Blog Software

WordPress is fine blog software; it serves any basic blogging needs and best of all it is free.  I have previously used Xanga and after using WordPress; I would have to say for the stage in my life that WordPress is more to my liking at this point as it is much more simple in appearance and without all of the “MySpace” like information in a side panel which Xanga had when I used it regularly over five years ago (I have no clue what it is like now…).  Some people may want more options with their blog and to have all their blogs on one page as well as a larger sense of community; I never got that sense with WordPress but then I never tried.  I really don’t have any knowledge of the current blogging software; I know a lot of people like LiveJournal but I have sort of lost touch with the blogging world because it takes so much time; I prefer to not blog and stay connected through one liners on facebook with friends which is not blogging but for me served the same purpose as my Xanga did when I had it.

New Knowledge Interests

I would really like to learn how to shop for a computer and what all of the stats they post when they list the specifications of specific model really mean and what they do to affect the functions of the computer.  I would also like to learn how to maybe build my own computer; I know that often times building your own computer can be cheaper and the finished product is faster and more suited to the user’s or owner’s personal needs than a store bought computer which is often times lacking in one area or another.  Computers that are home built also allow for updating hardware as new things come out or as things break where as when you buy a computer from a company and something goes, one must have the company fix it or sometimes if it is a significant thing it is often just cheaper to buy a whole new computer than pay for both the labor costs and the price of the new part from the manufacturer unless the computer is still under warranty.

Internet in Japan vs. the United States

A hot spot is a physical location, a Wi-Fi access point or area where a computer can connect to the internet wirelessly using LAN through the use of a shared router.  Hotspots can exist in a home or in a business or office setting. My host family is Japan has wireless and many hotspots can be found in cafes or restaurants, any customer is permitted to the use of the internet but sometimes a fee is involved.  I have found that the Shinkansen here even has hotspots which last the majority of the ride if not the entire length of the line.  In America, hotspots are common in homes and businesses; they are also common in schools.  My high school was completely wireless, you could take your laptop almost anywhere on the campus and get internet regardless of where you were, be it next to the Lily pond or in the basement of a building built in the 1860’s.  Dormitories in the US are also often wireless as well as many public libraries.  Internet cafes do exist but they are rare with the presence of so many hotspots which permit the owners of laptops to connect using their own hardware.  Starbucks is all over in the US and the world, no Starbucks in the US lacks internet capabilities that I know of.

New Technology

E-bomb is the street term for what the military calls high-power microwave weapons; these weapons emit short but powerful electromagnetic pulses which last only microseconds but can be in the gigawatt range.  In this short period of time, this weapon gives off enough energy to overwhelm the victim which may be a person, radio, GPS receiver, or computer.  The use of the weapons may never be known as it does not heat human skin or damage buildings; the weapon can attack through front-door entry such as antennas or through back-entry like processors and circuits.  The damage can be temporary or permanent and can manifest in different forms such as systems malfunctions or lockups or more significant such as direct damage to the motherboard.  These weapons could be placed in suitcases or easily dropped from planes in civilian neighborhoods achieving their goals without harming those living in the area.

E-bombs are expensive and therefore will not be used widely and most likely no one will ever know they have even been used.  The US military is continuing their work on HPM’s which is very top secret since the US currently is ahead of the rest of the world; China, France, Russia, and the U.K are also working to develop HPM weapons; the use of this weapon joins the ranks of biological, nuclear, and chemical weapons.  One of the greatest fears is the uses terrorists could make with a weapon like this.

I read about this in a list of the top 20 New/Future Technologies on pcmag.com.

Google in China

Google is probably one of the most used search engines in the United States if not the world.  With their creation of Gmail and now their development of Google Chrome as a browser, internet addicts and sporadic users alike have reason to sing Google’s praises with their easy to use technology which makes the internet and email accessible to a wide variety of people from my anti-computer mother to my college friends who are majoring in Computer Science at Tech Schools like Rochester Institute of Technology in the states.

China has always had strict rules regarding internet usage and is very involved in what goes into the country and what is allowed to the leave the country whether it be in the mail, luggage, or email.  In this article found on Extremetech.com, China has ordered Google to stop users from being able to access websites containing “pornographic and vulgar” material.  Google representatives met with government officials to discuss the rules within China since they are an international provider; China has enlisted common citizens in cities such as Beijing to join in the fight against pornography in an effort to protect minors from lude things you may find on the internet.    This is just one example of how China employs individuals to monitor internet usage within the country; other examples include the monitoring of chatrooms and websites that should be blocked.  China is well known in the international world for their strict countrywide filters, particular cities are now working on developing more extensive filters.

