Ubuntu

Ubuntu logo

Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution. It is named after the South African ethical ideology Ubuntu which means "humanity towards others". It was created by Mark Shuttleworth, in 2004. It is distributed as free and open source software.

The logo represents three persons holding their hands. Ubuntu is composed of different software packages of which the majority is distributed under a free software license. The main license explicitly declares that users are free to run, copy, distribute, study, change, develop and improve the software.

By keeping Ubuntu free and open source, the company is able to use the talents of community developers in Ubuntu's components. Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian unstable branch. Besides, Ubuntu cooperates with Debian by pushing the changes back to Debian. Ubuntu is updated every six months. The current version, Karmic Koala, was released on October 2009. It counts 135 000 users worldwide.

Claire-Elisabeth Blanc

 

Google logo

Google is an American public corporation specializing in internet search. Google was founded in 1998 by two Stanford university students in Silicon Valley: Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

In January 1996, Larry Page was joined by Sergey Brin who helped him in his research for his project. They wanted to create a search engine which could analyze the relationships between websites and make a huge result choices gathering all information on the web.

Google Corporation is not a traditional corporation. In fact, most of Google’s employees are young people and everybody is smiling all the time because working in Google means working in a peaceful atmosphere. Babies are authorized, dogs too and lot of other things which were forbidden in other global corporation.

Google has been the best search engine since 2000, and most people use Google. Why do people use Google? Because it's so easy! You can search what you want easily with Google: information, websites, images, videos, news...

Julien Petrix  

 

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe systems. In 1985, Thomas Knoll, a student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program was first called "Display". John Knoll, his brother, recommended him to turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Then, Thomas began elaborating this software, helped by his brother. The new program was named "Photoshop".

During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of Photoshop to engineers of Apple and Russel Brown, art director at Adobe. Finally, Adobe decided to purchase the license.

Photoshop became one of the most important software in the graphic art department. Nowadays, Photoshop is recommended by the professional Computer graphic designer and it's now taught in art schools.

Xavier Cueille

 

GPS

GPS tracking

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation and precise-positioning tool. Developed by the Department of Defence in 1973, GPS was originally designed to assist soldiers and military vehicles, planes, and ships to set their locations world-wide.

The first satellite was launched in 1989 and the 24th others satellite was launched in orbit in 1994. Today, the uses of GPS have extended to include both the commercial and scientific worlds.

Three distinct parts make up the GPS: The first segment of the system consists of 24 satellites These satellites send radio signals to Earth that contain information about the satellite.The second part of the GPS system is the ground station, constituted by a receiver and antenna, as well as communication tools to transmit data to the data center. The third part of the system is the data center which analyses data from the receivers at those stations.

Now, GPS functionality has started to move into mobile phones. 

Victor Ducoux

 

 

This is your web space!

Just like last year, you will be required to give an oral presentation in class. Then you will publish a summary of your presentation here, with a small illustration.

Your choice of oral presentation subjects:

I.C.T. - advantages and disadvantages in our society. Some ideas:

Laptop evolution: ultraportable computers. Internet censorship. e-pollution (hacking, spam, viruses etc). Windows7. New technologies which make our lives easier and more comfortable or our work more efficient, the latest ICT gadgets - are they just gadgets? The e-book, the Bill Gates & Paul Allen adventure, Internet, Google, Wikipedia, eBay, P2P, open source software, Linux, instant messaging, GPS, Internet & child safety tools, ecommerce, Blu-Ray, the growth and influence of user-generated content on internet (MySpace, YouTube) ... Other ideas on How Stuff Works, Top 100 tools for learning 2009, or PopSci.com

 

 

 

 

 

Macintosh

Macintosh logo

Macintosh The Macintosh project started in 1979 with Jef Raskin, an Apple employee, who wanted to create an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. He wanted to name the computer after his favourite type of apple, the McIntosh, but the name had to be changed for legal reasons and became “Macintosh”.

The Macintosh project was developed in the same time as the Lisa project, but is not a direct descendant of it. In 1985, the combination of some Mac-specific software and hardware enabled users to design, preview, and print page layouts with text and graphics—an activity to become known as desktop publishing. Later, applications such as Adobe Photoshop strengthened the Mac’s position as a graphics computer.

Despite technical and commercial successes, Microsoft and Intel began to compete against Apple with the Windows 95 operating system and Pentium processors. In 1998, Steve Jobs helped introducing an all-in-one Macintosh called the iMac. It was phenomenally successful. The Macintosh latest version, realeased in 2009, is the Mac OS X, 10.6 "Snow Leopard".

Solène Stephan

 

Twitter logo

Twitter is a free social networking site. It is the latest revolution in the constantly changing world of social networking. It was created in 2006 in California. It is now ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites in the worldwide.
Twitter allows people to send free messages, called tweets to their online friends (or followers). A tweet is a 140-character text message.

Twitter has the power to inform, influence and organise people of an unprecedented scale. It is very simple to use but a little bit risky too for private life. It is now used in different jobs, such as service secrets, journalism or politics. Thanks to Twitter, journalists can get information faster.

We can find some important information on Twitter, but most of the time, it is only used to tell banalities. Psychologists compare this website to a giant baby monitor. People want to have the proof that they are alive, and this is the reason why they need to talk to others all the time.

Marie Slomovici

 

The Internet

The Internet Internet is used worldwide by many people, and is one of the most popular media in the world, but do you know its story? It started more than forty years ago when a group of scientists was hired by the US army to make a reliable communication system in case of a war.

