Well… what can I say? Let’s say, an asteroid will intercept Earth’s orbit next year!!!

SURFING

THE BOGEY MAN

FACTS

-81% of all households have a computer.

-75% of those households have Internet access.

11% of identity theft information is obtained online.

-Over 300,000 phishing emails are reported annually. (Phishing is a scam where Internet fraudsters send an e-mail or pop-up messages to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an effort to steal the user’s personal and financial information.)

-3.1 days is the average life span of a phishing web site.

-Over 1 million adult Internet users experience Internet identity fraud annually: 2,983 a day.

These figures are rising, so we need to stop this. We need to take measures so that we can remain safe while using the internet.

TAKE ACTION TODAY

-Create a password that has a combination of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols for unlocking your computer and for accessing websites. Use a different password for each site.

-Never use an automatic log-in feature that saves your user name and password.

-Always log off the Internet or your computer when you’re finished.

-Avoid storing financial information on your computer.

-Find and use anti-virus software and a firewall.

-Do not open e-mails sent to you by strangers.

-Reduce unwanted commercial e-mail and some scam. (Good for five years.)

-Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing e-mail.

-Avoid being scammed(for high school and college students).

-Quiz your knowledge about wireless security.

-Know your web terms.

-Order a free credit report every 12 months.

-Do not use a public computer or one at the library. Shared computers may inadvertently help share your credit information with others. Only access your report online via your own computer.

People can hack others account through fraud and if you have the same password for every account, they will use it to do illegal stuff or shop online using your account, framing you for their misdoings. These are just some of the things that I will and everyone should do to keep themselves safe from internet frauds.

• Annual costs for chronic diseases in the U.S. is big money:
  • $117 billion for obesity
  • $73.4 billion for high blood pressure
  • $448 billion for heart disease and strokes
  • $50 billion for weight-loss aids, diet foods, supplements, and weight-loss medications—and obesity is still increasing
• 79% likelihood exists that an overweight child will become an overweight adult.
• 75% of adults don’t eat the recommended daily 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables.
• Snack consumption by children has increased 300% from 20 years ago.
• 400,000 people die annually from poor eating habits and laziness.
• French fries are the most eaten vegetable in the U.S.

TAKE ACTION TODAY We should eat more dark green vegetables and less junk food. We should eat more fruits, whole grains, low fat milk products. Eating slowly will make you feel full before you’ve overeaten.

• If you suffer from or have a family history of any of the aforementioned chronic conditions or diseases, consult your family physician for dietary counseling.
• Although every individual is unique in his or her dietary needs, here are some ideas to help all of us:
  • Eat more dark green vegetables, legumes, fruits, whole grains, low-fat milk products, andlean meats.
  • Eat fewer foods with refined grains and sugars; reduce your intake of fatty foods with empty calories; and eat smaller portions.
  • Eat slowly so that you will feel full before you’ve overeaten.
  • Don’t reward yourself or children with food.
  • Limit snacking.
  • Develop a routine and eat at similar times each day.
  • Drink plenty of water.

This will help us stay healthy and remain fit for years to come. I will put all these measures in use as eating healthy is not only good for you, it is good for others as well if you can contribute more to the society. Every one should keep their health in check and should even ensure that their family is living a healthy life.Eating healthy food will reduce obeisity so that you can live a longer life.

Eat to live; don’t live to eat.

-99% of all homes have at least one TV-45% have three or more.

-56% of all 8 to 16-year-olds have a TV in their bedroom.

-A person watches TV an average of 40 days per year.

-Children spend 1,023 hours a year watching TV compared to 900 hours in school.

-200,000 violent acts, including 16,000 murders, will be seen on TV by children before their 18th birthday.

-Roughly 70% of all TV shows include sexual content, with an average of five sexual scenes per hour.

-On average, 38.5 minutes per week of meaningful conservationhappens between a parent and their child.

TAKE ACTION TODAY

1- Turn off your TV today. I don’t think I would be able to do this because TV, although it wastes my time, has positive aspects as well, it helps us in education and keeps us updated with current events. It is even one of the best past times,relaxing and watching TV. I will reduce the TV viewing time, but won’t be able just turn it off for ever.

2- Designate certain TV-free times throughout the week to reduce viewing hours.                                                                                                                                                  I would do this because at times, watching TV makes time fly and thus I don’t have enough time to do my work. This stresses me and by reducing TV viewing hours I will have time for other works.

