I think Dr. Corkin who began a scientific and legal association with Molaison is so cruel and her scientific research is so immoral….

Please read an article from New Yorker below

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/henry-gustav-molaison-the-man-who-forgot-everything.html

She said that she received Molaison’s permission to extract his brain after his death but I wonder whether he could really truly meaningful permission given his illness. I felt really sorry for Mr. Molaison. He gained permanent brain damage due to the stupid Dr. Scoville and had been used by Dr. Corkin for his lifetime.. I think some scientist merely pursue their studies for their own fame or public good and do not care about one’s right to life.. Also, I wonder whether Mr. Molaison or his family has received any compensation from the doctors.

Please share your opinion with me!

Overcome the fear of technology – An introduction to Picasa

When I was still a little younger and internet was new to the world I was actually one of the people who was really into that topic and I spent loads of time in front of the PC in order to install new programs, learn about computer hardware and software and I liked to play Computer games. When I grew older my time was limited because I found other hobbies more interesting. But as I stopped engaging in computer stuff new technologies were invented and I did not keep up with that development.

Now I honestly have the feeling that I become like my mum who does not even know how to use the satellite TV. Of course, it is not that bad but there are so many programs on the market now which are very useful and facilitate your life but I am simply afraid to invest so much time in understanding these sophisticated seeming programs and applications. I like photography and always take many pictures when traveling. It is not always easy to handle all of them. Furthermore, many pictures need to be edited which I did not really do recently. But as I will travel again soon I decided to spend some time on exploring Google Picasa a little bit more. The program can be downloaded here (for free). Picasa is basically an image organizer and viewer which combines photo editing and photo sharing. The name is a blend of “Pablo” and “Picasso”, an homage to the great artist. Since 2004 it belongs to the Google group.

Picasa can scan all your hard drives for pictures automatically or you can choose which data should be imported. You can find all the files in the “Foto Übersicht” section. You are given the opportunity to create albums now out of all your folders. At the same time you can edit your pictures easily.

There are many options, just normal red eye reduction, editing of color and contrast ad shadows. Picture can be resized and/or cropped. That is very useful, especially when you want to upload these pictures later and don’t want them to be too big in size. If you are a more professional user there is another tool called picnic which gives you plenty of opportunities to edit your pictures. This is an online application where the pictures will be uploaded to an online platform where you can work on them. After finishing they will be sent back to Picasa. This tool really offers many options. It is basically free but if you want to use some extra tools you will need to upgrade and become a premium member.

After editing your pictures you can also tag people in them (That was new to me too). The program can recognize faces in pictures. You name them and have the possibility to sort your pictures by people who are in the pictures. You could decide further to create a video or slideshow out of your pictures which can be directly uploaded to Youtube. If you are a user of a blog Picasa gives you the opportunity to upload the pictures directly to your blog, which is very convenient because you don’t need to do it via the website anymore.As Picasa is a Google brand it is most useful for Blogger users, but I found a way to use it for WordPress as well.

There is also the option to connect Picasa to Facebook. I honestly have to admit that I did not know that all the online applications are already connected with each other. Admittedly it takes some time to do all the installations and configurations but once everything is done it works very well and can save you a lot of time.

There are so many things to do with Picasa. You can even use geo tagging via Google Earth.

I think I found a lot of interesting features for myself and realized that you should only take some time and invest it in discovering new online applications. Once installed and understood they simplify life (especially important for work life later). Try it out !

Out of Control!

There are many reasons why one can like new technologies and technological innovations. But on the other hand there are also many reasons that make me skeptical about this entire information sharing and digitalization processes.

I always saw on the news how people’s passwords got stolen and they received an exorbitant bill for purchases they did not do. Unfortunately I am now one of them. I always thought things like that cannot happen to me because I am very careful with my passwords. But in a world where basically all your information is saved online there seems to be no way to protect yourself from abuse. I just got a notice from Apple that there was a purchase with my ID on a computer which was not used with this ID before. I was advised to change my password. I was scaptical in the beginning if this is a real or a fake mail. It was real and I changed my password immedialely. But of yourse if was too late already. Click&Buy just emailed me a bill of 80 Euros for the purchase of some online Poker App, which I never bought! Well, I am lucky that it was only 80 Euros and not 800 but still, the question is how to react now.

