November 2010

Computer Mediated Communication – Video Conference Script: ” You’re Fired”

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Video Call To Be Connected  At 15/11/10 10:30

Employee is expected feed back from your script please take into consideration other outcomes and if confrontation happens terminate call and place under gross misconduct in addition to other reasons of terminating employment contract.

Director:

Hello <First Name> How are you today? is everything okay working from home?

Employee:

Hi James, im fine thankyou and its going well,  is everything okay your end?

Director:

Yes thank you for your concern. Im just calling in to talk about your recent loss of your driving license and inability to attain a new one via the passing of an extended driving test, and how you are coping at home?

Employee:

Oh well erm its going well hopefully i will be able to get a new license in a few months after i have take a retest and i should be passing in that test.

Director:

Ahhh well this has been going on for a long while tho <First Name> and as in your employee contract, we are unable to sustain your employment because of your loss of your driving license as it states in your employee contract without you having a driving license you are unable to do the work that is expected of you meaning it leads to a loss of your employment. (expect confrontation)

Employee:

Im off to pass it next week are you sure you cant wait? and ill promise that i will try and surpass my expected quotas

Director:

Im Sorry, Im not the one who makes the decision just the ones who just relays the information to the employees, if you wish to contest this withdraw of your employment contract please write a formal letter to the head of HR

Thankyou for your many years of service and i am sorry but i have to go now and end this call, sorry for having to give you our bad news

End Call

Computer Mediated Communication – Email : ” You’re Fired”

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Date: 15th November 2010

Dear <First Name.> < Surname> ,

I would like to thank you for your many years of service to our company, and your a great asset to us. You have enabled the business to be awarded contracts and gain profit from various businesses we are involved in. However over recent months the business has come across some unforeseeable circumstances , and during these months we have felt that you are no longer working this a common aim like the rest of your colleagues towards the business mission statement. Your actions have made your colleagues upset and insulted by your actions. In addition to this after your disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct  i regrettably i have to inform you that from Monday 22th November 2010 you will no longer be in employment, all other correspondents from us you will receive in the post including a formal letter  about the end of your contract with us and your p45.

Regards,

James Morris

<Personal Business Title>

<Business Name>

<Address Line 1>

<Town><County>

<PostCode>

<Telephone>

<Fax>

Computer Mediated Communication- Exercise

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Scenario

You are to write an email and a script for a video conferencing tool for a face to face conversation.

the two scenario’s that you can pick from;

1) You’re Fired

2) It’s over im leaving you

This exercise is to show how the use of emails can be complex and hard to portray meaning, however because of face to face it can be hard depending on the subject as you may not be easy to say what you need to say as you can see the detrimental effects of what you say.

Work For This Exercise:

Email

Video Conferencing Script

Social Networking Applications- Facebook Analysis

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Background information;

Facebook is a social networking application, that of which many people use throughout their daily lives either on the go on mobile devices or on laptops in WiFi hotspots or at home on their desktops or laptops. Facebook has various tools that are available to users whether they are businesses or the ordinary public of which allows social interaction between two or more members of the public or with businesses.

Overview of Facebook

  • Facebook was initial founded in 2004 for the use by Harvard Students
  • This exclusive use by these students has now expanded and in 2006 Facebook was made available to the UK
  • To date Facebook has approx 600 million users

Frequency And Reason For USE

Many people today use Facebook on the go with Internet enables mobile devices, or the use of mobile dongles and wifi hotspots. However i limit myself to only going on Facebook when i am within the home, such as when im on my laptop, however i very rarely goon my laptop solely to go on Facebook, i usually use it in conjunction with work, or during surfing the web.

I usual use Facebook for the social interaction between family and friends. Facebook enables me to keep them updated about what i am doing on my wall, or post photos, videos and comments for them to see so they are able to see what i have been upto, this

is also the same for me i am able to see what my family and friends have been upto so if i am unable to contact them i still have an idea of how they are getting on. I also use Facebook to allow me to meet new people such as new friends that i have made at uni and come across old friends from college and school and keep upto date about businesses, via the pages that i have joined.

Analysis Of Online Friends

Total Number of Friends :                          400

  • Family                                               18
  • Close Friends                                     9
  • School Friends                                   23
  • People i went to School With              294
  • Uni Friends                                        31
  • Other                                                23

Approximation (not accurate)

Other consist of people who have randomly added me or are family friends. The main reason a large amount are people who i went to school with is because i was Headboy leading to people in other years adding me. Although i have 402 “friends” many are acquaintances, most i rarely talk to and each category can be hard to define as many

friends could be in more then one section.

