digital thoughts

Education is big business, and this is why we find colleges and schools mushrooming all over the country. Most of them are not accredited, while some are just diploma mills that sell degrees to those who are willing to pay for them. So when it comes to degrees that are being taught online, the question of authenticity and value comes to fore. There are some schools however, that offer online degrees that are accredited and of good quality. But, even though the quality of education that is offered is good, can students really learn anything worthwhile from online degrees?

Yes, they can, but only if:

Students choose the right school and degree: Most online schools don’t bother to provide their students challenging curricula that are taught by good teachers. There are some however, that are the best in the business. They stand for excellence in the world of online education, and it is these schools that a student must choose if they are to really learn something from their degree.

Students are dedicated: Any degree requires some amount of dedication from the student, and when it comes to online education, the level of dedication must be stepped up because there is no direct competition from fellow students or other incentives from teachers to spur them on. They need to be able to do things on their own, no matter how hard it is or how boring the work is.

Students can manage their time well: When someone studies online, they probably have more than one thing on their plate. So when they’re juggling too many balls, it stands to reason that they must be able to manage their time well or they’re going to end up dropping a ball or more. Online students must find time to set aside to complete their lessons and assignments, preferably on a daily basis, and not put off work till the last minute or until the eve of exams.

Students are determined to earn more than just a degree: The learning process involves so much more than just gaining a degree, and this is why online students must choose schools that are not diploma mills. Accredited schools offer opportunities that a student must make use of if they want to actually learn something valuable and gain more knowledge than just what is taught in their lessons. Online students who go on to taste success in their careers are generally thirsty for knowledge and learn more than they must simply because they want to.

Online or not, it’s not the degree that determines the amount of learning that takes place, but the attitude and determination of the student who enrolls in the degree.

This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of accredited online degrees . Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson1 at gmail.com

Related Link: How to Manage Time Effectively?

Microsoft filed five lawsuits against alleged purveyors of “malvertisements” — online advertisements that dupe unsuspecting users into downloading malicious software on their computers.

The suits cite anonymous defendants using the business names Direct Ad Solutions, Soft Solutions Inc., Qiweroqw.com, ITmeter Inc. and ote2008.info, alleging that they used Microsoft’s system for posting online ads to attract users to sites that attempted to install malicious software on their PCs.

Someone has to take care of these rogue companies that plant mal-ware everywhere. It’s a good start, let us wait and see whether malware crooks just die or come back with vengeance.

Related Link: Microsoft Blog

Google is introducing a new service called “Wave”, communications service that combines features of email, instant-messaging and document-sharing to facilitate multi-user conversations online.

You can learn more about wave and its features here. When you read it, you will know that most of these features are already served by Facebook, Myspace and even Google’s own Orkut.

Companies like Google must introduce new products just to survive the business battles. “Wave” is just the byproduct of those battles. It may fail to gather followers just like many other applications released by Google.

Gone are the days of handwritten post-it notes stuck in your office cubicle and on your refrigerator. Writing and sticking notes is a tedious task in itself. While major tasks are usually foremost on our minds, simple and seemingly unimportant errands get ignored causing them to pile up and become one huge task.

Today, software programs in your computer or blackberry can remind you of the things you plan to do. Dextonet’s Daily To-Do List is one such software. Listed below are few salient features of this very handy software.

• Daily To-Do List is planning software that allows you to organize and list tasks that you plan to perform.
• Your to-do lists are organized day by day. You can view the list of things to be one on a particular date by using the calendar picker.
• There is a reminder to alert you of tasks that you wish to perform at a certain time. You can choose whether you would like to set a reminder for a specific task. The reminder will alert you by beeping at the set time. There is a snooze option and also an option to mark the task as done.
• The software window consists of a to-do list view and a notes panel. In addition to arranging tasks, this application enables you to write notes for each task. The rich text format of the notes panel supports hyperlinks. You can also change fonts, colors and so on.
• Tasks can be arranged in order of priority or category.
• Each category is indicated by a different color so you can easily identify the nature of the task to be done.
• Once the tasks have been ordered, you can change their order of priority by simply dragging and dropping them.
• A small icon upon the task will inform you about its priority level.
• The application supports recurrent tasks.
• Any tasks pending over from one day will be automatically carried over to the next day.
• This software also has a feature called global hotkey. By simply pressing this key, the Daily To-Do List will be restored from the system tray. You can then use this application.
• Remember how irritating it is when you spend hours working on something and then forget to save it? Well, with Daily To-Do List, you wont face that problem since everything is saved automatically.
• If you still prefer the old fashioned method of sticking memos on the refrigerator, you can take a print out of the to-do list. If you are an avid computer user, you can export the to-do list to HTML.

