Contemporary IT Issues

Blackberry Blackout

Recently there has been a number of issues that Blackberry users have encountered. This resulted in Blackberry users not being able to use their Blackberrys for simple tasks like BBM which is the free way of comunicating, Blackberry to Blackberry, and even affected how fast their Blackberrys worked, this "embarrassing" scenario lasted 36 hours.

Because of all the Blackberry users became outraged to say sorry Blackberry then gave a free £63 to all Blackberry users which they would be able to buy apps with, but only until December 31st. Because of this problem occurring and it not being the first time something like this there were even Blackberry users contemplating getting rid of their Blackberrys and because of the free £63 they were convinced to stay. This caused huge controversy and there were headlines in every newspaper and news site updating everyone on the latest news and on what was actually happening and was going to be done.

Hospitals Using IT

"Better use of information technology in England's hospitals could help prevent 16,000 deaths a year" was reported on the BBC website.

And The trust has said that they "saw 17% fall in deaths among emergency patients over 12 months which would equate to 16,000 deaths prevented across England"

Advantages of having a new IT system:

• Reminders - patients will be given reminders to take all of their needed medicines
• There will be a higher sivival rate in hospitals, because of the new IT system
• Medical History - the machines will have a history of all of the previous medicines their patients have had.
• Alarms - there is also an immediate alarm that will sound if the patient becomes ill and needs immediate help.

Disadvantages of having a new IT system:

• Cost - it would be very costly to have such high technology and this will be the main disadvantage to having the new IT system.

I believe that it would be worth paying a big amount of money for such technology as it will be beneficial and worth it in the long run as it will be saving millions of lives.

Six million people in UK have overpaid or underpaid tax

In recent news there have been 6 million people that have paid the wrong amount of money, whether that be too much or too little. There has roughly been £2billion worth of unpaid tax within the past 2 years and roughly £1.8billion of money that has been overpaid and because they have underpaid they will receive a bill for however much they underpaid. And for the people who have overpaid they will be repaid the money that they are owed.

This has been found out because of the new computer that has been introduced by HMRC, and as well as every other piece of technology there are advantages and disadvantage which would include. The advantages of this new technology would mainly be for the people that will be owed money as they will then be given the money that they are owed and the estimated amount that everyone will get is £1,500. The disadvantages however would be that they will receive a bill which they will have to pay as they owe tax money.

However, in my opinion i believe that there shouldn't be any rewards or bills being sent and they paid the amount that they paid was the amount that they were told to pay by the government so it wasn't their fault if they underpaid, so they shouldn't get punished.

Online Banking

Over recent years the way in which people check their bank account and transfer their money has become more reliant on the use of technology and  they are using online banking rather that physically going into a bank. And there is a multiple option which enables you to pick the one that is best suited to you.

• First Direct
• Egg
• ING Direct
• Rabo Direct

These would be the selection that you would be able to chose from, personally i have not used any of these but i would do a bit of research on each of them to find out which one is best suited to me and i would also take into consideration which one i think would be the most safe and the one i would trust the most.


There are advantages of doing your banking online, these would include:

• Convenience - You are able to do your banking at a time that suits you, and you don't have to have restricted times of when you do your banking.
• Efficiency - When you make the transactions online it is immediate whereas if you were do this by going to your bank physically it would not be as efficient and the transaction would not be made immediately.
• No travel cost - As you will be doing this from the comfort of your own home you wont have to spend money on travel or fuel cost.
• No queuing - As well as the above reasons this can be seen as a huge advantage as it can be done at an even quicker pace as you wont have to wait in a queue and multiple people can be doing the same thing as you.
• Easy to find information - You will also be able to find out specific information that you want more or less immediately as there will be a search bar and the answers to your question will appear without having to explain your question over and over to a member of staff.
• No language barrier - If English is not your first language it might become a better option to do banking online as it will be a big advantage for you.
• Check from abroard - As your bank details will be online you would be able to check your bank account even if you are in a different country which will be the most useful advantage if you find yourself traveling a lot.