Ease Of Use & User-ability

Facebook is very intuitive, such as clicking on the chat bar and then a name this will bring up a chat box to which you are able to chat in. Or click on their picture or name on your update feed it will take you to their profile page, along with dialogue boxes for you to type text, which requires no knowledge of programming code such as html to write text like myspace. With use Facebook is able to be understood easier, However Facebook keeps changing sometimes daily making it harder for users to understand where everything is as it keeps moing around. Most settings are easy to understand but hard to understand where to find them is more of the problem once they have moved.

Features and functions

– Online business’s

– Groups

-Online Translations to allow global interaction between users even if they do not speak the same language

-The Ability to access Facebook anywhere

-Own personal profiles(such as your wall where you are able to post)

-Update feeds

-Picture upload and viewing ability

-Video upload and viewing ability

-Insert Links within posts

-Link different accounts together such as Twitter and Facebook

-Ability to play online games either against friends via point scoring or real time

-Ability to play online games and have friends help you achieve goals, such as more friends that you have that play the game more points

-Facebook Coins (transfer your own money to credit points within applications)

-“Poke” Friends to get their attention

-Send Messages (integrated internal email client for people who use Facebook)

-Various search abilities

-Event Planner

-Like or comment on other users posts/updates

-Suggest things to friends

-Privacy Settings

-See Friendship Capability (here you can see all your interactions between both users that concern both of them and a list of common friends)

Testing Web 2.0 Applications- Microsofts Sky Drive and Google Docs

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Sky Drive a Microsoft Product was released on August 2007,  and is trying to rival the current success

©2010 Google
©2010 Google

of Google Docs , that was released in 2005 as two separate products (Writerly and Google Spreadsheet these subsequently joined)

Evaluation and Comparison of Google Docs and Microsoft Sky Drive

The Benefit Of Sky Drive is that it has the same user interface that can be found on their 2007 and 2010 MS office package software that is heavily publicized and recommended by many with the use of Windows new operating system. Yet Google Docs uses an interface that was first used by Microsoft on their 85 and 2000 MS office packages, to which now as a built in feature on 2010 Ms office package to allow users to revert back to this old style, and i feel this could be cause it is counter intuitive as i found when using Sky Drive, i would be looking for a feature and it would be under a tab where i did not expect the feature would be, such as new slide on home instead of insert. Yet Google docs was easy to use and understand with a comprehensive list of help documents to help users.

Sky Drive has added features that would make me use it over the years is that it  links with your emails allowing you to edit and modify emails without having to remove them from the email it self allowing for a quicker return of information and data sent between users.

Sky Drive © Copyright 2010 Microsoft
© Copyright 2010 Microsoft

What i liked about when using Google Docs, although not having the common user interface, that of which users are used to of word, the functionality that are gifted by Mircosoft on their free SkyDrive is limited in comparison to that of Google Docs. Google Docs you are able to comment your work , add footnotes as if you were using MS Word installed software upon your computer. Which makes me feel that if i was going to be word processing an actual document for publication, this would be a better resource to use.

If Microsoft was to reduce their limitations on their online web application this could make it the better service to use, especially for students who already have Windows Live email addresses meaning that a second registration would not be required. Yet this is unlikely to happen as it could impede on their sales of their software packages.

Although Sky Drive  is limited on functionality, it allows you to actually define your settings first such as which group of friends can edit the document, who can view the document and the title,yet once these are defined they then have to be changed when doing each document from the defined norm.  Where as Google Docs automatically names some of the documents for you, and with out prior knowledge many people many not know how to change the name of their document, and is an annoying flaw although the program is trying to help you by saving your time, by naming and saving your work (of which sky drive doesn’t automatically save your work)

Overall Summary

Sky Drives Key Features;

– Looks Like MS Word 2007-10 ( similar user interface)

– Can edit within emails

– Most users already have a log in due to Windows Live Messenger

– Share with defined users

-Defined users can edit information

Google Docs Key Features;

-Looks Like MS Word 98 ( similar user interface)

-More Features ( Footnotes ect)

– Auto Save

-Intuitive and easy to understand help documents

– Share with defined users

-Defined users can edit information

Although both have advantages and disadvantages if users were to take up the use of Skydrive the would need to contemplate where they would use this such application since this application requires users to log in through a Hotmail account log in, many organisations or colleges has subsequently blocked this web page because they wish their users to use a more secure and easily regulated email server and account supplied by that organisation. Yet with Google docs this would be hard to block as it is used through out business for users to search and find information so would be an obvious choice for many especially if they are moving between buildings or sites to show different users information with out having to purchase equipment such as a laptop preventing the data to be stolen whilst on the move. Meaning this would be my choice to use in the future because of the additional features, and although you may not be able to edit in emails you are able to upload the content to other sites like Zoho and also able to email the documents.

However can we trust these online software products to actually store our private and possibly sensitive business information without the risk or being accessed by unauthorized user?