CDs Rewriters
CD Rewriters are softwares, which allow you to write CDs on your computers. If you have two CD drives then you put your original CD in you first drive and a blank CD in the second drive and follow the process and the CD will be copied. There can also be CD Rewriters for the computers that only have one CD drive. This type of CD Rewriters copy the original CD on your hard drive and the when you put the blank CD in the drive, it puts that information onto that CD.
Ajesh Mehta uses this software very often. He normally puts all information that he need to share with the other staff, onto a CD and then makes copies of that CDs and gives them to his staff. He does this about three times a week.
He says it is very useful. He also think it is better than photocopying them lots of time on paper and then giving them out because he thinks that most of the time, the paper is lost before it reaches the person it is meant to be given to. The paper can also be torn before it reaches or it can be tore while in use. But he thinks that if everyone has a copy of the CDs with him or her then he or she can just print it when they need it even in future. Also, it takes very long to print a lot of copies, as they don’t have a laser printer. He would also need a lot of ink to print them of. But if everyone has their own copies then they could print it from their own computers, whenever they want. They can also look at it when at home on their own computers if they want to. On more of his problems with using CD Rewriters is that his company uses a lot of money to buy lots of CDs just so they can give a copy of the work they need to give to the other members of the staff. Another problems he thinks is very important is that after copying a lot of copies of the original CD then the CD gets really scratched which then goes useless. His CD drive also get very used up after using it a lot and they have to change it about every year, which costs a lot of money as well.
There can be other ways that he can do this. For example he can use a network so that every person in his staff can have access to that file whenever they want. He could also attach those files via Email and send them to their email addresses. Al this would save their company a lot of time and money.
This technology has affected his working life a lot. It saves him time because he can just start copying and then sit and do his other work. Although by using this brilliant technology, he thinks their company wastes a lot of money on blank CDs. But he thinks that even though they use a lot of money on blank CDs, it is useful as it can be used any time in the future as well. But as I said before, email could be very useful to him.
Personally he uses CD Rewriters in a very different manner and also in many different ways. Mostly he uses it to make audio CDs of new songs so he can listen to them in his car. He likes listening to new songs very much. He said that he makes new CDs about twice a month. But the disadvantage of this is that when a CD is copied and as it is not original, it gets scratched very easily. So I would suggest that he could just buy a CD with don’t get scratched or he could always listen to radio.
As Ajesh Mehta is very fond of keeping his computer up to date and not let it go slow, he re-boots his computer about once every year. So to keep the work that he has saved on his computer, he puts all his work on a CD. For this he uses a CD Rewriter, which he says helps him out a lot as he cant lose his work as after you re-boot a computer you lose all the work on it. But another alternative choice could be that he gets a virus protector which wont let his computer go slow very easily and so he wont have to re-boot his computer once a year. This way he will save time, money and so he will only have to re-boot his computer about once every three years.
This is how CD Rewriters have helped Ajesh Mehta quite a lot in his both, working and personal life although he could use other options. This technology hasn’t affected his working styles a lot. But this does help him to take his work home and anywhere else when he needs to.
Email
Ajesh Mehta has an email account in Yahoo and Hotmail. He has had these accounts for more than four years. Email allows him to do his work very quickly and he also stays in touch with his friends and family.
He only uses email for one reason at his work. When he has finished his work, he has to email his boss to say him that the work that he set has been finished and that he is waiting for further instructions. His boss then emails him back and then he does his further work. The problem for him by using this technology is that if he sends an email, it sometimes doesn’t go as the server might be down or there can be many people on that specific website. So he has to wait quite a long time. Sometimes the problem happens that he boss is not online. Even though this hardly ever happens, but it does happen sometimes. He gets very annoyed with this. Sometimes the same thing happens to his boss as well. Only other alternative for this could be to use a Telephone. This would be quicker than email, so it would save him time and he won’t have to stop every time he finishes his work. Although it would cost him money, it would at least be quicker.
Personally he uses email to be in touch with his friends and relative. Every once a week he mails his parents and brother to ask how they and their family are. He emails them and gets a reply the next day, which is quite faster than snail mail. Although he keeps in touch with them via email, I would say Telephone would be much better for them. He could call them and talk to them in seconds while for email he has to wait a day for them to reply and sometimes the emails don’t even get through. But the thing is that phoning those costs a lot of money, so even better than Telephone would be Messenger. This way he could chat to them, talk to them and even see them if he wants to.
This technology has affected Ajesh Mehta’s life a lot. He says if these technologies won’t there, then he would have had to waste lots of money which he can’t afford and so he won’t have been able to talk to his parents and brother every week. This technology is a very important part of his life.
This technology has also affected his working styles. By the help of this technology, he can now send his little work files through files because there is no real point of writing CDs when the files are very small and only he needs it. But the bad effect is that when he gets his work home, he feels like working at home so he doesn’t get any time to socialise. Also by working at home, he doesn’t get any help or equipment that he uses at work. So he wastes his time doing his office work at home and he still doesn’t finish his work how it is supposed to be finished.
Mobile Phones
Ajesh Mehta uses a Nokia 6600 mobile phone and has had his mobile phone for over 3 years. Even though he rarely uses his mobile phone, he has kept it for emergencies and sometimes to call his boss about his work.
