Online Services work

Download Services

Download Services allow people to download new software or files for their electronic devices such as computers, laptops, mp3 players and phones. This enables them to upgrade features and even provide new ones as well as entertain people so that people get more out of the product they have.

Software:

Software, driver and virus updates are vital to prolong a computer's life expectancy and are now very commonly downloaded over the internet. Many of these can be downloaded in the background whilst the user uses the computer normally, only requiring the user to restart their computer for these updates to be active. Often using a dialogue box to prompt and confirm the user whether they want the update, software can easily be added to the computer, improving the machine’s usage and its life expectancy, meaning it can be used for longer.

It could be said all software could be delivered in this way, not just updates but however there are some limitations, such as the size of the software. The size of some software is often quite large at over 50MB which takes several minutes to download and people don’t have the time to sit and wait for downloads to finish, as they can take hours to download fully. Plus, some user may want a physical copy of the software and manual for future reference, which downloading cannot provide. There may also be system failures and the software will need to be reinstalled, which can be a problem for bigger software, instead of small upgrades which wouldn't.

However having software upgrades being downloaded in this way creates huge benefits as updates can be applied immediately and even automatically to the machine being used. This enables people to use new technology as soon as it arrives, keeping them up-to-date with the modern world. Another big plus is that usually software updates are completely free as the cost of providing them is very low and the fact the updates are so quick and fix numerous problems very quickly, are also huge benefits.


Media:

There are two main areas of media that are downloaded now in the modern world: music and videos. Music downloading can occur online, with people using some software such as Bit Torrent and Media Fire to download music tracks without the input or costs from iTunes. These music tracks can be simply downloaded and then put into iTunes, without paying any fees using an MP3 format. In the early days, it used to be carried out many by peer-2-peer file sharing services which allowed people to easily share and exchange music track.

The pluses of illegal downloading are quite vast: it’s possible with some sites to find and get albums which have been released in your country yet or even get bonus tracks; as well as this. The music you get is also entirely free with no costs to you at all which is a huge influencing factor for online downloaders. The download speeds for websites like these are usually quite fast, with the exception of discographies which contain all the albums and singles ever released by an artist.

There are many disadvantages to downloading online: for one, it is now illegal and punishable by law to download tracks online. As a result of online downloading, music stores like HMV are shutting down due to a lack of profit, as people are now receiving music elsewhere and not from their stores. As well as this, the artists who produce the music do not get full credit or the majority of the funds they deserve. Some have resorted to making fake bonus tracks in order to entice people to buy it which can then track when people who download the tracks. Also the programs used to download the files can fill computers with virus’ which infect and delete files.

A huge music downloading service, introduced in 2001, is iTunes. The versatile program is a media player which can be downloaded off the internet. On there, you can easily browse the iTunes store and find any music and videos that are available at the time, and purchase them. Then these items are instantly put into your iTunes Library; from there, customers can then ‘sync’ these tracks to any of the Apple products.

The advantages of iTunes are clear: the company uses MPEG-4 audio coding for the tracks, giving them good compression and good quality. The software is completely free to download, but however it can take hours to download and any software updates also take long periods of time. However with new software, new features have been added to iTunes such as ‘Genius’ which allows iTunes to take information from the songs you have, such as genre and artist, to find similar songs. This allows you to find new artists and new styles of music really easily by using your existing information and is a feature you can’t get with online downloading.

However, there are downsides to such a program. iTunes can sometimes crash if you have too many songs on it as the program can’t deal with so much data. Most people drift away from iTunes due to its costs: despite it benefiting the music industry and giving the correct credit to artists, some people can’t keep paying £8.99 an album from the iTunes store, resorting to them to free online downloading.

Video downloading is similar in the fact that there is a legal and illegal side to it. There are however, a select few legal sites and companies which allow you to video stream, such as the most popular site YouTube, where over 2 billion videos are viewed every day.  As well as this, more and more TV channels’ own websites are now using the software, where they can stream their videos and programmes, such as iPlayer and 4OD.

The main benefit of video downloading on YouTube is that it allows people, with or without accounts to the website, to view the millions of videos on their site, usually quickly and easily. It’s been said that over 13 million hours of footage was uploaded to YouTube in 2010, making it a huge service for people to use. It also gives a commenting and liking system which allows users with accounts to become social on the website, which is considered a huge plus. On TV channel sites, the fact that you can view programmes that you may have missed on TV or not-recorded online at ease is the main reason sites like these were created.

