Leaning with Intent

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

The problem with working in an office is that you might not always be busy. And when a worker is not busy, he might be tempted to start looking for something to do, like surfing the Web, or writing emails. There are many people who just surf the Internet for fun during work, or use their email for other purposes then strictly work. According to the study conducted by AMA (American Management Association) among three hundred companies US companies more than a quarter of employees were fired because of misusing email, and every third worker has been let go for not using the Internet properly at work. Whereas accessing pornographic sites during working hours was the main reason for being fired for misusing the Internet, simply surfing the Web was the reason one third of the employees lost their employment. Office workers are also being downsized for the misuses of emails, mostly because of the inappropriate language used in correspondence. Twenty five percent of bosses said that they fired their staff because of excessive personal use of email.

I think that it is quite apparent that a worker should not access pornographic websites, or other sites considered to be offensive. When it comes to emails avoiding using vulgar language is another thing that employees should remember about. Workers should also realize that in order to have everything under control many companies monitor their Internet connections, and as a matter of fact, it has been said that 66% of companies monitor their Internet connections. In many cases companies do not even have to notify employees that their activity at the computer is monitored. Every employee should remember that and try to represent their company in the best way possible. Employees should also try to use their time effectively because they are usually paid on a per hour basis. Of course, employees also deserve privacy to some degree, so monitoring Internet connections may not be the best way to motivate employees to work more efficiently.

We often like to read news in order to stay informed about the most important events. Generally, we simply want to know what is going on in the world. Where are many ways we can have access to news, such as through a newspaper, magazine, TV, or even the Internet. Actually, reading news on the Internet is very popular these days. Not only you can read news online, but you can personalize it, so that you will stay informed about the things you really care about. To get started visit news.google.com and click “Personalize this page”. You can delete sections, increase or decrease the number of stories shown in each section, or even add different categories. This is a great way to read news, as you will feel that the news site is really optimized for you to have the best experience.

Malware is a term commonly used for malicious software. It is a software that you do not download intentionally, but your computer gets infected by it while opening various Internet websites. You can also unintentionally download malware while downloading programs, such as shareware. Shareware is a type of software that you are allowed to try out before you buy it, or a software that is completely free to use.

Keep in mind that the creators of this type of self attaching malicious software are very cunning and smart. They are doing everything for your PC not to detect it, even if it is installed on your computer.
One of the newest types of malware is so-called root kit. These root kits install themselves on your hard drive, and run secretly underneath the computer’s operating system which makes them very hard to detect. Currently, security companies around the world are trying to create a software that will counterattack root kits, but it is not such an easy task. One advice that I can give you is to keep your eyes open on everything that is going on with your computer. If you notice something suspicious about your PC, immediately check it out. Only download software from reputable sources where ideally some people confirmed that the files are not infected. Remember to also keep your eye on the newest ways to prevent your PC from being infected by malware. Try to protect yourself the best possible way.

Internet music piracy is a big issue that affects many people and companies, especially music studios. They might be comforted to know that there are many convictions related to piracy. For example, some time ago there was a five year prison sentence for Barry Gitarts who was responsible for a computer server which hosted hundreds of thousands of music and video files. The consequences for his illegal activities were very big and this conviction might remind people of that. Currently there are ongoing federal investigations into organized piracy groups who distribute such files, so in the future we might hear about more piracy groups getting convicted.

Benefiting from various technological advancements can give a lot of satisfaction. However, what we need to remember is that being obsessed with some aspects of technology is not always good. I am talking about excessive email checking. It is quite possible that in the future there will be meetings of people called “email checkers anonymous”. Let us discuss our this topic for a while. First of all, there are people who are addicted to checking email so often that it ruins their personal life and well-being. Very often the problem is that instead of spending quality time with their family, people often work too much. However, in case of excessively checking emails, you are not even going to get paid by anybody. One might say that it does not take that much time to read emails. However, you have to remember, that checking email is often associated with not only reading the message, but also responding or taking other actions. There is also no point checking email if you know that it might contain a message about some potentials problems at work, which you cannot solve until next Monday anyway. If you are tempted to check your email too often, talk to somebody about it. Ask this person to help you in some way.

If you use your computer a lot, and are smart enough to back up your important data from time to time, then you know that external hard drives are very useful. Floppy discs or even CDs do not contain enough storage space to back up everything. These days we gather so much information on our computers that so few megabytes of storage are no longer sufficient. I predict that in the future there will be an even bigger and bigger need for external hard drives. Looking at the progress that happened within the last few years, I see that computers usually store a lot more data than they did ever before. A lot of people store on their hard drives various files such as DVD quality movies, avi files, mp3 files, games, and many different programs. Some of the programs require a few gigabytes of data. I think it is safe to presume that we will be needing more and more external hard drives in the years to come. What do you think will be the average size of a hard drive in 10 or 20 years? Anyway, remember to back up any documents and programs that you have stored on your computer.

It seems that there is a very large group of Internet users who are downloading music without paying for it. They are not only downloading a few mp3 files, but around half of them are claiming that they are actually copying whole hard drives full of music. On average, it is reported that people download approximately 50 tracks without paying for them. Is there any way to force people to pay for music? It is hard to say, but I am quite sure that the best way to do it is to offer the consumers what they want. Why not give them access to the whole library of music for, let us say, 10 dollars per month, or allow them to download 50 tracks per month for some reasonable fee? There are many ways to do so. In the United States the legal system becomes more hostile against those who download music that is copyrighted. In fact, it becomes more and more difficult for people in the US to download any music at all, as they might be afraid of the consequences. If this is the case, they are left with the option of purchasing music, which they might not be able to afford. Why not offer them a more reasonable price? Why not sell music at a lower price? This solution that would allow people to buy more CDs at a reasonable price and would probably reduce music piracy.

With such a big choice of cell phones on the market, it is a very difficult task to choose the most suitable one for you. The type of cell phone you need depends on what you require from it. If you just buy it to make calls and send an SMS occasionally, it means you are not very demanding. In such a case a basic version of a mobile phone will be sufficient for you. On the other hand, if you plan on listening to a radio station on your phone or connecting to the Internet, you can expect that the price you will have to pay will be a lot higher. This does not mean however that the choice of phones will be smaller when your requirements grow. On the contrary, stores offer us such a wide choice like it was never seen before. So, have fun while picking up the perfect cell phone for you.

It is also important to be able to find a good deal on a cellphone. In order to buy an inexpensive cell phone you may want to visit coupon websites, or visit online auction sites like eBay. If you do so you might be able to save a lot of money.

All of us value our privacy, but the Internet made it rather difficult to hide confidential information. Did you know that based on your browser history it is possible to estimate your gender? That is because each website you visit has a specific male-female ratio, thus knowing that ratio and the browsing history, you can say with high probability what gender an Internet surfer is. You can check if the script will guess what your gender you are by visiting this link:

http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-estimate-gender/

This is a very fun script, but keep in mind that the results will be the most accurate if you do not share your computer with anyone. I also recommend accessing the script with Firefox, unless you are really patient.

Would you like to hear some email tips? You have probably seen BCC before many times, and were wondering what this abbreviation stands for. By using BCC, you can send your email to many people without them knowing who the other recipients are. Whereas CC stands for Carbon Copy, BCC is a abbreviation for Blind Carbon Copy. As using CC enables other people to see who else received a message, there are many advantages of using BCC over CC:

Overall, Blind Carbon Copy ensures privacy of your recipients, so in many situations this will be the biggest advantage of using it.