Class Discussion 9/27/07

Reference: USATODAY http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2005-05-27-tech-privacy_x.htm viewed on 9/27/07

Summary: The article interviews a person who in charge of the privacy of George Washington University Law School. He discusses how at work employees' rights are more limited than if they were at home. It discusses how perusing the internet to view porn violates sexual harassment codes in companies and how on-line shopping, although varies from each company, should be done from home. He says that the bosses of companies can view what ever they want on employee's computers who work for them.

Reaction: Although I don't completely agree with the amount of restriction companies put on their employees I can understand why they do it. Time spent on the computer at work should be used doing work for the company. Something I noticed was he never touched on that ideology, dealing with work time should be spent working. An argument I see against it is that some people get done with their work earlier and don't have anything lined up for them for the rest of the day and people who are on a salary it doesn't really matter all that much if they leave early or not since they don't have to punch out. But I see it as there will always be a problem with employees wanting more liberties and employers want to limit their liberties.

Guidelines for the writing the midterm paper

1. Midterm paper is due on Oct 11th 2007 during the class meeting time.
2. You need to use Google Docs to write the paper. The paper must be published to your blog and link for the paper must be made available from your personal site.
3. You need to turn in a printed copy of your paper during the submission.
4. Paper must be at least 3 pages long or 1000 words. Text should be double spaced and font size 12 pt. The title of the paper should be centered, bold, 14 pt font size.
5. Paper should clearly mention your name and you must provide references to all the materials you use to write your paper.
6. The topic for the midterm paper will be the impact of computers on your personal life and will be worth 40 points. You can write about some news things you learnt in this class so far, some new application, some new idea etc.
7. You should get your topic/idea/content/subject matter approved before you start writing the paper.

 
Grading criteria 

Total points	40 points
Google Docs usage	2 points
Blog entry	2 points
Link on your site	2 points
Formatting	2 points
References	2 points
Appropriate topic	10 points
Paper content/writing style	20 points

Class Discussion Thursday 9/20

Reference: Time Time article by Jyoti Thottam


Summary: The article starts out by saying that if it were not for outsourcing Solidcore would not still be in the black. It goes onto discuss the moral problems with outsourcing but that part did not pertain to our topic so I won't go further into it.


Reaction: I can see the potential of outsourcing as it makes more companies increase their productivity. It does cause problems in out own country in that it reduces the amount of jobs available. The advantages of the increased productivity is remarkable. Work can be done while people are sleeping that is not related to maintenance. Projects can be accomplished in twice the speed. While it doesn't help our own country it does however help the world as a whole by supplying jobs in other nations. It leads the world to being one whole nation rather than hundreds of separate nations quarreling with others. In the long run it is a step forward.

Class Discussion Thursday 9/5

Reference: CNN CNN article By Linnie Rawlinson

Summary: The article discusses the growing of the virtual world called Second Life. In this program users make avatars, or virtual representations of themselves, to traverse the virtual world. It mimics real life in the way that you get money and spend it on items in the program. She goes on to say how there is some concern that people who start using the program frequently will start to not care about their real life and only care about the program. She brings up the point that, why would people want to worry about their mortgages and payments when they could just log on to a world that is virtually care free.

Reaction: I personally like the idea of all this. Because it, like Facebook, would be a way to interact with people that you would never meet in your entire life. Corporations could also take advantage of this by using it to hold meetings across countries or even advertise to people in areas they couldn't normally reach. Things would be able to be tested in the virtual world using the same rules that we experience in the real world, or see how people react to it before it actually goes into production. In essence a virtual world like this is an advertiser's heaven. You could meet virtual face to virtual face people that only could only correspond via e-mail before. The net would become more intimate rather than it having so much anonymity. You wouldn't feel like you're communicating with just a computer screen, it'd be an actual person. I personally think that is a good thing.