Directgov - E government

Directgov:

• Look at education and learning
• Job Searches
• Driving theories and tests
• There is a page for parents for schools and pre-schools
• Crime and justice page
• Page for young people e.g. money problems or work and careers
• Motoring e.g. tax
• Health

Information services:

Crime and Justice:

The police force e.g. vacancies different types of police and what they do.

http://goo.gl/YU0xi

Motoring:

Driver safety e.g. the highway code or an enhanced rider scheme for bikers.

http://goo.gl/rRM6A

Job searching:

There is useful information when it comes to looking for a job e.g. what your CV should look like or voluntary work advice.

http://goo.gl/oxqNI

Pensions and Retirement:

There is advice for older people e.g. planning for retirement or state pension.

http://goo.gl/W7t6e

Online reporting and advice:

Flooding advice:

There is advice for what to do if your house floods and information on areas that may be affected by the flood (flood warnings).

http://goo.gl/Q431Y

Disabled People:

There is plenty of advice for what disabled people can do for things such as job advice or travel holidays and breaks.

http://goo.gl/2dxsm

Health and wellbeing:

There is a whole NHS page for things like healthy living.

http://goo.gl/35G6R

Britons living abroad:

There is plenty of information regarding going abroad e.g. money or your safety from things such as conflict.

http://goo.gl/Q0CfB

Online Payments:

Driving licence

passports

Overall, I think that this website is a very useful website as it has a lot of information on a lot of different topics. But this itself is a disadvantage because if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can get sidetracked or not know what leads to what you need. Because this website has a lot of information, odds are you are going to find what you need, you just need to know where to look.

Download Services

Download Services

Music:

Downloading music is a lot more convenient than if you were to go and buy a CD or buy an I-tunes card as you don’t have to leave your home. YouTube Converter, I-tunes are other examples in which you can download music.

Kindle (Books):

Downloading books is simpler to do than buy a book; you can simply download to your device I-pod, I-pad and kindle.

Films:

Downloading films tends to be a lot cheaper than actually buying them in store i.e. blu –ray is very expensive where as you can rent or buy from your ipad for example and this is a lot cheaper.

“Why download rather than buy the actual physical copy?”

Downloading things is a lot easier than walking to the shops to buy something e.g. a CD or ITunes card. For example you can download music on your laptop or iPod which is easier than walking to the shop plus money may be saved from potential car journeys i.e. you may not have to pay any money for petrol.

“What problems have you encountered when downloading products?”

Some problems you may encounter when downloading products could things such as your internet connection may be going slow so it may take a long time to download or if you’re streaming a long film, there may be a lot of buffering involved.

“How does it fulfil its purpose?”

Download services do fulfil its many purposes effectively. For example, you can potentially download a film, music and a book all at the same time. However I can imagine you would need a decent internet provider to do this which is a limitation itself.

BBC Weather 24/09/12

Today's weather report shows that all the way throughout the day, it is going to be rainy, mainly heavy rain. The temperature is going to peak at 13 degrees and lower to 10 degrees. The wind speed however is very different through the day i.e. the direction changes and so does the speed.

Online Banking, E - Commerce

Online Banking, E-Commerce

For this task, we have been asked to research the purposes of online banking.

The purposes of online banking could include the fact that it is a lot more convenient for people. For example older people who are incapable of walking or travelling may find this an ideal thing to use although a stereotype for older people is that they can’t adapt or use new technology and using accounts and numbers may be a little too much for older people.

Another ‘class’ of people that may like this online banking could be people who long hours or shifts and this process is a lot quicker than travelling to your nearest bank so they may find the online banking a benefit to their lifestyle. It also enables people to still access their bank details even if a bank is closed so it could be used in emergency situations.

The target audience for online banking could arguably be people who are aged 16 or over because they are the age that people are allowed to open a bank account and access it yourself. Another reason why it could be ideal for 16 year olds could be that at this age, you will be busy looking for jobs or going out with your friends and the online banking could suit their lifestyle because as long as they have an internet connection, they are capable of accessing their online banking.

