Bibliography and Thank You

Bibliography


Bellis, M. (n.d.). The History of the Telephone . Inventors. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm

CoHow Does Technology Improve Communicationtitle> . (n.d.). Communication means exchanging thoughts & feelings.. Retrieved March 19, 2010, from http://www.communication-type.com/how-does-technology-improve-communication/

Davenport, L., LaRose, R., & Straubhaar, J. (2009). Media Now, 2010 Update: Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology, Enhanced (6 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.

Free Photos - Free Images - Royalty Free Photos - Free Stock Photos - FreeDigitalPhotos.net. (n.d.). Free Photos - Free Images - Royalty Free Photos - Free Stock Photos - FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Retrieved March 19, 2010, from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Johannes Gutenberg: The Invention of Movable Type. (n.d.). The Orchid Grower: A Juvenile Science Adventure Novel. Retrieved March 19, 2010, from http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/gutenbergmovable.html

Martin Cooper - Inventor of the cellphone. (n.d.). CellularOnline - 1 million global visitors per month. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from http://www.cellular.co.za/cellphone_inventor.htm




Thanks again for reading and commenting on these technology related blogs. I really do appreciate your time and words! :)

Printing Press

Printing Press

1.

Can you imagine a world without books? I know I can’t! Books are so important to many different people like teachers, students and people who just love to read. Can you imagine trying to learn in school without a textbook? We read to learn, relax, be entertained, but also for many other reasons. The printing press is one of those life changing inventions that we like so much and continue to use daily. I'm sure no one expected the printing press to come as far as it did, but around 600 years later who could have guessed?

2.

Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press around 1440. So many things have come since the invention of the printing press. Newspapers, books and magazines are just a few examples. Also ink can be pressed onto fabrics and other materials not just paper. Anywhere you look these days you see printed words and letters.

3.

“The invention of mass printing practices changed our world and the print invention is regarded by many as the invention of the millennium.” Before Gutenberg created the printing press people had to hand copy the books out onto paper or scrolls. (juliantrubin.com)

4.

Just like with the television and movie blog I did the printing press uses word of mouth to spread the news about certain books and magazines. Communication through books is interesting because some books are autobiographies where you learn about other people life. It’s almost like a one way communication deal though. We learn about who we are reading about, but they will most likely never learn about us because most of time they have already passed on.

5.


Another reason the printing press is amazing is that it helps in shopping. Coupons, receipts, clothing and grocery ads all are printed onto their selected material. Without these printed products we wouldn’t be able to take a shirt back that was the wrong size or look in the Sunday paper to know what is on sale the upcoming week.

6.

There are way too many positive aspects to name off the top of my head. I mean seriously we have come a long way since the invention of the printing press. Books are probably one of the best things to come from the printing press. Where would we be without books!?

7.

I really can’t think of any negative aspects of the printing press. I mean I’m sure the machines break on occasion, but like I said before everything breaks eventually. In my opinion only good has come from the printing press.




1.Image: Ian Kahn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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2.Image: Aleksandr Kutsayev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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3.Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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4.Image: Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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5.Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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6.Image: Marcus74id / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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7.Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Television & Entertainment

Television & Entertainment

1.

What do you think of when you think of the word entertainment? Does the circus, a movie, friends or a television come to mind? All of these things can be entertainment, but where do you find yourself after a long day at work? In front of a television. When there is nothing else to do where do you find yourself? In front of the television.

2.


Entertainment related to television and movie theaters has morphed through many stages as has everything else ever created. There were silent movies, drive in theaters, black and white televisions, color tv’s and now there are High Definition televisions.

3.

Media and news stations use the television to communicate with the community. We use the television to keep up with the news, relax, laugh and to watch movies. News stations in particular are informing residents of issues around town and leaving them with more thoughts to ponder.

4.

We no longer have to rely on getting a news paper to know what is going on around town. Resolutions, problems, heroes and obituaries can all be seen with one flick of the remote. We are being shown the news daily so that we can understand and help with the community. Newscasters are influencing resident’s thoughts about everything just by saying what has been typed on their script.

5.

