bentism

Concepts Assignment

2009-02-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

Concept 7: Netiquette

“Good communication practice on the Internet is not something one 'learns', but something one 'practices' so as to teach others, less familiar than yourself, how it is done.” (Allen, n.d)

Etiquette is extremely important in all communications, whether face to face, on the telephone, in written communications, or online, where it is specifically termed ‘netiquette’. By showing etiquette to the person or people you are communicating with, you are displaying respect for them, and their opinions, as individuals. This external display of respect is a precursor to effective communication; by showing respect for others, you are opening the lines for a free and uninhibited exchange of information or ideas. It is the nature of our Western society (and many others) that incidences of communication should be of a cordial and friendly nature. This puts both parties at ease and allows them to express their opinions in an unthreatening and safe environment.

There is a very important distinction to be made between face to face communications, which I shall call ‘personal communication’ and online exchanges which I will term ‘impersonal communication’. In personal communications one is acutely aware of the other, and usually their emotions. This can be demonstrated in many ways by the other, including their facial expressions, tone of voice, body language and the words they use. In impersonal communications the other is essentially de-personified, by way of their existence being made known by usually just a nickname, or online moniker, or perhaps an avatar; and the interactions being in predominantly text based. In impersonal communications, it can be easy to forget that the other is a real person, with feelings and emotions, as these emotions are not readily displayed in the myriad ways we normally receive this information, as with personal communications.

This gap between impersonal communications and personal communications can explain why some users on the internet can be very aggressive, hostile, or insulting to one another. This can often be seen in internet chat-rooms, on message boards or discussion sites. In fact, this form of anti-social behaviour is so prevalent that a term has come in to use for this sort of behaviour; Flaming. The lack of social cues that we unconsciously take from others, such as their tone of voice and facial expressions, in online communications can very easily lead to misunderstandings of messages, from which a leap to insults, abuse, and outright hostility is easily made.
In a 2006 article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, it was stated that “"People in our study were convinced they've accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance” (Leahy, 2006) The invisibility of the social cues that we take from others to construct the hidden meaning behind words and sentences is thus a problem that needs to be addressed by all internet users. The way that this problem can be addressed is by a collection of self-imposed social rules called netiquette. Netiquette calls on all users of the internet to participate in a respectful and constructive communication with each other, and in an implied sense it asks us all to realise the richness that we normally obtain through non-verbal cues with personal communications are not evident in online communications, and to thus behave in a certain way which promotes harmony, understanding and civility with all online users.

Site 1: Netiquette Guidelines, by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt, accessed 4/2/2009
Netiquette Guidelines is a very useful site for all internet users who wish to obtain a detailed understanding of what Netiquette is, and how it is applied in real world circumstances. It was published by the Internet Engineering Task Force, a vast international network of IT stakeholders, including vendors, researchers, academics, and users, who work with the World Wide Web consortium to develop regulations for ensuring smooth operation of the internet. Their roles are many, and they are respected and well known for their wide reaching and fundamental research that covers all aspects of the internet. All of their work is extensively peer reviewed by non-commercially vested interests, which adds substantial legitimacy to their publications.
Site 2: Netiquette FAQ – Why care about the netiquette
http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/netiquet.html, accessed 4/2/2009
This site provides an excellent introduction to netiquette from a Finnish University faculty member, Professor Timo Salmi. Salmi provides a brief and very readable introduction to what Netiquette is, and why it is important. He also gives some succinct real world examples that quickly explain to a Newbie what is expected of them in a number of online communication situations. Further benefits of this page are Professor Salmi’s extensive collection of links to a wide variety of sources for further information on all aspects of netiquette, including commercial, peer reviewed and collaboratively created sources. This gives a wide and balanced viewpoint for users to either continue their own research in areas of interest, or with which to make balanced judgments and decisions.

Concept 8: The invisibility of difference

“The daily practice of electronic communication is shaped by over-familiarity with one's own computer system, and a tendency to assume that – as with much more established forms of communication – everyone is operating within compatible and similar systems. When in doubt, seek to communicate in ways that are readable and effective for all users, regardless of their particular systems.” (Allen, n.d)

The internet is comprised of more than just the software and hardware that routes information packets from one server to another to another until the desired content reaches one’s computer. More than this, the internet is comprised of a multitude of different applications for creating, delivering and accessing online content. These applications can take the form of different operating systems, internet browsers, and plug-ins. Even more-so than with clothing, there is certainly no “one size fits all” approach with the internet. With the number and type of applications available, it is more likely that every user’s computer setup is unique. The unique nature of all computers can prove quite troublesome for internet designers and developers that want to display content on end users screens, in a manner that is not just true to the original design and the designer’s intentions, but is at the very least readable and functional.
Web designers have a number of options they can take at the outset when they intend to design a website. One of the first considerations that must be made is whether to design a website for the lowest common denominator, which is in fact a misnomer due to the manifold applications available online, or for a specific target audience.

