E-commerce | Online Banking

The task we have being assigned is to research the purposes of online banking. 

Online banking just gives another way of banking for another person. There are benefits and drawbacks of online banking and you could argue that it is only limited to certain groups of people. However all in all the purpose of online banking is to make it quick and efficient. This will benefit people who dont have much time to hand to travel to a bank. 

However a certain group that may benefit and struggle from online banking is elderly. Some elderly may not be in a position to travel to the bank, this is where online banking can be a benefit to them as they can do it from the comforts of their own home. However, stereotypically the elderly are not comfortable/up to date with current technology so they will have no idea how to use online banking, they may not even have a computer/internet. Although they can learn to use online banking or buy a computer it may just be more beneficial for many of them to go to a local bank. 
However a certain group that online banking is going to benefit is business men/women. This is because they work long hours and banks may be closed when they go home so because online banking is 24/7 they can do it quicker and at the comforts of their home/work at their own time. 

Generally, i imagine the audience to be aimed at 16 - 40 year olds, generally people who have an idea of how to use a computer and the internet, also people who are comfortable buying things online and think that it is secure. Generally this age group would of bought products online previously so they will more than likely trust and use online banking. 

Online banking does fulfil its purpose to some extent. Anyone with a bank account can use it and it generally is more beneficial as its quicker and can be used anywhere to a degree and can be used at anytime. However not everyone will be able to use it as not everyone is up to date with technology or they may not think online banking is secure.

The main advantage of online banking would be that its very convenient to a vast majority of the population. It can be used anywhere and anytime and saves time from travelling to a local or not local bank. However although many banks deem online banking to be very secure there still is a slight possibility that you may get hacked and this creates a massive problem. 

E-commerce | Ebay

Ebay;

eBay is an international company that auctions and sells an endless amount of products; however it’s the users that make eBay what it is. Its main purposes are to provide an online auction to offer used or new products at lower prices than the original rrp. Many businesses have eBay stores now because it has became a good merchanting site because it has a wide customer base. Its also very quick and easy to use which saves a trip down to the shops, this makes eBay very appealing to some people.

The audience for eBay is too broad to pinpoint. The majority of people I know use this, including myself, friends, mum and dad and sometimes my grand-parents too. This creates such a wide customer basis as you only need a basic knowledge of how to use the internet and then you can use eBay, as it is very user-friendly.

The auction process within eBay is relatively simple to use. The seller sets a time and a original price to start with, the shortest time length to sell something is 1 day and goes up to 24 days. The auctions can start from as little as 0.1p and can go up to anything, there are no limitations. Once the item is up on auction everyone who searches something specific to that item potentially will come across it. They then have the option to bid. Most bidding on products come at the end of the auction where it’s a mad dash to get the winning bid in, the highest bid once the auction is over wins the product.

eBay fulfils its purposes to some extent. It has now got such a wide customer base it has endless amount of products on offer. Many of them are at good prices. It now has a buy it now button incorporated, this make its quicker to buy a product and gives you an option incase you don’t want to take part in an auction. However, sellers have now got onto getting their friends to bump the price of the product up, this makes it unfair for buyer as they don’t get a good deal as such.

eBay, is very useful for buying products quickly and mostly securely, very few problems occur. It also has a wide customer base which in turn gives an endless amount of products. However if you do get scammed getting your money back is a hassle and some people don’t have the time to do it!

BBC Weather | 5 Day Review

Wednesday 19th September;

BBC Forecast;

The forecast given from BBC weather is generally sunny all day reaching a maximum of 14 degrees, it has given the odd bit of rain however this is only a short spell within the day. The lowest the temperature is going to go is 10 degrees with an average of 13mph winds.

Actual Weather; 

The forecast that was given from BBC, i felt, was fairly accurate. The temperature felt like it was about 13 - 14 degrees maximum, and there was a little bit of rain like BBC said so. The wind felt fairly average, however at points it felt above 13mph. Towards the end of the day the temperature did start to decrease and feels like it fell to around, 10 degrees. So all in all it was a fairly accurate weather review from BBC. 

Thursday 20th September;

BBC Forecast;

The forecast given from BBC is rainy spells which are expected all day on and off with an average temperature of being about 15 degrees. Winds are expected to be around 13mph.

Actual Weather;

Rainy spells happened throughout the day, which was given from BBC. The wind felt to be fairly accurate and what i would estimate being around the 12 - 13mph mark. However the temperature did feel a little cooler than what was said, i'd say it felt to be about 12 degrees more than anything.