3- Remove TVs from bedrooms, kitchen, etc. I have already done this as I just have 1 TV in my house, in the drawing room. This step needs to be taken as TV in the bedroom reduces your average time of sleep below the normal 7 hours mark and thus you don’t get enough sleep and feel lazy, unable to perform your job properly.

4- Make a list of activities to do besides wtching TV-activities like reading, biking, swimming, walking, gardening, or socializing with friends. Then start doing them. I will do this as I like sports and books more than TV and it will help improve many thing about me rather tan slopping on the couch and watching TV.

5- Avoid using TV as a reward-this only increases its power. I won’t do this very effectively as I even like watching TV and will still try and reduce it to the minimum.

6- Be more selective about programming and choose history, travel, cooking, home repair/design, and other educational themes.                                                     I will do that as it is better than watching movies regularly. It will help us learn many things.

The benefits of giving up watching TV are that we can have time for other important works rather than watching TV.

G1 ANDROID

The HTC Dream (also marketed as T-Mobile G1 in Europe and the US or Era G1 in Poland) is anInternet-enabled 3G smartphone with an operating system designed by Google and hardware designed by HTC. It was the first phone to the market that uses the Android mobile device platform. The phone is part of an open standards effort of the Open Handset Alliance.

It was released in the US on 22 October 2008; in the UK on 30 October 2008; and became available in other European countries including Austria, Netherlands, and the Czech Republic in early 2009. It was released in Germany in February 2009 with a QWERTZ keyboard.On 10 March 2009, it became available in Poland as Era G1 under a local mobile brand affiliated with T-Mobile.

CLIQ ANDROID

The Motorola CLIQ (known as DEXT worldwide except for the US) is an Android OS based mobile phone by Motorola . (CLIQ in US, and it will be sold under the name Dext worldwide). Motorola CLIQ/Motorola DEXT is enabled with 3G/HSDPA, Wi-Fi capability, 5-megapixel camera and video recording (at 24 frames per second), a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack, an HTML Chrome browser, a smart Qwerty keyboard and it also has access to applications developed by the Android community.

Some of the other key features of the device are MOTO BLUR, remote wipe and link calls with mapping software. MOTOBLUR enables the user to get status updates from contacts, posts, messages, emails and more from various sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and Email clients (work or personal) without the need to unlock/open the phone directly on their phone screen.

MY OPINION

I would prefer the Cliq android because it has more facilities than the G1 as it is newer and better. It enables many cool things like it enables the user to get status updates from contacts, posts, messages, emails and more from various sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and Email clients and many more.

Ans. Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is named after Alfred Nobel, it is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to exceptional people who have done good to this world and have helped make and maintain peace.

Q. List three previous winners and tell why they received the award.

Ans. The 3 previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize were Kofi Annan in 2001, Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Martti Ahtisaari in 2008.

Q. Do yo think President Barrack Obama deserved to be nominated for this award in February 2009, 10 days after taking office? Why/Why not?

Ans. I don’t think that the President of USA, Barrack Obama deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize just 10 days after becoming the president of a world major  power. He is keeping most of his promises, but not all of them have had a great impact. He could have won it later after fulfilling all his promises and proving that he really deserved it. Although, he has done an OK job on the Afghanistan situation. He has only been in the office for 10 days, that’s not enough time to prove that he has the right stuff to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he is capable of achieving what he has been awarded for.

Well, who doesn’t like surprises?  I like surprises, but only to some extent. Sometimes surprises can be fun, sometimes shocking. At times I don’t like surprises because it gets me tensed and my heart beats faster. Surprises tingle with emotions, it fluctuates your mood, it can make a sad person very happy. Surprises are pretty much cool and fun. I might even get a surprise the day after tomorrow as my birthday is on the 9th.

I love books as they are pretty awesome, cool, interesting and even send us many messages through simple words. It is very difficult to distinguish a single book as my favorite because many of the books I’ve read were pure works of art. But since I have to give any one book the credit of really impressing me, it is “The Da Vinci Code” by my favorite, Dan Brown. He is a real genius, as this book showed me what a talented writer can do. This book is pretty awesome because of the way so many complex things are related because of just one event. The suspence isthe best I’ve ever seen, all the books I’ve read written by Dan Brown have unquestionable suspence. The language used helps understand the story, the plot is very good and the storyline is superb. It is a 450 page thriller in which you can’t have an event which lets you down.