For example, if I wanted to create a a website that could be viewed by most internet users which kept the integrity of my initial design, I would initially choose a screen resolution that it is reasonable to expect most people to have, at a minimum. At present, this would be a resolution of no greater that 800 by 600 pixels. While most users on the internet have 1024 by 768 or higher, I can not guarantee that this is the case, so I would choose the lower of the two. Further, I would ensure that the graphics were all of a standard format, such as GIF or JPEG, which required no further plug-ins to be viewed. In this setup I could be confident that the far majority of internet users would see a web page which was true to my initial design, and also viewable without the need for extra applications or plug-ins.

If I was to design a web page for a targeted audience, I could choose the 1024 by 768 screen resolution, and perhaps include some rich multimedia content, including Shockwave Flash, or Microsoft Silverlight. While this would not be compatible with the majority of users, if my target demograph could be reasonably expected to have this setup, then it would be acceptable. When choosing to use higher screen resolutions and plug-ins, it is always best practice to state explicitly what resolution this page has been designed for, perhaps even what browser it has been designed for, and to certainly include links to download the necessary plug-ins for users that may not have the required applications.

This invisibility of difference on the internet can be a perplexing problem for designers, but with solid decision making about what you want to design, and informing visitors of your sites specifications and requirements, it is a problem that can be successfully mitigated in the majority of circumstances.

Site 1: 11 Common web page design, content, and marketing mistakes http://www.newentrepreneur.com/Resources/Articles/12_Com_Mis/12_com_mis.html, accessed 4/2/2009
Roger C. Parker is a prolific author on internet design and other related subjects, with 35 books written and more than 1.6 million copies sold. While this is a commercial site and he is ultimately interested in selling more books, by virtue of his success he could be deemed to be an expert in the field of internet design. This site provides a good introduction for the new website designer about considerations that need to be made when designing websites. In addition Roger’s home page contains links to many more articles on various aspects of web design that would be very useful to consider when designing web sites.

Site 2: Lowest common denominator coding,
http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt, accessed 4/2/2009
An article written by Sam George of George Webrepro, a London, UK website design firm, provides an excellent introduction to lowest common denominator HTML coding, and specifically talks about issues relating to browser compatibility. This is a very important part of web site design, where it is necessary to ensure that one’s code works on as many different browsers as possible. While George is not an academic, his professional success and experience make his writing credible and relevant. This article does not appear to be written with vested financial interests, but is more interested in sharing his experience of creating successful internet sites.

Concept 11: The relationship of data to meta-data

“Advanced Internet users learn to intuitively conceive of any document, file, message or communication as consisting of metadata and data. They then can explore the functions of various communications/information software looking for how that software can assist them in using metadata to enable sorting, processing or otherwise dealing with that data.” (Allen, n.d)

Meta-data serves multiple purposes in the online environment; it can be used to establish the author of a page, the date it was created or last updated, it can provide a list of keywords that describe the topic and content of the article, or it can be used to describe where the information, page, or article, sits in web sites’ taxonomy, and more.

In the past the majority of metadata associated with a web page was written or included by the author of the page at its creation. The real value of metadata is starting to become apparent now to the average internet user when they are able to assign their own metadata to either documents that either they created, or to documents created by others. This enhances the documents with additional meaning for the users, and enables them to flexibly control and store documents in ways that are relevant to them, beyond the creator’s intentions.

One example of this is the enhanced metadata features that are available with Gmail, the internet mail service that is provided for free by Google. In the past email accounts have had the ability to store messages in folders, either at a single level or in hierarchies created by the users. This has been an excellent and very powerful way of storing emails in logical locations that enable messages to be quickly located and sorted according to their content, author, subject, topic, or any other criteria that was relevant to the user. While powerful, there was a significant disadvantage in this method, in that each email can only sit in one folder, and thus have only one metadata element attributed to it by the user. Gmail has come up with an innovative and powerful solution for this problem by creating what they have termed labels. A label is essentially a definable element of metadata that can be attributed to an email.

What is the difference between Gmail’s labels and your current folder system? Gmail’s solution, radically simple, has been to enable multiple labels to be defined and added to each email. So each email can have as many meta-data elements added to it as is relevant to the user. Imagine that I need to attach metadata to my emails that describe not just the supplier of a product, but also the type of product. Each type of product can be supplied by a number of companies. With Gmail I can assign both a supplier tag and a product tag to relevant emails, which enable powerful searching and categorization across metadata elements, not just within them.

This is the future of metadata – metadata that can be defined by end users and applied to them in ways or combinations that is relevant to them and their circumstances. By applying metadata in this flexible way many storage and search problems are overcome, and users can enhance the value of their online information in ways that are relevant to them as individuals, and separate from any external authority, such as the initial creator of the information.

Site 1: An Intorduction to Metadata,
http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt, accessed 4/2/2009
Written by Chris Taylor, Manager of Information and Access at the University of Queensland, this introduction provides an outstanding and scholarly introduction to the concept of meta-data, suitable for new and experienced users alike. This article starts with an explanation about metadata, and goes on to explain its relevance when searching for documents online, and also goes into the different metadata schemas that are currently in popular use. This page is exceptionally useful because it has links to style guides for different metadata schemas, as well has having a useful reference section with links to government and industry standard metadata information.

