Monday, November 26, 2007

Battle for speed

As of now telephone and cable companies have been neutral with their service to online companies, but this may not be the case soon. Groups have been lobbying to create a hierarchy system similar to the airplane seating system. The more a company pays the higher up they will be and the faster a user will be able to use that companies material.

On the other side, companies like Yahoo and Amazon have been lobbying to have a "network neutrality" law and regulations to be written up. Both sides have their reasons. Telephone companies say the priority system would create more competition, which in turn would lower prices for telephone and television services. They say they aren't getting very little for their services.

"They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any wires. . . . They use my lines for free -- and that's bull," said AT&T Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr . "For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!''

Online companies defend their side stating the internet has always been a neutral venue.

"If carriers are able to control what consumers do on the Internet, that threatens the model of Internet communications that has been wildly successful," said Alan Davidson, Washington policy counsel for Google.

The other side of Google

Everyone loves the convenience of search engines. You can search for anything imaginable and collect information you are interested in. However, not many people know how much information search engines are collecting on the people using their services. "It's only a matter of time before other attorneys realize that a person's entire search history is available for the asking, and the subpoenas begin to fly," said CNet News staff writer Declan McCullagh. As of now there is nothing preventing a search engine from collecting information from its users since the last legislation, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was passed in 1986, before search engines were in existence. Search engines are free to collect and retain information and attorneys have few obstacles preventing them from obtaining that information said McCullagh.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Another very funny man, Dana Carvey. Here he is talking about politics on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.







Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Spoof, Spam, Lurk and Lag

Here are some more terms used in the conversational world of the web. They are spoof, spam, lurk and lag. In her paper "Spoof, Spam, Lurk and Lag: the Aesthetics of Text-based Virtual Realities" Lee-Ellen Marvin describes these saying, " briefly, "spoof" is unattributed communication, "spam" is an excess of communication, "lurk" is a refusal to communicate, and "lag" is a mechanical delay of communication. These expressions are used as verbs ("He spoofed! And then I was lagging.") or as nouns ("I was hit with lots of spam and there was a lurker in our midst.") There are no positive expressions in the jargon which correlate with these negative terms. The observed use of these expressions shows that they are not only used to describe technical problems but are regularly used to metaphorically describe social, cognitive, and emotional experiences."

The web has created a whole new vocabulary for people to learn

Converstaional Terrorism

Have you ever sent an e-mail to a person and said something that was a bit malicious or have been a low blow tho the receiver? This is becoming known as conversational terrorism.

My favorites are the heat seeking phrases, which Dean and Marshall VanDruff of vandruff.com describe as "throw[ing] the other person's competence in doubt while at the same time changing the subject. A question is asked that the other person is not likely to know the answer to, destroying their credibility and confidence. To really rub it in, the questioner can give a full answer to his/her own question proving that him/herself to have superior knowledge of the subject."

It is all a war of words out there on the e-mail and instant message fronts these days.

Linkbombs

Google is always thought to bring up in a search what deemed as most relevant and accurate information, but this is not always the case. What is known as "linkbombs" are appearing in a lot of google searches. A linkbomb is setup to bring up the worst information possible in a search. For example, if a person searches for a political candidate instead of unbiased information showing up in the search, political propaganda portraying the candidate negatively will appear in the search results.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Portfolio

Now that I've started to create some decent material I need to start creating a portfolio. That way I can show the world how decent I really am.

I should include:
All my press releases and copies of all the new media they have generated.
Any brochures, visual material of promotional events, etc that I have put on
My resume

My target audience should be potential employers.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

This is crazy


Two Korean boys schools cheer for their soccer teams creating human LCD screens and they do it all with their shirts, not cards like you would expect


Monday, November 5, 2007

This is an advertisement I made in my Photoshop class.


This is not a real advertisement for travelturkey.com
(But, if you want to check out their site click here)


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Friday, November 2, 2007

I love this video, Bobby Lee is Hilarious!