The benefits and drawbacks of modern technology

When someone refers for today’s modern technology, surely he refers to the 21st century, Information Age and the Internet as the communication media of the new millennium. Of course this 17 year history of the Internet brought indirectly many significant advances in other Science and Technology fields. Without doubt Internet changed our lives for ever decisively and absolutely.

Today, just with a PC and an internet connection, without additional costs you can send instantly and receive instantly messages(emails) from the other corner of the world just not long before ago you have to await letter to get to recipient in about 7 days if not lost in transit and other so the reply to return to you. Now you can find almost any piece of info with a web browser and chat (eg.Skype), again freely using text, audio or even video.

Another area of technology bring change to us, is Mobile Communications. We are NOT away from the fact each individual, will posses a mobile phone for fun or for business, anywhere he is in the world, anytime. Today exists such services in the mobile world as talking, Small Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), or chatting with text, and also accessing the Internet from mobile phone using either wifi access point or 3G cellular internet, and hence you may browse or send email or use some other service of the Internet, anywhere and anytime. Coming is Mobile video calling.

Of course Mobile Communications is very closely related to the Internet, both networks belonging to Electronic Age Revolution of computers in general. This top edge of technology brings us many benefits as well as drawbacks too.

Benefits include fast and more accurate communications and business. Now for example in case of danger eg car accident away from the town, you can use your mobile to call the emergency number immediately and authorities to find automatically using cellular network services, your position on the map you call from, so help come accurately and immediately.

Internet makes us more Socialable people in all steps of life, Social Internet Networks are on rise these days. Now our time is better spent, and use efficiently. Rather use snail mail now we are using email, rather use standard telephone network call now we are using chatting via text, audio, video and file transfer. Almost now any info can get accessed via a web browser using an Internet search engine.

Chatting etc services brings fun, work and education too. Leaning online is a consequence of all these. Now universities provide part or full degrees online. This use of internet technology tools and cost is only from university fees. Also language learning can be taken with technology and resources of the Internet. All these are a click away.

As of security now when you are away, you can watch your office or home via security cameras through the internet. Also when you plan a trip domestic or international, on the Internet you can plan and book everything for it. Also, your Bank can accessed via internet banking with a web browser, so as access accounts, transfer money, order replacements etc.

On the other hand beyond these benefits, Internet Age brings and some subtle drawbacks.

Now when you are online your Internet PC without even know it can get compromised by bad guys, that can stole anything from company data to credit card numbers covering their tracks. The attacks can be done on Internet Servers as well, making services unavailable, may be in emergency sometimes. Banks are on instant danger for example, a bad guy may change account data and more.

Of course many anti-criminal tools exist like anti-virus tools, anti-malware, anti-spyware and so on, that must be considered by any Internet user.

Of course as internet makes us smarter, so does smarter the street thieves too. So we must be careful in using all of our possessions, and especially credit cards in front of cameras in all steps of life. Thieves continue to discover new ways, to draw your attention, and so on and so forth.

Finally I think new technology has brought many advantages and drawbacks. People behind the internet and technology think well before they create it, so as to advance our lives and NOT to degrade it. So in my opinion I believe, modern technology has brought more goods to us, rather than drawbacks. In case of drawbacks exist always an anti solution. Technology is going to advance, but as we proceed this is going more slowly, and it will stay good for us, in all its way.

Learn A New Language – via Internet

Today is the best time for new Language, learners. Of course, I mean today’s Internet technology. Learning, of course, requires from you to make a big effort for it. Of course, if you know 2-3 languages learning another must be easier, also Languages are categorized by difficulty
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers.
I write this as a Russian learner, for my blog. I choose Russian as the language has/use 20% of Greek and English words (eg robot=робот=ροπότ). Also Russian is an important language for science and technology. According to a recent study, the number of publications in the sciences is highest for English, with Russian second (link).

The major teaching communication (with distance teacher) tool I use is the free Skype Internet messager [www.skype.com], of course, you may use similar free chat/messager tools like GoogleTalk, MSN, …etc but you must use an identical tool with a teacher. With Skype, you may have teacher-to-student or, teacher to students (group talk), free voice/text/video chat, or even screen sharing (Skype 5). With Skype, you may also send files to your talking partner… Email client programs also are used widely for communication and homework submission.

