What makes a community and what does technology provide

Communities are based on a foundation of guidelines that the entire community follows. These guidelines are both enforced and followed by the community to ensure that everyone is on a level playing field when it comes their standing as individuals in the community. When it comes to online communities this is virtually the same and can be seen on sites like reddit, Facebook, or any website that has the option to create specific online groups or communities. Reddit has guidelines for conduct and so does Facebook and these guidelines determine how the community interacts with one another. Another staple in communities both online and offline are moderators, these individuals serve to uphold the guidelines and enforce the consequences on those who repeatedly disobey them. These can result in bans online and the moderators in the real world are the equivalent of police officers that are meant to uphold the law and enforce it when needed. There is not a whole lot of difference between online and offline communities except for the fact that online communities allows you to converse and share ideas with people around the world as opposed to the offline communities that you are born into.

Convergence

When looking at Convergence there is no better of an example than the current technological landscape. As a whole the combining and converging of technology to create more streamlined process' is a pretty great thing for everyone. It essentially takes two different technologies that would have required 10 steps each, combines them, and that in turn creates a process that completes the two processes in 5 steps. An example of this can be seen when shopping on Amazon because when you order items from their site you used to have to add items to your cart, confirm your order, select the shipping speed, and then your order was placed. Now you can simply just buy items with the new "buy now" option. It will essentially charge you for the item then and there and give you the standard shipping of the amazon prime shipping if you are a prime member. This method would not be possible without the convergence of combing the traditional online shopping method with the "buy now" option. If you just want to purchase one thing you click the button and then you're done. If you're buying multiple items you can now streamline your online shopping with this method as well and it is extremely effective if there are varying shipping times.

Dot.Com to Dot.Bomb

Growing up it is very easy to believe that you just know what al has happened rather than actually taking the time to look it up for yourself. This can probably be attributed to our current technologically savvy generation, but it is still no excuse to not be informed. After hearing the lecture about this huge event that I had absolutely no prior knowledge of I found it very informative to learn about how the internet rose, then fell, then rose again. It was interesting to me that companies Sears had their hat in the ring when it came to the internet, and as the lecture went on it became less surprising that they died out due to the inability to adapt with the ever changing internet landscape. Not to mention I never knew what became of AOL until this lecture so that is always a plus. I think the biggest part of this whole event that intrigued me was the constant hike in pay of anyone that was even remotely involved in the tech process for companies. That just goes to show how quickly people will over value themselves if they think other people will believe it. As a whole I really enjoyed this lecture and thought that Mr. Fry's perspective on the whole matter was both insightful and informative.

3 Things I Would Not Buy On the Internet

When it comes to online shopping I tend not to be too picky, mainly because I tend to buy a variety things from anime to video games, and even sometimes specialty electronics (video games). However there are definitely things I will refrain from buying online just due to either the nature of the product or the reliability of the site itself. The first thing I would never buy would be a car, I already know it is difficult to buy a car used or new and its right in front of you! Now imagine if you were given the option to buy one online without being able to inspect it or touch it with your own two hands? That just does not seem like a viable option. The second thing I refuse to buy on the internet is groceries of any kind. I realize Amazon is starting to roll out this new kind of delivery service, which is aptly named "Amazon Pantry", but the whole idea of having my groceries delivered to me when I can drive 5 minutes to buy them doesn't make sense. I will also never buy anything computer wise such as tablets, laptops, or televisions from the internet because that is another example of an item I want to feel and touch and see before I buy it. However I would make an exception if I have already seen this item and know about it in advance before buying it. These are example of things I would not buy online.

Silk Road

Silk Road is an online black marketplace located on darknet market, and is best known for it's buying, selling, and trading of drugs. It was originally operated as a Tor Hidden Service, which is a software built for the sole purpose of anonymous communication and I'm sure I don't have to go into detail about why anonymous communication and the purchasing of drugs go hand in hand. The site for the marketplace officially launched in 2011 and there was no way to obtain a seller account other than bidding for them in a public auction. Later on they just charged each new seller account with a fixed fee so as not to bar people from using their site. In October 2013 the site was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Ross Ulbricht was arrested under charges of being the sites operator.

The following month Silk Road 2.0 came online and again was swiftly shut down with another potential operator in custody.

What we've found in our blog so far

So far we have located the following

1. Itinerary at Disney for 3 adults and 3 kids in a hotel
https://www.travelocity.com/Details?piid=71c760f0-ea99-4c27-9090-9dc41d3dea46-0&acty=L1%3AJRF%7CL2%3ASEA&filp=R1%3Ay&cadt=R1%3A3&mdpcid=TRAVELOCITY-US.META.KAYAK.PACKAGECORESEARCH&paandi=true&serviceVersion=3&ddte=L1%3A2015-11-16%7CL2%3A2015-11-23&cchl=R1%3A3&crom=1&price=7594.46&destinationId=6048745&action=UnifiedDetailsWidget%40showDetailsForDeepLink&dcty=L1%3ASEA%7CL2%3AJRF&ptyp=package&ccyc=USD&tytr=roundtrip&ages=R1%3A1%7CR1%3A1%7CR1%3A1&

