Wolfram Alpha: Super computer

Wolfram Alpha

What was once referred to as the double-edged sword of humanity, technology is slowly starting to win over the crowd that believed it will only bring harm in the end. One group in particular that has been wooed by the recent advances in technology is the student body. There have always been devices and tools such as calculators and word processors to help students with their studies, but there has never been a program that will not only aid you, but complete the problem for you and give you a visual of how it reached that answer. This futuristic-sounding marvel is now a reality thanks to “Wolfram Alpha”.  

Wolfram Alpha is an online computational knowledge engine; it is an online server that answers fact based question in real time. The Wolfram Alpha super computer was invented by the Wolfram Research Company. Wolfram Research is a private company founded by Stephen Wolfram, the scientist responsible for a majority of the development of the mathematical link in excel. The site was released on the 15th of May, 2009 on the same platform as Stephen Wolfram’s Mathematica, a computer software launched over twenty years ago that was capable of doing tremendous amounts of mathematical equations. The Mathematica program has evolved over the years and is now more powerful than ever. Stephen Wolfram stated that mathematica is written in over 15 million lines of code and runs on more than 10,000 processing units. This makes the mathematica program one of the major components of the Wolfram Alpha knowledge system. In the Wolfram website, the overview of Mathematica says “The Automation is the key to productive computing. Unlike other systems, Mathematica applies intelligent automation in every part of the system, from algorithm selection to plot layout and user interface design. You get reliable, high-quality results without needing algorithm expertise—and even if you're an expert, you get results faster.”  

Aside from the numerical logistics, the website is linked to the United States Geological Survey, CIA's World Fact book, and even Publications from Universities.  As stated on the CIA’s website, the CIA World Factbook started as a “biannual federal report on international sections of Land, Water, People, Government, Economy, Communications, and Defense Forces.” Now The CIA World Fact book is a continually updating, government funded, accurate resource for all types of questions relating to the world. Wolfram Alpha’s access to resources like the CIA’s Fact Book insures accurate information is provided and helps filter out false information from unreliable sources.

           Thanks to the supercomputer powering the website, it is capable of answering numerical equations such as algebra, statistics, chemical equations and even physics problems. This means you could enter an algebraic equation into the Wolfram search bar and the website would solve the problem step by step and would walk you through even the most complex equations you can hurl at it.                                                                                  

 

            

 

 Wolfram Alpha will solve most math related problems using its own mathematical knowledge. Wolfram Alpha can also be used as a converter for many different forms of measurement. What's neat about the converter is that it can do several steps in one. For example, in chemistry, to convert from grams to number of atoms you have to first convert the grams to moles, and then convert the moles to number of atoms, while on Wolfram Alpha you can simply type in 12 grams of Silicone to number of atoms and Wolfram Alpha will respond with the number of Atoms in 12 grams of Silicone. These types of conversions can be very time consuming and because of the amount of steps, are easy to make mistakes on. So, by using Wolfram Alpha you not only save time but you can trust the answers are correct. You can do the same for balancing chemical equations or even a physics problem you need help with.  So, let’s break down the main features of the Wolfram system; it started as an all in one calculator, but now it’s also an encyclopedia, unit converter, and even a fact finder. With almost any homework help you would need as a student, Wolfram can help you do it. Wolfram Alpha is different from a search engine because while Google will give you the links that might contain what you’re looking for, Wolfram Alpha will spit out the answer - Wolfram gives data instead of links. With that in mind, questions must be much more specific in order for Wolfram Alpha to process it. Another amazing feature that involves Wolfram Alpha with Web 2.0 is that once you have an answer you can share it with friends via e-mail or social networking sites, which can be helpful during group projects.

Wolfram Alpha is quickly becoming the weapon of choice for students worldwide when it comes to their arsenal of academic aids. The supercomputer powering the website is not the only thing that makes this website leap above the rest. A very overlooked feature that acts as the maestro for this orchestra of innovation is its simplistic layout that is one hundred percent user friendly and allows incredibly easy access to all of the site’s features. Much like Google, a goal for Wolfram Alpha is to keep the site clutter free and easy to use. The problem with many websites today is that they try too hard to stuff as much content as they can in one page, making it very hard to navigate. This can be especially true to the older generations who are not as tech-savvy and take longer to navigate through websites. Along with it’s seamless design that allows for quick and easy navigation, its fast processing speed reduces time spent on tedious questions and gets you answers quick when you need them, without the hassle of waiting for your answers. Another awesome feature Wolfram has added is the ability to share the answer derived with friends. And of course, the most raved about feature of Wolfram Alpha is that it not only gives you the correct answer, but it will show you how to do each problem step by step. This is an amazing feature that is incredibly hard to find, especially for upper level courses. Lastly, all this power is available at your fingertips with the recent addition of the mobile app. You can now solve problems on the go with the use of your smart phone. This feature was welcomed with open arms as it was given a five star rating on the Apple App Store.

