Computer Applications - Week 04 - Intro to Microsoft Office

Computers and society|

Digital Fingerprints: How you're tracked online by your keystrokes
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070113/bob9.asp

Docucolor: digital printers have a precise cryptic pattern which allows their serial number to be determined (and that you owned the printer that printed any given document)
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/

"Big Brother" reading email, web traffic (not just the government, but corporations)
"...Fast-evolving Internet and communications technology is outpacing privacy laws and leaving a treasure trove of personal data prey to government surveillance..."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usjusticeinternet

An Orwellian solution to kids skipping class
"...Say your kids are truants. A politician thinks he might have the solution: Fit the child with a Global Positioning System chip, then have police track him down..."
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/02/19/0220truants.html

More on "Big Google is watching you..."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2014215,00.html
"...Google has an extraordinary amount of information about its users. It logs all the searches made on it and stores this information indefinitely. Because every computer has a unique IP (internet protocol) address, every visit to every website can be traced back to the computer making it — a fact which is well known in geek circles (Shi Tao, the Chinese journalist, was given 10 years in jail last April for “leaking state secrets” after Yahoo! in Hong Kong handed over information linking his IP address and his e-mail to the Chinese authorities.) Users of Google’s Gmail service, who are already having their e-mails scanned to place targeted ads, have given the company their identity, a full record of all their searches and copies of all their e-mails, stored indefinitely. Users of Google’s Toolbar are inadvertently giving the company a list of not just all their searches but also of every single website they visit. And, as the lawsuit makes clear, all this information is potentially vulnerable to subpoena

...So far everyone who has invested in Google has made out like the proverbial bandit; but one day the share price will drop and people who have bought shares will find they have lost money. It is then that Google’s leaders will come under pressure to find some uses for that goldmine of personal data..."

California congressmen attack high-tech companies (including Google) over China censorship
http://news.com.com/Politicos+attack+tech+firms+over+China/2100-1028_3-6033976.html?tag=nl

Worries grow about Google's Internet dominance
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3271551

What once was private is now under Google's domain
"...the words we type into search engines reveal our most private intentions, needs and fears. It's where we may first inquire about cancer symptoms or depression, track old flames, explore our sexuality and our faith, look for a new job or seek information about what to read and buy..."
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13802957.htm

How Google tracks you as you surf the web
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2006/01/30/flickr-pictures-web-beacons-and-a-modest-proposal/

Information that Google records about you
http://battellemedia.com/archives/002283.php

Google admits Desktop has major security risks
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-6041338.html?part=rss&tag=6041338&subj=news

Political cartoon on Google China
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/06.01.29.YentoCensor-X.gif

Google is not about "doing good" at all (grow up)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29687

Google struggles in the most "wired" country in the world - South Korea
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1688429,00020020.htm

Comedy of errors (deliberate misinformation) hits Wikipedia
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2036558,00.html

Congress caught making false records in Wikipedia
http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6033082.html

MySpace beats out porn sites in Internet traffic
"...In Britain search sites overtook sex sites in popularity last October—the first time any other category has come out on top since tracking began, says Hitwise. In America, the proportion of site visits that are pornographic is falling and people are flocking to sites categorised “net communities and chat”—chiefly social-networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Traffic to such sites is poised to overtake traffic to sex sites in America any day now (see chart)..."
http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9040354

Girl, 15 charged with child porn after posting pictures of herself online
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36804.html

Podcasting begins to change the face of politics
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/internet-05zzv.html

Hell is OPM (Other People's Music)
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70625-0.html?tw=rss.index

It's now a crime to "annoy" someone over the Internet (without posting your name)
http://news.com.com/Create%20an%20e-annoyance%2C%20go%20to%20jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html  

Microsoft to begin checking for piracy on software upgrades
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4102

Who's the REAL "Big Brother" - your favorite music and film stars!

RIAA (music industry cartel) says copying CDs to iPods, backups "not fair use" (in other words, illegal)
"...why should consumers be allowed to make a backup of their CDs or DVDs when replacements are available for sale...?"
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190.html

Another article on RIAA and fair use
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php

MPAA accused of movie piracy
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29225

RIAA backs (hacker) "rootkits" to monitor end-user computers
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27833

Authors sue Google for "copyright infringement"
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050920/google_scanning_books.html?.v=3

Jail time for P2P software pirates (is that you?)
The most controversial section of the bill punishes Internet users who offer "for distribution to the public" $1,000 or more in copyrighted materials with prison terms of up to three years and fines of up to $250,000. If it became law, prosecutors would not have to prove that $1,000 in copyrighted materials were actually downloaded; they would need to show only that those files had been publicly accessible in a shared folder.
http://news.com.com/House+votes+to+target+P2P+pirates/2100-1028_3-5387682.html?tag=st.rn

Music industry to launch attacks against websites posting lyrics, guitar tabs
http://www.betanews.com/article/Music_Industry_to_Attack_Lyric_Tab_Sites/1134421643

Conservative political group savages P2P laws (who's against P2P regulation? conservatives, libraries, and the tech industry. Who is opposed? musicians and liberal politicians )
http://news.com.com/Conservative+group+savages+anti-P2P+bill/2100-1028_3-5381593.html?tag=st.rn

Microsoft Office

Microsoft office home page, help

• http://www.microsoft.com/office

Locations of Office Help

• http://office.microsoft.com - windows and general Office utilities, templates

• http://www.mactopia.com - Macintosh version of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office Live - online "web apps" augmenting the features of Office

May be the beginning of a move to put Office completely online as a subscription-based

remote application suite

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1926459,00.asp

• Home Page
  http://officelive.microsoft.com/

• Office Live Basics (free)

  • company domain name (something.com)

  • five e-mail accounts using that company domain with 2 GB of storage

  • a Web site with 30 MB of file storage

  • a drag-and-drop design Web-site design tool

  • Microsoft Office Live Site Reports tool for monitoring and analyzing Web site traffic.

• Office Live Collaboration (a set of services designed for small business)

  • password-protected online workspaces (intranets and extranets)

  • customer and employee management

  • project management

  • sales and marketing management