This application is suitable both for personal and business use. It has a freely downloadable trial version. You can download the trial version and see how it works for you before buying the full version.

By using the Daily To-Do List, you can be sure that you will never have any tasks pending and no more rushing through with things at the last minute. Visit dextronet.com for further details and downloads.

Angry residents blocked the driver of a Google Street View car when he started taking photographs of their homes. The residents formed a human chain and would not let the car move. The residents accused Google of invading their privacy and “facilitating crime”. It all sounds like a scene in Mumbai or Bangalore. It happened in London.

The Street View mapping project allows for 360-degree views of roads and homes using footage taken by a camera mounted on a car. When Google started Google Earth and Street view projects, they seemed to be cool. Not anymore. Terrorists used Google Earth to plan attacks in Mumbai. Robbers used it in London. It’s very obvious why people are concerned about Google taking pictures of their homes without their permission.

Google spokesman Peter Barron said the system contained “simple tools” which allowed people to remove images of their house. This is really ridiculous actually. It’s similar to what “people search engines” in U.S. claim. Those companies sell your personal information to anyone that pays $39. You need to spend hours to request these engines to remove your personal information. Think about a woman that tries to hide from her ex-husband that tries to kill her. These so-called people search engines give out the information about that woman to her husband if he pays just $39. So, any woman that tries to hide from the psycho husband has to contact various websites like ussearch and request them to keep her information private. Someone will pass a law in U.S. after few killers use the people search engines to track their victims.

I think what residents in Milton Keynes did was correct. You can’t let someone to drive by and take the pictures of your home without your permission. Some people argue that what Google did was ok because anyone can take the picture of your house and post it online. That’s true, but how many people will see that picture? If some Joe takes the picture and posts it in flickr, how many people are actually going to look at it? may be 100? But, in case of Google Street View, it’s a different story.

Related Links: Residents challenge Google Camera | Google was used to plan robbery

The internet is a treasure trove of information. As a matter of fact, the advent of the World Wide Web has made the world a much smaller place. But lurking in the shadows is a dark and sinister world of pedophiles, kidnappers and psychopaths.

Today’s kids are internet savvy and they use the internet for everything from preparing assignments to catching up with old friends and making new ones. In doing so, they also leave themselves vulnerable to online predators.

Online predators lurk in web sites that kids use, often posing as children themselves. The tactics they use do not necessarily fit into any stereotype. They manipulate children either by kindness and understanding or by rash, bullying behavior. Their tactics make it difficult for kids to distinguish them from genuine friends. Once a relationship is established, they move on to sexually explicit conversations, pictures and even try to meet up with their victim in person. As news of child abuse and abduction by so called “online friends” spread, parents worry about how they can ensure the safety of their children as they surf the internet.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

• First and foremost, familiarize yourself with the internet. This way, you will be able to recognize internet scams, spam, dangerous downloads and so on.
• Once you are aware of the possible threats to your children, your family, your privacy and your computer, explain the same to your children.
• Set guidelines which all computer users in your family should follow. For instance, do not click on pop ups, do not download anything without parent approval, do not forward e-mails to large groups etc.
• Teach your children never to post information such as age, address, and telephone number online.
• If your children use social networking sites, make sure that their profile does not offer too much personal information or pictures to strangers. Most social networking sites have the options that help you determine who gets access to your profile. Teach your kids to make use of these options.
• If your child wants to post a photo on any networking site, make it a rule that they should get it approved from you first. Backgrounds in photos can provide information about your location. This is valuable information for predators and stalkers. So, be careful of what is posted online.
• Help your children to choose login IDs for e-mails and gaming sites and make sure that the IDs do not reveal their name or date of birth. Ensure that their e-mails are protected by strong passwords.
• Tell your children never to meet an online friend in person. Online friends may not always be what they portray themselves to be. In fact, it would be best to avoid online friendships with strangers.
• Encourage your children to share their internet experience with you. Not only will this help you keep track of your child’s internet activities, it will also enhance parent-child bonding.
• Get anti-virus and anti-spy ware programs installed on your computer and always use a firewall.
• Make sure that your computer is protected with a strong password. Anyone who gains access to your computer can glean a whole lot of personal information from it.
• Keep your computer at a central location in your home. In this way, you will be able to monitor your children’s web usage. It is a much better option than allowing your children access to the internet in the privacy of their rooms. Children are naturally curious. Even a simple internet search they run can expose them to inappropriate content.
• You can also use web monitoring software and parental controls to filter out content and monitor your child’s online activities.

