Points Of Interest: Hotmail, GMail, Instant Messaging, VoIP, Video Conferencing, Forums, MySpace, Blogs,
Everyday people use some sort of communication be it a telephone or a face to face conversation. However, today people are broadening there options using far more methods of communication over the internet.
People can now e-mail one another, chat on a forum and even telephone each other all over the internet.
Here are some communication services over the internet. (See movie demonstrating how easy it is to send a message anywhere in the world via Microsoft Outlook).
Hotmail- The growing phenomenon
Hotmail is part of the MSN Microsoft empire and offers users the chance to open up an e-mail account with Hotmail. The are various options in what type of Hotmail account you open up from a free account to a subscription account offering varying facilities, all of which allow your
e-mail address in the format of desired_user_name@hotmail.com.
Security:
For over 5 years many hackers have targeted millions of people’s Hotmail’s accounts. One of the most famous “pranks”/ attempts to obtain users information (i.e. passwords) from hotmail is impersonating official hotmail e-mails and login screens to try and obtain the information. BBC reported on 8th March 2006 that “Thousands fall for Hotmail prank”. The report underlines how thousands of people believed a prank saying that Hotmail would no longer offer a free of charge service.
Alternative free e-mail providers:
Most ISP’s offer a free e-mail account with them when you subscribe for there services. Anther notable free e-mail account provider includes GMail.
GMail (through invitation only)
GMail is another “free” webmail service. Only, the service is officially stil
l in beta so users can only obtain accounts through invitation from other GMail users (Puplic can only sign up to webmail service in Australia and New Zealand since 9th August 2006 and Japan since 23rd August 2006 ). GMail is also famous for offering abundant storage and an advance user interface.
GMail however has been much scrutinised for the adverts it offers along side e-mails. Many have said that Gmail is invading too much privacy with the advertisement services. On 5th April 2004 BBC reported how “Google's GMail sparks privacy row” emphasising what I have just said.
A problem which seems to effect everyone who uses e-mailing facilities is exactly how safe are the messages? Hackers are always on the look at to attempt to “break into” almost any e-mail accounts. Another problem is how some hackers can in fact intercept messages in transition. Basically intercepting a message whilst it is being sent and obtaining information from the message which may include very confidential information such as credit card details. This can however be used as an advantage for authorities such as the police or FBI trying to find out information about some one. Say they thought someone was planning an attack on a building; authorities could intercept some information about the attack through the e-mail and help prevent it.
IM has become a massive market for all companies in the past few years.
In mor
e recent years MSN has taken IM to another level. MSN currently offers a freely available IM client called “MSN Messenger” or now known since version 8 as “Windows Live Messenger”. Messenger used to just offer a basic text to text conversion (similar to IRC) however with a more user-friendly interface. Now, messenger has broadened itself and includes new features including computer to computer telephoning (VoIP) and live video conferencing amongst others.A very big problem in the past few years is child abuse through IM. It has been reported on numerous occasions on how someone speaks to young children pretending to be someone else. Results can include such things as people trying to meet with the children and paedophile cases. Windows messenger on 23rd August 2006 announced how it was going to offer users of the messenger client a button to report any possible abuse they receive whilst chatting.
VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
VoIP enables users to “telephone” one computer to another over an internet connection. It basically works where by a users speaks into a microphone and the receiving user should be able to hear them in their speakers in real time all for free (excluding ISP costs), the concept works just like a telephone only it’s free. The concept of VoIP has expanded in recent year to allow users to have much more functionality such as there own VoIP number, ability to phone landline/mobile phone numbers and even an answer machine feature. Many IM clients such as Windows Live messenger have implemented VoIP functionality into their clients, other VoIP clients include:
- Skype
- Google Talk
- Freetalk
Major Drawbacks:
DSL Connection – For VoIP to work just like a telephone, reliability, quality and speed is needed from the internet connection. This can cause particular drawbacks for businesses.
