Limitations imposed by copyright

Limitations imposed by copyright

When you buy software, for example, copyright law forbids you from:

·                                 giving a copy to a friend

·                                 making a copy and then selling it

·                                 using the software on a network (unless the licence allows it)

·                                 renting the software without the permission of the copyright holder

                                    

Names, titles, short phrases and colours are not generally considered unique or substantial enough to be covered, but a creation, such as a logo, that combines these elements may be.
Normally the individual or collective who authored the work will exclusively own the rights. However, if a work is produced as part of employment then normally the work belongs to the person/company who hired the individual. For freelance or commissioned work, rights will usually belong to the author of the work, unless there is an agreement to the contrary, (i.e. in a contract for service).
Only the owner, or his exclusive licensee can bring proceedings in the courts against an infringement.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/legal/2copyrightrev1.shtml

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/uk_law_summary

Freedom of Information Act

Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act passed on 30 November 2000, coming into force in January 2005. The act outlines the public’s right to access all types of recorded information, held by public authorities, with exemptions. The Act defines the term ‘public authority’, and all public bodies and government departments in the United Kingdom. The FOI (Freedom of Information) Act encourages organizations to be open and transparent. It applies to public authorities, affecting these organizations;

-         Publicly funded organizations

-         Government departments

-         Local authorities

-         Police and Police authorities

-         National Health Services

-         The armed forces

The government becomes much more transparent through this, and makes them seem like they are not afraid to show the public their expenditures.
www.bbc.co.uk

Case Study, Tool man

Case Study 1 – Tool Man

How he is;

John is a sales representative selling tools to garden centres and DIY stores. He travels over 1000 miles a week to see new and existing clients. For the past 20 years he has carried round a large diary, address book, large road atlas and numerous A-Z’s, as well as numerous small coins for phones. He prides himself on punctuality, but even so he is occasionally late as struggles to find a new client or is delayed by traffic. He always takes along a calculator, and a bulky sales catalogue with the latest price lists and order forms. He is usually on the road four days a week, six hours a day and spends two further hours a day completing his administration. He spends every Friday in the office ensuring all his administration and sales are handled properly. He has always said he likes the time spent in his car between appointments, as it is his time when he can listen to his CD’s undisturbed.

How he could improve;

When he is late due to traffic and road issue, he could buy a modern sat nav or smart phone. I think this is a good idea as it would direct him exactly where he needs to be, as the smart phone can use Google maps (sat nav option) to take him, and if he is late he could ring his customer in advance. Also, the smart phone has a clock, so he knows when to set off and if he is going to be on time or late. Also, the smart phone has a calculator for working out sums and equations which he needs to carry out. He can use apps on an iPad or iPod to carry out many of the functions he needs to. He can also use the music app to listen to music, or use an iPod or mp3 player, as he will have more access to music.

Jobs in The Information Age

Jobs using The Information Age

Accountant

An accountant will use a computer to search the records when a customer requires a service. This method of searching for records is better than storing everything by paper as it saves room, time, and effort. This is because they can easily browse through the records by a name, age or address to instantly know who they are speaking to. They could also calculate amounts on a program instead of on a calculator, which is less stressful as it sometimes automatically does formulas and equations, instead of having to manually work out numbers.

Shop Assistant

A shop assistant may use something of the information age such as a computer and scanner, so that the item the customer wishes to buy can easily be scanned and the sum of money they need to pay, and the exact item is specified by quickly swiping it under a bar code scanner. They may also order more stock online, which is better than sending paper as they may make mistakes this way, whereas there may be ways to calculate precisely how much stock they need on a computer, and be able to pair this with how much they exactly they have in stock, making no mistakes.

Mechanic

Mechanics may use diagnostic kits to pinpoint the precise problem with a car, whether it is the engine or any faulty component. This is much easier and quicker than manually checking the whole car for faults; doing this could save time and mean they fix the car on time. They also use a computer program to pinpoint exact parts of a car they require, by searching for the Make, Model and Year. This means they make no mistakes and get the precise parts they require for the job.

Teachers

Teachers use registers which upon finishing, are sent to an admin and those who are marked in are established as present. This is much better than using a manual method as it saves making mistakes of judgement, and can also help if a fire occurs, as the school know exactly who is in school. Also, homework can be set for pupils online. This is an efficient method to keeping pupils up to scratch on their work, getting rid of many excuses they may use from using paper. Using this, the teacher can also track of who is doing their work and who is not. Making it clearer.

VLE (The School Portal)

The School Portal, VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)

The school portal is a feature many of the pupils of Armthorpe Academy use daily. I feel that it is not to a high standard, and that it could be easily made much better. The layout is terrible, using badly chosen colours and images. We also see poor quality from where images have been cropped badly, with the white background still around parts of it. The portal is also quite difficult to navigate through, which is not good as it is aimed at years 7-13’s. They could have used a more striking ‘nav bar’ at the top of the page to easily navigate through the different pages, instead of just the text at the side of the site.

The school portal can be useful at times, as it offers many features such as a timetable, your attendance, and a way to access your documents from anywhere.

The school portal could include many more features, such as; a notice board, displaying all events in the school and what is going on around the school. Better weblinks, to UCAS and careers websites, more relevant. More email access, for example, the careers adviser.

Similar to Frog, which supplied the school portal, there is moodle, which does the same.

Downloading.