However there are disadvantages to banking online which would include:

• Security issues - As you are online there are security issues and when dealing with such personal data and information and you might not be as safe as you would like to be especially not in comparison to doing your banking in the bank.
• Difficulty using site - There are some people that would prefer to do their banking in a physical bank rather that online as they are unable to use the site and find it difficult to do what other people may think to be simple tasks.
• Hackers - This can be seen as a huge disadvantage and can even be a common factor of why people do not want to do banking online as if your personal information gets into the wrong hands it may be extremely hard to rectify .
• Errors - As this is a relatively new way of using technology there are people who do not know quite how to use the site and because of this there is a high risk of making errors, especially when entereing data and when you make errors when using this online service the errors can be hard to rectify.   
• Digital Divide - Because of the digital divide there are people who just do not trust online banking as they are entering personal information that they would rather give face-to-face.

As well as there being advantages for the customers there are also ones for the bank itself which would consist of:

• Save money - As they are not in need of as many employees as more and more people are using the online bank more they will not have to spend so much on paying their workers.
• Wider customer base - As they are going online there will be an opportunity to appeal to a wider range of customers as there are people that prefer doing things online, whether it be because they don't like face-to-face communication or whether they physically cant get to the bank.
• Cut down on brick - As there are more and more people banking online instead there is a less need to have a physical building and they would be able to cut down, especially on the ones that are not as popular and just keep the ones that have more of a customer base.

Disadvantages for the bank would consist of:

• Errors - As well as online there are risks of error making in the bank and if these errors are to happen it is the banks fault and this could sway the customers opinion of the bank and they could then decide to do online banking instead or even take a more drastic action and transfer to another bank.
• Digital Divide - As well as being an disadvantage for the customers this is also a disadvantage for the bank as the bank will get fewer customers as they are unable to use the technology.
• No relationship with the customers - This can be seen as a huge disadvantage as you would not get a sense of loyalty.

In my opinion i think online banking is a great way of banking and a great use of technology as it appeals to a wider range of people and i would be more likely to use the online banking more as i'd prefer to not have to depend on a member of staff to enter my details. As well as this, i'd also prefer to do online banking as i would be able to do it whenever i wish and not have to worry about opening and closing times.

Banks are always making improvements that they think will be a hit with their forever expanding customer base. One of the most improvement being: the PINsentry which is a dedicated entry level to your bank account which gives you a unique pin number to enter upon inserting your barclays bank card into a small numeric keypad. This is part of a dedicated teams effort into being it out solutions for a lot of people concern in computer hacking. this was introduced by barclays but other banks have adopted this idea in improving their own customer security and peace of mind.

E Government

Direct Gov


with the help of technology the government can now supply us the information we need about a variety of different things that we would need in every day life, such as:

• taxes - inland revenue and car tax
• voting
• pensions
• employment
• crime and justice
• EAS (electronic application services)
• UCAS
• driving application
• online statistics
• environment

Crime and Justice

There are many different types of crime, these mostly consist of:

• buglary
• robbery
• domestic violence
• anti social behaviour
• rape and sexual assault
• knife crime
• gun crime
• identity fraud

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With the help of DirectGov.com you are able to find out important information about how you can stay safe in your environment. And as well as keeping yourself safe, you are given information about how to keep your personal information safe so that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands as you are the only person that should know your details.

You can also find out local crime information so it isn’t just general information, it becomes personal. And you are also given a number of how many different crimes has happened in that area, this can be very useful to know so that you know what precautions to take as there will be different ones suited to everyone as different areas will have different types of crime.

Through the DirecGov website you are able to report crime and anti-social behaviour. With the help of this site it tells you what the steps are of reporting a crime or anti-social behaviour.

Employment

Job seekers

There are plenty of ways in which the online government can help you and give you the information you need when you are seeking a job. The ways in which this site can help you are to do with: your CV, letters and job application forms, applying jobs online and even where to look for a job.

CV

When writing a CV it is imperative that you have done it correctly so having this online service can only have its advantages. You are told what type of font to use, and how long your roughly your CV should be. You are also told what you should include within your CV which would include such things as your basic details and what you have previously done that you think would be helpful for the job you want to do. And you are also given examples of CV’s so that if you’re still unsure of what it is you need to include you can get more of an idea, I have found this very helpful and I would use the information I have found out in later life when I have to fill out a CV for myself.

