shows in ’12 easy steps” how to make your personal technology use more green. I think we are the generation that needs to take an active role in the transition to a more global green lifestyle. The fact that large companies such as Dell are making a conscience effort to “Go Green” is a sign that now is the time to make changes.

I thought the topic, the impact of computer use on the environment, was an issue that is rarely brought to light. Considering the integral role of technology in our society today, advocating viewpoints and raising issues through technological tools such as blogs are a perfect way to reach a wide audience, and likely on of a younger generation - that is comfortable with technology and more likely to be interested in supporting things like green technology.

The article illustrates how you can make using your computer more environment-friendly. Some of the steps require more effort than others. Some, like Power Managing Your Computer and Purchasing Green Supplies are easy to apply. Just making sure that the computer and monitor are set to enter sleep mode when not in use saves up to 90% electricity.

The article gives straightforward steps to solving the problem and also provides links to other sites like The Green Office and The Daily Green – sites that offer further information and which I also found helpful.

The article addresses the issue of eWaste. I am just now learning about the full scope of eWaste. I’ve seen a few videos with footage of villages in China severly harmed by the toxic conditions created by salvaging eWaste and this blog raises the issue again by providing a better solution. Instead of dumping our county’s eWaste onto China and supporting a business that has lead to may deaths and permanent health issues, for both adults and children, many websites offer a cleaner substitue. The blog references several sites where the reader can find more information about getting rid of eWaste. I thought this article was informative and enjoyable to read and offered some good tips.