Blog #7 - A Night of Computing

In some ways, it is easier to list every activity I do that does not involve computerization than to list all that does. Given my work, my entertainment, and my health, almost every action I take involves it.

We will say my night begins with dinner. Given that I am a type I diabetic, I need to check my blood sugar on a computerized meter, which then sends commands to my insulin pump which is attached to me as to how much insulin I should take for blood sugar. I then interact with the pump directly, to add more for the meal I am eating. I am only warming up pizza, and my microwave has various settings to make that pizza come out as good as possible, with different focuses and temperatures.

When my "meal" is ready, I sit down in my living room and turn on an episode of Supernatural from my home media server, which streams to my television/monitor. I am partway through the episode already, and my video software automatically restarts it from the time it was at when I closed it. While the show is on in the background, I read and write on my laptop, and do so for several hours.

Eventually it becomes time to take some of my night medicines for my various maladies, and I am reminded of it via a popup window from Google Calendar as well as a notification on my Droid phone. After taking them, I get ready for bed, setting up my phone to start playing music at 7:30am for an alarm. With that, I start a movie to listen to in the background as I go to bed, set the laptop to power down after the movie is complete, and go to sleep.

Practicum 7 - Brandy Cummings

Wow, I cannot believe the semester is about over! Because of this practicum project I now know what a Social MOO is. I find it pretty crazy that a person can create a text based virtual world. I wonder how much time it takes to create one. That would suck if you spend months or even years trying to create a text based virtual world only to find out it is not that popular. BatMUD originated in 1990. It has been around for almost 21 years and this is the first time I have ever heard of it. It is said to be one of the most popular MUDs out there, but sometimes I wonder how popular it really is. I have heard of LamdaMoo before and that MOO is definitely known to a lot of people. I find it hard to believe that relationships can be formed through these text based virtual worlds. However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, friendships have been formed and some even got married. This goes to show that BatMAD really is an online community.

I consider BatMUD to be an online community for many reasons. First, it is a space where users gather who have the same interest: they all love quest games. As we already know, BatMUD is a quest game. Second, users engage in conversation with each other. BatMUD has a 'newbie channel' where newbies can ask questions and receive advice from experienced users. Sadly, the experienced users were no help unless you actually knew how to play the game. Third, you can create avatars. In a virtual world, avatars do activities together just like friends do in the real world. The avatars in BatMUD help each other out. As a result, I feel that virtual worlds, such as BatMUD, provide an ideal medium for friendships to be formed. In addition, they give users a feeling of membership and belonging because users receive support from each other.

Overall, I enjoyed playing BatMUD even though it is super confusing and hard to get the hang of. Luckily, there was a tutorial I was able to take and that helped me out quite a bit. Once I understood how to type in text commands, experienced users opened up to me and started to help me out. In fact, they guided me through the beginning levels. All in all, I thought it was a good experience and it really showed me that BatMUD was truly an online community even though it was entirely text based.

Practicum #7 - Jeff

I tried to get EndWar working again, but I was having the same server issues as before. Apparently it's been a big problem ever since the game came out. I'm a little disappointed because it looked like there was going be an an interesting multiplayer mode. Supposedly you choose to play as the United States, Europe, or Russia and fight for control over specific territories. There was also a bonus for new players if they decided to play for whatever the losing faction was when they signed up. I heard the multiplayer experience was similar to single player in that as players earned more points, they could spend it on upgrades for their units, but if their units were killed on the battlefield they would have to start over. The game is also played mostly through voice commands. I remember one time earlier this semester one of my friends was playing in an online match and I shouted into his microphone "WMD Alpha," which apparently was the command to nuke his own army.

In the time I wasn't playing EndWar I decided I had time to check out Hulu Plus on LIVE, and I have to say I'm not impressed. Months ago when Microsoft announced that it was increasing the subscription fee for Xbox LIVE, one of the ways it justified the hike was by citing the addition of Hulu Plus, implying that the LIVE subscription would cover the cost of Hulu. It was revealed later that users would have to have a Hulu Plus subscription to use the feature.

Xbox LIVE users are able to try Hulu Plus on the Xbox through Friday, which is how I am able to try it without a subscription. After logging into Hulu, downloading the Hulu Plus application for the Xbox, and linking my Xbox with my Hulu account, I tried to watch one of my favorite TV shows on Hulu, Archer. I was severely disappointed when I learned that Archer is only available to PC users! So when it comes to one of my favorite shows I either have the choice of watching it for free on my computer or paying not to be able to watch it on my Xbox. Obvious choice.

