Monday, November 25, 2013

The Internet tool kit

Week 6

The internet started as a place for people to read documents and page of information. However, in recent times, the Internet has become something more than a store of documents. There are many tools that have been developed that has helped the Internet evolved into something that is far more powerful than what it originally was. Of course, these tools did not make the Internet better, rather it tapped into the potential of the Internet and allow everyday users to make use of that potential.

One organisation that really explore the potential of the Internet is Google. Started as a simple search engine company, Google has more than 2 million applicants for jobs per year now. So what did google do exactly. Well, simply put it, google has harvest the potential of the internet and created many different applications that use the power that the internet provides. There is the search engine that it started out with, the email client known as Gmail and other more sophisticated softwares that aids users in their daily life.

Google drive 
This is a cloud application that allows users to upload documents into its servers and access it from anywhere. As long as they have an internet connection and can access their drive account.

Google docs 
This works with google drive to allow users to create documents online and invite people to edit them at the same time. These documents are stored in the cloud and can be accessed any time as long as the person has an active internet connection.

Google calendar
Like many other calendar applications or software, this calendar lets users save important events and set reminders and so forth. But this calendar can be access anywhere and sync with a lot of native calendar applications. Therefore, it makes it easier for user to gain access to their calendar and have one that is up to date on all their devices without having to manually key in on every single devices. One individual can have more than one calendar for different purposes such as personal, work or even just to keep track of their kids or family activities. Calendars are colour coded and online calendars such as holiday calendars can be added to ones account through subscription. Also another feature of the calendar is that you can share the calendars you created with other people. For example, as part of your work, you create a calendar that shows all upcoming office events and meetings. You can share this calendar with everyone and they will be able to keep up to date with all the happenings.

Google contacts 
Unlike by gone years where we saved all our contacts onto SIM cards when we change phone, now we can have them all in one place and access it anywhere. Google contacts allows users to store contacts of other individuals into the cloud and sync it with the phone books of any devices as long as it can access the internet and log into google.

Google group 
This is like creating a place where people can join and share information or documents and post comments and replies to posts by other individuals in the group.

These are just some examples of the applications that google offers that taps into the infinite power of the internet. These applications are very much used in our daily lives and we do not even know how powerful it is. I personally have used every dingle one of these applications in my daily life to help make my life a little less complicated and manageable. Using google calendar has made keeping my schedule organised. I can easily view them on all my devices as long as I set the setting prior. I subscribes to calendars that display the public holidays in singapore so to keep track with what holidays is coming up. I have all my contacts saved on google so changing phones is no chore to me because I can easily log into my google account and obtain my contacts from there. I use drive and docs to collaborate with my project mates on assignments and projects and this has proved very useful because we can all edit and look at the assignment as it is being edited and comment.

This is just a small example of hour powerful the internet really is and what tools are there to harvest this power. There are many other tools other there that can enhance the usage of the internet and showcase the true potential of the internet. It is just a matter of time before people learn about them and put them to good use.


And here is a video of me playing with my sister's cat





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