You can find a teacher easily online using special websites like
http://language-school-teachers.com
 and http://skype-language.com/. Here you register for free as a teacher or as a student saying the languages you speak and the current interested language to learn. Teachers then look for you, or you(as a student) may search/browse for teachers by the language they teach, the country they are located in, and so on. If you want group lessons which I do not like (by one-to-one talking you gain more and the teacher has to do only with you, although the cost is bigger in this case, not as in a group which the cost is shared) you may find friends locally or classmates or friends online (Facebook,…etc) to learn with you.

Surely exist online websites offering ready online classes with students from around the world, not having to set up the environment…
www.mgu-russian.com/programms/online-russian-course/en
www.primelanguageservices.com
(these also offer one-to-one Lessons).
Of course, exist other languages identical Sites, just search for “Skype online French lessons” or search the language-school-teachers.com or a similar site.

Considering the vast number of sites available today, there is more than enough good information to learn/read about grammar, most common words/verbs, starter points in a language,…etc, in text, voice, or video sometimes, and also quizzes, exercises to practice on, all is free. Also, you may find online, some complete ebooks in PDF format, I found 7 in “Learn Russian” (in English) but not all at the beginning level. Ebooks are paperbacks in electronic format.

As for real paperback books, there are teach-yourself materials or teacher assistance materials for any language online, just search your online bookstore or Google eg. “teach yourself Russian books”, or “Learn French books”. You may also find story books (eg novels or short stories) in your target language or search for books in a bookstore in that country language is spoken eg in a Russian bookstore if you look for Russian books, where also you may find all kinds of books, from science to technology to social science and so on. If you have difficulty with the language you may try Google Translate to translate the whole page to eg Russian->English, also if you click a link next page is translated automatically. You may also request a friend or teacher searching for a book for you or, even send you some books… The latter may be required for your language studies.

Online also you will find free access to online live or demand, radio or TV station programs, just search eg “Russian online radio stations”, or any other language. Of course, you must pass the beginner level for this. There are also online newspapers and magazines in any field in your target language, just always search eg. “Russian newspapers”. Sometimes preferred to find a website with a list of all newspapers by country like
www.world-newspapers.com. The same applies to magazines/journals although they may be listed together along with newspapers sometimes. Another Listing is https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/complete-index-of-newspapers-across-the-globe/

As you know on the Internet you can find almost anything, so here are some Learn a Language Tips guides
www.wikihow.com/Learn-Any-Language
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com (there’s and multi-language forum too here)

In the end, if you have questions and need answers but you do not know where to get them, you may post your question in a forum of your target language, just search Google “Russian language forum” register/confirm-Your-Email, and post it to the appropriate category. Just remember to choose “email me upon reply” or you may have to return to forum/myPosts to check for a reply manually.

Other Sites:
www.languageguide.org Have categories of similar items/icons with icon and spelling/pronunciation (voice)
http://imtranslator.com
Text-to-speech voice in 10 languages, virtual keyboards in many more languages, dictionaries, spell Checker, and some others
www.forvo.com All the words in the world pronounced
http://translate.google.com/#ru|en| Translation Gadget with pronunciation (voice)
http://russianpodcast.eu

Please visit my blog to read this online, or browse through the listed resources, as I say before for my target language: Russian.

LSE, Polis, Paphos.
http://leonidassavvides.com/torfl/ Russian resources.
http://leonidassavvides.com/blog/ My blog.

P.S. If you think the languages of Internet Users, see
www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

This is my blog for my web dev biz… my Office & Home Office!

photoThis blog is my first blog for my web development business…
 
http://www.l-web-dev.net –  Polis  –  Cyprus
Mob.:+357-99-300-548

Skype: lseona [100% online] or lselwd

 In my work flow, I use Adobe Products, I also use NetBeans, Eclipse, Notepad++, Xcode, … I use and online tools like Adobe Kuler, Moq-ups, …
 
 I am: Web Site Designer 20%, Web Site Developer 50%, Mobile Developer 30%.
 
 
 Tools/Time
  1. Adobe DW cs6.  50%
  2. Adobe FW, AI & PS cs6. 15%
  3. Eclipse 20%
  4. Netbeans 5%
  5. Others 10% (including online tools)