Hot Text, written by Johnathon Price, was extremely helpful in writing the e-newsletter. The whole text gives advice on how to create a website and newsletters that will draw people. What I got the most from Hot Text is keepings things simple. Also how you create your website and newsletter visually is important. Making things short and putting it into chunks make newsletters more appealing to the reader. With websites making the links clear and easy to access is what attracts viewers.
I thought Ashely's presentation about chatbots were really interesting. I knew of SmaterChild on AOL Instant Messenger but I had no clue there was all sorts things like that. Recently I got fooled by a screen name LaBaule831. So beware. The screen name instant messaged me and the conversation was a little suspicious because it was not making much sense and I questioned it. Five minutes into the conversations it told me that someone set it up to instant message me and it was whole one big joke. Now everyone that is reading this won't be. I am still not sure if it was a chatbot or not. Who knows?
Viruses can easily infect your computer. There is spyware and security tatics to prevent viruses from invading your computer. Samantha explains what these things are and where to get more information on these topics. Recently I've gotten links for Ad-Aware, a search engine, and other things to help my computer be virus free. I'm not exactly sure what they are because I am not that educated in computers but I know that they are solid websites to go, check out and use.
File Sharing and downloading music is a big part of a college kids life, well at least for me. But Leslie makes it clear that is illegal. But we have a way of getting around things. It is getting harder to find good music downloading sources. Ones like Napster and Kazaa have unfortunately been basically destroyed. However sources like soulseek and winmx are still holding strong.
Google has been a leading search engine since it's existence in 1998. Recently there has been controversy on what Google should link or not which Melissa goes in depth about and the Microsoft issue. Microsoft has been getting into a lot of trouble by their misuse of monpolies and the unfair competitive with Netscape.
Other software/hardware you can use are Macintosh and Linux.
Electronic mail, which we now call e-mail, is one of the several sources of communication. But, as Vanessa's blog explains, in 1968 e-mail was created for the United States Defense Department for the purpose of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). E-mail has now spread to everyone and is used as one of the major ways of communicating. Especially as a college student e-mail is simple to use to communicate with professors, friends, and family.
Everyone should be so thankful for computers or else there would be no blogging! In LeCrisha's blog she give us the history of the computer. The first computer was created in 1911 and filled up an entire room. It took seventy years for the computer to become reasonable in size. Since then they are used in millions of households and college dorms. The most common PC is the laptop. It is very convenient for businessmen to college students because the size of the PC. The laptop has a monitor, keyboard, and tower all in one. Nowadays we have the technology to make computer that fits in the palm of your hand, hence the name palm pilot.
I would like to know my motive before playing a game. Isn't that the point? Not in this game. Instead I was described a situation, that is it. The scene was of two friends; my character and his friend Rob who was driving my car trying to find girls. Supposedly I could not drive my car because I was too intoxicated. So I had to go from there, no clue or hint of what to do. Finally the game gave me three scenarios to choose from and I picked the one about finding those girls.
All of a sudden I was an astronaut on some planet. Don’t know why or what I was doing there. I walked around that whole damn planet only to find a seed pod and return to the ship (which was really hard to find).
Then I am in a house where my daughter, Alley, is drowning. So I try to tell this game to get me out of the house and it does not understand what I am saying. I’m trapped watching my daughter die then some other character named Gabriel or something saves her.
Back to being the astronaut…this was the best part. I’m coming back to earth, land in the ocean, and I am stuck in an underwater castle. I find a shovel. Now I am thinking seed/shovel there’s a connection, finally. This is where the best part is; there’s a staircase leading out to the ocean’s surface. OK, climb staircase right? Nope. Wrong. The staircase is slippery and is not relevant, the game tells me. I am trying to figure out all sorts of ways to get on this staircase and all the verbs I write it doesn’t understand. “Go up” is the phase I needed to use and took me five minutes to figure out.
This is where things get too complicated because then here comes another scene with my character in a hospital bed. Then it returns to the astronaut on an island. I find a chest of dirt. Last scene I was in was the mother/daughter one and the mother telling Alley to come inside.
All I wanted was to plant that seed pod in the dirt but I could not. Also I did not know what to do with the last scene. So and hour and ten minutes into the game and I give up.
The game was intriguing but it took me too long to figure out what to do in each scenario. Even telling the game what to do took forever. I always used the wrong verb or it was unnecessary to use that command. It is an interesting game because I woke up still wanting to know what I should have done and how it was going to end. Maybe I’ll give it a try again…when I have three hours to waste.