The internet is a vast and wonderful world but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a dangerous one. By keeping these tips in mind you can help your child to experience the internet in a safe and healthy manner.

Useful Links: Improve your family’s web security in 4 steps | How to protect your kids from Internet predators | Net Nanny 2.0 | Parental control for iPod Touch and iPhone

A thief in London used Google Earth to spot the building roofs with lead and stole it by scaling it. He targeted 30+ buildings to steal the lead and sold it for 100,000 pounds. He could pick out the roofs with lead because those roofs are of darker shade in satellite pictures.

More on this story here.

Mumbai attacker also confessed that his team used Google Earth to locate the targets and plan the operation. May be it is time to ban Google Earth from Earth?

U.S. Newspaper industry is in a free fall mainly due to Internet. Everyone gets the information online. Many American newspapers are closing down in the recent times.

Few days ago, One more American newspaper went down. “Goodbye, Colorado” said the simple final front-page headline as, after nearly 150 years in business, the “Rocky Mountain News” folded up last Friday.

The final edition sold like wildfire Friday morning, less than 24 hours after the paper’s parent company, Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. announced its closure, leaving Denver, like most American cities, a one-newspaper town. Even that final edition copy was sold in eBay! Some people tried to make money out of it by selling that for $14.99.

“It’s in a free fall and nobody knows where the bottom is. It’s kind of like water in the toilet swirling around and nobody knows what is left when you’re done flushing,” media critic Eric Alterman was quoted as saying by CNN. (What kind of analogy these guys use?!)

Newspapers across U.S. are under pressure as readership declines along with advertising revenue. Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle announced it was in danger of being sold or closed if it doesn’t stop losing millions. Officials from the Hearst Corp., owners of the Chronicle, said the paper lost $50 million in 2008 and is on pace to lose more this year. Hearst said it is also prepared to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer if it cannot be sold. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News filed for bankruptcy protection last week, joining Chicago’s Tribune Co. and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in Chapter 11 status.

Will the same fate awaits for Indian Newspaper Industry? No. Internet penetration is not widespread in India. Moreover newspaper media tycoons in India will make sure that it stays that way. It will take many years before anything close to this will happen to Indian newspapers. By then, they will be ready to meet the challenges.

iPod Touch is the great gift for kids. It’s an excellent gift for adults too! iPod Touch is sleek, superbly designed and works just great. Good news about iPod Touch is that it can let you surf the net thru wi-fi connection. It’s also the bad news for the parents with young children. There is no equivalent of nanny control in iPod Touch. There are so many software products available, in Windows and Mac, to keep children safe when they surf the Internet. But, there was nothing in iPod Touch to protect the kids from weird people in the net.

iPod Touch has something called “Restrictions”. Go to Settings -> General -> Restrictions, tap Enable Restrictions, and enter and confirm a four-digit code that acts as your password. You can enable or disable Explicit iPod Content, Safari, YouTube, iTunes, and Installing Apps using Restrictions feature. iPod Touch uses Safari as the default browser. If you disable Safari, no one can surf the net using your iPod Touch. But, this is not what many parents want. We want the kids to surf the net using iPod Touch, but safely. How to achieve that?

The answer is Mobicip. It’s a great iPod Touch application that is free to use. This application can be used in iPhone also. Mobicip lets anyone to browse the internet safely in iPod Touch or iPhone, but it blocks all websites that are not safe for children.

You can read more about how Mobicip works in this page. Basically, it dynamically filters the content of the target web page and decides whether it’s appropriate for children to see. It does use URL filtering as the basic mechanism, but it goes beyond that to make sure the content is really safe. If the content is not safe for children, it displays the error message “Access to this website has been denied”. If you want to tweak what is allowed/disallowed, you can do so in your account page in Mobicip.com.

Mobicip also claims that it encrypts the data when you access the wi-fi hotspot using iPod Touch or iPhone. It will be useful when you access the public wi-fi hotspots.

If you are a parent and own iPod Touch/iPhone, try the app. This can be downloaded from here. Mobicip requires you to register before using the app. Try it, you will love it. You will also feel safe.

Related Link: Net Nanny 2.0

When a notice is served from court, some loan defaulters hide in some places and don’t accept the notice. In the Facebook era, that doesn’t work anymore.

A lending institution in Australia loaned the couple in Canberra more than A$100,000 ($122,000). The couple defaulted on the loan, bank couldn’t locate them in the last known residence. Bank’s lawyer obtained a default judgment in the couple’s absence and was able to convince the court to serve it via Facebook.

More on this story is here.