How far to go until privacy is worrying

When I go onto the Internet I give personal information away without even really noticing the consequences that could happen, until I recently learned about all the information the Internet had about me. I found out that google keeps all my searches, GMail contacts, and the information and blogs on my blogger account. Google goes so far as too keep how many emails and conversations you have also had with your GMail account.

 Now personally if this is kept private I don't really mind if they are just trying to target me for advertising, who knows maybe it will help me find something I like. But if my credit card information, address, telephone number are stored for long periods of time I do have a problem with that. I do online banking and I will keep doing it, because it is convenient and I will still buy things on the Internet and give my credit card information, but I will be a little more cautious.

I guess the conveniences out way the threat of privacy for me, but it made me think about how far I would go with giving my information out until I thought that I am not doing this they are keeping to much of my information. I was thinking about all the circumstances where a program can store my information for convenience to me like doctors records, so I never have to fill out one of those long forms again when I go to a new doctor, and I would be OK with that.

I started thinking about things I hate doing, and shopping for groceries came to mind. I thought how could they make it more convenient to me. A system that got an idea of how much I ate and what I ate came to mind. The system would record what I buy and how often I but it, and even give recommendation of food I should try, and once my food supply calculation was out, the system would automatically charge my credit or debit card and food would be shipped to my house.

I first thought that it was a great idea and I would totally do that, but then the consequences started coming to mind, like them taking advantage of the system and sending me to much food, or giving me brands that may not be in my best interest , but brands that paid the groceries store more money. My personal information would be in a huge data base that many eyes see, so they can tell the things I eat and when. The only sites that have that information about me now are banking sites, and they don't use it to look at trends, there is not much need for all eyes on those sites.

So I guess I would not put information out their for convenience if it had many eyes on it, with very personal information like credit card, phone number and address.







This image was obtained from:
http://www.salemcoop.com/onlinebanking.php



Privacy

Privacy is more important to some people than others. Some people don't mind their web history information shared to promote advertising, some people are very disturbed by it. Some people keep their profiles on Face Book, Twitter and other sites completely private, while some people will share everything with anyone who looks for them.

Privacy is a personal choice, and how far people are willing to put there selves out their to have conveniences like talking to people with a click of a mouse, or not going to the bank, just depositing money to accounts online can invade personal privacy.

I personally pay all my bills online and don't have much concern about it. I'm not sure why, as I think about it someone could hack into the system and take my credit card numbers that I have saved on the site (So I don't have to keep typing the credit card number). I don't have face book however because I just think their are too many creeps out their, looking for a new person to stalk everyday.

I think privacy is a huge concern but the Internet is so convenient to do mostly everything, its hard not to give out personal information. I don't think following web addresses is that bad. so what.... you might see a few ads that are related to you, no big deal. I just don't think information that includes addresses, financial information or personal information should be shown\

As this becomes a bigger issue I think laws and regulations will changes to protect us from scam artists just trying to find another easy way to make money.

This image was retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.markevanstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/big-brother-poster.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.markevanstech.com/2010/04/23/a-must-do-check-your-facebook-privacy-settings/&usg=__X63BqM9BOf7-9RNAoccEr73L89w=&h=1839&w=1254&sz=207&hl=en&start=16&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=MjKIUO-GjyXbwM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dimages%2Bof%2Bprivacy%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26tbs%3Disch:1

Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping is a tool that is used to organize thoughts. I had my first electronic mind mapping experience last week and I liked it. Its a nice way to organize thoughts in a neat presentable way.

I used bubbl.us for my mind mapping experience, and with further research I found a whole lot of mind mapping software that can be used for different purposes. Their is one just for business and one for floor plans and one for presentations, and so on.

I didn't try any of these programs because they did cost money, and figured I would have no use for them, the free software would be just fine for me. But in the future I might consider purchasing the software for my different needs in business.

Mind mapping takes thoughts and adds ideas onto those thoughts and connects things that maybe weren't so obviously connected in a different form. I have used mind mapping for one of my school papers to start developing ideas on my topic, and am preferring it much more to just looking at the computer screen and thinking what to type next.

I don't think mind mapping is for everyone, some people might need to find another way to organize their thoughts, but it is definitely an option that should be explored.

This image was retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mymindmap.net/images/Mind_Map_Template_Mulit_Rnd_small.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.collegedegree.com/library/college-life/99-mind-mapping&h=304&w=402&sz=31&tbnid=7Gaw4ojomMZNqM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dimages%2Bof%2Bmind%2Bmapping&zoom=1&q=images+of+mind+mapping&hl=en&usg=__gDQnHsjass-nH2jRqUf5mVPWevE=&sa=X&ei=ZOy9TJ_xCML7lwfAzvHpBw&ved=0CCIQ9QEwAw

Is technology just a fad?

