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Improvement: what can be done?

I think that our class of e-culture can be improved in different ways. First, as a lot of students have already said, we can create a wiki and post our contributions on it. But this has already be done. We can also open a netvibes page and subscribe to rss from other students blogs. But this has already been done too.

But I am convinced that the most important problem in this cyber class is that we hardly speak English together. Honnestly in 3 hours of class each student speaks English 5 minutes which is ridiculuous. This point can be explain in many ways. We mostly work on computers and we have to make researchs on the Internet. The major activity is to read. And because the subjects can be hard, it's often technical, we also use French websites to understand. We don't speak English between us because we don't have to and it's not really natural. When we speak together in class it's only to explain technical terms or resolve problems so it's useless to speak English in that case. And in my opinion, it's really disappointing to have the opportunity to have an American teacher and only speak 5 minutes of English per class.

I think it would be great if we can speak with other people in English. We could speak about a subjects wich is understandabke by everyone together. But the best would be to speak with English students via skype or msn. we could practice oral English and it would also give us the opportuity to compare our different points of view about e-culture.

Really simple RSS!!!

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Using RSS, webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software or automatically conveyed as new content on another website. A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. It is common to find web feeds on major websites and many smaller ones. Some websites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom.

RSS feeds are indicated by those symbols:

Cybercriminality

Cybercrime is defined by the Council of Europe (Novembre 2001) as

Criminal offences committed against or with the help of computer networks.

It is a general notion. That means that cybercrime describes crimes which occur on the networks like Internet, or crimes which occur thanks to the networks or computers. To make short, cybercrime is a term used broadly to describe criminal activity in which computers or networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity.

According to wikipedia, we can find a lot of examples of cybercrimes. The most current are spamming and certain intellectual property and criminal copyright crimes, particularly those facilitated through peer-to-peer networks. It also exists financial crimes on the Internet. In this case, someone, a hacker, can steal your access codes and make transactions with your bank account. But activities like paedophilia which often occur on the Internet is a cybercrime too. So we see that there is a huge range of cybercrimes.

I found an example of cybercrime which has taken place in California in January 2006. Mr. Heim was sentenced to two years of probation and required to pay a $500 fine in addition to having to make restitution to his victim, Facility Automation Systems, in the amount of $6,050. Indeed, Mr. Heim admitted he used the username and password assigned to its former employer FAS for its Internet domain, redirected all the Internet traffic, including electronic mail, to a server at Mr. Heim’s new employer, the Moreno Valley Unified School District. Mr. Heim knew that redirecting the traffic to that server would make FAS’ web site and electronic mail services inaccessible.

S-HTTP, SSL: Security is in progress

Secure HTTP (S-HTTP) is a secure message-oriented communications protocol designed for use in conjunction with HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). S-HTTP is designed to coexist with HTTP's messaging model and to be easily integrated with HTTP applications.

S-HTTP is an extension to the HTTP to support sending data securely over the World Wide Web. It was developed by Enterprise Integration Technologies (EIT), which was acquired by Verifone in 1995. Secure HTTP provides a variety of security mechanisms to HTTP clients and servers, providing the security service options appropriate to the wide range of potential end uses possible for the World-Wide Web (WWW). S-HTTP provides symmetric capabilities to both client and server (in that equal treatment is given to both requests and replies, as well as for the preferences of both parties) while preserving the transaction model and implementation characteristics of HTTP.

But not all Web browsers and servers support S-HTTP. Another technology for transmitting secure communications over the World Wide Web, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is more prevalent. However, SSL and S-HTTP have very different designs and goals so it is possible to use the two protocols together. Whereas SSL is designed to establish a secure connection between two computers, S-HTTP is designed to send individual messages securely. Both protocols have been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for approval as a standard.

Be like a real director on Youtube

Youtube was created in 2005 and is a personal video sharing service. That means that you can download videos from the website and upload your own videos too without any restriction. You tube is a great example of what amateurs can do on the web.

It has a huge success when it was launched. Attracted by this success, Google bought Youtube last year.

The key to his success is its organisation. Youtube works like a wiki. That means that users do the website by their participations. It is the most successful example of what web 2.0 is. That means that people makes the website by using it.

