To get an idea of mobile commerce and wireless technology please take a quick look at this short informative video.
According to SearchMobileComputing.com "M-commerce (mobile commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless handheld devices such as cellular telephone and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Known as next-generation e-commerce, m-commerce enables users to access the Internet without needing to find a place to plug in. The emerging technology behind m-commerce, which is based on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), has made far greater strides in Europe, where mobile devices equipped with Web-ready micro-browsers are much more common than in the United States".
There are many people who do not use a PC outside of the office, but yet they need to receive important emails after office hours. For this reason they keep the mobile at their side all the time. Mobile commerce was made for groups of people like this. M-Commerce allows you to reach the consumer directly, not through there mailbox, fax machine, desk or your secretary, but to your consumer directly, regardless of where they are.
In the Hospitality industry m-commerce has played a massive role for businesses as it allows them to easily stay in touch with customers, suppliers, and employees. Some restaurants and hotels have introduced 'hot spots' or 'WiFi' for the customers to use there mobile wireless devices an example of this is Star Bucks. Hand held devices as seen below are another fine example of the technology moving on at a raped pace. Orders for food, drinks, accommodation and many more can be taken on a hand held device and sent to the required location.
Censorship is very important on the web as inappropriate materials are found on it on a daily basis. In Ireland it has been argued that the government should set up censorship on websites just like China and America. But in saying all this I strongly believe censorship of the Internet is illegal and unauthorised. The Internet is the best place for people to express their opinions and facts.Through twitter, blogs and many many more, people of all natures leave their opinions on all types of matters. I do believe this is good as they may have something to get off there chest or even have information they wish to share.
Corn-Revere once made-known, "on-line systems give people far more genuinely free speech and free press than ever before in human history." In fact, "Freedom of speech" or "Freedom of press" is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For these reasons, censorship of the Internet is illegal.
In saying all of this the information that children are exposed to on the net should be the responsibility of the parents.
I feel censorship of the web would be a daunting task to monitor. Our government would simply not have the funds to manage such a mammoth task. It would be far to costly as the government would have to invest in large amounts of manpower and time.
In my opinion if the web can be harmful and need censorship, then TV and magazines are the same. On TV for example it shows motion pictures that consist of dangerous examples such as drugs abuse and murders. Magazines for example show pictures of beautiful extremely skinny celebrities and if a plump female were to glance at the picture she may become anorexic.
What is Web Usability and what it means for a website?
Web Usability never meant anything to me until now. After extensive research I now know that it is an approach to make websites easier to use for the end user. The user should be able to navigate around the web page with ease and with the press of a button lead to where they want to go.
According to one researcher Jacob Nielson he states "Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word 'usability' also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process."
He also gives 10 useful steps for homepage usability.These explain who you are and what you do.
Include a one sentence tagline.
Write a window title with good visibility in search engines and bookmark lists.
Group all corporate information in one direction.
Emphasize the Site's Top High-Priority Tasks
Include a Search Input Box
Show Examples of Real Site Content
Begin Link Names with the Most Important Keyword
Offer Easy Access to Recent Homepage Features
Don't Over-Format Critical Content, Such as Navigation Areas
The below video also goes into gravel detail on what a website should have to be user friendly.
There are many examples of good and bad web pages. We visit numerous web pages on a daily basis, some of these we navigate about easily but others we cannot do so. For example the below web page shop in paradise is a bad web page as the apperance is not great. There is far too much happening and we are just overwhelmed by everything on the screen. The main navigation is very hard to find and the banner does not stand out. The page length differs on differnt pages which can be very annoying as you got to scroll down for a long time to find what you want.They do have a search input box but we got to click on it first then enter the query.
A good example of web usability is ebay. As you can see from the below screen shot it has a white back ground and not to cluttered. The banner is easy to pick out as it is in differnt font and colour. The main navigation is short and easy to find. The scroll bar isnt to long as you can see which means it wont take long to scroll down.
Remember less can mean more espically when it comes to a web page.
Web standards is really about the different formats and usability options of designing a web page. This was an area I was not aware of and I'm sure many people are not aware of. In my four years of college I have accessed the web on a daily basis with no difficulities and have even set up web pages without taking web standards into account. Those of us who have no difficulty with poor eyesight or other disabilities have no problem using the web on a daily basis. But we sometimes fail to think of the 10 - 20% population that have disabilities. 10% of males have some form of colour blindness. This fact alone really made me open my eyes to the problems of accessining the web.
What is web standards? Web Standards are in place to ensure everyone has easy access to the information on the web and it also makes web development faster and more enjoyable. Web standards makes it easier for people with special needs to use the web. Blind people may have their computer read web pages to them.
People with poor eyesight may have pages rearranged and magnified for easier reading. And people using hand-held devices can browse the web just as easily as those using high end workstations.
