Tool Man

John could use the following ICT to change and hopefully improve his working style;

PDA- he could use very easily to manage his time and make sure he is on track and keeping up to date with all his clients. PDA's are very useful to people working in trades that mean they are constantly on the go, because they act as a small pocket size personal computer; this is very helpful to John because he can store all his important information in the PDA's memory and set reminders that will come up to tell him where he needs to be or planned journeys that can connect through blue tooth, infrared to a tom tom satnav etc... Also when John is in trouble or running late he can use the PDA's Internet services to contact his client or help him to find the right road or address.



GPS- would also help John alot because it can help him travel around the country easily, this is because he can program peoples addresses in to his GPS and let the device navigate him to the location he has set it to, also if he was to take a wrong turn they can even find a new route or direct you back to the one you are on so there would be no chance of getting lost as long as he has got up-to-date software loaded in to it. He could also save him self alot of time by programming all the addresses in to the device the night before to come up one after the other so he doesn't have to sit around and mess about putting all the details in. He could just get to one address get his work done and when he gets back into the car it will automatically know where he is going next.

Laptop(with access to the Internet)- this would be very helpful to john because he could use it to record all sales he has done e.g. on already designed excel spreadsheets or databases making it easy for him to calculate his sales figures and the commission or wages he gets for selling a certain amount etc... Also by having remote access to his companies Internet or his own home Internet he could surf the web where ever he is as long as he is picking up a signal,also this means he can keep in touch with his company all the time through e-mail and he can send them his sales figures when ever he wanted or was asked to report on his position all for a fixed cost because he or his company would be paying a fixed line rental a month for their Internet use.

Mobile phone- this is an obvious one and not the most technologically advanced piece of equipment he could carry but it still is a very useful piece of information and communication technology, John would most likely of carried a mobile any way before lots of hi-tech gadgets were introduced to his job so he would be very familiar with it and find it a easy piece of technology to use if others were playing up or not responding well. Mobile phones are also a very good way of getting through to people and making sure they know you are coming, because they provide a personal one-to-one conversation unlike e-mail because you do not know if your e-mail has been read etc...

The possible disadvantages of John employing alot of ICT are he could have days were the technology is not working properly or it has contracted a virus or one of many data destroying items. He may also not be familiar with any of the products he has been given so he could just be wasting the money spent on them because he would never use them to their full working capacity or speed, meaning his company would have to pay for him to be trained with IT skills which they would not be so happy with because they would have to spend money that would provide no real return unless John adopted the training and new technology very well and used it to his full potential increasing his usefulness to the company as a salesman of there products.

Investigating downloading goods and services

Items that family has downloaded;

1. itunes software
2. Music
3. Films
4. Microsoft office
5. Real players
6. Media players
7. Google toolbars
8. edexcel syllabus's etc..

Why downloaded instead of buying the physical goods;

1. Downloading itunes is a free service so you do not need to be going to the shop and buying the software, it acts as an online store once you have downloaded it. You can go through different areas to buy albums,single tracks, videos, etc... which then cost so it is in itunes interest to advertise downloading itunes as free, because it increases the amount of customers using their online stores and spending money in itunes once they have downloaded it. It is also the best music archive for downloading music to ipods,MP3's because it is easy to store your music in specific genres and is a very easy to use free download.
2. I download music,videos,pictures,films through other websites that do not cost though, e.g. using bittorrents/mininova and other software that make it possible to download all the latest media for free. So I use these websites to save time and money because i get everything i wont for free and i simply have to find a good download and wait for it to finish.
3. I downloaded microsoft office on my computer as well because I didn't see the point in going out and buying the software when you can simply download it off a official website that offers the software for free, so again it saves money.
4. People I know also download real and media players because it is easier than buying them because they are constantly offered and easy to find and download.
5. Downloading a google tool bar was a free download that google was offering that I do not think you could buy from a store because they simply wanted there search engine to be in a place permanently so people would use there search engine more than others because it is constantly there meaning you don't need to set it as your home page etc...
6. I also downloaded the edexcel syllabus for my subjects because it is easier than buying books and it is offered for free.

Problems I have with downloading and consuming online files;

1. Sometimes downloads are really bad quality or harmful to your computer, so if you are to download goods then you need good internet security to stop you from getting viruses, trojans etc...
2. They take to long to download sometimes because they are so large
3. There is no way of checking quality before downloading
4. Some software that seems necessary to download ends up being useless and just takes up memory for doing nothing.
5. If the site is not completly legal or it is easy to flaunt copyright laws you can get your self into alot of trouble through downloading stuff you shouldn't be.