Letters and job application forms

As well as the CV information that can be found on the online government site you are also give the basic information that you would need to include when thinking about writing a letter or filling in a job application form. And you are also given another document file which will give you more help if you needed it, the advantages of using the directgov website to do things like these are:

• If you are unsure of what you need to include you are given a list
• If you are still unsure you are given old documents of the same nature
• The website is constantly being updated with the most recent changes

Education and Learning

this site also helps people who need information about education and learning and just so that the right information is there, there are multiple options to select from.

university and higher education

this includes student finance which is money that the government give you when you chose to go to university. By having this allowance you are able to afford the privilege of going to university, this is because you are able to borrow money from the government which they then pay for your course with. This is a huge advantage as instead of paying the huge sum of money for your course in one big payment you are able to pay back the government in small amounts which are suited to the individual person. The way in which you apply for this student load is through the website so it is done at your convenience and from the comfort of your own home which can be seen as a huge advantage for some people.

Education

The way in which we use the Internet for educational purposes has risen in recent years and is slowly becoming an essential skill that is needed in todays every day life. The ways in which we use the Internet for educational purposes are: for revision, research, VLE (virtual learning environment), my maths and e.mail.

Revision
This would include such websites as BBC Bitesize. This site can provide you with help for almost every subject such as: English, Maths, Geography, Spanish and ICT. As well as catering for every subject there is also a choice of what level to chose from which includes: KS3 and GCSE. This site can help you with revision as it offers a wide range of topics as well as a choice of "revise" "activity" or "test" as some would suit people better then others.

As well as BBC Bitesize there is another site purely for the benefit of revision which is My Maths. this site allows you to do log onto your own account and do your homework online which will then get logged, you are given help before you actually start answering questions so that you would hopefully then be able to understand what it is that you need to do in order to answer the questions correctly. This site also allows you to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are and then will enable you to focus on the topics that you struggle with.

VLE
This would include the virtual learning environment called Frog, you have your own account which you are able to log into and then use for a number of different reasons including: to check your time table, this enables you to know what lesson you have that day, who with and what room. Another way of using frog is to set homework which will appear in "my set tasks" as well as this you are able to access your school documents which is a huge advantage as you will be able to do this all from the comfort of your own home.

E-Mail
E.Mail has become a very important part of online education as if you do not attend a lesson you can e.mail your teacher and ask them what they did in class, this is important because if you do not keep up to date with your work you will fall behind. As well as this you could also use e.mail to ask your teacher for help if you don't understand the homework that has been set.

E Commerce

Electronic commerce (most commonly known as ecommerce) is any commercial activity that can be done online. It has become very popular in recent years especially with shops and the majority of shops have now become a “click” as well as a “brick” as they feel like it will increase their customer base as they are appealing to more people and some are just a “click” for example: Amazon and Ebay. As well as shops banks are also going online as they too believe that it will appeal to more people. There are many advantages and disadvantages to shopping online and going to a shop.

The advantages of physically going to a shop are:

• You can try out the products
• You don’t have to pay postage and packaging
• You don’t have to wait for delivery
• You can pay with cash

However there are disadvantages of going to a shop would include:

• You’d have to queue
• You spend money on fuel

The advantages of shopping online are that:

• You don’t need to travel which would save you fuel
• You don’t have to queue
• You can shop 24/7
• You can instantly compare on prices/ brands/ bus fare
• You don’t have to worry about carrying your items – you have them delivered
• You are able to shop on your mobile
• You can do it in your own convenience
• You may get better offers online
• You can also review other customer reviews so that you know what to expect
• The products you buy regularly are stored to your favourites
• There is a wider range of products
• It is easy to find what you are looking for as there is a search bar

The disadvantages however of shopping online are:

• You cant try out the products
• You have to spend a certain amount so that you get free postage and packaging
• You might miss out on store offers
• There are security risks

Banking

There is now an option to do you personal banking online rather than physically going into a bank which has its advantages.

Advantages which would include:

• Convenience: it will save you travel costs and time as well as being able to visit the bank from the comfort of your home.
• Open 24/7- this means that you will be able to access your bank account when best suited to you.
• As well as these two the other advantage to banking online is that when you transfer money from one account to another it is done instantly, you don't have to fill out any forms and you don't have to queue up.