I did some research on the internet and this is what I found: Apple seems to have a serious problem with hacker attacks since last year, but especially since may 2011. Here you can find detailed information about this issue. Many people became victims and I am now one of them, unbelievable. This is the story of another victim:

http://www.betanews.com/article/I-got-hacked-on-iTunes/1306964962

Further I read the shocking story that hacked iTunes accounts are sold in China (http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/01/14/hacked-itunes-accounts-are-being-sold-in-china/). I am totally speechless about that.

I wrote to Click&Buy and informed iTunes and my bank about that issue. Further I will have to go to the police station. That is just so crazy…And I honestly hope I will get my money back. I am totally not convinced of all these online payment systems and I will remove all my bank data from the internet for sure. In my opinion, everything that is on the internet is not safe!

As technology gets more complex the more ways hackers find to access your confidential data. Recent actions taken by Sparkasse and other banks prove that. From now on TAN lists can’t be used anymore. Due to the lack of security they switched to SMS TANs hoping that this is a better option. I think it is just a matter of time until hackers find a way to hack your cell phones as well. Even though technology simplifies ours lives I guess I will never become a big fan of it. Have you had any similar problems?

United Tribes!

It’s been almost 10 weeks since our very first blogpost and almost the end to our journey on this blog (but with every ending to a chapter, we start again a brand new one J) We wouldn’t call these our final words, but we wish to draw some closure to our very wonderful semester with blogging, with our Business Applications class colleagues and Dr B. and of course, with one another in our team.

Say Bye Bye To My Fear Of Technology

Actually, “I see, [it’s really] no big deal, this is how it works…”

To overcome my fear of technology, I started getting to know Firefox better and how the add-ons for Firefox actually work.

The first add-on I installed I did a few weeks ago, when I heard of HTTPS Everywhere. It is a Firefox extension that makes sure that the pages we visit are encrypted and therefore safe to use.

Now, dealing again with the add-ons, I found some more very interesting ones. I tried out StumbleUpon, Preisspion, and the ReminderFox. While I have not deal with those add-ons that much yet, although I think they can be very useful applications, I concentrated more on the WebMail Notifier and Zotero.

Top Down Approach to HTML

HTML has really, to me, been a subject that I’ve long been wanting to grasp. With the final assignment being to, on our own accord, get to know any of a number of different programs, I decided to combine the two and practice some HTML using the Firefox add-on Firebug.

This turned out to be a pretty much top-down approach to HTML since Firebug enables you to view the full HTML script of a certain website without doing much explaining. I realized very fast that I didn’t know anything, in fact, about HTML and it took a while to figure things out.

One big advantage though was that Firebug highlights areas that a specific part of the code defines once one moves the mouse cursor over this particular coding. Relying on this simple help, I could start playing around with it and soon figured out some pretty cool stuff. I could change websites (locally, of course) which is a very fascinating skill to play around with:

I found it very helpful to spend some time trying out everything I could and getting accustomed to the concepts. I did eventually learn a lot about HTML like this. Every page has a characteristic structure: it is divided into a ‘head’ section, which details the website’s header and a ‘body’ which contains all the visible coding.

Within the body there are again various sub-sections, each defining one specific block on the site. The blocks are further split up into the various components that make up the content (links, images, labels etc.).

After initially being a little frustrated by the amount of information and my lack of understanding, it now really started to make sense. I managed to manipulate all kinds of components and changed whole websites.

I believe that this way of learning is incredibly effective, fast… and fun. I feel rather secure in my ability to navigate an HTML document and it shouldn’t take to long until I start writing my own. Firebug has been a huge contributor and self-educating by just trying things out, is a very powerful approach.

Business Network… Business version of Facebook.

Hey guys how are you?

Do all of you already set up plans for summer semester break?

some of you might work and some of you might go for travel, right?

I am currently working at Investment research company here in Berlin.

and I am working with this social network web site which called Linkedin.