I use it especially to watch videos. I generally note the most watched videos and watch them. I have never added videos on Youtube. I think my videos are too personal to be on the Internet. That’s a personal opinion.

In the future, those amateur videos could become professional. For instance, CNN with a service like "I report" copied Youtube to develop a new way of journalism.
People can send their videos and CNN can use them for its news report. The video belongs to CNN as soon as it is on the website. So people can become real professional with amateur videos.

Identity theft: a serious crime!

The movie Identity Theft: The Michelle Brown Story which was released in 2004 gives an accurate example, even if it is a bit extreme, of what identity theft is and of how far it can go. The heroine, Michelle Brown, discovers that a hacker, Connie Volkos, stole her identity to spend her money and dilapidate her belongings. The thieft has also done an aesthetic operation so that she looks more like her. Then, she murders someone and the innocent Michelle is arrested and nobody believes in her story.

But even without going so far, identity theft is a great issue nowaday.
Identity theft is a criminal action which occurs on the Internet. Hackers or malevolent people can use your identity to steal your money. Indeed, you often use codes and loggins to access private pages on the Internet. Malevolent persons can steal those personal informations and steal you.

Personaly, I'm used to change every now and again my bank account access number. I don't take any other measure to prevent myself from identity theft. But, I think the most important is the choice of your codes. Lot of people use their birth dates or symbolic dates as codes. But those numbers are easy to find. You have to find a difficult codes and change it regularly to be protected fromidentity theft.
This institutional website gives a lot of advice to prevent yourself from identity theft. Here are the three main advice:

• Deter identity thieves by safeguarding your information.
• Detect suspicious activity by routinely monitoring your financial accounts and billing statements.
• Defend against ID theft as soon as you suspect a problem.

Since a recent time, websites offer solution against identity theft. For example, some website gives you the possibility to change your IP address and so to be protected from hackers.

Podcats: the best solution to learn English

First of all, Internet offers the opportunity to read all English newspapers for free. You can improve your vocabulary every day, in a really easy and free way. But reading is not enough to learn a language.

From my personal point of view, podcast are really useful to learn English, but not only, it is useful to learn any language.

The website English as a second language is really useful because it is adapted for people who want to progress in English. This podcast is really traditional. If you want more fun while you are listening to your podcast you can listen to the Bob and Rob Show. Those two teachers help you to learn English in a funny way through their podcasts.

Finally, you can listen to English newspapers' podcasts. For example The Telegraph. Those podcast are serious but it allows you to listen to journalistic speech. It is an practical way to learn English and get informed at the same time.

Six great qualities of the Web

Generosity:

We can find a lot of examples of generosity on the Internet. For example newspapers give their content for free on the Internet. The Whashington Post or Le monde offer a really complete newspaper for free.

Discipline:
Discipline is a matter of organization. Internet provides since a recent period tools to organize your navigation on the Internet. On Google, you can organize your own presentation page. You can put links to your favorite newspaper websites, links to the weathercast and links to sport website if you want.

Another site which allows to do that is Netvibes. It allows you to organize your navigation and so to be discipline.

Patience:
I have a good example for this one. It concerns pop ups on websites. At the beginning I was not patience at all if a pop-up disturbed me while I was reading articles on a website. But now I just take time to read it, to see how it is make and I am not upset anymore.

Perseverance:
Perseverance is essential for me when I use the Internet considering that I am not really good at computer. I managed to do a lot of things alone with the internet but I have to be really perseverant. For example I wanted to subscribe to some podcasts with RSS links. But I had never use i-tunes. I thought it would be really easy but it was not so easy. I have to search and try a lot before I managed to subscribe to my first podcast.

Insight:
Insight is the ability to reflect on what we are learning. Internet offers many opportunitiues to find concrete applications of what I study. Because internet is the most important source of informations, it provides examples of any subject.

Comprehension:
Internet helps to make links between things. That's the core of links on the web. it's helpful to understand how things fit together. Because Internet offers multiple sources on every subjects, it is easy to have a view of all problems and points of view that exist.

Web 2.0: the social networks maker

A social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

On the Internet, the most striking example of “social networks” is MySpace. This website allows you to make your own website and to meet other people who use Myspace just like you.