However, there are problems with sites that use video streaming to show their videos. Video files are huge compared to audio tracks; they take hours to download which make it less likely to be downloaded off the internet and instead viewed in the browser. Streaming video requires them to buffer and load partially before beginning to view them, with the video continuing to buffer as you watch (alternatively, you could wait for the entire video to buffer before watching it). The downside to this is that with a poor connection, the video may take a long time to buffer and you may not be able to watch it for long before it needs to pause to continue buffering. Another downside is that with YouTube, there are now converters which can be used to download videos and turn them into MP3 files, used on music videos and songs, which is a form of illegal downloading.

There are hundreds of illegal sites on the internet where it's possible to download films and videos and even watch them in browser, to save download space. It has the same advantages as legal video streaming but many more disadvantages. One huge factor being that the sites and any pop-ups could potentially be filled with potential viruses'. The fact it’s punishable by law is an off-putting thought at best, but the fact there is no promise of good quality is another. It's a gamble which could leave you with some films that may not even work, or some with faulty sound or picture etc.

It would seem the future of this technology would be to carry on improving the types of media that can be found. More books are now being uploaded online in PDF formats where people can find them, as well as the very popular Kindle product. I think the technology will carry on expanding, offering more and more people opportunities to download products quickly for them to use instantly, which I think is a great idea as most people are now relying on technology to help them in their everyday lives, and constantly being given new software will allow them to improve on products; however bringing out more and more software will mean replacing old novelties like just reading a book or listening to a CD which are past-times we have grown up with and should not be taken over with technology.

CommunicationEmail:

For many people, emailing someone is just a part of their everyday life. With a simple email account name, you can sit and send messages to friends and family, attaching images which you can show them within seconds of receiving, or email a co-worker an important document or PowerPoint needed for a meeting. That same email account name can then set up accounts for various websites, including this one right here. Email is a fundamental aspect of our lives and to think, the first email was sent just 40 years ago. Ray Tomlinson, who was working for a defence department at the time, was experimenting with a program they used to send notes to each other on a single computer and managed to figure out how to then send these messages across computers.

 It works by using two different things which are able to receive and send your mail. POP3 (Post Office Protocol) downloads your mail from your ISP, whilst SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is able to send mail. POP3 works by taking your email address (e.g. nicole.wheatley.ict@hotmail.co.uk) and the password to your account and then taking all the emails which are labelled to be sent to that account and stores it in your inbox. Your SMTP server will be the same as your POP server so it will take any labelled from you, read the recipient of the mail, and then sends it out to that address.

The traditional method to send mail would be to use computer or laptop with internet access, but now as techno

logy has advanced, there are more ways to connect with people by sending mail. The iPhone has a Mail application meaning their users can send and receive mails to their phone; other smart 3G phones are providing email as well such as HTC and Blackberry. Using these methods it is estimated that about 28 billion (28,000,000,000) e-mails are sent across the internet daily.

There are many benefits from using email, such as it's quite a simple to pick up and easy to use service, as well as being free of charge to the user. There is also the huge benefit of being able to send messages to anyone in the world as long as you have exchanged email addresses so contacting distant relatives or business partners is now a lot easier than sending a letter or trying to fax information. You can also send the same information to a range of people and include them in a conversation, so then you can all know the same thing at the same time so no one is kept out of the loop, such as wedding planning and of course at the workplace.

However, the main disadvantage with emails is junk mail, an increasingly problematic aspect of email today, with estimates of at least 20% or about 3 billion e-mails sent on the internet being spam or junk mail. A single message is often sent to many recipients as a way of for some companies to gain some business and is often sent a few times to you or repetitively if they continue to use your email address, which means a lot of our email inbox is filled quickly with messages so we may lose track of real messages sent for us that we need to reply to, causing complications and confusion. It is predicted nearly 85% of our mail is spam and by opening some spam mail, your computer can often be infected with virus' which shut down your computer and infect your files. Another negative side to using email is that you must have an internet connection to do so, which some people do not possess. 

Chat, Instant messaging and SMS:

Short Message Service or SMS is a form of sending short brief messages usually via mobile phone and is now a preferred way of communicating over phone conversations. You can type on the phone's keypad a small message e.g. "Hi, how are you?" and then send this message to any one of your contact phone numbers. It was first sued in December 1992 to send a message reading “Merry Christmas” using the Vodaphone provider. In able to send text messages you must be on a mobile phone providers such as Vodaphone, 3, o2, orange etc.

Texting is a good way of quickly and also discreetly gaining information from a contact without needing to call the contact which may take up time whilst there is no guarantee the contact can take the call. Nearly everyone in the world has a mobile phone as it is now considered a part of our everyday lives; this makes texting is virtually accessible to everyone in the world. It’s also very simple to pick up, just like typing on a keyboard and some phones even possess the technology to be able to send pictures, music and videos, allowing people to communicate in a way similar to email which is known as MMS.

