Topic: Discuss the impact of drugs abuse on youth

Contributed by: Sueya

Introduction

In the past, most drugs were made from plant and gradually grown and convert into drugs. Drugs like opium or marijuana had already been existing in the 20th century whereby people had found out how to make drugs from chemicals. Initially, drugs are created for experimental purposes, but as times goes by it slowly becomes an recreational activities for people who wanted to have fun or think is cool to take drugs.

As we all know, currently the problem of drug abuse on youth especially has assumed a greater significance than in the past. Drugs are chemical substance that once is consume into a body, it would have an impact on performing bodily function. Drugs can be helpful as in it helps patients to achieve relief if their pains or even cures their illness. But drugs can also be harmful which means harmful drugs like cocaine, opium, marijuana and etc can make a person to be addicted to the drugs and once the cravings for the drugs comes in, the drug addict must consume drugs at that point of moment or else he/she would experience withdrawal symptoms and also may experience insufferable pain, or even change the way they are feeling, thinking or even in behaving which in serious consequences may leads to death as they canot make decisions properly as their whole body functions is affected severely.

Summary of Contents from my Resource

Till today, there are more people abusing drugs today than in the past, and most of the drug abusers are mainly youth. There are several question raised when people start to ask about the connection between drugs and youths such as why are young people at risk with drugs that can do them harm and what's wrong with youth taking drugs when in the history there are already frequent cases. Consuming of addictive drugs are heroin and opium and once a person i addicted, at times to come he/she would develop an physiological dependence on the drugs.

According to my resource that i have found, although there are no certain results to show how many cases of drugs abuse cases per year, but a report has been compiled why youth would like to take drugs regularly today. One of the major reason is that a youth would wish become a fully-grown up man whereby they desires to do things that they had not done before or taking dangerous risks like taking drugs to show that they have already grown up and that they are on the drugs trend like any other people. These behaviors in youth would results him/her to engage in quarrels with their family members. Youth today would be rebellious till that they feel that the more their family members disallow him/her to take drugs, he/she would be taking drugs more on purpose to prove to their family members that they are cool.

The resource also stated that the substance from drugs will have a negative effects reflected on the health, ranging from minor problems like digestion problems or respiratory infections and in serious cases, the youth taking drugs would develop brain damage whereby it affects the brain to function properly and may slow down his/her responses towards things that are happening towards them which they cannot imagine the rate of risks they are facing at that point of moment. All in all, the effects of taking drugs has damaged the ability of people for making the correct decision and the capability of taking appropriate actions to fulfil their needs in their daily life and activities.

Last question stated in the resource is that why does people had been using drugs for centuries, so what's wrong with occasional drugs abuse? Frankly speaking, the drugs nowadays are not as potent as that in the past as drugs are now modified chemically or biologically to produce the "high" feeling. But of course there is highly addictive drugs like heroin and estascy whereby people could feel that they just take it occasionally but the ingredients inside the small pill of drug will eventually make them go back for more.

For me, I strongly feel that these youth must definitely goes through the rehabiliation process to get rid of their drugs addiction. The rehabiliation is a tough process whereby not everyone could successfully kick the habits away. Therefore, i think motivation for the youth should be executed in order to let them know that they must not give up. Motivation should be done in providing counsellors, professionals to counsel the drug offenders or engage the offenders in healthy recreational activities like doing vounteer work. Not only this, we also need to put the right message across to youth and prevention of drugs getting near them done in school. The most important factor should be working with families whereby the greatest motivation comes from family members.

Evaluation of the resource

I think that this website is a trustful site as it provides factual and reliable information and is maintained by an organization whereby the organization were told to write reports for the Commission on Narcotics Drugs. The purpose of the content is to provides us with knowledge and information on the topic. Also, they provides links to other websites Their target audience is mainly for the researchers or for the public maybe like students who are researching for their assignments.

In conclusion, the website's content is relevant, the different categories are catagorize which allows me to navigate easily within the website. It also provides links to other websites with the related topics.

Source:

UNODC. (1997). "Global Youth Network" Retrieved May 11, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.unodc.org/youthnet/youthnet_youth_drugs.html

Topic: Discuss the developments in 3G market of mobile devices

Contributed by: Andy Chua

Introduction

3G is the third generation of mobile phone standard and technology, superseding 2G. 3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include video calls and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment.
3g is actually made up of UMTS(Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) and UMTS includes:

HSPA(High Speed Packet Access)
-Is a collection of mobile telephoney protocols that extend and improve the performance of the existing UMTS protocols.

UMTS-TDD
-Is a mobile data network standard built upon the UMTS 3g mobile phone standard.
-Provide internet connection with WiMAX(Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) which is a telecommunication technology at provideing wireless data transfer.

