Experiences with Ebay

For as long as I can remember, I have used Ebay. My mom used to use it to buy and sell Longaberger baskets and I would always help her with putting her items on to sell and ship the items out that she sold. I have personally used Ebay to bid on jewelry, buy cell phones, Christmas gifts for my friends and even a basket or two to help my Mom out. I have also sold items such as old gowns and beanie babies. In order to buy things from Ebay, I have used a credit card through Paypal. However, when I was younger my mom had her own credit card terminal and used that to accept payments.

To use a Ebay account, you must be 18 years of age and agree to a terms of use policy. Paypal is where your credit card is on file and the number and information is not necessarily accessible to the person that you are buying from. This site works like an auction, sellers list their items and either choose to have a Get It Now price of what they want for the item or start the bidding at their lowest acceptable price. There is a time limit on the item and once that time is expired the highest bidder wins. Many people will wait until the very last few minutes an item is active and start bidding, this is how prices reach the maximum. Once an item is expired, the buyer pays the seller and the item is shipped to the designated address. Every member has a rating, this is for other people that are buying from them to know how reliable and dependable the person is. If a member has a bad rating, it is not likely that they are going to have good communication or actually ship the item. However, even if a person has a good rating, it is likely that they will not get back to you about the item that you wish to purchase.

I found that there are many advantages to using Ebay. One advantage is that I can find nice things for a lot cheaper than I could by buying them in a store. For instance, I once bought a Blackberry cell phone that was lightly used for $50.00 compared to the $200.00 I would have paid if I went directly to Verizon to buy it. Also, with using Paypal I don’t have to worry about identity theft.

Along with the advantages, there are a lot of disadvantages. For instance, not too long ago I was using Ebay to purchase a ring for my fiancé. I found that sometimes members aren’t as interested in selling their items as I am in buying them. I purchased this ring, however my new credit card hadn’t come in the mail yet therefore I didn’t know my number so I sent the man $12.00 as a deposit until my new credit card came in. He received the deposit (I sent it as a money order) and then never got back to me once I was ready to finish paying for the item. His rating was a 99.7% however I was one of the unlucky people to not receive my item. Also, through Ebay you are not always so sure at what you are getting. For example, the phone that I bought on Ebay. The description of the phone was that it was lightly used and still in excellent condition. However once I received the item I found out that a dog had chewed up the antenna and this phone looked like it had been used for years. Even though it still worked, the description said nothing about the condition of the phone.

Peer-to-Peer Networks

What I know about peer-to-peer networks is that all the computers work at the same level; they have direct access to other computers files and hard drives and can allow a person to print a document on someone else’s computer if the printers are designated as shared devices. These computers run outside of a web browser and all the computers act as both clients and servers. Peer-to-peer networks are less expensive and less complicated than client-server networks but do not have the same performance under heavy use as client-server networks. I have used peer-to-peer networks in the past on my home computer. The types of peer-to-peer networks I used are Lime wire, however this was not a secure network and viruses and spyware were often encrypted into the song or video I wanted to download. The risk of using this system was not worth compromising the security of my computer system.

These networks are illegal because of the idea of copyright infringements. One person could purchase songs off of iTunes and another person could download these songs onto their computer at no charge. Also, software such as Lime wire poses risks to the security of a user’s computer. If you don’t know the person that you are receiving music from then there could be a virus or type of spyware encrypted into the file that you are downloading to your computer. Although with peer-to-peer networks in a small office or similar scenario, a person would most likely have the security of knowing who they are taking the music or files from; it still is not a morally right thing to do.

I feel that it is a good idea that the government is cracking down on peer-to-peer networks. I know that personally, if I found out how many people in the United States alone are illegally downloading music to their computers and how much money I was losing out on, I would be very angry. The people that have copyrights on this music should have the peace of mind in knowing that people aren’t stealing their songs.

The University does not allow music sharing, this type of activity infringes on copyrights and can be punished by expulsion or not being admitted to use the University of Delaware server on any personal computer by the person that is found guilty.

Online Storage: Photobucket.com

The online storage company that I chose to write my blog on is Photobucket. I personally use Photobucket to store my photos for free online. As far as I know, photobucket is only used to store videos and pictures and it is a very useful source for creating links to your photos so they may be put on other pages such as myspace.

There is no yearly contract or fee for using Photobucket and it make your pictures more accessible. One of my friends, who is a photographer uses Photobucket to put up her pictures so people can access them and critique or praise her work.

If I was in her shoes, I would not personally use Photobucket to publish my photographs because it is easy for people to take them and use them as their own seeing that there is not much copyright protection involved in Photobucket. Also, if you didn't have a backup copy of your photos that are uploaded onto the website, if the website were to shut down, all your photos could be lost.

However according to our text, a plus of using an online storage system is that it can be accessed through any PC that has an internet connection. Photobucket also saves a lot of space on your computer because the photographs are uploaded on a website rather than on a personal hard-drive.

Week 2: Searching the Web

Hello, Welcome to Week 2 of my blog.

I decided to use Clusty to do my search. I chose my subject of research to be Standardbred Horses. I know a great deal about Standardbreds so I thought this would be a good topic because I would know whether or not Clusty was giving me the correct feedback that I am looking for. When I began my search I put in the phrase “Standardbred Horses” and I was given approximately 70,400 web pages that would give me potential results.

The first website I was given as a result was Standardbred Horse, the URL being, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardbred_horse. I was hoping for results that directed towards information about Standardbred Horses and this website gave me information however the second URL that I was given was more about adopting Retired Standardbred Horses rather than telling me about them.

After reviewing some of the results I got from this, I do not believe this was a very good phrase to use in my search. I should have narrowed my search from the broad world of Standardbred Horses to a smaller horizon such as Standardbred Horse Facts which potentially would have yielded me with better results.

Hello,

My name is Mollie Wickersham; I was born in Omaha, Nebraska however I have spent most of my life living in Magnolia Delaware. My parents are Jeff and Lynn Wickersham. My dad is an officer in the Air Force and my mom is a retired nurse. I graduated in 2006 from Caesar Rodney High school after attending the district for my entire grade school career. I am now attending University of Delaware’s Associates in the Arts Program and finishing up my sophomore year before moving up to main campus to complete my Bachelors degree. I am taking this class because my intended major is Biochemistry and seeing that technology is becoming the basis for most jobs in society I feel that I need an increased knowledge about computers and the technology that I will soon be working hand-in-hand with.