Site 2: Google Mail - Gmail,
http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt, accessed 4/2/2009
This page is an evaluation of Google’s Gmail as provided by a Librarian at Vanderbilt University. While this article is not in-depth, and covers only the surface features of Gmail, it is very interesting to see the point of view of a librarian when discussing the labels feature of Gmail. The author notes points similar to those that I have made regarding the benefits and flexibility of labeling, and thus this site provides good support for my opinions on the benefits of this feature. As this is written by a librarian at a university, I can assume that the author has extensive knowledge of metadata, and that their opinion is therefore valid and relevant.

Concept 33: Information and attention

“In the era of the ‘attention economy’, readers and users of Internet information must be carefully craft, in their own minds, the kind of metadata which will – almost instinctively – ‘fit’ with the metadata of the information sources they want, so that – in the few brief moments of initial exchange, when a seeker of information encounters information being sought, rapid, effective judgments are made that ‘pay off’ in terms of further reading, accessing and saving.” (Allen, n.d)

It is a truism of humans that first impressions count. They do with the sale of albums and books, despite being told not to judge the latter by their covers, and it matters just as much, if not more so, with internet sites.

With billions of websites online at any one time, the first and often the most important tasks of a website is to have relevant metadata and links within the site so that it reaches users in the first couple of hits returned from a search engine when users search for a specific phrase. After all, you can have the greatest site in the world, but if users that are looking for your kind or type of website do not find it, then it is of no use at all.

Once users are at your site, you need to keep them there. Due to the number of sites on the internet today, they are all competing for an ever shorter attention span of visitors; with search engines becoming more powerful and returning more and more specified results for search queries, it is more vital than ever that attention is paid to making sites relevant to visitors. There is a state of over-stimulation occurring on the intertnet, where the search for one specific phrase can return millions of pages. Users are becoming very critical of search results that come back, and thus it is becoming more important than ever before for elements such as a page title, URL, synopsis, keywords, and content to all logically link in together and provide small, and
accurate, snapshot of what the site is all about.

With the overabundance of websites, and even more problematic, the over abundance of poorly designed, constructed, or laid out websites, once users are at your site you need to keep them there. This is where the first impressions really count. It is the role of a competent web designer to lay out the information provided on your site in a clear and relevant manner, in that it is easy to see at a glance what information is being offered and whether it will be of value to the visitor. Often sites contain so much information that the challenge is to lay this all out in a logical taxonomy. Here is the crux of the problem; the information must be laid out in a way that is logical for the end-user, or the average person, not the person designing the site. Often it is very useful to have people that are totally unrelated to the project to review and evaluate how a website is designed and laid out, to ensure that it is logical to navigate and easy to find information for all visitors.

With more tools being used to create internet sites every day, and more people learning how to create their own sites, this issue is one that will get larger over time. I think it is highly likely that over time people will become even more critical of sites, and the time taken to hold their attention in new and compelling ways must be further decreased to ensure visitors stay on websites for more than a few seconds.

Site 1: The Attention Economy: An Overview
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/attention_economy_overview.php, accessed 4/2/2009
Readwriteweb is a blog that has been running for more than six years and is well known in the design community for addressing many design issues such as readability and ‘findability’ of websites. The author, Alex Iskold, is a featured writer for this blog and by virtue of the blogs reputation, and Alex’s prolific publishing, it is deemed to be a relevant information source on information economy. Beyond the author’s credentials, this is an outstanding and easy to read article on information economy that would provide an excellent introduction to someone new to this concept.

Site 2: The Economics of Attention, Style and Substance in the Age of Information by Richard A. Lanham,
http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt, accessed 4/2/2009
This page is an excerpt from a book written by Richard Lanham that is devoted solely to the topic of the information economy, terming it the Economics of Attention. Lanham is a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, and the book is published by the University of Chicago, both facts that lend substantial credibility to the author. This book is more scholarly than ReadWriteWebs site and is suitable for a more in-depth understanding of the subjects of information, attention and the internet. While this excerpt is apparently designed to sell Lanham’s book, the length and relevance of the excerpt alone provide extensive information on the topic and are an excellent supportive resource.

