Useful Internet Based Tools

PicnikThis is a image editing website. This website allows you to upload images from anywhere that has a web browser. Then you can edit them by cropping, removing red eye or adding effects to it. It has all kinds of features and fonts that you can use. It also has the ability to make slides. It had a free version and a paid version.http://www.picnik.com
PhoneviteThis is a free website that allows you to use your own voice to record messages and then you can set times when you want the alerts or messages to go out. They will send the message to all the people on your contact list whenever you designate it to. You can use it for special alerts or weather cancelations. I was actually pretty impressed and can see a lot of uses for this program. My Old school used something similar.http://www.phonevite.com/

Virtual Tours for Vacation spotsThis is becoming more and more popular. While some of the big companies already use these kinds of tours so you can see maybe a nice room you want to stay in it is becoming mainstream vacation advertisement. With these tours you can see what kind of place you will be going to and decide whether or not that is where you want to go. I chose this site as an example because they have a lot of tours and it is free. http://www.inisrael.com/3disrael/index.cfm

Weather Widget/GadgetI personally am not a fan of the side bar but I used to have a program that stayed on my screen that would tell me the weather. I think the weather widgets are probably some of the most useful ones because like the one I will link some show radar and multi day forecast.http://www.wunderground.com/download/vista.asp

IP Tracker While I have personally used this in games to find out where someone lives or if it is the same person I had just banned this tool has a lot of uses. Anybody can use this ranging from someone just wanting to see who someone was that sent them an e-mail to a company that needs to know who is accessing their information.http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

Security? What Security?

I always like to post about things that hit close to home with me and this couldn't hit any closer. Stores like Walmart and Gamestop go to big measures to keep from having their merchendise stolen. How many security devices do they have inside games now? Anybody that has bought a DVD, Video Game or multiple other devices know they have security strips along with other security locks.
For Gamestop that is not enough they take the games out of the case and leave the empty box on the shelf. The problem with that is when someone like me goes and buys a game that has an activation code and when they get it home the activation code has already been used. How hard is it for an employee to write down the number? I contacted the game manufacturer and Gamestop support. Gamestop said that it is a practice to prevent theft and that I would have to talk to a regional manager. Of course he never returned my calls so I was just out the money.

I guess my question is this. They have prepaid phones, phone cards, gift cards that will not work without activation. If companies are so concerned about security why can games not be made the same way. The Windows operating system requires online activation. Make games the same way and it will cut down on theft without opening merchandise and selling opened stuff.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/11/law-of-the-game-lawyer-explores-gamestop-used-vs-new-controve/

Technology Privacy

I always check CNN everything to see what is happening in America or the world. I came across a article this morning about a texting privacy case that is going to the supreme court. Pretty much to some it up a government employee a cop in this story was using his phoen to make racy texts. His job got the text records from the phone company and he got in trouble for it.

The debate is can your phone service provider give out your personal texts to your employeer without your permission. I am kinda split on the issue. In this case he was using a company phone for personal texts and excedding the limit. He did pay for the overages but I can understand where the police department is coming from. On the other hand they were able to retrieve his personal text messages without his permission and that may fall under the illegal search and seisure. I do believe we must have some sort of privacy especially on things liek text messages that are ment for a 1 person to 1 person contact.

I feel that there needs to be a really extreme circumstance for your employeer to be able to pull your records without your consent.

Check out the article http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/19/scotus.text.messaging/index.html

Automated Life

More and More the Military uses unmanned predators during war and now they have an unmanned helicopter they use for drug busts on the ocean. One thing that comes from all the money we put into our military in america is they test these new technologies and then down the road it becomes something that the public will use.

From unmanned aircraft to vechicles that drive without a driver you can already see the things in place for us to have a life where robots do alot of our work for us. I watched a TV show where they have races with vehicles that require no drivers and nobody controlling them remotely. There are so many instances where we have prototype robots that I believe will one day be the main work force. I doubt that day will come in my life time but I do not believe that alot of the science fiction movies are that far off. A computer can do anything it is programmed to do and as we find new ways to store more information in smaller spaces and new ways to give that information to computers such as infrared or voice recognition we will move closer and closer to that Robot age.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/video-navy-helicopter-drone-makes-first-coke-bust-high-seas

Home Security

Honestly I don't know why the past 3 days I have been on a home security trip but I really want to get a security camera for my grandmothers house. With all of the drama details aside I think it would be beneficial to have a camera in her house that I can view online so I started doing research and seeing how much it costs to do such a thing.

