A Bit About LinkedIn

LinkedIn is basically a professional networking website. You can choose to connect as a business, student, or professional and create a profile for others to browse and contact you. I would say that the site is mostly used by professionals (or those seeking jobs) and recruiters. You can market yourself and your skills in a profile you create, that job recruiters can pull up during their searches. You’re basically infusing your resume into a social media profile.

Features of the site now include options to have conversations, ask and answer questions, and even have informal interviews. You can allow job recruiters to contact you should they come across your profile who think you should apply for a position.

Once you’re signed up, you can add connections (people) to your network. These can be friends, classmates, professional references, family, etc. You also have the option of connecting to groups such as previous employers, schools, alumni, clubs, or you can show your interest in the same groups.

As far as suggestions go for using the site, my first and most important piece of advice to anyone thinking about using LinkedIn, is to make sure to not treat it like any other social media site. Too often you browse around and see unprofessional photos, headlines and summaries on a profile. If someone is signed up in hopes of landing a job position, they more than likely aren’t going to be contacted, because a recruiter is going to pass on all of the above when coming across it.

Another issue with the site that I found out is that you need to have some sort of knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in order to be noticed in searches. Just like those automatic resume programs that search for certain words – profile results are filtered similarly. Having the right keywords in your profile and placing them multiple times (appropriately of course) will give yours a better boost than those who have no idea about how to integrate this SEO practice.

Personally I have not been very fond of this website, but I realize that the day is coming where I will need to invest 100% into making a proper profile. The more I search job boards elsewhere, the more I notice a decline in the amount and quality of jobs available. I have seen many more people and companies flocking to this site over the years. In fact, I was looking for some jobs this last week and saw a couple of places where the only place they wanted you to contact them was on LinkedIn. If companies are being this selective in their hiring process, then a proper profile here is something we should all think about investing quality time into.

VOIP - Skype

These days I don’t get much use out of Skype. When I was in the military, I was overseas for over seven years. This is the time when I used it the most. I connected with family back home, especially during the holidays. I remember having some kind of trouble initially because of the countries being different. They had kept trying to insist that I needed to purchase credits to use the program, but I was able to work out getting a United States number and everything was smooth after that.

On occasion I have used Skype to collaborate with other YouTube artists on videos and song parodies. I once was on a phone call with someone producing a science fiction podcast, who recorded my lines through the call as well. I have used it on multiple occasions to live screen share and provide instructions or visuals through calls to someone. The most recent use I have gotten out of the program was to get job testing instructions from a company I had applied to this last year. They delivered the instructions and followed up during and after the test through the messaging portion of the system.

For the most part, however, I use Google Voice to make phone calls and if I need to use video with a call, I can do so through GoogleHangout, or more often – Facebook Calling.

Anyone can benefit from using Skype I would say. I feel as though it has a more business type of feel to it these days than it used to. The mobile application of the program is wonderful for people on the go, but does require an internet connection, so you will need to be on wi-fi or use your mobile service as an internet connection to make use of it. Strictly as a messenger it works great! For video, it is good for domestic calling, but when you start to make international calls, it can become a hassle, although it is still low cost compared to other services. The biggest downfall I think Skype has going for it is that group calling is gated behind their premium service.

Podcast: The Instance

The last podcast I chose to listen to this week is one that was more familiar to me. It is a World of Warcraft podcast called The Instance. I had stopped listening to Warcraft podcasts for a number of months, as my playtime diminished significantly due to school. It wasn’t a big deal though because it was during the months before the release of the newest expansion for the game. It was good to pick this one back up and feel a sense of familiarity with all of the things they were discussing.

It was a lot of initial thoughts on leveling, zones, graphics, instanced areas, etc. since the expansion had just released. Each person touches on their experience with the expansion in the first 4 days of launch throughout the episode. As always, they listen to voice mails left by listeners and answer any questions that are sent in. (The Instance, 2016)

As a side note, the podcast has their own forum section on their website host, although most of the threads are a bit old – dating back to the winter. They are slightly more active on their Facebook (only really posting episodes), but are the most active on Twitter, as are most similar podcasts I listen to. If you’re looking for Warcraft news and player experiences from seasoned podcasters, give this one a listen!

You can find The Instance and the other Warcraft podcasts I listen to or recommend on my Podcast Twitter list.

The Instance. (2016). The home of Scott Johnson's FrogPants Studios . Retrieved from http://frogpants.com/podcasts/instance/ 

Podcast: Fast Forward

The second podcast I listened to this week for our assignment was the latest episode of Flash Forward, titled “The Witch Who CameFrom Mars.” This podcast generally takes some kind of situation and discusses it as how and why it may happen in the future. The show does seasons of episodes and the hostess (Rose) takes a break in between. This particular episode was special in that it was the last of the second season of episodes. (Eveleth, 2016)

It took a couple tries, but in order to produce this episode, she took all of the scenes (41) she’s had on the show, as well as large parts of scripts from the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The War of the Worlds and had them put into an AI. This AI is programmed to write short stories basically out of the information you give it – the 5-minute result was voice acted by people and included into the episode. (Eveleth, 2016)

It was quite interesting that the AI actually put something together that most of the time made sense – for a far out story that is. She had a few guest clips and they dissected and discussed how this story may have come to be and why things happened the way they did, from scientific and mathematical information as it may relate in the future. (Eveleth, 2016)

Rose takes suggestions from the public on future scenarios to discuss, and throws in fun references for listeners to catch during the show. Those who find them have a chance to win some goodies!

