Saturday, August 23, 2003

The issue of hacking raised in class brings to my mind the much-talked-about concern of Internet security, in particular, with regards to Internet banking. As a larger segment of the consumer base becomes more web-savvy, banking is taking a shift, from within the confines of bank counters to cyberspace. For banks, this is a huge cost-saver, as banks now require less manpower to serve customers. For consumers, this is freedom, convenience and the power to track your account anywhere and anytime. Welcome to the world of banking 24/7. But there's a glitch - Security. The issue of security while banking online remains one of the obstacles to encourage an even larger segment of consumers to bank online, and with the recent spate of three viruses creating a havoc of US$2.4b in economic cost, banks have even more to worry. Most banks pride themselves in building a secure online environment for their consumers to bank online, and a host of messages educating consumers about secure Internet banking appears before one can log on to the Internet banking page, but the risk of this mega-security wall being hacked down still lurks at bay. And it is a vicious cycle, for every time a crack or a blast in the security wall happens, banks scramble to get it fixed and the walls are strengthened. But there will always be hackers out there who manage to find some way to bust it again. Such is the risk at bay in an online environment, which can only be carefully monitored and controlled.
posted by Anonymous at 8:41 PM

Hello all,
Well, given the topic on wed was V.R., I thought I'd put my two cents in about it. It seems to me that the only people who have any real drive to create realistic V.R. are the boffins who study it. They often nod towards the gaming industry for pushing V.R. to new levels, but, to me at least, the gaming industry intentionally make the games 'V.R.' elements look some what cheesey. Perhaps one way to ensure that the idiots of the world don't go and attempt to recreate the tricks they saw on screen, as some do after watching films.
What practical use would V.R. bring the average joe? Sweet FA really. They say it could recreate a trip to the snow or to another country, but surely the realization once the gimp gear comes off would be rather depressing? Yay, I've been to the La Sagrada Familia, but I didn't actually get to walk the steps up the towers, nor have the thrill of seeing it come closer and closer.
So to end this rant, I think that this almost eutopian vision that the people have for V.R. and the general public is absurd. Balls.
posted by Anonymous at 5:48 PM

ooh, html colours
posted by Anonymous at 4:47 PM

photo on left hand side is showing America, before power-off incident..
and photo on right hand side is showing America,during power-off incident...

posted by Anonymous at 5:24 AM

As the development of Internet and all other computer
stuffs also there are some serious side effects have occured. Personally, Computer
Virus is one of the most serious and easiest one that we could facing when we
use the internet. Unlikely those the hackers who attack or do crack on specific
sites or programs computer virus could brakes and gives harm to huge number
of people while they could not recognize it. One of the good example is the
recent's BLAST WORM virus. Also it shows the power (or the result what he did)
of one can threat the whole WORLD.

We have lots of new technology today, the problem is how to use them in our everyday life.
I watched a Hongkong filme few days ago, it was called"next stage Tianhou".
It a story about how a girl who like sing become popular. At the beginning of this film the girl go to
a subway station in the city, she suddenly see a mp3 download machine, she become very exciting.
She just use few seconds to download a song which is popular and she like it very much.
Here is the point. Did you see any machine like this in New Zealand? The answer is " not yet".
It is really useful and make the mucis market efficiency. People don't need to search a free download
websit to get their favourite songs, they just need spend few dollars to get them easier and more quickly.
And the music company still can get earning to sell the new songs version to these company to let them publish
their songs. I think this invention will become general in the future.
posted by Anonymous at 2:49 AM

Hi everyone~

I think many people was affected by the virus of Blasterl ast week,right? When i discovered my computer that cannot connect on the net, and i am so afraid of it. It is because i spend most of the time with my computer in New Zealand. If i cant connect on the net, i will feel really uncomfortable, becasue i m a overseas student. So internet seems the only way that i can keep in touch with my friend's method.

After solving out the virus problem of my computer, i got one of the question in my mind. If we dont have computer one day, what is our life like?? Nowadays, most of the thing depend on computer and internet so much like bank use computer as their data storage, airline make use of computer to manipulate customer's information etc. The new technology seems get important position day by day. It is no doubt that new technology bring us a lots of convenience, however, the over dependent of technology that would be worse for human. Many years ago, human can live without any technology, but i cant imagine we live without any techonology now.

Actually, this passage i just want to raise a question for you guys, "What you think if we live without technology in this century?". Maybe you guys can think that question in spare time. ^^
posted by Anonymous at 2:24 AM

____________

Friday, August 22, 2003

Firstly,I want to share you a interesting “Virtual realism” poetry here:

the sole light in the darkness
emits burbling, echoic sounds.
harsh and evil, they travel behind my eyes
and into my skull.
the new generation's addiction.
genius, germs, gesticulation
all lost behind digital humming
taken over by clichés and condoms
clicking
clicking
the loving parasites
rustling in the darkness
drop a ball of fear behind my lungs.
mustn't wake them with sounds
of sipping smoke
and a wilting brain.
when social circles sleep,
they leave me
lost inside the scratchy, screaming screen.

