Warning in yellow ;-]]]]]]]]]]]]

Yesterday, when I went to the local swimming pool, I was well surprised when I saw the argument between fitness instructor and guest.
It was a quiet hot weather and as the swimming pool is covered by large glass windows the temperature inside was even higher, and therefore one guest opened the door to get some fresh cooler air. However on that door was a notice that was saying to guests to not open the door.
The point was that that older guest could not read any letter because the letters were in yellow colour on the white background. Even I had a problem to read it from very close distance.
Now you can see how silly the notice was made. Even some drawn symbol in red colour would more say than that writing.
Due to this misunderstanding the quarrel between guest and the fitness instructor began.
It was well funny for me as I remember when we talked about this issue in one of our lecture. Further on I personally have not seen any type of warning in any other colour except red one.
It is pointless to try to be unique in such important issues.
When someone sees the red colour it means there must be some type of warning…
Did not that fitness instructor think about older people and disable people who might have some sight problems?
Fortunately the open door might not make a big damage but if it was something more important then the fitness instructor would realize how important is to make visible and readable notice for everyone.

P L A G I R I S M

“You commit plagiarism when you present someone else's ideas -published or unpublished - as if they were your own.”

http://upetd.up.ac.za/authors/create/plagiarism/definition.htm

Plagiarism is not acceptable because it is against mission of study; it is not ethic and also it is an illegal way how to achieve success.
During the study at college or University, the plagiarism is in the contrast with mission of study: learn how to think, use own creativity and ideas, to dispute. Person who uses plagiarism can loose the ability of own creative thinking and also he can loose the ability to create own style. The teacher should not humiliate himself to receive recycled and very often second-hand silly information from the Internet. If student can be inventive in copying and pasting other’s information the teacher should be inventive, too. For example using exact referencing system is very useful.

Students tend to make easier their work and therefore a lot of universities had to start using a special web sites for academic institution to find out which parts of student’ assignments and other works were copied.
Very famous one is TurnItIn.com. According the organisation itself, this program has been used around 5000 schools in 80 countries so far. http://www.turnitin.com/static/grademark.html

I personally think that if teachers would provide more personal help to students at writing student’s work the number of plagiarism would decrease. The similar help is offered to student in final year of undergraduate study at writing a dissertation. I do not think that there are many students who would risk using plagiarism at this stage. But if they have not use critical thinking before it is not very likely that their dissertation will achieve the highest grade.

Fast technology & Mobile phone

It is amazing to see how fast the technology moves. Mobile phones are overflowed all over the world. Every month there is a new type of mobile phone on the market, the price for call is falling down and the network is spreading out and becoming better quality. Effective technology uses satellite connection and therefore it can provide good connection in far distance and less settled places. Even though that satellite allow faster connection the cost is lower than with cable connection. The mobile phones also come with many different features. E.g. alarm clock, maximum resistance against external influences and damage, camera, video, bluetooth,.... Even though that this has been very desirable factor which influenced purchase, nowadays more and more people start thinking and becoming uncomfortable with a big number of features: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mobile-Users-Say-Phones-Come-With-Too-Many-Features-47848.shtml.

According the Mirror article people voted mobiles as one of the worst invention: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2787219.stm

In the future the global communication is expected. Personal mobile phones are becoming smaller and smaller and the connection is going to be from every part of the world and in any time. "ONE PHONE-ONE NUMBER-ONE ACCOUNT" - This is the motto of the future!!!

It is assumed that every child will get a special 14-digit number according that every person will be filed. This should replace today's passport, driving licence and credit card number. The number would be coded in personal "pocket machine" and people would be able to do a call from this special tool.

So what do you think about this mobile future, is it good or bad for us? I am personally confused. On one side it is amazing to see all new inventions which primary tend to make easier our lives. But secondary the fact that people always abuse of power of innocent invention is still in my mind.

References: Obuchova,B. (2000) Mobilna Buducnost. Slovo, 7 . Available online: http://www.noveslovo.sk/archiv/2000-7/ocivilizacii.html [Accessed 12th of March 2007]

Right or Wrong?! You Decide!