I hadn’t heard of this podcast prior to this assignment, but this episode interested me enough that I may check out a number of the past episodes. I’ll definitely be adding this one to my list of shows to track, and look forward to seeing what happens in November when season three begins!

Eveleth, R. (2016). Flash Forward | Every week a new future. Retrieved from http://www.flashforwardpod.com/

Eveleth, R. (2016). Episode 20: The Witch Who Came From Mars. Retrieved from http://www.flashforwardpod.com/2016/09/05/episode-20-something-martian-witch-way-comes/

RealPlayer or VLC Media Player?

RealPlayer was created by RealNetworks in the mid 90s. It was never really a great program, but it worked and was still popular. I remember using it myself, although I don’t remember why I bothered. It was ugly to look at, had entirely too many pop up advertisements, and I remember there being security issues – going so far as to changing parts of your registry! I had honestly forgotten about this program for a long while and am still surprised to see it updated currently.

The newest version will allow you to use the program free for 30 days, after which you can pay a licencing fee of about $40, for premium features. There is a limited free version, which isn’t worth having, in my opinion, and two versions that sync with their cloud service. They have changed the name of the project to be RealTimes with RealPlayer. The prices for premium are $4.99 a month and $9.99 a month, for unlimited. It has advanced to being supported on PC, Macintosh, the Xbox One, and Mobile smartphones and tablets. You can also connect it with your Chromecast, Roku, and Kindle Fire, if you use it on the television. (RealNetworks, 2016)

The installation on the new program is still pretty aggressive and tries to force you into downloading other programs and toolbars, unless you are paying attention and unchecking those options.  There are also still plenty of advertisements getting thrown at you. I only tested the free version, so I’m not sure if those go away, if you choose to pay. No matter – personally I would still advise anyone looking for a media player to go elsewhere, as there are plenty of others to choose from that offer the same premium features, but for free.

VLC Media Player has been around for some time as well, but is an open source program. This program has much more you can customize and even allows the use of skins, which can make the player look and have the feel of other common programs or fun themes. My personal favourite is dressing it up like the Star Trek LCARS system, which I do with a lot of applications.

You can also play a LONG list of file extensions in this player compared to other programs in the market. As the program has had updates, I see that there are also many more features than when it first was created. You can bookmark certain areas in your playback as favourites, and utilize effects in the menu on any audio or video you might be playing to optimize it to your liking. (VideoLan, 2016)

VideoLan boasts that the program does not contain spyware or user tracking, which is a calming thought. There are also no hidden or bulky advertisements in the program – no ads at all! The program has even grown and evolved so much, that it is available on Android and iOS, in addition to all of the other operating systems it already is supported on. (VideoLan, 2016)

The VLC wiki shows all of the changes made to the project, gives general information, and breaks down any projects that are currently being worked on. You can support VLC in a number of ways, even if you’re not contributing by coding. They do a great job of breaking down these categories and providing examples of what you can do to participate, as well as provide you with the correct people to contact to get on board. (MediaWiki, 2016)

Sources:

 MediaWiki. (2016). Help VideoLAN. Retrieved from https://wiki.videolan.org/Help_VideoLAN/

 RealNetworks. (2016). Features. Retrieved from http://www.real.com/ca/features

 VideoLan. (2016). VLC media player. Retrieved from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Gimp and Photoshop – Compare and Contrast

Both of these programs are photo editing software. While Gimp is open source and free to use, Photoshop can cost you hundreds of dollars to own. With the new Adobe Cloud system, you can also rent to use it monthly for less (although if you are a frequent user, it would waste money in the long run). While I have used Photoshop for many years, I did experiment with Gimp previously, and revisited it for this assignment. It seems that Gimp has done well growing and providing some important updates to keep it relevant to use. For those who are not familiar some of the features this open source program provides are:

• Edit photos
• Digital painting tools
• Animation (2D)
• Use of layers
• Customization options for toolbars
• Supports a variety of file types
• Allows the use of plug ins from third parties

Photoshop can go above and beyond these features, but for a hefty price. If you’re just getting into photo editing and manipulation, Gimp is a great start. While it is by no means an alternative to the professional software, it performs well for free program in it’s field. 

Compare and Contrasting

In terms of price, Gimp has Photoshop beat, as mentioned previously. Another big difference is the file size of the program. Gimp requires around 100 MB to download and double of that to run, Photoshop on the other hand is a whopping 1.4 GB to install initially, around 2+GB of updates after wards. Running Photoshop takes over 1GB of memory, which can slow down older computers as well, which is another positive to Gimp - it's light and non resource intensive.  