Secondly, I like to talk about Virtual Realism:
(from the book- “Virtual Realism”, by Michael Heim)

What's commonly described as "virtual reality" or "VR" is a pale imitation of the real thing according to Michael Heim. But the real thing, he declares, is fast approaching. We'll soon be able to totally immerse ourselves in detail-rich, highly interactive artificial worlds. This scares some, but Heim explores our ability to merge VR capabilities into the human experience in very positive ways--without falling prey to technological pollyannaism. Virtual Realism offers a fascinating exploration of the technological and artistic sides of VR and offers some exciting challenges to old assumptions about where nature ends and cyberspace begins.
From the simple VR games found in upscale video arcades to the ultimate "immersion"--the CAVE, a surround screen, surround sound system that projects 3-D computer graphics into a ten-foot high cube--virtual reality has introduced what is literally a new dimension of reality to daily life. This book takes a thought-provoking look at the implications of virtual reality for our culture and suggests ways of living with this technology.

posted by Anonymous at 7:36 AM

Mr.Luke mentioned about those 'cyber' stars on last Wednesday... I found some more cases.
Those 'boom' of cyber-star has started about end of 1999 and 2000s. I think the very first one was Kyoko Date(Pronounce as Dah- Te, since it's a Japanese name, not date as English word) which is on our hand out.
In Korea, there were few similar tries. (Monkey see, Monkey do... -_-) The first one was named as 'ADAM' which was a male character. Of course, he(?) was a cyber star and was singer. The second and most successful one was named as 'LUCIA' and it was a female singer character.

This is LUCIA's image. Well, also in commercial LUCIA made quite good profits. She(?) debut as singer and sold her first album more than150 thousands copies. She also released her second album as well but.. not sure about this.

I think above one is the Jacket of her album booklet. Well, in the first period they made quite good success. They appeared on various TV CF as well. (Oops, now I found the exact date. The debut of ADAM was 23rd of January, 1998. So it's not end of 1999... early of 1998)
But anyhow... the 'life' of those cyber-stars were not that long. It's because of the cost of produce and popularity. To make those cyber-stars costs huge and also take long time to make. Therefore they can not act continuosly and... it's hard to bear to wait for their fans...
Hmm.... that's it for now....
posted by Anonymous at 4:28 AM

Have you ever played flash before? i am not mean make flash!
here is a very interesting website, you can play varities flash!
click here
posted by Anonymous at 3:50 AM

Regard to “virtual”, Luke talked about many examples of “virtual”. One of them is virtual shopping mall; I never used online shopping mall before! But there is one website, I think maybe most girls will like it! It’s a Japanese website!
click here
On the left side of this web page, one model is standing there without any clothes. And in the right part of this web page, there are different kinds of clothes—shirts, jackets, shoes, bags etc. and you can choose one of them, left side model will try the clothe on for you. You only need to click the one that you prefer. When the model is dressed, she can do 360-degree rotations, but you need to rotate your mouse! So that you can see the clothe from different angles.
For every clothes you choose the price will be showed automatically.
I think this website can be used as an example of virtual shopping!.
Girls, enjoy


posted by Anonymous at 3:38 AM

I just read an article about the junk emails from newspaper some days ago. The article is about a man who sent millions of emails every single day to advertise his product online. He was sued recently and forced to stop his business. He said that he didn't realize that it's illegal to do so and found nothing wrong to promote his product in this way.

A U annoyed with those junk emails? I received at least 15 of them everyday in my hotmail box, most of which is advertisement and sexual content. I always delete them directly befor open it because of the possible virus inside. I haven't found an effective way to reject it.

Share with us if you know the way? Merci!
posted by Anonymous at 2:41 AM

____________

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Don't you just hate those pop-up ads that say "Beware, your computer is vunerable to recieving excess pop-up ads! Click here". It's like yeah, no shit! It seems that lots of hackers love pointing out the errors that they have discovered in the programmes they hack to the makers of them - like the guy from the video we watched in class emailing the companies where he got the credit card numbers from. The people that wrote the microsoft worm virus thing that is circulating at the moment also apparently have a message to Bill Gates which appears on some affected computers, telling him to stop making money and fix his software. It was kinda cool though, on the day the news about the worm was first on TV was the day I saw Terminator 3, and it was like "Wow, the machines really are taking over the world!" (well, not really, but it did appeal to my sense of irony). Ok, now for the website link: if anyone is interested:

The Hacker's Hall of Fame

Hmm, and I was just reading earlier posts about technology elimating the human element in the music industry - some bands make a point not to use any digital enhancements at all in their recordings, such as Rage Against the Machine (when they were together) and Audioslave (yeah, i'm a Tom Morello fan). Audioslave actually state in their album covers that all the sounds they make in the album are created by them - through their instruments and their voice. I went to their concert, and in one of their songs (Set it Off I think it's called) Chris Cornell (not really a fan, but this was cool) started hitting his throat to create a sound that does sound digitally produced. Ok, I was gonna give you a link to an Audioslave site, but they all seem fairly crap. so Bye all, for this week...
posted by Anonymous at 5:24 PM

Hey Guys,
Just in response to a couple of blog entries that caught my eye over the past week...
I have also had that terrible MSBlaster worm and have also spent hours on the phone to IHUG with a help assistant who kept stuffing up what order we were fixing the problem in. How annoying!Apprarently Microsoft has this virus on it when you purchase your new computer (I think its only Windows XP & 2000). You get the virus just by being connected to the internet.