    Now, as far as the cons go, while they are limited they do still exist and should be addressed. One of the main concerns of programs like Wolfram Alpha is that they can be used to speed through homework without learning anything. While this is a possibility it really can't be blamed on the program, much like a calculator can't be blamed for kids being lazy with their multiplication. While this is conceivable, the problem would lay on the ethics of the user, rather than on the structure of the program. Wolfram Alpha is a powerful resource and is built around the idea of readily accessible information; how it’s used depends on the user. It has long been debated that sites such as Wolfram Alpha will hurt a student’s academic performance overtime as they become dependent on a computer to complete all their homework for them. The main idea behind daily homework is to learn through repetition so one will be familiar with the content on the day of the exam. This means that come exam day, the student will not be prepared for his or her exam. Again, this is a matter of ethics and is in the hands of the user, not the program itself.

Overall, the pros heavily outweigh the cons for Wolfram Alpha. The bottom

line is that this website does what it was created for - helping with almost any form of school work ranging from beginner algebra to graduate level chemistry. Wolfram did an amazing job with the design of the website as you do not have to spend hours sifting through link after link trying to find an answer that is similar to what you are looking for, as the high powered search engine will find you the right answer immediately. On top of its user friendly interface, Wolfram Alpha is a very reliable source of information since its data goes through a certification check from experts in the field the data pertains to. The main grudge teachers have over the internet these days is the swamp of unreliable information out there that students can’t seem to keep out of. That is no longer a point of concern for those who use Wolfram Alpha as their source of information. In conclusion, Wolfram Alpha proves to be the most efficient and reliable computing software program available to students. Wolfram Alpha is an incredible display of modern software engineering that will only get better as the computer age continues to evolve. If used responsibly, Wolfram Alpha can be a game changer for students looking to bring their academics to the next level.

  Works Cited

"Central Intelligence Agency." The World Factbook. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.

"How the Hell Does Wolfram Alpha Work?" TechRadar. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

"Stephen Wolfram: The Background and Vision of Mathematica." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Oct.     

2011. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

"What Is Mathematica?" Wolfram Mathematica: Technical Computing Software—Taking You from Idea to Solution. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

Reddit: The Front Page of the Internet

Reddit: The Front Page of the Internet

By: Matthew Gilbert, Josh Fellman, Avery Carter

            Reddit was created by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. The name comes from "read" and "edit" or "read" and "it". In 2006, Reddit merged with Infogami, another company made by Aaron Swartz. In 2008, after some changing in owners, it became an open source project, allowing users to have access to the websites code. The website had always been controlled by a third party until 2011, when it became operationally independent. Reddit is a website for social news and entertainment where people can register or be guests and submit information or just read posts made by other users. These users are known as Redditors. According to Google, as of this year, the main users of Reddit are male and are of the ages 25-36. Also, according to Pewinternet.org, 6% of all adult Internet users use Reddit.

            The website contains over 5,400 subreddits to date. These subreddits are categories for the information to be categorized in an organized manner. For example, if one wanted to post about their cat, one would go to the subreddit, "cats", and if someone wanted to learn about world news, one would go to the subreddit, "worldnews." These subreddits cover almost anything someone can imagine and if a user thinks of something that isn't currently a subreddit, he can easily just create one. Users can also subscribe to subreddits of their choice. Its slogan is "The front page of the internet" and it is a very true statement because you can find anything and everything on Reddit.

            Users who register are given a lot more flexibility when browsing the website. They are also given a lot more opportunities to have fun and to have a more engaging experience. Other than having the ability to post and comment, they are also given access to creating subreddits. When a Redditor posts or comments, other users can upvote them or downvote them (like or dislike), resulting in "link karma" and "comment karma". These points accumulate and appear on their user profile, which leads to judging of Redditors skill and importance on the website. As well as karma, there are many other ways of showing importance on the website. This is quite helpful for maybe someone who doesn’t have time for the picture to load. There are novelty accounts, accounts that are dedicated to one consistent task. For example, there are many users called "bots" who are users that provide useful information for viewers. One of these bots maybe will describe what a meme that someone posts says. Another may be called "Let_Me_Draw_That_For_You" and it maybe will draw something that someone describes and then will post a picture of it. These novelty accounts are usually very well known around the Reddit community.

            The website is formatted in something called a bulletin board system. If you go to the website, you will be on the Front Page. The Front Page shows you the 23 default subreddits of the year if you are an unregistered user. If you decide to register, you have the ability to change the default look of the website. When someone posts or comments, responses form a tree-like expansion to effectively have an engaging visual design. These default subreddits have a huge range of variety: educational, entertainment, discussion, and other. On this Front Page, users will see what is "hot" out of all of the default subreddits. Something is "hot" when a lot of other users have upvoted or liked something that someone has posted. On every subreddit, there are options at the top to choose from that will change the way that you are viewing what information is visible. These are: hot, new, rising, controversial, top, gilded, and wiki. Most of these are self-explanatory, new being the newest posts, rising, being posts that are getting more attention, and top being the most liked. Then there is the gilded choice. The gilded choice allows the viewer to see all the posts that received Reddit Gold.