We use the television to socialize with friends and family. I actually get together with some friends at least twice a week and watch episodes of the Office and Community. While watching these shows we talk and laugh and have a great time together. We connect with each other by enjoying entertainment.

6.

Movie theaters are doing the same thing that television shows do. They show a great movie and then people talk about and try to figure out what exactly happened and if there will be a sequel. Hence they are communicating and socializing with each other through entertainment. That’s exactly what they want us to do too. They want us to go out and tell our friends how good the movie was because word of mouth is very powerful.

There are many positive aspects to televisions, movie theaters and entertainment. For one they are entertainment. If you are bored you most likely want to be entertained with as little effort as possible so you turn to them. Also different forms of entertainment can bring people together to bond and share with each other.

One negative aspect is that newscasters are influencing resident’s thoughts about everything just by saying what has been typed on their script. Also just like every other technology televisions and movies break, get scratched and get dropped.

1.Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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2.Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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3.Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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5.Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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6.Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Traveling &Transportation

Traveling & Transportation

1.

When was the last time you drove your car? I will go ahead and make the assumption that it was less than 24 hours. And to what destination were you traveling to; school, the mall, grocery store, work, a friend’s house? Almost anywhere you go you will communicate with people. We use devices of transportation to take us to a destination so that we can communicate.

2.

As it used to be, you would have to sail in a sailboat and hope to live if you wanted to visit someone on the other side of the world. These days we can travel by plane, train, car, subway, hot air balloon and many other ways to reach a destination to communicate with others. Technology has proven to make communication easier and better by creating a global bonding (Communication Type). This global bonding is important in our society because family and friends can live on different continents and so it’s impossible to drive to them to visit.

3.

So you’re stuck in a car with your significant others family traveling far away. You begin to bond and talk and share stories back and forth. Even when you least expect you are bonding with others, communicating. Traveling brings people together whether it’s during the journey or at the destination you are most likely going to talk to someone.

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5.

Since different kinds of transportation were invented we have been traveling more as a society to meet with others. Sometimes people travel to an entertainment destination like Vegas. Other times travel is related to business. But all these different kinds of traveling can be related back to some sort of communication with other people.

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There can be positive attributes of traveling to communicate with others such as you can make it from one side of the world to the other in less than 24 hours on an airplane. It is much faster than sending a letter it is also more personal because you are meeting face to face.

8.

I can think of quite a few negative aspects of traveling, but I’ll just name a few; plane delays, traffic, accidents, sitting still for long periods of time, expenses and the list goes on. So yeah sometimes I think just calling someone or shooting them an email would be easier in many ways, but nothing quite compares to a face to face experience. So we can all thank technology for providing the bridge over the gap between us and people we miss.

9.

1.Image: Kenneth Cratty / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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2.Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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3.Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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4.Image: Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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5.Image: Paul Martin Eldridge / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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6.Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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7.Image: Suvro Datta / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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8.Image: J Frasse / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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9.Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Computers & Internet

Computers & Internet

1.

Chances are you are in front of a computer right now reading this. There is a possibility that you have Internet on your phone, but why would you want to read my blog from your phone anyway?

2.

The brilliant technology of computers has just taken over our world. Anyone with Internet can talk to any other person who also has Internet. We rely on computers to relay our messages to friends and family and sometimes to even check the weather. They are extremely handy when needing to research information and now can actually hitch a ride in your cupped hand! Cell phones can act as mini computers readily available to use at anytime anywhere. The Internet is not a tangible object so it is hard to imagine it anywhere else but inside of a computer. Or at least in my opinion it is. We can have constant communication with anyone with a mini computer (cell phone) in our hand.

3.

Our lives have become accustomed to computer usage. We keep in contact with friends and family through websites like Facebook and Myspace and share pictures through Snapfish and Photostreams. It’s just what we do these days. Entertainment has become one of the most favored things on the Internet. Websites like Youtube and EBaums world have video clips and pictures of funny pranks and accidental situations that are found quite entertaining so they are viewed by the world. The Internet has advanced so quickly from where it started. “In a short span of years dominance of the Internet has moved from AOL to Netscape to Microsoft to Google to Facebook to…what comes next?” (Media Now)

4.