Anyway I was talking to a friend who is studying in Otago, and he said that they don't have a online enrolling system like NDeva, and they have to go around to every lecturer to get their enrollment approved for each paper! Apparently its an absolute nightmare with students running around madly and ques everywhere.
Technology is another thing to add to the long list of things to "get over". :)



posted by Anonymous at 5:13 PM

Ever wanted to be a Hacker? Well after a very interesting lecture on thursday, i've decided to drop out of university to become a fulltime hacker!(I'm kidding folks) But what a unique life you would lead as a hacker! I thought i'd do some investigative research on the web to see if you could learn to be a hacker easily, and guess what? You can! Check out
www.hackers.com! This site and the other linked sites provide everything for beginner to advanced hackers giving them information, software, and support. The site is a great starting point if you are a wannabe hacker or phreaker! It provides information on who to target for your first hack as well as passwords and codes for various operating systems. It also gives you the software or links to software that are needed to hack mainframes across the world! As well as all the hack info it provides history, culture, and other interesting stuff about hackers. Basically it expands into great depth what was talked about in our lecture yesterday. Another site which maybe of interest to do with hacker and phreaker culture is project.cyberpunk.ru(no www)! Check these two sites out, and hey presto, in no time you will be deeply entrenched into the hacker or phreaker community! But beware it is ILLEGAL(but when did that ever stop a university student)!

HAPPY HACKING TECHNOCULTURITES!

PS Ashley how did that site work?
posted by Anonymous at 1:50 PM

More on virtual stuff, I missed that lecture however oops, I was on the net the other night and an ad popped up for site pal, so I thought I would just check it out, its this really cool site that offers a virtual guide for your website I dont have a website but it was fun creating a person out of a physical feature menu, you could even choose what label a guy or girl could have on a baseball cap, these cost but if you have a website they would be pretty cool you can make them say anything you want and choose their voice anyway I had fun playing on it when I was bored. the site is www.sitepal.com.
thats all from me
have a good weekend
posted by Anonymous at 1:21 PM

Talking about virtual pet...well as we told in the wednesday lecture, simply it is hassle-free..no poo or pee on the carpet, they don't demad you to take them to work ^________^;;;
actually, is it true? I don't think so..
If you really wanna know what feels like having a vertual pet, visit petgame site.
www.petgame.com
once you register they give you cyber money to buy a pet and things for your animal...and don't worry~~cyber money is free..
I started this game 3 years ago....then never go back to my pet a month later I started the game.
If you have time to burn, I recommand this site to you...otherwise this site will become pain in the a?s.
It is great fun for few weeks may be a month, but after that..cyber pet is as much pain as real pet..you will see it..
enjoy~~
posted by Anonymous at 5:22 AM

Well, today's lecture ring me a bell that one of most famous hacker story...
When Clifford Stoll worked at Laurencebuckly (not sure about its spelling..) labortory as Computer System manager he found there is an error of 75cents in its account. Soon after he trace its error he found that someone is using his system without permission. About a year of time of trace, Stoll and 26 U.S.A departments found that suspect is in Harnover of West Germany, through all the network of the world.
But Stoll did not satisfies with it but also make traps and found whole spy group that stole important information from U.s and sold to KGB.
(I think this is the one the lecturer mentioned today). In 1989, March the spy group has arrested.

Well, by the way... recent hacker films... I think 'SWORD FISH' is one of them, too... :)

posted by Anonymous at 4:43 AM

Hey, adding my 2 cents about flash media which can be demonstrated on Designer homepages of either Versace at http://www.versace.com/flash.html or Giorgio Armani at http://www.giorgioarmani.com/ Obviously you may need the technology on your computer to access. But just to point out the funky beats that start up as the flash gets going as a new media. So one problem with technology that I just thought of is that you cant tell with the last sentence I just wrote if I am being sarcastic or enthusiastic about the funky music ... before anyone trys to make some smart comment, therefore to some extent we cant fully express ourselves through typing .. yet. Anyways another thing to look out for in these sights is the collections - to not only check out some of the fit female models, but to observe if they really are that hot, or if there is a lot of airbrushing being done. This may tie into some virtuality a bit, as their photo has been taken, but then manipulated to perfection so its not really real, but I think the models look very cool, and there are some primo eyewear and watches from Armani.
posted by Anonymous at 3:11 AM

____________

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Hey people

What a busy week it has been....Been away from uni this whole week.... as I have been on jury service all week..... Sounded quite good at first but now i realise that i have a lot of work to catch up on...... Oh well its good that its been raining all week.... at least i won't feel bad doing some assignments instead of going out like some people....

Anyway I was looking at the topics for this week.... Its a shame that I missed out on the lecture on Hackers as it would have been interesting to learn more about that topic.

