Jon Burke's Life on the Web

More on Internet Radio

2005-07-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Internet radio programming offers a wide range of musical tastes. This good for radio stations because they can offer a wide spectrum of broadcast genres thus reaching the largest possible audience. The radion station can then charge advertisers higher rates. I read somewhere that the cost for an Internet broadcaster is a lot less. I went on "How Stuffworks" and found out how to create an Internet Radio Station:

What you need to set up an Internet radio station:
1. CD player
2. Ripper software (copies audio tracks from a CD onto a computer's hard drive)
3. Assorted recording and editing software
4. Microphones
5. Audio mixer
6. Outboard audio gear (equalizer, compressor, etc.)
7. Digital auido card
8. Dedicated computer with encoder software
9. Streaming media server

Not too bad for the amateur radio man.

Source: www. howstuffworks.com/internet-radio.htm

Activity #5-Sports Fantasy leagues online

2005-07-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Recently I read about sports fantasy leagues online in a June 2005 Pew Internet & American Life Project report. I found some very interesting information. I am an avid sports fanantic and have heard about fantasy football, basketball, and baseball leagues but have never gone as far as participating in one. Currently the fantasy football leagues are starting to form as draft day approaches. All NFL teams will be reporting to camps and players will start to be elimated from teams. The fantasy football league that I looked into showed previews to the draft. As a fantasy member you have to pick (draft) so many players at different positions. You are awarded points as to how they perform. On this particular fantasy league it was for points and not money as some are. It showed me some star players and their 2004 statistics. A good example of this was a tight end that no one has heard of and he was the leader in statistics for that position last year. Barely anyone had him in their draft. Others pick stars and the players get hurt. In talking to my brother-in-law who participated last year he estimated that he spent 3-4 hours a week on the computer on line checking his fantasy league. I think I'll try the free one first before entering into the money.

What can I do about SPAM?

2005-07-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Findings from the Pew Internet & American Life Project report is that email users are evolving defense mechanisms against spam. My way of dealing with spam thus far is to simply highlight everything and hit "delete." I worrying that I might overlook a very important email from someone that is mixed in the middle of the spam. Many people are simply smarter than me and guard their email address in fear of spam. Other people just compare spam to the annoying telemarketers. Here are some more Pew facts:

*73% of email users avoid giving out their email addresses; 69% avoid posting their email addresses on the Web.
*62% say their employers use filters to block spam from their work email accounts; half of them get no spam at all in those accounts
*37% of those who have a personal email account apply their own filters to their email system:21% of those with filters say less than a tenth of the email they receive is spam.
* 86% of email users report that usually they "immediately click to delete" their incoming spam.
*59% of email users describe spam as "annoying, but not a big problem", 27% of emial users say spam is a"big problem" for them; 14% say it is no problem at all.

Is Spam Hurting Email and Ruining Your Life on the Internet?

2005-07-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

With all the spam I receive at home, I found this story interesting in Pew Internet & American Life Project Oct. 2003. If I don't check my email for a few days, I literally have to delete 30-35 spams. I worry that an important email may be overlooked because of the mass amount of deleting. The amount of spam I receive definetly discourages me and makes online time annoying. Pew reports that in large numbers, Internet users report that they trust email less and some even use email less because of spam. Users worry that the growing amount of spam is getting in the way of their ability to reliably send and receive email. As I stated earlier, people are complaining that spam is uncontrollably cluttering their inboxes and imposes uninvited, deceptive, and often disgutingly offensive messages. One such example of this is a continuous spam (advertisement) for viagara that I keep getting at work. Now I don't get spam very often at work, maybe they have an anti-spammer, but if this is the only mail I am getting, it can look embarrassing.

Can-Spam Legislation

2005-07-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

According to Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that dissillusionment is growing as 29% of email users say they are using email less because of spam.
I know personally how they feel. I got a free music download off a deodarant container and funny as it is, it never worked. From that day on I have been over whelmed with the amount of spam. The more I go to the "unsubscribe" the more different spams I get. Last year, January 1st, the first national anti-spam legislation went through. This doesn't seem to help. Some more statistics from Pew:
*29% of email users say they have reduced their overall use of email because of spam
*63% of email users said that the influx of spam made them less trusting of email in general.
*77% of emailers said the flood of spam made the act of being online unpleasant and annoying (word-up!!!)
*In all, 42% of email users said tey were aware that Congress and the Admistration had approved anti-spam legislation and that it had gone into effect at the beginnging of 2004.

The results of the CAN-SPAM legislation is mixed, but doesn't seem to be very encouraging. Most of email users say there has been no change in the volume of spam they get. Some even say the amount of spam has increased.

Fantasy Sports Leagues Online

2005-07-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

Pew Internet & American Life Project reports in their June 2005 posting that some 8% of adult American internet users say they participate in sports fantasy leagues online. That represents about 11 million people. On a typical day about 2 million internet users are going online to oversee and check on their fantasy teams.

