News stories on Download services

There are many news stories relating to download services. Here are some of the stories realting to this topic.
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iTunes

Music and Video
A very popular download service is the ability to download music on the MP3 format.This has caused some trouble as peer -to- peer (P2P) filesharing programs allow users to download music illegally and for very little cost. However Itunes is one of largest online and due to the popularity of the 'Ipod', Apple has introduced itunes for ipod users to gather songs to put on thier ipod. Itunes uses a higher quality MPEG-4 audio encoding which still offers the same compression as MP3 but has a quality that rivals CD's.

Recently apple have introduced the App store which can be accessed from your iphone, ipod touch or through itunes on your computer. Apps are applications or software on these devices that make your life more manageable or easier to run. The Apps range from cooking guides to Paypal which allows to buy something directly from your iphone.

Itunes and the App Store

iTunes is a free application for your Mac or PC. It organizes and plays your digital music and video on your computer. It keeps all your content in sync. And it’s a store on your computer, iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV that has everything you need to be entertained. Anywhere. Anytime- Apple.com

The iTunes software has a simple and organised layout which is very easy to use. 

There are millions of songs from just about any artist, album, or genre you can think of. You can also browse thousands of movies from all different genres to buy or rent. Keep up to date with all your favorite TV shows in standard and high definition. Download thousands of apps and games. Discover more than 150,000 free audio and video podcasts. Catch up on your reading by listening to best-selling audiobooks. Learn something new from the world’s top colleges and universities on iTunes U. And give someone a little entertainment with iTunes Gift Cards. Whether you shop the iTunes Store on your computer, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple TV, everything you love is easy to find.

Searching is made easy on iTunes, it
 allows you to directly
 find your favourite music

The iTunes Store brings you easier ways to find music, movies, TV shows, and apps you know and want. The search feature, allows you just to type in the search fieldand results appear automatically and become more accurate as you type, this makes it quicker to find what you want. Power Search gives you even more criteria to choose from. You can find music by title, artist, or genre and movies by title, actor, director, producer, year, and more.

Purchasing from iTunes is simple. Chose your song from an array of search tools and simply click buy. Setting up an account is easy, and a secure. the set-up process is quick and lets you purchase tracks and receive them straight away. This is useful because it allows you to play that great song as soon as you want to. 

Unit 1-Information Age

I will be going entertainment, E-Commerce and Chat & instant messaging for the last online services.

Download Services

What are Download services?

Download services allow us to directly obtain a product in a digital form by downloading it form the internet. With no need to travel to the shop or wait for something to be delivered to you, this allows you to quickly transfer software and install it to your computer. There are other download services for music and video which involve users downloading songs, and videos to their computer via software on their computer. An example of this is Itunes which allows users to buy songs, videos and movies e.c.t and download them directly onto your computer.

Software Services

This is the main method for delivering software, driver and virus/internet security upgrades to your computer. Windows update for all Windows OS systems, updates software and drivers when new releases are intorduced. Users can visit Windows update and download the relevant updates they need.Virus software can update its prtoection in he desktop background wuthout users needing to interfer.

Windows Update

Windows Update is the online extension of Windows that helps you to keep your computer up-to-date. Use Windows Update to choose updates for your computer’s operating system, software, and hardware. New content is added to the site regularly, so you can always get the most recent updates and fixes to protect your computer and keep it running smoothly.

Windows update is very useful for computer users. It allows them to update their system to make it peform better and more efficiently.

This screenshot  shows an update in progress. 

Updates are available to anyone who has an Internet connection as the service needs to contact Microsoft to gather the relevant updates. This is a problem for people who do not have an Internet connection and only use computers offline. However this only affects a small minority and these updates can be applied immediately to your computer. Updates are often free, which is useful as people often pay a considerable amount for their computer and it would seem unfair if they have to pay to maintain the performance of it. User satisfaction is high as updates to their system can correct problems instantly, or even prevent them from happening and preventing the user from a productive experience on the net.

Windows Update has flexible installation options so you can reduce potential interruptions and install update when it's most convenient for you. You can choose when updates will be installed and you can choose to postpone installing an update that requires you to restart your PC if you are in the middle of doing something important. When software update applies to a file that you're using, Windows update can save the application's data, close it, update the file, and then restart it. This avoids loss of work and prevents the file from becoming corrupted. 

Problems with Windows Update

There as been a number of times where the updates failed to install for various reasons. This aggravates users as there isn't anything wrong with their internet connection. This is a fault on Windows behalf and you have to change the Windows update settings to prevent this from occuring.

News stories about Email

Here are some news stories concerning email:

Gmails can now priorities you email!

Priority Inbox will be available to Gmail users in September

Gmail has a new setting which allows you to only read improtant messages and sift out unwanted spam emails. This is achieved by creating clever algerythms and codes to organise your emails. All spam and offer email will go to the bottom of your inbox list as these are less important to the user.Gmail in comparioson to hotmail has a star feature which allows you to put important and memorable emails in a folder so you can read them again. Hotmail doesn't have this tool and it therefore makes it harder to find emails that are important to you. Tools like this prevent information overload by organising your email.