TAKE ACTION TASKS

1. Stop and think..,then make a list of what matters most to you.

- Many things matter to me, but the things that matter to me the most are my family, friends, school, God, health, happiness, animals(pets), future, love and some games.

2. Ceate a list of how you currently spend your time each week.

- Mostly I follow this schedule. I get up at 5:30 am, go to school at 6:15 am. I come back at home 3:15 pm. I eat at 3:25 pm, I wach televisiontill 4 pm. I study till 4:45 pm and then go to my piano classes at 5 pm. I come back at 6:15 pm. I play downstairs till 7 pm, sit on the computer till 8 pm, then I study till 9 pm. I eat at 9 pm and then again, I watch television till 10 pm, I read a book when on my bed and sleep at around 11 pm.

3. Organize your list of weekly activities and identify activities that are required and those that are optional.

- I go to school. I go for piano classes. I play downstairs. I study and read story books. I watch television. I sit on the computer. I go out with my family. I play on the computer, at times. The activities underlined are required and the rest are optional.

4. Take steps to rearrange your schedule or reduce the optional activities so that you can spend time doing what matters most.

- School. Study. Time with my family. Some time for my talent.

5. Don’t waste time!!!

“Time spent on what matters most is NEVER a waste of time.”

Technology has such a large impact on our society because of its uses, it makes many near impossible things seem simple and helps provide accurate assistance easily and quickly.

The word “technology” has the most emphasis as  I’ve stated above that technology helps in many everyday chores. The words with the next highest emphasis are the different means of technology that we use.The next on the list is “world” and it is important to know that the technology that we use keeps the world running. These words show us the importance of technology.

I am very happy today because today is a half-day in m school, The Universal American School in Kuwait. Today all the periods are half the usual length and it is so much fun, we’ll go back home at 11:30 instead of 2:30!!! I can finish my work early and then continue reading my book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)!!! I’ll even have time to play. Today is such a cool day!!!

(http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/129792.html)

Products serve important individual needs, but they also change societies and governments. Think of the role that recording and duplicating technology has played in major events. The Watergate tapes brought down President Nixon. The fax machine and the VCR helped crumble the Soviet bloc. The Internet is democratizing China despite government efforts to restrict it. Had the technologies been regulated or restricted to meet copyright owner concerns, our industry would be poorer, consumers would have fewer choices and the history of the world would be dramatically different.

The disadvantages of technology

(http://wDww.youtube.com/watch?v=4CBDoOQ9rPI )

The disadantages are that too many people around the world are using alot of technology daily. Every person around the world might be watching television or using a computer every second. By the time children are 5, they would have watched more television than the time they would have spent with their family. Technology can even be misused in many ways, from stealing(hacking) to military purposes. Technology is even very addictive, a person doesn’t know how time flies and doesn’t have time for other works.

However, I think that the advantages of technology outweigh its disadvantages as the disadvantages are created by us and not the technology. However, technology has made many tasks possible, even those which seemed near impossible in the past.

Johannes Gutenberg invented the Gutenberg printing press in 1455.

A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image. The mechanical systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw-presses used to press cloth, grapes, etc. and possibly prints. Gutenberg was the first in Western Europe to develop a printing press. During the Renaissance era, printing methods based on Gutenberg’s printing press spread rapidly throughout first Europe and then the rest of the world. It eventually replaced most versions of block printing, making it the most used format of modern movable type, until being superseded by the advent of offset printing.

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1889.

Probably no means of communication has revolutionized the daily lives of ordinary people more than the telephone. The actual history of the telephone is a subject of complex dispute. The controversy began with the success of the invention and continues today. Some of the inventors credited with inventing the telephone include Antonio Meucci, Philip Reis, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell. A practical telephone was actually invented by 2 men working in the US, Elisha Gray and Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell. Incredibly, both men filed for a patent on their designs, with Bell beating Gray by only 2 hours. Although Gray built th first steel diaphragm receiver, he wasn’t able to master the design of a workable transmitter until after Bell had discovered it. Bell’s experiments with his assistant Thomas Watson finally proved successful on March 10,1876,when the first complete sentence was transmitted:”Watson,come here;I want you..” The telephones ability to pick up speech at various distances from the mouth is tested in a sound-proof room. A loud-speaker inside the dummy head emits typical human words and sounds.

John Logie Baird invented the television in 1923.