            Since Reddit is not really a website made for making the creators money, Reddit Gold was created. Gold is something that a user can buy for another user if they believe he is deserving of this gold. If someone receives gold, they are given extra features. The giving of gold is quite frequent as it gives Reddit the ability to keep their servers running. It is $3.99 for a month of Reddit Gold. There are also many ads throughout the website that users will happen to come across.

            Reddit has also become a social network. Redditors can add other users to their friend list, giving them access to their friend's posts and comments. Reddit allows people and gives them the ability to contact others for meet-ups or for business-related activities. It has become a combination of so many different other kinds of websites. Registered Users even have their own "cake day", which is basically a Redditor's remembrance of the day in which they joined the website. They receive a little piece of paper appear next to their name for the day. It has also become a place for celebrities and Redditors to interact with each other. These people include President Barack Obama, former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Morgan Freeman, Al Gore, and many others.

            One of the top 150 visited sites in the world, Reddit has expanded to become very modifiable. If you decide you want to view Reddit on your cell phone, there are many Reddit mobile apps. Whether you are viewing Reddit on the computer, phone, or other internet-accessible device, you have access to Reddit extensions based on what internet browser you are using. These include the actual Reddit Enhancement Suite, an extension that provides Redditors with many other extensions made for Reddit-like websites like HoverZoom, which allows you to hover over a link of a picture and it will show you it rather than you having to click on the link to view the picture, and Infinite Scrolling, which allows you to keep scrolling rather than you having to keep hitting next page. One can download these separately or just download the whole Reddit Enhancement Suite. Reddit can be an enjoyable site with these enhancements, but it also can become a distraction.

            So much time spent browsing reddit, most of the time is well spent, but sometimes there is wasted time. Although there is many strengths upon the website, there is also some weaknesses. Let’s talk about the strengths first. All throughout Reddit you have complete freedom to share your opinions, views, thoughts, whatever you want to express. Now this might seem like a user can post annoying comments or rude remarks, however there is posting rules. These rules vary upon each subreddits depending on the admin’s rulebooks which are posted on the side of the subreddits which are very easily readable. This makes a line which a user cannot cross, or else there comment will be deleted. For example, if a user posts a rude statement that has nothing to do with the information posted in the subreddits, their comment will be deleted so it won’t be viewed for the public. Another way for the comments or posts on subreddits to be viewed by the public are a voting criteria called upvotes and downvotes. When a comment or a post has numerous upvotes, their post will usually end up on the front page and their comment will end up on the top of the comment section. That way all the content posted on reddit will be reviewed by users and if it is popular and liked it will be shared on the frontpage to the whole public to see. Reddit is very easy to modify and personalize to your taste because there is a variety of subreddits. Best of all, the whole website is free to use and is constantly being updated by users across the world.

            Time to look at the weaknesses, even though there aren’t many weaknesses about the site. One of the most aggravating problems with the internet is that you can say whatever you want and others don’t know if it is a lie or not. This not only applies to Reddit but every other social network because it’s all online where you can create a whole new life if you wanted to. Therefore, you don’t exactly know if a comment is totally true or not, but most of the time if a comment is debatable there will be some sort of proof to go along with the information, so it’s not always a lie. Reposts on Reddit are another problem. Again, this applies to every other social media site but it is still annoying to see the same post again and again. However, this is where the voting comes in handy because if there is a repost it usually gets down voted so it’s not shared to the Front Page. As mentioned before, there is an abundant amount of subreddits, some are good and some aren’t so good, so it just depends on your opinion and if you choose to follow the subreddits or not.

            The strengths truly seem to outweigh the weaknesses, making Reddit a very enjoyable site. It all depends on your personalization of the site because you can make it however you want; an educational site, an entertainment site, etc. The major aspect of Reddit is the modification you have and that’s what makes the site pleasurable. Probably the most appealing thing about Reddit is just the fact that there is updated news by the second. Everyday users go to Reddit for their daily dose of world news, funny things, or just some way to kill time on the Internet. However, during the Boston bombing this year, thousands of users went to Reddit and collaborated as a community to help the search efforts of the police. They went online and created the thread “find boston bomber” and thousands of pictures from victims at the incident were sent in. At first this seemed like a great idea to the outraged citizens of Boston, but it soon turned foul. Once someone was identified, the Reddit community had such a group mentality about it that they ousted an innocent Brown University student and harassed his family. Luckily no one was hurt, but it could have gotten worse. The bad thing about having a site available to the public like that is that some people take it upon themselves to claim that the information posted online is accredited and is accurate.