Playing around on the Xbox LIVE platform was a blast this semester. The assignment gave me a chance to try out a few games I have never played before and probably wouldn't have checked out otherwise. I'm also glad I discovered some of the lesser known features of LIVE, like the indie games section. I'll continue subscribing to LIVE, and am will look forward to future improvements to the service.

Practicum#5- Yen

Looking back into DailyStrength, they also have some new features on their site. Similar to supportgroups.com, they added a Top Huggers chart to show the users who gave the most hugs to other members of the site. In compare to supportgroups.com, here they don’t have a hierarchy of belts to achieve to demonstrate their trustworthiness and experiences in supporting others. From my observation on both sites, I think that having the hierarchy system is actually better. In DailyStrength, I found that there is a user who gives hugs to random people every day which gives me a sense of him having motives in doing this. He appears in most of the updates in the site about his hugs to everyone. This user ranked top in the Top Huggers chart but he is not known for being supportive. He has been a member of the site for more than 2 years and has over 2700 friends in the site. Instead of giving constructive comments to users, he adds plenty of users to his friends list and gives hug to whoever added him. Thinking back to the question of giving support truthfully to others, I started to doubt about the function of the Top charts here. It may at some point encourage people to engage more in the site but it doesn’t seem to provide adequate and real support to people like in supportgroups.com. In order to achieve the status of being a top hugger, they usually need to give hundreds of hugs to others in a day. I wonder why these users are willing to spend so much time devoting in this site and doing the same act to different people. However, it is interesting to see that it is reciprocity that they in turn receive a lot of hugs back within a day which perhaps give an answer to my question. It is like the more the user contributes, the more support and liking the user earns.

When considering about the supporting aspects, it seems like DailyStrength users don’t have a nice platform to provide support to each other as what supportgroups.com does. Even though they still have a discussion board for their specific support groups, users seem to be less interactive and have less trust or dependence on others. The number of comments and response they get is apparently and greatly depended on the questions they post. Those who asked simple questions about the topic don’t seem to get much reply at all from other users. Some even get zero comments even though they are asking really relevant questions. It is interesting to look into the trust development in this site and the users’ preferences in making comments.

Practicum Post # 7 - Kristen

During discussion today, we discussed the differences between parodies and appropriation. This brought to my attention another way that I use Youtube that I had not mentioned before. One of my favorite types of music to listen to are mashups. My all time favorite group is called "Norwegian Recycling" and you can find one of their top hits at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JKKl95Ttrc. It combines Jason Mraz, Howie Day, Five for Fighting, Angela Ammons, Boyzone and 3 Doors Down. They have tons of other mixes that are awesome to listen to! These mixes are not available on iTunes so in order to purchase them, you have to do so in alternative ways - and these songs are comprised of sections of other people's songs. Although it is easily distinguishable as the original artist's work, the inability to get the mashups encourage people to get them illegally. While some mashups may be considered legal under the copyright acts, how people gain access to them is in many cases not legal.

I was not able to think of another website that could come close to Youtube when it comes to displaying original content (aside from text). It is the premium outlet for people to create original content, to alter original content or leave comments on original content.

On a separate note relating to how Youtube is connected to many other types of media, today I received an email from them saying that one of the groups I subscribed to had posted a new video. I thought this was a very beneficial thing for them to do because many people do not check their Youtube accounts everyday, but almost everyone checks their email account everyday. This helps ensure that people are being notified about updates and that they receive them.

In order to sign up for Youtube you have to enter an email address, which they say has to be a google one. I tried it with my school address and it worked, but I was very close to registering for a google email account because I assumed it was required. This in itself helps capitalize on their corporation. Because the two are linked, they have the ability to encourage people to use both by integrating both under each site's service. What I mean by this is: Youtube expects you to sign up using your "google email address" and if you are searching for a video on google, all the videos are from youtube. The merge between the two companies has made them even more of a powerhouse in the media and internet world.

Farrell-Practicum 7

Hey guys!

I finished my website today!!! Take a look:

https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/etfarrell/web/farrell/Farrell/index.html

After 1 Dreamweaver class and 3 appointments with a technical trainer, it all came together!! I'm excited and relieved I must admit. This was hard!!