Disadvantages of SMS are very scarce: one would be that if you lose signal, just like with a phone call, you are unable to send your message and gaining signal might take long periods of time. Also it is not as instant as a phone call as some people may not notice the message, as you would a phone call and you are also limited to how many characters you have to write your message. If your phone’s inbox gets full of messages, it may force you to delete some before being able to text anyone.


Instant Messaging (IM) and chat is now available to many social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook, where you can instantly send messaging using your keyboard to a contact. There are many outlets such allow you to use instant messaging, one being the very modern Skype, which offers a service where you can send both video and voice call as well as IM a contact online, which is amazing feature brought in during 2003 in order to contact people who live in separate counties or even different countries. You can also have web-based chats offered by ISPs such as MSN and Yahoo which is very popular with teenagers and website-based chat usually found on ISPs such as Virgin and Sky, where you can speak to someone about a specific problem you may be having, private chat rooms online. You can even communicate by chat rooms on a mobile using SMS. It allows two or even more people to have their own private conversations without other unnecessary people to see as well; the simplest IM services are just between two people, but more advanced IMs allow up to maybe 10 people to converse simultaneously as well as sending images and even files across to each other, which is very useful for companies.

It is used for social purposes and is very popular amongst young people. It allows you to again chat to anyone you want, without a limited amount of characters also well as the fun option to use emoticons to show how you feel to what you’ve written or to what someone has written whilst conversing. You may also remain anonymous which means your name and any information about yourself cannot be seen which is an interesting feature if you are contacting a help service and do not want to be named. IM's name also suggests it can be more instant than SMS, receiving replies quickly as your contacts are online and ready to communicate whereas by text, some may not be with their phone or see it go off.

But again it has limitations. In order to send and receive IM’s you need to be online, with your contacts also being available to chat. There is a feature where if you want to talk to someone and they are not online, you can leave an offline message for them for when they come back online which they can see, but this is not instant as they may not come online as fast as your message requires.  Sometimes the sites may crash and you may lose your current conversation or any text you were typing which can be frustrating. The anonymous feature also can promote people, especially teenagers, sending cruel anonymous messages to others, as the identity of the bully is not shown and this is an example of cyber bullying which is difficult to track and put an end to; online bulling has disastrous consequences to the person being bullied if it continues..

E-Commerce

Online stores

Online stores allows people to take the physical experience of visiting one of their favourite shops and do the exact same actions, but online using the store’s own website. Online stores allow people to browse and then purchase items online using a credit card (customers usually need to set up an account to purchase items). These goods are then delivered to their home, taking out the need to go out of the house to the shops and browse there for items. This kind of technological transaction is a Business-to-Consumer (B2C).

The main kinds of stores which use this technology are ones which supply clothes such as New Look, Next etc. and groceries such as Tesco’s and Asda however some websites also sell assorted goods such as books, gadgets, garden furniture and many more; these kinds of stores offer a huge choice of items and these sites include eBay, Argos and Amazon.
 

The sites will always feature a homepage and then links to parts of the site dedicated for differently grouped items, such as 'Mens' and 'Womens' for clothes, or grouped items such as ‘Fresh Food’, 'Bakery' etc. The sites use pictures to display the goods and include information about the products such as price, size, uses and a short description. A shopper can choose an item and put it into a virtual shopping basket, which then totals up the price of every item added.

Then the customer goes to separate pages, such as ‘Payment’ so they can pay for their goods using a credit card and then to ‘Delivery’ and adding the address of where you want it delivered to. Delivery charges are extra and most stores offer a 5-7 working days policy as well next day delivery, which costs a little more. A final total is concluded and the transaction’s details are then displayed so the customer can check all the information is valid. Then they await their delivery.

Tesco is a key example of a site which has various features to make online shopping easy and an enjoyable experience. It offers this feature of creating a small list of groceries where you can add common items like cheese, bread etc. to it and then it gathers all those results, so when you’ve selected what cheese you want, you then move down your list of items choosing what specific item from all those results. This saves you from searching each item on your list manually. It even uses specific search results such as specific brands like ‘Ariel washing powder’ and flavoured products like ‘carrot baby food’. Sites including Tesco also offer online offers which are the same as the ones in store, but might also offer special online offers, like huge discounts. Most sites now take information from you looking at certain products to then calculate items which you may like and also record what you’ve browsed previously in case you want to quickly go back to it and buy it, increasing customer satisfaction.

Online Banking

 The aspect of online banking is an appealing one, but also a daunting one. It uses computerized systems which allow customers to access and manage their accounts online, instead of having a bank clerk or employee do it for them.

