Recent Computer News

In October 18th, Microsoft officially released Internet Explorer 7, which has been 5 years since Internet Explorer 6 was released. Only English version can be downloaded for free. Japanese version is to be released within a week from now.

Windows Media Player 11 is now available for Windows XP users. The new Media Player improved searching function, so users can search not only their own library but also URGE, MTV Networks digital music services, which has more than 2 million songs.

The tiniest digital music player, new iPod® shuffle, is coming up on this Friday. New iPod shuffle is half size of the former one, and its weight is about 15.5g. It has 1GB memory and costs 9,800 yen.

Computer Terms: What Is "Net Neutrality"?

Network Neutrality is called Net Neutrality for short. It controls what kinds and levels of web sites or pages people can connect. DIG says “If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.” Net Neutrality have hepled ISPs to grow.

3 Good Web Sites

1. You Tube

You can watch any videos you want. I use this site for watching rock bands’ promotion videos and live videos. There is a variety of videos, and its storage is attraction of this site. If you are not interested in rock music, you can also enjoy Disney stuff. http://youtube.com/

2. IMDb

You love movies? And you want know more about actors? Then IMDb would be the best for you. This site introduces you more than 2 million actors and also musicians. You can know deeply about them from their birthdays to their parents’ names. I use IMDb to get photos of musicians now and then. http://www.imdb.com/

3. MySpace

Want to be a friend of your favorite musician. This desire comes true through MySpace. A lot of musicians use this site and have their own pages. By using friends request system, you can make friends from all over the world. http://www.myspace.com/

Computer Gifts I Would Buy for Friends & Family

I love rock music as I wrote on my blog before. There are many rock posters on the wall of my room, and I’ve been to rock concerts four times in this eighteen months. Music is crucial for my life. That is why I would definitely buy digital audio player for my friends and family in order to make them appreciate power of music. You may be come up with iPod first when you think of any kind of audio players. Actually, I bought iPod yesterday because my former audio player broke down, but I don’t care whether the one is Mac’s production or any other company’s. In any case, they can carry tens of albums in a cell phone size device. It is much simpler and convenient. To be honest, I strongly want my friends and family to listen to mainly rock music, but I’ ll leave it to them.

Computer Terms: What Is "Social Engineering"?

The words social engineering are used for the act that a person to stole other person's or companies' information that is important for their security. Password or IDs are common objects to stole.

There are several ways to do this as follows:
1. secretly watch from the people's back when they use computers or deal with classified information
2. pretend to be one of the users and ask from administrators of the network
3. search trashcans for documents (even after papers are put in the shredder!)

I guess many of you already have noticed it, but please jump for the web site where you can see an evidence of the spread of social engineering.
https://login.yahoo.co.jp/config/login?.src=www&.done=http://www.yahoo.co.jp
You can see Yahoo! Japan warn you social engineering.

For more information;
http://www.watchguard.com/infocenter/editorial/1302.asp
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci531120,00.html

What I Want To Learn about Computers

I love rock music. What I first do when I first start my computer is to play Windows Media Player, and sometime I visit my favorite musicians’ web site. And I am always amazed by how their web pages are costumed and well designed. That is why I want to learn how to make homepages as I want and make changes from a scroll bar to the cursor. Also, I am now having several little problems about viruses of my computer, so I would like to learn about them and make good use of security system. Another thing what I want to learn is an effective way to use Internet search engines because it take hours for me to get information that I want. Basically, I want to use the Internet skillfully.

My History with Computers

Computers were equal to games for first 5 years, from 9 to 13.Adventure games that kill enemies by typing fast and by solving math formulas were my favorite. Also, I like to play a puzzle game. Either of them was the one my father bought for my sister and me, and we always faced to a computer taking turns. I was just crazy about games, but my typing and my calculation got faster. And this is how I learned touch-typing in Japanese.

However, the way I learned touch-typing in English was quite different. The prime source was from my enthusiasm for rock music. When I was 16, I got into American rock music, and I started renting CDs from a CDs rental shop. Because I wanted to look through lyrics even after restoration, I typed them into my computer. As I continued this for several months, I was having fun typing lyrics listening to these songs, and my skill to type English improved certainly.

Though I sometimes used several computer programs at my junior and senior high school, it hardly gave me useful information about the usage of computers. Recently, I mainly use my computer for the Internet, E-mails, and essays. Now,　I am taking a course, Introduction to Computers, so I would be a good computer user in 3 months!