"Solutions" Andrew Keen

I feel that Andrew Keen's Solutions article was a bit too harsh in bashing the current web. I can understand where he is coming from in his argument that things are being posted on the internet that may have false information because they have been written by amateurs. However I feel that this concept is what shapes our online world today, the ability to speak your mind and contribute to our growing database of information available. I also think that Wikipedia is a useful tool for finding out quick information. Whenever I am unfamiliar with a subject or topic and I Google it Wikipedia is usually the very first thing that pops up. I find it convenient. For my midterm project I actually got the chance to edit Wikipedia and help to contribute information that was nonexistent.

The points Keen brings up in this reading about information being inaccurate I will always keep in the back of my mind while searching online for information to use in an important paper or project. I however do not feel that these amateur sites like Wikipedia and YouTube are taking anything away from the internet and spoiling it's authenticity. I feel that the whole article and Keen's perspective is being exaggerated in so many ways. People are already aware that the information they find posted may not be completely right. Keen does not need to blow it out of the water by bashing it so in the article. I see the arguments that he makes and may agree with them slightly but not enough to voice such a strong viewpoint that he has done.

Interesting Invention

Recently I heard about a new technology that police are using to help keep roadways safe. Many cars are stolen every year which force police to go on dangerous high speed chases to recover the stolen car, and arrest the drive. These chases put the lives of police officers and citizens in danger. Now Police are teaming up with OnStar to help cut down on this dangerous activity. Take a look at this YouTube video interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIIM8rw0au8

My take on Kevin Kelly's "the next 5,000 days of web"

I was very interested in these two videos. I especially liked the part where he listed the statistics like how there is two million emails per second, and fifty five trillion links. Its amazing that we have the technology to determine these statistics to begin with. Not to mention how many people are using the internet to rack up these statistics. 1829 was when the word technology was first invented by a man who was starting to teach a course. Anything that was invented after you were born, or work yet was the two descriptions Kevin gave to describe technology. He brings up a great way to look at life, what if we were to eliminate every kind of technology in our wold today, where would we be? This question scares me because we rely, well I rely so heavily on technology today I would be lost without it.

The video was informative in describing how our brain works and how fast the internet grows. Infinity processing power will be reached by 2014 was a bold statement. Infinity is a huge number and to know that we will be that far along in technology is amazing. I am excited to see if Kevin's theory on how there will be one device for everything eventually comes true. I personally am using a lot of technology like a cell phone, laptop, camera, iPod, and television. To imagine that all of these things will eventually become one is exciting. I have already seen the commercials for the portable personal television but I have not physically seen it yet.

I agree with Kelly's statement that the web is restructuring things. The different stages of link computers (the net), linking pages, and linking data. He is very comical and entertaining like when he speaks about the firs person to purchase the fax machine and telling stories about his experiences with technology. He relates his speeches to the average person and is very personable, how he was up till 4am preparing his speech, and relating technology to each of us and our different places in the world. I enjoyed watching these videos and learning about future technology.

Web 3.0

When I sat down to really think what the internet would be like 3.0 style I had trouble wrapping my head around the fact that we are already so technologically advanced on the internet already and the fact that it can grow even further, amazes me. I think that in the future concepts like facebook and YouTube will be developed further. I can see one website catering to everything. It will be your social networking site which will allow for video chat, conversations, exchange of information, a search engine, your place to do banking, send emails, interact with blogging, and even an online dating place to meet people. I couldn't imagine what else the future holds for web 3.0 because we have a lot already. The concept of Bing interests me because I feel that it may be the new Google. Bing caters to things you search for and makes it more convenient to see the websites even before you open them! Another website that fascinates me is LinkdIn. This is like a business world FaceBook where you can find, contact, and keep track of people in the business world. You can view their current and past jobs. This combined with FaceBook, blogging, and chatting will enable you to keep track of anyone, anywhere, anytime even if you have never met them before. Web 3.0 will be everywhere. It wont just be the internet through you laptops and BlackBerrys but I feel that you will be able to access Web 3.0 anywhere you will ever need to.

Illustrator Project

Edit Wikipedia follow up

To follow up with the midterm project that I completed in Wikipedia on Rate Card, Automated Measurement of Lineups, and Average Hours I posted my edits a while back and now found problems in some of the information that I added. When I placed text from other websites into Wikipedia I cited them properly in the format that was required but some of the citations did not save because there was a problem with their set up. I went back in today to try and fix my edits but some of the links Wikipedia did not approve.

The only other problem I ran into was with placing pictures into my pages. Wikipedia informed me that they use to allow users to make corrections and use pictures from other websites but now they no longer do. This made it frustrating because I could not add visuals to any of the new webpages I edited so that people would understand them better. This was a difficult assignment to do because you needed to follow Wikipedias format as well as the shortcut tools to edit in things like bold fonts, links, citations, and other things like that.

I have the before/afters of my three pages saved into a Word document but if you would like to see the finished edits you can find them here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_card
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Measurement_of_Lineups
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Hours

Illustrator Proposal

1. Describe what kind of visual component you would like to create to accompany your essay

Since I choose to do my midterm project in Wikipedia I not only want to incorporate the terms I used but also the "making wikipedia better" concept. Wikipedia's logo is a basic grey color, with puzzle pieces. My goal is to give Wikipedia's logo a modern facelift. I want to give it some color and add in various images, specifically pertaining to the topics I personally edited.

2. What tools/techniques in Illustrator / Photoshop will you be using?

In Photoshop I will use tools like the feather tool to help combine various images so they fit together perfectly such as pictures which will fill in the puzzle pieces. I want to use Illustrator to add effects to the pictures and vectorize them before i place them into my new logo.

3. How to you envision your completed digital illustration?

I envision my completed digital illustration to be very colorful and vibrant because I want to present a huge contrast between the old, grey one to the new, modern, and eye catching logo. I want to find picture incorporates that modern day technology to upgrade the words that are presently in the puzzle pieces.