2. A shopping cart with a segway, the book "screenplay", iRoomba Scooba robot

3. http://www.w3.org/1998/11/05/WC-workshop/Papers/Fry.html

4. http://tacomachickadee.blogspot.com/

- Goldfinch

- Handful of Lovin'

- The Fun Police

- The F***ing Eagles

5. 1. Farmersonly.com

    2. christianmingle.com

    3. blackpeoplemeet.com

6. http://prime.digitalhollywood.com/LAWednesdaySixteen.html

7. Zillow: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4108-Beechwood-Dr-W-University-Place-WA-98466/49245518_zpid/ Directions:https://www.google.com/maps/dir/University+of+Washington+Tacoma,+Commerce+Street,+Tacoma,+WA/4108+Beechwood+Dr+W,+University+Place,+WA+98466/@47.2319276,-122.532868,13z/am=t/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x549055772da1305b:0x6f3b85e2bcf6e6bf!2m2!1d-122.4376184!2d47.2445799!1m5!1m1!1s0x5491aa5c1dfd7a65:0xe170d51dff754890!2m2!1d-122.556976!2d47.219383

Redfin: https://www.redfin.com/WA/University-Place/8604-45th-St-W-98466/home/2801821 Directions: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/University+of+Washington+Tacoma,+Commerce+Street,+Tacoma,+WA/8604+45th+St+W,+University+Place,+WA+98466/@47.2256598,-122.5294141,13z/am=t/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x549055772da1305b:0x6f3b85e2bcf6e6bf!2m2!1d-122.4376184!2d47.2445799!1m5!1m1!1s0x5491aa60a9e221e3:0x3afacbf2d92cfd9c!2m2!1d-122.552405!2d47.216405

EPIC 2015: The real and the fake

After watching the EPIC 2015 video there was about a 50/50 split in terms of what was accurate information and what was false but served as a satire for the future of the internet and how information is shared. I'm looking at you googlezon.

The video starts our covering the basic foundations of the internet such as Tim Berners-Lee creating the world wide web in 1989 and then that being followed by amazon be founded in 1994. Continuing on following those events were the creation of google in 1998 and blogger in 1999. Moving on into the 21st century friendster was introduced in 2002 along with google's launch of google news that is edited by computers. Other information that fits under the factual category is the creation of Picasa in 2002 by the company LifeScape, which was bought by Google in 2004. Also in 2004 there was the introduction of Gmail and Microsoft's Newsbot.

In the video all of the information talked about up until the creation of gmail and newsbot is factual, however after this point it begins to shift to a false timeline of events as a means to give the viewer a satirical look at the future of news and the internet.

The false information stated was:

• Google Grid
• Googlezon
• MSN buys Newsbotster
• New York Times opts for online paid subscriptions
• Googlezon opens streaming to it's users
• Microsoft and Googlezon compete for the market
• New York Times sues Googlezon
• Supreme court rules in favor of googlezon
• Evolving Personalized Information Construct "EPIC" is created
• New York Times bails on internet subscriptions and prints strictly for the elite and elderly

My "First" HTML Page

So back during my sophomore year of college (last year) I took TINST 312 thinking that it would be a good preparation class for my IT major. Overall it was, but on the first day as we went over the syllabus I noticed there was a group project involving creating an entire website for a fake company and I immediately started to panic. I had never coded anything except for some messing around on code academy (great website by the way) and even then I still didn't have the slightest clue what to do. Luckily for me as the quarter went on I got the hang of things and began to figure out the basics of coding in html and css, which helped me a lot with this assignment in particular. When I began to go to textedit on my Mac and start working on my webpage I automatically knew where to start in terms of adding a header and giving the page a title. However I was definitely rusty because I forgot to close the brackets at the end of the line properly and was immediately reminded of all the late nights I spent cursing at my computer screen for doing the exact same thing in my TINST 312 class. Once I regained my footing I flew through the assignment, adding pictures, creating a body, and successfully created my webpage all while having time to mess around with it afterwards. As a whole this assignment wasn't to difficult for me since I had prior practice and knowledge, but if I didn't have that I would have had to undergo the whole trial and error process until I figured it out.

Email vs Mail: Similarities and Differences

When looking at email and standard mail it would be easy to assume that they are simply different because one is digital and one is not. However that is not the case, while these two forms of communication may have their differences they also share similarities. One similarity shared between email and mail is that they both require an address to which the mail will be sent. The one difference between this though is that if an address is written wrong on an envelope there is a chance for that letter or package to still get to it's intended destination with the help of the local post office trouble shooting to find the right address. While on the email side of things if the email address is wrong, even by one character, the email will fail to send. Another similarity shared between these two mediums, which can also be considered a nuisance is spam and junk mail. In you email these types of messages will appear in your spam or junk folder while regular mail users will receive the junk mail mixed in with their regular mail. One major difference between email and mail is speed. With email you can have a message sent anywhere in the world with the push of a button and it'l be there in seconds. Whereas with standard mail it could take anywhere from 5 days to weeks depending on where the mail is heading. All in all while there may be similarities between email and mail, email has the upper hand in terms of efficiency and speed while standard mail simply offer the ability to receive large bulk items, but who knows maybe even something like that could change in the evolving world of technology.

All in all while the interface for email may be similar to standard mail, email has the overall advantage in speed and effiency while standard mail is still the go to service for recieving large items, and reaching those without Internet access.