The Future of Technology and You

Well, technology has changed a lot since and during my time and it will continue to change throughout history. Technology way back then was just some inventions that helps people live their daily lives like the first telephone for communications between people or first typewriter to write letters and other sort of things instead of using paper and pencil or ink. Some of the inventions of technology in my time were different versions of the iphones, ipads, tablets, and computers. People have made different versions because they are trying to make it more advanced and easier to use. As time rolls by, different software and chips came out and some were used in the development of different version of devices. A lot of people back then think that the first telephone or the first moving picture camera was so cool and think that it could not get better than that, well they are wrong, it DID get WAY better. The phones were becoming smarter and faster. The ipads and tablets were becoming lighter and more manageable. The computers were becoming faster, easier to use, new software added, and more memory storage and data. Some people think that as soon as different versions came out, the older versions are junk, but they are still great products that can be used in other ways. When I was growing up in Vietnam, my family and I did not have a computer of our own or phones like now in the United States. We had hand phones that have those wires that needs an outlet to plug it into for it to be able to work. Whenever my family would visit my uncle and aunt's house, we would see a computer for the first time, since back then who ever was able to afford a car or technology can buy one, but who ever can not afford it, can't buy anything fancy and expensive. I learned in all of my history classes, TVs were in black in white back then if your family was able to afford it, and it was the top thing then. Many people want to get their hands on it since it was the ¨big¨ thing like the smart phones for us. Before the first telephone was invented, nobody knew what a cell phone is or let alone a smartphone that we all know and love. Technology is changing by software and by price. Like I said before, technology back in my time was very expensive and hard to buy it and work it properly. Some computers and cameras cost more than renting rooms now in a hotel in the U.S. Now computers and cameras ranges from $50-$9000, depending on its software and features. Technology has made everyone's lives way better and it is still continue to be used to make new things. Cars in our time right now are limited to have GPS and back up cameras as some bonus features, but that will soon be changed and be mandatory for all cars. Many new features will be changed to additional features for some additional prices, but the GPSs and back up cameras will be mandatory soon. Some cars now have doors that open upward instead of outward, and that is technology that enables for those types of cars to do that. Right now, I use technology everyday in my daily life, for home and for school, people should be grateful for whatever type of technology they have even if it is the first telephone or a typewriter. Those inventions got us started to create new ones and because of all those smart inventors back then, we were able to get the idea to create more and better technology for future generations.

Cyber Bullying Advice

Dear Cyber bullied Victims,

I have learned so much about cyber bullying and how it can ruin someone's life within days. This letter is mainly for those people who has experienced or has been a victim of cyber bullying. You need to know this and understand that I have your back and everyone else around you and the world has your back. You are not alone, many people has been a victim to cyber bullying. Cyber bullies has the advantages of the technology of today, but you have the power of the people around you and the bullies just have themselves and their technology. Usually bullies bully other people either because they are jealous for some reason or it just makes them feel good and better when seeing others suffer. That is not right! Bullies should be normal people and just be themselves and interact with people instead of making fun of others online via, social medias such as emails, texts, Facebook, twitter, etc. These social medias sites are like ''gaming rooms'' for the bullies to ''play and have fun in'' type of room. These sites have various tools and opportunities for the bullies to use and take advantage of. Some way to try to avoid being cyber bullied on social media is to not accept any friend requests or any requests that you are unfamiliar with and be smart about who you talk to and hang out. Usually cyber bullies could most likely be your friend. That may sound wrong, but some results shows that it could likely be your friend and even in some cases, your best friend or it could be a total stranger. Those cyber bullies will tend and most likely use fake identities to remain incognito and anonymous. They do this because they think that if they use a different name than their own, they won't get caught. Well, that's where they are wrong! People can still track their computer's IP address and other information that they can't hide by just using a different name. They can never REALLY hide themselves from anyone, sooner or later they will be discovered. Most teens out there are willing to take a stand for this type of abuse, because it can really take a toll on someone's life and the emotions of those people around them. You have the power to ignore the cyber bully by blocking them and saving the evidence such as the messages and files for further search of who it might be. You can also take time off of the computer and just ignore it for a while. Talk to an adult or someone you trust about the issue because most definitely, they will help you or find someone who can help you. Don't shut yourself out and be open so that people will know and give you a hand in the matter. Be brave and have courage in yourself that you can beat the bully without any violence to yourself or to anyone. Those bullies have nothing that you want and again all they want is to make themselves feel better by seeing others suffer. Have faith in those that are trying to help you and again be open to them, tell them about it and not let it build up inside until it creates a storm that can't be stopped. Be confident, and stand up for what is right!