Summary of the resource

Today, 3G phone are becoming more and more popluar in the market. Mobile phone have become a need whereby in the past it was just something that people would want rather than needs. 3G device provides video calls faster surfting of the net via the 3G networks. Using video calls it allows both party to understand more than just word as picture speaks a thousand words. But why does 3g market suddenly comes into the market, this is because nowadays 3G phones comes in a alot of function such as wi-fi, GPS, and 3G which is the most popular factor of 3g phone. The above 3 function are very popular in the market whereby wi-fi enables user to connect to the internet whenever there is an internet access point, GPS that enables users to get their current location via the internet and lastly 3G that allows user to make video calls and connect to the internet if there is no wireless access. Now with Wi-fi in their mobile devices users are using e-mails more than SMS as e-mail are free. Next is Instant Messaging. Mobile devices are installed with instant messaging software that make used of the 3G Internet speed, it allows user to keep users connected to their friends and enables them to chat. User are able to connect using wi-fi or 3G internet connection.

The resource I used provides me with alot of resource such as 3G news, reviews on 3G phones, company that deal with 3G phones and a forum. I believe the team behind the website have put in all of effort into building this website till its today size. They have contribute alot to us consumers on what are the latest news on the 3G market. They have their website resources updated regularly without charging user. The website provides advertising service for company.

For the 3G news section, It provides user like me the latest update on what is going on in the industry. The section is dived into few section. There are latest news section whereby all the news from different section is being combined next, Phone News is where all the latest phone are stored and their release information. There is a ProZone section, is where very techinal detail is.For the 3G reviews section, there are alot of reviews categorize in accordance with the brand of phones. When click on one phone reviews, it will navigate us to the review page where every details of the phone are displayed. The details are categorize into several categories, for example, such as "style and handling summary", "user-friendliness summary", "feature set summary", "performance summary", "battery power summary". Lastly, another feature of the review is that it provides the scoring summary for each of the categories that are mentioned above.

For the companies that deal with 3G phones, we are able to glance at all the phone with many information associated. Information like colors varieties of the phone, the accessories of the phones and the location whereby we could find these phones. For this, i think it is very convenient for the people that would wish to buy phone as can surf this site and understand the functions or colors of a particular phone they would want and shall proceed to any shop located in the list. Shoppers could also make a phone call with the hotline given by this site. Lastly, is the forum. The forum is actually similar to other forum whereby they can allow readers to read or even post questions on the aspects of 3G areas.

For me, I think that 3G phones now are very important and it is a must to have a 3G phone. With the help of 3G phone, now we can easily video conference our friends and families. I believe in the near future, there would be no more 2G phone and 3G phone would be enhanced with more and more unique features.

Evaluation of the resource

To me, i feel that this resource is very useful and good and i describe it as an one-stop 3G centre. The purpose of the website is to provide us with all 3G information and the latest news and trends of 3G. Also, just within the website there is a forum whereby if we have any queries, we could just post questions to query about it. This website is reliable as it has cited their sources and therefore it would not have any biasness when it comes to the content of the website,

To conclude, the website provides me a very detailed information that i have wanted. The research times that i took was short as this website has already provides an one-stop service including the forum. Thus, it increases the effectiveness of the website and the efficiency of the users in doing his/her work.

Source:

N.A. (1999). "3G Phones, 3G Mobiles, News, 3G Reviews, Forum, 3G Store, Games, 3G Newsletter, and more" Retrieved May 2, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.3g.co.uk/

Topic: Discuss the impact of computer crimes on businesses

Contributed by: Ye Leng

Introduction to computer crimes

Computer crimes can be known as cyber crime, hi-tech crime, e-crime or electronic crime. As technology kept improving through out the years, the number of cyber crime also increase through out the years. Cyber crime is also a major issue these days in the world as many people are hacking into the computer systems.

Most of the time, users of the computers will not know that there are cyber crimes happening to them until the computers are infected. Once infected, damages can range from simple damages like cannot double-clicking of files to more serious damages like data lose or important data had be stolen.

Example of computer crimes:

• Phishing
• Malware/Malicious Code
• Denial-Of-Service Attack
• Hacking
• Computing Virus
• Fraud and Identity Theft
• Virtual Crime

Summary of the resource

As organizations adopt new technologies to move their businesses forward, so criminals also find ways to use and abuse the same technologies for their own means. National Hi-Tech Crime Unit was set up in 2001 to help combat the crimes within or impacting UK. 83% of the UK businesses had experienced hi-tech crimes in the preceding 12 months of 2004 when a survey was conducted. Businesses felt that they were most at risk from several sources of hi-tech crime, ranging from virus attacks to financial fraud. Some of these attacks and fraud are:

1) Virus attacks

• Alter the operation of a computer system without the knowledge or consent of the user.
• Are self executing, often activating when a particular associated program is used.
• Are self replicating, copying themselves to other program and computers across a network, or via email.
• Damage caused can range from jamming resources, to deleting files and program.

