New ways of conducting our class

One week before, you've probably read the message i've written concerning how to learn english on the Internet. This year, our english course is given to us through the internet and messenger. We discuss with our teatcher with MSN, and the main theme we talk about is e-communication and e-culture, this is the reason we've created blogs. We learn english while watching videos and answering specific questions.

We could imagine new ways of conducting our class and new projects that we could do in order to make more progress and make it more interesting :
- why not creating groups of 4 people who will have to work on a specific theme and talking about it during the next class, and animating a debate on it? ;
- creating podcast that we will post on youtube ;
- working at home and keeping the way this class is conducted.


The most important point is that we have to keep in mind that generosity, discipline, patience, perseverance, insight and comprehension, are sinequanone conditions to be recognize as a professionnal of ecommunication.

RSS : how to deliver your content to thousands of suscribers ?

Originally developed by Netscape, RSS (which is a short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary is an XML format for syndicating Web content.

A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content includes such data as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information.

SHTTP for dummies

SHTTP (or Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a secure protocol used to encrypt and host sensitive information on the web. This is particularly important when you are dealing with financial and confidential information. SHTTP provides confidentiality, authentication, integrity guarantees on an individual file basis.

This system allows firms to negotiate and to make transaction on the internet while being sure that what there are doing is encrypted and will not be cracked by a hacker.

Cybercrime... some informations

If you make a quick research on the internet, you will see that Cybercrime is an increasing phenomenom on the web.

Wikipedia gives this definition of cybercrime : "criminal activity in which computers or networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity. These categories are not exclusive and many activities can be characterized as falling in one or more categories.
Although the term cybercrime is usually restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is an essential part of the crime. This term is also used to include traditional crimes in which computers or networks are used to enalbe the illicit activity.”

To highlight this definition, here is some examples of cybercrime in which the computer or network is a tool of the criminal activity :
- spamming : that’s the result of a non respect of the data privicy low
- peer-to-peer, and especially P2P networks such as emule, eDonkey,....

Do 'YouTube' ???

The notoriety of this web site, which allows users to upload, download and share video clips, is based on the huge variety of contents that are provide by the internet users: it includes : movie, music videos clips, …..

This incredible story of Youtube has begun on February 15, 2005,with the activation of the domain name ‘YouTube.com’. The public has seen a preview of the site in May 2005, but that’s only 6 months later that YouTube made its official debut.

The key to its success is the contents are created by amateur, and that videoblogging is an activity that you can do while your are not a professional, or recognize as a professional. Foundators (Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim) have worked for PayPal before creating this site, so they knew keys of a successful e-firm before beginning this adventure (wanna have more information about the creation of Youtube??? take a look at the video below!) That’s the reason why YouTube has recently been bought by Google for millions of dollars (1.65 biliard).

The Making of YouTube



I use the huge fonctionnalities and contents of this web site for myblog (just take a look at the bottom of this page)

Pay attention to Internet ... if you don't wanna have your identity stolen

Each year, millions of internet users have their identity stolen. On the internet it’s really easy to usurp someone’s identity because there’s no material proof that your are the one you pretend to be.
Identity theft on the internet

The theft of one's identity on the internet can be done by stealing your mail, or even by 'cracking' your computer, that's to say to access to personnal information that you have on your computer.

Some advice for not being a victim of internet thief :
- never ever write or give your credit card numbers, birth date, and so on... (ex: on virtual stores like e-bay web site)
- you have to install Norton (a program which will protect you from virus) on your computer, because hackers can use virus to capture your passwords, name,
- before bying a good on the internet, always take attention to the adress of the page on which yourwriting personnel information: if the adress begins withs 'https', it means that's a secured page.

Is Internet the best place and the right way to learn English ?

English is the dominant language of the Internet. The way languages are learned is changing, and these changes are accelerating by the New Technologies.

This new environment has brought up new forms of social interaction (social nets: myspace, ...) without boundaries. Podcasts, blogs (which are mostly in English) and other technologies like MP3 and PDAs, are creating an huge variety of communication and literature in English. Those anywhere-and-anytime-content works in favour of the creation of interactive communities to and sharing common interests. Everyone can access English language content on any subject (news, sport, movies, …), learn from it and speaking English via forums, emails with people who share the same interests.

You wanna learn English on the Internet? Are you really ready to learn? Make a quick search on google, you’ll fin a few professional web sites which allow you to locate native English speaker writers, editors, or professionals from all over the world, who are interested in acting as language tutors and coaches and who will be interest in sharing knowledge with you !

Just take the exemple of BOB.... You don't already know Bob???????? !!!!!!!!!!!!! How is it possible??? click HERE!

6 personnal qualities to be a good internet user ...

Generosity, discipline, perseverance and patience, .... are you ready to surf on the web ?

Discipline

You need discipline if you wanna work on _and with_the internet … it’s a sinequanone condition. You have to check your emails everyday if you don’t want your mail box to explode!

Perseverance and Patience

Maybe is it the most important quality that was required to use Internet 9 years ago… when I’ve had my first internet connexion : a 56kb connexion. The beginnings of internet were laborious… and who has never ever loose patience while waiting for search results after having made a search request on google web site???
Perseverance and Patience are additional and usefull if you wanna finding and information on the internet and if you wanna verify it.

Online Generosity

Online generosity means that your acts of charity could reach anyone anywhere across the world.
eBay has recently helped some Charity Fund Raising program to promote their cause on the site creating campaigns on eBay’s home page and other popular pages.
The free encyclopedia Wikipedia is based on the principle of collaboration between all internet users, with the aim of sharing knowledge.
We all use Wikipedia in our everyday life… on one hand we are wikipedia users and on the other and we are also wikipedia ‘writer’. With this tool, you can take a part to the ‘internet democracy’, and highlight your point of view, your ideas…

A Net Neutrality Message for Everyone ...

There is not an universal definition of what ‘web neutrality’ is. ‘Web neutrality’ refers to an ideal of democratic ethic on Internet and both to the absence of restrictions placed on the content that are upload and download over the Internet

If you wanna have more information on how to ‘Keep the Internet neutral, fair and free’, take a look at Craig Newmark’s article.

Social nets : an answer to our social needs ?

Social networking also refers to a category of Internet applications to help connect friends, business partners (e.g. : Viaduc web site), or other individuals with each other using a variety of tools.

Myspace.com : With 61 + million registered users and 21+ million unique visitors, Myspace is currently one of the most known and attractiv website for teenagers! With 220,000 new registrants daily ... the web site is the most incredible success story and both the most important development on the web in the last 6th months.

Is DRM killing music ???

DRM (Digital Rights Management). The aim is to protect / to control records and video on the web. It allows the owner of a a video or a music record to specify what an internet user has the right to do with it. It is used to propose remote loadings without fearing that the user freely does not distribute the file on the Web.
The main problem with DRM is that it has mostly an (negativ) impact on legitimate purchasers who would like to listen or watch what they have bought on the device they want.

Podcast : what are you talking about ?

Podcasting is the method of broadcasting multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.
The term podcast, like 'radio', can mean both the content and the method of delivery.
This word 'pod' is trademark registered by Apple (Podcast is a contraction of ‘broadcasting’ and ‘iPod’).