Use of New Communication Technologies

Hotmail/Email - I think ive had an email adress since something ridiculous like year6, where i never used it! but in the last 4 years or so ive definatly relied on email. I did have to change my email address from the silly one i made in year 6 to something more professional last year but i found that transffering everything to go to my new address was very simple. I use email to tell me when i have comments or mail on bebo and facebook, to sign up for newsletters and things like ticketek and photobucket, and even this, blogger.com. Now that i live in a different country to all my family and friends, i keep in touch with my parents via email and a handful of friends when i want to tell the long stories. I regularly check my email, at least i would say three times a day. Its the first address i go to when i go on the internet.

Msn/Skype - i have always used msn but never been that much of a big fan. i think this dislike started when all my friends had msn but at home the computer we owned was to shitty to handle it. then once we got a new computer, i just never got into the feel of msn. Skype on the other hand i love, not many of my friends have skype but its such an awesome way to talk to you and see my friends who are back home in NZ. even if they dont have webcams, if they have a microphone then i can still have a actual conversation with. I only got skype just before i moved to the coast so i havent had it for long but im hoping that more of my friends can get it.

Myspace/Facebook/Bebo - yes i have all three accounts! back in the day Myspace was like religion, i used to always go on it. but in the last year its really become about bebo, and since moving here its been more about facebook. I find that most my friends that have the same music taste in me and that ive met at gigs and stuff are on myspace. where as all my school friends are on bebo. and all my older friends, american, and uni friends are on facebook. so now a days i would probably go on facebook the most, and hardly ever on Myspace. Facebook definatly has the best uploading for photos and its so easy to see and acess new albums of friends.

Back home i had two cellphones, one on each network. My very first phone was a Telecom and it used to be the best network to be on. however at the end of 2006, vodafone put out a better deal and everyone switched, but i kept both as one was better for calling and one for txting. i went through alot of phones over the years! i think my first telecom i got in year 9 (which is australian year 10) and it took me about 3 years to stop breaking my telecom phone and keep the trusty one that i had before coming to aussie. My vodafone which i got at the end on 06, was a second hand one that lasted me about 3 months, when i brought another second hand one, which then got drowned in vodka after about 6 months, so i got another second hand one that died on me after about 2 months. This is when i decided to actually buy a new phone which i still have today, so its been going strong for about 6 months now i guess. On coming over to aussie i left my telecom phone at home as the roaming rates are expensive and considering that phone was on a plan i just cancelled it completly. so when i came over here i got an australian vodafone so i still have 2 phones. but ironically its actually cheaper to txt my nz friends of my aussie phone!!! but as i will be going to back to nz in the holidays then im keeping my nz phone. i dont take it out, just check it on the odd occasion and use it as a alarm!!! the aussie phone i got was just a cheap LG phone that i still havnt quite got the use of!!

Laptop- i cannot live without my Mac. which also makes me very anti PC and pro Mac! i got it in January 2007 for my birthday and was possibly one of the only people in my year to use a laptop for all my classes ( with the exception of maths), one of my subjects was web design so it was a huge help being able to take home my work without using a pendrive or the age old floppy disk! (does that even take programmes other than word???) and now at uni, im normally the only one in a tute or lecture with a laptop. i found it so much easier to use as you can type faster than you can write so you get so much more down! and also it serves as a real boredom buster with the beauty of wireless. Being able to go on facebook or bebo in the middle of a lecture certainly keeps me awake. although it could be a downfall for me, getting distracted so easily. im likely to always have a tab open with something other than what im supposed to be working on. i think one of the main reasons i wanted a laptop was so that i could make movies in imovie, as i had a video camera but just a whole bunch of tapes staking up. however when i uploaded all my footage, i kinda realised that my friends werent as funny as we all thought and im still yet to make a general movie. it did serve useful for when i went to europe though and ive made a movie with the footage from that trip.
having a laptop now, i got very fustrated with computers, yes i think they are inferior. but its also made me quite computer savvy.

Cameras/video cameras - i used to rely on disposable cameras, even when all my friends had digital. then something great happened - my mum won a digital camera, which although we had to share amoungst the family, i used the most. in january 2006 i got a video camera, which also meant i could take photos on that. i think the main reason i wanted this was because my brother had one and i saw what fun he had with his, making movies of his friends. however like i said before this soon got old, the less funnier my friends got!! but for christmas just been i was lucky enough to get a digital camera of my own. a touch screen smile shutter one that i absolutly adore and insist on taking everywhere. i love photos, they are truely the greatest memories. however one annoying thing about digital is that they seem to just stay on the computer, ive only once pendrived a heap of photos to print out and that was just before i came over here so that i could have photos for my wall.

ipod/mp3 players- i dont currently have an ipod!!! and im totally fine with that, although i never used to be. i lived far away from school so bussing in and back everyday was a long journey, one i insisted would be made better with the help of an ipod. so january 05 i was lucky enough to get one! none of this mini or nano crap, i hate this small ones!!! i had a massive 60g ipod, i thnk the fattest one there was, but i loved it! and sadly i woke up after new years on the 1st of 2007 to find my dear ipod in a pool of beer!!! at first life was hard, but i found refuge in a mp3 discman! making mp3 cds with about 200 songs on each helped so much that i found no need to spend heaps of money on a new ipod. so the discman was the new device hooked up to the tape adapter in my car. plus with the help of my new laptop, which i listened to in the long bus trips.


is privacy an issue?!?
to me its not really that big of an issue. this is probably because with the exception of facebook/bebo/myspace. anything that im signing up to i trust . i know when to tell if something is a scam or fake. the only things i have accounts for that ive signed up to are banks, trademe, airline and ticketing sights. i do get a bit worried if im using a new site and buying something online with the credit card however... i mean i trust the ticketing sites but once i brought a cd from marbecks and as it was not a .co.nz but a .com and i hadnt used the site before, i was a bit worried but it all turned out fine.