References:
Leahy, S. (2006)
The Secret Cause of Flame Wars. Wired. Retrieved February 2, 2009, from http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/02/70179

Hambridge, S. (1995)
Netiquette Guidelines. Internet Engineering Task Force. Retrieved 4/2/2009 from http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

Salmi, T. (2007)
Netiquette FAQ – Why care about the netiquette. Retrieved 04/2/2009 from http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/netiquet.html

Parker, R. C., (n.d.)
12 Common web page design, content, and marketing mistakes. NewEntrepreneur.com . Retrieved 4/2/2009 from http://www.newentrepreneur.com/Resources/Articles/12_Com_Mis/12_com_mis.html,

George, S. (n.d.)
Lowest common denominator coding. ArticleSnatch.com. Retrieved 04/02/2009 from http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Lowest-common-denominator-coding/301124,

Taylor, C. (2003)
An Introduction to Metadata. University of Queensland. Retrieved 04/02/2009 from http://www.library.uq.edu.au/iad/ctmeta4.html
.
Jody, (2004) Google Mail - Gmail. Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 04/02/209 from http://wiki.library.vanderbilt.edu/lits/pmwiki.php/Main/GoogleMail-Gmail-

Iskold, A. (2007)
The Attention Economy: An Overview. ReadWriteWeb.com Retrieved 04/02/2009 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/attention_economy_overview.php

Lanham, R. A., (2006)
The Economics of Attention, Style and Substance in the Age of Information by Richard A. Lanham. University of Chicago, Retrieved 04/02/2009 from http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/468828.html

Module 5 - Information Ecologies

2009-01-19T22:34:00.000-08:00

How are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?

Information is to be understood as the data that is contained on a website, page, document, graphic, or in any other form, that is online and accessible. In this term, information is treated as a standalone factor - it can be consumed, or ignored and not consumed.

The consumption of information could be termed to be communication - when an end user is reading, understanding, or using the information for a purpose, the information is thus communicated to the end user.

In this sense, information ecology can be understood to be the relationships that exist between the end user and information, but also the relation of information to other information elements. With an abundance of information on the internet at any given point in time, and this increasing on a daily basis, it is very important to recognise the inter-related nature of the individual information elements, and also that of the end user. This is evident with the explosion of web 2.0 technologies, such as blogging and user enabled metadata. This tools are seeking to give the end user more control over the ways that they interact with technology, thus making information more relevant to them by enabling end users to apply their own meanings and categorisations of their information.

As the internet moves towards a state of super-complexity and over-abundance of information, information ecologies will become more and more important in ensuring that users can navigate the plethora of information online, and can easily find and use information that is relevant to them.

Module 4 - Evaluating the Web. Part II

2009-01-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

The annotated version of my body of information would be of more use than the original blurb that I used when evaluating the site.

The original blurb that I used was a high level explanation of what Yang School Tai Chi Chuan is, yet did not discuss issues such as author bias, extended reviews on content, or further readings. In this instance, the annotated version of my review would be of far more use for the average user when attempting to assess whether or not this site is suitable for them.

Module 4 - Evaluating the Web

2009-01-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_style_tai_chi_chuan

This is an excellent website for basic information on the Yang school of Tai Chi. It covers the history of this particular style, and it also contains a family tree of the practitioners of this martial art, which is extremely valuable when evaluating a new teacher. Ensuring that you can trace your teacher's lineage is essential to ensure that you are being taught the "true" martial art of a particular school.

This site was written for people that would like a brief introduction to this school of Tai Chi. In addition there is numerous links and references at the bottom of the page that can be used for further exploration of information on this style.

Suffering the usual Wikipedia downfalls, we do not know who the author's of this document are. Thus, it is liable to be imbued with commercial self-interest, or perhaps even ideological, and certain persons can be very sensitive about martial arts and their history. Thus, this website is an excellent introduction and high level overview of Yang School Tai Chi Chuan, but caution should be taken before taking any information as the truth due to the lack of in line citations, as noted by Wikipedia.

Module 4 - Organising Search Information

2009-01-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_style_Tai_Chi_Chuan

Author - Collaborative
Institution - Wikipedia
Blurb - "Yang family style (simplified Chinese: 楊氏; pinyin: yángshì) tai chi chuan in its many variations is the most popular and widely practised style in the world today and the second in terms of seniority among the primary five family styles of tai chi chuan." (No Author, n.d.)

http://www.yangfamilytaichi.com/about/faq/

Author - No author listed
Institution - International Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Association Institution
Blurb - This website offers a comprehensive treatise on all aspects of Yang school Tai Chi Chuan, including history, as well as their own class times, information on the teachers and masters.

http://www.egreenway.com/taichichuan/short.htm

Author - Michael P. Garofalo
Institution - None
Blurb - This website offers comprehensive information on the first 24 form of Yang School Tai Chi Chuan. It also includes lessons to help the student advance, information on assessing your own style, quotes, descriptions and more.

To obtain this information the only application that I used was Internet Explorer, to access the websites. From this point I then read and evaluated the websites, and obtained the required information.

No Author, (n.d.)
Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan. Wikipedia.
Accessed 5/1/09 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_style_Tai_Chi_Chuan

Module 4 - Boolean Searching Task

2009-01-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

To search for the bigest number of hits relating to the words "Yang Tai Chi Chuan" I would search for those four words with no quotes on either side. In this instance, I will get returned all pages with all of the words, as well as all pages with any combination, of one or more, of the words.

To search for information that is most relevant to what I am actually looking for, I would enclose the four words in quotes, so it looks for the exact same four words in the same string and order as I have requested.

For information that only comes from university sources, I would use a page like Google Scholar to search for the same text string.