At work he hardly ever uses his Mobile Phones, as he is not allowed to use them at his work. But he sometimes uses it to call his boss and ask about his work when he is away. For example, once his boss left early and he had to ask what format he had to do his report in. He used his Mobile Phone to call his boss’s Mobile Phone and find out what he needed to. This helped him out a lot because if he didn’t have a Mobile Phone, he would have had to go out and look for a pay phone and by the time he would come back his work hours would be finished. Or he would have had to wait for the next day when his boss comes back, which would have wasted quite a lot of time.
Mobile Phones have affected his working styles a bit. Now that he has mobile phones, he can call anyone anytime he wants. But it has now become a distraction for them when they are working. That is the reason why his boss doesn’t allow them to use their Mobile Phones when at work.
Personally, he uses his Mobile Phone to save phone numbers, keep reminders, call his friends and keep in touch and also send text messages. He has a lot of relatives in this country so whenever he wants to call them he can just check their numbers in his phone instead of looking through an address book which takes more time. Before when he didn’t have a Mobile Phone, he had to face the same problems. If he had to call a friend but he wasn’t at home, he had to go to find a payphone to call or he had to wait until he reached home and then had to call him. But now if he has to call a friend for any reason, he can call them anytime he wants through his mobile phone. Another advantage of using Mobile Phones that has helped him out a lot is that he can be reached anytime. If he is somewhere out and his family doesn’t know where, then they can call him on his mobile phone and find out where he is.
Ajesh Mehta admitted that he has got a short memory, so he uses his reminder facility to keep reminders about what he has to do and also at what time. Once he had to go on the Internet to find out about something at a specific time, he forgot what he had to do and so that work was left uncompleted. After this he started to use reminders on his phones. He also uses his Mobile Phone send text messages his friends. He has got a 02-gini sim, which allows him to send 300 free text messages month. He sends about 10 messages everyday. He normally sends them to his relatives about daily day life and also just to ask about what else new has been going on round their area because they live far from where Ajesh Mehta lives. The problem with this is that he has started to be addictive to these sending messages, which wastes a lot of his time.
Mobile Phones have affected his personal life because now many things can be done faster although there are things which waste your time like useless text messaging. Basically he says that if he didn’t have a Mobile Phone, his life would have worked in a completely different way.
Internet
Ajesh Mehta uses Blueyonder Internet. He is very fond of it because it’s cheaper and faster than the rest Internet Service Providers that are available for him. At work he uses Internet to put his report on their company’s website. One of the advantages for putting their report through Internet on the website is that their other members of staff could view it directly through their company’s website. As they have got their own member’s area which can only be opened by one password which only the members of staff know, no one else can view it. Another advantage is that if the report or their work is small they could put it on the website because there is no point of putting it on the CD. But the advantage for this could be that there is no real point of putting them on the website because they already have a copy of CD of the work that they put on the website and not all the people have internet at home.
Internet has affected Ajesh Mehta’s working styles because when he puts the work on the website, he doesn’t feel like working anymore and thinks that he will do that work at home which will affect his personal life. It is also a kind of distraction with his work. For example, when he is uploading the files on his website, he will go on other websites which will waste his time and will affect his concentration. So basically, there is good as well as bad effects on his working styles.
Ajesh Mehta uses Internet at home for lots of reasons. He uses it for Shopping, Researching and downloading films as well as songs. He uses Kazaa which allows him to download songs, pictures, videos and also films. He goes on the Internet to go on Kazaa to download songs because, as I said before, he likes listening to new songs. But he also downloads films sometimes. This way he can get new songs for free and it is all on computer so he can listen to them whenever he wants to. But the advantage of this is that by downloading songs and films from Kazaa sometimes contain viruses which could ruin his computer; and also that getting songs from the internet only means that he can only listen to it on the computer unless he puts them on a CD which would get scratched very easily. An alternate for this could be that he just buys a new audio tape or a CD which would be original and good quality.
He also uses Internet to research lots of things, for example to find a route from one place to another. He says this helps him out a lot because he doesn’t have to sit and find the places in a road Atlas when he can just type in the name of the place and the route and get the route. But as they say, there is always bad where there is good. This also has disadvantages like; we don’t always get the way that we want and most of the time we don’t get the shortest way.
The most important use that he makes of the internet is online shopping. He shops online a lot for example, buying things like Printer Ink, audio CDs, and Computer Softwares etc. The advantage of this is that he can buy lots of thing through internet and he doesn’t have to waste time to go to the shop and buy them. This just gets delivered straight to your houses. But the disadvantages are that your have to give your personal details to get them to your home. You have to put in your address and your credit card number which could get very bad. So by balancing both of them, I would suggest that he should go to the shop and buy them. Also by buying through the Internet, he would have lots of free time which would make him do unnecessary work or he will eventually get bored.
Internet has affected his personal life because as you can clearly see by the examples, he has got a lot of use of the Internet. If he didn’t have internet, I wonder how much money he would be wasting. By internet he has saved a lot of money. Although he has to pay £13.99 every month, he can get songs for free, get things delivered to his home which saves him his petrol money and he has lots of fun, so I would say it is worth having Internet as a part of our life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would say that Ajesh Mehta has found ICT greatly helpful in his life and I would wonder what he would do without these technologies. He would probably find his life very hard to cope with without these technologies, which has helped him improve his working style as well as his personal life.