Searching the Internet

Hello again,

I would like to talk about the presentation my computer skills class had on February 24th, 2009 by Chris Nolan as known as "the right hand of Diane Graves."

It was about many search engines on the Internet such as Google and Yahoo.

ComScore website has rated different search engines in November 2008.

People use Google the most, then Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask, and AOL the least. The reason why there are some researches such as ComScore about search engines is because those search engines provide money to researches for advertising their websites.

Chris Nolan has provided information about Google when it first came out.

People could put only 100KB of information when putting information.

One of the most interesting information I gained was that popularity of search engines depends on how much people go back to the certain search engine website, not how much they search on the website.

Not only Google, but also some other search engines have an option of an advanced search so people can limit some websites since there are so many of them.

Google comes in pretty useful, but sometimes academic journals get buried. To put scholarly journals, it costs more and takes more effort.

Trinity University's Internet connection gives an option to students to look up the author and the full text if they want by clicking 'Trinity eText.'

To customize Google, Firefox is useful. Firefox add-on that adds other search engine links, suggests term, and eliminates cookie tracking.

There are several great tips that Chris Nolan has made in 2003 related to advanced search on Google. For example, to exclude a word, put minus sign (-) before the word or phrase with no intervening space. (ex: Ansel Adams Mexico - "New Mexico")

If you would like to see all the tips Chris Nolan provided, you can click the link below.

Advanced Search Tips on Google by Chris Nolan

Thank you,

Hye-Won Kim.

hkim1@trinity.edu

Copyright

On Tuesday, February 3, the class had a presentation about the copyright law.

U.S. Copyright law dates from 1790.

Public domain is materials that can be used without requesting © permission which means they are publicly available.

The term of copyright for U.S. published works is now author’s life plus seventy years. Just because the author is dead does not mean the work is public domain.

The Sonny Bono Act (also called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) refers to a bill passed in 1998, which extended the term of copyright an additional twenty years. Disney is a powerful organization and when Disney characters were about to go public domain, this bill passed.

“Orphan Works” are publications for which no author, publisher or other copyright holder can be located.

The RIAA, MPAA, and ESA are disproportionately interested in campus-based filed sharing. RIAA is Recording Industry Association of America, MPAA is Motion Picture Association of America, and ESA is the Entertainment Software Association.

Trinity University is within Congressional District and Diane Graves is in charge of copyright law on campus.

It is a felony to commit a copyright infringement involving more than ten copies and a value of more than 2500 dollars.

An “author” applies to a poet, musician, visual artist, filmmaker, choreographer/dancer, photographer, and writer.

Many college students argue that downloading songs from shared music program such as Limewire is not illegal. Most of my friends say the same thing when this issue comes up to our conversation. "Downloading a song that is already on the Internet is not illegal! Sharing and providing your music are illegal! So we are not doing anything wrong!" I am sure I have said that more than once as well.

Yet, most colleges do not allow their students to get on or download music for free from programs as Limewire because they are more familiar with the copyright law than most students.

After I learned about the copyright law, I started feeling strongly against downloading songs for free off the Internet. Also, when my guardians who I lived with for two years in Houston found out their children and I had been downloading songs from Limewire, they started buying us iTunes gift cards for every Christmas because they said it was an illegal action.

Musicians work very hard to be famous and get people to like their music. Then money from selling their albums is a return from a hard work and another step to make better music. However, since a big number a people keep downloading musicians' songs illegally off the Internet, the musicians' financial problems get bigger and bigger. Therefore, everyone should pay for all the musicians' music for their hard work and according to the copyright law.

Thank you.

Hye-Won.

hkim1@trinity.edu

Facebook on Campus

"The social-networking website isn't growing like it once did, but only because almost every US student is already on it." - Cristian Lupsa.

Facebook has been the biggest social-networking website amongst many students, especially college students. An article "Facebook: A campus fad becomes a campus fact" collects many students' and administrators' opinions about Facebook. There are different opinions about Facebook. Some people think they can do productive work on Facebook by making groups. Some other people think Facebook is bad because there is a chance for a group people to make a Facebook group to eliminate someone such as "We hate Pablo" in the article. 

I have used Facebook since I was a senior in high school. Everyone in my high school had it, so I made one as well. When I was younger, all of my friends used to use Myspace which is another kind of a social-networking website. I have used Facebook for several reasons to meet new people at Trinity University, gather some people to celebrate a friend's birthday, and so on.

Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with everyone you are friends with on it. It is hard to keep in touch with 'everyone' in your life by phone. Also, there are many groups which are meaningful. For example, a student named Luke found out he had leukemia and his friends made a Facebook group to help him.

On the other hands, Facebook is very distracting academically. Last semester, I used to get on Facebook probably at least five times a day. When I was trying to write a paper, I would be constantly distracted by Facebook by looking at other people's new pictures or talking to friends on it. It also shows everyone's status changes, especially relationship statuses, on newsfeed so it is not an exaggeration to say everyone knows about your life! 

Recently, I have deactivated Facebook to focus on my school work.

Facebook is a great way for students to socialize. Yet, it is horrible academically in my opinion.

If you want to read this article, please click the link below.

Facebook: A campus fad becomes a campus fact

Hye-Won Kim

hkim1@trinity.edu