Investigating government services online

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm
Research on usefulness of government services;

Information services

• Educating and learning- offers a wide range of information, for young and old people seeking; EMA, taking exams, student loans, adult learning. This provides a good informational service for online research/help.
• Money, tax and benefits up-to-date info. on all taxes etc...
• Travel and transport gives train times, bus times very informational and useful
• Crime, justice and the law provides people with more detailed information on crime, Justice and the law allows for people to see why these laws are followed up etc...
• Home and community keeps people up-to-date with flooding, repairs in there areas, problems for concern, nuisance in neighbourhoods, council tax.
• Motoring
• Employment
• Rights and responsibilities
• Environment and greener living
• Health and well being

Online reporting and advice

• Many of the information services also provide an area for online reporting and advice giving.
• Money, tax and benefits- people can be contacted e.g. phone numbers advertised
• Travel and transport provides route planners etc..
• Crime, justice and the law provides links to helplines the police...
• Motoring
• Employment
• Health and well being- can put you in touch with various helplines e.g. quite smoking, heart disease...
• Environment and greener living- also put you in touch with environmental groups near you, invite you to get involved.

Online booking

• Taking tests
• Leisure e.g. putting you in touch with theatres, paintball centres for booking parties, tickets.
• The site did not offer much in the way of online booking because it doesn't really supply users with activities that need booking.

Online payments

• You could find out information on the price of payments etc.. but I could find no real payment service that needed to carry out transactions because the site is not an online store it is more of a public information site.

Macromedia virtual classrooms

The exciting technology they use in macromedia's website is an example of e-learning and the future of it because ideas like virtual classrooms are just the beginning of online classrooms, I believe that this will also become a thriving new part of the internet like online banking, chat rooms etc... because the teaching will become more and more one to one and possibly provide a better learning enviroment even than school, which will sooner or later become a better more effective way of people to learn making the whole school and education experience a virtual one.

Virtual learning can offer special features that obviously schools can not but it is also the same vice versa until virtual classrooms become alot more technologically advanced. Virtual learning can be rewinded, paused, repeated, etc.. exactly, it is more relaxed, done at your own leisure, you use it becasue you want to learn more about a particular subject. But it does not offer alot of the essential education which a real classroom can provide like; one to one interaction, giving personal comparisons, comparing to real ife etc... basically virtual classrooms lack a personal approach, still seen as 'the person is using the computer to help them' instead of 'the computer is helping the person'.

Using a Simulation

http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/Frog1/
'Practice before dissecting' the site educates this purpose well because it makes you think I should look into what I am doing before I just start randomly cutting into the frog and conducting a bad experiment, because I wont even know what I am looking for. The site does this well because the page is easy to use and it shows that you need to be serious when doing experiments like this because they are very interesting, whilst adding in detailed photos and simulations of practicing models, to allow you to do some sort of revision before actually dissecting.

The general lessons that the site teaches about online simulations in education are that they are very useful and give a fun and interactive way of educating yourself on how to carry out a task in your learning enviroment and do well in it.

Exploring learning objects and simulations

http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/stories/ The areas 'personal computers and imformation networks' through to the 'dot com gold rush', in the making the modern world website achieve there purpose by offering a wide range of factual information, that backs up there story on the technological advance of computers and the internet, and how these advances changed lifestyles, and created a whole new market.

The timeline achieves it's purpose by splitting computing/internet history down into 8 clear subsections which give information on;

• Personal computers and information networks
• The early internet
• Early home computers
• Picking winners
• WWW
• Global computer industries
• Dot com gold rush
• Conclsusion

These sections then explain the History of the making of computers and internet, who?, where?, when? etc... , the realisation of the power that a computer has and could have, importance of internet and what it will change and improve in the modern world, the effects IT will have on the world/businesses, and then they round all the information off into a conclusion providing more factual information on software, computer, and internet advances.

This site is also a good online education website because it shows the information in ways that differ and provide more interaction with the user so it becomes easier to learn and not a really impossible task to be able to give a conclusion on the information provided and whether it fulfils it's purposes.