But I started surfing the net the other night and came across a really interesting webpage by Sarah Gordon, who has done extensive research into the psychology and motivations of virus writers and hackers. I found the website really interesting because she has quite alot of information, interviews and she even describes how she got to know members of the hacker underground and debunks a few popular myths about the hacker personality. If you have the time stop by this website... I think its an interesting read. Click here to visit Sarah Gordon's Hacker Site.


story.hackers


Also another webpage that i came across, I somehow found a bit weird... Its part of an interview section where an 18 year old hacker Aka Curador from Wales, who in 2000 stole an estimated 26,000 credit card numbers from a group of e-commerce websites and posted them on the web. Have a read.... I actually found it a bit weird... The way he talks, he came across a bit arrogant to me.. . Click here to visit Curador's Interview


Thats all from me this week......I better get going with my assignments ...... Have a great week!

Chow





posted by Anonymous at 9:24 PM

let me show what's special thing in this time 2 u guys~~,,,,!!!!!
yesterday, we studied the term of virtual....~~~ what's virtual world...???hum......first of all,, i will give u guys the one of example...^^...
like a cyber characters, they make fresh emotion deliverying to us... they are not only in the computer world but also, they r breathing with us in real world... they appeal many kind of directions( such as actors, communities, city, town hall, sex, dating etc..) to get close with us!! they provide fresh imagination of virtual world in new media~~!!

ja~~~~show u "LIMIT" which's name of cyber entertainer,she's one of succesful cyber human in Korea.
u know, my country always try to create something different from others!!! prode of Korea~~hehe~~
anyway, explanining......she's Digital Sapiens, she's from Real Space......@.@



u know why her name is "LIMIT"?...
coz,,,L(life), I(innovation), M(marvel), I(information), T(thchnology)
she's got power 4 endless~~~~~~!!!
she's singer, video director, VJ, Dancer, CF Model........lots of things can do~~(Greate isn't it????hoho~)

actually, moderners try to make ourselves as a omnipotence people,
that's the one reason, we make these characters (cyber humans) in order to make us happy through unreal feature????
we can sometimes misunderstand to live with them in our real world..~~~!! this might be one of new techno media developing wirh the virtual world.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


posted by Anonymous at 9:22 PM

I completely forgot to raise this point in a blog when it happened, and it dawned on me today that it is actually rather relevant, being part of new media and all.
The new virus that seems to be rapidly embracing computers world-wide(blaster worm- slash-something??), found its way into MY computer!! I was mortified. My sister spent three hours on the phone to ihug and five hours online trying to fix this mess. We realised we had the virus when we would be on the internet for about 20seconds until we got a message from microsoft saying the system needed to be shut down immediately. This continually happened until it hit the news and we realised thats what was going on with our computer. It really screwed up quite a few things- we had to delete the whole of kazaa and now all the songs downloaded from there wont play on the media player. And the list goes on......
Luckily we got rid of it relatively quickly, otherwise I probably wouldnt be sitting here at my computer posting a blog.
Makes me wonder why there are people out there who insist on sabotaging such a good thing. Why abuse it when u can use it?

Has anyone else had this bastard worm on their computers at home?
posted by Anonymous at 7:33 PM

Well, I'd hate to have posted bogus information during my spiel about Gorillaz... but luckily I have the internet at my fingers. Here's an excerpt from an interview from the online magazine :Under The Radar, with Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, and Dan "the Automator":

Jamie Hewlett: "We had the idea to work together on something, and obviously me being an artist and him [Damon] being a musician, it was going to be an animated band. Seeing as though there were so many manufactured bands in the charts, we thought, ‘why not manufacture something properly and do something decent for a change'. So we spent a year getting all the ideas together really, sort of preparing it all. Then we got Dan in...We shared a flat in London and we wanted to do something different."
So I wouldn't call Damon the 'monkey holding the mic' :-)

And further down: "Blur’s lead singer Damon Albarn got together with his flat mate, Tank Girl cartoonist Jamie Hewlett and decided to form an animated band, the self professed ‘World's First Virtual Band.’ ...
Obviously, you can't trust everything you read on the net... but there is quite a wide body of people who regard Gorillaz as the World's first. Interesting though -I hadn't heard of the Archie Comic Virtual Band. We'd probably just have to redefine the term 'World's First", should it really mean 'the first ever'? I was just sort of meaning 'the First World-Famous',... there are probably lots of people who made 'Virtual' bands in their basements, tinkering with their synthesisers and all, even before Archie and his gang.
posted by Anonymous at 5:49 PM

I'd like to use my second entry to talk about the games that are developed nowadays have such huge impact on wide ranges of people from all over the world.
Many gaming industries as PS2, K-BOX, tend to bring cinematic aspects into the narrative of those games in order to build up a vivid virtual world to audiences(players). Final Fantasy 10 is a typical example of that which not only makes children stuk on it, but also youth and even adults as people showing at the image above. They try to enter the virtual world by putting those characters' costumes on and also give themselves a scene of which I am Lulu, Tidus...
posted by Anonymous at 4:42 PM

I think you'll find The Archies were the first virtual band, based on the cartoon adventures of the Archie Comics ; )