Friday 21st September;

BBC Forecast;

The forecast given from BBC has given light rain showers to be reoccurring throughout the day with a maximum temperature being 12 degrees with winds being fairly mild; around 7mph

Actual Weather;

The forecast that was given by the BBC was fairly accurate. There was a lot of rain showers spread out throughout the whole day, which is what BBC said. Also it was very cold outside compared to normal whether, probably ranging from 10 - 12 degrees, so BBC was fairly accurate there and the wind speed was hardly noticeable so BBC was once again accurate. 

Saturday 22nd September;

BBC Forecast;

Today the BBC have said that the maximum temperature that it is going to go to is around 12 degrees with the lowest being around 6 degrees towards the end of the day. It will be clear skies mainly throughout the day but sometimes sunny with some clouds. Average wind speed of 4 mph.

Actual Weather;

Today i once again think that BBC is very accurate. The temperature felt the same as what the BBC predicted and there were cloudy spells within the day. The temperature did drop very rapidly towards the end of the day and it felt to be around 5 - 6 degrees, as BBC stated. The wind was hardly noticeable, like the 4mph winds that were forecast.

Sunday 23rd September;

BBC Forecast;

Today the BBC has forecast the maximum temperature to be around 13 degrees. For the first half of the day it is supposed to be cloudy with sunny intervals however the second half of the day it is forecast heavy showers from then on through to the next day. The wind speed is picking up and is supposed to be averaging around 14mph.

Actual Weather;

Once again the forecast from BBC seemed to be fairly accurate. The temperature felt to be around 13 degrees as predicted and after noon the rain came, heavily, as the BBC stated. The wind speed did feel around 14mph, as stated by the BBC.

Results;

Overall the results collected in the last five days from the BBC have being fairly accurate. Although not 100% accurate the weather compared to the forecast is fairly similar, this leads me to say that the forecast given from the BBC is trustworthy and unless you want a more dept filled forecast there really is no point paying for another forecast, especially when the BBC forecasts are free.

Newsgroups

Newsgroups have both advantages and disadvantages. While using newsgroups if you get a lot of people on your topic having a discussion you can get information quickly and get a variety of views on an endless amount of topics.

However there are limitations to newsgroup, for example if you don’t get anyone talking on a topic then there is no discussion, this therefore renders newsgroups useless. Also for some groups you have to have an account to put your views across and sometimes people don’t want to sign up to a website, so this limits the people who will post on the group.

Newsgroup fulfil their purpose to some extent, there are some major set backs like not having any people on your group or limited people sign up, however if you start to get authors and responses on your group then it can be very useful to collect a variety of views and to also express your view.

Realtime | Online services

Today i used online, realtime services to plan a journey by train to stratford and also by car to stratford. I found the task relatively easy, this could be due to many factors.

While planning my car journey i found google maps very userfriendly and quick to do. It gave me an estimated arrival time with current traffic and also an estimated fuel cost. No other website offered features close to this. It also offered the quickest route to get there without me having to research which would be the quickest route, this made my task a lot quicker and easier to do.

Planning my rail journey was slightly more difficult however i still found the task relatively easy. By using websites such as the nationalrail.co.uk i was able to find a ticket within seconds and it took me straight to my location. I found that using this website was the best possible option as i was able to find the all round best train ticket as the website filtered out the search for me. This made my job a lot easier.

Altogether i thought that planning my journey by whatever transport was relatively easy, i think mainly it was due to the realtime services that i used, these helped me significantly. If i was brutally honest, i hardly put any effort in to find my route as mostly these services did it for me.

Below are some links that i used during planning my journey;

National Rail
Google maps

Avoiding Instant Messaging

Although i am a very regular user of instant messaging services, today i decided to be slightly different. I rang my friend. Something that i still do on a regular basis however still use along side instant messaging. The reason i rang my friend today is that although he does have facebook he very rarely checks it, so this is why it would be more benficial to ring him as i wouldnt get a quick response from this certain person.

Online Shopping

Having being a regular user of amazon today i decided to pre order Fifa 13 off of Amazon. Instead of going to a shop such as Game i decided to order off of Amazon as it is a lot quicker and easier to do and i had no time to go to town. I find amazon to be a useful tool in these circumstances as a lot of the time i am busy and dont have to to spend a big part of my day travelling around town just to pre order a game.

Email - How it works

About Email

Whether you use a web-based email provider like Gmail, or a program within your computer like outlook both providers offer the basics of emails and more; there are advantages and disadvantages of both types.

When using a web-based email provider like Gmail, you can access your email account from any computer that has an internet connection. You also don’t have to update to the latest software as your email provider will do that for you. However a certain set back for a web-based email is that your emails are not stored on your computer, meaning that you will always require an internet connection to view your emails.