Bookmarking made Yummy with Delicious

I admit, I have a fear of technology. Alright, considering the fact that I write blogs, use tumblr, surf on facebook, I adore technology and the convenience and power it brings me! So, I would say, I have a fear of what goes behind the stage of technology. HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL etc – technological terms drive me crazy. So when Dr. B gave us this assignment of exploring web work and getting ourselves to overcome our fear of technology, I knew this week wasn’t going to be easy…

Finding my interest in webwork is the hardest part. So, we always say the web is our best SOS helpline, I can’t agree more. I managed to google and read about interesting plugins available for internet browsers like Chrome, Safari, Firefox and content management systems like WordPress. And thus, I started bookmarking these sites on Chrome and soon enough, I find myself staring at a list of sites and not knowing where to begin in this mess of bookmarking with no organization.

I need to fix this mess, I tell myself. I went to my SOS helpline again (overly dependent on it but hey it is really really useful! Try it!) and this is how I came to finding my topic for webwork exploration today – Social Bookmarking.

Your very own News Feed!

Being the Internet-hungry netizens we are today, I can safely say that we are not unfamiliar with Facebook, and more importantly the Facebook News Feed. In fact, I dare say that it was the introduction of these News Feeds that revolutionized Facebook and pushed it up the rungs to the top of the social ladder today. The reason why we are so caught up with Facebook these days is because of the self-updating feature of the news feed- it gives you the information so “in your face” that it unknowingly piques your interest and leads you to check out your friend’s latest happenings simply by scrolling down the page.

During Dr. B’s class on Webwork, he introduced a feature on Google called Google Reader. This was something new to me, even though I use Gmail and Google Docs on a regular basis. If you use Gmail too, the “Reader” tab is just at the top of your inbox screen, along with “Documents” and “Photos” etc.

Essentially, Google Reader works just like the Facebook News Feed, showing you updates and new posts from your favourite sites, all customized to your preference.

I clicked “Reader” and this screen came up. I was a little lost at first, at how to navigate the page. But it wasn’t long before I started figuring out my way around. I started off by “Adding subscriptions” to my Reader, simply by copying and pasting the URL of a site I want to keep track of, into the space given.

I added the blog addresses of the other groups in my BusApps class, so that I can keep track of their weekly posts. This actually made it more convenient for me to read and comment on posts across various blogs, because they were all consolidated in one place! I just had to scroll down and see which blog title catches my eye, click it and read. Piece of cake! It made commenting much faster too. Here’s how it looks like:

To think that before I started using Google Reader, I had to open up separate tabs of the different blogs and scroll through laboriously to check for new posts. In contrast, Google Reader has really made my life much more effective!

Excited by this customizable “News Feed” of mine, I started exploring alternatives. I have an interest in Human Resources, so that’s the direction I took. When I did the blogpost about social recruiting, I found some insightful and engaging HR sites, and added those to my Reader. Now, I can stay updated about the newest insights in the HR field. Who knows, just like Dr B says, my future employer may well be one of the authors of these posts! Even if that doesn’t work out, the HR information I have garnered from these sites will no doubt stand me in good stead when pursuing a future career in this area.

Some exciting features of Google Reader:

–          Functions almost like an email inbox: Google Reader shows you which posts you have read and which you haven’t (highlighted in bold text), making it easier to track where you have left off. I can even select a certain post and “Mark as Unread” so I can remind myself to come back to it at a later time.

–          Sorting:

After adding so many links, I realised the need to have some order and structure. I clicked the “Manage subscriptions” button and it allowed me to create folders and put relevant links into those folders. It was a quick and easy way of helping me de-clutter and gain access to the links I want in a shorter time.

–         Read anywhere, anytime: Since Google Reader is internet based, this means I can access it anywhere as long as I have internet access. I even used it on my iphone to read the latest blogposts on-the-go.

This is why I like to call Google Reader my very own News Feed. No more laborious trawling through your favourite websites daily, when everything is all accessible with a scroll and a click!

File sharing – Good for users, but damage for industries?

Digging further into the topic of file sharing after my last post about the blocking of the online movie portal kino.to, I started considering the music industry as well and the possible effects on corporations in the movie and music business.