Technology is increasing every day, and more people get hooked to new types of technology everyday. We have become a technology society where pretty much everything runs on some form of technology. Could you imagine if the Internet went out for a day, businesses would not be able to function, we would lose most of our communication to other countries, and I think we would not know what to do with our selves, we couldn't just look up an address at yellowpages.com , we would have to open a yellow page directory, and do people really even own those anymore?

An interesting question came up in my EMAC 2322 class. Professor Jones asked if technology is just a fad. If technology was just a fad that would mean that eventually people will stop using social networking sites like twitter and face book, and people will stop blogging.

I don't think technology is a fad at all, it is here to stay and its just getting better. The things that technology produces might fade like face book. Eventually another social networking site will appear that does things better than face book and eventually face book will be the new my space.

Social networking is something that technology developed and think that it will only develop into greater things. We as humans are very social and are looking for ways to interact with people. You don't even have to pick up the phone any more to interact with people. All you have to do is sign on to face book or twitter.  Now I don't necessarily agree with this way of socializing, but the times are changing and this how things are being done now.

According to The Huffington Post 96% of millennials have joined a social network, social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the web, 1 out of 8 couples married in US met via social media and the fastest growing segment on Face book is females 55 to 65 years old.

Social Networking is only getting bigger as technology grows, I talk to my family in South Africa a whole lot more now than when we first moved here, since Skype has made it so much easier and cheaper.

this image was retrieved from http://liamsmusings.blogspot.com/2009/02/do-it-people-not-know-fall-is-coming.html

Productivity

One of the most difficult things for people to do is manage their time and what they should do with it. Their is only so much time in a day and so much work you can do before you have to sleep or you burn out, the question is what to do and when. The things you do in your day and how important they are is your productivity.

Time management is very important to your productivity, if you watch TV or play video games for most of your day your productivity is low, but if  you manage your time to do work, and on your scheduled breaks you play video games your productivity is high. To manage your productivity while doing your school work and making sure you get the most out of your studying time or paper writing time you should write outlines or make mind maps. Their is a very handy mind mapping program on bubbl.us where you can map out your thoughts but on the computer. I actually prefer it this way, only because when I am thinking I tend to not worry about the neatness of my mind map, so when I'm done with it, I am not able to read it at all. This way I can organize my thoughts neatly and save it, so I don't have to worry about losing a piece of paper either.

According to powerhomebiz it is necessary to have set schedule for your day and follow it. The schedule can either be on audio, be visual or on an electronic device. It needs to be a realistic schedule with appropriate amounts of time for each task and making sure personal time is included, like a lunch break.

After learning about productivity I definitely need to improve on mine, and am going to start today by writing a schedule, and trying my very hardest to follow it.

the webs abundance of information

The Internet is useful in many ways, it has opened connections to people and information that may have never been possible without the web. With the abundance of information out their on the web, about anything you could possibly want to know about, with different opinions on any topic and just socializing in general I think that everyone knows to be careful on line, some information is more credited that other information.

The mind is an amazing and unique thing, and to be able to share it with people all over the word in an amazing thing. That's why I think that you should be able to publish what ever you want on the Internet, and it is the users responsibility to understand where the information is coming from and the point of view of the informant provided.

Wikipedia is an awesome example of where the web is now, we can update information as it happens. They have a biography of a person and that person dies the next day, the site can be updated immediately. The information is credible as some people like to argue that its not. People discuss what the information is and need to show credible sources for the information to stay up on the screen.




This image was obtained from http://www.health-care-reform.net/internet.htm



Inclusionism

According to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inclusionism inclusionism is the philosophy that information should be liberally added and retained on Wikipedia. Some people are against this theory and believe that useful information should be deleted.

I personally think that everything should be on Wikipedia, because for one reason who is someone to say if information is useful or not, as the saying goes someones junk could be someones treasure.  An article about ninjas I consider useless but someone else could need that information an consider it useful.

The great thing about the Internet is that it puts an abundance of information out their for everybody to see and its very easy to find, so why wouldn't we make wikipedia which is an online source have the same structure as the Internet. Anyone should be able to post a topic about anything as long as they have credible sources. I think that if an encyclopedia book could it would have information about all topics, but a book can only be so big.

Wikipedia is known for the abundance of information it provides and if people decided what was useful and deleted the articles they saw as unless Wikipedia would not be what it is today.

This image was obtained from en.wikipedia.org