W3C and web standards
A man by the name of Sir Tim Berners-Lee a British physicist and computer scientists and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989, also founder of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994. This consortium is an international industry dedicated to leading the web to its full potential. W3C has more than 450 member organisations some big name companies such as: Microsoft, American Online, Adobe and many many more.The W3C is the main internationalstandards organisation for the World Wide Web. W3C continues to expand the reach of the web for everyone regardless of culture or abilities. Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee and W3C they have made the web more user friendly and accesiable for people with disabilities.
Accessibility is a legal requirement: Disability Discrimination Act 1992
The following is a case where Maguire made a complaint to the human rights and equal opportunity commission, alleging that SOCOG had discriminated against him on the grounds of disability, in contravention of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 in three aspects: the failure to provide braille copies of the information required to place orders for Olympic Games tickets; the failure to provide braille copies of the Olympic Games souvener programme; and the failure to provide a web site which was accessible to Maguire.
As you can see from the above information web standards are now becoming very important. If your web site is not up to scratch with the correct requirements you are breaching the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992. Now that I have studied about web standrads I intend to look at every website I use and see how user friendly they are and if they match Sir Tim Beners-Lee standrads.
Ok so I was having my lunch during the week and I was thinking how brilliant crisps are. I mean, what is a lunch without your favourite bag of crisps keeping your fine sambo company? Below are my favourate type of crisps and I will rate each one out of ten. 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest.
Ireland should be proud of crisps as they were the founder of the first flavoured crisps in the whole world. Tayto Cheese & Onion founded by Joe 'Spud' Murphy took cheese and onion, mixed them together and put them on crisps to make the crisp world a much more delicious place to live in. i think Cheese and Onion Tayto will never get old and I give them a 6/10.
The Real McCoy's ridge cut flame grilled steak what a packet of crisps after eating these you would get the taste of the steak and it would make you feel like you just ate a massive steak dinner. I went through a phase of these and I must say I feel like another packet right now. The Real McCoy deffinately deserves a good 6/10.
Good ould Hula Hoops how can I forget them from days in primary school. I have my triangle sambos in the lunch box and a packet of Hula Hoops. For me it always had to be the salt and vinegar flavour as no other flavour really done it for me. Awh I really do miss that crumching sound when you bite into them, what a great feeling and great memories they bring back. Hula Hoops are going to recieve a 5/10.
Another delight from Tayto were the Chipsticks. They were also an old favourate of mine from school the salt and vinegar flavour would last for ages in your mouth. They probally were the messiest crisps of the lot and they did still to the roof of your mouth or teeth but in my opinion that was the best part about them. I loved sitting in class after my lunch break taking the pieces of crisp out of my teeth from the lunch. Chipsticks I think deserves a good 8/10.
Wheelies the bacon flavour crisps. These were the crisps we always got after a football match as kids. We would get a small bottle of score orange and a packet of Wheelies. They are hard to find now the only way they can be baught is in the mult-packs. I will give the wheel shaped crisps a 7/10.
Chickatees another messy crisp to eat and just like Chipsticks they stick to the top of your mouth. As far as i know they are the only chicken flavoured crisp in the market. Maybe other crisp companies are too CHICKEN to take them on :-). One packet is nice but after that they can get very sickinging. I give them a 5/10.
Now heres some crisps I haven't had in ages. Mega Meanies oh how I loved these crisps and unlike the Chickatees you could eat as many packets and just want more. I remember one day I got a multi-pack of these and I ate 5 packs one after another. That just says how good these bad boys are. I will have to give them a 9/10. What a great packet of crisps.
Now the two best packet of crisps to eat with a sambo have to be Walkers Prawn Cocktail and Hunky Dorys. These crisps both run side by side in my eyes. The only real difference is the ripples in Hunky Dorys. After visisting the Hunky Dorky factory a number of years ago they were the only crisp I would eat. Then Walkers came up with some very clever advertising and I feel for it. I'm sure most of you know about the contraversal advert Hunky Dorys recently used. Well if you don't I have added it in below. I taught it was very very clever, so what they may have got in trouble over it but yet it was the best advertising the company ever had. Two packets of crisps I eat on a regular basis and I give both of them a strong 9/10.
Now last but no means least Tayto yet again have done it for me. Mighty Munch are hot and spicy and for me they gap between Wheelies, Mega Meanies and Chipsticks. They may not be the best crisp to serve with a sambo but I feel they are the best crisp. They may be hot and spicy but just not too hot and spicy, they most certainaly got a oomph about them that makes me give them the full marks. Mighty Munch deserve 10/10 for me what a packet of crisps.
There are many people who do not use a PC outside of the office, but yet they need to receive important emails after office hours. For this reason they keep the mobile at their side all the time. Mobile commerce was made for groups of people like this. M-Commerce allows you to reach the consumer directly, not through there mailbox, fax machine, desk or your secretary, but to your consumer directly, regardless of where they are.
