Module 3: Task: Blogging

Since I already have a functioning blog, I can see no reason to open another one for this task.

I have continued to the 'optional' component of this module and have just read highlights of Rebecca Bloods "The weblog handbook."

In your learning log, record your ‘top five tips for new bloggers.’

According to Rebecca Blood, the top 5 tips for new bloggers are:

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
5. Disclose any conflict of interest.

Resource: http://www.rebeccablood.net/handbook/contents.html
Copyright © 1999-2007 Rebecca Blood, All rights reserved

Module 3: Tasks: FTP

I have just FTP'd my volcano webpage to my student webspace in Oasis.

I believe everything was sucessful. Unfortunately it appears I can't check my work unless I am at Curtin, accessing the site from their network. "Your site is only available on campus or through the Curtin VPN)."

Here is the address: http://student.curtin.edu.au/~<13781974>

I use FTP everyday. I feel very confident using this application. I wish this was the case more often !!

Module 3 Tasks: Copyright Issues

Have you used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws?

The only webpage I have completed so far has been the volcano web page which is currently visible in the students presentation area.

I would not be contravening copyright laws in this instance, because the website has been created for educational purposes only. All of the information used was very generic, For this reason it would be classified as being in the public domain.

The copyright website also states that, "factual information, by its very nature is not elligible for copyright protection."

The volcano website consists of information which is all very factually based.

Would you be in breach of copyright if you put the Curtin logo at the top of your web page for an assignment?

Curtins copyright statement says, "For material copied from an Internet site, include the site's url. If relevant, follow your citation with such phrases as "Reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner" or "Reproduced in compliance with license conditions available at [url]", etc."

I assume that using their logo would come under the heading of, "material copied from an internet site."

To cover myself in this instance, I would make an official approach to Curtin, state that I needed to use their logo on my site for educational purposes, and then, after using the logo, I would go ahead and make a citation using the phrase "reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner."

Resources:

Copyright website: http://www.benedict.com/info/info.aspx. 1995 - 2006 Copyright Website LLC.

Curtin Uni Site: http://www.copyright.curtin.edu.au/index.cfm. Content Last Modified: March 28, 2007Curtin University of Technology, Perth CRICOS Provider Code 00301J.

Module 3: Standards Task 2

This task involved vistiting the w3 (world wide web consortium) to validate my volcano web page.

My volcano web assignment was published on to the Curtin server in the students presentations area. I copied and pasted the URL into the w3 HTML page validator. Unfortunately I received the message.... "this document cannot be checked...Forbidden." This has obviously got something to do with the Curtin server. Looks like no way around this one....

I then re-published my volcano web project onto a private server. I re-copied the URL "http://www.mcmasters.com.au/uni/test/" into the page validator, and I received a result....

Unfortunately the result was not positive. There were 6 validation errors.

1. Error Line 26 column 8: start tag for "LI" omitted, but its declaration does not permit this.

2. Error Line 27 column 5: document type does not allow element "LI" here.

Introduction

3. Error Line 28 column 5: document type does not allow element "LI" here; missing one of "UL", "OL", "DIR", "MENU" start-tag.

Volcano Terminology

4. Error Line 29 column 5: document type does not allow element "LI" here; missing one of "UL", "OL", "DIR", "MENU" start-tag.

Volcanic Places in the USA

5. Error Line 30 column 5: document type does not allow element "LI" here; missing one of "UL", "OL", "DIR", "MENU" start-tag.

Volcanic Places on Mars

6. Error Line 31 column 5: document type does not allow element "LI" here; missing one of "UL", "OL", "DIR", "MENU" start-tag.

Research Project

I have read through all of the explanations of the errors listed. They all sound incredibly technical. I was surprised that I received any errors at all because I had followed the tutorial closely. I am a little bit confused, because although the project apparently has errors, they are not visible in my browsers, Firefox and IE.

Just out of interest I decided to validate another website. I thought I would try the ninemsn site because of the fact that it has thousands of visitors everyday. I also reasoned that it would have a team of highly paid and professional IT people working on it who would probably have a fair idea of whats going on.

Surprisingly the validation failed with a total of 308 errors !! I can only assume that the ninemsn site has been built to be viewed in a wide range of browsers, anything less would be unacceptable....I certainly never had any problems visiting it...I am confused as to why this would be, so I think I will raise it on a discusion board.

