Web 2.0

This review may not be a clear illustration of usual user experience as the site seemed to be experiencing issues the day I visited for the purposes of this review.  From the onset, trying to open the site was frustrating, as it was offline the first 4-5 times I tried gaining access.  After an hour or so I was able to connect, at which time I created a user account.  Creating an account is pretty straightforward, as flicker.com directs first-time visitors to an account creation landing page.  Once an account has been created, it was easy for me to figure out how to add photos, although I don't know how easy this process would be for a web novice, as links only show where photos will be placed.  Upon clicking the links, i.e., photostream, it then becomes obvious as to how to upload images.  The uploading was not difficult, but that process has obviously been updated with mobile users in mind, as the initial uploading screen says camera roll, which I as...

I installed Apache's Open Office to compare its features against those offered with Microsoft Office Productivity Suite.  The similarities of the tools offered are similar in that both provide a host of tools such as word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database and formulas, with each tool being relatively equal in both usability and speed of operation.  The main difference between the two comes in their layout, or more precisely, the ribbon.  Here, Open Office is more similar to older versions of MS Office in that it doesn't have a ribbon, where newer versions of MS Office all come with it.  This may be a blessing or a curse, depending on whether the ribbon is your cup of tea.  Being freely distributed, I would highly recommend Apache's Open Office to anyone looking for a similar experience with productivity tasks as that offered through MS Office, minus the price!  Click Here if you would like to evaluate Open Office for yourself.

I installed Mozilla Thunderbird, an open-source email program in order to evaluate it against my current email client, Microsoft Outlook 2016.  Thunderbird was much less user friendly than Outlook, with a dated layout which is reminiscent of programs from the early 2000's.  It is much more difficult to navigate around Thunderbird, where Outlook's layout made it much easier to find things.  Once the initial issues with searching for features was overcome, it appears as though the two programs had many similarities associated with many commercial email clients, such as the ability to add multiple recipients, choose the send/receive protocols, etc.  Overall, Microsoft Outlook seemed a much better fit for me.  However, the fact that Thunderbird is a free program and Outlook is not makes it much easier to be swayed to the Mozilla client.  Click Here if you would like to evaluate Mozilla Thunderbird for yourself.

For the past several days I have been evaluating Mozilla Firefox, an open-source browser,  to determine how it compares to my current default application, Google Chrome.  The first thing I noticed with Firefox was the ability to customize many features upon first opening the program.  Firefox allowed for many tweaks to things such as security, privacy, add-ons and more, in a much more easy fashion than Chrome.  The layout of the two browsers was very similar with their bookmark bars, paste-and-go feature, home link and tabbed navigation.  The biggest difference was in the number of resources used, with Chrome eating up much more RAM than Firefox.  The speed of the two seemed fairly similar, with Chrome opening pages a bit faster than Firefox.  Small differences such as these may account for the difference in needed resources.   I would highly recommend Mozilla Firefox to anyone looking for a comparable browsing experience wit...

 thought that I would help those looking to better understand just exactly what Web 2.0 is.  Here are a couple of examples that will help answer any questions you may have about the concept. I

In a recent Crunch Network article , Ross Baird informs Silicon Valley that America's love affair with the tech center has come to an end.  Baird criticizes both tech giants and investors for being blind to their missteps, which has led to their current relationship with a majority of Americans.  From racial and gender inequality to the elimination of any new ideas that are conceived outside powerful inner-circles, Silicon Valley's inability to own, let alone resolve such issues, will inevitably be its downfall.

The ability to live stream is evident on almost every social media site, but this hasn't always been the case.  In fact, as recently as 2 years ago, social media sites were posturing to provide users with the ability to post live events directly from their smartphones. The  Rev2  article "Periscope attracts 10 million users in its first few months", written two years ago, discusses the new Twitter feature and how others such as Facebook are looking to launch live capabilities of their own.