This then allows customers to see their balance, make a payment to another account of theirs any time of the day and to also be available to SMS banking, which can notify customers via their mobile phones about any unexpected transactions or to gain information about their account at any time. Like online stores, this allows you to have all your data right in front of you at home, without requiring you to go to your local bank; it's easy and simple and the websites often help you along setting up and account or with any queries you may have. Online banking can also offer money advice to help with trying to repay any debts or serve as a help point for other queries you have as well as advertising new deals for the bank, which draws in customers.

However, there are downsides to such a convenient and professional service: online banking has to be completely secure though, as phishing can occur quite regularly. An example of phishing would be if you received an email from a site appearing to be your bank, which asks you to give in your details or says you need to enter them to sort out a problem. If you do so, then the site then has your bank details forever and can go into your account on the real website, stealing your identity as well as your money. This sort of activity has occurred on banking websites and also on the well known bidding site eBay and is a serious crime.

The major disadvantage with E-Commerce would be the phishing scam which allows people to steal your money and identity, causing huge problems finically and also with your trust in companies, especially in banks. Often people feel uneasy after completing an online transaction, wondering where exactly their money has gone and whether they will actually receive their goods. Another disadvantage is with some online stores such as eBay, there is no guarantee of product quality, so you could be receiving products you've paid a lot for, but are in bad condition which reduces customer satisfaction hugely. Plus website problems may pause transactions or delay them or even stop them at all, which could mean you lose money which you have put into the transaction.
But the advantages are that you can do things now in the comfort of your own home, without needing to venture out to look for items in stores which might not be available, or going to the bank to find it's closed when you need money. For online banking and shopping, the shops are never closed and the services remain 24/7; you can even access them in other countries which is hugely beneficial for banking abroad whilst on trips or holidays. It's simple as well, with added guidance to help you whilst you search for things and purchase them. With online banking, transactions can be carried out a lot quicker than they would be in store or at a cashpoint. With e-commerce also means it's really easy to start up a business and gain money which will enable more sales and more trades to come through online to make money, which is always a plus for the business world.

Real Time Information System

Wikipedia’s definition of real time information is information which says it ‘denotes information that is delivered immediately after collection. There is no delay in the timeliness of the information provided. Real-time data is often used for navigation or tracking’ ("Real-time Data." Wikipedia. Date published: September 2011. Date accessed: 8.11.2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_data)

Real time information is a key part our lives now with the introduction of new services and it can be found in so many places without us even noticing. Real time information is fed out automatically and quickly put on a website or a server, so that people are updated instantly on news or facts all in one place, which is carried out using a system that can respond to input immediately. It’s a handy tool to have when you want to find things out quickly without waiting for someone to update it manually when the time best suits them. 

There are many websites that have real-time information. One I found in particular was Next Bus, a website for the people living in San Francisco in America. This website is specifically aimed at people who need to know when there is a bus coming to their local stop, to travel around the city and displays how long until the next bus will be there, as well as the one after it. This is a brilliant service for the people living there as transport is key in the city for getting around and getting things done, so knowing when a bus is going to turn up is a huge benefit. The service uses real-time information in order to deliver when the bus will get there in a fascinating way, and this kind of technology is used globally for buses and trains too. They can use RTI to tell when the bus/train is due at a stop, by sending a signal from the bus to a satellite in space, with the co-ordinates of its location. This information is then sent to a computer which uses the distance from the bus to the nearest stop and calculates the time it'll take for the bus/train to reach it. This information is also usually shown on boards at the stops so people waiting there can see how long they have, and is shown on websites like Next Bus too as well as train line companies, so that people at home can see. This real-time information can also be found in airports, displaying similar information, such as when the flight will land or take off and how long until these times.

Real time information can also be used for the stock-market and plays a huge part in stocks and sales. With the stock-market shares need to be bought and sold quickly and get fast results back so, the websites and boards displaying this information need to be also be quick in getting this information. Companies like the BBC and ITV in England also use this technology for their websites in order to display news updates, updating these parts of their websites with real time information so people can be kept up to date with any recent occurrences in the world and the developments in them during the hours that follow from when it first started. They also use it for the weather, adding to it daily with the new figures of what weather is about to come which is hugely beneficial for storms or strong winds so people can prepare themselves.

By updating all these websites and servers regularly with new information, people can be kept up to date and have any new updates within a few minutes, as the information coming through is always very quick and efficient. It’s hugely convenient for people to have all the information in one place so they can just stay on that website and refresh occasionally to get new updates, rather than search the internet for them. It can allow major transactions like the stock market to work, which is a huge business and very complicated. It needs to be 100% correct or shares will be messed up which can cause huge disputes and problems; real time information allows people to get this information correctly. Plus, real time information is a piece of technology which can be improved on further and could be added to various parts of our lives to allow them to be simplified.