A lot of people can not imagine the life without such a perfect invention as television is. The entertainment becomes the lifestyle by itself. In the times when first movies were showed and popular bands were listened from tape recording, none thought that from the longtime aspect this form of accession of reality might be dangerous. What could cause such television or recorder?
It happens that the value of information exceed the human’s values- moral or ethics. The motto of present era is to get to information as soon as possible. The classic channels of transforming information are TV, press and the Internet. All three media can influence individual’s opinion even in negative way.
Primary we have to distinguish the TV’s negative influence on our organism. It affects both sides of organism - physical and also psychological side.
From the physical view if we watch a TV or listen the loud music too often we can damage our sight and hearing. A man is very mature from the psychological point of view- he can think therefore he has intellect, he can differentiate wrong and right, he can analyse.
Therefore we can sum up that a man is able to differentiate what is good or bad for him and which movies and other programs give him valuable information. But the reality is different.
As I mentioned before the lifestyle is based on entertainment and therefore people usually choose a programs which entertain them and also bring them some excitement to forget about routine life and problems. Therefore violence and porn is one of the most required components of any movie, programs or article.
In my opinion we should more talk about the real influence of entertainment programs and also try to teach our children to distinguish wrong and right.

Advertising

Nowadays the advertising surrounds us everywhere. Billboards, print adverts, TV adverts, radio adverts attack us from every side. The main function of advertising is to consumers remember the brand or even buy the product.
The definition of advertising is : „ The us of paid media, by an identified sponsor, to deliver marketing communications to the target audience.“ (D.Picton & A.Broderick, 2005)
From this definition you can understand that primary it is important to inform about the product and secondary to influence consumers to purchase the product.
It is necessary to repeat the adverts to consumers remember the product. Although if adverts are repeated too frequently the opposite affect might appear. When people are overloaded by adverts their respond to each advert is negative.
Even though that cost of adverts in media is high it is well worthy due to reaching a large number of target audience.
Radio advert has lower level of influence than TV one due to using only one sense –hearing.

Adverts have extremely powerful influence mainly on teenagers. You can find more information in the following link: http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/ad3/ler124.shtml

And there are also some issues about children's copying of famous people appeared in the adverts. Children adore them and want to do the same as their idols. As you can read in the article on the following website: http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:0s_44PgTmR8J:www.asa.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/D15BCA5A-F34D-4E6D-8540-F4D7140A1C01/0/copycat_kids.pdf+advertising+AND+influence+AND+teenagers&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=uk.

Children do not know that their idols (famous actress, footballers,...) that represent brand just want to earn a few millions even though if they do not actually trust the brand.

Also everyone is aware about the issue about McDonald's healthy food. The company tries to use adverts to re brand their brand on healthy food option but as you will read in BBC article the opposite is the true.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2787219.stm. That is just on of the common misleading advertising campaigns.

Where is the line between true and false if we talk about advertising?None knows and that is the problem. Money is too powerful tool and therefore it is difficult differentiate true or false information that is spread out from adverts.

Electronic E-mail

Electronic mail is the most spread out form of using the internet. Instead of sending letter by post office we send the letter through the internet. It has a lot of advantages mainly from time point of view. The message should be received within few seconds. People who try this type of communication usually do not want to go back to the previous one-sending letters by post.
By electronic mail we are capable of addressing a huge amount of people all over the world.
Despite of that the electronic mail is not a 100% reliable unlike of straight calling to person. The sending message from sender to receiver is a difficult way through the internet where the message can be delayed or even lost. On top of that we are never assured that the message is ever read from the Inbox of a recipient or we get the respond.
How many times we hear that somewhere the post and communication server was lost, the disks were damaged or computer was crashed with its all information and downloaded e-mails. Our electronic message might be probably lost or damage even before as it is appears in front of the recipient.
Sometime when message get through the challenging way to the recipient even this might be the person who delete the message by accident.
The people who use the electronic mail very often might have a lot of different e-mail addresses and that may cause that some messages are read when the accuracy of information is not relevant due to timing.
Sometime is difficult to log in to the web e-mail due to overloading and also on the web e-mail there are allocated internet banners and pop-up adverts which are sometimes annoying things.
Very easily can be happened that virus come in our e-mail and we do not know about it.We should not underestimate the threats of viruses because they can not only slow down the internet connection for a few minutes but also they are capable destroy the whole content of our disk. Therefore the anti virus program is necessary.As other inventions the electronic e-mail has its negatives but despite them I personally feel that electronic e-mail makes our lives much easier and main advantage is in saving our time in order to get quick respond.