Downloading

1; I would rather download than buy the physical copy as it is quicker, as to buy the physical copy you must wait or leave the house. Also, it may sometimes be cheaper, as there may be deals only available by download. Additionally, having a hard copy could mean that the CD could get scratched and may no longer be playable, whereas downloading an album would be safer as it can not get scratched as it is instantly safely stored in your computer.

2; Problems you could encounter from downloading could be that it would take a long time, as a strong, fast internet connection is required to download properly. Also, you may encounter viruses when downloading from ‘dodgy’ sites. Lastly, you may end up losing all of your data on your computer, meaning losing those downloaded albums, whereas if you’d have bought the CD you wouldn’t have had this problem.

3; Downloading fulfils it’s purpose as it is quick and easy to acquire. It is quick as you just pay online and the ‘album’ may be available to you instantly. Also it is easy as you just have to purchase online, instead of browsing through a store.

HSBC & Halifax

Comparing online banks

HSBC;
HSBC is a very secure online bank. The bank itself provides you with a keypad which has become part of the process for logging into your account. This is done by typing your pin into the keypad. This is very secure as this keypad is unique to you, meaning you are the only person able to get in, making it almost completely hack proof. This idea is completely unique to this bank, and makes it one of the most secure online banks in the world. It is also very easy to use and navigate through, despite the long log in process, which is completely worth it as it could just save your funds.

Halifax;

Halifax is fairly similar to HSBC, just less secure, as it does not include the extensive log ins or a keypad. It is however easy to use, and is a quick service which can be accessed anywhere. However, Halifax does include a system where the user must use a word, and type in certain letters of the word, making it very difficult for hackers to access your account.

Weather, 20th September

At it's peak, today's weather will reach 15 degrees celsius, and 11 degrees celsius at it's lowest. It will also rain from 3pm onwards. The wind speed is relatively going in the north-east direction. I have used www.bbc.co.uk/weather to find this out.

Weather, 19th September (validation)

As stated in my previous post, I checked the weather using bbc weather. It reported that at midday it would be 13 degrees celsius, and that it would rain at around 2-3 pm, this indeed was correct, so this is a valid source of weather-real time information.

eBay

eBay,

The major purpose of eBay is to give a service to the public for them to buy and sell items to each other. There is no main audience for eBay as it appeals to everyone, as everyone wants to buy, and sell unwanted items. Although we could say that people who have access to the internet are the only audience for eBay as it is an online marketplace. The auction process works by placing a bid, for possibly lower than the ‘buy it now’ price. Usually, a bidding war occurs as two or more people wish to get the item for a certain amount of money or want to get a bargain. It fulfils these purposes well as it has provided many people with an access point to other sellers and buyers, linking everyone around the world to one online marketplace. It also fulfils the purpose of people finding ‘old gems’ that you can not buy in a normal store, as you can find people wishing to get rid of old items that they do not want, and purchase them, as they were a part of your life many years ago, and you possibly thought that you would never think you’d come across again. The benefits of eBay are that you can find many items across the world that have become very rare, and you can pinpoint the exact item you wish to find, instead of searching endlessly through many stores to find the exact item you want. Limitations are that you may come across a ‘dodgy’ dealer online, and they may try to scam you or be untruthful in what they have described to be a perfect item.

Weather, 19th September

Weather Forecast,
Today's weather will be fairly cold, being 10 degrees celsius at it's lowest, and 13 degrees celsius at it's highest. I have found this out using; http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather. This has provided me with a five day+ forecast with each hour's temperature and weather forecast.

Real Time | Journey.

Today I planned a journey for two different methods of trainsport, rail and car. I tested which was more efficient and easier to plan by planning the route to The Olympic Park, Stratford. Firsly, I did rail, which was generally easy, as I just typed in 'From Doncaster, To Stratford' and it instantly planned a route using the train service and London Underground. The rail journey all together cost £83, a reasonable amount for peak time train services. I secondly planned the same journey for car, using Google maps. This service proved to be very useful as it told me the exact route, directions, the time it would take to get there and fuel costs! Making planning a journey by road very easy. The fuel costs came to £35.87 and the journey would take approximately 3 hours and 10 minutes. I found both methods fairly easy to plan as the websites I used provided real time information to successfully plan for travel, making it easy to use by all people. It took a few minutes to actually gain the information. Making it quick AND easy! I used National Rail to plan my train journey and Google Maps to plan the route by car.

Instant Messaging Services | Small Summary

Instant Messaging Services;

Facebook

YouTube

Skype

Msn

Yahoo

Blogger

BBM

I use the majority of these services on a daily basis, most frequently Facebook and YouTube. I do this because I feel that all of these services are very easy to use, and the fact that they have a lot of users means that they are then used properly, as you have a wider audience to use them with. Facebook is a very good service to use as it includes a brilliant way to keep up with friends in a quick-chat.

Instant Messenging | Facebook Chat

I regularly use Facebook chat as a way to interact with my friends, this is because it is a quick and efficient way to get into contact with those who are further away than a five minute walk. I also use Facebook chat to people who are within meters! So it has become a method of speech in my life. I feel that Facebook chat easily compares with being face to face with the person you are 'chatting' with as you can now use your webcam to video call within Facebook chat, making it even more useful and enjoyable. I use Facebook chat on a regular basis and I feel that it is now very popular among many people, and it will only develop further from there.

Online Services

This is my personal audit of all my communications, research, investigations etc. About online services and the Information Age.

The areas I will be covering include;
   - Communication
   - Real time information
   - E-Commerce
   - E-Government
   - Education
   - Business
   - Entertainment