Being transparent
15 years ago
Dear survivors, welcome to the Internet land. I am going to teach you 10 rules to survive on the I-Land.
1 - Get lost. The I-land is full of incredible resources. You need to explore it to find its wonderful treasures.
2 - However, the jungle is dense and vast. You have to get marks to be able to find what you need everyday to survive. You should use the tab "My favorites" for example.
3 - Before you venture in the I-land, you have to be well equiped. Download a good antivirus software to insure against the fierce creatures of the I-land.
4 - Speaking of creatures, be careful with who or what you can meet in the jungle. Nice-looking creatures might turn out to be dangerous. Only trust yourself and your instinct.
5 - Be careful with the ressources the I-land produces. You can reach incredible fruits but don't eat anything you find. You may actually not be allowed to eat those, they may be someone else's property.
6 - Socialize. The I-land inhabitants can be really helpful and nice. No one can survive all alone, you need connexions. You will be more than welcome to the Facebook or Twitter tribes.
7 - Watch the fire ! If it goes out, you will loose your stock. (Meaning watch the battery)
8 - Put your things in a safe place, to never loose it. (Save, order, save)
9 - Be up to date on what's hapenning on the I-land. It keeps changing all the times, so you need to be aware to survive.
10 - Don't forget to take some rest. Life on the I-land is fascinating but physically and mentally exhausting. Take a nap, disconnect.
As far as I remember, I’ve ever loved books. I even have some kind of a fascination for them. As a kid, I wanted to become a librarian. I spent a lot of time in libraries libraries when I was in “classes préparatoires”, especially in Beaubourg and the BNF (Bibliothèque Nationale Française François Mitterrand). I also love to go to second had books stores like Gibert Jeune and come back home with plenty of old classic books – treasures that had only cost me few euros. To me, books have an aura, they force your respect ! In a library, you feel so good and so impressed by all these knowledge receptacles.
Here is the dream I’ve ever had :
So you would have understood, books have all my respect and even more. But at the same I try to move with the times. Guess what I’ve been willing to have for few weeks ? An eBook ! They are so useful and handy ! Everywhere you go you have your journal and your favorite books, all in one thin screen. Plus, carrying books in my bag really spoil them.
I would never stop buying and reading books though. To me, it’s a question of time and place. Nothing can replace a nice afternoon reading in the shadow of a tree in a garden or a park. But in the subway for example, or at work, I would totally go for an eBook. I just hope this media won’t “eat” the books and be convergent. I must admit I’m a romantic !
However I think that unfortunately people have lost interest for reading, being all the time in front of a screen, so this is a good way to bring back culture under our square eyes.
If I had money of if Santa Clauss spoiled me, I would get an eBook soon !
When it comes to the one I would choose, if you had asked me last week, I would have told you I want an Amazon Kindle. But this week I want the brand new eBook by Barnes and Nobles ! This one is the most developed. It has an LCD touch-sensitive screen, and it has a double screen, of which on is in color ! The Nook is a little bit bigger than the Kindle, measuring 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches and weighs 11.2 ounces. WiFi (802.11b/g) and AT&T 3G is included, not to mention 2GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, MP3 player, built-in mono speaker, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, a micro USB port and support for EPUB, PDF and MP3. The nook also supports bookmarking, making notes, and highlighting passages, and the 'LendMe' feature allows users to lend books for up to a fortnight at a time to other e-readers, cellphones or computers. To know more about it, go here.
And you, would you buy a Kindle or a Nook ?
Here is the dream I’ve ever had :
So you would have understood, books have all my respect and even more. But at the same I try to move with the times. Guess what I’ve been willing to have for few weeks ? An eBook ! They are so useful and handy ! Everywhere you go you have your journal and your favorite books, all in one thin screen. Plus, carrying books in my bag really spoil them.
I would never stop buying and reading books though. To me, it’s a question of time and place. Nothing can replace a nice afternoon reading in the shadow of a tree in a garden or a park. But in the subway for example, or at work, I would totally go for an eBook. I just hope this media won’t “eat” the books and be convergent. I must admit I’m a romantic !
However I think that unfortunately people have lost interest for reading, being all the time in front of a screen, so this is a good way to bring back culture under our square eyes.
If I had money of if Santa Clauss spoiled me, I would get an eBook soon !