I use the website Ringo to share photos

Digital Music: is DRM the solution?

Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is any of several technologies used by publishers (or copyright owners) to control access to and usage of digital data (such as software, music, movies) and hardware, handling usage restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work. The term is often confused with copy protection and technical protection measures (TPM). These two terms refer to technologies that control or restrict the use and access of digital media content on electronic devices with such technologies installed, acting as components of a DRM design.

Digital Rights Management is a controversial topic. Advocates argue DRM is necessary for copyright holders to prevent unauthorized duplication of their work to ensure continued revenue streams. Some critics of the technology, including the Free Software Foundation, suggest that the use of the word "Rights" is misleading and suggest that people instead use the term Digital Restrictions Management. The position put forth is that copyright holders are attempting to restrict use of copyrighted material in ways already granted by statutory or common law applying to copyright. Others, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation consider some DRM schemes to be anti-competitive, citing the iTunes Store as an example.

The Internet Battle: Web Neutrality

Network neutrality is the idea that the companies that own the broadband pipes should not be able to configure their networks in a way that plays favorites, allowing them for example, to transmit their own services at faster speeds, or to charge Net content and application companies a fee for similar fast delivery. On one side of the argument are large broadband players, who say they have the right to be compensated for money spent in building the networks. Intrusive federal legislation, they say, would reduce the incentive to invest in speedier networks in the future. On the other side are Internet content and application providers, who say Net neutrality requirements are essential to preserve the Net's traditional openness, ensuring that broadband companies will let all data flow freely to Web surfers. They also argue that extra fees levied by broadband companies would likely have to be passed on to consumers.
Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist and one of the Net's founding fathers said he worried that without firmly entrenched Net neutrality principles, broadband companies could assume the unprecedented role of "gatekeepers," effectively shutting out Internet start-ups. "We risk losing the Internet as a catalyst for consumer choice, for economic growth, for technological innovation and for global competitiveness" he said.

The law COPE (Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement) = Republicans. The Democrats made amendment to defend the concept of “Web neutrality” so against this law. (On their side lobbying Google, Amazon, eBay or Vinton CERF).

Podcast, mp3, video : what you must know

A podcast is a multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.
"Podcasting", created by Adam Curry, is a term that was devised as a crisp way to describe the technology used to push audio content from websites down to consumers of that content, who typically listen to it on their iPod (hence the "pod") or other audio player that supports mp3 at their convenience. The term podcasting is meant to rhyme with broadcasting and is a derivative of the iPod platform. While not directly associated with Apple iPod device or iTunes music service, the company did contribute both the desire and the technology for this capability. The term can be misleading since neither podcasting nor listening to podcasts requires an iPod or any portable player, and no broadcasting is involved. So, the word is not a registered trademark belonging to Apple.

Aware of that misleading association from the beginning, some writers have suggested alternative names or reinterpretations of the letters "p-o-d", without winning much of a following. For example, Ben Hammersley used this term in the Guardian on 2004, and in his article "podcasting" was meant as a portmanteau of the phrase "Personal-On-Demand Narrowcasting".

Podcasting uses an XML-based technology called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. Content publishers describe new content in an XML RSS file which includes dates, titles, descriptions, and links to MP3 files. This auto-generated file is called an RSS feed. What makes podcasting special is that it allows individuals to publish (podcast) radioshows that interested listeners can subscribe to. Before podcasting you could of course record a radio show and put it on your website, but now people can automatically receive new shows, without having to go to a specific site and download it from there.

A podcast is often indicated by this icon:

This icon was introduced in Mozilla Firefox in order to indicate a web feed was present on a particular webpage that could be used in conjunction with the Live bookmarks function. Microsoft and Opera have adopted the icon in order to promote a defacto standard.

Here we are!!!

New year, new class for this first English session. Actually not English but e-culture and communications.
Just a little memento of the six criteria:
- generosity
- discipline
- patience
- perseverance
- insight
- comprehension

5 brakes you must avoid

5 brakes or hindrances:

1. sensual distractions/fun
2. ill-will/aversion/emotion
3. laziness
4. restlessness/lack of concentration
5. doubt