Portfolio Assignment 4

The topic that I would like to create a website about would be left-handedness. I am left-handed and I have always been interested in the statistics related to the topic, from famous left-handed people to the fact that males are more likely to be left-handed than females. Although there are some websites that sell left-handed tools and gadgets, my site would focus more on the statistics and facts about left-handed people.

The first site that I found was http://www.lefthandersday.com/index.html. This is a website called Left-Handers' Day. There does not seem to be just one author for this site. The bottom of each page just has the copyright dates and name of the website. Although it is a .com site, the contact information indicates that the site is actually from the UK. The site was updated August 7, 2012. The page seems to be somewhat subjective. It is obviously slanted toward left-handed people, since it is celebrating left-handedness. The page has a lot of information. It has a left-handed info tour, downloadable left-handed posters, and other links, including a link to buy left-handed products. The design of the page is nice. It is not anything spectacular, but it looks good and all of the pages have the same design. The page is functional. All of the links work. I like that the page combines content and entertainment and that it has a lot of information.

The second site that I found was http://www.left-at-the-start.com/. This website also does not have an author. This site is objective, giving information about the history of left-handed people and famous left-handed people, statistics about left-handedness, and information about products. This website does not have as much information as the previous website. It has more information about left-handed products and tools than statistics and facts. This website is a smaller website than the previous website. The design of this website is very basic. All of the links work and it is functional, but it does not look very exciting. One part of the design of this website that I did not like is that the links to the different pages are at the bottom and they are very small. They are easy to miss at first glance, and I feel like those links should be at the top, so that you know what the website contains.

The last website that I found was https://www.leftyslefthanded.com/default.asp. There were not a lot of sites that I could find that were devoted to left-handedness. This site sells a wide variety of left-handed products. There is no author for this site. It is unclear when this page was last updated. This site is objective as a site that sells almost exclusively left handed items can be. (It does have an ambidextrous section.) The scope and depth of this site is that it is working to market its products. There is not really any information given, beyond descriptions of the products. The website is nicely designed. There are pictures of all of the products. The website is also functional. All of the links work, except for the "Bookmark This Site" link, but it is possible that it just was not compatible with my browser. I just did not really like the purpose of this site. I am more interested in the facts and statistics about left-handedness than left-handed products.

If I were to design a site for this topic, I would definitely include a lot of information like the first website did. I would make sure that it was well organized, just like the first website. I would make sure that my links were either on the front or the side of the page, where they are visible, like the first and third websites. I would like my website to be a little flashier than the websites that I found. The design on all three websites was pretty basic and not very exciting.

Portfolio Assignment 3

The link for my online presentation is: http://prezi.com/qo-ri04iemus/academic-databases/.

Portfolio Assignment 2

The article that I chose discussed the legal dispute between Zynga and Electronic Arts (EA). In August, EA sued Zynga, stating that Zynga's game "The Ville" infringes on EA's game "Sim Social". Zynga argued that simulating games have been around for a long time. In addition, they said that the game "Little Computer People" was released by Activision fifteen years before "The Sims" was released by EA. Zynga also accused EA of illegal business practices in employment. Zynga is using the same lawyers that Samsung is using in their legal battle with Apple. The article can be found here.

I think that some companies are taking copyright infringement too far. I understand that companies do not want their products to be duplicated, but some similarities are bound to happen. A gaming company should be able to produce a game without having to worry that another company is going to think that the people in their game are too similar to the people in the other company's game. I think that Zynga had a good point when they said that those kind of simulation games have been around for a while. Zynga had a Facebook game, YoVille, that was also somewhat of a life simulating game, and EA didn't sue them over that game.

I have learned several things from this unit, but I would not really say that my view has been changed. I was unaware that any intellectual property that was produced was automatically protected by copyright. It was interesting to learn the difference between copyright, patent, and trademark as well as about fair use. I already knew some things about piracy. I remember when Napster was a free service and I remember when they shut it down. I guess my views have changed since then, because I remember being frustrated that I couldn't download music anymore. Now, I understand that the reason that they made Napster a paid service is that the artists need to be compensated for their work.

Portfolio Assignment 1- Introduction

My name is Rachel Murphy. In taking this class, I hope to learn more about computers and the Internet. I know some basic things about computers because my first computer was built for me by my father, so I had to learn how to install things like CD-ROM drives. Most of my knowledge about the Internet is more about connectivity and browsers, and less about how the Internet works. I am interested to learn more about how the Internet and websites actually work.