The World of Podcasting, Screencasting, Blogging, and Videoblogging

A podcast is a Web feed containing audio or video files which is then placed on the Internet for anyone to download. What makes the podcast distinct from traditional media like broadcasting and streaming is that the podcast file will arrive in archived form. A Screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, which contains audio narration. Screencasts are useful for demonstrating simple and complicated new software to others. It is a neat way to show off work, report bugs, and show how a task can be accomplished. Screencasting is a term for recording a movie of a computer screen to a file that others can view. Screencasts are mostly used for tutorials, overview/ tours, reviews, and demonstrations. Screencasts may also be used as a way to enhance regular movie files. A Weblog, or blog, is a Web site were the owner or user of the Web site posts messages on it so that others can log on and read them. Blogs often focus on one subject, for example, if the blogger is a computer programmer, then the topic of his messages is mainly related to programming languages. However, many are using the blogs as online diaries where they post messages describing their daily news or how they feel about certain subjects. Videoblogging is a new form of blogging, which includes posting videos on the Web. It is a new paradigm for people to place aspects of their personal lives on the Web. Videoblogging is rising in popularity partially due to the release of the Video iPod and the availability of videoblogs on iTunes. So this means that with the recent boom in iPod sales, they will see this one as the most updated one and this will also hit the computer industry by storm. The rest of this article examines the new phenomenon of podcasting, screencasting, blogging, and videoblogging.

WLAN Security Management

In a wired local area network (LAN), the network ports and cables are mostly contained inside a building. Therefore, a hacker must defeat physical security measures, such as security personnel, identity cards, and door locks, to be able to physically access the LAN. However, the penetration capability of electromagnetic waves exposes the data transmission medium of a wireless LAN (WLAN) to potential intruders (Potter & Fleck, 2003). The fast development of wireless technologies implies that wireless communications will become ubiquitous in homes, offices, and enterprises. In order to conserve power and frequency spectrum, the wireless device computation overhead is most often reduced. The conventional security design thus uses smaller keys, weak message integrity protocols, and weak or one-way authentication protocols (Hardjono & Dondeti, 2005). WLAN security thus requires a more reliable protection of data communication between WLAN units and strong access management mechanisms.

Web Design Concept

In 2005, the Internet became available to one billion people worldwide with about 845 million people using it regularly (Emarketer, 2006). The United States has one of the largest Internet populations with 175.4 million online users (Weisman, 2006). It is estimated the Internet is used by 80% of advertisers and it is projected that 90% of them will adopt the Internet for advertising by 2008. Effective Web site design is essential in online advertising and in attracting and maintaining consumers’ interest. Many organizations include a Web site as part of their advertising and media mix (Arens, 2006; Geissler, Zinkham, & Watson, 2006). Web design experts assert that interface features and designs influence a site’s traffic and sales. Although there are no definite guidelines for successful Web site designs, some important constructs related to effectiveness are (1) page design, (2) navigation, (3) color usage, (4) graphics and typeface, (5) content, and (6) online advertising (Arens, 2006; Kovarik, 2002; Song & Zahedi, 2005; Van Duyne, Landay, & Hong, 2003).

Web 2.0 and Beyond-Participation Culture on the Web

The emergence of what we call today the World Wide Web, the WWW, or simply the Web, dates back to 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system to manage information overload at CERN, Switzerland (Berners-Lee, 1989). This article outlines how his approaches evolved into the Web that drives today’s information society and explores its full potentials still ahead. The formerly known wide-area hypertext information retrieval initiative quickly gained momentum due to the fast adoption of graphical browser programs and standardization activities of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In the beginning, based only on the standards of HTML, HTTP, and URL, the sites provided by the Web were static, meaning the information stayed unchanged until the original publisher decided for an update. For a long time, the WWW, today referred to as Web 1.0, was understood as a technical mean to publish information to a vast audience across time and space. Data was kept locally and Web sites were only occasionally updated by uploading files from the client to the Web server. Application software was limited to local desktops and operated only on local data. With the advent of dynamic concepts on server-side (script languages like hypertext preprocessor (PHP) or Perl and Web applications with JSP or ASP) and client-side (e.g., JavaScript), the WWW became more dynamic. Server-side content management systems (CMS) allowed editing Web sites via the browser during run-time. These systems interact with multiple users through PHP-interfaces that push information into server-side databases (e.g., mySQL) which again feed Web sites with content. Thus, the Web became accessible and editable not only for programmers and “techies” but also for the common user. Yet, technological limitations such as slow Internet connections, consumer-unfriendly Internet rates, and poor multimedia support still inhibited a mass-usage of the Web. It needed broad-band Internet access, flat rates, and digitalized media processing to catch on.

