Weekly review #9

This week we went delved deeply into the bottomless abyss that is Internet companies, and what they do to track your information. To achieve this we first had to learn some new words, and they are as follows: Track, Target, Demographic, and Cookies. After we learned these words we then had to proceed to learn about why companies track your information, and what their goal is in doing so. Later, after having learned all these words/terms, we were asked to create a mixbook using our new web 2.0, and guess what its called, Mixbook . Then, we made a list of positive and possibly harmful effects of companies monitoring your Internet habits.   Finally, I did yet another super amazing article on yet another piece of technology that may just surprise you at its inventiveness. I will link it here, and I will link the original article here.

Now, as usual, I will start with defining our vocabulary/terms for the week.

• Track- When companies collect information about you based on your online behavior. Can we say stalkers.
• Target( no not the store)- When companies tailor content to you based on the information they have collected about you. This can be a positive or a negative thing. 
• Demographic- Common categories of the population, such as age, gender, and race. The way they get this information is by the little survey websites give you that you have to fill out to get access. This survey includes age, birthday, race, etc.
• Cookies( No not the little sugar filled things that taste awesome.)- Information that is stored on your computer from websites you visit. These cookies store themselves into your computer, and help companies like Amazon to personalize your searches. This also allows the companies to hide some things from you.

Next we had to think about why companies want to track you, give you cookies, and track you. We came up with three reasons why.

1. To make money
2. To give you more links/ads that you will be more inclined to click on.
3. Also companies like Google track you, and make your Internet searches come up as stuff you have searched in the past. An example would be if a person is constantly looking up game sites, then when he looks up something school related, he gets game sites instead.  

 Then, after learning all these terms, and thinking about all those reasons,  We were asked to create a mixbook using all the information we have learned. Mixbook is this cool little site that allows you to create pamphlets, cards, and other things. The thing I like about this new web 2.0 is all the different layouts to choose from. These layouts include text and pictures, text, and just pictures. Not only that but it can also place the text in different locations. This includes turned, normal, etc.

A thing I don't like is, when your creating one, you  have to make it with the pages lined up 1 on each side. It goes page, line ,page. Kinda like a little book, so you can't end in an even number of pages. It has to be odd.

Here is my mixbook.

| Start your own Photo Books | Create custom Christmas Cards

Then, we were asked to make a list of why companies tracking you could be bad or good.

Bad

• They have your information
• They pick and choose what you get to see when you search things.
• Also, with some ads, there is a chance that you can pick up a virus.

Good

• Allows companies like Amazon to recommend items for you to buy.
• Search engines can bring up more websites that you might want to visit.
• It can also save time when you are searching for a specific website over, and over again.

Finally I did an article about a programmer who turned a pumpkin into a playable game of Tetris. This pumpkin( complete with a joystick stem) had some difficulties with wiring. The reason is, if you have ever carved a pumpkin then you know how moist it is on the inside. So being that water and electricity don't really mix then his wires start to short.

That's all for this week come back next Friday and I will have yet another installment of Paysuer weekly blog.