Module 3: Standards Task 1

I have spent this morning reading Jakob Nielsons article on "Writing for the web." I found all of the information about the F shaped reading pattern very interesting. A lot of it makes sense to me because that's what I do myself.

If I had to make a list of the five most important 'rules' for writing online, I believe Denis G Jerz came pretty close to nailing what is important.

No.1 on the list is to lead with your best stuff. Jakob Nielson described this as a pyramid writing style. Being concise and hooking readers in straight away is very important.

No 2. on my list is to employ a scanable layout. Bullet points, bold text where applicable, and simple concise text is important here. Avoid boastful language as readers will see straight through this. There is a big difference between what a reader will absorb when scanning a website and what someone will absorb when reading from a printed document. Be aware of this at all times.

No.3 is to use a simple design. You should assume that the person viewing your webpage only has a dial up internet connection. Nothing will turn a person off quicker than a page which loads too slowly. That person will simply leave your webpage and check out the next site.

No 4 is to use a simple navigation system. It is important to have all of your navigation kept in the one place, typically the left hand side in the form of a vertical menu, or running across the top in the form of a horizontal menu. It is also important to have an option for returning home on everypage. This will ensure that if your visitor ever gets confused, they will be able to easily return to the starting point.

No 5 is to use meaningful links throughout your site. When writing a link make sure it is descriptive. Your visitors will want to know where this link takes them when they click on it.

Module 3: HTML Tutorial: Finished

Its taken about six hours, but I have finally finished the HTML tutorial.

It's the first time I have written a complete web page using HTML. It was very good to learn, but quite time consuming. In the future I will be sticking to my standard HTML editor. Having said that though, I feel much better knowing some basic HTML. It will give me more confidence in the future knowing I am able to modify code by hand and not mess it up.

As far as designing a complete website you can't go past an editor. It's much easier to design something which is going to look great visually. Unfortunately wtiting HTML doesn't really give you a good idea of how something is looking as you go.

The time factor is another issue to consider when writing straight HTML. I know I could never design a website as quickly by writing HTML as I could using my editor.

Overall a really good tutorial. I have saved it in my web favourites so I can go and refer to it when I need to in the future.

I have just FTP'd my complete volcano web site up on to our space on the curtain server. The only problem is that I can't actually see it from this computer. I have also sucessfully placed the site up onto the student presentations area of web ct.

Module 3: Task One HTML Tutorial

I began the task this morning. The task involves working your way through a html tutorial.

Although I have been building websites for a few years now I have never actually built one in html. I am only up to the fifth step of the tutorial, but it has been written beautifully. Very easy to understand with a logical progression through all of the steps.

I have had to put it down for this morning because it is time to start work, but I look forward to continuing it again tomorrow morning.

Module 2 Reflection

I was reasonably happy with my progress in this module.

The things I already knew were reinforced. The things I was unfamiliar with, like ICQ and IRC, I was able to grasp a basic understanding of.

I will have to keep perservering with newsgroups though. I didn't have much luck when I attempted to figure it out the other day. If it wasn't for this university course, I certainly would never be revisiting it again.

As a computer user, I expect software I download and use, to work straight away. I'm used to things being presented in an intuitive and easy to use manner. I guess its an example of how far things have come in the past few years for me to be expecting these kind of standards.

I have read through the concepts relating to this module twice now. Upon completing the modules associated with this unit, I plan on going through the concepts one by one, and writing down in my own words, what I think they mean. It's one way of making sure I am comprehending everything.

Objectives for the week ahead.
In the week ahead, I would like to be systematically working my way through module three. Hopefully this time next week I will be putting the finishing touches on the module three tasks.

Module 2 Tasks: IRC

I downloaded my IRC software from the suggested site: mIRC.

Once the software was installed, (which was quite easy) I then had to join the Austnet network. After joining the Austnet network, I added the recommended servers, once again quite confusing and time consuming. From here I believe I found the Austnet New Users Guide:

Like everything else to do with IRC so far, I found the guide confusing and hard to understand.

So now, with the servers all connected I then had to choose a channel. This took about 45 minutes of trying, but I finally got through. The channel I ended up on was one called "Speakeasy". Finally I was up and running...!