GorillAZ was in fact the brainchild of Jamie Hewlett - creator of the Tank Girl franchise, and Dan the Automator - seminal hip-hop concept album producer.
Damon Albarn was the monkey left holding the mic : )
- Dan

posted by Anonymous at 4:42 PM

posted by Anonymous at 4:22 PM

posted by Anonymous at 4:10 PM

So I'm sitting here, (yes it is fairly early in the morning, but I have had my early morning coffee) thinking what in the world to write about for my third blog, what new media have I interacted with recently?
The thing with new media is that it lives and breathes around us all the time. It is everchanging and evolving and all of a sudden you can be out of touch with the latest thing or even what it is. I was at a conference recently and I have to say 50% of those attending were over the age of 65, but I see a man talking in to a palm pilot, and while I'm looking at him strangly my friend leans over and whispers it's a cell phone and palm pilot in one. I now sound like my mother when the words come out of my mouth "What next".
So the two things I notice is that 1) the older generation have learned to be incrediblely adaptable to all the new media that has been developed post world war II, I mean how scary the internet must have seemed to them for who TV did not exist when they were born. And 2) most prescribe to the belief that newer is better. Now I don't believe this is an absolute, but in this marketplace of life everyone seems to be trying to out do one another. Flash is a perfect example. Used for various things I realise, but in terms of say a business e-card if it has a cool flash on it and draws your attention that's great, but do you use that as meter to whether you want to use them or not. If a web designer then definately, but if they are a builder, how can that tell you if they are any good at building houses or not? I know my thoughts have lots of holes and what if's but it is just a thought in a mine's bigger (or smaller whatever the case might be) than yours society.
And a big thanks to those who indepth blogs on Flash made me who knew virtually(pun ha ha!)nothing on Flash more comfortable with it's uses and abilities.

Have a great day ya all!!
posted by Anonymous at 1:37 PM

Hi all, just as an aside to all the blog assessment overload going on here on this site....i was thinking about tutorials today- why do so FEW people talk/interact in tutorials and leave all the talking up to a couple of people? Does anyone else have this same problem in tutorials? The other day I felt like I was the only one in the tut, along with another girl. Anyways just thought I'd raise that point. Im off to bed now, good night xx
posted by Anonymous at 4:37 AM

Right, today's lecture and its big list of "Virtuals" (Virtual actors.. Virtual shopping mall et al) inspired me to try and think of a Virtual "Something" not on the list. It took a lot of brainpower, but I thought of one - and it seems like a good topic for discussion.
Can you all remember hearing this: "The World's first Virtual Band"? If you do, then you'll remember Damon Albarn (lead singer of Blur)'s brainchild: Gorillaz. Like em? Loath em? Doesn't really matter - what does is that this subject goes hand-in-hand with the whole 'what does Virtual really mean anyway' debate. Personally, I was completely confused about what they meant by: a 'Virtual band'. Turns out it was a band that didn't really have band members, but ... did? Except they were 2D cartoon characters?! ("come again?")
This posed all sorts of questions - such as - who's playing the instruments? Is it all done on computer or what? And how do they perform? I just read a review of one of their concerts. Commenting on the lone 20ft screen displaying 'the band' at the concert, the reviewer says: "And without any element of 'traditional', visceral performance...It's like watching the TV."
Actually, when Gorillaz are on the radio, there arent any audible cues in the music to tell us it's a virtual band. But at least when I hear them, my "meta-cognition" reminds me that they aren't a *real* band, and for some reason that makes them sound less.. impressive?
Yeah - so "Meta-Cognition". Remember the BBC video today, when the presenter (the heavily english-accented one) said why she could walk off the edge of the platform, when actually it looked like she would fall down and break something? "Meta-Cognition" - the fact that she knew the big picture; that she wouldn't really fall. So maybe "Virtual" means: "Real in every way, only our Meta-Cognition knows it isn't". [OR: "You can't fool me, I'm a smart human!"]

Any thoughts on the Virtual Band genre?
posted by Anonymous at 3:44 AM

Droppin' Science Like A Clumsy Professor:
Please read this right here: Digital Constructivism
Because I'll post a blog based on it's contents later this week.
Pay attention too, there will be a pop quiz afterwards : )
- Dan
posted by Anonymous at 3:00 AM

Well, alright apologies for this. But thinking about it, the links that i had just shared previously to the flash sites raises the question about the extent of the violence that is portrayed in those flash. Its not just that, its the fact that the flash characters in those violent scenes starts off as cute cuddly characters, how horryfying it would be to unsuspecting children watching these flashes indeed. mAybe it is in the authors' some kind of deep psychological satisfaction doing it or that it is the very intention to portray that kind attack against the cute animation type characterisation.
Another thing that i might add about the other link is that, there is an incorporation of a sort of sitcom episode style that the flash programms are used for example the 'Zombie Co;;ege' episodes found in this link .
Well i sure hope my posts are getting useful for my assessments.

