Right Clicka...or iBook Flippa

Wow, yet another post on that intense battle. Mac or PC...though the PC has been the "popular kid in school" until now recent studies on trends in the electronics world have shown that Macs are picking up speed in the market and becoming the norm more so. Now with the introduction of some software to use with iPhones and iPod Touches (as well as the introduction of those devices themselves) brought Apple way up in the market alone.

But let’s get into personal opinion...am I a right clicka or an iBook flippa? Well I’ve been a Windows user but not a Microsoft fan since I was 7. I have had a chance to use both the Mac OS X Leopard and Windows XP and Vista. XP seemed to be the most stable and the coming out of the flash new Vista didn't change that. I won't even start with Vista but I can say it is pretty: P none the less that doesn’t demolish the fact that basically...it sucks. For the time being I'll stick to my Windows XP for some high graphic gaming and reasonable OS speed and leave Apple with the fund it got from my 16GB iPod Touch.

Facebook and The Education System

An epic battle...those who want freedom of internet...those who say internet content should be a controlled environment. Well when you look around now a day’s you'll see that the content on the internet isn't being stopped from invading our screens and inboxes...young kids learning how to hack banks in seconds, cyber terrorism becoming more of a threat than physical terrorism. Those examples are a bit harsh but the point is the internet (in my opinion) is to be a free area of exploration, though this is accompanied with risks most of the world now has an internet uplink providing their country members with vital connections to another and important information.

Now with the issues of a first year Ryerson University student making a Facebook group on the popular social networking website (www.facebook.com) to assist in homework (basically a virtual study group) has been threatened with expulsion from the school when in reality no solutions or answer were ever shared on the webpage. Luckily this is old news as the story in my opinion is ridiculous and had no proof behind it of any sort of cheating or academic misconduct.

Ryerson claimed that the first year student was violating terms laid out by the board, when the threats and legal issues were first raised the student union and student body rallied around Chris (Avenir, the student in question).

In the end the student wasn't expelled and the group was closed, in the end I believe the only reason Chris was given a 0 for a grade that otherwise would have been 10% of the course final was because the council/board against Chris didn't want to admit they had made a mistake and overreacted.

When An Artist Gets Bored

While all the images in this video were astounding, I'd say the banana which turns in the head of a snake striking was very interesting. For example, if someone had an allergy to bananas or something flavoured like banana making a banana see as dangerous as a snake.

Typically using Photoshop you would begin with two images, in the case of the "banana-snake" the two images would be a snake and a partially peeled banana. Parts of the snake that won't be used would then be cut off in preparation for the merging with the banana.

Next the colors would be matched accordingly usually fading from light to dark (meaning the banana to the snake. If everything was properly blended and contoured, it should look as convincing as the image in the video clip in the Mary Ward Communication Blog (sans the blur where the 2 parts meet of course).

Music Mania Downlads

Ah, the great debate of pirating. Everything from music and games to full operating systems such as Microsoft's Windows Vista. With the fall of the popular semi private torrent tracker Demonoid.com many found pirating to die out in their lives as alternatives such as the now the largest torrent tracker and website in the world "The Pirate Bay". Personally I have never seen the issue in pirating as I am under the belief that one persons choice to share what they own (for example a music album that was legally bought) it is for all to download and use. As long as the items/information being shared were obtained legally why could the legal owner not share the joy he/she experienced with all the world using the greatest and largest world wide network known as the world wide web. Unfortunatly after years of so called "legal file sharing" I have become desonsitized to the negativity involved in the loss of the information's creator and download without second thought.



The though of downloading anything digital for free is enough to entice anyone into commiting this easy to execute crime without seeing a negative side espcially when one takes into account the costs of such widely used programs such as Adobe Photoshop CS3 or Illustrator the offer becomes even more attractive.

To conclude I fell that Peer-to-peer File sharing should not be illegal as long as the files being shared were legally aquiried in the first place but then the issue becomes the moderation of the billions of files in circulation thus this choice boils down to personal opinion leaving the topic up in the air.

Footprint Score!

With my a footprint score of 4.7 I really got a better look at how I was affecting the enviornment but I found there were severak flaws or inaccurate sections 0f the quiz such as questions on car milage/efficency when people like us in communications (teens who are mostly yet to drive) which could throw the results of the quiz thus defeating the purpose.

One very effecting point towards me is the fact that the quiz cannot take into consideration positive additions to a house/lifestyle which greatly reduces the ammount of electricity/resources consumed. For example, my home has a several tonne geothermal ground loop burried in our 2 acre forested back yard which works by taking heat/cooling from the constant temperature under the earths surface by circulating water through burried tubes. Meaning in winter, there are higher temperatures under the earths surface than than on the surface. In summer, the earths heat is segnifigantly lower than the 25+ C above on the surface. Basically, the ground loop acts as a high effeciency air conditoner in summer and heater/furnace in winter.

Our house also uses a "Power Watch" system which moniters the source of energy consumption and its location (i.e a fridge, computer, or dryer) allowing for us (the users) to reduce use of high power consuming appliences and devices. Even lowering the time it takes for my computer to go into standby mode can (over a longer perioud of time) drastically reduce the cost of use. This point in particular is rather important to me as I regularly use my computer for extended periods of time. What make my computer different than most others is that it uses a 600 watt power supply. You may know that the power supply only takes as much as is needed from the computer rather than constantly drawing 600 watts, but my computer uses two graphics cards and two hard drives which greatly increases the ammount of power needed to keep the computer running. In conclusion, I believe that there are many changes needed to be made to the quiz and to our lifestyles.