Cynthia Yap's Final Report

Final Report



What is a home page? I think that a home page is a location on the Internet that allows a person, company, government, or educational institution to convey information, advertisements, tips, and etceteras. Because of all the information available at the click of a button, there are more and more people hooking up onto the Internet everyday. As for me, I started using the Internet because of this Psychology 409 class. now that I have been introduced to it, I use it because I enjoy it and am amazed by it. Even now, I am in awe at the amount of knowledge that can be gained form the Internet.

Dr. Leon James' home page architecture article is basically an article about basic "rules" on how a home page should be. The things that should be included and what should not be.

One thing that is very important is time. The time it takes to load a page. Spectrum University's Home page takes a very long time to load and may possibly detract people from wanting to visit the page. My home page used to take a very long time to load and I am still working on making it load faster. I think that it really depends on what the author wants, speed or creativity. A good compromise is University of Hawaii, College of Engineering's page.

Another thing that is important to home page architecture is appearance. Choosing the background color is so difficult because there are so many colors to choose from. A general rule is to keep the color soft and light. Something like our generation one and generation two home page color is too bright and difficult to read. I think that a nice color is Lori Morita's page.

There are many different rules people should follow when making a home page. The rules that people follow also differ from organization to organization and from person to person.

The social psychological significance of home pages in society is it links people from all over the world. Home pages are a way of communication. They allow the person, who made the home page, to express his viewpoints and personality. Then in turn, home pages allow the reader to get to know the inventor of the page.

I think that in the future, home pages will be an every day occurrence. Kind of like what television is now. Almost everyone has a television in their home, I foresee everyone having home pages on the Internet in the future. They may not be home pages as they are today, but some sort of equivalent to what we have now.

Educational institutions will be linking up with more and more libraries and museums as more of these places hook up to the Internet. Travel can be done from the comfort of your own home, if you like the place then you can choose to go there. What I mean by travel is not just seeing the main attractions, but being able to select a certain click and visiting anything that is there in reality. Shopping malls would have serious competition from the Internet malls. When there is more security over the Internet, more people will be willing to shop over the Internet. Why would any chose going to mall and fighting the crowds when they can put in a search for a specific item and get a whole list of choices at the click of their mouse button. These are some of the things that I think will happen in the future of the Internet.

For families, there would be no need for photo albums or video tapes. These things will either be on the family home page or on a CD-ROM. Family trees could be updated very easily on the Internet. As a new baby is born, his or her name can be added onto the tree. No matter what part of the family had an addition, anyone in the family, no matter where they are, can put in the new information. Generations later can view their family history at the click of a mouse button. It will be so easy.

I see a great future for people and the Internet. With all the good things though, will come the bad. There will also be people, like today's hackers, who want to mess with the system. Their enjoyment comes from other peoples' miseries. So besides using the new technology, we must also find better security systems for our information. Considering all the possibilities in store for us, all I have to say is WOW.


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