Fantasy sports such as baseball, basketball, or football teams are made up by participants that "draft" certain professional athletes to be on their fantasy team. Your team consists of players from many teams. Their performance are recorded each week or game and you compete against other fantasy teams. Fantasy leagues are organized either "rotisserie" style, meaning team standings are based on cumulative player statistics over the entire season, or "head-to-head," meaning win-loss records based on point totals in individual game-day match-ups.

Pew states that those who participate are dominated by relatively young men.
86% of the participants in online fantasy leagues are male.
63% of the participants are under age 40.

Those who participate tend to be internet veterans.
76% of the participants in online fantasy leagues have six or more years of internet experience.
61% of the participants have broadband at home.
51% of the participants use the internet every day.
source: Pew Internet & American Life Project June 2005

Teens and the Instant Message

2005-06-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Pew Internet and American Life Project did a presentation on "The Instant Message Generation." In this short Power-Point presentation it reported that close to 13 milion teenagers use instant messaging and this techno-communication has a key place in their lives. Talking to buddies online has become the information-age way of communicating and hanging out for kids. Interestingly enough about a fifth of teens that use IM say it is their way of dealing with friends. It makes it easier to type your thoughts out to them rather than have the face to face confrontation. A typical Im session for a teenager last more than a half hour, involves three or more buddies, and often includes friends from outside their community. That is kind of scary. The presentation does go into how parents show deal with the security of instant messaging. I do want to share some more interesting statistics that Pew Internet found.

*74% of online teens use IM.
*69% of teen IMers use IM at least several times a week.
*19% of online teens say they use IM most often to contact their friends when
they are not with them; and 8% use e-mail. 71% still use the phone
most.
*57% have blocked messages from someone they did not want to hear from and
64% have refused to respond to instant messages from someone they were mad
at.
*22% of online teens who use instant messaging and e-mail have shared their
password with a friend.

I find these statistics quite high knowing that IM is not really considered to be a secure way to communicate. Messages and connection information are maintained on servers controlled by the provider of the IM utility that the user uses. Most utilities do provide some level of encryption but are not secure enough to send confidential information through the system.

Instant Message in the Workplace

2005-06-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

Some 21% of Im users, or approximately 11 million American adults, use instant messaging at work. Just in case my boss is reading this, I never....At the same time, 77% of IM users use thier instant mesaging programs at home. The question is, "Is IM a distraction at work that keeps people from completing their tasks?" According to Pew Internet and American Life Project when asked about their overall judgement about the role of IM at work, 11% of IM at work users say they couldn't live without it, 68% say it is a mixed blessing, but mostly positive, 4% say it is a mixed blessed, but mostly negative, and 10% say they wish they could do away with it.
I personally do not see the need to communicate with my family or friends in an instant message while I am at work. However, an IM session with other classes around the nation or around the world would be rather cool. I am going to try this with my summer school classes if I can get the school to unblock the filter. You see in the educational setting (accoring to the school I work for) IM is a no no.

How Americans use IM

2005-06-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

According to Pew Internet & American Life Project research 53 million adults trade instant messages and 24% of them swap IMs more frequently than e-mail. On a typical day, 12% of internet users instant message with others. That means that just under 13 million people using IM on any given day. I found it interesting that in this number about 11 million IM at work. What I want to focus on in this blog is the use of instant message over e-mail. Although most IM users still use e-mail more frequently than IM, a significant number are changing to IM more than using e-mail. Here are some statistics according to Pew Internet;

*24% of those 54 million IM users report using IM more frequently than e-mail
and 6% of IM users say they use IM as much as they use e-mail.
*70% report using e-mail more than instant messaging.
*36% of IM users say they use IM everyday and 63% say they use IM at least
several times a week.

Of the people I work with that I spoke to, most all use IM. I however have not. I don't know who I would instant message and have never needed it much. That was my opinion. After talking to a few colleges I realized that it is a useful tool to IM with my mom in Florida or Brother in New York. These people I normally just e-mail and probably will continue just to do that.

Posting an audio clip

2005-06-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

Posting an audio clip to the blog as a link was no easy task. One needs to make sure the show links is checked to "yes" and then you can type in the address when creating a post. I have not yet attempted to record an audio. Anyone out there that can help me please post a comment and tell me how I do this. Thanks.

funny audio clip

2005-06-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

click on link and listen to funny audio clip.