As a knowledge base, the Internet is spread across the wide ranges of personal information to informative/educational information. You can shop on the Internet, look up recipes, find a pattern to sew a skirt, figure out how to make a potato gun, learn about the Mariana Trench, research how to be a good father and millions of other things. The computer in itself is a piece of entertainment. You can “Paint”, play games, record sounds, edit pictures and a bunch of other things without ever using the Internet. The possibilities are endless with what you can do on a computer but sometimes a task cannot be finished without the help of the Internet.

Not everything about computers and the Internet is light and fluffy, there are also downfalls. They break. They also don’t work when they want to. You could almost consider them having a mind of their own. I know I do. When doing some research on the topic of broken computers I came across the WikiAnswers website. The question was “How can you fix your broken computer?” and the answer “call 1800-dell”. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_fix_your_broken_computer) Some people have a sense of humor when answering not so smart questions like that. But as silly as the persons answer was, it’s true. There are many hotlines you can call to ask help with computer problems. 5.
As stated in the Media Now textbook “Anyone who has ever struggled with an Internet connection will appreciate its famous first words, in 1969. The operator typed “L…O…” (trying to tell the person at the other end to LOG IN), but the system crashed before the message could be completed!” Another downfall is sometimes privacy is violated and problems start. Websites that allow open use of sharing pictures and videos can create issues such as one person posting an embarrassing video of someone else who found out later and was upset about it. Yes things like this really do happen. Or another example is a person may post a status on Facebook not directed at anyone in particular but eventually get fired from their job because someone thought it was about them and brought their boss into the situation.

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1.(Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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2.(Image: djcodrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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3.(Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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4.(Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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5.(Image: Chris Sharp / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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6.Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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7.Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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8.Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Old fashioned letter to Telephone

Look how far we've come. Distanced communication started with hand writing letters! Next came the first electric telegraph system in 1844 created by Samuel Morse. Following the telegraph the telephone was created by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 though Elisha Gray was right behind him with the same idea. Who knew it could come down to a few measly hours for an invention to become patented and then change the world. Bell was only trying to improve the telegraph when he figured out how he could electrically transmit speech creating a telephone (Mary Bellis-About.com). Since then the telephone has gone from being as simple as possible to just about as complicated as I can conjure.



(Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Who wrote and sent the first letter? Ha ha I cannot name this person and I’m sure you can’t either, but I do know that writing letters has been around for a long time. Though writing a letter may not be as time efficient as other means of communication it is more personal and in my opinion more exciting to read.

In its time the telegraph was an amazing invention. Using Morse code may not have been the most effective way to talk to someone, but back then they didn’t know any different. Now the telegraph is old news. As new technologies come out the old ones are long forgotten, but sometimes we see them again in new and improved forms.



(Image: Daniel St.Pierre / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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The invention of the telephone quickly changed our world forever. We now rely on the technology of telephones for our everyday needs and wants and I believe they are truly one of the best inventions of all time. This invention can easily fall into the same category of which vehicles, computers and heating/ air conditioning also fall under. Do you agree? Our current telephone has gone through many changes to become what we know it as now. For instance there was the telegraph (which helped the idea of a telephone come about), hand crank phones, phone booths, house phones, cell phones, advanced technology phones and still others unnamed. Cell phones are so advanced that you can now get email and surf the web in just moments.


(Image: djcodrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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In 1973 Martin Cooper created the prototype for the first cellular phone. It weighed 2.5 lbs and only had the talk time of 35 minutes! (cellular.co.za) Sometimes we can see the beginning of a product and not the end. Though I wasn’t around at the time I still know how the telephone began and personally I do not think I will see it end in my lifetime either.

People have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to technology usage. Telephones in particular are so important to have in case of an emergency. On the other hand they sometimes cause the emergency. So many people use their cell phones when driving which can cause accidents and distractions. This negative effect is causing some states to make it illegal to drive and talk on the phone. We can only blame ourselves for these new laws. But then again how can we know if a phone call will create an emergency or tell us of one.




(Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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(Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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(Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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