            One of the most popular attributes of Reddit is the use of subreddits, or categories, that Reddit uses to organize its extensive list of content. One of the most popular ones is the “Today I Learned” subreddit. People use this on a day when bored, procrastinating for learning things in school, or whenever they feel. This category has interesting or random things that most people don’t know. It can be useful to a certain extent, but the majority of using Reddit is just for fun, which explains its popularity in the online community. It has become so popular that even President Obama has used it, as previously mentioned. The presidential candidate turned to Reddit in the final hours of the 2012 election urging young people to vote and encourage their friends to do so as well. Having a bad day? Reddit come to the rescue with the "Aww" subreddit, feeding piles of cute animal pictures into your day just when you needed a cheering up. Overall the coolest thing about Reddit is its versatility in anyone’s online life, being the “one-stop-shop” for endless entertainment.

Overall, Reddit has been created and modified to allow the best experience for the public. No matter who you are or what you are looking for, Reddit is the place to be. It has become a combination of all the great characteristics and content of other websites put all together into one site. Reddit has truly become the front page of the internet.

Tumblr Rhett and Laura Evaluation

Rhett Dunn-Sperling & Laura Myers

Hill

ENG 1O1

4 November 2013

Tumblr Evaluation

        In college, most students find themselves looking for a way to escape the piles of homework they have and the stress that comes with it. A website that is quintessential for this is Tumblr. Tumblr is a social blogging platform that allows users to upload pictures, videos, follow other users, and engage in communities without some of the annoying constraints found on other social media websites, such as Twitter or Facebook. Tumblr has been growing rapidly over the years and is continually expanding. I know, it is yet another social media website. There is, however, one very distinct difference between Tumblr and websites like Facebook, Twitter or even Google+. Tumblr is FUN. You won’t get annoying updates from the family members that you reluctantly added on Facebook. Twitter limits your characters to 140 during a tweet, or a status update. Not enough people are even available on Google+ for the website to take off. Tumblr allows you to follow blogs you are interested in and you do not even have to follow back the people that follow you. You can post as much as you want and as many times as you please. More than 30 million users are registered on Tumblr, making it one of the more prosperous blogging sites. Tumblr is a useful website for anyone, particularly college students, who want to release some of the stress from their day or just want to explore the many blogs that it holds within its website. It’s customizable, easy-to-use, and simple.

Tumblr's goal is a simple one: to make blogging and communication easy and limitless. The massive community uses the site to share opinions, news, art and best of all, funny animal GIFs (GIF stands for graphics interchange format, or a short, 5 second video with no sound). The site expands the limits of traditional blogging by using a hash tag system similar to Twitter's, allowing users to see content from all around the world. The posts can range from being rolling on the floor laughing, to serious, to uplifting content.

The initial view when you open up the homepage is a login screen with a miscellaneous background photo or even a GIF that fellow bloggers have posted. The first priority a new user should complete when you open up the Tumblr homepage is to make an account. While it is possible for one to explore Tumblr without an account, it is easily accessible and more organized to join. All one has to do is create a username and after this step you are officially a member of the Tumblr community. After that you pick a theme for your own personal blog and you are set to explore! The homepage for users is called a “dashboard” where users can view the most recent posts from blogs that they follow. The dashboard features a live feed the user can continually refresh in order to stay current with the people you are following. The blogs that you can follow range anywhere from fashion blogs to humor blogs to sex blogs, making Tumblr very versatile. When people reblog you, someone else will reblog them too and hence there are high chances of your content getting high “notes” (number of times you have been reblogged) and going viral on Tumblr. You can even have your custom domain on Tumblr and pay to get premium themes just like you would do for your Word Press or BlogSpot blog. Tumblr is perfect for those who want to blog but don’t want to write extensive and long articles. And what is more, Tumblr can be an excellent photo blog.

Tumblr’s layout is very simple. The background is a dark blue so it doesn’t strain your eyes. When you have an account on Tumblr, your dashboard is displayed in a straight line so it’s very easy to scroll through. When you don’t have an account, posts are put into rows of 10, making it more hectic to look at. This is a tactic Tumblr employees use in order for more people to sign up to have a customizable homepage. The posts throughout Tumblr are displayed on a white background to offset with the navy, making the texts easier to read and bringing clarity to the photographs being viewed.

Within only the first few days of actively using Tumblr, the user will realize what an amazing place the site is for meeting new people who share your interests. In days you can begin to receive messages from people saying they liked your blog or even you can get curious people inquiring to know more about your personality. People are willing to share ideas on potential projects and can be very inspiring, which is another reason this site is centered on college-aged adults. People can help you think of that interesting topic you need for your English paper or maybe help with that one cumbersome math problem. Tumblr is an amazingly creative community acting as a melting pot where people can contribute with a variety of interests. It is a great way to discover the people with the same interests as you, connect with others around the world, inspire one another and share your work—regardless of your niche.

Once you begin following more creative people on Tumblr, you can be amazed at the vast amount of interaction on your posts through users liking and rebloging. Hundreds of people can like and share posts with their friends—a whole lot more than you see liking people’s photos and videos on Facebook or retweeting people’s tweets on Twitter. These people who have over 100,000 followers spend excessive amounts of time on Tumblr and take it seriously. Their blogs are usually built upon daily and any post that is added is sure to receive over 10,000 notes within the first hour.  If you put in hard work and have trendy content, it is almost effortless to become viral. Tumblr is one of the few sites that offer the possibility of exploring people’s personalized blogs from all around the world.