Artists Views of Downloading Music

2005-06-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

The first large-scale surveys of the internet’s impact on artists and musicians reveal that they are embracing the Web as a tool to improve how they make, market, and sell their creative works. They eagerly welcome new opportunities that are provided by digital technology and the internet. I think that the artist are just being politically correct in their statement of embracing the Web as a tool. Once they figure out how unregulated it is and their incomes decline they might see it different.
At the same time according to Pew Internet and American Life Project, they believe that unauthorized online file sharing is wrong and that current copyright laws are appropriate, though there are some major divisions among them about what constitutes appropriate copying and sharing of digital files. Their overall judgment is that unauthorized online file-sharing does not pose a major threat to creative industries: Two-thirds of artists say peer-to-peer file sharing poses a minor threat or no threat at all to them.

Music and Video Downloading

2005-06-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

According to the most recent survey of the Pewinternet and American life Project, about 36 million Americans or 27% of internet users say they downloaded music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files. For someone who has never and most likely will not download songs from the internet, I found these figures to be high. There are serveral other highlights in the Pew Internet Project survey:

*49% of all Americans and 53% of internet useres believe that the firms that own and operate file-sharing networks should be deemed responsible for the pirating of music and movie files.
Almost one in five American (18%) say they do not know who should be responsible or refused to answer the question.

* The public is divided on the question of whether government enforcement against music and movie pirates will work, but broadband users stronly believe that a government crackdown will not succeed.
I believe that the Internet as a whole is unrelgulated and wide scale enforcement, not just in music and video, must take place. Who will do it and how it can be down is the big questions.

Exploring Music Downloads

2005-06-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

Downloading music, especially buying downloads, I have never done. I first time I tried do download a "free" song from a code given on a deodarant container, the file didn't work and I was, and still am, spammed to death. I don't know if it is my age or what but I am not real interested in music and have no desire to ever purchase songs from the Internet. The MP3 players and etc... are really cool but again I don't think I need to store that many songs.

Exploration-Contrary Brin

2005-06-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

In a long article on this blog titled, "Networks and Netwar," is now a chapter in a book titled "Environmentalism and the Technologies of Tomorrow, Island Press 2005. This blog was set up to handle discussions generated by the David Brin site. The author holds that people have developed four major forms for organiziang their societies; first tribes, then hierarchical institutions, then markets, and now networks. They believe that environmental groups will cause problems and often by using netwar and swarming strategies. It is my understanding that what David Rondeldt, the author, is getting at is that people first had to deal with being in groups, then groups such as in Medieval Europe under feudalism, where there is a hierarchy, and government developing market systems, and now the network and its unregulated existence. Network relationships can still be rather primitive in the sense that we know so little and thus will create vast numbers of well-informed and network skilled participants. This will as the author states "create smart-mob benefits." There is an interesting short story that is set in the future when this happens (www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1078288485.php) This article has created many responses and I will continue to explore these as this seems very interesting.

Teenage Life Online

2005-06-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting blog on Teenage Life Online: The rise of the instant-message generation and the Internet's impact on friendships and family relationships by Lenhar, Rainie, and Lewis on Pew-Internet & American Life Project. It reveals that teenages'use of the Internet and how it plays a major role in their relationships with their friends, their families, and thier schools. Shocking only 57% of parents worry that strangers will contact their children online. Their research states that 60% of students have been contacted by a stranger. That worries me as a parent. There is agreement between parents and teens that the use of the Internet helps students at school and can be a key resource toward their success.

Faith Online

2005-06-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

Faith Online: 64% of wired American have used the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes This was an interesting article from Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark. This was particulary interesting because it was similar to the chapter in Online Society about bonding and bridging. The survey found two-thirds of those who attended religious services weekly use the Internet for personal religious or spiritual purposes. They are more likely to be women, white, middle aged, college educated, and relatively well to do. Most interesting was the article stated that these same people are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet population.

Exploration 6/9/05

2005-06-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Recently I found a Larry Lessig blog site and found some very interesting and odd blogs. I found the blog interesting because I read, or at least attempted to read Lessig's "the Future of Ideas." Other book titles and Lessig's picture were feauted on the site. It discussed the spread of CC, Creative Commons. The blog showed a map with areas of the world he got, one's he was working on, and future one's. What I found to be very odd was all the blogs about gay issues. Larry?

Activitiy #4-Internet Radio

2005-06-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

For one who doesn't listen to much music, I have never used the net to listen to the news or music. It was really easy to access many stations from all over the planet. Internet radio has no geographic limitations, so a radio station in Peru can be heard in Missouri on the Internet. I looked and listened to a site called Live365 which offers more than 30,000 Internet radion broadcasts. What is also nice about Internet radion versus traditional radio is that Internet radio is not limited to just audio. Some Internet radio broadcast inculd photos, graphics, links, or texts. Overall I thought using the Internet radio was very interesting and exciting. Once again I will probably just stick to my sports talk radio.

Blog set up experience

2005-06-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Setting up a blog for stated out difficult. Numerous tries using Explorer were unsuccessful. When I switched to Safari, it worked quite easy.