Virtual Communities

In recent years, computer-mediated communication has been the enabling factor for connecting people to one another and establishing “virtual relationships” (Igbaria, 1999; Johnston, Raizada, & Cronin, 1996). Virtual communities evolved as users of the early networks utilized them mainly for informal rather than business-related communication. These communities were not planned development in the sphere of computer networking. As this form of interaction increased, the users began to demand better and improved technology and functionality which would assist them in their interactions. “Virtual Communities describe the union between individuals or organizations who share common values and interests using electronic media to communicate within a shared semantic space on a regular basis” (Schubert, 1999). This was one of the first definitions of Virtual Communities. Nowadays, in considering companies that are building or trying to build virtual communities, it seems that the up-to-date definition of Virtual Communities is that these “involve establishing connections on electronic networks among people with common needs so that they can engage in shared discussions that persist and accumulate over time leading to complex webs of personal relationships and an increasing sense of identification with the overall community” (Hagel, 2007).

Using Computer Mediated Communication as a Tool to Facilitate Intercultural Collaboration of Global Virtual Teams

Many multinational companies (MNCs) have inevitably assembled and employed global virtual teams (GVTs) to leverage their work performance. GVTs are considered as an innovative and flexible work structure to achieve competitiveness in the era of globalization. The emergence of this structure is also due to the heavy reliance on computer-mediated communication technology and, as such, geographical boundaries and time zones are no longer considered as a hindrance to collaboration and communication. Yet, cultural differences remain challenging when team members work together in a non-collocated environment when they are engaged in managerial tasks such as problem-solving, negotiations, decision-making, and coordination. Thus, this new distributed collaborative phenomenon suggests that one of the key challenges in working together apart is the ability to adapt and acculturate to different cultural values that exist among team members. People need to be fully aware, understand, and be sensitive to the impact of cultural differences by exploiting appropriate online behaviors in order to reduce its detrimental influence on work performance. The purpose of this article is to present and understand the dynamics of intercultural collaboration within global virtual teams and how culture impacts their work performance in MNCs. Individuals from all over the world with diverse cultural backgrounds are increasingly collaborating using computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies such as e-mail, Web, chat and videoconferencing, and others. Existing literature shows that when people with different cultural values communicate, it is not unusual for miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misinterpretations to occur (Chen, 2001; Gudykunst, 2003). Problems are intensified in CMC environment because of its limitation such as the absence of body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and many others (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986; Walther, 1996). However, little research has been conducted on the ways in which different intercultural communication styles and cultural values affect people working in a distributed or virtual environment, particularly on team members’ performance. Thus, in this article, first, I will introduce the phenomenon of GVTs and its crucial function in MNCs. Second, I will present the background of the phenomenon by highlighting the gaps as identified between two research fields--crosscultural management and computer-mediated communication. Next, the main focus of the article will be a discussion of the issue of intercultural collaboration. In this section, I will first provide a definition of GVTs, followed by several arguments on cultural challenges of GVTs. In the subsequent section, I will discuss the different types of CMC that are available to GVTs and the impact of culture on its utilization. Then, I will provide a brief direction of the future research agenda comprising of both the practical as well as theoretical perspectives. In conclusion, the article will highlight the significance of using GVTs in MNCs when people engage more prominently in intercultural collaboration, using CMC in order to promote and expand international business.

Usability in Mobile Computing and Commerce

Usability is an acknowledged important aspect of any system or product design. Many times it is related to not only product features, but also ultimately profit that can be generated from the product. Good interface design promotes higher mutuality (feeling similar and connected), which in turn leads to higher levels of involvement and a favorable impression of credibility. Many practitioners and researchers (such as Jakob Nielsen, 2000) have elaborated on usability aspects, but few have agreed upon a unifying definition. In 1998 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defined usability as the “Extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use” (ISO 9241-11, 1998, p. 2). From this definition it can be construed that effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction are three pillars for usability measures. In this regard, the ISO defines: • Effectiveness as the “accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals,” • Efficiency as the “resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals,” and • Satisfaction as the “freedom from discomfort, and positive attitudes towards the use of the product.” The ISO standard acknowledges that the level of usability depends highly on the intended context of use (e.g., users, hardware, software, and social environments). Researchers have demonstrated that the three ISO usability components are distinct. Frøkjær, Hertzum, and Hornbæk (2000) found only a weak relationship among the three usability components. Walker, Fromer, Di Fabbrizio, Mestel, and Hindle (1998) found that efficiency did not translate into user satisfaction. These empirical studies suggest that efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction may be independent aspects of usability and a causal relationship among them may be weak or even nonexistent.

