UNCW Library's Mobile Website

All hail king iPhone lol and it's superior abilities. I kid, I kid (sorta). I myself I really like the Library's mobile website. It's very easy to navigate around, but that may be because my mobile device makes it much easier but I don't know how other devices handle it. On my iPhone, all I have to do is touch what I want to use, and it even has it so I can browse the entire library catalog and also search ebscohost...that's huge. By far, my favorite feature is the computer availability feature--which is awesome! This way I can strategically plan my library trips around the time that I see has the most computers available. That is, if I needed to use a computer. I have no suggestions other than possibly creating an iPhone app that allows me to do all of this via my phone without logging onto the Internet and typing in the library's homepage all the time. It would save time for all iPhone and maybe even those scheming android users.

Reading Response 5

Respectfully, I have to disagree with what the author (Daniel Solove) is saying in this article.  Yes, to a certain extent, what he’s saying is true, but for the most part it involves fallacious reasoning.  I think Solove is hazardously affirming the consequent by saying that because people put all their information on social networking sites, we’ve lost our privacy.  This is not true, because for the most part, we, the people who are on these social networking sites, control (for the most part) what we make available to the public.  Most of these sites do have privacy options that we can tailor to our own liken.  Sure there are instances where there are candid videos, and pictures that make their way to the mainstream and “go viral” but that’s the beauty of it…the control drifts and it makes things fun.  Sure I’m speaking from my perspective, but you have to look at all of the positives that social networks present to society before you dwell on the negatives, and put it all into a bad box of things we shouldn’t do in life.  The author, Daniel Solove, should take into account how social networking has changed the lives of millions.  These sites have increased the quality of life for millions I’m sure.  They’re going to help our children’s lives…these sites have proven to increase the level to which children or the people that actively participate in them, their level of extroversion…they make shy people socialites, and that’s beautiful.  If a little privacy has to be lost to make our world more social…then so be it.

Solove, Daniel J. "Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy?" Scientific American (2008): Web. 16 Nov. 2010.

News Report 5

Alas, the moment we’ve all been waiting for (Apple users at least), well kind of waiting for it.  If you’re an Apple user, then this is breaking news because let’s face it, there was nothing to fix in the first place, really.  This week Apple announced an update to its already flawless operating system “Snow Leopard.”  The update, which is entitled Mac OS X 10.6.5 offers roughly about six or seven “bug fixes.”  The thing is, these are bugs that the average Mac user wouldn’t know anything about.  10.6.5 is the latest installment of Apple’s series of operating systems that started with “Cheetah” (10.0), and is currently on “Snow Leopard,” which many will argue is a perfect operating system, with no known viruses to it.  Apple, which is a genius corporation under the auspices of CEO Steve Jobs, who revitalized the company, has grown to be the second largest company in the world.  It is without a doubt that Apple is preparing for their new operating system launch which will be entitled “Lion,” which most likely stands for them being the king of the technology jungle (I agree completely).  So even though “Snow Leopard” is a flawless running OS, they continue to push the envelope with new developments that show’s competitors like Windows, and Apple lovers worldwide that Apple does still have “the juice” and they’re using it, because you know what they say; “if you don’t use it, you lose it.”  So be on the lookout for Apple to continuously make technology better, and continue to show the world that a better computer does exist, one that lasts longer than 2 years.

Munchbach, Andrew. "Apple Release Mac OS X 10.6.5." BGR. N.p., 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 11 Nov. 2010. <http://www.bgr.com/2010/11/10/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-6-5/>

News Report 4

Ask Jeeves, Lycos, Yahoo, Bing, and of course, the heavyweight Google, are all search engines that have had their run as the heavyweight in the web searching industry.  With Bing being the exception.  Internet search engines have become one of, if not, the most important feature for web users on the quest for information.  The Internet has become a massively huge world of information and anything else you can think about, and it is growing exponentially every day.  Search engines allow the user to harness the power of the Internet and make it easier to find things in such a dense world. 

For a long time, Google has been the front runner for Internet search engines, boasting the highest number of visits among active websites, and the access to more cites than any other search engine…and it’s easy to use, and who doesn’t love ease of use?  But as the web becomes larger and larger, reaching about a trillion web pages, search engines can become filled with junk.  The solution to such junk, “Blekko,” a brand new search engine that is set to be Google’s new competition in the world wide web.  Blekko advertises that with ‘the human touch’ search engines are easier and also yield LESS spam.  Everyone has performed a Google search before, and the results come back in the range of a few million results…how many of those million results do you actually need?  Are you really going to sort thru that many results? The answer is no, and probably about 10 results will do me just fine if I’m doing research, but for the average user, your only looking for one or two results, and then that’s it.  Blekko’s stance is that with the human touch, you can refine your searches and make it easier to find more relevant information.  Blekko is advertising that you can “slash the web” with the use of slash-tags “/\.”  The problem is, users have to learn how to do this…and you know how American’s feel about change, and learning new things…anyone for that matter is normally not up to it.

So will Blekko become the new Google?  Will it oust Google as the number one search engine?  Will it even compete?  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Bosker, Bianca. "Blekko Search Engine To Rely On The Human Touch ." The Huffington Post. 1 Nov. 2010. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/01/blekko-search-engine-to-r_n_776806.html>.