Tips for Powerpoints

I read a book in a class last semester titled "Beyond Bullet Points." This was written by Cliff Atkinson and was all about changing from the regular format of PowerPoint's and making them more efficient. The main points that the book listed was you must refrain from using bullet points and write no more than eight words on a slide. Your slides should simply give a basic outline of what you will be talking about while the slide is up. It is also very important to keep your pictures closely related to what you are talking about. It is more important for your slides to be clearly visible and easy to read than it is for them to be colorful and pretty.

Lying In online Dating Profiles

This article was all about the up and coming phenomenon of online dating. It discusses the ability of users to basically make up whatever they choose about themselves and put it out their for others to view. With the ability to make yourself appear how you wish it can be very tempting and easy for one to lie about their actual physical characteristics and likes. The article talks about a survey which was conducted in order to find out what percentage of users actually lie in their profiles. It turned out that approximately 9 out of every 10 users had lied about at least one thing in their profile. This doesn't come as to much of a surprise as another survey said that 86% of users allready believed that people lie about themselves online. The survey showed that some of the most lied about factors were an individuals height and weight, this is very believable as those are both factors that could immediately attract or turn away one after reading anothers profile.

I found this article to be very interesting as it compares the booming online dating scene, to how reliable it truly is. It makes you think twice about online dating and even about your safety. If it is that easy for someone to lie about their weight they could possibly be completely lying about who they even are. A question this brings up to me is What percentage of users are using pictures of other people and actually pretending to be someone else.

Slater "Illegal Art"

This article by Slater is all about copyright, and copyright infringement. I found it funny how the title illegal art is actually referring to nothing more than funny pictures involving famous cartoon characters and other popular objects. The article discusses how originally copyrights lasted 14 years untill being reviewed for another 14 year extension. This rule has greatly changed and now a days once you get your copyright, you own that for way beyond your time on earth. The rule today is for individual artists they own a copyright for their life plus 70 years, and for large corporations they only have the rights for a measly 95 years. The article continues throughout discussing different copyright situations amongst celebrities and their "Ideas."

I personally find all the hooplah that sorrounds copyrights to be incredibly overdone and even find it selfish of those who seek to sue in order to protect their work. To me music and art are simply meant to be shared with other people. If it wasn't for the people who are "stealing" from this artists, their work would mean nothing as their would be nobody to appreciate it. To me artists are nothing without fans and to go out of their way to sue those who appreciate their work is completely rediculous. I personally believe that copyrights should last simply 3-5 years so that the creator has enough time to share what they've done make some money, and have everyone understand that it was them who created the work. In my mind the hole deal with copyright is completely insane.

Why Thomas Jefferson would love Napster

This article written by Siva Vaidhyanathan is about the original meaning of the term copyright and how it has changed since than. Some 200 years ago the idea of a copyright was created by our founding fathers as a way to create a balance between authors, publishers, and readers. The founding fathers saw copyright as a way to protect an idea that would benefit everyone from the creator to the user. In recent decades this idea has changed a lot and has made an idea somewhat of a property in a sense. This change began in 1998 with the Digital Millennium Copyright act enforced by Bill Clinton and the democratic party.

I found this article to be very interesting as I have always believed and participated in downloading music. I feel it is simply an idea and that it should be free for everyone to access however they can reach it. For musicians to be so greedy and fight for it to become illegal is wrong in my eyes. When asked Why Thomas Jefferson would enjoy Napster I believe he definitely would as it is basically the clear definition of what he originally intended a copyright to be used as.

Henry Jenkins Reading

This article written by Henry Jenkins was about the evolution of technology, and teaching, and how they both relate to collective intelligence. Collective intelligence is "The kind of knowledge and understanding that emerges from large groups of people." This to me is a great form of learning and gathering information, as I have always believed in the old saying two heads are better than one. With some of the techniques Jenkins spoke about in his article such as social operating systems, grassroots videos, and mobile broadband today it is quite possible for someone to assemble an army of heads to help find an answer to their problem.

A question that I am left with after reading this article is, who is Henry Jenkins? Yes his article makes sense and is very informative, however is he an established writer who knows what hes talking about, or is he just some guy stating his opinions?

I believe that collective intelligence is a great way to learn and will only become more helpful in the future. Although their are so many upsides to the use of collective intelligence, something that may occur is slackers may be able to slide by using what they can find from other peoples ideas. However, this is something that should not affect the use of collective learning as it will not be harming anyone but the person who decided to take the easy way out.

It Takes a Village to Find a Phone

This reading involved a situation in which a woman named Ivanna, lost her sidekick telephone in the back of a taxi cab. At the time Ivanna had been planning a wedding and much of her information such as her contacts were lost in the phone. This was valuable information for Ivanna and she turned to her friend Evan to help find the phone. Despite allready purchasing a new phone and having her information transferred, after discovering that the phone was being used by someone else, Evan and Ivanna decided to track down the person with the phone. When the alleged theif refused to cooperate and return the phone, Evan decided to turn to the internet and post a blog about the situation. The story spread like wildfire and soon enough nearly 1,000,000 people had been informed and involved in the situation. The mass amount of people was enough power to persuade the polices decision and eventually have the culprit arrested. In the end it happend to be just a 16 year old girl named Sasha who was neive and never thought that keeping a phone she had found in a cab could possibly lead to her arrest.

"Do we want a world in which a well-off grown-up can use this kind of leverage to get a teenager arrested, as well as named and shamed on a global platform, for what was a fairly trivial infraction?" Shirky asks this question on page 13 and really got me thinking. In my opinion using the internet to have the public involved and exploit Sasha was a great technique and yes it was very helpful. However I believe that it was unneccasary for a situation as small as the one at hand and put far more problems into the life of a 16 year old girl than needed. Yes, Sasha did not handle the situation in a proper fashion, however for her to be embarrased in front of thousands of people should never have taken place. I feel the public took the situation to far, and it should have been handled solely between Ivanna, Evan, and Sasha.

I found this to be an interesting article, as I myself recently found an Iphone on the ground when walking to my apartment. I contemplated keeping the phone, however I knew it would soon die of battery and I would not be able to use it as a phone anyway. I have lost my phone numerous times and for someone to return it would have meant alot to me. I than made the right decision and called the last person he had contacted and asked Where I could find the owner. His friend informed me of his address and I simply walked across the street and knocked on his door. This was something that I felt proudly about and hopefully karma will come my way soon. Most suprising about this article was the amount of people who became involved in this story and the extent that some strangers went to help out Ivanna. This is something I could see in the case of a larger scale theft or crime however for a lost phone I found the hole situation to be a bit out of hand.

What kind of tech user are you?

After taking the online quiz to find out what type of tech user I am, I was labeld a media mover. I have to agree with the surveys definition of me in relation to my media habits. I liked how it said I am inclined to find information on the internet, yet using technology is not that important to me. I agree with this because there are many things I would prefer to do to be creative rather than use technology. Such as playing sports and hanging out with friends.