Olivia Gumienny's Blog

CTRL C -RIGHT?

guol09go — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:07:37 +0000

Copyright Law doesn’t need to keep getting ‘updated’ because of new technological advancements. What I think really needs to happen, is a comprehensive re-evaluation of copyright laws to make sense for today’s technologies!!

I was in a lecture Friday; a question posed to the lecturer made me actually realize how much of the copyright doesn’t fit in well with today’s media.
Apparently, it is against copyright law to take a photo of specific buildings in Sweden and put them on the internet. Okay, I understand that just like in Thailand it is illegal to take photos of government buildings however, these aren’t government patrolled like they are in Thailand.

I’m an international student; I’m traveling with my partner and seeing the world. I take a photo of myself in front of a really nice building in Sweden. When I get back home, I dump all my images on Facebook, to share my experience and show my friends and family back home what I’m up to.
Firstly, under copyright law I’m not allowed to upload those images onto the internet because these buildings are copyrighted, but get this ladies and gentle men … I am allowed to; IN GERMANY.

How does that work, anyone can access (if they want to) my images (unless the governments censored your internet to THAT extreme).
Can I go to Germany after I’ve taken the photos and upload them there and it’s all okay?
I know the building is copyrighted but, I’m not about to make a replica of it in my backyard and get tourists to come see it.
Secondly, as soon as my photos are uploaded on my Facebook, they automatically own the copyright to my images. Who owns my images then?

“For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook …”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S STILL MORE!!

“When you publish content or information using the “everyone” setting, it means that everyone, including people off of Facebook, will have access to that information and we may not have control over what they do with it.”

You know, I guess you can always just reference and make sure you have correct sources for everything.
But, are you sure you’ve got the correct source?

WEB 2 POINT KNOW IT ALL

guol09go — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:23:22 +0000

Who has googled their name?
What came up?
You might be wondering, how the hell did my facebook profile come up on a google search?!
Well my dearest, you’re not the only one!
All the information you put in your profile on Facebook or MySpace for instance is being pumped into Google. “Information from blogs, podcasts, videos, online newsletters, online media releases, RSS feeds, del.icio.us links, tags, IM accounts etc is being pumped onto the Internet daily- and is being vetted by the search engine robots.” (PR Influences 2008).
I remember a time I changed my MySpace profile, adding new interests and what not, to make myself sound cooler, you know how it is.

Later I was seeing adds related to my interests popping up in the little ‘advertisements’ boxes. I didn’t know how MySpace could be so fitting to my interests. I now realize its marketers getting the better of me – using my ‘interests’ to interest me in their products. To put it simply, companies are cashing in on your web 2.0 experience.

Web 2.0 Websites

I really think it’s time I should mention what web 2.0 is briefly about. From what I got from my own research on web 2.0 and O’Reilly’s article is that – Web 2.0 is an upgraded and interactive web service which is highly end user based and user friendly.

Basically, it’s like web 1.0 but, better.

Web 2.0 revolves around words such as: blogging, RSS, feeds, rich internet applications like flash and incorporating ‘ajax’ into web 2.0 sites like Flicker, YouTube and Google maps, inevitably making the internet experience easier for the user – with less lag time!

Online communities, YouTube, flicker, Vimeo, lastfm and blogger.com have given users a creative way to communicate. Tagging your friends face in a photo onFacebook or uploading a short film on Vimeo – the web isno longer static.

Web 2.0 is empowering us all – even the people cashing in on your Facebook time.
You no longer need to sit down at your PC and browse Web 2.0 type websites. Many web 2.0 websites are now seeing a major trend in people using their mobile phones to access the internet.
Therefore, web 2.0 sites are now offering mobile friendly versions.
Web 2.0 is only the beginning to an interactive website experience, and we still have web 3.0 to look forward to.

Let us Google to our hearts, are you feeling lucky?

Triumph of the Nerds: By Robert X

guol09go — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:58:39 +0000

First things first, females can be just as interested in technology as the documentary portrayed males to be.
Computers, coding and technology are not only for the coke addicted, computer enthused and body odour smelling computer geeks.
They’re for the other gender too, you know – those ‘girls’ that these nerds find too confusing so they just code.
I’m a computer enthusiast; I was since I can remember. It was cool watching a movie about how my interest came about. They’re the reason I’m typing on my PC right now!
On another note, this documentary opened my eyes to how Microsoft and Apple both really came about.
These people based their lives on programming and problem solving. It’s surprising how fast the word spread of this new ‘personal computer’ and how many people believed in the product.
To get funded for the Apple II when looking like a hippy is really something!
In the end I felt sorry for Ed Roberts and how he just kind of gave up after he really did build the first pc and became a doctor. (This by the way isn’t too bad either!) .
These days, PC’s dominate the market from the Microsoft based PC and the Apple based MAC.
I just wish I was able to cash in on my hobby at the age of 21!