Unified KS-Code

Many codes have been proposed for optical CDMA system as discussed in Svetislav, Mari, Zoran, Kosti, and Titlebaum (1993), Salehi (1989), Liu and Tsao (2002), Maric, Moreno, and Corrada (1996), Wei and Ghafouri-Shiraz (2002), and Prucnal, Santoro, and Ting (1986). Optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) has been recognized as one of the most important technologies for supporting many users in shared media simultaneous, and in some cases can increase the transmission capacity of an optical fiber. OCDMA is an exciting developments in short haul optical networking because it can support both wide and narrow bandwidth applications on the same network, it connects large number of asynchronous users with low latency and jitter, and permits quality of service guarantees to be managed at the physical layer, offers robust signal security and has simplified network topologies. However, for improperly designed codes, the maximum number of simultaneous users and the performance of the system can be seriously limited by the multiple access interference (MAI) or crosstalk from other users. Another issue in OCDMA is how the coding is implemented. The beginning idea of OCDMA was restricted in time domain, in which the encoding/decoding could not been fully utilized in optical domain. Therefore a new coding in OCDMA has been introduced based on spectral encoding (Kavehrad & Zaccarin, 1995; Pearce & Aazhang, 1994; Smith, Blaikie, & Taylor, 1998; Wei & Ghafouri-Shiraz, 2002). The system, called Optical Spectrum CDMA, or OS-CDMA, has the advantage of using inexpensive optical sources, and simple direct detection receivers. In this article with an emphasis on the Spectral Amplitude Coding scheme, a new code known as Khazani-Syed (KS) code is introduced.

Ubiquitous Mobile Learning in Higher Education

The higher education environment is changing driven by the needs of its students, evolving into a combination of different approaches (blended learning), with lectures, tutorials, and independent reading forming just one side of the overall learning encounter. A white paper from IBM (Robert, 2005) highlights some interesting viewpoints on how training programs should aim to meet the changing needs of today’s learners. They are part of the Millennial (or “Net”) Generation, brought up within a world of computers, mobile phones, and the Internet. More often, this generation of learner has little fear of present technology and in fact desires the latest electronic hi-tech advances. With such natural acceptance they have few barriers to impede the use of alternative methods, such as electronic learning (e-learning), to supplement their educational experience. As computing devices have become smaller and network accesses have become ubiquitous, the paradigm has been enhanced by the concept of mobile or m-learning. Carlson (2005) has described the Millennial generation as smart but impatient, commanding immediate results and with divided attention spans. However, there are positive observations about their self-motivation and wiliness to seek out and share resources to complement their course material. The speed at which information can be gleaned from the Internet using search engines has obvious benefits and students have grown to expect the same speed and accessibility in all facets of their lives, including education. This has created demands on education facilities to keep pace with modern living and upgrade teaching practices to make the most of technical advances. The modern student is a consumer with a more varied educational background and entrance route, and with that comes more rigorous demands on the applicability of the education they are receiving in return for their money. It is likely that this will become a driver for modern teaching practices. This article will give an introduction to some of the current research into the use of modern multimedia technologies in higher education facilities, with detail given to some approaches adopted by the University of Ulster (Lightbody, McCullagh, Weeks, & Hutchison, 2006)

Teleworker's Security Risks Minimized with Informal Online Information Technology Communities of Practice

The advancements of technology have altered the way many small businesses operate in the United States of America (USA) (Butcher-Powell, 2006). Small businesses have been forced to embrace technology or lose valuable employees and business. As such, many small businesses have merged to wireless networks and adopted various forms of telework. Today, it is estimated that more than 60% of the workforce are teleworkers (Butcher-Powell, 2006; DecisionOne, 2002). While moving to a remote workforce is good for small businesses, it also places a substantial amount of security risks upon the small business. Butcher-Powell (2006) documented some of the security risks associated with corporations employing a remote workforce, indicating that teleworker’s lack of information systems and security training can compromise the corporation’s network. The study investigates one particular method for aiding teleworker’s: informal information technology communities of practice in cyberspace. One hundred and forty four teleworker’s were surveyed on what sort of IT-related activities they devote time to, how much problem-solving they attempt via technology discussion groups with respect to those activities, and their perceived community and organizational benefits to participating in such discussion groups. The study found significant differences in perceived value of technology discussion groups among teleworkers.