Life In The Information Age: Introduction

Internet interpretation taken from Google Images

The Information Age

The information age, commonly known as the ‘Digital Age’ or the ‘Computer Age’ this is the idea that has a concept to be related to a ‘Digital Revolution’ otherwise known as an ‘Era’. As the era’s have changed so has the information, what started off to be a creation for calculating numbers faster than that ability of a human advanced at a phenomenal rate to now being in most peoples house holds allowing them to do their weekly shop online!

What does a computer even do? It’s a piece of technology that calculates switches to either be on or off at a pace so fast using the binary code to aid/guide it through. The information age properly took of in the late 1970s when personal computer systems were accessible and by the early 1990s the internet took off too, allowing communications across the globe progressing to networks to secure a technological lifestyle with the perks of educational lifestyle too. As technology is increasing it is never contemporary, this meaning that you are always learning within this technology ‘new becomes old’ pretty fast.

What is the difference between offices from the 1980s to present?

An office 30years ago (in the 1980s) would still be very slow and substantial, but for people on those times would think that this would be quite a fast system, in the 1980s operating systems like 86 DOS were very popular within these times, and printers weren’t around at this time, but type writers were popular and up coming. By the 1990s a typical office had been upgraded slightly, printers were now in action and typewriters were on their way out. Operating systems like 86 DOS were not really used operating systems like Windows 3.0 and Linux had entered the scene making a faster way to communicate with the computer, mouse’s were also making a name for themselves creating new wacky designs for them, at the end of the 1990s, Windows 98 was brought into the scene to, one of the many operating systems still used today. At the present time we now have made a vast improvement, with operating systems like Windows 7 and MAC Lion, making most things user friendly and easy to complete allowing multiple windows to be open at any given time.



Windows 7 print screen taken from Google Images



In the last 30years offices have changed so rapidly, an office back at the beginning would be tiny with a few computers and masses of filing cabinets to fie information. A typical office now would have multiple computers alongside many peripherals, and filing cabinets replaced with excel smart database systems.  

Entertainment

This is possibly the broadest section within 'Online Services'. Mostly preferred to as everyone wants to be entertained, if you weren't you would feel bored and have a low sanity level! some of the major hits within electronic entertainment have been the likes of 'YouTube' & 'Call of Duty (COD)'.

To date there are approximately 117million online gamers with this on the increase 24/7... With such an enormous figure almost every household would have a games console/PC. And to date YouTube there are almost 510 million views on Jeniffer Lopez's new single 'On The Floor (Ft. Pitbull)'.



Jlo Picture taken from Goolge Images



And although Steve Jobs has passed away Apple are still increasing with popularity and well thought products... there is now an App for literally everything! From how to cook a bakewell tart to managing your bank account/accounts!


YouTube

YouTube logo



YouTube is an infamous video sharing website, actually its the largest in the world! With around 51 languages to choose from too. It was created in Febuary 14th 2005 by, Chad Hurley/Steve Chen/Jawed Karim. YouTube actually makes most of its revenue through Google Adsense, this allows thier free space to be used to advertise say the new D&G aftershave for men.

Advantages of YouTube:

• You can upload any video
• All formats are supported
• You can watch what you want to watch
• You are able to access the site at any time
• You can make money from this site by 'Monetizing'
• Movies/TV episodes are avaliable

Disadvantages:

• People can upload replicas this can be fustrating
• Your only allowed to upload 15minutes worth of video unless your a senoir YouTube user
• Advertisments can be a bit annoying at times



In my own expirence, I always use YouTube to check out my favourite artists music videos, I also use it to catch up with some TV that I may of missed. I also have a friend who makes videos around the technology/gaming side and get paid for it! Although it may not be much he is getting paid for something he enjoys. I was thinking of creating my own YouTube to promote Kent artists by making music videos for them and putting them up on YouTube for all to see!



4oD

4oD logo

4oD is a service that allows the user to catch up with TV from channel 4. what makes it unique is that unlike BBC iPlayer, 40D is just for channel 4, no one else. 4oD also make their money via monetizing just like YouTube do. This way, fans who have missed their TV channel can view it on 4oD and they will also make some money out of it too.