I pretty much barged into a conversation on the speakeasy channel. There were four particpants, and I announced that this was my first time using IRC and that I was investigating it for a uni assignment. I then asked for everyones opinion of IRC. The responses I got were quite varied. Everything from "IRC sux" ...... to "MSN and ICQ are "##**@@# !!!"

I explained that my first opinions of IRC were that it was difficult to set up. No one else shared this opinion. After about 20 minutes I excused myself and exited the conversation.

Summary
IRC worked fine when everything was setup and running. My problem with the application was the difficulty I had in setting it up. If I wasn't investigating IRC for this uni course, then I would have lost interest in five minutes. I think IRC would appeal to the more technically minded out there. Its bare bones interface would not appeal to many people especially when you compare it to the aesthetics of ICQ.

From what I can gather IRC is setup more for group discussions. People can basically barge in anywhere and add a comment.

ICQ is a more organised environment for a conversation. In fact, as I am writing this I am having a conversation with Helen, another Net11 student. I am finding the conversation much easier to follow than the one I had using the IRC software. The interface is incredible intuative. Very impressive!

Samples of the two interfaces:
ICQ Interface.

IRC Interface.

Module 2 Tasks: ICQ

This task has gone a lot more smoothly than the previous (newsgroups) task. Importantly the ICQ software was quite simple to download and install. I installed my software from the site suggested in the module (http://web.icq.com/).

After I installed the software I added a few of the other students to my contacts list. Once I had a basic contacts list up and running, it was easy to to get information on any particular person. Simply be right clicking on a person, and choosing contact details, a window with their personal information would open up. In this window was basic information including a persons ICQ number, their name, gender and date of birth etc.....

The next part of the task involved finding the ICQ number for the nick name, 'advanced netstudies'. This proved harder than expected, because some of the details had changed since last years course. The result of my search always ended with error message "117".

After trying to complete the task on my own, I sought help from the student forum. (thats what its there for !) Fortunately Helen had worked it out. To track down "advanced netstudies" I had to visit the ICQ website http://people.icq.com/people/ From here I did a people search and located the contact number 337293557.

The nickname "advanced netstudies" was located under the Personal interests / Internet" section of the site.

Module 2: Newsgroups

Ok, before beginning this module I was totally unfamiliar with the whole concept of newgroups.

I have read through all of the information provided in Module 2 and feel a little better.

However I have just spent the last 1.5 hours trying to join a free newsgroup. What a nightmare. You think they would make it easier !! Anyway after I.5 hours I am no closer to joining a newsgroup....I might have to check the discussion boards to see if anyone else is having problems.

Not happy.......

Module 2: Email lists (2)

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

Email lists are a more formal means of communication. I check and sort my email everyday. It's a more personal mode of communication. For instance, if I received a group of emails relating to a certain topic, I would feel obliged to respond.

With a discussion board I could pick up a thread and add to it only if I wanted to. Even if I found a topic I found really interesting, I would not necessarily feel obliged to respond. There is the choice to be more invisible, gleaning pieces of information as they become available. Having said that, it is an easier, and more naturtal way to partipate in a conversation by adding to a thread which interests you. Time factor is another important advantage in choosing to be a member of a discussion board. Why sort through piles of email on a subject which may not even interest you, With discussion boards you can easily choose to pick up a conversation thread or not.

To summarize, if you wanted information which you considered important, presented in a formal manner, then an email list would suit your needs.

If you prefer a more natural way to partipate in an online conversation, with time and convience being important factors, then a discussion board would be better suited to your needs.

Module 2: Email Lists (1)

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

I can speak about this topic from experience. As a keen inline skater who met friends in the city to skate once a week, I joined a yahoo groups email list. There were pros and cons of being part of this list. From an organisational point of view it was great, everyone would know the exact time and place to meet, who would be there, and how long we would skate for. It was also good because people would bring along cameras and the next day at work, you would be able check out the shots taken from the night before.

On the downside though, there would be times during the day when practically everyone would be online at once, and it seemed that you were getting bombarded with emails. This was actually quite distracting if you at work.