When it comes to the one I would choose, if you had asked me last week, I would have told you I want an Amazon Kindle. But this week I want the brand new eBook by Barnes and Nobles ! This one is the most developed. It has an LCD touch-sensitive screen, and it has a double screen, of which on is in color ! The Nook is a little bit bigger than the Kindle, measuring 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches and weighs 11.2 ounces. WiFi (802.11b/g) and AT&T 3G is included, not to mention 2GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, MP3 player, built-in mono speaker, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, a micro USB port and support for EPUB, PDF and MP3. The nook also supports bookmarking, making notes, and highlighting passages, and the 'LendMe' feature allows users to lend books for up to a fortnight at a time to other e-readers, cellphones or computers. To know more about it, go here.
And you, would you buy a Kindle or a Nook ?
Here is my video resume !
This is the special edition of television news. We're in 2011 and Laetitia is missing. Elisabeth and Mary -in reality those are my second names - two journalists, are trying to find her.
You can also watch my classmates' video resume. I really think they're great !
This is the special edition of television news. We're in 2011 and Laetitia is missing. Elisabeth and Mary -in reality those are my second names - two journalists, are trying to find her.
You can also watch my classmates' video resume. I really think they're great !
Learning about...
On Tuesday this week, a teacher told us about social bookmarking. He referred to a website I was really curious about, and had trouble to find the name : Diigo. After a little research, I discovered that it means “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.
What is social bookmarking by the way? All I knew was that I wanted to learn about it and do it. So let’s !
Social bookmarking is a tool for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. People can comment on websites, tag, or evaluate websites, which create a folksonomy.
But Diigo seems to be way more than that, at least that’s what they say on the website.
With Diigo, you have several potential uses to organize the contents, like listing or tagging.
The basis is that you can highlight text entirely or partly in multiple colors and put “sticky” notes on web pages. When you come back to the page, they remain. You can archive the pages, annotate them and organize them. Once you’ve done that you can access from anywhere – the iPhone application is coming soon ! Now what about the “social” aspect? Well you can create a group, for company, class or teams. Then, you can share your pages and annotations with others, and even interact with people on the web page or in the group. No more copy/paste, only few clicks and you’re done.
Ok I’m convinced, I’m joining Diigo. I create my account and activate it, nothing special. Except I could have wait forever - the mail arrived directly in my junk email box !
I now have a library.
I have to download the Diigo Toolbar. It’s a plug-in compatible with Firefox or Internet explorer. Really simple and quick !
Let’s see now ! I’m going to my favourite news website, Washingtonpost.com, then to an article.
I just highlighted a paragraph ! It’s really easy to do and to remove, plus I can choose 4 colours or highlighting.
On Tuesday this week, a teacher told us about social bookmarking. He referred to a website I was really curious about, and had trouble to find the name : Diigo. After a little research, I discovered that it means “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.What is social bookmarking by the way? All I knew was that I wanted to learn about it and do it. So let’s !
Social bookmarking is a tool for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. People can comment on websites, tag, or evaluate websites, which create a folksonomy.
But Diigo seems to be way more than that, at least that’s what they say on the website.
With Diigo, you have several potential uses to organize the contents, like listing or tagging.
The basis is that you can highlight text entirely or partly in multiple colors and put “sticky” notes on web pages. When you come back to the page, they remain. You can archive the pages, annotate them and organize them. Once you’ve done that you can access from anywhere – the iPhone application is coming soon ! Now what about the “social” aspect? Well you can create a group, for company, class or teams. Then, you can share your pages and annotations with others, and even interact with people on the web page or in the group. No more copy/paste, only few clicks and you’re done.
Ok I’m convinced, I’m joining Diigo. I create my account and activate it, nothing special. Except I could have wait forever - the mail arrived directly in my junk email box !
I now have a library.
I have to download the Diigo Toolbar. It’s a plug-in compatible with Firefox or Internet explorer. Really simple and quick !
Let’s see now ! I’m going to my favourite news website, Washingtonpost.com, then to an article.
I just highlighted a paragraph ! It’s really easy to do and to remove, plus I can choose 4 colours or highlighting.
And see I can “Bookmark” the page and edit bookmark on Diigo, which I did.
I just have to open the Diigo Sidebar to access to this article again. I can also go to my library on Diigo website.
Ouch ! Problem here !
See, the highlights can be public, then people can highlight anything and moreover they write stupid things on the sticky notes. Now everytime I open a web page some parts are underlined and commented, it really disturb my visit.
See, the highlights can be public, then people can highlight anything and moreover they write stupid things on the sticky notes. Now everytime I open a web page some parts are underlined and commented, it really disturb my visit.