Module 4 - Searching the Web

2009-01-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

For this task, I did a search with the term "Yang Tai Chi Chuan"

From Google.com received "about 293,000 hits"

The top five results were:

I then searched for the same term in Copernic Desktop Search and received 45 hits

The top five results were:

An interesting difference that I noticed between the searches was that Copernic seemed to have a lot more advertising returned in the results than google did. For example, with Copernic the first three results were advertising responses, as opposed to just finding websites out on the web. I find this very annoying, as if I am searching for a commercial enterprise, then I will specifically be looking for this. If I just want information, I do not want information coming from commercial enterprises, whose main aim is, of course, to sell me something.

In addition to this, the much shorter list of hits from Copernic is of concern. Forty-five hits as compared to nearly three hundred thousand is really strange, and I am not sure how they found only such a small number of results. Perhaps the other 299,000 websites that were returned on Google refused to pay Copernic to have their results displayed!

Module 4 - Downloading Tools

2009-01-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

For this task I downloaded and installed two new applications which I did not currently have. These applications are as follows:

VideoPlayer - VideoLan Media Player
Silverlight - Microsoft's rich web content player, their equivalent of Flash

Both of these applications were freeware, which means that they are free to download and install, and have no trial period or expiry date. This is important to me as I would prefer not to pay for software if possible, and do not like installing trial applications on my computer, as they have to be removed after the trial period and the excess registry entries clog up my operating system

The purpose for downloading VideoLan Media Player (VLC) was so that I could play some movie files that I had for which I did not have the codec. VLC media player is the most flexible media player available, as it plays almost all formats and can parse audio and video information from nearly all codecs. This flexibility and wide ranged compatibility is the key feature of this application.

In addition to this, it is very easy to use, with a minimum of features. I like this in an application because I really only want it to play movies, I do not need visualisation applications, advanced playlists and things like that - I just want to play the movie!

Microsoft Silverlight is their new rich content editing application and player that rivals Macromedia's Flash application for delivering fast, smooth animations, vector graphics and rich interaction. As this is just a plugin, there is no user interface at all - just install and you can then view all the rich content on websites developed using this technology. This is a great plugin to have on your computer so you can experience the latest in cutting edge web animation and interactivity.

Module 3 - Web 2.0

2008-12-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

The difference between these two sites is vast, despite the fact that at the core they offer the same information; a list of links.

The blinklist website is far more useful than the plain HTML page for the following reasons:

Legibility - The blinklist site is much easier to read, and has a far nice layout than the HTML only page. On the HTML page the text seems to run together, and is not as easy to read at a glance.
Metadata - The blinklist website has a number of categories listed beneath each link that tell the end user what categories this link fits under. This is very useful for quickly evaluating the site for it's relevance to my current search. In addition, by clicking on any one of the categories names, it takes me to a page where only links with that category are shown. This is an excellent ecxample of metadata filtering in use, that can help to whittle down potentially hundreds of relevant links to a few targetted and specific links that address an area I am interested in.
Votes - One of the key aspects of Web 2.0 is the collaboritve nature of online interactions. The voting option enables users to vote for or against a particular link. This can then be evaluated by end users. For example if the link says "Kittens" and there is one hundred votes against this link, I would not bother looking at it even if I was looking for information on kittens. Essentially, this voting could be considered as peer-reviewed links, so other users like you are telling you their thoughts on the link, hopefully increasing the relevance of the link for a particular user.

The Blinklist format is clearly the far superior format. It has enhanced functionality, is better designed, and easier to read. All of these issues could be overcome with the HTML site by a skilled internet developer, but it would certainly take a lot longer to create than the plug and play blinklist site.

Module 3 - Blogs

2008-12-21T22:24:00.000-08:00

Blogs are a fantastic tool, that have really helped open up ownership, in a communal sense, of the internet to regular citizens.

Having circumvented the need for technical knowledge, blogging has enabled literally anyone to become a contributor to the body of knowledge on the internet. This open and free nature has greatly increased the number of people that are contributing to the net on all sorts of topics, from travel to tuberculosis, from aardvarks to apples.

Personally, I have used blogging very effectively while travelling and living overseas. It is a great way to keep in contact with friends back home, and a great way to share photos of stories from halfway around the world.

More recently, with the terror attacks in Mumbai, blogging was used by citizens to report on the state of the terror attacks, the location of terrorists, as well as being used to get images out the rest of the world in a city that was locked down by terrorists and police. This was a very effective use of blogging that enabled the outside world to understand the extent of what people in Mumbai were going through, and to offer words of support.

In this day and age, it seems that almost all media outlets have vested, and often non-disclosed, financial interests that skew the reporting in favour of advertisers, or the owners own corporate interests or political ideologies. Blogging is a very powerful weapon against this dis-information as it enables individuals or organisations to express their beliefs, thoughts, and opinions in a public forum without being edited by others with questionable motives.

Module 3 - Legal Issues

2008-12-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

I have not used any images on my website that have contravened copyright laws, as I was acutely aware that this website would be used as part of a university assessment, and did not want anything illegal on there that might get me in trouble!