Computers and their importance in modern society

When somebody says a word – PC even 4 years old child already knows the meaning of the word. The technological spread is extremely fast and technical inventions are improved with better quality and performance on daily basis. The PC’s are source of knowledge as well as fun of every young person.
In the past they were mainly used for operating different machines, governing weapons and controlling traffic. PC’s were mainly used to encode secret martial messages by FBI agents and ordinary people could just dream about this made-up brain.
What is their secret and why they are so important for society?
Nowadays we all now what their interior and exterior are consisting of. Some people believe that they are so intelligent that they can think 1000 times faster than human’s brain. The truth is somewhere between. They are indeed faster than human’s brain, information is transferred by unbelievable speed but PC’s do not have any brain. All instruction is from the man and therefore I wonder why the man is becoming their slave. It should be other way round, shouldn’t it?
As every product even computers have their positives and negatives. Some of the negatives I personally consider are that PC’s are stealers of our time, patient, eyesight.
A lot of people depend on them, mainly teenagers. The entertainment industry that offers a lot of computers games in the market, gets profit from human’s weakness to come under any non-weighted product or service if it offers any excitement or entertainment.
And the positive view on them is when we debate about their ability to make easier our lives. For example students appreciate that they can easily find a lot of information with their help, can write some tasks on the PC’s programmer, can study at home by using learning material from CD’s, etc.
Computers operate a lot of manufactures and machines in industry sector and people who are not familiar with PC’s they find difficulties to find a decent job in the future.
The most of the companies require at least intermediate level of PC’s knowledge from candidate for job. If people do not want to be behind a modern time using of basic programmers as Word, Excel and Internet is necessary.
I personally feel that computers have a huge importance not only in developing science and technology but also in developing our knowledge. Science and technology has been spreading out in such a fast speed that it is necessary to look for information about new inventions on regular basis otherwise we might realise that we are out of society and society might not accept us.

The beauty of letters!

I do not know why but every year on Valentine's Day I think about fond couples and their communication in the past and nowadays.
In the present it is so easy to get hold on with somebody. According the research there is about 2.7 billion users of mobile phones and 1.3 billions of fixed land lines worldwide. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/01/putting_27_bill.html
Most of the population have got even 2 or 3 mobiles which are useless. As the competition between mobile operators is big, the prices are cheaper and retailers try to offer better and better deals for consumers.
Using of mobiles is very useful in term of contact someone in a quick way and save time. But since this new technology become available I really miss letters from my relatives, friends and people who love me. The excitement of waiting days and weeks (depending on the distance) and looking every day into the post box for the letter has gone away with using mobiles. The letters are replaced by messages and as they have certain limit of letters to include in one message I do very often end up with missing the most important information. Or sometimes I have to send more messages to say everything what I need and therefore spend more money on credit as I can. There are about 30 billions of messages exchanged worldwide. (http://watchtower.org/e/20050208b/article_01.htm)
The other negative of it is using of abbreviations. To include as much as possible and save as much space as possible force people write abbreviations There is a little example:‘'Enrte Cu in 10 min' (which means 'am enroute to venue, will see you in 10 minutes') is a typical message sent by Devika Prabhu of SET India Pvt Ltd, who is an avid SMS user. http://www.rediff.com/netguide/2003/jun/13english.htm
And you would be very surprise about its negative influence to youngsters and their spelling habits.
I am not against mobile phone I agree that it is inseparable part even of my life but people should not forget about beauty of letters from friends and I feel that it is a shame that this type of informal communication decreasing and becoming old fashionable.

