Is Email Dead?

Is email really dead? Ever since the rise of social networking and other various communication devices like Myspace.com and MSN Messenger, many believe the email has gone. But it really hasn't. The following piece will look at the many reasons why electronic mail systems have not died but evidently risen to a major key in connecting people.

The web links us to the world, but email connects us. Web pages are international but email is intra-national. Web sites help us round out our picture of the world, but email makes the world go 'round. We talk about the contradictory of email. It can be formal or informal, personal or impersonal, immediate or delayed, and the same time all of the above (Brandt, 2000). Email is a professional medium, it connects us no matter where we are in the world. People forget when surfing the net, an email address is needed to sign up or register for anything, for instance, weekly newsletters, shopping online and communicating instantly on social networking sites or programs. As Brandt stated, “email connects us.” Now people all over the world who own a PC must have an email address.

Gains (1999 pp. 81-82) states that, “Electronic mail as a means of communication has its roots in, and is now firmly established in, the international internet system developed in the world’s universities, and a great many individual users now have access to this system. However, the medium has become increasingly important for everyday communication within large institutions and commercial organisations, many of which have developed their own in-house electronic mail systems both for national and intra-national communications”. Gains's interpretation of electronic mail systems consider the importance they hold on everyday communication especially for businesses. Researchers say that a large majority of business people believe email is more valuable than the telephone as a tool for business communication. Email facilitates communication with multiple parties, it enables more rapid communication and generates a written record of the interaction, hence the reason why electronic mail systems are more valuable (anonymous, 2003, Business Communication Review). Moreover, a survey found the 80 percent of respondents preferred email to the telephone for business communication. Furthermore, nearly three-quarters of the group said being without their email would present more of a hardship than lack of a phone service (Greiner, 2003).

Email remains the No. 1 critical application on the Internet where there are more 195 million corporate users world wide (Wareham, 1999), and the thought of email going away is ridiculed because many businesses rely heavily on electronic mail systems for transference of information. Also, email has become even more diverse and can easily be accessible from any location, whether it's form a laptop or simply your mobile phone, it gives people the convenience to initiate with others when it is convenient for them, and they can reply back when it is convenient for them. It is here to stay, and no matter what people say, email is the link to the world.

For more information or opinions check out these sites.
http://www.slate.com//id/2177969/pagenum/all/
http://publishing2.com/2007/11/15/email-is-not-dead/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1599324,00.asp
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2007/11/15/is-email-dead-no-but-its-not-well/
http://news.cnet.com/2009-1032_3-6197242.html

References

Brandt S. D., 2000, Email Makes The World Go 'Round, Computer in Libraries
Wareham, E., 1999, Spam and Email abuses Costing Millions, Computing Canada
Gains, J., 1999, Electronic Mail–A New Style of Communication or Just a New Medium?, Elsevier Science
anonymous, 2003, Survey Says Email More Valuable than phone, Business Communication Review
Greiner, L., 2003, Don't Call Me; I'll Email you, Computing Canada

3D Wolrds and Socialising on the Internet

What is difference between 3D worlds and IM programs? What are the qualitative differences between the regular IM program and a 3D environment?

Besides obvious reasons such as Second Life is 3D and MSN isn't, there are many other possibilities that can be achieved in one space that are not possible in the other. Lets look at Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world which can be downloaded and viewers known as residents, can interact with other residents through motional characters known as 'avatars'. Residents are able to explore the virtual world, meet other residents, socialise, develop relationships, join individual group activities, and create and trade items such as, property, clothing etc. In Second Life there is a exchangeable currency known as the Linden dollar or L$. These dollars can be exchanged for real world dollars and real world dollars can be exchanged for Linden dollars. As you can see it is highly developed socialising network. Some may consider it as a game, but there are no winners, losers, scores, points or strategy.

Instant Messaging (IM) on the other hand, is a form of real time communication using typed text between two or more people. The text is conveyed through computers via networks such as the internet on programs like MSN. Some people might consider this communication to be less intrusive than the phone. People are able to communicate around world through IM for the price of internet bills. So pretty much it's inexpensive.

So, in summary, instant messaging is a form of person to person communication via typed text. Second Life is a virtual world, not only used for communicating but also creating a life which you can only dream of.

Advanced Microsoft Word and Excel techniques

After doing some tasks such as saving documents; bold, underlining and italics; headers, footers and spacing; track changes and doing a mail merge, we then had to evaluate each task with following questions:

Microsoft Word

Were there any problems? No, there were major problems with saving documents and so forth. However, track changing was quiet hard to understand. But once I got the hang of it, it was pretty simple and really effective.