In 1964 Paul Baran developed the concept and invented the web. In 1964 a system called ARPANET was tested on the public for the first time, and this was the beginning of the current Internet. The same year, a teacher in a Californian university created a program to enable people to share files on the web.

Tim Berners-Lee

In 1980 Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, the current Internet, that uses HTML and HTTP. This method enables people to surf on the web without having difficulties because every page is linked so it is more simple.

Quentin Leroy

 

Skype logo

Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls, to chat and to share files over the internet using the voice and a webcam. It is free if you are connected to another Skype user. Skype is not an American based company. It comes from Europe: Estonian developers, Swedish and Danish founders (2003). It has been bought by Ebay. The original name was "Sky peer-to-peer" and was abbreviated to Skyper but the name was already used so it became Skype. 

The software isn’t only used by families that are stretched away from each other, but more and more by companies to make meetings with clients. It is a considerable amount of money saved by companies. The internet is never perfectly protected and fears can be seen concerning the recording of conversations.

Skype is still an issue in China where the software is censored. There is now an alternative (Tom) that allows the government to filter some information.

Clément Bigot

 

 

Agenda

Autumn Term:
F.C.E. crash course
Spring & Summer Terms: Malware, ICT in the Real World, ICT in Society, Choosing a PC

 

 

Revision

Windows 7 preview video

Read it! Spam rises 150% in 2 months.

Listen to it! Microsoft reward to catch malware creator

PC security Quiz: are you security savvy or simply a sucker?

Staying safe online

Useful malware vocabulary: easy definitions

 

S'entraîner à la compréhension orale (1)
S'entraîner à la compréhension orale (2)
with www.elllo.org

English Karaoke - wide choice of songs


Myspace

MySpace MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are situated in Los Angeles, California. MySpace became one of the most popular social networking sites in the United States in 2006. MySpace employs 1000 employees and the 100 millionth account was created in the Netherlands in 2006.

After the launch of Friendster in 2002, several eUniverse employees saw its potential and decided to mimic the more popular features. In 2003, the first version of MySpace was ready for launch. Some team members decided shortly after launching the site to keep it free and open in order to make it a large and successful community. MySpace operates on revenues generated by advertising. MySpace is second only to yahoo in its capacity to collect data about its users. In 2008, MySpace decided to redesign many of the features in both layout and in function.

Wikipedia & Antoine Fauvel

 

YouTube

YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. The company is based in San Bruno, California and was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.

It displays a wide variety of videos including music clips and original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals. Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users over the age of 18. The uploading of videos containing defamation, pornography, copyright violations, and material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited by YouTube's terms of service.

YouTube has been criticized for failing to ensure that its videos respect the law of copyright. It has also faced criticism over the offensive content in some of its videos because it doesn’t check every video before it goes online. For example some videos have included Holocaust denial.

Wikipedia & Alexis Leon

 

Online betting sites

Online Betting sites

Nowadays, many betting sites are flourishing on the net, covering every subject. These betting sites take their roots from Great Britain. In fact, bookmaking has been authorized there since 1961, when Harold Macmillan's government legalized betting shops. In Great Britain, everybody can bet on everything, even on mad things.

In France, these betting sites have only been authorized since 1st January of this year, but they are for the most part setting aside for sport, and above all football. And using such a site is something really simple !

Online betting sites are quite new on the internet, but have a promising future. Indeed, these sites will be used all over the world during the world cup!

Maxence Racault. Image

 

Fashion Social Networks

Stylcaster logo

Social Networks are spreading over the net (Facebook, MySpace). A social network is an online community of internet users wherein they can share common interests. So, on a fashion social the common interest is fashion (members post their latest looks, share opinions, join virtual fashion groups).

There are some well-known fashion networks: Chictopia, famous for its blog: the everybodyisugly blog run by a fashion editor who edited articles about fashion shows, creators and events; LookBook, an international fashion community. You can vote and determine if looks are "hype" or not. If people hype your looks, you gain "karma" which builds your reputation as a stylist and you win the mention “stylist” above your photos; StyleCaster, run by fashion professionals, it’s marketing-oriented because brands can put advertising on it.

Fashion social networks are useful to promote your stuff if you're a designer and be inspired by styles from every corner of the globe. But you should be careful because the internet is a huge free area and everybody can see you.

Clémence Pomiès

 

 

Cambridge logo

Get into training now with these interactive online FCE tests!

Become a fan of Flo-Joe for FCE (First Certificate) on Facebook - Daily links to bite-sized learning chunks, including vocabulary, grammar and Writing tasks. Great practice for the real thing!

Pupils' Websites 2009
Fanny Looney Tunes
Richard Guild Wars 2
Lucie Bollywood
Maxence Dr House
Clément Cinema
Antoine Colorado
Céline Cooking
Quentin King of Pizzas
Anne Jane Austen
Victor Xtrem Sports
Ghiwan Nigel Kennedy
Jérémy Counter Strike
Alexis Guild Wars
Claire-Elisabeth Skiing
Dimitri Rock 'n' Roll
Xavier Japanese Lessons
Daphné Chocolate
Valentin P Walt Disney
Valentin T NBA
Audrey Girls' Website
Julien American Football
François Legends
Solène Vancouver
Mary Visiting Toronto
Clémence Be a Yogi
Théo Jazz
Timour USSR
Valentin LF Barak Obama
Luc Ireland