Another great aspect about Tumblr is that it is easy to undertake multiple blogs under one email. What makes Tumblr stand above the rest of the social networking sites is that it is so simple for any user to manage. The way that bloggers are able to create multiple accounts and manage them simultaneously from a single dropdown menu is effortless and convenient. You can potentially create numerous unique Tumblr blogs, each to represent a single interest (i.e. videos, social media, dogs, bologna sandwiches) and painlessly switch between them to add content with a touch of a button.

It is very expeditious and straightforward to update your Tumblr, which is yet another special attribute about the site. In a few clicks you can add text, photographs, quotes, links, chat, audio files, or video files. At first it can be frustrating that Tumblr separates the media into categories. However, Tumblr can be thought as less of a blogging platform and more of a place to tumble (i.e. the name “Tumblr”) together and share media with anyone who is interested. A single picture, video or quote may get more likes and reblogs than a full, traditional blog post. You can also write something on another blogging website and share the link on Tumblr for your followers to see.

It’s also beneficial that Tumblr is kept consistent throughout multiple platforms. It makes it easy for users to post without having to visit the Tumblr website from a computer. You can post from your mobile phone or device or even post directly from your email. When you sign up with Tumblr they send you an email address where you can send text, photos, quotes or MP3s and they will appear on your blog. This makes it accessible to post and view Tumblr from anywhere in the world—all that is needed is an Internet connection.

Numerous people are concerned with the design and style of their blog and Tumblr has an endless amount of beautiful templates and layouts. Of course, some of the best templates cost money, but a majority of the free ones available to all users are acceptable. There’s something about Tumblr that says, “Hey, look at me! I’m cool, I’m hip!” that Word Press, Type Pad and Blogger are unable to compete with. The three seem drab and outdated compared to Tumblr’s expressive and inviting layout.

With all the great features about Tumblr, there has to be a few downfalls. Although Tumblr is known for it’s simple blogging process and layout, innumerable people find that it can be monotonous and refuse to look further into Tumblr. The quality of the result is directly linked to the information that the blogger contributes to the website. Another is that Tumblr can be very overwhelming when you haven’t checked it over a week. There are hundreds and hundreds of blogs that can pile up and is usually impossible to view every post depending on how many bloggers you follow.
Tumblr is a great website to pass time with, whether it be solely for blogging or finding new funny photos to show your friends. It has many great features that appeal to college students, such as it is easy to operate and is available on all platforms, such as tablets, laptops, and smartphones. Tumblr's few downfalls do not retract from the overall quality of this useful and stylish website. Tumblr is available for bloggers around the world wishing to contribute their artistic opinion or any other content they desire to share.

Pandora: Made For The Broke College Student

Pandora: Made For the Broke College Student

By: Deven Del Castillo & Lauren Anderson

If you think about it, there is at least one person in the world, every second, that are listening to music. In 2010, iTunes hit 10 billion downloads; and 3 years later, you can just imagine how many downloads they have accumulated. If you combine that idea with the fact that college students ultimately want to save money, that's a lot of money to be spending on songs that you need to have. A simple solution to this dilemma of "to buy this $2 song or not" is to download it illegally, but even then, you are wasting precious napping time. The only logical solution is free music, all day, everyday. Even when you are taking a shower. This is called Pandora. By now, everyone knows of this glorious invention. A plethora of music packed into one website. Whether it be country, scremo, or opera (yes, they have opera) Pandora has it. The best part is; it's FREE! You heard that right you broke college kids; unlimited access to any song and it's completely free.

We evaluated the website Pandora based on four principles. The first one is appearance, does the appearance convey what the website is trying to get across with appropriate color schemes and fonts? Is the appearance too cluttered or too simple? Is it easy on the eyes? The second principle is the content. Does the website have all the necessary information to be successful? And if it does have the necessary information is that information easy to find and well organized? Is the information current and grammatically correct? The third principle is the functionality and usability of the website, does everything on the cite function correctly? Is it easy to understand? How quickly does the content load? Is it easy to navigate through the website to find what you want? The last principle is the appeal to an audience, is it appealing to one specific audience such as a certain age demographic? Or does it appeal to everyone? Is the appearance, content, and functionality/usability appropriate for the target audience?

