English test

I had to take two English on-line tests for Bob.
This first one was on the website of the BBC and the second one on a website dedicated to on-line tests.

Here are the results :

- BBC's one : 6 out of 6


- The second one : 8 out of 9 (Part four : Advanced)

Has internet journalism come of age ?

Yes, wiki ! (in theory...)

Record wikipedia by user8705499

Last week Bob asked us to write an article on Wikipedia. I was enthusiastic to write on this platform, real symbol of the web 2.0. Participate to this free, web-based, collaborative and multilingual encyclopedia was a way to get into this huge community of new thinkers. Nevertheless, be one of them was not so easy. To become a new thinker, a wiki-author, you need to be patient and to have talents in informatic.

First step :
the inscription

You need to create a count, to find a pseudo, to find a password. Well, that's no so complicated. But after that the tool, the interface is not very easy to use. It's not very clear and not user-friendly.

Second step :
write your article and the huge challenge of page setting

You can now write your article but, one more time, it is not so easy. To do the page setting you have to be experimented. When I wrote my article I needed to take my time...

Third step :
publish your article

That step remains a mystery for me. When I clicked on "publish" my article disappear in Wikipedia's stratosphere. I stayed calm, looking everywhere where it went. But I didn't find it.

Conclusion

Thus my first experience on Wikipedia was not a success. Obviously my vision is biased so I will do another attempt before giving my ultimate conclusions.

My ten commandments to survive (on the web)

Bob ask us to find 10 rules to survive on the net, just like if we were on a desert island.
So let's see :

1st commandment : Always be the first. You have to be an early-adopter and not a follower.

2nd commandment : Never give all your personnal information (the great threat of identity theft) otherwise you will share your identity, your adress and also your bank acount (and maybe your wife, who knows ?) with many people.

3rd commandment : Always check what is said and is shown about you, so always googlise you.

4th commandment : Never finish naked or drunk at a party (see the previous commandment).

5th commandment : Never become friend with your boss or with any higher-ups on Facebook except if you want te be fired few months later.

6th commandment : Always erase your tracks on a computer in order to hide your craziest fantasies.

7th commandment : Be present on social networks like Facebook, Netvibes, Twitter and so on. If it is not the case, you will be seen as a loser and you will neither follow new trends nor your friends' activities. Do you want to be a fringe element of society ?

8th commandment : On the other side, always remember that there is a life without internet. Don't spend all your nights on social networks otherwise you will become a "no life".

9th commandment : Never reply to the email of the Nigerian banker.

10th commandment : Internet is a jungle so if you want to survive on the web, don't use it, it's easier.

To ebook or not to ebook, that is the question.

The great debate about ebooks is not new, it's like the march of technology versus the weight of tradition and of habits. Who will win this hand-to-hand combat ? Will it finish like a death struggle ?

Obviously i'm a ardent upholder of the book maybe because of my literary studies. I strongly believe that the interest of reading lies in the support. The book, as an object, contributes to build the sensation of pleasure that we have while reading. It is so pleasant to turn pages and to smell the book (yes, I know it's so cliché) .

Nevertheless, we cannot fight too long against progress and ebook will make a breakthrough. Of course there are advantages with ebook like size, weight and so on. Because i'm not very keen on ebooks it was fun when my english teacher ask me for one of his exercice : "Which e-book will you choose? (model, type, features) Why?".

To answer to that question, I can say that I'll choose the Sony Reader -you can see the picture at the top of the article- but also in this video :

You can also look at these funny series (this is part one) :

My video resume

Bob wanted us to do a video resume. Here is mine or at least my first version. I don't like that one because I believe it is too long and there is not enough rythm.
The second version is coming soon.

Can you geek me ?

Last week, Bob ask us to write about what we don't know to do on the web.
Well, i'm not very gifted for the technical aspect of the web and of computers in general. Even if at the Celsa i'm in the CMM's class, the one which is well-known for its geeks community, i'm not one of those geeks.