Conclusion : Diigo is a great collective work tool but I definitely will use the website for the research I do for my memoir. The only cons I see for the moment is that first I have another toolbar. I don’t like how websites or antivirus software try to appear in our toolbar. At the end the toolbar is so big you don’t even see the website ! Secondly, all these highlights and comments are driving me crazy, I have to find a way to make them disappear.
Learning about...
This year, at the Celsa, our English classes don't look like any other classes we've ever had. No more blackboard, no more chalk, no more sheet, no more pen, no more power point... no more teacher ! Well, at least, no more physical presence of our teacher. Bob Spaulding is teaching us English from his desk which actually is thousands kilometers far from us. Bob is doing class from the south of France, behind his computer, and doesn't have to see our tired faces for hours. It's called e-learning. Doesn't it sound great ? Yes it does, but in fact it's not that simple ! Let's see how we could help Bob improving his long distance teaching.
This year, at the Celsa, our English classes don't look like any other classes we've ever had. No more blackboard, no more chalk, no more sheet, no more pen, no more power point... no more teacher ! Well, at least, no more physical presence of our teacher. Bob Spaulding is teaching us English from his desk which actually is thousands kilometers far from us. Bob is doing class from the south of France, behind his computer, and doesn't have to see our tired faces for hours. It's called e-learning. Doesn't it sound great ? Yes it does, but in fact it's not that simple ! Let's see how we could help Bob improving his long distance teaching.How is this possible for Bob to be there not being here ? Good question. Well we use MSN Live. It works quite well and allows us to see and talk with Bob. Yet, sometimes we have some troubles with it, for example Bob can't see us move or can't hear us very well. I wonder if Skype would be better . We certainly lack of a adapted software and I think the Ministry of Education is a bit late on that one.
Bob asked us to create a Blog - this one for me - and to post articles on several issues and questions every week. I use Blogger but we could use Wordpress too, like my friend Camille did. I think our e-learning class could use many other websites or applications the web offers, like for example Diigo (for more information see my article below). We also use Netvibes for the RSS feeds of our blogs. Bob also created a wiki we will use soon. Youtube is also great for posting videos. The thing I like about the wiki is that all our work can be found in one place. I would like it even more if we created a website together, learning how to make nice pages with various contents.
I also think we lack of real lessons. It would be nice if we had some videos, like video tutorials, teaching us stuff. And to check if we actually payed attention, there could be on-line assessments. The classroom could be represented by a website where we could find all these stuffs and even more.
I also really like the fact that we had to discover new websites this week. I think we should be given more missions on the web. Like Bob, you could tell us to discover websites you found interested and tell us to learn how to use it and write about it in our blogs. I don't know all the resources the Internet offers but there must be plenty things to discover that could actually be used to teach.
E-learning is a surprising and interesting way to teach, although I still don't think it will replace our traditional school. And for one simple reason : it's already hard to catch the attention of kids when you are physically present, so on distance I think it's mission impossible. If the class happens that well it's also because we are grown ups.
Learning about… 
Well I have to admit I’m a bit ashamed because there is something I really don’t know how to do whereas millions of teenagers do : uploading a video on Youtube. Being myself a regular watcher, I never posted anything on this website because I simply never had to. I actually already am in a video on the web, you can find it here, but I’m not the one who posted it. As Bob asked us to make a video resume and post it, I definitely have to learn how to do it. So let’s go !
Step 1 : going on Youtube.com and trying not to be attracted by all these videos. Not this time, come on.
Step 2 : creating an account.
Well for the moment nothing differs from what we usually do in any website.
Nice ! my username is not available. They suggest me "MrLaetitiaarnold" - how am supposed to react to that ?
Well it’s really simple, 2 or 3 questions and voila.
Oh actually no. I still have to give them my email address so they can spam me. My mistake.
Well I have to admit I’m a bit ashamed because there is something I really don’t know how to do whereas millions of teenagers do : uploading a video on Youtube. Being myself a regular watcher, I never posted anything on this website because I simply never had to. I actually already am in a video on the web, you can find it here, but I’m not the one who posted it. As Bob asked us to make a video resume and post it, I definitely have to learn how to do it. So let’s go !Step 1 : going on Youtube.com and trying not to be attracted by all these videos. Not this time, come on.
Step 2 : creating an account.
Well for the moment nothing differs from what we usually do in any website.
Nice ! my username is not available. They suggest me "MrLaetitiaarnold" - how am supposed to react to that ?