So, it’s said that each color has it’s own specific “vibe”, you could say. That is, each color has a certain effect on people’s moods and emotions. Green is associated with nature and harmony, red with power, pink with love, orange increases appetite, etc. So what does color have to do with Pandora, you ask? Well, there is a method to their madness. It is said that blue is the universal favorite color, so that’s a bonus because Pandora is mainly blue. Also, the color blue has an effect that engulfs people with the feeling of serenity, clarity, intellect, and precision. Deeper shades of blue suggest a sense of elegance and formality, which is why it’s paired with fancy luxury cars. With all of this in mind, why would you NOT want to use Pandora? It’s basically saying that if you listen to Pandora with its blue home screen, you are guaranteed success and a calm state of mind. This blue color that Pandora chose to use would practically work wonders for those studious college students who are stressed out over homework. Pull up Pandora and the rich blue color sends a message of serenity and clarity throughout your mind, choose a calming music station, and now you’re suddenly in your own definition of heaven. Blue also suppresses the appetite, so now you don’t have to worry about having food be a distraction while doing that seven page research paper an hour before it’s due.

When first pulled up, Pandora has a clean, plain, and simple appearance. There is not a plethora of buttons that need to be pushed, or a strobe of neon lights blinding you. It’s simply the color blue with little white bubbles sporadically placed with thought. It draws in the audience’s eye and makes them want to stay on the site for hours on end. Although when you’re visiting a music site, staying on it for multiple hours is not that big of a challenge, you get what I mean. The simplicity is what draws and captures people’s attention.

The content of Pandora is extremely simple because the purpose of the website is to provide a free variety of music, not to drown your brain with pointless ads and other useless information. With each new song, Pandora takes it upon them to provide you with background information about the song. It typically includes the lyrics, for those of you who would like to sing along in the privacy of your own room, a small biography of the artist or group, and similar artists to help you expand your station to include all the music that you enjoy. All of the information and music is up to date, so no need to worry about getting made fun of if you spit out the wrong information about your “favorite” artist/group. If you’re into the most current, “hip” music, but can’t stand all of the advertisements that the top radio stations have, there is a playlist on Pandora called “Today’s Top Hits” and it plays everything from the newest Rihanna hit to JT’s latest album. Another great feature is that you can shuffle stations; it’s like picking your favorite stations and jumbling them together no matter the difference in genre. Instead of switching between radio stations you just pick the ones you want. For instance, you can be listening to country one minute, then switch it up and get some holiday music, and then really get crazy and play some Tupac. All this happens with one setting instead of switching between stations after every single song. All in all, the content of Pandora is very well organized and easy to navigate through. It seems to be error free and presented in a very professional manner along with current and updated information.

We initially grouped functionality and usability into one category because they are basically one, but in this portion of the evaluation we will really focus on the key details of both of them individually. Overall, Pandora functions very well and smoothly. All the links I tested took me where I needed to go and very efficiently at that. The lag time between songs wasn’t even noticeable and the information for the next song loaded quickly and properly. The only frustrations that I found with this site are the commercials and skip limits. With anything free there has to be a catch, sorry guys, and the commercials are definitely one of them. About every four to five songs there is a thirty second to two minute commercial, sometimes the commercials are directed towards a certain audience, I often got commercials about cheap college textbooks (clearly directed towards college students), cars, and at this time of the year especially Holiday shopping deals. It’s understandable that Pandora would have to put in ads because how else would they pay for the free music that you are listening to? The other catch is a skip limit, if you hear a song you don’t like your first reaction is to press the skip button or the thumbs down button and it will never play again, but you only have a certain amount of skips per station. Eventually the skips will reset, but there will come a time where a song that you absolutely loathe will come on and the only option will be to sit there in utter disgust and listen to the song. Usability mainly focuses on how easy it is to navigate and find what you are looking for throughout the site. With Pandora there isn’t a whole lot of navigating to be done, all you need is an email and a password to make an account and then you practically stay on the same page the entire time. When you want to add a new station, you simply type it into the search bar, select the desired song/genre/artist/band, and voilá it adds it your sidebar! This nifty little feature consolidates everything you need into one little page, rather than a plethora of pages for each song you want to listen to.

Overall, my partner, Lauren, and I believe that Pandora is very broke college student friendly, and pretty much any other type of person. My all-time favorite feature of Pandora is the fact that with whatever station your little heart chooses to play, Pandora takes it upon themselves to mix in new, old, and unknown songs. For example, I was listening to my “Atmosphere Radio” station and I realized that Pandora decided to play songs from Atmosphere’s latest album, songs that I had no clue even existed, and others that are very popular. It helps one to expand their thoughts about different kinds of music and even artists. I know because of this, I have recently become really into “old school” and “underground” hip-hop. On the downside, which both my partner and I, and probably every other consistent user of the Pandora station, agree that the advertisements and commercials can really become annoying and catch you off-guard. According to Lauren, her favorite part of Pandora is the thumbs up and thumbs down options for each song. “Every time you click an up or down thumb, Pandora knows you a little better. Either by knowing songs you like and playing more like them, or by knowing songs you don’t like and never playing them again.” Her least favorite part is that you can’t play a specific song, you can make a station of that song but it might take a while before that song actually plays.