Your friend/supporter,

Tram

Copyright, Fair Use, Piracy, and Multimedia Products

This week I learned about copyright, fair use, piracy, and how to use multimedia products. When creating multimedia products like making blogs and doing a project for school, make sure that you use a lot of sources to back up your information so people can see where you got it from. Also make sure that you use all the available software to make your blog or project a success and make it more engaging for the people that is viewing it. Using software like the Word Doc, Presentations, and Spreadsheet etc. are some of the most useful and most used software that anyone can use easily. If you plan on using a copyrighted item for a school project of news reporting then it is totally legal to do so with Fair Use. Fair Use is legal for anyone who is using a copyrighted item for purposes such as for Education, News Reporting, Parody, and/or Critical Commentary. Your part of the deal is to cite the sources of where you got it from. Piracy or in other words, posting or showing an item that has a copyright on it free for download with no Fair Use purposes, even though you bought. This act can be committed easily by anyone with just one mistake, everyone in the world can get their hands on it. Using the internet, its sources, and people's works can be tricky and hard to maneuver through, but with some time anyone can get use to citing sources and giving rightful credit to those people all around the world for their work.

Check out my video about:

My Thoughts on Piracy, Copyright, and Fair Use

Check out this video for more detail about fair use in a fun way!

Video about Fair Use (Animated)

How To Cite Sources And Avoid Plagiarism

This week I learned about how to cite and give credit to those websites and articles that we used in our research, paper, or project. Whenever you use someone's work or words from the internet or a book, you must give them the credit because that is not your words and it is not your work. You can always paraphrasing a quote or phrase from a book or site, but even though it's in your words, you still have to give the credit to those people because it is still there work that you are using even though it is your own words. If you do not give credit to those people, this is considered stealing. It is also called Plagiarism. This is a serious crime that anyone can commit. Just as stealing an item from a store or something, Plagiarism is also the same, it is just stealing words instead of items from a store. Some people around the world had been caught for plagiarizing. To avoid plagiarizing, you should first cite everything that you have used as a source for either a work for school or anything that requires research. You do not have to cite something that you know from your own common knowledge because that's already your words right there! Always put other people's words in your own words or if you are citing a quote be sure to stated what source you got it from and then put the quote that you got in quotation marks to indicate that it's the source's words and not yours. Try not to use Wikipedia because that website has many false information and anyone in the word can edit it which makes it more untrustworthy. When citing something make sure to use your school's rules of citation, some schools have different ways to cite their sources from other schools. I have to site my sources in MLA format and I use a website called easybib.com to help me cite my sources. When you go on the internet to research you will notice some websites that have different domains such as .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .net etc. some of these domains are credible such as .edu, and .gov but some of them you need to look at it more closely to see if it is credible such as .com, .org, and .net. Some things you need to look for is the date of when it was last updated and the author's or creator of the site's background information to see if he or she is an expert or a pro at what they are saying. If the date is like way past 8-12 months ago, it might not be as credible as it seems. you have to check the author's background information because they might be saying something about themselves that has nothing to do with what the article or anything on their site. Then it might not be a very good article to use as research. There are some other things you have to look out for like spelling and grammar errors, so just be careful when you are choosing your sources.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

http://www.ivcc.edu/stylebooks/stylebook6.aspx?id=14724

Viruses, ID Thefts, and Passwords

Viruses, ID theft, and the importance using strong passwords and protecting your computer from viruses are some of the most important details to know about the internet and your computer. Viruses includes Adware, Malware, Spyware, and other types of viruses, worms, and bots. Viruses can cause harm to you computer in many ways and more to come ways as technology increases. It can harm your computer by making it crash often, the hackers or person that placed that virus on your computer can steal your pictures, videos, or other personal files, or it can infect other devices as the infected device is connected to other unharmed devices if the virus is a spreading virus. Viruses are nasty things, that I think are literally stocker programs to stock on people when they don't even know it or notice it.

Viruses brings many problems that are either cheap to fix to try to fish it out or it can be costly if left unaided for a long time. One main problem that it can cause is Identity theft. Identity theft is literally what it says and it mean that people who steals people's identities usually would steal them to pretend to be that person to use their personal information like credit card and social security number for their own use.

You can protect your computer from viruses, worms, bots and other dangerous softwares by installing a program that protects your computer from viruses, worms , and bots. You can also protect your computer by making sure to check the URL of the websites you visit to see if it is secure or not. Some symbols on the URL that tells you that it is secure are padlocks and https websites not http. Padlocks symbols usually mean that it will be asking for personal information and these locks are usually seen in bank websites and other store websites such as ebay and amazon. Https websites means that it has secure sockets layer (SSL) meaning that it is a secure site to go on. Protecting your devices can be costly, but it can be safe for you because it can protect your private files without you having to worry about them.

Social medias, email websites, bank websites, etc are some of the most vulnerable sites that hackers can hack into. The importance of using strong passwords is that it can help to protect your privacy better. When creating a password for your accounts on social medias, bank, emails, and other accounts, it's important to know how to make a STRONG password for these accounts. For example, you can have the first letters of a favorite quote or phrase instead of a single word password. You can also add special characters to your passwords so it would be hard to guess by those hackers. Never respond or click on links on suspicious or scam emails cause those hackers can be pretending to be the ''trusted'' company just to get a hold of your account usernames and passwords. Always change your passwords frequently and don't have the same password for everything. By using these steps and other secure steps, your computer can be safe and your info protected with a frequently changed password that no one can guess but you!

