Chris Nolan's Presentation

Chris Nolan presented a lot of invaluable information about search engines and the Internet. Many of the facts that he presented I had never known. The fact that there are so many search engines on the Internet was an interesting fact because I only use Google and never realized that there were so many other search engines that could be used and might even be better. I also learned that adding different key phrases or certain symbols will help you search for a specific topic rather than the search engine returning many websites that aren't related to your topic. The knowledge that I learned from his presentation will allow me to research topics better and more efficiently .

Copyright Laws

One interesting fact that I learned the other day about copyright laws is that a copyright law stays in effect for the creator's entire lifetime and seventy years after they are deceased. The law was only fifty years after the creator was deceased until the Sunny Bono law was passed that added twenty extra years. The law was passed because Walt Disney had died and all of his creations would no longer be under copyright. I never knew this fact and that after the seventy years are up that all the creator's thoughts, ideas and products are no longer under copyright and may be used by anyone. I don't beleive in this, I think copyright of the all creations by one person should be under copyright forever. It was their creation in the first place and should not be used by anyone else even if they have been dead for seventy years. Anyone can also argue that if the author has been dead for over seventy years that all of their creations should no longer be under copyright because they no longer exist and cannot control what was once theirs, therefore all of their creations may pass into the public domain.

Facebook; Good or Bad ?

According to the website, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html, Facebook has become one of the largest social networking tool for college students across the country. I beleive that Facebook can be used in an academic setting to a certain extent. All universities know that the majority if not all their students have a profile on facebook. They most likely check their profiles a lot more than their own university email; knowing all of this campuses across the country can send out different messages, alerting the students of anything from an emergency on campus to a social gathering happening later that night on campus. The only downfall to this such action would be an invasion of privacy. If the school is allowed to look at each student's profile and finds pictures or facts about the student that could lead to suspension; can they take such actions. Deciding whether Facebook should be used in an academic setting is a slippery slope that will be debated for years to come.