The online banking service does fulfil its purpose i.e. it can be used and accessed by anyone with a bank account and it makes banking a lot more simple and more convenient for the people.

One of the main advantages of online banking could be that it is a lot more convenient for people as they don’t have to travel anywhere and this can save you money i.e. you aren’t going to be paying for a bus fare or paying for petrol. Online banking can also be accessed anywhere with an internet connection but this isn’t always a good thing i.e. there could potentially be hackers who may potentially steal your bank details and consequently they can access your money. Online banking is also quite secure and you can also use secure keys to keep your details safe and still access your bank details.

 

20/09/12 BBC Weather

Thursday's weater report is as follows:
It will mainly be rainy throughout the day and from 4o'clock to 5o'clock it will be heavy rain but from there the rain will ease out to light rain throughout the rest of the day. The temperature will range from 11*c to 15*c and the wind speed will be 6 or 7 mph north eastwards.

ebay

Ebay is a bidding website, it is a worldwide service and some one can buy something from somewhere else on the world e.g. America to Japan. The main purposes of ebay are to buy and sell products from any category of object e.g. cars, furniture or dolls.

Ebay has no fixed audience and it can be used and accessed by anyone of any age or background. Obviously it can’t be used by children because of the paying process but parents or guardians can still use ebay to buy things for their children so obviously the target audience can stretch to adults. 

The auction process has different steps to it, the first step is bidding. When you want to buy an item on ebay there is a minimum bet you have to place and then other people can try and bid higher than you to win the item but there are a lot of cons to this i.e. people will and do wait till the last few seconds of the bid and put their bid down to beat everyone else however, there is usually a ‘buy it now’ option available to all buyers which simply enables you to pay a price and simply buy the item but this is usually a lot higher than the initial bidding price but it does simplify things.

The auction process isn’t really a good process to use and it has many limitations however, it isn’t all bad because everyone has the potential to to buy the items that are being bidded on. But a lot of people can potentially scam others. For example you may send the money to someone across the country but you many never receive your item so you have to be careful when dealing with everyone.

BBC Weather - Doncaster

Wednesday - By looking at BBC wearher today, you can see that the forecast for today is that it is going to be sunny with sunny intervals throughout the afternoon with a light shower at 3 o' clock. The average temperature is going to be 13*c the and the temperatures range from 10 - 14 degrees and the windspeed today is 12mph west,north,west.
When judging the accuracy by actually comparing it to the day, I would say that it was fairly accurate and it rained when predicted and there were sunny intervals through the day.

Realtime Information - Journey Planning

To start off with, realtime information websites are websites such as the following:
News websites, Train Journeys, Weather etc.

The task we were set in our lesson was to plan a journey from doncaster to the olympic park in London by train and by car. We had  to use various websites to get results and get results such as train times or the cost whether thats for fuel for the car or a ticket cost for the train. The car websites mainly gave you information on things such as the distance in miles and price for estimated fuel cost. The train website focused more on the costs for the tickets and the time taken.

The websites I used for this task are:
National Rail
AA route planner
Google Maps

Shopping Online

When it comes to shopping online, the service I mostly use is Amazon. Amazon is an online shopping service and you can buy a large variety of items from it. But today I used it to pre-order the game; FIFA 13. It was really simple all you have to do is add simple credit card details and the transaction is made. I used Amazon online as opposed to going to town as it is more convenient for me as I don't have to travel anywhere and it was done in under a couple of minutes leaving me free to do other things in my day.

Online Services

This is my personal audit of all my communications, Research, Investigations etc. About online services and the information age.

  
The areas i will be covering include;
 - Communication
 - Real Time Information  
 - E-Commerce
 - E-Government
 - Education
 - Business
 - Entertainment