Further, the text from Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet" that I used in my web page is not copyrighted for two reasons. The first I will discuss here, the second I will include in the below paragraph. Section 180 of the Australian Copyright Act of 1968 states that:

(b) where the work is published--subsists, or, if copyright in the work subsisted immediately before its first publication, continues to subsist, until the expiration of 50 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the work was first published. (No Author, n.d.)

As the work was first published in 1923 (according to the front page of the hard copy of the book I have here), the copyright is now expired on that book, and thus I can freely use it on my web page.

In addition to the expiry of the copyright, I would also be allowed to use the text for the below reasons.

I would not breach copyright laws if I was to use the Curtin logo on my page, as it is falls into the "Fair Use" category of copyrighted material for educational purposes. This policy dictates that express permission from the copyright owner is not required provided that the purpose of the copying is for "research or study, criticisms or review". (No Author 2, n.d.)

No Author listed (n.d.)
Copyright Act 1968. Austlii.edu.au
Accessed 19/12/2008 from http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s180.html

No Author listed 2 (n.d.)
Copyright at Curtin. Curtin University
Accessed 19/12/2008 from http://copyright.curtin.edu.au/essentials.cfm

Module 3 - Web Page

2008-12-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

I found this task quite straightforward, as I have previously coded in HTML before and was familar with most of the tasks that were described in the tutorial.

The primary difference between HTML and blogging is that HTML gives you full access to the structure and layout of your page, whereas with blogging generally a template is chosen from the provider, and your ability to edit this is limited.

A HTML page is a lot more time consuming to generate than a blog, as blogs are generally comprised of raw text and perhaps some images or a video embedded. With HTML all the tags for each line and element must be correctly defined, attributes and variables must also be correctly defined, to ensure that everything renders correctly for your end users.

It is not a matter of saying what technology I prefer out of HTML and blogging, as they both serve different purposes. A blog is analgous to an online journal, or perhaps a newsletter. For the purpose of disseminating information on a regular basis, a blog is the preferable choice, as it is fast, simple, easy to use and effective.

If I was to create a web presence for a company I owned, it would most certainly be using HTML. In this way I can create any design I like, and display this on visitors web browsers. This is important, because a well designed site can complement my business, my current logo's and branding. It is also likely that this sort of web presence would be updated less frequently than a blog, so the ease of update is not as important as maintaining full design control.

Additionally, there is a level of technical expertise required to develop pages in HTML that is not needed for blogging. If you are short on time and cash and need a site online fast, blogging might be a better option as you will not need to pay a professional to create your site for you.

It is important to think about what sort of web presence one requires before creating a website or a blog. Think about what you need, your level of technical expertise, and your goals. The answers to these questions will help you to decide what technology is most applicable to your situation.

Module 2 - Chat

2008-12-17T20:21:00.000-08:00

I downloaded ICQ to my computer and had brief chats with a number of my fellow learners, but found significant difficulties in getting our timing right. The only time that I was able to get online to chat was during my work lunch breaks, and this often did not work out well for my group of chatters, as they were all around Australia and indeed the world.

I enjoy using chat applications very much, but as I experienced, the biggest problem with them is ensuring that everyone is availble at the same time. It is for this reason that I much prefer using disucssion boards for this purpose, as one can post or read posts at a time that suits the reader, and again respond in their own time. This is one of the downfalls of chat, in that all users must be online at the same time which is not always mutually convenient.

In addition to this, I found that when I was at my desk chatting with my fellow learners, quite often my co-workers would assume that I was working and available, so I was frequently interrupted with work requests, which really throws my train of thought.

The benefits that are offered by chat can be outstanding - it is like a telephone conversation, in that it is real-time. This is very helpful for obtaining quick answers to questions, or to "talk out" and issue that one may be experiencing.

GROUP TASK ~ all students : All students regardless of the chat method and option you chose you must now: Using either ICQ, yahoo chat, Messenger, virtual or webct chat, arrange a discussion with your peers. You may do this in small groups if you like. Talk about which chat service you prefer, and what forms of communication chat is most useful for. Think about the following question: how does the method you are familiar with appear to differ from other chat or messaging such as ICQ, MSN or AIM? Which system do you prefer?

For this task I downloaded and installed ICQ, whereas for chat I normally use Gmail's native chat client, or Skype Chat.

Essentially, all text based chat applications serve the same purpose - to exchange short (or sometimes not so short) text based messages directly between two or more users. With this in mind, the differences between any 2 chat applications are more of a user interface than a functional nature. For this reason, I much prefer Gmail's native chat client, as it is extremely light weight; it has very few bells and whistles, has no external application required (other than a regular web browser) and is accessible on any PC that can access http://mail.google.com/. It serves my needs wonderfully, in that it is quick text based chat. I do not have the need for a rich chat client, like MSN or ICQ, and find it cumbersome, and to be honest, quite ugly. The abundance of colours, flashing text, over the top emoticons all, in my opinion, detract from the core purpose of the application, which is to enable quick chatting.

Module 2 - Lists

2008-12-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?