Advantages:

• Can catch up with channel 4 programs whenever you want
• It's free to do
• Most channel 4 episodes are up to view

Disadvantages:

• On YouTube you can view everything, on 4oD your restricted to channel 4 programs only
• Adverts can be off putting
• Some people have complained about the layout of the site
• There are better sites at times to watch specific stuff

In my own experience I have used 4oD and I did find it easy to use, however, I did feel that the adverts lingered more than other sites adverts would go on for but that was 4oD for me. Without being to hard on critizing it, I would be more likely to use sites like YouTube and BBC iPlayer to view/catch up with my TV programs. However for what 4oD is and for what it is I would say that this service is very good but it very restricted.

4oD printscreen taken from Google Images

RPGs

WOW logo

RPG other wise known as a role playing game, a good example for this would be WOW (World of Warcraft) this an online game created by Blizzard, WOW currently has 10.3 million subscribers. It is actually the largest online game in the world at the moment which is a massive achievement. WOW is also viewed as a 'MMORPG' this is a game that is secured by a server leaching out to all its users.

Within the game you can choose a character, then on you explore the WOW universe making friends joining groups and leveling up to become the most notorious character. Along the way there are challenges, imaginary weapons/animals to collect, and lots more!

Advantages of a RPG:

• Great gaming experience 
• Can create a lot of imagery stuff 
• Meet new people
• Play against people globally 
• Enter championship ranks to earn some money from it

Disadvantages:

• Can be time wasting
• RPGs are all very similar so they can get boring after a while 
• Gaming has been statistically proven to be unhealthy 
• If it's online it could get laggy at times

In my own experience I only played one RPG from what I played I liked it, but I knew that if I got it I would have to spend a lot of time on the game to actually enjoy it... other than that I used to play a lot of games when I was younger, these days I've seemed to of grown out of that stage and focused on more better/beneficial things like sports/mates/school grades. 

WOW random game play print screen taken from Google Images

I do have a few mates who are still drawn into these games., and to be truthful they get obsessed, and all they want to do is play more and more, for example, kids skive school to play the latest game out! I just don't see the point, but that is just my own opinion, and of course there will be people out there that will argue against my views.

Download Services

Download Services



In the word of ICT you are constantly around downloading types of software that being at home to school to work! All this downloading is completed by the use of the internet... it is most commonly known as 'file - sharing'. There are so many sites now online that will allow you to illegally and legally download files such as music/films/videos/books/video games/documents.



Napster logo



The most famous file sharing site of the time would most definately have to be Napster. This site started off actually between a few friends wanting to share thier music files for free, little did they know what the internet could do! Napster naturally blew up! Getting to literally everyone, but unforunately they got sued and were now going thorugh bankrupcy... although it got sued by musicians, some musicains thought it was a really good invention/idea! However due to losing it's battle in court now Napster is an illegal music download site, one of many! And yes, there are illegal music downloading sites still out there trying to seek cover.

Statistically, about 1.67m people download illegally with that increasing in the future years. Making a loss of 45m in thier revenue, whereas, stastically, 5% out of 100% download files legally. Although figures are increasing for illegal downloads, legal downloads are on the increase too!

PDF Files



PDF File logo



PDF file otherwise known as a 'Portable Document File' is an open standard file created in 2003 by the Adobe Systems. It's mainly used to represent the documents of operating systems/software/hardware in a smaller but exact matching file! PDFs are often used on the internet as they are very easy for the decoder to get too and to extract information from the file.

Two types of PDFs exist: native PDFs and scanned PDFs. A native PDF is a PDF that is made from a document that was electronically processed. A scanned PDF is one by scanning a  paper document using a scanner.

Advantages of a PDF file:

• You don't need a certain software to use/open it - therefore it is accessable to everyone
• A PDF is a 'read only' file, so it cannot be altered without leaving an electronic footprint
• PDF files offer Document Level Security
• They open quicker than a word document
• It is under FreeWare
• you can scan compressed images into a PDF File

Disadvantages:

• Difficult to edit
• Quite a fair few types of PDFs... That can confuse people
• the two types of PDF can also be hard to edit into a wordable format - however, there are sites that can work thier way around this problem

In my own expirence, I haven't really used PDF files as I have never really needed too! However if i wanted a compressed word file to be on the internet and to be downloadable I would use a PDF file to do this. In hindsight, some video games now have a PDF manuel to use the game online on thier website so they save money by printing out all these manuels. Only downside to this is that not every 'gamer' has access to be online to view this!

Patches

A patch is a piece of software completely designed to help aid a user to fix their computer problems… this could be from updating a computer program or its supporting data to bugs/viruses other wise known as ‘security vulnerabilities’ as well as the general up keep of a computers life, so things like the usability and the actual performance.