While it wasn't as pricey as I thought it was going to be the options are still our of my range for a camera that isn't very detectable. The biggest problem I found is the cheaper cameras are bulker and easier to see. Also the web hosting of the security camera costs and so that is additional fees. I did find some other interesting stuff such as fake cameras that might help keep people on the straight and narrow. I was surprised that alot of the nice outside cameras only ran around 65 dollars. While that is just for the camera I think that is a pretty good price and for a few hundred dollars you could set up your security system.

http://www.homesecuritystore.com/

Google Chrome OS

I am not sure whether to laugh at google or jump on their bandwagon. I already use google search engine for everything and have even set it to my homepage. Google launched Chrome browser and I tried it but didn't really see a real reason to switch from Explorer and FireFox. Now here Google comes wanting to bring out a Chrome Operating System.

It is clear that Google is here to challenge Microsoft in the near future and probably for the next ten years. I think healthy competition is good for the consumer so on one hand I want to applaud them for their effort. On the other hand I want to look at Mac and Apple and say is it really worth investing your money into. Microsoft is actually making great strides to improve their OS and despite the problem with Vista I am very happy were we are since the release of Windows 95. I think any company looking to challenge Microsoft Windows is going to have to do it top down. They are going to have to convince the business world that it will be better for them because in my opinion people go with the known. People don't like change and are used to windows.

As for me I will have to sit back and decide whether I will try it out or not. I think I will but I'm pretty sure I will stick with windows in the end.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Cell Phones

Remember when a cellphone was just a cellphone. I think I could handle the blue tooths and the camera phones. Even the ring tones that are actually songs. I just don't understand the phones of today though. Most of my friends have phones that surf the web, play games, and do tons of other stuff and it makes me wonder what is the point.

Its a cellphone made for talking and isn't supposed to be the main highlight of your day out. I mean I got friends that can check their mail, transfer money and order things right from their phone. The prices on these phones are ridiculous as well as the service it takes to use them. I guess I don't see the need to be able to do all of that one a cellphone when I rarely have something I can't wait to get home for. Maybe I am just old fashioned at a young age but I think I will be keeping my old phone with just numbered keys. If I ever do buy a phone like that I will probably treat it likes its a baby and not get a good use out of it anyways.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Crime Scene 360 view Cameras

Everyone here has watched CSI or one of the other Hollywood crime shows. I was watching TV this week and it was an acutally real life detective show. They used this camera in the room that did a 360 degree view of the whole room up and down. Then when they uploaded the images it recreated the whole room like you were standing in the middle.

With that they were able to look at angle of the shots, blood splatter or just things lying around if they wanted to. They could recreate the crime scene virtually and then see if what they create matches up with the pictures they have. I guess having everything in a 3D view makes it easier for them then just 2D pictures.

Personally for me I thought that these cameras were just Hollywood effects but when I saw one of these things in action and how seamless the end result was it just blew my mind. I had to go look it up and research it. There are alot of people out there that sell them and I'm sure some are better then others. Here is one of the sites I found.
http://www.crime-photo.com/

Human Barcode

How many times in movies have we seen in the future that a computer can just scan a chip inside your skin and know everything about you. While I do believe that this is the future and I don't believe it is avoidable I'm not sure I fully support the idea. While it could be a good thing for banking, commerce and medical information. I think the whole thing has potential for being abused and a way to track everything we do.

First lets look at security. How often are wireless networks hacked today? Now imagine what hackers can do with everything being on this chip. How comfortable will you be having a chip inside you that has all the information about you and can control everything in your life. I for one won't feel comfortable with it.

Secondly how about them being able to monitor everything from our movements to what we buy. I think there is a expected privacy and when this finally comes to pass and it may be 100 years that it will change everything.

http://www.thenewstoday.info/2007/02/02/human.bar.code.html

Game Security Technology

For years the gaming industry has tried to stay ahead of the crackers. Shortly after or sometimes even before a game is released there is a crack in which you can get the game for free or you can borrow your buddies game, download it and play it without the CD. They have changed from activation codes, to 4 disk installs, to inital online activation. While some of these things have helped none of them fixed the problem.