When using an email program within your computer means that your emails are stored safely on your computer, this means that you don’t have to rely on your internet provider to be always working. However a set back of using a program within your computer is that you will need to do all the manual work like updating the software, and you can only access your account from your computer or another but it has to have the same program that you use.

Email – How it works

Email appears to work simple. You send to a person, they receive the email. However it actually works in a more complex way, the way an email is sent is based around how a letter is posted and received.

1. The person sending the email creates an email in their mail user agent. (MUA)

2. The senders MUA transfers the email to a mail delivery agent. (MDA)

3. The MDA receives and accepts the email and sends it to either local mailboxes or forwards it if it isn’t a local address.

4. An email could encounter a network cloud. A network cloud could be under protection from firewalls, spam filters or malware protection software. These could delete an email. When an email is deleted in this way the person who sent the email will not be told if the email has being deleted.

5. The email then encounters an email que, this could be due to loads of other emails being sent or a rather large email being sent that takes longer to process.

6. While going through the network cloud the email will normally encounter at least one firewall. These firewalls will contain spam filters and virus filters.

7. Once the email gets passed the network cloud it is delivered to the recipient where the email sits in the receivers MUA ready to be read.

How it works on an email program:

When you use an email program to send or receive email, the program that you use for this communicates with your email server. When receiving an email your program uses POP3 ( post office protocol), this checks for incoming messages, if there is one it downloads them to your computer and deletes them from the server, from this the email waits in the your inbox ready to read. When sending email it uses SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) this sends the outgoing message to your server, this is then delivered to the recipients server, where the same process for POP3 happens on their server so they can receive the email.

How it works using a web-based email:

Instead of using your computer to create and store emails, you are using instead websites servers to create and store emails. Once you send an email on a web-based email provider the web browser that you are using (Firefox, Google chrome, internet explorer) sends the message to the email servers which the forwards the email to the recipients email server. When you have an email coming in it is stored on the email server. From this you can view that email in your web browser of choice. However to continue seeing the message you have to keep going back onto your email on the web, as it is not downloaded and stored on your computer, it stays on your email providers server. However now, there sometimes are options to download or print your emails making web-based email more user friendly.

Instant Messaging Services

A small summary of some current instant messaging services;

Facebook chat – I use this because its very quick and easy to do. Most my friends regularly check facebook like me so it’s a good chance to drop them a message as I know they will see it normally on the day I sent it. Facebook can also be used to check up on the latest news from your friends and also check events and birthdays etc..

MSN messenger - I use this kind of messenger as it is more interactive than facebook. It’s quick and easy to do.

iMessage – This is quick and easy however the only downfall is that you require an internet connection around you and you also need another person with an apple product.

Skype – Skype is a lot more fun to use than things like facebook and twitter. It is more interactive and more developed than msn so this is why id use it regularly over the other instant messagers.

Entertainment - Netflix

Having only recently being a user of Netflix I must say that I am surprisingly impressed by the amount of choice for such a small sum of money each month. Today I decided to carry on watching a series of south park via Netflix, I use Netflix when there's either nothing on t.v or there's something that I want to watch that is only available via Netflix. Like today, the episodes of south park that I watched weren't on normal t.v. so this gave me a reason to use Netflix.

Communication - Skype

Skype is a good way I find of communicating with friends. I have used I excessively for the past 6 months. I find it a much more interactive way of communicating with friends. Today was like any other day, I went of Skype to have a catch up with some friends that aren't local. The main reason why I use Skype over another kind of communication like Facebook chat etc is because it is a much more interesting and interactive way of communicating. This is why i regularly use it on a daily basis.

Communication - Twitter

Today i used Twitter to communicate with friends. There are similarities with Facebook and Twitter however mostly i use both for communication with friends. I checked Twitter today as i regularly receive messages from friends, and today was no different. I use twitter as many of my friends do too, this way i find it quick and easy to get a reply or send a message.   

communication - facebook

Having being an avid Facebook user for the last 2 years I have found its a very quick and efficient way of communicating with friends. I find that most of my friends frequently check Facebook hoping some new, interesting gossip has being uploaded. I take advantage of this and if im desperate for a quick reply then ill drop them a message.
Today was no different, I wanted to know something from one of my friends and although I do have a phone, its a contract; my minutes had ran out. However my internet hadn't. This was a perfect option to drop a quick message to a mate. In no time at all I had a reply.

Facebook messaging, a very quick and easy way of communicating!

Online Services

This is my personal audit of all my communications, research, investigations and online services about information age.

The areas i will be convering include;

• Communication
• Real time information
• E-commerce
• E-government
• Education
• Business
• Entertainment