PS3 system upadate print screen



There are also patches for computer games so I could say that most boys would know what I’m going on about when I say ‘the new map in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare needs an update due to glitches’. And without a doubt these patches happen very regularly within computer games.



Although a patch is meant to fix problems, some are poorly designed and can actually but on a load more problems other wise known as ‘software regressions’. To have a successful patch you need a sturdy/reliable patch management, so basically that means the actual process of using a plan of what they should be specifically applied to at a spot on time.

Advantages of Patches:

• Upgrades your game/computer
• Makes your software more reliable/faster
• Newer software means newer perks
• Updates are normally fast and virus free

Disadvantages:

• Software regressions are rare, but do happen…
• Can be time consuming to go through with
• You may actually prefer the older software to the new installed one



I do have some background within patching, as I have an Xbox 360, their games are always getting patched, epically gun games with big party maps. Also sometimes the whole layout of the Xbox 360 gets changed around so you have to download that to play online with your friends. Most updates are relatively quick, but the better bandwidth you have the quicker it will install/download.

Xbox 360 Elite

Software

A collection of data that guides the computer what to do as a task is what software is. Software is intangible unlike hardware where it can altered ad edited to what you want it to do, software you can’t do that. Obviously there are many types of software that are up for grabs within the internet… some will be free to download like ‘Open Office & Anti Virus AVG’ two of the many examples of free software, and some you have to pay for such as ‘Norton’s Security & Adobe Photoshop CS5’.

Software 'user friendly skit' taken from Google images

You can also use software to improve your computers hardware otherwise known as ‘device drivers’ these are very common within businesses/organisations/small companies, because whether it be web designing to photography editing there will be a device driver to enhance these!

Advantages of Software:

• Freeware is available
• Easy to handle
• User friendly
• Can be very beneficial to the user

Disadvantages:

• Malware can sometimes be accidentally downloaded with software
• It’s hard to edit software
• Needs to be regularly updated



Open Office logo



In my own experience I know a fair bit about software. I know trust worthy software as well as malicious software. Before we had Microsoft Office, we actually downloaded the free ware Open Office, this was basically the same as Microsoft Office, but didn’t have as much of the perks and wasn’t as neat, however it did the job, and I could save it to a file where I could open it up at school to work further more on it. Another example me of using software would be using iTunes, within this software I can keep all my music for free, however I also have the capability to purchase new music/books/videos on that software etc…

Without software, I can firmly say that we would struggle and we would definitely not have any device drivers to enhance our hardware, so it’s quite an interesting thought. And new software is been designed all the time, it’s hard for it to be contemporary.





Banking

Online Banking

One important perk of e – commerce is online banking, this has slowly been evolving to be something great. This basically means that you can access your bank as exactly how you would do it in person. You can do all the same things, and you can transfer money to other accounts and create branch accounts with step – to – step guides. However there are people who would argue ‘is it safe?’ in answer to this FAQ, I would say that a vast majority are very safe, yes you have all your details on there, but so does your high street branch… there’s no real difference apart from you can access your bank online. You can make it more secure by adding questions that only ‘you’ would know, a lot of people do this, yet loads don’t bother as they feel more trust for the online banking systems.

Egg logo

There is actually an online bank that is only accessible online… this online bank is called ‘Egg’. Egg banking PLC is a British internet bank owned by Citigroup, and was established in 1996, it was properly launched in 1998 and is now the largest online bank system. They specialize in savings, credit cards & general insurance. Although it used to offer loans and mortgages it now longer does not.

The key to online banking is simple, its trust, without these the  systems simply wouldn’t function as no one would want to use them, luckily for us security is always improving. Without security these banks wouldn’t exist...

Advantages of Online Banking:

• Having an online bank means you don’t have to travel to the high street
• Can check your statements whenever you wish
• Accessible 24/7 unlike high street banks
• You can save the actual business itself from printing costs as they can send you information direct to your e – mail or bank account itself

Disadvantages:

• Hackers are always trying to break into online banks
• Security checks can be off putting and can be time consuming
• As it is a fairly new thing not everyone really trusts it
• Unlike a high street bank you can ask away, with an online bank it’s very hard to seek help

I myself don't use online banking, why? I'm not the biggest fan of it, although I would trust the service, I prefer face - to - face communication, where as if I do get in a sticky situation I know that help is only down the road. However I can see why others would use online banking, especially those who don't have access to a local bank.