Cheers all
posted by Anonymous at 12:13 AM

____________

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

A lecturer of mine shared this story once.About the pre-n-Deva days here at UoA.How crazy it was that everyone had to queue up in order to get enrolment.And the queue extended all the way down the streets and you can only guess the amount of Ages it took for the line to move.It was madness and she had to individually get enrolment into the classes.
Well well...now fast forward to now, enrolment's all done on the n-Deva.No queues...easier?! Not entirely...as many out there would also swear by! It did take away the element of pure dreadness of standing there in a queue, but i reckon many out there still faced countless frustrations and craziness working to enrol using the system. But even more worth noting is that, my lecturer mentioned that many of her now most closest friends were people she met in that very queue which muz hav lasted forevr,that she was in.Friendships that would Never would have been if not for the queue!
Now, with online enrolment, what most of us are left with is same amount of frustrations but frustrations that we feel on our own in the comforts of ur room...isn't it a wonder that most of us aren't driven to madness out of these kinds of isolated experiences that we go thru' in many online application.
However, then again, compare it to the story that, if w/o the veryyy technology of the email & internet, I wouldn't have come to know the group of friends that were coming to Auckland on exchange from my homeland...but the means by which that happened may well also raise some issues of privacy and the extent of just how unprivate it can get in the online world.I say that becoz, one of them had managed to somehow find the bunch of us who were coming down here thru' some of the email lists that were sent out by our school.So there she had, in her 'hands' the list of emails n names. So yea, makes you wonder just how many people out there could really simply just get a hand on ur address & spam u!

posted by Anonymous at 11:33 PM

This is my first post directly concerning 'new media'. Rather, it concerns the meeting of an 'old media' (vinyl records ) and new (digital recording, audio editing software and cd burning). Are these actually new media, tell me if I'm wrong?!

A friend of mine has recently borrowed, from a friend of his, a collection of reggae and dub albums on 12" vinyl. Some (but not all) of these titles are available on CD. We decided to record all of the albums onto my computer and burn them to CD. This process is painstaking but rewarding.

The albums have to be recorded in real time and then I cut up the tracks using a program called "Sound Forge". This poweful piece of software is often employed by music producers and audio engineers and is reasonably easy to use. After cutting up the tracks (and removing silence from the beginning and end of the tracks) they are ready to be burnt to a CD-R. However, I listen to the entire album before cutting up and burning as occasionally the needle has skipped and I have to go back and re-record the affected track. This whole process takes AGES. I save all files as waves and do not compress them to mp3. Waves take up heaps more space than mp3s but in this situation are the better choice.

Although mp3s (at 128k) sound pretty good, and it is hard to distinguish between them and waves, there is a definite difference in quality which is hard to discern at first, but becomes clear with careful listening and blind comparison - this is especially true at high volume. Although they take up a lot more space on my computer I am more concerned about achieving the best quality sound I can, especially as the process is so time-consuming. I still like, and use, mp3s but for this particular task I decided to use waves as I didn't want to spend so much time and then compromise on quality.

Another reason for copying these vinyl albums onto CD is that the sound of a tune on vinyl (even considering the hiss and crackle) sounds really nice and many people believe the quality is superior to CD. I don't know if this supposed difference still applies when vinyl is recorded to CD, but I maintain that the CDs ripped from vinyl sound richer than commercial CDs. It might all be in my head but I'd like to think that it's not.

Furthermore, these copies may become entangled further in the web of media as my flatmate is now able to use these vinyl copies, along with his own CDs and Mini Discs for his radio show on the new Auckland pirate radio station "Fleet FM". Although a pirate station, it is legal as long as they don't increase the size of their transmitter. Tune in to 88.3FM (although at the moment it is 88.2 due to conflict with a Hindu station) if you live in Mt Eden, Kingsland or near Symonds St and you might be able to get it. I guess pirate radio is a sort of democratisation of technology/media, but it obviously has serious limitations. This transmission technology is accessible to the public but is severely curtailed by broadcast laws.

I hope that this post is a coherent exposé of some of my current delvings into new media. I realise that the copying of albums (as well as using a cracked copy of Sound Forge) raises many ethical issues, but I am not going to try and deal with those this time.

At last a sensible post,
Robert.
posted by Anonymous at 10:00 PM

Advertising companies takes advantage of new technologies to advertise products and make profit. The advertisers uses posters internet, theatres, television and so on. Different products are advertised including holiday destinations, Nowadays you can book almost everything online like tickets, accomodation and transportation. More important you can find information online and have idea of the place you and your family going before hand. Internet also gives opportunity for people to compare the cost of these destination. For example if you want to visit africa visit the website below and get interesting information. www.afrikavakanties.nl/tanzania/ kilimanjaro.html
posted by Anonymous at 9:41 PM

well i guess it's another week...another week of posting our official blog.
I think that my main encounter with different media devices have either been my fax machine at work....or my encounter with printed advertisements in the 'Yellow Pages'.
Don't you find it soo annoying when you find what i believe is garbage sent to you via fax...the content usually tells you about how you can make heaps of money just from working from home..or there trying to advertise products they sell. Well for me i turned up at work and found this fax that referred me to internite sites where you can find information that'll help you improve your health, brain power and much, much more.
As for my most recent experience with a form of media it would be when i helped my partners sister look for florists that would be open on boxing day that could make up her wedding boquet. With some of the adverts i found reference to internet or email addresses where i could find out more information or ask a question via email. I think that advertising has really transformed from what it used to be where everything could only be discussed over the phone or in person. Now there are so many ways that people can have access to information on particular shops, businesse's etc...etc... But personally i prefer to go into the place and look at what i'm purchasing or what service i'm looking at trying out. there are just some things that the computer, or print media can't do....that personal contact can...
posted by Anonymous at 9:26 PM

posted by Anonymous at 4:11 PM

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Monday, August 18, 2003

Dan - I have trouble spelling. I think it might be slight dyslexia, in all seriousness. It runs in the family. Would you mind giving me some lessons please? Oh thats right, you just did. Thanks a million buddy. ;)
posted by Anonymous at 6:38 PM

