Taking things too far....

When has someone taken things too far online or cheated on their RL partner online? I think the answer to this is very much individual for each couple depending on the type of relationship a couple has and how they set the boundaries on what is acceptable within their relationship. This varies between people based on religion, culture and other similar aspects that go towards making their individual identity.

I think regardless of what one couple finds appropriate vs another couple, they can all use the same basic following rule to define when things have gone too far online. If you engage in any sort of cyber-activity or conversation that you would not want your partner to know about, you have gone too far!

This is not to say that everyone should tell their partner every tiny detail of of what they do online, for example I'm sure most partners woudn't want to know every word in a chat where you invite your mum around for dinner! On the other hand though if you are doing something that you would purposly hide from your partner you have crossed the line on what is acceptable.

Hello Internet, nice to meet you!

I can't remember the exact year or date, but in the first year or two of the Internet becoming commercially available, my family got connected. I was still a teenager in high school at the time, and had entered a competition where we won first prize... our first modem!

It was a an external grey box and was state of the art in terms of speed at the time. We got ourselves a dial up connection and there was no stopping me... I thought it was great!

I started using the net to look up what ever grabbed my fancy. The connection also came with an email account, but as I didn't know any one else on the net (yet) I didn't use email much and saw it as a rather useless function back then! How sad given I can't live without my email today :)

Over the next year or two some of my friends started getting the Internet and I then had people to email, bringing that into the stuff I used. One of my friends who also loves strategy and war games got connected and we started directly dialing each others PC's to play against each other - something I'm sad to say was easier back then! Now our more sophisticated firewalls and other security create problems with this for us... yes we still play! Though I do remember it would usually take a few tries to get connected.

It wasn't until 2001 that I tried out online shopping, I had previously always been too scared to purchase online as I was afraid of my details being stolen.... a few I have got over, as I now shop online more that in shops (provided I leave the weekly groceries out of that equation!).

My net use has certainly grown over the years, and as the connections get faster I don't get the same stuff done in less time... rather I do more stuff in the same time! The Internet is now my main source of online news, shopping, communication, planning face-to-face social events, gaming, information and well just about everything I do! The Internet is definitely part of my daily life, so much so I would say I am an Internet addict - I'm even taking the laptop and wireless connection with me when I go away on holidays next week, just so I can still do the net banking and a few other basics I consider essential.

Hello NET12

I'm now deep in the first week of NET12 and dispite what I assumed before the unit it appears we don't need to keep a blog for this one.... though I'm going to any way. I was surprised at how dissapointed I was that we don't need to blog for NET12! Though we do need to keep an ongoing record of out thoughts on readings, our experiances during the activities and general reflections... so what better place to do that than to keep this blog going :)

So far the course looks like it will be a lot of fun, with some interesting topics to delve into. It also looks like a lot of work with all the iLectures, readings, activities and not to mention trying to keep up with the discussion board! Anyway time to get back to the set work....

Net 11 - Over and out!

Well all the modules are done, all the assignments are submitted, all the work is done..... now it's time to play the wait and see how I have gone game. And it feels great!

I have gained a lot from this unit, a few more technical skills, but even more importantly a more rounded appreciaiton of the Internet and in particular the human side to being online. I already had an appreciation of my own perspective of the Internet and the technology that drives it, however I often overlooked the differences of other end users, as well as the other human aspects of the Internet.

Until next semester when Net 12 starts.... this is over and out.

Future Shock!

I think in the future at some stage the net will be so ingrained in daily life that it is totally taken for granted, in much the same way as electricity is taken for granted at the moment in developed countries. People will eventually have easily portable Internet access that can be utilised at any time. This will lead to a more global education system that is individually tailored to each student, and a classroom for the teacher will be kids from different countries and ages, who all have the prerequisite abilities for the course on offer. Access to various forms of media will be instant and totally personalised. Social networking will be taken further so that all planning for social interaction will take place online, and indeed many social interactions in themselves will also happen online in virtual environments.... this is all obviously a long way off in the future, though some of the technologies to enable this are probably not that far away.

For this fort of environment to occur, there needs to be developments in hardware and software. Hardware needs to become even more portable, this is sort of happening, for example look at mobile/phone/organiser type devises, though in the future this will go even further. Software developments in the form of improved interfacing and multi purpose software will need to occur and also bandwidth and other networking aspects would need to be improves.

Development will be continuous and incremental, rather than overnight dramatic changes - based on historical changes in online environments. As such, keeping up with new developments should not be an issue for anyone that trials and tests out new applications and devices as the become available. However for those that don't try and keep up, the day will happen when they find themselves unable to participate in aspects of society without first facing an extremely steep learning curve!

P2P

I had never considered applicaitons such as SETI at home to be P2P, even though I was already aware of them. I had always previously considered P2P to be just file sharing, but have now widened my view to include any shared use of comuting resources (even prosessing power!).

Further to this reading the Mark Pesce discussion that claims piracy is good, really got me think about where P2P is heading and how it will change and impact a lot of non-computer aspects of society. I just wish I had read this prior to compleating the concepts assignment, as some of this would have been really useful when writing the concepts assignment!! Afterall the model of broadcast media discussed here shows a clear connection between the financial economy and the less quatifiable attention economy.

Reading the article by Henry Jenkins rang very true with me. I also find I'm buying more CD's when I am able to conncect (online or in real life) to others with similar tastes in music and have the opportunity to listen to some of their music. When this doen't happen, I don't tend to buy may CD's, as my taste in music is not usually played on commercial radio. Fortunately I have came across an online station, with an Australian version as well that plays some of what I like, so I'm now purchasing a lot more CD's again!

Overall I am now a lot more appreciateive of the wide varitey of P2P, along with the social and legal effects of file sharing. Mush of this I already had an awareness of, though the above readings along with others I have also viewed have widened my perceptions a lot in regards to P2P.

Information Ecologies

I have just finished reading two articles on Information ecologies, one by Felix Stalder and the other by Rafael Capurro. On finishing reading these I have reflected on some questions we have been asked and concluded:

1. I really don't thing the metaphor of an ecology will impact on the way I use the net. While it has certainly widened the perspecitve with which I can look at the internet, it will not change the way I use the net.

2. You can't have communication without information, just as you can't have new informaiton without communicaiton. Communicaiton is the process of sharing information, while the information is what is shared.... so without information there is nothining to communicate, and withougt communicaiton no new information can be shared.

3. We don't talk of a ‘communication ecology’ because..... we'll really I can't agree with this statement as I have just finished reading the words 'communicaiton ecology' in one of the above articles! So we do talk about an communicaiton ecology! I would say though that we talk about an information ecology more though, as an ecology is the whole system and the relationships withing that system, so information what is related, and communicaiton is how it is related.

Debrief Blog Style

Finally my concepts assignment is submitted and I can breath a big sigh of relief. As I look at my blog I realise I have totally neglected it while working on my concepts assignment.... seemingly sleeping, breathing and eathing concepts for the last 4 weeks to the detriment of everything else!

Given that this is the first major assignment I have done in many years it took a bit to get into the swing of things... only to find myself writing a series of mini-essays. Boy was that hard work, breaking from the essay structure that has become ingrained in my writting over the last two degrees I have completed! But I think I have made it and while it still sounds esayish in places it is a huge improvement on the earlier drafts!

Anyway off to catch up on the discussion board and then reward myself with an early night for the first time this week :)