Last year it seems they may have found a fix that will keep people from stealing the game. I went and bought a $60 computer game about a year ago. I brought it home, downloaded it and then found out I needed to sign on to the Internet to play my game. So I load the game up and it goes through an error saying it can't initialize with the game server. So for two nights I wait and try each night getting the same error. On the third night it finally initialized and I was able to play my game. Well all of that doesn't sound so bad except that everytime you want to play the game you have to log onto Steam, they make sure your game is authentic and then you can play.

In short what it means is that companies are now requiring you to log onto the internet everytime you want to play the game and pass a check to see if your copy is legit. At first I was really mad and was thinking well they are gonna lose money but as I started thinking about it I wasn't so sure. Ten years ago this kind of security would of never of flown because not everyone had internet. It would be hard to go down a street where the majority of the people on the block didn't have internet these days. The only problem I see is that it only tells you it requires online activation it doesn't say that you have to have the net everytime you open the game. More and more games that come out utilize the same security.

I'm not sure where this security will go but I know for me it was a surprise and headache. Here is a link to the site they use for the games and servers. You can download games off here but even if you get a CD copy you have to use this server. The game was Empire Total War.
http://store.steampowered.com/

Virtual Machines

As all of you know we did Virtual Machine installations this week. I was really impressed with VMware and its capabilities. Having Windows 7 also on the machine was nice because I got to play around with Windows 7 which I hadn't touched up until that point. I think the thing I liked the most was how quick it was to install VMware and an operating system. While we did have some issues I think those were because we hadn't used VMware before and Windows 7 is new and has issues with it. I am very curious to try it out again because I want to be able to possibly run Windows 98 on a machine so that I can play older games that won't run with Vista or XP.

I think when I get a new computer in a few years I will take my old computer and try VirtualPC so that I can see both sides of it. I will probably prefer VMware but I still want to have knowledge in both so if someone asks me I can tell them why i like one better then the other. I'm sure we will be messing with it more so I hope to learn some new things that I can do.

Virtual Machines

Today I'm going in to do the VMware assignment. I had never messed with a virtual PC before this class but since talking about it and reading more into it I have seen its many uses. Last night I had a friend that was messing with the Mac OS on VMware because he had never used Mac and wanted to see what it was like. I think that is one of the best uses for the virtual PC is training.

You can sit someone down on one machine and have them work with multiple operating systems with little trouble. I think in the future this will be a bigger part of learning. Instead of reformating and installing I think all lessons will be taught on Virtual Machines. You can just have your students switch between the OS's to see the difference.

See you guys in Class

Windows Automatic Updates

My Post today is on Windows automatic updates and how it frustrates me. I wanted to keep my new computer up to date with the lastest Microsoft security measures and so my programs ran properly. Yesterday I had to turn it off because every 15-30 minutes it wants to restart my computer so I have to postpone it. If you don't postpone it force restarts your computer. At first I didn't mind but it gets really frustating when it tries to force start my computer 3-4 times a day. I think I will just turn on updates each sunday.

New Xbox 720 Technology

Well I play games and my favorite console is the Xbox 360. Until this day any game console that has tried to go away from the normal game controller has pretty much failed. You have games like the Wario which required you to look through glasses to play the game. Microsoft is trying to break the controller bounds by coming out with a virtual experience that would allow you to interact with the system by camera. The idea that they are pushing is that they can get the camera to pickup the movements you want to do and thus you can interact with the system.

I am very skeptical about this system I just don't see the technology yet to perform it and I know that some games will still be impossible to do without a controller. Microsoft is saying they have the technology so we shall see. The biggest issue I see is getting the computing power into the 720 and keep it cost affordable for gamers.

Here is the link you can check out an interview done with a microsoft employee.

http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2007/03/13/next-xbox-720-to-launch-in-2011-2012-according-to-microsoft.htm

Alittle bit of Me

Hello everyone my name is Patrick Nelson. I am working on my CIT degree at ECC and have 6 classes left to go. I already have a Web Technologies degree from Guilford Tech. I have been working with computers every since I was young. I taught myself alot of things by upgrading my own computers or fixing them when they broke.

I was originally looking to get a job working with web design and code but the job market for that isn't as good. I'm hoping my web background will be a good addition to the other things I know.
I'm looking forward to learning new things in here that I may be able to use later.