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/texting-while-driving

Wireless Communications and Viral posts

People in this fast changing world rely on wireless communication for just about anything. Adults even children at the age of 7 or 6 has a wireless device or many from cell phones, to Ipads, tablets, even their own personal computers and laptops!

While communicating online is cool and all, it still would a dangerous zone to be in. It can be dangerous for young people and adults because it can be accessed by people you do not even know or it can be someone that is talking to you on a social network that you know of or might not know of; what if they are not the person you know, what if they are some maniac person trying to get you to do something???? Things can take a wrong turn easily in wireless communication. This world has many people that do just that, from stockers to hackers.

Some ways that you can be safe around situations like this is to tell a parent or guardian something that you saw while either texting or chatting on social networks that might be inappropriate. It could be from your friend or it could be from a total complete stranger, but parents and guardians in this case, can look into the matter more than you can. They can help you resolve this problem or they can just find someone who can. Another way to be safe with communicating wirelessly, is to talk to someone you know or even question them if you are not sure or in doubt who that person is. Think of questions that only the person you do know face to face that knows that answer more than anyone else can. Another idea is that to just not talk to the person at all if you're in doubt.

Now, many other things other than wireless communication can be dangerous, like videos, photos, texts, and other posts on social media or any website going viral. Sometimes videos or photos etc that go viral might be a good thing, but sometimes these things can actually cause harm to someone either physically or mentally or maybe even sometimes both. They can be a good thing because take YouTube for example, people all around the world are posting millions of videos every day more than 2 days or 48 hours worth of videos comes in every minute! These videos sometimes have the main goal: to go viral or become the most popular, watched videos. Out of all these videos that are posted every day, only a tiny percentage of videos ever go viral. Viral videos/photos become viral by mostly online sharing to other people. This is why it's a good thing because the people that posted those viral videos will soon maybe become a star and a sensation to the world because of the viral videos that they made. So the point is that it's easy to post videos, but it's hard for them to become viral.

Viral videos or pics etc can also be a bad thing, because sometimes those videos or photos are inappropriate for young viewers and it can hurt the person in the photo/video or it can hurt the person seeing the photo/video. It can also make other people or maybe even their friends and families think about them in a more different way than they used to. So in the end, viral videos/photos etc can lead to a good future or bad consequences.

Facts about wireless communications: http://www.epiccoolthings.com/a-few-facts-about-wireless-communication/

Future Computers and Cloud Computing

Computers are machines that helps a person learn and help their work become faster and easier to do. Cloud computing is an infinite amount of storage that one can use to their needs. They can choose to use it to store their work, school, or even personal files one their cloud server. When people need their files to be transferred from their cloud to their personal computer, they can just sync it into their computer. Just think that computers and cloud computing are friends and everyone knows that all people are different and similar in their own way.

They are similar because they work together to let you do your work and it is easier and faster by using the computer to do it and storing it in the cloud by using cloud computing. They are both stress free because you do not have to worry about all of those papers flying around and being unorganized, the computer can organize anything and you can store it in the cloud server by using cloud computing. Their differences are, first of all, a computer is something that both work and stores some information because it has a limited amount of storage and clouding computing is just a series of gigantic storage servers that stores infinite amount of information than anything else in the world. Secondly, cloud computing is a worry free technology because it takes all of your worries about running out of storage. Lastly, cloud computing can be dangerous because you're giving your information to a third party and that might put your files at a great risk, so before choosing a cloud server to put your information in, make sure that it has the best security and that it can keep your files safe and secure.

Things change over time, believe it or not. People change by age and height. Nature and weather changes everyday. While everything else in the world are changing, computers and other technology are changing as well. Also as time is moving forward, computers are becoming part of everyone's lives. Other models are beginning to advance while time goes on, others are beginning to grow old as time grows old. Maybe in 5 years computers might improve a little, but the technology might not change that much. Computers now will look totally different in 15 years. They might have more technology and ideas that allow computer engineers to design the computers to be thinner or faster etc. Everything about computers might be different, from the inside and out. I think that computers might look somewhat like holographic screens that you can touch and type on just like you would do on a computer, its just going to be a device free technology. I also think that technology can advance so much that soon computers will be in everyone's houses and it will probably be cheaper (I hope it is). We might even soon stop using paper and pencil and rely on computers for everything.

The main idea is that both work together to serve the world and its future generations and it is constantly changing to benefit the world as it is in as time goes forward.

Check this link out about a device that projects a portable keyboard for anything!: http://t-future.com/magic-cube-virtual-laser-keyboard/