However with all services, real time information has its disadvantages. It is a hugely complex system, requiring a super-loop which can be complicated to work, nor is it easy to grasp and needs professionals to work on it for long periods of time, because they need people to update the information 24/7. Another problem would be that seeing as there are hundreds of new places that help you find information, this can mean hundreds of people are trying to find and get data quickly, causing confusion. There can be no interruptions or the information being fed might not go through causing complications, plus some information might get cluttered or not posted in chronological order, which can also cause huge problems for services like the stock market.

Real- time information is limited to information that is fed in a chronological order and usually numerical values. It cannot describe objects or businesses, nor can it provide you a huge amount of knowledge about a company which renders it only for a few uses. The future prospects of real-time information could be that they do start to incorporate more qualitative information into databases so people can find new information about topics. They do carry this out in news feeds but however sites like this are sparse and real-time information is seen as limited.

Entertainment

Radio:
It was thought that when television and the internet came into the world, that the radio would die out and people would lose interest in it; however that’s not the case as it is still the main source of news, music and internet and has adapted to still give its services to people, one being online radio. In fact, online radio has taken off hugely since the internet first began, giving people an opportunity to listen to their favourite radio stations whilst browsing online. Using the same technology as the ones using for streaming video, music and broadcasts can be played in browser for a number of stations such as BBC, Heart FM, Peterborough Radio etc. The stream of broadcast cannot be paused, nor rewound or fast-forwarded either as the broadcast is live.

There are many advantages of online radio: the main one being that you can easily listen to music and broadcasts whilst browsing the internet all in one place which is a huge benefit for people who like to listen to their favourite radio station but don’t want to take a radio around with them. It also benefits those without radios and allows us to even pick up broadcasts from over the globe so for example, people in England can easily tune into an Australian radio station which is really handy for sports fans who want to catch up with games etc. It’s easy to run and also gives the presenters an any guests appearing on the show the freedom of speech; anything can be transmitted giving people the chance to express themselves fully which people may appreciate more.

However there are disadvantages to this freedom of speech and of course online radio. With freedom of speech comes those who want to abuse that right. The main disadvantage of online radio would be that without the internet you can’t access it, however this doesn’t seem like such a problem anymore as practically every house in the UK can access the internet nowadays. If you lose connection to a site, your transmission is lost and you can lose out on some valuable radio time that you wanted to tune in to which is an inconvenience. As well, the internet can be unpredictable for the hosts of the radio show so if they feature technical difficulties, the transmission may not go ahead at all, so they lose on broadcast time and their viewers miss out on a good show.

Gaming:
The internet has really made an impact on the gaming side of entertainment. The amount of sites now which offer Browser games for people to go on, using Flash and Java, is unbelievable. It is more common now in the gaming world for companies such as Sony and Microsoft who produce XBOX and PlayStation, to give their games online features where their players can still play the game in a ‘story-mode’ but can also connect to the online services like the PS Network and XBOX Live, to play challenges against real-time players across the globe. This offers a thrilling experience for many gamers and can allow them to make friends. It also now common for some game companies to get their customers to buy a gamer online; the game is then downloaded onto the PC so they can enjoy that game for a lifetime; this is common with the internet hit Minecraft.

As the internet has advanced, it has offered so many advantages for online gaming, the main one being the feature of being able to play online against players across the world, which is an exciting feature for many people. It gives them a chance to make friends across the globe and meet new people. For some games, it even allows them to chat across microphones so they can discuss strategies, increasing their gaming experience. With most games, the feeling of levelling up and doing better on a game is a good feeling and with online leader-boards, this can be increased knowing you are better than lots of other people in the world. The wised variety of games Browser sites offer can fulfil everyone’s needs and make gaming possible for everyone not just stereotypically for young men.

Disadvantages of online gaming mainly include the fact that if you lose connection to the internet, you cannot play online any longer as the game won’t work, or won’t connect to the server you were playing on. This is more common for Browser games and games which use online play i.e. COD. Games like Minecraft which are bought and downloaded, can still run efficiently; they just can’t connect to the Minecraft site for help. Another disadvantage would be that with playing online, it can cause friction across players if games are lost and can sometimes go to extremes such as a man who lost to a child on COD, who knew where he lived and went to his house and threatened him over his loss. Of course this is an extreme circumstance but the factor of line bullying can still occur which can cause huge problems, especially for young players.