Social Network Site

Social network sites, such as Facebook, My____, and Friendster has been increasingly used, especially Facebook. It is common that people share photos, events, even discuss things online through social network sites. But how social network sites started?

Usernets

Usernets was first conceived by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979. It lets users to post articles or posts to newsgroup.

Google Group or Yahoo! Group used this Usernets' concept.

BBSs (Bulletin Board System)

First BBSs came online during late 1970s. During this time, only one person can access to this BBSs. Most BBSs involved in illegal activities such as virus code, hacking and phreaking.

Online Services

CompuServe and Prodigy were the examples of online services. These examples were among corporate attempts to reach internet.

IRC, ICQ and IM

Instant messaging was established at 1988 to share information quicker without having to get through emails.

Early Social Networks

Dating sites, forums, sites that allow profile creation (Six Degrees, AsianAvenue etc), online journal (LiveJournal), and online games (World of Warcraft) were some of the sites that firstly started.

Major Advance of Social Networks

Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, My____, and Facebook are the examples of latest social networks. 

There are more social network sites from different genre like Youtube (video sharing) and Flickr (photo sharing).

Impacts on Malaysia

Social networks have brought relationships closer, both professional and personal. Other than helping people to express their ideas easily, it can helps information sharing to be more faster, thus helping information to be spread among Malaysians quickly.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/10/the-history-and-evolution-of-social-media/

Mobile Computing

Computers are not necessarily in PC form today. Sometimes it can be as small as your palm so that you can carry it around. The thing is, how mobile computing is started?

1993

Newton Message Pad was launched by Apple. It resembled our mobile computing today although it was not a very popular idea yet.

2000s 

The sale for Newton Message Pad has increased to 17.8%.

2009 - present

Mobile computing are used widely and has increased sale to huge percentage every year.

Impacts on Malaysia

Although the growth of mobile computing in Malaysia is a little slower, but the importance and the role of mobile computing cannot be denied. With mobile computing, Malaysians can share information faster and more easily. As a developing country, it is important for Malaysians to look forward to this technology and embrace it.

Reference

History of Mobile Computing http://www.philblock.info/hitkb/h/history_of_mobile_computing.html

Internet

Internet has been useful to people in Malaysia. Question is, how did Internet started in Malaysia?

1990

Internet was first begun by Malaysia Institute of Microelectronic Systems (MIMOS or MIMOS Berhad) when they launched Join Advanced Integrated Networking (JARING). Internet was first established during this year, and this is Malaysia's first ISP.

1992

Malaysians gained global internet connection when a satellite link between Malaysia and US was installed. Malaysia encouraged the usage of internet for business since then.

1995

Internet has really begun to be used widely.
Malaysia's second ISP, TMNet, was launched.

1996

Internet hosts increased. One out of a thousand Malaysians had access to internet connection (Beta Interactive Services, 1995).

1998

The number of internet users increased to 2.6% of population, with 467 000 computers were sold.

2000

701 000 units of computer were sold.

2002 - present

Internet is used and improved to maintain its accessibility to users.

Impacts on Malaysia

Internet has been contributing to Malaysia's growing information sharing and improvement of learning styles. Although internet has its drawbacks, but it is important to not overlook its mixed blessings so that Malaysians can optimized the usage of internet.

Reference:

History of Internet in Malaysia http://www.scribd.com/doc/59169470/History-of-Internet-in-Malaysia

How Secondary Storage devices evolve

Definition

Secondary storage devices can be defined as devices that store information such as documents, musics, videos and pictures. Information in these devices can be deleted, copied, and saved.

The Journey of Evolution

Paper Punch Cards were the first external storage for computers. The holes on the cards represent information in binary code's form. A hole means zero, and no hole means one.

IBM Punch Card

Floppy Drive (8") used once magnetic media was introduced, turning Paper Punch Cards to obsolete. It became increasingly used because it could store more information and more handy compared to punch cards.

Floppy Drive 8 Inch

Then, Floppy Drive (5.25") used as advancement to Floppy Drive (8"). This drive is smaller and have more capacity to store more information.

Floppy Drive 5.25 Inch

After that, Floppy Drive (3.5") took place. It was designed even smaller to make carriage easy. It also provided with cover for reading area so that when the data in the Floppy Drive (3.5") was about to be read, it would not damage.

Floppy Drive 3.5 Inch

The advance of secondary storage devices was continued to Zip Drive that could store more information with specialized technology that would require some technology to read it.

Zip Drive

Flash Drive is the next evolution of secondary storage devices. It is also known as USB drive and pendrive. It started with small amount of MB, but evolved to store more information. Sometimes, a Flash Drive's capacity can achieve 32 GB.

Flash Drive

Card Media, Portable USB and SSD are the next secondary storage that we use until today.

Prediction

Holography Storage is the next secondary storage device that is predicted to be used in the future. Holography is not a new thing since it has been used (e.g late Tupac's concert) but it is a new idea for data storage. InPhase Technologies is experimenting this kind of storage. For now, we can only know that the data will be read and wrote by lasers.

Impact on Malaysia

The usage and evolution of these devices in Malaysia shows that;

1. Most of Malaysians are familiar with the advancement of secondary storage's technology.
2. Information sharing is practiced among Malaysians.

Secondary storage devices has made every information transfer easier. It will make it easy for students to exchange notes, keep teachers' lecture and use the notes whenever necessary. Other than helping e-learning, it will tell the world that Malaysia is not left behind in technologies.

Resources:

http://www.akhilesh.in/science/articles/004secondarystorage.php