Power Outage - Again, another drawback of VoIP is the inability to make phone calls during a power outage. However systems for call diverting during outages are currently in testing with various VoIP providers.
Security – The majority of consumer VoIP solutions do not support encryption yet. This can make it relatively easy to eavesdrop on VoIP calls and even change their content. This is called “sniffing” VoIP conversations. On 19th September 2005 BBC also reported a similar problem entitled “Hackers target net call systems” The BBC also reported “The biannual Symantec Threat Report identified Voice over IP (Voip) systems as a technology starting to interest hi-tech criminals. The report predicted that within 18 months, Voip will start to be used as a "significant" attack vector. As well as prompting new attacks, Voip could also resurrect some old hacking techniques, warned the report”.
Now a days people can use the internet to communicate with one another in “real time”. Users can simply experience as near to a real face to
face conversation using video conferencing over the internet. Users can simply talk into a webcam and users the other end can see and hear them provided they have the correct software and hardware. Big international businesses are making full use of this feature where by say instead of travelling all the way to Australia from the UK for a face to face conversion, businesses can use video conferencing to hold a video conference with them and eliminate the trouble and cost of travelling.
Popular video conferencing software includes:
- Microsoft NetMeeting
- Tlen
- Ekiga
However there can be down side to video conferencing. A “lag” in which how words and video synchronize can occur quite often when conferencing large distances. Also, to obtain a high quality video conferencing service good hardware is needed both ends as is a high speed internet connection. Video conferencing is very expensive short term costs but in the long term can cause savings.
Forums are based on the principle of one users posting one thing and other users replying. For instance, I could post a statement on a forum saying “I think Man Utd should have beaten Arsenal”. Users on the forum could then post their views and responses to what I have just said. Forums can often be a good way to express a wide array of views to a large selection of people. Most forums run of the open source forum PhpBB. PhpBB is one the world largest open source forum providers and as a result to show this currently supports up to 64 different translation of the forum as of 2006.
Forums do however only tend to be text base. For users to show any more different forms of media (i.e. videos, photos etc) they would needs to be hosted externally. 
MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. MySpace enables users to “social network” with one another all through the MySpace website. Users can then exchange things such as photos, music and videos with one another all through the MySpace network. On 5th September 2006 it was reported by the BBC on how MySpace would enter the downloading market allowing unsigned bands featured on the social networking site to sell their music as downloads.
Problems:
In May 2006 two New York teenagers were charged with illegal computer access and attempted extortion of MySpace, after both had allegedly hacked into the site to steal the personal information of MySpace users before threatening to share the secrets of how they broke into the website unless MySpace paid them $150,000
Other social networking websites include:
- Bebo
- YouTube
Wikipedia.com defines one as being “the contraction universally used for weblog, a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.” A blog works in a very similar to a forum where by users post statements/comments and other users respond. However, in a blog users often write a long statement (i.e. a page from a book). As wikipedia stated, blogs can be used for users to write a journal/diary about perhaps a personal experience. Unlike forums, blogs tend to be more specific. Another perhaps more attractive feature of blogs to forums is the ability to handle mixed media. Many blog services allow users to host mixed media to share all within the site (internally). There are 4 main types of blogs that currently exists:
Vlog- Blog based around videos
Linklog- Blog where users compromise links to one another
Photoblog- Blog based around photos
Moblog- Blog written by mobile phone, PDA or any other mobile device.
I my self make use of the majority of all of these communications services. Web-mail is particularly handy for me as I can receive any e-mails from any computer in the world connected to the internet, so I basically have instant access to my messages. I tend to use instant messaging all of the time communicates with a wide variety of my friends and family in other countries. I find that instant messaging is a lot cheaper than having to telephone them as well. With forums I can often find people who share similar views to me or perhaps completely the opposite. This allows me to view another side to an argument. I also use forums to solve computing problems because often I find that other computer people may be able to solve a specific problem of mine.