Scottish inventor, John Logie Baird, the father of this pervasive technology, first publicly demonstrated television on 26 January 1926, in his small laboratory in the Soho district of London. Although large companies with great financial support were also working on the problem of television, Baird managed to surpass them all with very little money, a handful of unpaid helpers and equipment pieced together using rather unconventional materials. For example, Baird’s choice of mechanical scanning as the most effective way of achieving true television required the use of spinning discs — which of financial necessity were made of hatboxes and mounted on a coffin lid. The first person to appear on television was a young office boy in the building where Baird worked. The lad was paid about 60 cents for his appearance! The first broadcasting of TV pictures didn’t begin until 1935, in Germany, with American TV broadcasting following six years later, in 1941. By 1949, there were a million TV sets in this country, and by 1959, there were 50 million. During the 1960s, color television became popular. In 1980, about half of all the sets in America were color sets.

I came to Kuwait just 4 yrs back as my parents got a good offer for a job here.  Kuwait is a beautiful place to be in with awesome malls to visit and  beautiful beaches to go to. The Kuwait towers and the Liberation tower are the important landmarks in Kuwait and they are made of exellent architecture. The thing I love most about Kuwait is that there are a lot of places worth visiting in Kuwait. There are a variety of places to visit, from the deserts to the beaches.

Technology is every where, everyone uses technology everyday. A person, at every second, around the world uses technology. Thus it will be hard for us to survive a few weeks without technology, some people think that we won’t even be able to spend a day without technology. It can be true for most of us, actually all of us, but if we’re deserted on an island, we can do it. If everything shut down and no communication technology was available to us, our lives would be scattered and unorganized. Technology is very helpful in everyday life, but many misuse it for destruction.

To some people it’ll be like “World Peace Day” without any available technology around the world, but to some it’ll be the worst day of their lives. We use many types of technology daily, the most used are for communication, entertainment, transport and education. We use communication technology to communicate with people through phones, entertainment technology always keeps us entertained, like television, educational technology is used for many educational purposes and transport technology for transportation. Without technology it wouldn’t be possible for us to do most of these stuff as education is due to information and we wouldn’t be able to generate the required amount of  technology, shopping is possible because of production of goods and weaving requires technology, but we can do all this using the old methods, but it will be incomplete. Thus it will be hard for everyone to live witout any technology.

Faith, hope and love are some good things God gave us, and the greatest is love as love can change the world, it can change a person and all. Without love a person would be lonely and deserted. The love of our parents and friends keep us going all long. All three are very important, faith in God, hope of anything and love of a person, but love surpasses it all. Without love no one would have hope of achieving anything and would lose faith in God. Thus love is the most important thing God has given us.

                                                                                                   

Q.How do you feel about these statistics on communication technology?

Ans. The statistics on communication technology show us that an average person spends 4 hrs a day watchimg television and many such facts about how much techology we consume. The percentage of people using a lot of technology in very high. These statistics are shocking but at the same time obvious looking at the amount of technology we use everyday. There are so many people who watch television everyday most of te time, we shouldn’t let that happen.

Q.Although the message of this video is trying to convey that we consume too much media, what do you think are positive ways to look at the amount of media we consume

Ans. The positive way to look at these statistics is that, if used properly, we can learn a lot from the media, and have fun at the same time. Educational media tells everybody many interesting facts and teach us a lot of what we need to know. News media keeps us updated with the world and tells us about the current events so that we don’t lag behind in this world. Entertainment is another actually the mostly consumed form of media. It entertains everybody and is of great fun, sports, quiz shows, game shows etc. These are the positive ways to look at te consumption of media.

Q.Do you think society is controlled by technology? If so, why? If not, why not?

Ans. Yes, i think that society is controlled by technology, in todays world technology is everywhere and places that don’t have modern technology are looked down upon by everybody. Who would want to go visit an undeveloped than go visit the NASA. Technology is everything now a days, every place is controlled by it.  People who are more advanced rule over the undeveloped ones. Technology decides the status of a person, people who control a society rule because of the technology, thus technology controls the society.

I used to have a dog in India, her name was Julie, a very pretty dalmation and used to love it a lot, I left it at my uncle’s house as he was the one who had it before he gifted it to me. She used to be so cute. She even bore 3 puppies. One day when I went to visit him, my uncle told me that Julie fell off a building. Some dog was barking at night and Julie went to bark back, when she was on the top of the building, she fell through a gap and died. I felt horrible, as she was very good and smart, obeying my every command. The 3 puppies- Rocky, Julia and Moti are now taken care of by my uncle. But whatever happens, I will never forget Julie. May she rest in peace.