Saturday, September 29, 2007

The role of ...... of our main source of communication today!

My first activity assignment for Computer Science for University.

Now you may wonder what am I talking about, well, if you have not tried to determine what the title is yet, then that is alright, your not suppose to. This blog post will be portraying thoughts and ideas towards blogger, interests on articles from other blogs that I enjoy reading,
and last but not least, the significance of something that many feel is the more appropriate structure for talking nowadays, this would be a system called "Twitter", and I will discuss the difference, when the surge of it came, and will it destroy Blogger, or will it just have it's own branch of people.

As I was saying, the Internet is the primary source of talking, retrieving information from news, sports, and a way to construct businesses. With that we would have to say that
'The role of the Internet in today's society is what we use as one of our main source of communication today'.

Blogger is a place where people write about anything, it varies from controversial economical actions, life, diplomatic issues, jokes and humor, even play by play reports of sports; for example what happens in the hockey world. I have a hockey blog (
Ode to Low-Life Drunks) with my roommate that we started up last year, and are kicking off with it once again for the upcoming season, we have done some changes to the html template to try and adjust the appearance a bit, so it does not look like all the rest of the blogs here. It would be nice if I still could remember the coding, it has been so long since I last looked at it, it one of those things that I learned for a temporary bases. The things I find that Blogger are really strong for is they allow a user to maintain more then one blog with the same user account by having it in a nice layout "dashboard" style so you can just click your blog and jump to the site. I enjoy the capability to adjust the appearance with using different color schemes and fonts. Another nice feature that Blogger allows you to do is they have the option to add sidebar icons, so you can add different links to website, add a picture of yourself, conduct a survey, and many other features. If you want to add something, it will allow you. With the positive side of Blogger put aside, like many things there will be some disadvantages to it.

It would be nice if they allowed you to have more control. If you understand html, it allows you to adjust some aspects to the template, but you can only change some of the appearance, you can change the look of boxes by filling them in with color (note you can have more color then what Blogger offers), rounding the edges of posts and boxes, making borders for the boxes. Now although you may adjust somethings, you still will have a similar blog layout to others because they wont let you change the core structure of the template, which can be disturbing if you want to have a unique style and not look similar to someone else's blog. My proposal is they need to have the option that you can create your own blog from scratch with some help in what to do, or they need to add more templates then what they have to offer. Overall though, I would say that Blogger is a nice place to share thoughts with people, and although at times it may feel like a letdown when no one is coming to read your articles, you need to realize that, your new, and if you keep posting, your postings will be easier to find by others because Blogger will put you up higher when they see that your more active, and when you get your first comment, you will be extremely happy and just get a jolt of energy to keep going.

With my perception towards Blogger being stated, I will now talk about the four blogs that I found intriguing and have a nice sense of variety, they were of the following
James Mirtle's, and Tricks are Here ..., Damien Cox, and Outside the Box

James Mirtle is an author of the Globe and Mail, he writes about news in the hockey world, and is my main source for getting knowledge that has not been released yet by CBC and TSN. This blog is well set up, in that it may not be all flashy and bright but it has a great amount of information on what has happened up to date in the NHL. He also has a list on the right side of his panel that links to many other related blogs that are big hits, he has hockey blogs, and personal blogs, and if you click on full list of the hockey blogs, it will direct you over to where there is a list of blogs for each hockey team in the NHL. Mirtles' blog shows people that are new to blogging what features can be added and how simple is still good. The article that I just recently read was about a young player named Steve Downie who during a pre-season game against the Ottawa Senators charged Dean McAmmond and jumped in the air, and elbowed him in the face. This resulted in a huge brawl, but the biggest concern was that McAmmond did not get up and was not moving, he ended up being put on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital. Dean ended up getting a concussion from the hit and is now out for a huge part of the season, this coming after he just recovered from his last concussion which occurred in the Stanley Cup finals against Anaheim last season. Dean left the hospital later that night, and although he takes the apologies from Steve acceptably, he is still disturbed in why he would do that. Well a few days later, the league reviewed the incident and ended up dishing out a 20 game suspension towards Downie. As
James Mirtle states this was the fifth longest suspension in league history, and it was not even during the regular season.

Below is a clip of the Downie hit on McAmmond :





The Blog "and Tricks are Here ..." was a blog that I found while looking for something to do with computers, and well it might not be the typical type of computer "nerd" talking, it does have some interesting knowledge that some people might not know about. This blogger points out in their latest post that you can in fact hibernate Windows XP for your PC. Its just a simple little trick that you do and changes the icon 'standby' to hibernate. When you go to turn your computer off, you just have to press shift while the menu pops up, and there you go, the option to hibernate is there. For a picture and other related neat information you should check out the blog
here. This blog is useful to many people that are reading because if they are wanting to see what neat things can be done on the computer or get information on how to increase the lifespan of their printer, or how to use cell phones, as well learn any updated news relating companies and new products this person usually has relevant information in that area.

