week 9 : 28 november
technology & snow
Highlights From Student Posts[back to week 10 ]
- Barrie
- ... making me check weather.com multiple times per day. That's how I found out on Saturday, in The Dalles, that there would be snow on Sunday, and that it would rain and snow all the way home to Seattle.
- Belle
- Expecting the snow for several days since I had known that there will be a snow from the weather forecasting software on my desktop, which was downloaded from Yahoo. I was studying in the library and hearing at the KPLU radio online when the snow fell. My friends told me about the snow in words through the MSN Messenger. I run out of the building to feel the memorable moment. At the same time I made a phone call to my friend who lives in San Deigo and told him about the great news.
- Chloe
- When I was writing my past paper, I knew TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) theory. This model points that exogenous variables of acceptance for a new technology are (1) perceived usefulness and (2) perceived ease of use. It can assist me to realize why I adopt these technologies. There is no denying that blogs and MSN/Skype is useful to me and they have fit in with the first variable. As far as I'm concerned, the use of blogs is so easy that it can be used from grandma to her grandchildren because setting up a blog needs no special skills or knowledge, and MSN/Skype does, too.
- Courtney
- no post
- Elina
- Knowing my parents without access to weather news channels from their TV (only have international channels), I directly depended on my Blackberry's internet access to check the latest weather conditions and next-day forecast. In addition, I re-routed the roads where I could safely drive back home (Seattle) by using various websites online.
- Jeanne
- No post.
- Kai-Chen
- At the beginning of this month, I bought a red i-Pod nano on the Apple website. I have begun to shop online when I was a college student. However, I initially distrusted online transaction, because I thought it was high-risky and precarious, so I still preferred to go shopping on brick-and-mortar stores then.
- Kevin
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But, I thought let me try Cdigix, so I did.
Here's what I really, really like about it - Great collection of artists and songs (if you don't count the lack of a Beatles presence which is pretty much a universal - I know it's a copyright issue). I mean, if you young folks ain't ever listened to the Chad Mitchell Trio, you're missing quite a few hoots in your lives! The second thing that is quite impressive v. peer-to-peer, is the rapid download speed. I mean peer networks run on a prayer half the time. This is the cat's meow. . . It also has a good dedicated player for the music on the PC and it's very simple to use.
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But, I thought let me try Cdigix, so I did.
- Kristina
- I mostly heard about all the accidents that were going on Sunday over the newsroom scanner. ...Traffic cams were also helpful to see how badly the snow was tying up traffic. But when I was trying to decide how difficult it was going to be to go home I didn't rely on secondhand information I was hearing or seeing online. I went outside and walked around a bit to see firsthand how slick the roads were and how much snow had piled up on top of my car during the day.
- Luke
- no post
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Magnus
- no post
- Mini
- Dear my fellow classmates, I got to share a very special experience to you yesterday. It almost froze me. Oh! Thanks god…some neighbors saw me and helped me to climb down. Or I might not to meet you in the class. ...
- Last, I believe that as long as the products meet people's needs, it is easier to be adopted. In the field of new media, the landscape is changing so fast that we have to keep in pace. Otherwise, we will be unconscious of staying behind. And there is always a point can be stressed: the purpose of using different tools is information.
- Nancy
- I'm going to keep this short, but Blackboard (a learning management software we use which basically creates an online classroom "shell") was a lifesaver for communicating with students following Monday's snowstorm.
- So I bit the bullet and downloaded IE7 on one of the five computer stations I regularly use (one in my office, one in the classroom, two desktops at home, and a laptop--if anyone's counting). Was not terribly keen to do so .... How about applying Everett Rogers' characteristics of innovations theory to my little upgrade experiment?
- Nika
- I checked email, and weather reports, and made my driving desisions accordingly. Now I have learned that was a mistake. They were always wrong!
- Randa
- Pet peeve: This system we have now does nothing new over the one we bought 5 years ago. I think this is what gets me. The jeans haven't worn out, they still fit, the design is just a little old fashioned-but hey, you gotta get a new pair to get a date!
- Many people lose power when we have foul weather, if they are among them and computer access is the only way we have of communicating, then some of us may show [up] for a class that may not be held (like in the old days).
- Rex
- I've got a few new toys around the house -- a Wii , a Sling Box , and a Zune -- but what I'd rather talk about is a new simple (and free!) piece of software: the Google Browser Sync extension for Firefox, which has had a great effect on the way I've been thinking about personal software lately. Basically, this browser extension allows you to store these things:
- Cookies
- Passwords
- Bookmarks
- History
- Tabs and Windows
- I've got a few new toys around the house -- a Wii , a Sling Box , and a Zune -- but what I'd rather talk about is a new simple (and free!) piece of software: the Google Browser Sync extension for Firefox, which has had a great effect on the way I've been thinking about personal software lately. Basically, this browser extension allows you to store these things:
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Stephanie
- The decision to switch to Opera models the five steps (Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision adopt/reject, Implementation, Confirmation) of the Everett Roger's Linear Innovation-Diffusion theory (process by which innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system). I was informed of an alternative, Opera, through my social circle and persuaded to adopt it. However, after difficulty using the new browser, I became an “un-gratified” user, and thus as an unintended consequence resulted in my returning to the critical mass (point at which enough individuals have adopted an innovation so that the innovation's further rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining) Microsoft Explorer.
- With the exception of my 7th grade science class which had a tower cam at our school feeding weather pictures to the Internet and local news, today was the first time I checked the weather online (after seeing blankets of white outside, I wanted to find out how many more pretty snowflakes might fall…I didn't find a number for that but rather the temperature, hourly forecast and driving conditions). This proved to be a convenient experience provided the electricity and wireless were still connected; I plan to use this feature for the remainder of winter in hopes of finding more days to use my ski pass.
- Steve
- I found out about class being canceled during the storm at my house in Issaquah. I was able to jump online to check traffic conditions to direct my wife home all while she listened to my directions on her cell phone while she drove. The next morning I was able to get directions on the Internet about bus stops and times when the bus would be coming.
- Tony (Fu-Yuan)
- About seven years ago, I remember that I didn't use internet at that time. I just knowed there was kimo (which was purchased by yahoo now) and I could play chess online. I liked chatting so I made a phone call everyday to my classmates, and that was the way how I get information. When I attended to college, I found that everyone use the internet to communicate, so I learned typing and adopted the online communites gradually.
- Vaun
- Access to media must have been quite a challenge here until recently. The town library is open just three hours a week and has only a few hundred books. To compensate for this, satellite TV dishes have sprung up in many barnyards, alongside ubiquitous hand-pump wells and broken-down farm machinery. The village is also wired for cable television and broadband Internet. When my sister isn't kayaking, cross-country skiing or making furniture in her barn, she works from home as a consultant in epidemiology. She does almost all of her work online on a laptop computer for clients ranging from a nearby clinic to a public health department in Washington State. Currently she is coordinating an interdisciplinary project to help farmers in Washington avoid disease resistance in cows by curbing overuse of antibiotics in the animals' food.
- The only time I used digital technology during the “storm” was when I took out my digital camera to snap a picture of my cat sniffing some dried weeds I brought from New Hampshire and stuck into the snow on my lawn.