However there are disadvantages to banking online which include:

• Difficulties using the site: sometimes it isn't simple when doing things online and you can be unsure of whether transactions have been successful or not or if you have done things correctly.
• The biggest disadvantage when banking online is that you can be unsure if the site can be trusted and you would need it to be as you are inputting personal details. As well as this there are possibilities of identity theft.

Ebay

Ebay is only a “click” which can be seen as a great advantage. It was founded in 1995, they're slogans include: "Connecting buyers and sellers globally." "What ever it is, you can get it on eBay." "Buy it, sell it, love it"

Advantages of using EBay

• Wide ranges of products: this is a huge benefit as when you shop on their store you are more than likely to find something that you want.
• Good deals- with this site you 'bid' for the item that you want and by doing this you will pay a price that you want to pay and not have to pay a set price and as soon as the product you want to buy is out of your price range you no longer have to bid for it.
• As well as buying items you can also use this site to sell your unwanted items.

Disadvantages of using EBay:

• Unable to view products: this is seen to be a huge disadvantage as you don't know the seller and they might not be trust worthy so you don't know for sure what it is you're buying.
• Scams: because you can't see the product you could be scammed into buying something that isn't what you wanted.

Real Time Information

Real Time Information is when data occurs immediately and is constantly being updated. It can be used for such tasks as navigation, booking, weather, social networking, online shopping and even checking travel times. It is important for these things to be instant as they are changing all the time and for them to be correct they would need to be instant changes made. Real Time Information is found on the internet and is constantly and unknowingly used.

RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds are a very popular way of using Real Time Information, it it mainly used to view the BBC News. This is constantly being updated which is very important as it is used to keep the public up to date with current affairs so it needs to be the latest information available. The advantage of having Real Time Information is so that we are constantly being updated with the latest news. The main things that people use this type of Real Time Information for is to get information about: sports, business, technology and also the latest news about the UK.

Weather
Another type of Real Time Information is Weather, which can also be found on the BBC Website. It is very important for this kind of Real Time Information to be undated on a regular basis because people use this to plan their day and plan around bad weather conditions so this needs to be correct information. The advantage of this is that you are able to know what the weather will be like and you are also able to see what it will be like in not just the country you are in but most other countries too.

Travel Times
This is a very useful way of using Real Time Information. It is important for travel times to be correct at all times as the world is slowly but surely becoming dependent on travel being on time. This is a very useful way of using Real Time Information as it makes it easy for you to plan your day as you know what times the trains run as well as how long they will take so you also know what time you will get there too. Advantages of this is how easy it is to know what times the type of travel you pick takes and you can also chose between the different options.

Online Shopping
This has become a very popular way of using Real Time Information and is mainly used for convenience and ease. When you are shopping online you are shown how many items are left in stock of that particular product and when there are none left you will be notified that there are none left in stock, this is a very big advantage as you will constantly be updated on the amount of stock that they have and so that there are no mix ups as there is a constant update of products when they have new stock in as well as when an item is sold.

Chat
Chat has also become a very popular way of using Real Time Information especially with social networking sites such as: Facebook. The homepage of Facebook is constantly being updated with the latest news feeds which enable the users to see the latest news straight away at the top of the page. The advantage of this is that you are automatically presented with the latest news.

Theatre/ Concert Booking
When booking theatre and concert tickets having Real Time Information is a basic necessity as it enables you to see how many seats there are left and also what position it is that they are in so you are able to select a seat that you would like, if it was available. The main advantage of this is that you have a visual diagram in front of you that shows you how many spaces there are, how much it is and the seats available.

Webcam
This is very similar as what Weather is used for as this type of Real Time Information is updated every second and what you see on the webcam is what is happening at that very second so you are able to see what the weather is like at that time. The main advantage of this is that instead of just relying on the weather to tell you what the weather is you can physically see what the weather is like as the weather may not always be accurate.

Online Communication

E-Mail
The first Electronic Mail (E-Mail) was sent in 1971. It is a digital message sent across the Internet. E-Mail is a simple yet essential way of communicating with someone that is not in the same county as you. When E-Mail was first available for the message to successfully sent both parties had to be online at the same time but as time has gone on E-Mail has improved drastically and now you can send a message to someone without them being online and it will be stored in their ask box and they can read it when they next go online.

