Collaborating online

What is online collaboration: 
Simply put, online collaboration lets a group of people work together in real-time over the Internet. Those engaged in online collaboration can work together on word processor documents, Power Point presentations and even for brainstorming, all without needing to be in the same room at the same time. There are many great online collaboration tools available, which can help your team accomplish its goals.


How is online collaboration different from web conferencing?
 A web conference enables people to meet online in real-time. While presentations may be given and notes taken, a web conference is much the same as a face-to-face meeting in that it’s more about a discussion than working together on the documents being presented, for example. Online collaboration on the other hand, involves a team working together, often at the same time, and on the same documents.

 What are the key features in an online collaboration tool?
First of all, a successful online collaboration tool needs to be easy to use and set up. Then, it needs to be secure and to have the features that will fit your purposes - these are different for every team. So if you mainly want to hold online brainstorming sessions, for example, it’s important that the tool you choose has a good whiteboard functionality. Other useful features are the ability to upload documents, a calendar and notifications by e-mail when changes have been made to a document.

 Is online collaboration secure?
 Yes. All reputable online collaboration tools have security features which ensure that anyone who is not invited to your workplace can’t see the documents that you are working on. In addition, most tools offer encryption, which is an additional layer of security that makes your documents unreadable to those with malicious intentions. A good, secure tool, will also allow the owners of the online collaboration workspace to set authorization levels for its participants. This means that while some people will be able to only read the documents, others can make changes but not everyone can delete documents.

Internet safety

The Internet has drastically changed the way that children interact with the world. They have access to in-depth knowledge, tools to express their creativity, and people from all over the world. Yet along with offering a fascinating, new way to connect with the world, the Internet also offers new risks     

• Cyberbullying
• Exposure to inappropriate material 
• Online predators 
• Reveling too much personal information

Learn the basics of Internet safety
Children use a variety of online services, and each of these services can have different safety concerns. However, there are some basic tips which you can employ no matter how your children use the Internet. 

it's important to be aware of what your kids see and hear on the Internet, who they meet, and what they share about themselves online.

Just like any safety issue, it's wise to talk with your kids about your concerns, take advantage of resources to protect them, and keep a close eye on their activities.

 

 

Search tools

Search tools are programs that search documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. A search engine is really a general class of programs, however, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web.

Web Search Engines

Typically, Web search engines work by sending out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the words contained in each document. Each search engine uses a proprietary algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query.

Social networking

Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will.  Although social networking is possible in person, especially in the workplace, universities, and high schools, it is most popular online.
When it comes to online social networking, websites are commonly used. These websites are known as social sites. Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users. Depending on the website in question, many of these online community members share common interests in hobbies, religion, politics and alternative lifestyles. Once you are granted access to a social networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization may include reading the profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting them.

How Social Networks Have Changed our World

During the last ten years, social networks have evolved from simple communication hubs to veritable agents of change; galvanizing thousands of people over political discourse, creating and changing industries, and all in all, transforming people’s lives.

Netiquette

WHAT IS NETIQUETTE?

Netiquette, or net etiquette, refers to etiquette on the internet. Good netiquette involves respecting others privacy, and not doing anything online that will annoy or frustrate other people. Three areas areas where good netiquette is highly stressed are e-mail, online chat, and newsgroup. 

As you become involved with online discussion groups, you will find that each group has its own accepted rules of behaviour. Many of these have come about because of technical limitations.

For example, on an email discussion list - where not everyone may have seen past messages - it's considered polite to quote from a message you're replying to, so your response has context. It's also considered polite to keep those quotes short and relevant. On a web-based forum, however, where the original messages are visible to all, quoting is often unnecessary.

THE BASIC RULES

1. Refrain from personal abuse. You may express robust disagreement with what someone says, but don't call them names or threaten them with personal violence.
2. Don't spam. That is, don't repeatedly post the same advertisement for products or services. Most sites have strict and specific rules about who is allowed to post ads and what kind of ads they are.
3. Write clearly and succinctly. On a site that has many non-native English speakers, avoid using slang they may not understand.
4. Remember that your posts are public. They can be read by your partner, your children, your parents, or your employer.
5. Stay on-topic, especially when you're new. Don't post about football in a hair-care forum or about hair care in a gardening forum!
6. Don't expect other people to do your homework for you. If you're looking for technical help, for example, don't ask questions you could easily answer yourself by reading the manual or online help provided with the product. When you do ask for help, include details of what attempts you've made to solve the problem. It will save time and also show people that you are making an effort to help yourself.
7. Do not post copyrighted material to which you do not own the rights. Sites vary in how strict they are about this, but as well as facing the possibility of legal action by the rights holder, you may also get the site sued.
8. The site's owner, perhaps assisted by one or more moderators, has the final say in enforcing the rules.

importance of digital communications in todays world

Digital applications are very useful in our daily life because they help us to communicate better, and know more about our friends and family. It helps you to search for any type of information only in a few seconds, also, now a days, many schools are using digital communications for students to do homeworks and projects. You can always or most of the time be informed by being and using digital communications. Now a days, children are starting to use digital communications, it is important for parents to tell them how to be safe and use them properly.

In conclusion, digital communications are very useful, but we always have to be careful to who we talk, and if people in internet are really who they are.

internet applications

Internet applications are interactive services that are used to perform tasks over the internet. These applications can be either server-based or client-based. There are millions of Internet applications over the web.

 Over the past decade or so, the web has been embraced by millions of businesses as an inexpensive channel to communicate and exchange information with prospects and transactions with customers.

In particular, the web provides a way for marketers to get to know the people visiting their sites and start communicating with them. One way of doing this is asking web visitors to subscribe to newsletters, to submit an application form when requesting information on products or provide details to customize their browsing experience when next visiting a particular website.

From a technical view-point, the web is a highly programmable environment that allows mass customization through the immediate deployment of a large and diverse range of applications, to millions of global users. Two important components of a modern website are flexible web browsers and web applications; both available to all and sundry at no expense.
Web browsers are software applications that allow users to retrieve data and interact with content located on web pages within a website.
Today’s websites are a far cry from the static text and graphics showcases of the early and mid-nineties: modern web pages allow personalized dynamic content to be pulled down by users according to individual preferences and settings. Furthermore, web pages may also run client-side scripts that “change” the Internet browser into an interface for such applications as web mail and interactive mapping software (e.g., Yahoo Mail and Google Maps).
Web applications are, therefore, computer programs allowing website visitors to submit and retrieve data to/from a database over the Internet using their preferred web browser. The data is then presented to the user within their browser as information is generated dynamically.




Web applications, therefore, are a gateway to databases especially custom applications which are not developed with security best practices and which do not undergo regular security audits. In general, you need to answer the question: “Which parts of a website we thought are secure are open to hack attacks?” and “what data can we throw at an application to cause it to perform something it shouldn’t do?”.
This is the work of a web vulnerability scanner.