This does not surprise me and this is something that has been true for years of China.  What does surprise me is that they are not becoming more lenient with internet control since the world is becoming more global; I find this scary.  I think it may have been a mistake to allow them to host the Olympics when they are still so communist as a country in many of the rules and ways of controlling their people; I understand protecting people but they also need to have some senses of freedom, with the current system, friends studying in China have trouble at times even getting emails out of the country because they are blocked by the government.  China’s power is scary; I think the world needs to develop a worldwide code that everyone accepts and adheres to so that a country cannot oppress people in such a way; it almost starts to become a matter of human rights.  Google should just pull out and not compromise; they are showing a lack of backbone and should consider what they are agreeing to in terms of filters.  I have lived with a filter and filters make completing tasks impossible even when you are not doing something that is illegal or wrong.

Computer Terms

Phishing is when spam mail which appears to be official is received with the intent to steal personal information such as passwords, financial, and/or personal information; the email may also intend to introduce a virus through the opening of an attachment.  Phishing may also be the creation of a false website which misrepresents itself for what it is in an effort to collect to the same personal and/pr financial information.

I have never received such an email or visited such a website; I tend to use very specialized websites and not wander around the net.  I never click on pop-ups which rarely pop-up due to my high security settings.  All of my email addresses are related to school except for my Gmail which I have had for over five years from when it was really new.  Gmail is really great about taking care of spam mail and I am particularly careful on the internet about giving out my email address; I treat it similarly to my unlisted home phone number when it comes to giving it out.

Browsers and Office Suites

Browsers

Windows Internet Explorer

It was created by Microsoft and Spyglass and is available for Free but requires a valid Windows license.  The current layout engine is Trident; it is not open source.   The first public release date of Internet Explorer was August 1995 (version 1.0) but the first stable release date was August 1995 (version 1.0); the latest stable release date was March 19, 2009 (version 8.0).  Internet Explorer has bookmark managing, password managing, form managing, a search engine toolbar, and an auto-updater; it does not have a spell check or a download manager.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is free and was created by the Mozilla Foundation; it is open source and is currently using Gecko as its layout engine.   The first public release date of Mozilla Firefox was September 23, 2002 (version 0.1) but the first stable release date was November 9, 2004 (version 1.0); the latest stable release date was April 27, 2009 (version 3.0.10).  Mozilla Firefox has bookmark managing, download managing, password managing, form managing, spell check, a search engine toolbar, and an auto-updater.

Apple Safari

Apple Inc., the creator of Safari offers it for free; it is not open source and its current layout engine is Webkit.  The first public release date of Safari was January 7, 2003 (version 0.8) but the first stable release date was June 23, 2003 (version 1.0); the latest stable release date was June 8, 2009 (version 4.0).  Safari has bookmark managing, download managing, password managing, form managing, spell check, a search engine toolbar, and an auto-updater.

Google Chrome

Google created Google Chrome and offers it for free; it is not open source and its current layout engine is webkit.  The first public release date of Google Chrome was September 2, 2008 (version 0.2.149.27) but the first stable release date was December 11, 2008 (version 1.0.154.36); the latest stable release date was June 4, 2009 (version 2.0172.30).  Google Chrome has bookmark managing, download managing, password managing, form managing, spell check, a search engine toolbar, and an auto-updater.

Office Suites

Microsoft Office

Probably the most popular and widely used Office Suite in existence today.  It has contained a spreadsheet, word processor, and PowerPoint application as part of the bundle since it was first introduced in 1989.  The appearance of Office periodically changes but the basics are the same; the system is available in over 35 languages and requires a Proprietary license.  This systems works on multiple computer platforms.  This suite never really changes, it just gets updated with each new version.

iWork

This is a Mac only suite of applications created by Apple Inc. which is currently being offered for new computers.  It has a proprietary licencese and was created for the Mac OS X system.  iWorks contains Pages for word processing; Keynote is the slideshow presenter/creator, and Numbers which is a spreadsheet application.  iWork was designed to follow the previously popular Appleworks but it is not a replicate of it; iWork is intentionally designed to integrate with existing applications in Apples iLife suite which is the digital portion of applications including things such as iPhoto and iMovie.  Mac always creates things from scratch unlike Office so iWork has similar capabilities but is entirely different from Appleworks.

OpenOffice.org

Also known as OpenOffice, it is distributed as free software and supports over 80 languages.  Open Office was originally derived from StarOffice and developed by Sun Microsyestems; it was written in C++ and Java code.  This Office Suite is capable of crossing platforms.  It does word processing, spreadsheets, and powerpoint; users have a direct affect on this software and how it changes.

Kingsoft Office

This software was developed by a Chinese software developer, Kingsoft based out of Zhuhai as an alternative to Microsoft Office.  In China it is known as WPS (Writer, Presentation, and Spreadsheet) Office and it has been working to broaden its market to the English Speaking World and Japan Markets.  The personal edition is free for download and the WPS Office Storm supports 126 languages.  This software operates on Microsoft Windows or Linux Platform; it was written in CodeGear Delphi.  This is foreign software and very new to the U.S. Market; the disappointment with Vista allowed others to enter the market and steal some of the market share.