2) Unauthorized Access

• Internal users may try to gain unauthorized access to applications or information, while external hackers will access your system for a variety of reasons.

3) Misuse of Computer Systems

• Committed in whole or in part by employees.
• Results in loss of productivity and an increased risk of legal action for the company for any illegal activities carried out by employees using company computer systems.

4) Fraud and Theft

• Phishing (false emails sent to recipients that are often look like communications from banks or similar organizations, requiring recipients to reply with data such as account numbers).

5) Data Corruption and System Failure

• Attacks to companies through the internet can bring failures by flooding the system with data to prevent it from working.
• Many organizations do not have sufficient backup and recovery controls

A code practice has been developed for public sector and multinational organizations to secure the systems. It is not extend to smaller organizations so they have to develop their own security procedures. Every company will need to take responsibility to secure their system and to add security tools to minimize the crime risks.

For most companies, internet access is a basic business requirement as it has improved efficiency and improved customer services. But these benefits come with the negative side of increasing system exposure to computer crimes. Computer crimes can be minimized by combining the right security policies, security risks and user training. Organizations are being created to help businesses to prevent computer crimes.

Conclusion

I felt that even though computer crimes are hard to prevent, each individual in the company needs to play his/her own part in preventing computer crimes. They need to understand computer crimes in order to know what attacks the computers are having. Companies can also install anti-virus software to the computers to prevent computer crimes.

Evaluation of the website

This post of the website talks about the impact of computer crimes on businesses in UK. Even though the survey is taken in UK, the computer crimes stated in the post also happened to businesses all over the world. Therefore, I think the information in the post is quite useful and further more, it is related to the topic that I am doing. Further more, I felt that the post in the website is quite truthful as when they had use survey, the organization clearly stated in the post that they had conducted a survey and they also gave statistic of the survey.

The information of the post in the website is stated clearly whereby it is readable for the readers. The words are clearly shown and understandable. There are survey done to back up the information given. Therefore, this website proved accurancy. Overall, I think that this website is a good reference.

Resource used

itwales. (2004, December 13). “Computers and crime - what are the risks to your business?.” Retrieved May 19, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.itwales.com/998574.htm.


Topic: Discuss the impact of podcasts on Business

Contributed by: Wei Mei

Introduction to podcast

A podcast is a series of digital-media fileswhich are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on
portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated. Nowadays, podcasting is getting popular especially for business purposes. Therefore, there will be advantages and disadvantages of using podcast on business.

Advantages of podcast:
1. Building of Brand;
2. Industry News and Insights;
3. Customer Loyalty;
4. Public Relations;
5. Increased market messaging reach;
6. Distribution of company news.
7. Convenience for employees and customers

Organizations can use podcasting for employees as well as their customers. Employees can be offered training courses via podcasts. This offers convenience for employees, as they are not forced to attend specific courses at set times and locations. It can also reduce company overheads, as the cost of training is the production of one podcast, rather than the hosting and organization of many training sessions.

Disadvantage of podcast
Downloaded podcasts are just audio and video, which can create problems. It can be difficult for subscribers to identify an exact phrase or point of reference within a podcast, if they wish to refer back. Transcripts can be obtained for podcasts but these are often very expensive.


Summary of the resource

Podcasting is being introduced into academia as an e-learning tool and businesses are already seeing the potential to their organizations. An evaluation of the technology is offered to the reader, including basic information such as how to publish and subscribe to podcasts as well as a look into the current and future uses of this emerging technology.

Podcasts are intended for people immersed in a fast moving industry. It targets people that are always looking for a way to get a leg up on their competition. In addition, questions from the prospects were extremely targeted and they had budgets to play with.

Some of the impacts of using podcasting on business are:

1. Did the podcast explain the company’s product the way they would want it explained?
It does not fully explain correctly as the mention of the pricing was a little off and process for getting up and running was the old process. However, the podcast segment that explained the product was extremely positive. They even mentioned the name of the sales representative to call (based on the customer’s positive experience with him).

2. Did the podcast generate revenue for the company?
Yes, the business landed sales from the podcast leads. The sales cycle was also much quicker which also helps the company to save the company’s money. The conversion rate of the podcast leads was 30% higher than someone coming from natural search, and 40% higher than someone coming from paid search.


Conclusion
Despite of the disadvantages of podcast, podcast has increased its popularity in the business organizations. This shows that more organizations are getting to know more about podcasting and realize the benefits using podcast. From the research that I have found, most of the information states more of the benefits of using podcast than the disadvantages of using podcast. I think that the organizations which have not try using podcast before, can try it since the reviews are good.

