Aah, who hasn't forgotten that PowerPoint slide, or that word document file that they needed for that ever important meeting.The majority of people out there from what I can tell still use a piece of hardware called a pen drive.
I wonder how many of us out there remember the days of yesteryear when a floppy drive was the mainstay of data transportation. For some of us this was almost a lifetime ago, but for some others of us it was not that long ago. Still the main concept of a floppy drive is still in the heart of us all only in a different form. The difference may be the size or the shape, but still the basic idea is still there. A medium that we can fit in our pocket.
I hate to say it, but this whole idea is a very archaic one. There is a completely diferent way of thinking that some call Web 2.0. This concept is the whole idea behind modern forums and blogs, modern cell phones, and many other forms of communicating information.
Perhaps the biggest change with the advent of the formation of the the Web 2.0 paradigm is the invention of the Cloud. Some people may say, if you haven't heard of the cloud; then your head is probably in the clouds.There are many current uses of the cloud. Some people, including this author uses Skydrive to store homework and other files that the user needs to access across different computers no matter what network they are on. What it does is act like a virtual pen drive. Which can be accessed from any other computer that in online and has a Web browser. This is including at their school, work, or even on a friends computer. All they need to do to use this feature is create a Microsoft Live ID. Another feature that someone with a Microsoft Live ID can use is Microsoft Mesh. With Microsoft Mesh a person can synchronize folders across any number of computers. I myself have my main documents folder synchronized across all my computers. This means that instead of keeping a file on a pen drive that I could just as easily forget at home, I can just as easily go to a public computer, open the file and print or edit how I see fit. In this way you can save a lot of time and not have to re-create that needed file at the last minute.
If you happen to use a different operating systems, then there are options for you as well. I don't have experience with too many of those, but for those of you that are used to the Web based systems like google, those work on other systems since they are platform independent. There are also other options that are not browser based such as SpiderOak. Spider oak also synchronizes between different operating systems. In other words, if you have a computer running Windows, and a computer running Linux, It is able to synchronize your documents between them without much of a fuss.

"About me" I guess is a good title.

Hello fellow classmates, My name is of course Marcus Cook. I'm a second year student at our lovely university. I'm currently a CIS major, but I might be switching to ACT. I'm also going to be going for a business Minor. If I had to pick just 3 hobies to list I don't think I'd be able to. They range from golf and cooking to computers, photography and music. I've never been a sports buff though. For some reason I just find them entirely boring. I'm engaged, can't forget to bring that up. I can't really think of anything else right now, I'm currently under the weather.
If I haven't met you yet in person ( I know I've met a few of you) I hope to meet you in the future.

Blogs vs Wikis

Blogs vs. Wikis

   One difference between the two is the fact that one is a blend for the term Web log, and the other was named after a shuttle bus that runs between airport terminals at the Honolulu airport. The differences do not stop there. The main difference between the two is that with a blog the medium was designed around a single author, whereas, a wiki was designed for a group collaboration to gather information into a single source. Blogs are also used by some to get feedback on a thought, while others use it as a place to make an announcement. Wikis are used more of a centralized place of information. When you think about it, they are not very similar at all.

Convergence in today's networked world

   It's only natural in the evolution of technology to want to do more with less resources.This is the whole idea behind convergence. Taking one task and combining it into another. While this is happening with some things,divergence is actually happening with others. One example of this divergence is with social networking, this field is more and more latent with an evergrowing number of social networks. This leaves people having to check more and more networks to stay in contact with the people that they need to keep in contact with. I myself was asked a few weeks ago by an aquantance when talking about a network that is required for student organizations to use at a certain university, "Who has time to check another facebook, I don't?" Without some kind of convergence, who knows where this will be in a few years. Maybe we will be spending half of our day logging in and out of different networks.

How can blogs be used for collaboration?

I've not really had much experience with blogs myself. This really will be a learning experience for me as I use it.

Can you think of a new use for a wiki that has not been done yet?

Personally I can't really think of a way to use wiki's that hasn't already been thought of. It's used for scientific documentation, video game cheats and tutorials, you name it and there's probably a wiki on it. I did think of a way it could be used, but I don't think it would work out that well. We could use it as a site where we could colaborativly write public policy and the laws for the good old USA. It's laughabe I know, But wouldn't this fall under the whole for the people BY the people motto that the fathers of our country established the nation on? On a serious note though, since most wiki sites are made with Web platform software, if someone needed it for another use they could create it using the same software they used to create the wiki.