New Websites

Cable television programs in the United States are all scheduled for the same times in the evening and often times competing networks put their most popular shows up against one another, one current example of this would be Grey’s Anatomy and the Office.  Fortunately, internet loving creatures who either miss a program for any reason can sometimes find that program on Hulu which has very recently started running advertisements on television in the states.  This service is in English but unfortunately only is currently viewable in the United States Region although they are  no doubt expanding they would have  issues with copyrights I would assume as one can view their favorite program less than 24 hours after it has appeared on cable TV in its entirety without the extremely long commercials (Commercials are limited to about 30 seconds or less and recently you have had the choice to watch a single 2 minute commercial at the beginning or suffer interruptions throughout your program!).  Although not all shows are on Hulu many of the popular ones are and one can often see clips of things if they cannot view the entire episode of a show.  Hulu also posts complete feature length films, commercials, and movie trailers.  A new change to the site is they have things expire and disappear so if you want to see your favorite show, you have to watch it within a certain time limit of about six weeks which is quite reasonable and the quality is unparalleled.  Hulu is the youtube of the television networks without all the homemade stuff.

If you like homemade stuff but you also just like funny entertainment; I like the site Funny or Die which has great clips of celebrities making videos or homemade videos about current affairs.  Check out those regarding the economy or if you like famous people, Lindsey Lohan’s Match.com advertisement for a giggle.

For the more politically charged, I tend to recommend JibJab.  Many people know about this due to their animated videos from the Kerry/Bush elections but forgot about this site.  The creators continue to use their ingenuity to periodical create a video worth watching and passing along to everyone you know.  The best are typically the “Year in Review” or the Campaign Trail Related Songs.

A great reference site for Scientists created by Scientists; Nature is one of the leading and most accessible publications to the common person who is not specialized in a particular field.

Free books or sections of books can be found on the internet using Google.  Most people don’t realize Google carries this service but it can be really helpful and though it doesn’t always have what you are looking for; it is a great legal way to find what you are looking for!

Computer Terms

Social Networking is the act of the keeping in touch with people you know via electronic means such as Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Xanga, and many other sites.  People can keep track of their friends as well as meet new people or find people from the past.  These sites are sometimes set up as blogs or as messaging sites but they encourage interaction between people who do not see each other on a daily basis and others who do.  Friends share pictures, thoughts, websites, and news about their lives and the greater world.

I have a Facebook account which I use but I always come off of it for Lent.  I find that it is very easy to become very overly involved and end up wasting time “wandering” around looking at what different people I know are doing.  I find that I use Facebook as one of my main sources of information on what is going on with people from my past and some of my friends but for my close friends I tend to keep in touch with them by phone.  I do use Facebook chat instead of AIM now with some of my very close friends to keep in touch as well; I think this feature was an ingenious addition to the site.

I currently have very few friends on Facebook by choice.  I believe you must be careful with your information on the internet as it can be used against you very easily and it may affect your future.  The few friends I do have are mostly on a limited profile setting which greatly restricts them.  When I first established my Facebook account four years ago, I accepted all friend requests but since then I have become more selective and have unfriended many people I do not talk to; although I know this is not typical for someone on a social networking site, I believe it is important to protect yourself as the internet can be accessed worldwide.

History with Computers

My first memory of computers was when I finally received my own out of necessity and not choice in about 2000.  It was a Gateway Desktop; my father chose the biggest computer available assuming that bigger meant better.  My mother and I struggled to lift the computer onto the desk and laughed when the monitor was so large it hung over the front of the computer desk.  After reading the mailing slip more carefully it revealed the computer package was considered a “desktop publisher”.

I had this computer for maybe four years but rarely used it; I didn’t really like it, it was more of dust collector than anything else.  I hadn’t chosen it, it didn’t have the features I wanted, and most importantly it was clunky and slow.  If I had to use a computer I went to my mom’s school or my own; we had no other computer in the house and my mother had no interest in computers so she never used it either.  When the computer finally crashed I considered it a sign to get a new computer rather than attempt to clean it up and recover the missing data.

When I got my new computer I made sure to pick it out myself with the help of a friend and her father who works for a tech company.  I chose a laptop as I was rarely home and often traveled.  At the time my Dell laptop was not inexpensive but not excessive for what it had.  It lasted almost four years and served me well.  I did learn I will never ever buy another Dell and I would never recommend this company to another person due to the many problems I had with my computer and the number of repairs I had done.  I was very glad I had an extended warranty and I would never ever buy a laptop without a very good service plan and warranty.