To keep it simple, the current version of Gimp has many of the same big main features that Photoshop does:

• Layers
• Text
• Filters
• Curves
• Cloning
• Levels
• Sharpening
• Healing
• History (to undo multiple actions)

as well as a few more. Photoshop comes in handy when you need more advanced features and tools. 

While I will continue to personally use Photoshop, as I have for so many years, I would have loved to have the current version of Gimp as a more affordable option when I first started using such a program. It's important to mention again that Gimp is open source, which means anyone can make changes and upload those changes for others to use. I'm willing to bet that further down the line, Gimp will continue to evolve and stay  relevant to those needing such software. 

REV2 Review

I chose REV2 as the second blog to review for this week’s assignment. When I first looked at the blog, I was excited to browse, as it came across as clean and well organized. It focuses more on technology and business start up and news, which can be viewed by subject, latest posts, and popular posts. Skimming through, there are a ton of posts written discussing social media or internet information specifically. I didn't notice anywhere on the site where users could connect on other social media, but you would have been able to share any post through your own Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Pinterest, and a variety of other sites. There was however, the option to subscribe to the RSS feed. It looks like the blog isn’t collaborative and involves one writer: Dave. (Dave, 2015)

I was quite disappointed when I noticed that nothing on the site was recent. The latest articles I saw were from a year ago, and many go back to 9 and 10 years. Many of the articles no longer have photos displayed, which makes me question if they were linked instead of hosted (a big no no for web sites). One article that caught my eye was on Dave’s list of most successful 2.0 web sites. He mentioned he started with a list of 20, before narrowing it down to include the following:

1. MySpace
2. YouTube
3. Facebook
4. Wikipedia
5. Bebo
6. Digg
7. Flickr
8. Netvibes
9. Del.icio.us
10. Meebo  (Dave, 2015)

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve been familiar with all of these other than the last three on this list. A good chunk of these still thrive today and keep evolving and delivering to the public effectively. I would have been interested in seeing his top 20 after viewing this list!

Digging a little deeper, perhaps I found something even more irritating than the lack of current articles: SEO. I’m a bit crazy sometimes and like to looks at the source code for web sites. I noticed that the meta data in the code was highly lacking, which may or may not be a reason this site is no longer running (did it do well during it’s life – I don’t know). It seems to have been a package made by another individual, but that isn't an excuse to not be "in the know" with your own meta data. There were not many relevant keywords either. What really irritated me were ones that were included and awfully spammy. Just to give you some examples, there were ones such as get massive followers, junk twitter accounts, app auto follow, chain membership of twitter, and the list went on.  If a site is going to have shady keywords and nothing of relevance to the subject matter, it runs the risk of getting banned from search engines all together. I don’t know how many people search for terms such as these, but it can’t be as many as those looking for actual content.

I didn’t look any further into the blog at this point, because I didn’t feel respected as a reader and didn’t want to waste my time with information that was so old to begin with. 

Source: Dave. (2015). The Latest Tech & Startup News. Retrieved August 13, 2016, from http://www.rev2.org/

Review of Mashable

I had heard of the site Mashable  previously, but never really looked around long enough on it before. I surely would have gone down the route of thinking about it relating to Web 2.0. Now that I’ve been introduced to the points of the subject, I think it is a great example! Information is shared on various social media platforms and is aggregated how the site owner sees fit. Not only is it jam packed with articles and external links, but you can customize your experience for future browsing.

You’re able to follow specific topics of interests or authors to see more of the things you like. There is a small bar on every post to show how popular a post is. The more shares according to the time it was posted, the higher it will show up on the site's feed, which separates articles as new, rising, and hot. You are also given the opportunity to sign up for a daily e-mail, which contains content tailored to your preferences. Whether you are always on the look out for trending stories, social media guides, or just general information and opinion on a number of subjects, you should have no trouble finding something of interest here.

Further interaction is encouraged through commenting on the articles provided, but you are forced to connect through a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ account, which may be the biggest negative factor about this site. Not everyone will want to connect either of these accounts just to interact on a story, which means the site could be losing out on valuable opinions.  This could be somewhat of a dilemma when it comes to children using the site as well. With the growth of social media and the increase of lower aged users, privacy and security may become a problem, as connected users can easily interact with each other publicly and privately. As with any internet browsing, we can only hope that children using such a site will be monitored by guardians.

One great feature to mention is the job board area of the site. Here you can build a resume, search for jobs, and sign up for alerts that meet your preferences. There are some pretty big name company’s listed as well. It was interesting to see both domestic, as well as international job listings. While this portion of the site does not have nearly as many job listings as actual job searching websites, there are close to 200 to browse.

I do have to note, the frequency in which the site refreshes its information is very frequent - about every 15 seconds, which can be a bother. The ads get replaced each time. They are not always even close to being the same size, which can alter the position of things you may be browsing on the main page. 

Overall, even though there are a couple of things that didn't appeal to me, I think it is a great interactive site to spend time on. I think perhaps I might stumble back to it in the future. The articles may not be professionally written, but they don't have the same tabloid type feel to them, as similar sites are loaded with. 

Source of post: Mashable. (2016). Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/