Damien Cox is a sports editor and a hockey columnist for Stars. This blog caught my eye because it is about the hockey team that I love, which of course is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Damien suggests in his article "Who's the Man?" that Paul Maurice, the head coach for the Leafs is in a dilemma once again, and it was supposed to be the spot that the GM had cured, every leaf fan was excited to hear about the trade for goalie Vesa Toskala from San Jose.... even me to an extent. Well with Toskala losing his first two games with a goals against average of over 5 and both Toskala and Raycroft having save percentage below .900, the number one position is still in question. Paul now has a difficult situation to endure with, what will he do?, and who will be the number one guy to start of the season against the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday October 3rd?. Will it be Raycroft? or Toskala?, we will have to watch and see what happens. I personally enjoy this blog, because although he might be a Leaf fan, he is at least showing both sides of a perspective other than being straight bias, and not focusing on only the good things for the Leafs, he is showing what concerns lie ahead, and what needs to be fixed to help get them into the playoffs. This blog is useful because he does not only write information related to the Leafs but there is an option that allows people to ask questions and get an answer back about them, plus it shows links to other blogs, and let's a new blogger see that most blogs have it, and it is a good thing to eventually do with your blog, when you have blogs that you enjoy and want others to read as well.

The last blog that I have visited was 'Outside the Box'. This blogger writes all his material with great research and passion, he seems to focus on what is going on in the world, and his main aspect is researching into many different religions and see what they are doing, and how people live their lives differently, and the differences that each type of religion possesses. In his latest article, written on September 27th as you can see
here, shows how religion is being used to try and rule out the state laws, and try and get a stand where they can be heard. This article I found was amazing, and the opening statement is what grabbed my attention as you can see here:

It's very clear that the Burmese people are no longer afraid of the Burmese military. The violence and killing of Buddhist monks have taken away their fear of confrontation.
(Stephen,
"Religious institutions as a counterweight to the state", 09/25/07
).

As you may have determined already, you can tell that religion has just caused the Burmese citizens to stand up to the government and it's army, all because the monks came out and stood up, this resulted in many injured monks and deaths as well, but their effort is not being flushed down the toilet, it has caused a rejuvenation of hope, and now the people feel that they have control and can start taking more control of their lives, and not have as much fear for standing up to the military anymore.

These four blogs have shown me a variety of different aspects of people, some are talking about hockey, another is introducing little techniques and hints on computer, peripherals, cell phones and cameras on how to make them last longer, or just little ideas in how to change settings or understand the procedures in fixing and getting items repaired. Then the last blog, which is one of my favorites, is written by a logical man, and with his research constructs well written entries that have depth and raw material. All the blogs are good, and show a new blogger what type of things can be done to make their blogs more appealing, as well as the type of context that people write, it is nice knowing that other people might have same ideas and opinions as your own at times.

Now to conclude with this post, I will finish it off with what Twitter is and how it is different from Blogger. Blogger is mostly used for writing more detailed ideas, a lot of people write about topics that they have researched during the day or for the past few days and want to put it out where others can read and see what is happening outside in the world. People also might talk about what happened in their day or what interesting things have happened in their life as of recent. This is where I communicate a lot with family, when I can not call them or get to busy, I post information on my day or week, and it lets my family see how things are going and what knowledge I am learning. My family sends me comments and emotional help through my posts as well, which encourages me to keep going and just try my best. Blogger has been around for a few years now, while Twitter was just developed last year in March.

Twitter is like "micro-blogging" which means that you send a quick little message to indicate what you are doing at the present moment, you can only send a maximum of a 140 character message. It is useful to see what is going on with your friends and to locating them when wanting to meet up with them for a movie or just for hanging out purposes. You get your on website when you sign up, and when you add your friends you have many options for how to communicate with them. Twitter allows you to message each one of your friends on their phones for free, so if you want to send a quick message, all your friends that you have listed to get your message on their phone from your main page on your website will receive it, plus everyone else will see what your doing on your web. This shows that Twitter has some similarities of blogging because it deals with writing posts, but to a very small context. Twitter I find is more aimed for younger generation of children because they want the quick "Hey, where are you?" or "I did well on test". Where as Blogger is more focused for the older type generation, although I am not old, but it is more or less for people that are patient and want to write and not just make a quick snap and be done with it. I will stick with Blogger, and keep away from Twitter, because Blogger seems to have more security involved, by that when you post it does not go to the main page for everyone to read it, instead people have to find your blog and read the content. None the less, Twitter is a neat program and I can see why it has gained a very popular crowd, it gives everyone a detailed idea of what is going on at that present time, plus a easy way to communicate with others like your loved ones, when they on the road. Also just a little side not, Twitter became such a huge hit drastically that the server has been shutdown a few times to try and compensate for the mass amount of users.

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