Well it’s really simple, 2 or 3 questions and voila.
Oh actually no. I still have to give them my email address so they can spam me. My mistake.
I activate my account after checking my mails… Great, I’ve just joined the Youtube community !
Step 3 : getting down to business - uploading a video. Well I guess I have to click on this yellow “upload” logo.
Step 3 : getting down to business - uploading a video. Well I guess I have to click on this yellow “upload” logo.
I can’t help laughing when I see this : “Important: Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself.” If people did the website would certainly not have so much success.
Since my video resume isn’t finished yet, the only little video I have in my computer is one of my fat lazy cat on her hind legs eating cream I give her. Wow Bob what wouldn’t I do for you ?
So I just look for my video in my files, put a title and some tags. Wow that was SO simple !
Here you go !
Enjoy because this one won’t stay long !
Conclusion : that was sooo easy even more than I had imagined. No wonder why Youtube is such a great success. Too bad the quality isn’t great and the videos can’t be more than 2 GB in size and last more than 10 minutes.
Here you go !
Enjoy because this one won’t stay long !
Conclusion : that was sooo easy even more than I had imagined. No wonder why Youtube is such a great success. Too bad the quality isn’t great and the videos can’t be more than 2 GB in size and last more than 10 minutes.
A cyber crime is a criminal activity on the internet. It can be illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, systems interference, or electronic fraud. The computer crimes we most talk about are child pornography and confidential information interception (credit card pass codes for instance). Cyber crime seems to be a growing trend.
But when it come to cybercrime I instantly think about… well me. I’ve got to plead guilty, I am an addict of peer-to-peer. I download many American TV shows. In peer-to-peer distributed network people make a portion of their resources (such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth) directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination instances.
Peer to peer isn’t illegal, what’s illegal is that people share files and documents that are the property of someone else.
Peer to peer is associated with some values we give to the Internet, like sharing freely.
Authorities try to stop these practices. The webmasters and the users of these P2P websites are sometimes hard to find and punish. Law varies from country to country. Plus, when a website is closed, it can be re-opened under another adress. Let’s focus on the particular case of Guiks.net. This French P2P website has been infiltrated by the ALPA. Its administrator, Meskalyn, was summoned to the gendarmerie last week. He was told to either close the website or be prosecuted for counterfeit. Meskalyn chose the first option. The community already got organized to take over and open a new private website.
Foreign authorities didn’t get the same answer. Do you know The Pirate Bay ? It is another Swedish website that indexes and tracks BitTorrent (.torrent) files. It bills itself as "the world's largest BitTorrent tracker and is ranked as the 104th most popular website by Alexa Internet. The website was recently raided from Sweden but the famous community moved to the Ukraine, where the threatens of the BREIN made them move again. To France ? Of course no ! They settled in a fallout shelter in a Dutch forest. How exotic !
But when it come to cybercrime I instantly think about… well me. I’ve got to plead guilty, I am an addict of peer-to-peer. I download many American TV shows. In peer-to-peer distributed network people make a portion of their resources (such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth) directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination instances.Peer to peer isn’t illegal, what’s illegal is that people share files and documents that are the property of someone else.
Peer to peer is associated with some values we give to the Internet, like sharing freely.
Authorities try to stop these practices. The webmasters and the users of these P2P websites are sometimes hard to find and punish. Law varies from country to country. Plus, when a website is closed, it can be re-opened under another adress. Let’s focus on the particular case of Guiks.net. This French P2P website has been infiltrated by the ALPA. Its administrator, Meskalyn, was summoned to the gendarmerie last week. He was told to either close the website or be prosecuted for counterfeit. Meskalyn chose the first option. The community already got organized to take over and open a new private website.
Foreign authorities didn’t get the same answer. Do you know The Pirate Bay ? It is another Swedish website that indexes and tracks BitTorrent (.torrent) files. It bills itself as "the world's largest BitTorrent tracker and is ranked as the 104th most popular website by Alexa Internet. The website was recently raided from Sweden but the famous community moved to the Ukraine, where the threatens of the BREIN made them move again. To France ? Of course no ! They settled in a fallout shelter in a Dutch forest. How exotic ! An endless tag ? I don’t think so. In the USA the repression is way more active than in France, and way more dissuasive. What is to be done against peer-to-peer ? I don't have the solution and I'm not shure I want to find one but France seems to have chosen the path of repression too. The government hired a new team of specialists to infiltrate P2P websites.