Welcome to another week of slightly controversial websites and bloggery! If you dont like it "suck my blog"! This charming quote comes from this weeks website, which has its own blog called suck my blog. www.liquidgeneration.com is a great site for stoopid ass games, copius amounts of ridiculous pictures, toons, and news updates... Its f***en great! Hours of fun! Its is a well presented colourful website and easy to follow. While surfing the site you can launch their very own music player, which features american rock, hip hop and r'n'b, bands such as The Dandy Warhols. Topics of interest are games featuring shoot ém up Osama game, Micahel Jackson Baby toss(kinda sick), whoose boobs(for the lads), suck my news weekly, sabotage and e-cards. The later two are feature flash animations which can be sent to friends as practical jokes(warning: some of them are pretty damn sick and stoopid! eg the www.chickswithdicks.com one!, but they are pretty funny when sent to people in open plan offices! Several of my friends are not too happy with me at da mo!) The site is based largely on flash, everything that is available uses flash in some way! Check this one out if you dare!

Enough of slightly sadistic websites, for this weeks new media i thought i would talk about sport and racing gambling. As a big fan of this form of betting i decided to explore recent technologies to help us to fritter away our hard earned bling bling. It was not too long ago when we had to go see Frank da bookie standing at the back of your local pool hall to make a bet on the horses, but now we got it all at home thanks to TAB! Instead of going down to your local TAB to make a bet with Sheryl, firstly there is phone bet, where you set up an account and use your phone to ring an operator before the race or sports event and place your bet. Or you jump on the net and go to www.tab.co.nz and have the 10 million options on every sport imaginable around the world! As well as the New Zealand TAB there are obviously overseas betting agencies, which, if you know your maths quite well can use this to your advantage and often cover your bets as the odds are different eg the Warriors pay a lot more in Australia than they do here! But how bout this for money frittering convenience, Sky Bet! For those of you with Sky Digital you may be familiar with this. You have the odds at the fingertips of your remote (while you are still watching the sports channel in a window on the screen of course!). As well as the odds as soon as you have set up an account (youve already got one with your phone account!) away you go, or should i say your money goes from the comfort of your Lay-Z-Boy!

Matt, the names for the E-nation i like are Pynx and Athens v4.2, both have a certain ring to them. Just my opinion..... by the way if youre looking for a Minister of Sport or a Minister of Drugs(education) or both for the E-Nation, put my name down as a candidate!
Dan. Big ups dude! Bought the Tribe Called Quest CD on your recommendation.... Its F***en great!

Damn, I ramble a lot!

PS Luke will i get in trouble if i send the odd sabotage to people in the class? (I'm kidding!)
posted by Anonymous at 5:47 PM

BLOG ENTRY 2 - EMAIL

Email has provided a faster and easier way to communicate and obtain information. However, because the internet is so easy and quick to use, people sometimes use it subconsciously and don’t always think about what they are actually doing, whereas when you send a letter it is a manual process where you write the address and you put the letter in the post box, and are very aware of your actions.

A lady who is a psychologist at my work has just written a book which was to be published by Routledge overseas. She was communicating via email with a lady (not part of the publishing agency) overseas who had helped her get the book up to publishing standards. The lady from my work had to make a few adjustments to the book before it could be published and because of her heavy workload was unable to do this. So she emailed the lady who had been helping her and asked her if she could do this. This lady forwarded the lady from my works email to the people at Routledge by accident and the people at Routledge became suspicious as to how much of the book was actually written by the lady from my work, and the book was threatened to not be published anymore.

The internet nearly jeopardised the lady from my works book publication, but had she have written a letter to her friend overseas, it is not likely that this letter would have ended up in the hands of the publishers.

posted by Anonymous at 5:22 PM

Hey Arvid,
F-a-l-l-a-c-y

hittin' F7 24/7,
- Dan (jokes)

posted by Anonymous at 3:03 AM

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Sunday, August 17, 2003

Okay, just in reply to Dan's post about technology eleminating the human element in the music industry. While this may be so in some cases, it is not just in Hip Hop where the human soul is still evident. Sure, digital technologies HAVE the ability to wipe out every bung note, every peace of human falicy and make a record that is slick and polished with no unique qualities what so ever...this doesnt mean that all use of new media in the music industry is going to churn out over produced, in human crap.

Take for example a band like Queens of the Stoneage. They use new media and digital technologies in their recording, but there is definately a distinct human emotion in all of their songs. And when they play live, they have a very raw grungy sound, that definately DOES NOT sound like it is coming out of a studio-compression-whatever-the-fuck device that people use now days.