There was also the issue of receiving mail from people I had never heard of, but were connected in some way to the skating group. Probably about 80% of the mail I received was irrelevent to me or I had no interest in whatsoever. The other 20% of mail was great and worthwhile.

With this volume of mail coming in everyday though it also meant setting aside time to go through and sorting it out. Deleting most of the messages, and filing the rest away.

After about six months of being in the list though, I had my name removed. In the end I found the volume of mail I was receiving to be far too distracting.

Discussion boards are not as obtrusive. You are able to choose whether or not you want to add a comment to a thread, or even if you want to read a thread for thar matter. With a disscusion board you can choose to be invisible, simply by reading relevant information and delibrately not adding to it.

Module 2 Tasks: Email Tasks

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?
By right clicking the persons name in the from field it is possible to get their complete email address to add to your contacts list.

If the email has been one in a series of answers and replies, you can follow the trail when you open the email. On top of each entry it will have details of the person who replied and at what time and date and the subject field ( all of the meta data).

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email?
I would 'cc' an email message when I want the message to go to a number of people.

I would 'blind cc' a message when I didn't want the original addressee to know that a copy of my message is going to another person. It is also used to send a message to a group of people where you do not want them to know each others email address. Spammers use this option frequently.

I would 'reply all' when I want to respond to a message without having to enter eveyones details by hand. This is a good option because it avoids simple typos occuring.

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?
If, for example I was to send a microsoft word document, I would make sure the recipient had microsoft word installed on their computer. With quite a few novice computer users this is often the case. There is no use sending an attachment if the recipient does not have the software to open it.

I would also make sure the attachment was not to large. People often have a limit on what size attachment they can receive. If it's too big, they simply will not receive it.

In regards to encoding, I would make sure the recipients default attachment choice was set to MIME (Multi purpose Internet Mail Extensions).

4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose? I do not have any rules set up on my email application. I use a third party spam - virus remover system called MessageLabs Email Security System. For a small annual fee this company filters all of my email before I receive it. On the odd occassion that a suspect looking email does get through, I simply follow the rule that if I dont recognise the sender, then it gets deleted immediately.

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

Although it wasn't really recommended in the module, I organise my email by the person / company who sent it to me. After trying a lot of different systems, I find this works best for me.

I leave any outstanding emails which need to be acted upon, sitting in my general email folder. When I do complete the task, then I file the email away under sender.

Modules 1 & 2 - General Study

I spent this weekend re-reading all of the information from modules one and two, as well as all of the key unit concepts.

I want to make sure that everything (or most of it) will eventually sink in. It's frustrating, because nothing seems to sink in when I read through it the first time. After the second reading, I'm generally feeling a little better, but I think I will need three of four revisions until I'm really comfortable.

As for the concepts, I am just going to keep reading them contantly.

As I read through the modules I have been printing them out and placing them in a folder. This works well for me, because I can go through them again without having to sit in front of the computer.

My goal is to complete one module per week and then I can really concentrate on the assignments.

Module 1 Tasks: Internet Tools

Part 1

After visiting how it works.com to find out about traceroute, I started with the first part of the excercise which was to traceroute from centralops.net to curtin.edu.au.

I have listed the results below:

Tracing route to curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.10]...
hop rtt rtt rtt ip address
1 0 0 0 70.84.211.97
2 0 0 0 70.84.160.129
3 1 0 0 70.85.127.105
4 0 0 0 70.87.253.5
5 0 0 0 157.238.225.5
6 1 0 0 129.250.3.121
7 8 15 15 129.250.4.71
8 41 50 47 129.250.4.112
9 41 41 41 129.250.3.159
10 41 41 41 198.172.90.102
11 197 197 197 202.158.194.153
12 209 209 209 202.158.194.33
13 218 218 218 202.158.194.17
14 245 245 245 202.158.194.5
15 245 245 245 202.158.198.178
16 246 246 246 202.158.198.186
17 246 246 246 134.7.250.18
18 246 246 248 134.7.248.65
19 246 246 246 134.7.179.10

All up there were 19 hops.

The average time in milliseconds from the tools site to cutin was 246 milliseconds.

Cutins' IP address is: 134.7.179.10

Part 2
Not having had any experience with pinging or traceroute I decided to download the A-Toolbar from www.tucows.com to learn more about the process.