Investigating Online banking

The purpose of online banking is to offer customers of banks extra services e.g. Finding balances, making payments at anytime day or night, or even text message (SMS) banking. The use of IT in banking has opened up many new areas such as; offset mortgages, credit cards being linked to accounts so that payments can be made immediately, and account sweeping so that funds can be transferred automatically between accounts to ensure that the lowest possible fees are paid. As a result of the constant updates of new software and updates available to online stores or banks businesses are looking to become more reliant on there online pages. This is because they reduce overheads dramatically because fewer assistants are required and even further if retail premises or high street branches are not required there will be a big decrease in the companies outgoings, but before businesses can make there online services there main source of dealing with customers they need to be able to guarantee 100% safety of customers money/products etc...


Halifax and Nationwide are examples of businesses offering a Online banking service; they provide customers with good online bank accounts that can be used very easily, and for a regular user they can provide a very quick and easy form of banking. But they still can not guarantee 100% safety for your money, because there are so many fraudsters around using illegal set ups like phishing which can be very convincing and can be completely out of the banks and your control. Then as safety precautions the bank can offer a SMS service as some way of a constant feedback and sort of safety precaution. This is not very convincing and seems a bit dodgy to me because you could have your money stolen relatively easily and you are the one that provides all the details they need to log in to your account and start stealing your money, before you have even got the text and realised whats happening it would probably be to late.

How might online banking be improved in the future?

1. Safety - accounts need to be alot more reliable for users so they can trust that there money is safe and they are definitely not going to robbed in the future possible ways for online banks/stores to ensure safety could be;

- Making some sort of internet hologram that all the websites will have to have that can not be forged because they are so hard to make . So if users go on to a site with a funny looking hologram they can choose not to use it.

- More complex user id's which involve a hi-tech voice recognition password or something similar. So banks can start selling a online banking kit e.g. special software, headset, microphone, picture scanning etc...

Visiting eBay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/ EBay is an American company, it is an online auctioning and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide.

The major services provided by eBay are;

• A service for buying and selling goods.
• Which can then be reported on etc...Working on a crediting system, once a user has setup an account and begins to sell products, the buyers of the merchandise can give feedback on the product e.g. if the user has bad feedback then you know not to buy off them, and if the user has good feedback then you know they are trustworthy and provide quality goods and that it is safe to buy off them.
• Providing a relatively safe way of online shopping, because eBay is strictly monitored and accounts need quite alot of setting up, which take alot of personal details so if the customer uses eBay in the wrong way they are easily tracked down and appropriate measures are taken against them.
• Advertising products

eBay does not really have a target audience because so many different products are advertised and sold which are specific to all kinds of audience. Although it can be said that it is only available to be used by people old enough to use a credit card that can be used to buy things online with, it is easy for a minor to find what they want and then nag their parents for long enough until they give in.

The auction process on eBay; The person selling the product will start with a minimum asking price, this can then be lowered, matched, or highered by the customer, then if others are involved the auction will carry on going until people are out bid or the provider of the product accepts someones offer and the product is sold. eBay fulfils the auction process very well because it monitors closely the money being payed for products with programs like pay pal and other various software monitors which will step in when a illegitimate product is being sold or far too much money is being offered for a small product e.g. game/concert tickets. The benefits of this service is it provides a quick easy online store, most of the time provides quality goods, it is monitored closely, and customers and sales people have to meet alot of safety requirements. The limitations of the service range from; dodgy goods being sold, not every deal made can be closely monitored, sometimes the details people provide are false, and professional con-men can use the site to their advantage (phishing etc..).

eBay is so successful as a shopping model because it has become known world wide as a quality, reliable service. That provides quality goods and easy ways of finding if the person you are buying from is genuine or trustworthy. eBay also advises users of dangers of buying online but also reassures people by stating there security measures and sanctions that can be carried out therefore increasing peoples trust in the website but not of the people selling the products.

Automatic Transaction Machine

Today i went to the bank and used my card in the ATM machine too put a cheque into my bank account. ATM machines work on a series of commands decided by the user, the use of ICT has increased the ability of ATM machines e.g. you can top your phone up through it, print balance statements etc....

The ATM is a very good time saving piece of technology, they save you from having to go into the bank everytime you need anything done. The increasing amount of tasks the ATM's can carry out is making them very useful and time saving which is perfect for the modern world today (constantly rushing). I think more machines like these should be developed through all sorts of different areas in society because they are so useful, work 24/7, and make small tasks very easy and quick.

Weather forecast

To find the weather forecast i went through the link in the active book. It took me to the bbc weather forecast home page http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ I then followed a link to a five day forecast http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0008 on this page it presents the weather in a table which is very easy to read and it holds alot about the weather to come in the next five days;