WikiLeaks.org: A Sunken Treasure Trove of Information

WikiLeaks.org is a website that publishes classified and otherwise secret information for the entire world to see. The content of the classified information ranges from secret Iraq war footage and information detailing the American prison at Guantanamo Bay, to diplomatic cables and evidence of corruption in the Kenyan government. The stated purpose of the site is to increase transparency, which they believe reduces corruption and fosters stronger democracies. The site was evaluated primarily on its content, usability, and functionality. Although WikiLeaks contains a startling large amount of important documents and information that is easily accessible, it is often bogged down by clunky web design and poor organization. 

The content of WikiLeaks contains a large amount of original source material, wherein lies its first major problem. Not to be misunderstood, the site is a veritable wealth of information. It contains articles and source material covering everything from spying and counter intelligence to corruption and taxes. However, the data and information presented by WikiLeaks is neither clear nor concise, and much of it remains in its original state. This means that it has not been analyzed, no news stories have been summarized from it, and it essentially exists as large and unorganized text. This discrepancy results in other news sources (CNN, WSJ, etc.) simply reporting the most shocking or important points of the data into a concise and compelling piece. The content of WikiLeaks is indeed informative and relevant to people all over the world, however, the content is only updated every few months, with most of the information coming from a couple of highly publicized leaks of classified documents. This lack of continuous content makes WikiLeaks less relevant as a website. Without regular content updates, there is not much incentive to keep returning to the site on a consistent basis. This is demonstrated by the fact that WikiLeaks sees a large amount of traffic after a large information leak, but significantly less in the time between. WikiLeaks claims to pore over and analyze all of the documents it receives in order to select the most important and relevant information. WikiLeaks also attempts to redact information that could potentially endanger people’s lives and the national security of other nations, but this only comprises a fraction of the data they provide. Often, the data can be found in its unredacted form, containing names and locations that could be potentially harmful to those individuals. The content it receives is often illegally gained, but the site itself is protected under first amendment rights as they relate to journalism and free press. The content itself is wide-ranging and far-reaching, but it lacks any type of organizational method. The content is organized by leak date and analysis date, not on the nature of the leak or its contents. For example, the U.S Embassy profile on the Icelandic Prime Minister is listed under leaks and analyses from 2010, not under a separate section just for diplomatic profiles and cables. This lack of organization prevents useful access to the website’s content, and ultimately negatively impacts the sites usability and functionality.   

WikiLeaks declares that their purpose is to bring important news and information into the public circle in order to increase government transparency. On the surface it seems as if they have accomplished their stated purpose. WikiLeaks has amassed thousands of megabytes of classified data, but they have only read and released a fraction of that to the public. By holding back this data, WikiLeaks is compromising its own stated functionality. The service WikiLeaks provides is focused and largely unique, making it the premier journalistic site in the publishing of leaks and other classified documents. They have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to publish and analyze classified documents, with the first major leak coming in 2006 with a document signed by a Somali Sheik authorizing the assassination of government officials. Since then, the site has continually been at the center of important news stories that have reached the greater public. WikiLeaks also demonstrates basic web functionality, as there are no broken links or other non-functioning parts of the website. This appears to extend through all portions of the site, indicating basic quality assurance is being conducted. The site has not functioned this well all the time, however. Since the site’s inception, there have been many occasions of hackers bringing the website down as well as governments pressuring domain hosting providers to stop harboring WikiLeaks. The website has been compromised in the past through the use of Denial of Service attacks, which bombard a server with so many requests that it cannot respond to real traffic. These types of attacks ultimately result in the site being unavailable to users. This has resulted in numerous occasions where the site has been inaccessible for long periods of time. However, it appears that WikiLeaks has now settled in a secure place with a Swedish company that fully supports its endeavor. This company hosts the website on servers housed in an old abandoned nuclear bunker. According to WikiLeaks, they are based in Sweden because that country provides complete journalistic protection. Despite these reassurances and protections, the past indicates that WikiLeaks cannot always be trusted to be functional. Although WikiLeaks fulfills its stated purpose and demonstrates basic functionality, the site ultimately stumbles in providing reliable functionality.

            The site’s usability benefits from some smart and savvy features, but it’s mostly bogged down from some critical flaws. If someone was to come into the site knowing exactly what he or she is looking for, they could just use a search box to find exactly what they’re looking for. In regards to simple perusal of site, it suffers from a lack of simplicity. It is immediately unclear where to find certain information when not using the search bar. As observed previously, the sites organization is poor and frankly bewildering. Rather than archive information and their corresponding news stories together and based on the content of those stories, they are instead archived according to date. This approach is largely unintuitive and creates an unnecessary learning curve that negatively impacts the usability of the site for the average internet-goer. The site’s pages load fast and there are no large images or anything else of a large file size that could cause visitors to lag when trying to load a page, keeping visitors continuously reading and engaged. The main page is too large, as the archive links that extend from the left side of the page extend downwards very far and require a large amount of scrolling. This layout is text heavy and largely unintuitive, however. The design and organization appears to be several years behind the newest and most cutting edge web design. Most of WikiLeaks pages have a similar design, partially maintaining consistency. However, when accessing the archives from the main page, you are jarringly transported to a differently formatted page, and the links at the top of the page that maintained consistency were conspicuously absent. This dual format serves little identifiable purpose and introduces confusion to the reader. Overall, the links on the site are a mixed bag, as some are descriptive and some are not. For example, most of the main links from articles are obviously linked to the original source material, but some obscure links such as “Translate” are unintuitive and don’t make sense in their current location. The site itself is very easy to find, as search engine optimization is stellar and search inquiries for “WikiLeaks” on most popular search engines always result in WikiLeaks.org being in the top five results. In the practice of maintaining the site’s stated goal of exposing government secrets and increasing transparency, the website is accessible in all countries around the globe, regardless of firewalls used to prevent access its access in countries such as China. This feat is accomplished through a complex set of mirrored domain names and reroutes, such that knowing the web address of the secret mirror will allow a user to circumvent their nation’s firewalls and enable access to the site.