What were your solutions? I guess just reading over how to do properly.

Did you find it too simple, or was it confusing? I found it simple and that every one else did. Its all pretty basic stuff.

Can you see how this software might be useful to you? Of course. It helps with presentation and cut corners to make it easier for the user.

Microsoft Excel

Were there any problems? No at all, im very familiar with the program so it was real easy.

What were your solutions? None, I knew what to do.

Did you find it too simple, or was it confusing? Like I said I knew what to do.

Can you see how this software might be useful to you? Definately. Its useful in accounting and quick needed mathematics.

Evaluating Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a very useful source of information. It is a good place to get up to speed on a range of topics. It's a place to start to get a feel for some ideas. But it is not to be considered a scholarly, academic resource. Wikipedia does have some checks and balances, but for the most part it is up to the honesty of the individuals who edit works and proves that even regular people who are not considered "experts" on a topic can contribute to the gathering of knowledge.

I have researched a few aricles to identify whether the information is accurate. I have read through a wiki on Seinfeld (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld), the show, and discovered that the information posted in the wiki is relatively correct. I know a few things about Seinfeld and reading through the article, i have found that it is accurate. Also, at the bottom of the site there are references which link you to academic or scholarly websites. Wikipedia guidelines for useful articles state that the article has to be bold, cite resources, copyrights, editing, external links, image use, a neutral point of view and include verifiable information; and the Seinfeld article has all that. Also, reading through Snoop Dogg's wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Snoop_Dogg), it is also and accurate article. It covers a broad aspect on his career as well as, elaborates on his entire life. The article also follows the Wikipedia guidelines to a useful article.

It is advised not to use Wikipedia as a scholarly resources. It should only be used for getting a clear knowledge on a particular topic.

How do the ideas from Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" apply to contemporary digital media?

Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" applies to contemporary digital media, becasue in principle a work of art has always been reproducible and that man made artifacts can always be imitated. However, the machanical reproduction of art represents something new. Even though the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking one element, its presence in time and space and its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.

There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally. For example, in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will. And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision. For art, this means that a mechanical reproduced piece of art might eliminate the “aura” element.

A photoshopped image is considered to be branded as a forgery when it was confronted with its manual reproduction, the original preserved all its authority. However, earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question – whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art – was not raised.

It is asked that "Do digital 'things' have an 'aura'" Walter Benjamin states that, "For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays".

Reference
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Some Interesting Facts

The following information is based on the resources in brackets. So if you don't believe me look them up!

1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus? Onel De Guzman (http://computerbytesman.com/lovebug/index.htm)

2. Who invented the paper clip? Johan Vaaler (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpaperclip.htm)

3. How did the Ebola virus get its name? named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/Spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola/qa.htm)

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake? Chile, May 22, 1960, Magnitude of 9.5 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763403.html)

5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte? Approximately thousand billion bytes (that is, a thousand gigabytes) (http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci213118,00.html)

6. Who is the creator of email? It was never invented; it evolved from very simple beginnings. However, Ray Tomlinson is credited with inventing email in 1972.Tomlinson worked for Bolt Beranek and Newman as an ARPANET contractor. He picked the @ symbol from the computer keyboard to denote sending messages from one computer to another. (http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html)

7. What is the storm worm, and how many computers are infected by it? It installs a Trojan Horse by using email, on the recipient's computer.(http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/storm.asp)
About 15 million PCs have been infected by Storm in the nine months it has been around (http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/22/Storm-Worm-now-just-a-squall_1.html

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of Australia directly, what is the most efficient way? via Australia Post mail to:
The Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
(http://www.pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm)

9. Which Brisbane-based punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of? The Black Assassins (http://live-wirez.gu.edu.au/Staff/Stephen/default.html)

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words? It refers to the new things that were coming. And 'web 2.0' was used as platform.
(http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html)

The Use of New Communication Technologies

I'm a slave to trends. I have Myspace and Facebook, but only because a lot of my other friends. I hate to say it but I rarely check them. I like to keep my Myspace and Facebook personal. I do not add friends i don't know. MSN has to be the worst. I find it to be a procrastination instigator. I have fell into the instant messaging trap before, especially when there are assignments to meet deadlines. And there are a lot of young people who fall into the same trap. Emailing is necessary, and i do use that much more than all the useless networking websites. Also, a mobile phone has to be a key element in my life.

Privacy isn't really an issue with me because I don't post anything personal on my profiles. However, i do believe some people to tone down the personal information on their profiles. You never know who's watching.

I have been using these new technologies for about 9 years and I believe it is necessary for every one to use these new communication technologies to keep up with the fast paced world we live in.