Quick service = Satisfied customer

I work once a week in the bar where we have to serve food during whole day. There is a special selected bar menu due to the restaurant which is open only for the breakfast and dinner.
But lets talk about the communication between the bar and the kitchen.
When we do an order we have to type it on our till and the message is sent automatically through to the kitchen. If customer has special requirements we can just add the kitchen message and chefs know all the details.
This type of communication is really very clever and helpful especially during the busy period.
It saves our time and also legs because otherwise we would have to walk all the way to the kitchen and back. On the other side when communication breaks down, for example if the computer is broken and the bar is very busy we are really stack. We have to write the orders on the paper twice. One copy goes to the kitchen and the other one is for the staff. We have to keep that to know who ordered what and do not mix up our orders. In those situation I just think how technology is powerful and very helpful.
When I was on holiday in Ibiza I went to the restaurant where I noticed their type of communication between waitress and kitchen. They had a little digital boxes which looked like calculators and when we ordered some meals they type the number and kitchen message. That looked very professional and easily operated. They just stick their little machine in their pocket and then could take some dirty plates on the way back to the kitchen. I do not want to say that we should use the same techniques because in the bar people usually come to the desk so we do not have to walk from one table to another. It is just a nice example how to make the communication quicker between two departments.
Life is so easy and we just have find the way to make it so.

Communication between head of departments

I have been working in hotel industry for 2 and half years. As I would like a career in this industry I have noticed some interesting methods, that are used by management, to communicate between departments.

One is about using "pigeon holes" which are situated in the managers office. Messages and other information in paper format are left in each department's section. Sometimes the "holes" are full of papers especially when the head of the department is on holiday or during the busy period. That may cause information being lost as they might drop on the floor and no one knows whose piece of paper is which. Also printing a lot of letters is sometimes wasting of our source -wood.(But that is an environmental issue)

Therefore I find the idea of using electronic post very essential, useful and even clever. First I thought about e-mailing information from one department to another as useless. But then I realise that this form of exchanging information helps not loose any information and saves time by walking from upstairs to downstairs or opposite and it also saves paper. Even a short information is exchange by e-mail. Before I thought why managers do not say information in personal communication. But then I understood that work in hotel is very fast and busy. E-mail communication helps to make easier work and saves time.

Some people might argue that it may cause a lack of real communication with human beings. But I would say that in this particular type of work it is different. If the hotel managers on each department have to deal with hundreds of people every day so we can not talk about lack of communication in real situation.

In my opinion it is very clever way of communication in a busy type of business.

Web Usability

As you can see there are millions and millions of people using the Internet every day.

It is true that Internet has become an inseparable part of our lives.

People search information through the web pages which have different level of USABILITY. I am sure many of you come across web sites with difficulties to use their navigation.

I find it really annoying when my search engine shows me a list of web pages and when I pick the one I can not find the information I am looking for. Maybe the information is there it is just difficult to find it. But in that case the information doesn't have any value.

I am not very patient user and when I look for something I expect to find it. I expect to open certain web page, see nice colourful design without any flashing or bright colours which make me have a headache. Also I prefer the most important terms highlighted and when I click on them they show me answers for my question -nice simple menu bar that is what I like. Information out of date??? Once again it just force me jump to different source. But that is not my loss.....;-]]

Also when I come back to that page I can remember where that information was. I find that, remember well designed web sites with easy usability and quick navigation.

I am sure there are people like me who finally give up searching bad designed web page and go to have a look somewhere else. It is a shame that those poor web sides are actually on the Internet and in my opinion they only waste our time. It should be restricted and only those with good quality and usability should be let to be published on the Internet. There are already too much information and most of them doesn't have any value.If no one is willing to spend time searching through them why they are wasting space on the Internet?? It is pointless.

Do you want to know what are the actual common mistakes in the web design world? Click here http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html.

And there is one web side with really annoying web navigation: http://www.brown.edu/

The usability guru is Jakob Nielsen and on his web side - http://www.useit.com/ you can find a lot of information in details about usability of web.