Friday, April 11, 2008
Tor and Azureus
Today in lab we went over how to get Tor and Azureus to work together. If you'd like to set this up on your home desktop and can't remember the process, you can always Google for instructions and you'll find a lot of sources like this one on the web.
Monday, March 31, 2008
iPhone Banned Due To Security
Article from the Wall Street Journal on companies banning the iPhone because of security problems.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Abstracts
A student emailed and asked a last-minute question about the Abstract assignment. I've already given feedback to some groups, but thought some of you could benefit from this question and answer:
Question:
Just to make sure I'm following the assignment correctly, I wanted to double check with either of you about how the abstract should be structured. I was looking at some websites to make sure that my abstract was on the right path, and found out that there are two ways to write an abstract. One that is more descriptive that talks about the topics to be covered and one that is informative that is more of a summary or overview. I guess the one distinction between the two is that the descriptive abstract is more laying the groundwork for the organization of the content in the report, but doesn't really go into much detail about the content itself.
In regards to this assignment, what would you like to see out of the abstract?
Answer:
Professor Camp will be grading these and says either way is fine. A project that is further along can provide the second, but those projects that cannot provide more description can get better feedback.
In addition, here's some general advice about Abstracts:
The Abstract should let the reader know exactly what she is about to read. She should be able to know the gist of your experiment/research and how you went about getting to that point (methods/process). Essentially it should lay out the structure for the entire rest of the paper, so she is not stuck on page 3 wondering what this section is about and why the author decided to include it. It is okay to ask stimulating questions and talk about the topic in general, however, I recommend you don't lose the sense of purpose and a conclusion I just mentioned while doing that.
Question:
Just to make sure I'm following the assignment correctly, I wanted to double check with either of you about how the abstract should be structured. I was looking at some websites to make sure that my abstract was on the right path, and found out that there are two ways to write an abstract. One that is more descriptive that talks about the topics to be covered and one that is informative that is more of a summary or overview. I guess the one distinction between the two is that the descriptive abstract is more laying the groundwork for the organization of the content in the report, but doesn't really go into much detail about the content itself.
In regards to this assignment, what would you like to see out of the abstract?
Answer:
Professor Camp will be grading these and says either way is fine. A project that is further along can provide the second, but those projects that cannot provide more description can get better feedback.
In addition, here's some general advice about Abstracts:
The Abstract should let the reader know exactly what she is about to read. She should be able to know the gist of your experiment/research and how you went about getting to that point (methods/process). Essentially it should lay out the structure for the entire rest of the paper, so she is not stuck on page 3 wondering what this section is about and why the author decided to include it. It is okay to ask stimulating questions and talk about the topic in general, however, I recommend you don't lose the sense of purpose and a conclusion I just mentioned while doing that.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
IU Energy Challenge 2008
One of the IU Informatics HCI/d graduate students as part of his capstone project has set up an energy competition to take place among dorms and it started today! This is a super cool project! Check out the website and if you live in the dorms why not participate? Also, please pass this info on to anyone else you know who lives in the dorms, too.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Net Neutrality
There are two short videos on net neutrality that you should check out. Both are intended to be motivational, activist pieces.
The first, Save the Internet, is a shorter, surface-level piece on the topic that is about 4 minutes.
The second, Humanity Lobotomy, delves more into how the current internet situation is in danger of following similar paths of prior media like newsprint and radio. People like Tim Berners-Lee and Lawrence Lessig (you should recognize him from readings you've had in this class) appear in the second one as well, which is about 10 minutes.
In total, these two videos are less than 15 minutes long, are pretty interesting, and certainly address an issue that you, as young citizens and Informatics students, should be concerned with.
I'd be interested in your reactions, too. I encourage you to write comments on this post about these videos and the topic.
Save the Internet
Humanity Lobotomy
The first, Save the Internet, is a shorter, surface-level piece on the topic that is about 4 minutes.
The second, Humanity Lobotomy, delves more into how the current internet situation is in danger of following similar paths of prior media like newsprint and radio. People like Tim Berners-Lee and Lawrence Lessig (you should recognize him from readings you've had in this class) appear in the second one as well, which is about 10 minutes.
In total, these two videos are less than 15 minutes long, are pretty interesting, and certainly address an issue that you, as young citizens and Informatics students, should be concerned with.
I'd be interested in your reactions, too. I encourage you to write comments on this post about these videos and the topic.
Save the Internet
Humanity Lobotomy
Story of Stuff
I had a couple people ask about the video we showed in discussion a couple of weeks ago illustrating the production and consumption model. Below is the video in its entirety.
Monday, February 11, 2008
CBS SciTech
There's a whole lot of interesting stuff on CBS News' SciTech recently. There's a web-based company offering the service of decoding a person's DNA. Think about the security risks here. I don't know how likely it is to be able to easily copy or fake someone's DNA, but just the thought of someone being able to access that data, seems scary to me.
Some you may even find material relevant to your final projects for this class. For example:
Cybersecurity / International / US
Cyber Threat from China
Foreign Hacker Alert
GPS
When GPS Doesn't Cut It
E-Voting
The Web-Based Youth Vote
Cyber Youth Rock the Vote
Electronic Voting Angst
Tech & Elderly / Pervasive / Ubiquitous Computing
Digitally-Assisted Living
Tools for the 21st Century
Some you may even find material relevant to your final projects for this class. For example:
Cybersecurity / International / US
Cyber Threat from China
Foreign Hacker Alert
GPS
When GPS Doesn't Cut It
E-Voting
The Web-Based Youth Vote
Cyber Youth Rock the Vote
Electronic Voting Angst
Tech & Elderly / Pervasive / Ubiquitous Computing
Digitally-Assisted Living
Tools for the 21st Century
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Corporation
The film The Corporation from which I showed clips of in Friday's discussion can be watched in its entirety using the shareware version available on YouTube.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Credit Card Use Online or In Stores: What's Safer?
Is it safer to use credit cards online or in stores? Check out what 60 Minutes has to say.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Welcome
Feel free to share interesting findings, pose questions, or just rant. This is an informal atmosphere where we can interact, so please don't worry about things like spelling, grammar, and sounding intellectual. Just get in there and start posting!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)