For a system like this to work effectively, it needs to have time to understand the way you use email. The classification and tool effectiveness should improve, because you can mark messages with 'less important' or 'more important', and Gmail will learn to reclassify according to your needs. It's like the inverse of junk mail filtering. Gmail will make your email eperience easier and quicker to access the emails you want to and save you time going through spam email.

Bad e-mail habits sustains spam!

Spammers play on popularity of Desperate Housewives

Spammers play on popularity of Desperate Housewives. The 'bad behaviour' of e-mail users is helping to sustain the spam industry, a new study has found.

According to a survey conducted by security firm Mirapoint and market research company the Radicati Group, nearly a third of e-mail users have clicked on links in spam messages. One in ten users have bought products advertised in junk mail. Clicking on a link in a spam message can expose people to viruses and alert spammers to live e-mail accounts. Find out more   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4375601.stm.             

Email

Email in Society


 Benefits of email:  

• Email is a fast way of organizing contacts, emails and stay in touch with friends. This is why many people have switched to email from letter writing as it is quicker and easier.
   
• The e-mail is delivered instantly, anywhere around the world. This differs from letters as post can take days or even weeks if the letter needs to travel to America or China for instance. This means it is easy to communicate with friends, family and work colleges and get quick replies. There is no other means of contact that matches the speed of email and the range of options that you can use to enhance a simple conversation.
   
• Now email clients have features such as 'Spam blokers/filters' or 'automatic orgnaisers' built in, email systems have made it easy for us to prioritize unwanted emails or Spam that we don't need.
   
• Email is becoming more and more reliable and secure. As email is developing at a tremendous speed many improvements have been made to the security of emailing. This means it is becoming a safe way of communicating with people.
   

• Many companies are now using email as an advertising tool. This is a new way for businesses to advertise products to the public.
  
  Problems of email:
   

• Computer viruses are most commonly delivered through email because there is no certification mechanism for email senders. This means that viruses or worms are becoming more and more common and even by just clicking on an email can initiate a virus which can ruin your computer. 
• E-mails when used to send unsolicited messages and unwanted advertisements are called 'Spam emails'. This becomes annoying to receive as it takes time to delete these emails and so it has become necessary to block or filter the unwanted e-mails using Spam filters.  
• Crowded inbox's are a regular occurrence nowadays. Over a period of time, the e-mail inbox may get crowded with a range of emails from Spam to emails you just have had time to delete. This makes it difficult for the user to manage their inbox as it is too overcrowded and unorganized.  

Hotmail

Email Serivces- Hotmail


Windows Live Hotmail from Microsoft is a very popular email service and was one of the first to create this service alongside Yahoo! Mail and Outlook.It offers both free email accounts and hotmail plus which costs to use. Simply known as "Hotmail" when it was launched in July 1996, it was acquired by Microsoft in December 1997 with its 8.5 million subscribers. Under Microsoft, the email service got a tremendous boost and became the number one provider because of its advanced and stylish layout. 'Hotmail' also grew in popularity with younger people because of MSN Messenger becoming popular. 
 
Now however, their is more competition than ever, and Windows Live Hotmail as its now known has stiff competition from Yahoo! Mail and the entrance of Gmail with its 1GB free email accounts and loads of free useful features has seen Hotmail decline in users. 



















Hotmail has introduced a 'clean out your inbox' feature. This includes a 'sweep' feature which deletes unwanted emails. Also windows 'SmartScreen technology' prevents junk mail from arriving in your inbox. 







Hotmail features compared with competitors


The following is the list of some of the important features of the free email accounts from Windows Live Hotmail service and how they help the user have a better email experience: 

• Hotmail has 5GB storage space for email messages. This is unfortunately still less than 7.2GB which each Gmail user possess . However Yahoo! Mail account users enjoy unlimited inbox space, this is a huge advantage for Yahoo as business customers regularly use email as a means of contact and receive and send numerous emails. This require lots of email space, and Yahoo offers this. 

• The Attachment size is only 10MB which is half of Gmail's 20MB. This means that Gmail users can share larger files than users of Hotmail. This is important for poeple who want to share videos, and buisness presentations which are of a large file size. Even if people dont use this feature or don't require 20MB attachment size it still poses a better feature than a competitor so people are more likely to use Gmail as their email client rather than Hotmail.

• Forwarding: Emails can be forwarded to accounts in the Microsoft domain like others accounts at Hotmail.com or Live.com.This is useful if you want to interchange between programs or want to send an email to another program. 

• Virus scanning and security: All email clients have a policy to scan incoming emails and attachments for worms and viruses. Windows Live Hotmail uses Trend Micro virus scanning, this is a comprehensive featrure that works perfectly and since i have used Hotmail i have not received any viruses or worms from emails or attachments.