Today during my last appointment, I really felt like i knew what i was doing and the trainer was simply there to tell me how to save. It felt good because believe me, this program is hard work!

I feel because this is my last practicum post, I wanted to reflect a bit on my experience with Dreamweaver.

First off, i was terrified of this program going into the project. I knew I wanted to learn Dreamweaver, but i didn't realize the amount of work and dedication it takes in creating a full blown website. It took weeks of research and hours in the lab to finally get it all together. This project was difficult to work on because the program is not available in every computer lab or library. I had to schedule time to make for this project.

Second, I realized that in order to gain visibility, just like a movie, you have to talk it up. I was telling all of my friends about my website and what I called it. They all laughed and i knew i sparked interest in them. They eventually looked at it :). Just like a preview to a movie, i had to make a preview for my website.

Third, when designing a website, you really need to know what you want to do with your site. Do you want to have a blog? Do you want it to be interactive? Is the goal for your own personal use or others? How many pages? What links? You have to ask yourself a million questions before even hitting the computer lab.

Fourth, its really helpful in Dreamweaver to know the codes. For example, today i needed to get all of my background colors the same purple. I could not remember which purple i chose, so I went to the "split view" and found the code for the right purple and put that code into each page. Done and done! Also, once you've grasped codes, making a website is much easier and faster (I'm not quite there yet :)).

Fifth, even though I still feel like I need the support of a trainer when working on this, I don't feel as much of a rookie anymore, especially today. The trainer was able to sit back and do his own homework while i buzzed through the rest of my site. I only needed him for a few minor tweeks (like when linking, always put it to "blank" so when you click the link it goes to a separate page).

Finally, I learned that technology, as hard as it is, is now something that is crucial to learn, especially with today's generation. More and more jobs are implementing more and more technology. Just to have some background is super beneficial. Yes, learning a new program or device is quite intimidating at first, but the feeling of "getting it" is pretty cool i must say. I know so many new terms now like Div Tag (space where you can put texts and pictures), CSS (this is your styling guide), ID, Link, Html, and so many others. This project in all was very rewarding and as hard as it was, I'm happy with the results!

Jenny - Practicum Post Seven

With my final practicum post I would like to wrap up by reflecting upon the three social networks that I have been using all semester and what I have learned from each of them.

LinkedIn: Throughout the semester I have managed to grow my number of connections by 10, get one recommendation, and go into greater detail with my job descriptions and skills sections. I have also received messages from two different companies wondering what my plans for after graduation are. I think LinkedIn has the potential to become a major asset when college graduates are searching for jobs. I know personally, LinkedIn has allowed me to expand my professional network, giving me the capability to keep up with various people I have met on a professional level during my time here at UW. I am a member of the student organization Association for Women in Communications. Twice a month we have speakers come from PR & Ad agencies in the greater Madison area. I have added every single speaker we have had to my LinkedIn, and it has been a great way to stay in touch with those speakers. One of the speakers even offered to look over my resume after adding her on LinkedIn. Unlike another social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn has allowed me to network without having my privacy invaded too much.

Bebo: In my presentation earlier this semester I stated that Bebo was my least favorite of the three social networks that I chose to use during my practicum. While Bebo has slowly grown on me over the months, I still have to say it is my least favorite. In Bebo's defense, not very many of my real friends use the social network so I couldn't add people I knew really. I didn't find Bebo very easy to use. I like the fact that you can add applications on Bebo and use them, but I feel that those applications make the social network more of a form of entertainment than a tool to connect with your friends. The layout of Bebo reminds me a lot of MySpace, looking a little outdated.

Last.fm: When I first started using Last.fm I didn't understand how it differed at all from Pandora. After using it for a couple months, I would describe LastFM as Pandora on Steroids. When you create a radio station on Last.fm you are able to explore various new artists in the genre you specify based on what Last.fm suggests for you which is similar to the way Pandora operates. Unlike Pandora, you have the option to explore the various new artists in greater depths on Last.fm. You can do this by clicking on the artist's bio page, researching upcoming concerts, and looking at what other Last.fm users have to say about an artists or band. Overall, Last.fm has outranked Pandora in my book now!

In conclusion, I am happy that I was able to explore these three social networks for this Practicum, and it opened my eyes to what is out there beyond Facebook!