Email Lists
Pros - Good for communicating with an individual, or a group or when you know who you want to communicate with.
Cons - Do not provide immediate answers. Need to attach files or write extensive information

Discussion Board
Pros - Good for discussing a topic with a particular community. Good for communicating with people with an interest in a specific topic
Cons - Does not provide immediate answers. Need to provide extensive information to people. (Tyson, n.d.)

Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

There are certainly types of communication that are more suited to email lists, or discussion boards.

An example of where discussion boards are more useful is an online disucssions area for a web-based course, such as NET11. The discussion board holds all the infomation for all historical posts, and enables one to easily review old posts, and to contribute to discussions that may be old and no longer active. Thus, with discussion boards, old posts and discussions are still relevant. With email lists, once a topic has been relegated to the archives, most people will not want to continue to discuss the topic and would request that the poster reads the archives before contributing something that may have already been discussed.

Tyson, J. (n.d.)
How Newsgroups Work. HowStuffWorks.com.
Retrieved 17/12/2008 from www.computer.howstuffworks.com/newsgroup1.htm

Module 2 - Email

2008-12-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?

The following information can be established from an email:

Username, domain, and country (if the domain name specifies this)
You can see the server it came from, as well as the SMTP server name and the IP address
The unique message ID

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email?

The "CC" or "Carbon Copy" function of an email is useful when an email involves a third party that was not on the original email list, or when someone needs the information contained in the email, but does not need to reply. In this case, CC could also stand for "Courtesy Copy", where you are advising someone of the content of an email, but do not need their feedback or input.

BCC is short for Blind Carbon Copy. The BCC feature is useful when it is not appropriate to expose all of the recipients email addresses to one another. An example would be when sending out a request for vendors to respond to a tender. In this case, you would not want the companies knowing who they were competing against nor divulging a potentially long email list which could be then sold or used for spamming people.

Using the Reply all function is ideal for an email-centred discussion. For example an email could be sent to a number of people asking for their feedback on a particular proposal. Using the reply all function ensures that each response is sent to each original recipient (and the sender). This feature is excellent for obtaining consensus on issues, and also for giving people a platform from which they can discuss all of their issues, and obtain feedback, help, or clarification from their team members. It is a very collaborative use of email, and one that many companies find very helpful.

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

There are a number of ways of ensuring that an attachment that you send will be easily opened by the receiver.

If you know the user you can ask him or her what sort of computer and applications they have. Then you can ensure that you save your file in a compatible format for the receiver.

If you don't know the receiver, you could encode the document in a standard format such as a text file, Adobe Acrobat format, or a generic image format such as JPEG or GIF.

4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?

I generally have only two filters setup on my email accounts. One is for filtering spam emails to automatically delete them. For this I have a spam folder setup, and every time I receive a spam email I add that domain to my filter list.

The second filter I have setup is one that filters work related emails that come from a certain domain so that they are automatically filed. For example, any emails from @originwines.com.au are automatically filed to the Origin Wines folder. This enables me to easily keep track of unread emails, by organisation, and saves me from filing new emails when they come in.

5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

I have an extensive folder structure so all emails have a logical home. This means I can locate emails easily in the future if i need to, and it also means that all emails have a place to "live" as opposed to having a huge inbox with hundreds or thousands of messages all in the one location, which makes sorting and finding content in emails much more difficult. More specifically, I first have a top level folder called Clients, and one called Work. All work related emails are stored in the work folder, and all client related emails, in the client folder. Inside these folders is more and more sub folders, easily enabling me to categorise emails based on the sender, and the tasks, requests, or information contained within.

Module 1 Task A - Telnet Task

2008-12-11T02:36:00.000-08:00

Record your outcome and reflections of your experiences and thoughts on this task in your learning log

Having previously used telnet, I went to Run... in the Windows start button and typed "telnet", and pressed enter. When the telnet application opened I typed the following commands:

o library.deakin.edu.au

Once I was connected to Deakin Library, I searched via the tex t commands available on screen, and followed the instructions.

I found this exercise quite easy, but also enjoyable. I like using computes to communicate purely by command line action, to me it feels like you are operating more in the core of computers, rather than at the GUI level.

While most people would not have the need to use telnet regularly, there are many occupations in the IT field where telnet is regularluy used to connect to, and manipulate, remote computers.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the rapid advance of operating systems and software has meant that most people to get to interact with this "deeper" level of computing.

At least those of us who enjoy using command line actions still have the ability to do so.

Top 5 tips for new bloggers

2008-12-11T02:04:00.000-08:00

So, you have started your very first blog, but the questions looms;

What will I post in my blog?

Here are five top tips for blogging newbies:

Write about something that interests you.
Feel free to write controversial material, but avoid discriminatory or racist material.
Make sure the spelling and grammar is correct! Avoid "text speak" abbreviations, and use full words, sentences and correct punctuation.
Blogs can be a lot more than just text, try experiment with rich media experiences. Try embedding a video from YouTube or uploading photos from your digital camera, or camera phone.
Blog often! The more your blog is updated, the more often people will come back to your blog. It does't have to be poetry or award winning prose everytime, but the more the blog the better you will get. The more hits you will get too!