The A-Toolbar had heaps of features, most of which I will never use but most importantly it had the ping and traceroute functions which were both presented with an easy to use interface.

To start off with I 'pinged' the curtin site from my computer using the A-Toolbar. The reults were slightly quicker than 'pinging' from centralops. The average time to ping from centralops was 246 ms but from my own computer it was 225 ms. I believe this is because 'pinging' from my computer is a more dirrect route.

To confirm the results I also 'pinged' curtain from the ms-dos window on my computer.

Here are the results:

The results match up pretty closely. Slight variations could be caused by the fact that I did them at differnent times, meaning there could have been slightly more or less internet traffic.

Part 3

Using my A-Toolbar I also performed the traceroute operation from my computer to the curtain site. Here are the results:

I had exactly the same number of hops from centralops to curtin as I did with my computer to curtin.

I also backed up my results by performing the traceroute task from the ms-dos window on my computer to curtains site. The results once again were the same:

I encountered one small problem along the way, in that I inadvertantly entered the curtin.edu.au adress incorrectly into the ms-dos wind. As a result my computer kept telling me that it was unable to resolve the target system name.

I soon discovered the way around this was to simply enter the IP address: 134.7.179.10, and the treaceroute operation was sucessfully performed.

Conclusions

Traceroute and pinging are operations which are an asset to anyone working in the IT field.

In fact later on in the afternoon, I was notified that a printer in the office had apparently 'broken down'. I was out of the office at the time and my first reaction was that it had probably come off line. I realized that the ideal way to check this would be to ping it from my laptop. I simply entered the printers IP address (192.168.1.5) into my ms-dos window and performed the ping operation. Sure enough the reults came back positive! No question about the printer not being online, and a very handy diagnostic tool to have when you are in a remote location.

I also found the centalops.net website very handy. Its probably the most convienient way to assertain an IP address that I know of.

Module 1 Tasks: FTP

FTP is an application which I use almost everyday so I felt a lot more comfortable completing this task.

The software I use is ACE FTP PRO 3. Its a relatively simple FTP program, but one which enables files to be moved from my computer to any remote location without any problems.

Step 1. For this assignment I entered the Cutain adress into the URL field of my FTP software and was immediately able to veiw the directory structure of Curtains server.
Step2 - From here it was a simple matter of navigating to the readme file on Curtains server: /Anonymous/MSC/readme.txt.

The answer to the question is :"This server runs on a unix platform, so CAPITALIZATION MATTERS"

Conclusion: FTP is about the transferring of files back and forth between computers and it's something I use everyday. The graphical nature of the interface makes this process as simple and efficient as possible. FTP is software which anyone who is involved in the transferring of files, or the development of websites should have on their computer.

Module 1 Tasks: TELNET

OK totally hit a brick wall with telnet. Can't seem to get my head around it at all.
I have visited several sites trying to download a client, but it is all very confusing....
http://www.windweaver.com/w95tips5.htm - a few tips and tricks here but no link to download a client.

http://www.aota.net/Telnet/wintelnet.php4 - More tips on on connecting a telnet client here but still don't know if I have one. I typed telnet into RUN on my computer and this is what I came up with: http://www.indiana.edu/~uitspubs/b157/#a - Another site with lots of tips and tricks on using telnet, but still very confused......

Finally found a downloadable Telnet client which worked on my computer:http://www.computerhope.com/dshare.htm

Step 1: Just installed this TELNET client on my computer. I have entered the deakin library into the field:

Step2: The simple interface pops up with information about accessing information from the Deakin library database:

Step3: Following the logical steps, I am able to navigate my way to the authors books:

Step4: Again following the steps, I receive an email with information about the author and his books:

Conclusion: Want to work out how to access other data bases with TELNET before I pass judgement. It seems fairly primative though. Have already tried to access a couple of sites but couldn't get through.

I'm happy with my TELNET client though. It's very easy to use.

Blog set up and ready to go....

OK - Saturday the 3rd of March, my Net 11 learning log is now set up and ready to go. I guess this counts as part of the learning process.

Feeling a little bit peeved...as a graphic designer I wanted a really fancy header, however that does not seem to be possible with this blogging application. I will keep investigating and hopefully work out how it is done further down the line.

Time to get stuck into the modules......