            In WikiLeaks mind, its work appeals to all people across the globe that value freedom and transparency. This would naturally appeal to engaged and savvy college students as well, but WikiLeaks has left us unconvinced. While the content is thought provoking and engaging, its poor usability is a non-starter for the young Web 2.0 generation. Although the site displays fundamental functionality and fulfillment of intended goals, its reliability is a legitimate concern given past events. The poorly defined interface and web design is jarring and out of place, and results in an unrefined browsing experience. The lack of effective organization is frustrating and most often results in confusion than a successful search of the content. While it is remarkable that the site is available in so many countries with firewalls attempting to block it, it’s largely for naught considering that the lack of regularly updated content discourages frequent use. Although WikiLeaks provides a unique and worthwhile service, the discussed issues greatly hinder its stated functionality, and results in an ambitious site with unfortunate design and organizational decisions that overshadow its wealth of information.

TV Tropes by Mario Gonzalez and Carole Le

            Within the year of 1968, the world was beginning to be revolutionized by the latest creation of Tim Berners-Lee. The internet was magnificently born without the expectation of one day, becoming the dominator of international connections. Websites soar rapidly within the Internet, crowding the network with dozens of research and materials. How can a student find the right resource for their research paper? Especially to for an analytical paper for an English class? There are many interpretations on fictional books that can involve several perceptions that can be right, wrong, or none at all. In fact, most student need to be inspired on what appears to be symbolic and why. And thus, TV Tropes was born, evolving into a wiki page fulfilled with summaries, analysis, and forums for users to discuss open-minded ideas and share opinions upon a subject. Despite the popularity, this blessing upon students also comes with a price.

            TV Tropes is a wonderful tool to use if you need some information on a certain character trait, storytelling style, or even setting information. It’s written and maintained by users from around the world in a funny, laid-back yet informational style that just keeps you wanting to read more and more! As you read, you’ll most likely pick up on the information you were looking for and so much more. Each Trope has examples from popular media that let you grasp the concept so much more easily. For example, say you wanted to write about a sleazy con man from New York in the 1920’s. You search ‘Con Man’ and it’ll take you to the Con Man trope page. There you read up a short summary of the character trope and are given examples of different types of Con Men there are in media. So, for example’s sake, if you wanted to change your character from a greasy grown man to a seemingly-innocent little girl, you’d click the ‘Little Miss Con Artist’ Trope link and be directed to a page full of example of little girl con artists in popular media! So basically, if you are in the need for some information on the writing in mainstream media, TV Tropes is your best bet!

            Although the website is for one to take a gander about, TV Tropes can engage the reader for too long and possibly poison their very own mind. The massive information provided by users revolving within the digital world can be misleading and unreliable due to the freedom of speech – literally. Any user that has an account on the site is allowed to edit or upload any information they wish. If one doesn’t have an account, they can just create one therefore; anyone can make unlimited changes. TV Tropes is also open to any forms of opinions, including informal languages that appears unprofessional to one with a purpose of researching. Informative, but suspicious, TV Tropes goes beyond analysis nearly on every books/shows existed without revealing its sources of credibility. For students who use the site as research for an analysis paper, be aware that several insights may or may not be satisfying. Not only is it relative, but the linkage between each source of information that reveals another set of analysis can lose the reader deeper into the site itself. One set of analysis can lead to a whole new subject on how and why it is significant. The vast knowledge gathered on one webpage can be resourceful and convenient to one who is incompetent in rational thinking, but the site itself is the devil of procrastination in disguised.

            TV Tropes, like chocolate and many other things, is good in moderation. It’s a pretty handy site to get a grasp on character archetypes, setting details, and even writing styles! The use of mainstream media also makes it a fairly enticing read! However, dwelling too long on the site can lead the reader lost in a maze of Tropes with no idea how they ended up there in the first place. Also, while most users who edit are reliable with their claims on tropes, there is always a ‘wolf-in-sheep’s clothing’ that will falsify information. The lack of citations needed makes this even more of a problem. The best we can say about TV Tropes is use at your own risk or on your own free time!