The main advantages of E-Mails are: that it’s free, paper free. quick and super convenient. Because of all these points E-Mailing has become a world wide phenomenon. However there are huge disadvantages of using which is mostly spam which is where companies get hold of your e-mail address and send you a lot of unwanted messages but, you are able to block e-mail addresses so that you’ll never receive another message from them and you can also direct messages from that e-mail address into your junk box so that you don’t get notified about it and it doesn’t appear in your inbox. Another problem that can happen when you have an e-mail address is hackers; which is where people find out what your password is and can steal your identity.

I have had an e-mail address for 7 years but I have only used it on a regular base for about 3 years. I mostly only use my email to send work to my school address so that if I don’t have my memory stick to hand I can still do my work. I also find it useful so that I have a backup of all my work as you can save up to and over thousands of e-mails whereas you have limited space on a memory stick. The major way in which I use my e-mail address is for verification of who I am, for sites like facebook and I get notifications from the social network sites I’m on and I currently have over 4000 e-mails which are mainly from the social networking sites that I’m on.

Not many members of my family use or even have an e-mail address but my sister does and she uses it in the way that I do mainly. My dad however uses e-mail a great deal, mainly to keep in contact with his friends and he also uses it to talk to his college and get information that he needs.

Instant MessagingInstant messaging is a quick and easy way of communicating. This form of communication is mainly used by the younger generation as it provides immediate communication with the other person. To be able to chat to the people on your friends list you need to have an e-mail address, in order to do this you need to add their e-mail address and they have the choice of whether or not to accept you as a friend.

The advantages of instant messaging is mainly that it is instant and you can also talk to more than one person at a time which is very useful rather that telling everyone individually. The disadvantages of instant messaging are that you have a risk of being hacked and then having all your details stolen.

The instant messaging service I use is MSN not many people my age use it anymore as they'd rather use others but I find it a very useful way of keeping in contact with my friends that still use it. And I also like that you are able to send images, music and files through it although it can take a while. The main thing I use MSN for is webcam which is where I can see the person I am talking to and physically speak rather that typing what I want to say which I personally really like especially when I’m on holiday as I can still keep in close contact with my family.

Blogger

Blogger is a blogging site when you are able to write posts about a particular topic and people are able to follow your blog if they are interested in what it is that you are writing about. Blogger is hosted by Google and has been since 2003. With Blogger you are able to add labels to your posts and then when people search for the same thing that your label is they will be directed to your blog and they will then be able to read the post.

I have only recently started using blogger for school purposes and have got a separate blog for nearly all my lessons and I update them all weekly. Personally I like the idea of a blog as you are able to write about things that interest you, or in my case know what I learnt a week ago because I have it written down in my blog. The advantages of having a blog, like I’ve mentioned is that you can follow blog that write about things that you're interested in and also that you can look back at older posts you've made to remind yourself of what you've done so far. But their aren't many major disadvantages except for there not being any security settings so you can have literally anyone looking at your blog and you might have a few personal post.

Another blogging site I use is Tumblr, which was founded in 2007 so it is a relatively new blogging site and has in total 17.5 million bloggers. You are able to post text, images, video's, links, quotes and audio which will go directly on their tumblog. This site allows you to follow people that you know and also people that you don't know without your acceptance.

 

www.facebook.com/

Facebook
Facebook is a social networking site that was launched in February 2004, since then it has become one of the most popular social networking site with 750 million active users. The idea of facebook is to add people that you know and they go in your friends list and then they are able to view your profile and they are able to see yours, look at your pictures, read your status updates, find out your personal interests and they can send you messages or chat to you as well.

I have only been using facebook for about 3 years in total but I don't use it that much even though most of my friends use it. I mostly only use it to keep in contact with relatives that I don’t see that often but other than that I don't really go on it. I currently have 304 friends which consist of friends and family. Advantages of facebook are that it is a free way to keep in contact with your friends and family even if you're in a different country. Disadvantages again, would be hackers and I have recently had a couple friends who have been hacked and have had to make new accounts.