Take these tips as a guide only, everyone will have their own point of view. Take what works for you and modify what doesn't.

Oh, and the last lesson? Have Fun!!!

Happy blogging :-)

Module 1 - Internet Tools

2008-10-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

I downloaded a number of applications from http://network-tools.com/ to complete the steps in this task.

When I attempted to traceroute to curtin .edu.au, I always timed out at the same stage, on the 13th hop. I tried this a number of times over a two day period, and always received the same result. This has led me to theorise that there must be something wrong with a connection for this hop - perhaps an incorrectly configured firewall, or perhaps just one of those annoying internet glitches that happen from time to time.

There was no average time to reach Curtin as the traceroute ultimately failed every time. If the traceroute did not fail, then I would have simply to add up the connection time for each step, then divide by the number of steps to obtain the average hop time

The IP of curtin.edu.au is 134.7.17.136

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For the next step in this task, I pinged both http://webct.curtin.edu.au/ and http://network-tools.com/

Below are the average ping times for each URL:

http://webct.curtin.edu.au/ - 243ms

http://network-tools.org/ - 49ms

I was quite surprised by the amount of time difference between pinging the two URLs. For one, I certainly expected the WebCT website to return a lot faster than the Network Tools site, partly because it is physically located much closer to me, in Australia, rather than Network Tools US based website.

I suppose that there are a number of reasons as to why this could be the case - my requests to Curtin could have been redirected through a network that was experiencing a lot of traffic, or perhaps it is on a much slower network than Network Tools.

I quite enjoyed this task and found It relatively straight forward, as I am used to using the ping command to test both whether external websites are responding, and to also test whether my internet connection is working. It is a very handy, easy to use and easy to remember command for ascertaining whether one's computer can access external web servers, or indeed has access to the net at all.

Further than this, ping is a quick and pain free way to establish the IP address of URLs, and can be of further assistance when troubleshooting issues with things like Load Balancers, or when multiple Web Front End's are in use.

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This task called on me to traceroute from my computer to curtin.edu.au and to compare the number of hops with the earlier traceroute.

It was interesting to note that from the A-Toolbar application, the traceroute ultimately resolves at hop 14, with the IP address 134.7.179.53

From http://network-tools.com/ it did not resolve after hop 12, receiving a number of time outs before ultimately aborting.

It is interesting to note the different IP address that was resolved to, and this leads me to think that perhaps curtin.edu.au sits on multiple servers with a load balancer, which may explain the different IPs. As to why it was not resolving from the Network Tools application, but was resolving from A-Toolbar - well that is a bit of a mystery to me! It is possible that at the time that I attempted to run Network Tools there was a brief problem at that exact time that I was running the test, and this issue was rectified prior to running my tests from A-Toolbar. Though it is possible, I don't think it is too likely. My hunch is that the problem is more likely related to the different IP addresses that are being resolved to, as opposed to the application requesting the traceroute.

Module 1 FTP Task - CAPITALIZATION MATTERS

2008-10-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

"according to the readme file, 'CAPITALIZATION MATTERS' - what word goes in the blank?".

After following the tasks in this exercise, I located a readme.txt file on the remote server, which I then opened. Amongst other text in there, was the statement that CAPITALIZATON matters, the missing word in the question posed by this task.

I found this task quite easy, as I have had some experience with FTP previously, mainly using it to upload files to web servers, download files from remote services and to share files with friends.

I think that this has been an excellent exercise, and is especially useful for those that the use the internet, and have wondered how it all "hangs together" but have not known how.

Through this task, users are instructed to log on to, and navigate a file structure on a remote server. I would hope that when doing this, my fellow learners would have recognised that the familiar folders and file structure that appears on their PC is perfectly replicated on the remote server. Having this common and logical folder and file structure makes life a lot easier when working on computers, as anyone can jump onto (almost) any PC in the world, and when they see nested trees with folders and files, they recognise conceptually what they are looking at. Recognition of the structure will make users instantly effective when operating in this new environment, and thus has mitigated the need for any "ramp up" time to learn the new technology.

LOG ENTRY: Record your outcome and reflections of your experiences and thoughts on this task in your learning log

Module 1 Task B - Telnet Task

2008-10-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

What a surprise! Despite having used telnet a number of times throughout my professional career, I had no idea that it was capable of such psuedo-animation as is displayed at blinkenlights.nl. Telnet obviously has many more capabilities than I am aware of!

I think what has been accomplished at this telnet site is a wonderful case in point about advances that are made in knowledge or technical capability. While technological advances by themselves often lead to enhanced productivity or creativity, I think what is more interesting is when a new, novel, application for a particular technology or tool is stumbled upon.

As well as being forward looking problem solvers, it appears that humans are also quite adept at looking backwards, at where they have come from, and applying new knowledge or techniques to old tools or applications. This 360-degree approach to knowledge has benefitted humans immensely throughout our history, as I am sure it will continue to.