My Thoughts On Twitter

So I finally gave in and signed up for a Twitter account. I always told my friends I wouldn't ever do it but I had to for class. After signing up and learning the ways of Twitter I am a little unsure of the purpose of this. It seems as if facebook can already do this with your status update. It seems as if Twitter is similar to a facebook wall but it updates a lot more frequently. I do not think I will use Twitter all that much simply because I don't want to know what everyone is doing 24/7. I have texting on my cell and view my facebook twice a day and that is more than enough to keep up with all the people I want to "follow" or keep up with. The one cool feature I do like about Twitter is I can follow some famous people and know what they are up to on a daily basis. Aside from that I am not a fan of Twitter and don't think it is all that useful or interesting...

Purdue Raises Tuition Fees

Purdue University wants to raise tuition an unprecedented 5.2 percent for in state students and 6 percent for out of state students. This is the biggest increase among all public Indiana Universities. I understand Purdue University is investing most of this money into the university building new state of the art facilities, dorms, and parking garages but do we really need brand new side by side practice football fields, basketball arena, and workout facility? Do not get me wrong, I am all for having new facilities but not during these tough economic times. Purdue needs to weigh its options and only put money towards projects that truely benefit the students and not the athletes. I am aware that Purdue athletics are a means of making money but I think they would have been just fine leaving Mackey Arena as is for the next four to five years and waiting for the economy to bounce back. With that said, I can't complin too much because I truely am excited to see how everything will look when it's finished. I just took a brief tour through the new Armstrong Building last week and to be honest I was speechless. It was an amazing building with all kinds of state of the art work shop areas so as long as my raises tuition expenses keeps getting invested towards projects like this buidling I will be satisified. I just hope Purdue takes into account this current financial situation we are all in and only raises it in moderation.

Social Networking Sights a Fad?

Last Monday during class we had a guest lecturer talk all about social networking websites, the different types out there, how to use each one efficiently, and then we were shown a 3 minute long video from YouTube asking if social networking sites are here to stay or simply a fad? Before seeing that video I already believed semi strongly about social networking sites not being a fad and are indeed the real deal. After seeing that video I am a very strong believer that these sites are here to stay for a long long time. The part that got me was it showed how long it took each new piece of technology and the rate of adoption and the rate of adoption for those social networking sites were incredibly fast compared to things like the telephone and television. So fast that I am a firm believe that social sites are here to stay and aren't going anywhere for a very long time. Make way for web 2.0!

Online Gaming

I am a huge fan of online gaming. I thought that our lecture over online gaming was very interesting and I thought the escape the bedroom game was very entertaining. However, it was also very hard. We got pretty far and it we were allowed 10 more minutes I believe our group would of completed. The other terrorist game was rather dumb and pointless in my personal oppinion. There was no rhyme or reason to the game. My favorite website is addictinggames.com They are all free to play and most are very fun. The have the chategorized by type of game/how new they are/user rating/ and much much more. I could speand hours on there passing the time but I have to force myself to stop as I am usually being very unproductive.

Technology Convergence and my new iPhone

I just bought an apple iPhone and have to admit I am a huge fan of technology convergence. This phone has many many different apps and technologies that all converge onto one phone. My phone now can tell me the weather, I can view all my email accounts, it can give me step by step directions, and play a vast array of games all at once. Before I bought this phone I had none of these on my phone butnow I have them all at the tip of my finger. Technology convergence is amazing and I am a huge fan of it.

Geo Caching

My role during the whole geo caching game was the field navigator. I have never used the GPS device before so it took me a good 5 minutes to get accustomed to. When I figured out how ot use it it was very simple to use. There was a green arrow which showed you the direction you were facing with respect to a yellow line which was your destination. My destination was G6 was .4 miles away so we had the furthest traveling amongst the rest of the groups. Our clue was supposed to be right by the BCC but after searching for about 10 minutes our detectives could not find the clue. I believe someone picked up our clue or we just simply couldn't find it. Therefor I had a pretty bad expierence when dealing with this whole geo caching game. We got back to class right before it ended so they already figured out the clue without any help from us. To be honest I felt like we wasted our time trying to find a clue which wasnt there and didn't need.

Digital Literacy and smarter online shopping

I believe those who are very digitally literate can become very smart bargain shoppers online. I know for a fact that whenever I go to buy anything I will go from website to website trying to find the best deal and promotions. Moreover; I will check out online auction sites such as eBay or personal listings like craigslist to find the best bargain in town. Not only do these sites allow the customer to be very picky when it comes to shopping but most of the time on sites such as ebay and craiglist you can purchase items for almost fifty percent off retail value. However, with sites such as ebay and craigslist the consumer also has to take into consideration that these people can easily lie about products and sell you a not so authentic peice of jewelery or Lacoste polo so the consumer has to do their reasreach and take a very close look at certain kinds of products before buying them. Thus, those who are digitally literate can do all their research online and therefore make smart buys. Digital literacy paves the way for smart shopping via the internet and can really save you a fortune if you know where to look and what to look for.