Monthenor
CS730 HW09
Found CSCW tool
Due 20Nov2003

	This report is going to be short and sweet.  When I suddenly
realized that CSCW tools -- or tools that address CSCW issues -- could
literally be anything in an office, my sense of humor kicked in.  Also,
it's the week before Comps and everything else is second priority. Ergo:

	Main Tool: iChat - this is the first idea I started with. iChat's
latest version adds audio and video chat options for everybody on your
buddy list. The audio chat works flawlessly...click on the big green phone
next to somebody's name, and if they accept you're talking to them. Since
iChat is so tightly integrated with OSX, it even knows to pause your
iTunes when the conversation starts and unpauses when you finish. That's
classy. And while it may take a moment to connect, and there may be slight
delays while it sends the audio, we have never experienced a dropped frame
or static. I haven't had the opportunity to test the video portion, but I
haven't heard any complaints about it either.
	Unfortunately, it would be a decent replacement for intra-office
calls and person-to-person email, but it wouldn't work when you need
multiple recipients. Only one audio chat can be active at a time, and you
can only chat with one person at a time. iChat's a/v cannot handle
situations requiring a conference call or mass email.

	Commercial Tool: A brick - A single brick has very little
information capacity on its own, and is very slow to reach its
destination. It is therefore unsuitable for the kind of instant
communication that iChat facilitates. However, it has a much more reliable
persistence model. Any message carved into a brick will be usable far
longer than an audio chat. Over many years, it may reach more people than
a conference call or mass emailing.
	Also, the benefits of clustering many bricks cannot be
overlooked. In addition to an increased message capacity, they can be
joined in such a way as to increase their combined lifespan. While the
most popular method of clustering bricks -- a "wall" -- results in a lower
message area/volume ratio than unordered bricks, multiple walls can be
combined to form an enclosed space. Employees are then encouraged to meet
and exchange information in one of these brick-walled areas at regular
intervals.

	Public Domain Tool: Air - a necessary component of any office
environment. Air is a fairly low-level information transmission medium
that is older than most office computers but has yet to be seriously
improved upon. Utilizing a high-speed broadcast mode with nearly unlimited
bandwidth, air has established itself in areas that computers haven't yet
penetrated. Even iChat uses air as a last-mile medium for its audio chat
feature.
	The main problem with air as an office solution is signal
degradation across large corporations. The drawback of broadcast mode is
that the initial signal quickly fades, making transmission distances of
greater than 500 feet unfeasible. iChat audio chat neatly avoids this
problem by converting air data into a digital stream and decompressing
into air on the other side. Conversely, the use of bricks in an office can
further impair the effectiveness of air. On top of that, it is quite easy
for air transmissions to interfere with each other, requiring
sophisticated neural net software to disentangle. Lastly, air has the
least persistence of the three tools: data is likely to vanish within a
second, usually much faster, unless transcribed to a more permanent
medium.