Monday, 22 September 2014

Online Real Time Services



What is an online real time service?
An online real time service is a service that provides real time information that is constantly being updated on the internet. These could be live webcams, News feeds, train times or Sat navs.

News Feeds
One real time online service are news feeds. These could range from a twitter feed, to live global news constantly being updated. On average, there are around 6,000 new tweets tweeted every second, which are available for everyone to see instantly. This real time online service can be very valuable as people from around the world can keep up to date with the latest news no matter where they live.
An advantage of this real time service that it is updated instantly and everyone around the world can keep up to date with all of the latest news, however a disadvantage of this when you post something personal, it's out there on the internet for everyone to see, as well as websites keep archives of everything that is posted so it will never be deleted.
I have personally used live news feeds a lot as I always like to know what is going on around the world, as well as liking to know what some interesting famous people are saying on twitter and sharing their thoughts on things.

Online Webcams
Another real time online service that is quite popular is online webcams. With these you are able to see different locations from around the world all from your computer at home. These can be very useful when looking for certain locations that you wish to travel to, and want to see how the location looks. You can also use a live webcam online to check traffic in some areas and plan ahead to take a different route to save you some time.
Advantages of using these real time services are that you can look at a location you are planning to be travelling to and wish to see the location live and not through the pictures that the travelling agency might be providing you or it can also be useful in when you plan to travel, where you can check certain areas and see if they are packed with cars and you may wish to pick a different route to save you time in traffic.
Although there are some limitations when using an online webcam like you cant zoom in on certain spots in the live feed and you also can't move the camera around and see what is behind the camera which can sometimes be a problem. Also when the area may be foggy, the camera won't be able to see through the fog which can make the camera useless.
I have used live webcams plenty of times out of curiosity to see how different locations around the world look like. A real life situation where I used an online webcam was when I went skiing in France and wanted to see a resort that I was planning to go to with my family. I was able to see the skiing slopes of the resort live to check the snow and see how busy it was.

Time Tables
A very useful real time online service are online time tables for trains, buses and air lines. With some online services, you can even plan your own route to any specific location you want and it can tell you the time of when your transport gets at specific locations which can be very useful as well as another feature where you can book your tickets online. Online booking normally tend to be cheaper than buying them on location
Some advantages of these are that you can easily check what time a train or bus gets to your location, as well as you can also book your tickets online to save you some time so that you do not have to waste time buying your tickets on location. One small disadvantage is that that you need a internet connection to access these features.
I tend to use these timetables very often especially the bus timetables as bus is currently my main mode of transport and occasionally use the train timetables when travelling further like London.

Forms of Communication


Communication
Before the information age, we would have to write letters and use phone landlines to communicate between people.
People then invented the telegraph, where people could communicate through Morse code. People laid massive cables across the Atlantic that they used to communicate through, and are still used today. People had wires connected to their house that provided landline, which people could use for phone, or to first get on the internet.

Communication methods used today
  • ·         Cell phones
  • ·         Email
  • ·         Video calls
  • ·         Text

Landline phones
Landline phones communicate through wires coming off houses, and into a central box called the exchange box, Mobile phones communicate through radio masts that communicate through with each other to pass over the message. International phone carriers use satellites to carry on over the signal, as well as provide you with 3G as well as 4G. Landline phones are used in the house and can be used to communicate to any phone number, now days, more and more people tend not to get a landline phone and just use their mobile phones instead as they find it much more convenient but also cheaper not to have a landline phone.
Some advantages of using landline phones are that weather and similar effects do not generally impact the communication quality through landlines as well as provide a stable and reliable connection unlike mobile phones that need phone signal.
Disadvantages on the other hand are that landlines are in a fixed location and have to be connected to the landline as well as landlines can be easily hacked into which makes eavesdropping and hijacking a landline fairly easy.
In my personal experiences, I don't use landline phones as often as I did when I was younger because of the increase of other and easier modes of communication. I have mainly used landline phones to talk to family over the phone, however another reason why I stopped using a landline is the increase of telemarketers calling your house phones offering you deals which I always decline. 

Email
Email is the most popular forms of communications, the signal travels down to a transmitter, on to a satellite that then sends it onto a sever that sends it on to another receiver to pass on the message. An advantage of email is that it's very quick, however a disadvantage is that you can't get very much information in it as in documents and files, so it can be very unreliable when used in business when sending a file over.
In my personal experiences with Email, I have mainly used it  when working with other people, and contacting outside companies as it's probably the easiest way to get in contact with them as most business' list their email on their website. I would not personally use email to get in contact with people I knew close and would prefer to send a text or call someone as it's easier accessible on a mobile phone.

Text
Text is another very popular communication system. It is mainly used to send short messages or updates to people that you personally know. To be able to send text messages to you need to be with a phone carrier such as 3, o2, or Orange as well as having a phone signal. The character limit for text messages is 160. If you go over that limit, the message will count as 2 messages and will charge you twice. You can also send pictures over text however it can be much more expensive than texts.
Phones work on the same basis as phone calls. The phone sends a radio signal to the nearest antenna which then send it to an SMS centre. The SMSC receives the message and sends it to the appropriate tower closest to the location of the cell phone and then to the destination.
In my personal experiences, I have only used text to send messages to people that I know and have never used the send image feature. The most frustrating thing about text is the moment when you want to send a message but cannot get signal 

Cell phones
Phone calls made my cell phones work on the same kind of system like text messages. Phone calls are normally more expensive that text messages. For a call, you need the other person on the line to also have signal like yourself, and you also need them to have their phone on themselves so that they can answer a call, that’s why sometimes people might have problems getting in contact with each other, and tend to just tend to contact through text as the person on the other side can later read the text, and even if they don’t have signal, the message will still get to them when they get within range of a phone signal.
Phones work similar to radios, both work on frequencies. When the phone is turned on it searches for the nearest tower station to connect to, if it can't find a station, then the phone is out of signal. When making a call, the antenna nearest to the base station receives the radio signals, and the base station then forwards the signal to an exchange. The exchange connects the call to its destination either a fixed line or mobile phone.
In my personal experiences, I haven't phone called as many people as I have texted. However it can sometimes be easier to get my point across using speech rather than words in a text.  






Online Services Introduction





What is an Online Service?
Now days, people use online services all the time, sometimes without even know they're using them. An online service is something that we can use online, examples like online banking, social networking or just train timetable.
Due to technology constantly expanding, there are new services coming to the internet that people can use.
Online services like Email and Skype are very commonly used for communicating between other people across on the globe.

A basic online service may help people gain needed data through a search engine, while a complex one might be an online mortgage application from a bank. Online services may be free or paid.
"Online service" has come to mean any tool that runs on the Internet. For example, Google operates multiple services, ranging from its search engine to YouTube and Google Plus. YouTube can be considered as a entertainment online service whereas Google Plus can be considered as a social networking page

Examples of Online Services
Social networks have hugely grown over the past decade with almost everyone now having either a Facebook account or a twitter account and constantly using it.
A new service that has also become very popular is Cloud Storage used for archiving. This online service can be accessed by phones and computer very easily.

Because information can be easily found on the internet, schools have started using online services with their education system, websites like BBC Bitesize and MyMaths are online services that come under the educations category, that almost anyone going to school or not can easily get hold of on the  
internet.



Most companies move their business online to make it easier for people to access what the company is selling or has to offer, that's why the government has started to offer a service online where people can pay for their tax and car insurances without having to do it in person