Evaluation of the resource

This website is an organization's blog that talks about a simple internet marketing case study on the impact of podcast on business. Although it is only a case study, I think that it is quite useful and related to my research topic. Moreover, the people giving comment to the case study also agreed with what the author writes about the impact of podcast on business. The information and words used are also clearly stated in the website so that it is readable for the readers.

However, I think that it is not comprehensive enough as it is only a case study about a conversation between the CEO of the company “G-Squared Interactive LLC” and one of the business owner from another company.Moreover, it does not fully cover the topic on the impact of podcasts on business as the site contains other information of podcasts.

Resource used

Gabe, G.(2007, February 19). “Can Podcast Marketing Impact Your Business? -- A Simple Internet Marketing Case Study”. Retrieved May 8, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.hmtweb.com/blog/2007/02/can-podcast-marketing-impact-your.html

Reference

Matthews, K.(2006). "Research Into Podcasting Technology Including Current And Possible Future Uses". Retrieved May 9, 2008 from World Wide Web:http://mms.ecs.soton.ac.uk/2007/papers/32.pdf

Topic: Discuss the impact of online gaming on youths

Contributed by: Samson Yong

Overview

Computer gaming has become a very wide entertainment market and leisure activity of recent youth, where many critics debate that it has both positive and negative impact of human psychology and health. The discussion online gaming on youth have such diverse perspective that it is consider being stated as one's freedom to do what they want with their live.
Some of the argument that the website consist of

• Negative impact of online gaming
• Positive impact of online gaming
• Multi-player game causes greater negative consequences
• Human psychology of new aspect
• Computer gaming abuse

Summary of the resource
In everything we do, we should know our limits and moderate whatever we do, to take care of our self. Being criticize by main the older age group of adult that playing computer games, not being productive and all, or skipping school, lunch and even sleep for some has sure come about the opposing party of online gaming but it is also said when these gaming grow old and become the old age group, they will find it ok and normal. It’s a psychological mindset of something new and not widely accepted by traditional thinkers. It is also said that socially integrated multiplayer games create greater negative consequences (decreased health, well-being, sleep, socialization and academic work) but also garner far greater positive results (greater enjoyment in playing, increased interest in continuing play and a rise in the acquisition of new friendships) than do single-player games. Studies have also reported decreased health and sleep and interference with real-life socializing and academic work. In contrast to these costs, participants experienced benefits, most notably by those taking part in online multiplayer game play. Online multiplayer gamers enjoyed their play far more than those assigned to more traditional game types, creating new friendships in their online environments.


Conclusion
being in today’s environment I think as a gamer myself that it is ok to play games if only you know how to balance your play time with study time; it’s like an addiction to gambling, smoking or even work, it’s not the game that spoils the human psychology / health etc , it’s the people who used it. There’s nothing wrong with all these “bad habits” but if gives us insight of just who we really are and what we like to do, and yes online gaming might encourage players to skip school, skip lunch etc. but personally beauty makes us go on diet and is also widely acceptable why not gaming. It’s only a matter of time where all those young gamers grow old and empower the world up like in one of the report they shown and human as an intelligent specie would and should come to wake up and know what they want to do. The balance of the world itself and all. The contrast of bad for good and vice versa, after of much discussion, I can conclude that yes gaming encourages more negative side of life but when one who is wise could actually used it to learn many things since it’s not only interacting with you but globally.


Evaluation of the resource
The resource and links to the source itself, gives many wide aspect of the topic I’m researching on and has proven me useful to a wider understanding of the impacts of gaming both negatively and positively. With scientific research and collaboration with other research group on related studies, they have also dedicated themselves to support in research fields like technology, science and medicine. ScienceDaily offers links to major science media and other sources of science news on the Internet, as well as a collection of thousands of interesting science-related sites (courtesy of the open-source Open Directory Project) aimed at helping web surfers in their online explorations. Readers can also browse through our online encyclopedia (courtesy of the open-source Wikipedia project) to find in-depth science, health, environment, and technology articles on various topics. And readers can subscribe to free weekly e-mail bulletins that summarize the top science news stories of the past week.
For universities and other research institutions, ScienceDaily provides free posting of news releases.


Resource used

ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2007). “Online Multiplater Video games creates greater negative consequences”. Retrieved May 24, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071019174410.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 1999). “Miami Study Investigates Physiological Effect Of Video Games On Children”. Retrieved May 24, 2008 from World Wide Web: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/11/991101072132.htm
Phillip Alex Haddox (June 10, 2001). “The Impact of Online Gaming Communities “.
Retrieved May 3, 2008 from World Wide Web:
http://www.cheatsearch.com/reviews/onlinecommunities.html