Basically, my point is that technology is there to create the flawless record which would take the human element out of music, but it is not allways utilized in this way. One could also make the statement that there is no human element to music unless it is experienced live. That any recording of music whether it be cassette, 8 track, mini-disc or CD is a falicy and a manipulation of musics truths.
posted by Anonymous at 5:43 PM

well i felt the reprecussions of relying on my computer and the internet heavily this week for it seemed that when my computer was out of action someone decided to recall my library book and because i didn't feel like fighting to check my emails at uni i thought i would wait to the computer was fixed. Bad mistake my book ended up being overdue and i got fined that ridiculous $3.00 a day.
Anyway onto technoculture and new media I have found all the blogs on flash very interesting for I'm in no man's land when it comes to discussing it. I completely agree with the blog raising the issue of authorship and flash and how one can still withhold credit to their piece somewhat in using flash. Even though a lot of it is about money making for the companies it seems that technology is constantly reassessing issues at stake over authorship and developing new methods for control over it, with html now being used less and less. I saw an interesting documentry on i think it was 60 minutes this week about the internet and the increased use of it for auctioning, trading and selling goods. Spokes people from e-bay talked about their market and how when they started out 8% of their products for auction where beanie babies and how they have gone from that to selling motor vehicles over the internet in a few years. It raises the issue surrounding security and that accessing the internet can be a safe option as people have now come to see. Customers have the ability to comment on the sellers actions and the very first negative comment means sellers are wiped from records immediatly and are no longer permitted to sell on the e-bay site.
I stumbled across a pickle in the readings today about what actually is "new media" because such a large proportion of new technology is adapted from it's predocessors if you look at historical technological developments, it's got me a bit confused and is definatly something i will have to think about and after writing way too much heres my site for this week:
I reccomend going to www.taigkhris.com/ it's a personal site surrounding a pro inline skater and i personally thought it was really cool for it's visual content. Making full use of flash it has audio, mini movies, excellent graphics and there is always something moving on screen.
posted by Anonymous at 2:41 AM

Goodevening all.
Given that alot of the recent bloggers have been related to the use of flash on the internet, I thought I'd give you kids this link to the R.E.M. site.
http://remhq.com/flash/index.html
The have been using flash as long as their site has been going. Through this site the band have expressed their views on politics etc as well as pushing new talent that they like and sites off the web that has attracted their attention
They have been using flash as long as their site has been going. Through this site the band have expressed their views on politics etc as well as pushing new talent that they like and sites off the web that has attracted their attention(s). R.E.M. has proved that this is an effective way of letting the world as whole know what is happening in the world that they find important. I could go on, but I shall refrain. The use of flash has made it a far more interesting site to vist than a static one.
On that rather lame note, I'm going to have dessert I think and hope that my link works.
Tootles
posted by Anonymous at 1:59 AM

This is a somewhat late post, but while we're still technically on the subject of Flash(ie last week) I'd like to peruse and ponder the question of flash & what it means in this new digital age.

To define the medium of flash is like trying to define any other mediumthat is to say, its not blatantly easy. Flash covers all sorts of mediums, and the addition of sound into the flash medium further complicates the definiton. If we look at the evolution of cinema,it's roots began with such inventions as the phenkistoscope,vaudeville, silent theatres & nickelodeons.
Flash, however, as an evolutionary technology, has already got such an advanced base from which it can begin to evolve(music cd's,film itself,television,comic books,etc etc) which begs the question, how do we define flash?

Sound, animation, film, music,pop art.... the list could go on & on. The imaginative nature of flash allows the author to not only create a completely unique peioce of material, but also allows them to retain a distinct sense of authorship, something that is becoming harder to do in the digital age. Web page adminitrators can create a website, & no matter how sexy & innovative it looks, the source code is available for anyone to access & then re-use in their own eay. This can be seen as a good thing as it allows users to learn & expand their knowledge of hypertext based publishing, but with any 'sharing' of technology, there are those who exploit it, & you get people ripping off site designs left right & centre.

Not so with Flash. Although you may be able to purchase the programs that are necessary to publish your flash animations(albeit at a high price), you are the only one with the 'source' of the flash, making it harder to rip off to the extent of HTML. Your creation cant be so easily copied as hypertext can be. Here we have, as with cinema, a return to the idea of auteurship and exclusivity of ideas on the net. I now want to point some examples of this idea auteurship upon the net.

Eric Kaplan, writer/producer of such programs as The Late Show with Letterman and the cartoon Futurama, has taken it upon himself to create a new form of cartoon/social satire on the internet. click here for icebox On the left hand side of the webpage theres a menu with all the different types of cartoons available via this site. I highly reccomend checking out 'Meet the Millers'.
The only problem is, and I'll refer you back to my last post, is that after you've watched the first one, you have to pay to watch the rest of the episodes.
Even though its only US$0.25, its still an example of how nothing comes for free (unless you mosey on over to rip off stuff for free )

In my search for interesting flash sites, I've found quite a few, so I'll save some more for next week, but for those of you who have been able to bother reading through my post, I'll reward you with these fine picks.



Animated standup of Chris Rock, among other things
more satire than you can shake a cynical stick at
this is just plain weird, you have been warned
check out Playstation Europe 222 in the dropdown menu


I think thats probably enough for one sunday afternoon/evening.
Have I answered my question, what is flash.....no not really, but that wasnt the intention, cos in my opinion, you cant define it, flahs is just a mixture of various mediums. like John Lennon once said, 'Let it be.....'

-Damo
posted by Anonymous at 12:15 AM

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