Peer to peer, Html language, JAVA script or even posting videos are the dark side of the force for me. Most of the time i feel very lonely in front of the screen of my computer wondering why I don't know how to do this or that.
Obviously, i'm trying to improve my ability in these fields. Because when you want to work in media and communication it is essential to have some basic knowledge.
I remain optimistic about my chances to get better, nevertheless when I ask my friends about something related to internet or computer, I can see in their expression that the road is still long...
(special dedication to Thomas P., Nicolas and Guillaume : I'm sorry)

In the same vein, i'm not a gamer. I never understand how you can spend hours and hours on your computer playing videogames. Paradoxically, I like to play on my Playstation 2... Yes, what a paradox ! It is just because I don't like videosgames on computers. It's very difficult to play with the keyboard and it is not as comfortable as a joystick. Furthermore, computers are more likely to have virus and to have bugs, and it can makes you crazy :

I'm so scared. Don't geek me, please !

Why e-learning is a challenge.

Historically, education and teaching was done by a teacher in front of you, giving you punishments when you did mistakes. But nowadays, new technologies have changed dramatically this traditionnal "way of teaching". In fact, with computers, cameras and with the Internet, the teacher can be far away from his class and giving his lesson.

On the one hand you cannot denied the fact that it is an important evolution on a technological point of view. On the other hand, the loss of human contact is not a good thing. It's more difficult to explain some ideas if there is not a human contact. Moreover, for students it's not so easy to be as concentrated as in class.
E-learning is a real challenge because it is a rupture with the traditionnal aspect and changing customs is a long work.

Obviously e-learning present some benefits because in the workplace we have to be used to this impermanence of things. We have to be ready to get used to unbelievable situations. Furthermore, it is a way to learn some transerve competences. Look at this pattern :


To my mind, this pattern summerizes all the contributions of e-learning. This way of teaching is a bit frightenning but it can brings us some new vision and learns us how to work differently.

Catch me if you can - Cyber crimes

Every three and a half minutes, a crime is committed in the streets of New York. Every two minutes and a half, a crime is commited in the streets of Tokyo. But every three seconds, an identity is stolen on the web, what represents approximately 10 and a half million identities every year (2008 Identity Fraud Survey de Javelin Strategy & Research).

The Department of Justice categorizes computer crime in three ways:

1. The computer as a target - attacking the computers of others (spreading viruses is an example).
2. The computer as a weapon - using a computer to commit "traditional crime" that we see in the physical world (such as fraud or illegal gambling).
3. The computer as an accessory - using a computer as a "fancy filing cabinet" to store illegal or stolen information.

Identity thefts lead the classification of cybercrimes. Many technics exist : Use a false e-mail address or a name of misleading domain, create a false profile on Facebook... Others are more sophisticated: spywares (hostile running without knowing the user), spoofing (diversion of address IP), phishing (combination of a fraudulent e-mail and a distort web page intended to get back passwords).
During the last presidential election campaign in the United States, a student had managed to open Sarah Palin's Yahoo! e-mail box after having tried diverse passwords corresponding to the biography of the candidate that he has found on Wikipedia.
Which is terrible is that now cybercriminals give tools to anybody to do the same thing :


There is no law punishing directly identity thefts on the web. Moreover, the OECD published in the end of March, 2009 a report Online Identity Theft showing that most of the western countries have not a specific legislation repressing identity theft which is unbelievable.

Call me impermanent

The web is by definition impermanent. Everything on the web is always moving, evolving. Everything appaears as quickly as it disappears. Changes are going faster and faster and our brain has to follow this infernal rythm.

The problem is that there are too many changes that we are no longer conscious of the progress maid. Everything seems normal for us today. Communicate with people all over the world, exchange information, pictures, videos. On the web everything is passing, nothing remains. The only characteristic that remains is precisely change and alteration but also the fact that the future of the web is unpredictable. We cannot imagine what are going new evolutions and new technologies. Maybe it is what confers to the internet this magical and supernatural aspect.