Module 5

The concept of search has been redesigned with the answer to everyday questions being explained by a website named wolfram alpha. The sites long-term goal is to "make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone." The driving force behind the site is Stephen Wolfram who is a "distinguished scientist, inventor, author, and business leader." Wolfram has also produced Mathematica over the past 20 years.

"It is often said that the release of Mathematica marked the beginning of modern technical computing. Ever since the 1960s individual packages had existed for specific numerical, algebraic, graphical, and other tasks. But the visionary concept of Mathematica was to create once and for all a single system that could handle all the various aspects of technical computing--and beyond--in a coherent and unified way. The key intellectual advance that made this possible was the invention of a new kind of symbolic computer language that could, for the first time, manipulate the very wide range of objects needed to achieve the generality required for technical computing, using only a fairly small number of basic primitives."

I'm not into math at all but the exciting thing about wolfram alpha is the concept of collecting expert knowledge and broadcasting the subsequent information to the broadest possible audience, knowledge is power and this site equates more power to the people.




http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/history.html
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/
http://www.wolframalpha.com/about.html

Conceptual Research & Reflection Project

Concept 7: Netiquette

“Netiquette describes 'good' and 'bad' conduct in online communication (amongst other forms of Internet use). But what is important about Netiquette is the concept that there are these 'agreed' rules of what is good and bad.

Understanding why and how netiquette operates is more than just learning those rules (for, indeed, there are numerous differences and disagreements about the 'rules'). Rather, one must gain from a reading of 'netiquette' a sense that users must themselves contribute to the proper functioning of the Internet as a communication system: that no-one is in 'charge' of the net and we all must exercise an ethic of maintenance, taking responsibility for doing it 'right'.” (Allen, n.d)

The Netiquette Home Page argues that, “netiquette varies from domain to domain.” I tend to agree with this statement, work related Internet mediated communication and netiquette would differ to Net communication and netiquette between friends or that of an online gamer where an “individual is free to reconstruct him or herself according to spontaneous whims and fantasies.”(Lerdell 2003) Lerdell also raises the issue of globalisation and emphasizes the “problem of taking for granted a shared ness of rules and norms for interaction.” (Lerdell 2003)

The concept of ‘global netiquette’ is attractive but Edward Szewczak in the Selected Readings on the Human Side of Information Technology points out that a “moral framework that would bind all nations and cultures would be evidently and immensely valuable.” It would be impossible to create such a framework because of the contrastive moral perspectives from different regions around the world. Szewczak concludes that Western and Non-Western countries hold different ethics in regards to “privacy, intellectual property, and freedom of information” (Szewczak 2008) which are all crucial in regards to netiquette.

The Internet has evolved from the initial obliging user who endorsed standards of netiquette voluntarily. The evolution of netiquette has a significant milestone, in April of 1994,(Hayes n.d.) The first major breech of netiquette took place when The Phoenix law firm of Canter & Siegel ‘spammed’ 6000 Usenet Newsgroups leading to the firms Internet access being cut off. (Bashkin 1994) Unfortunately now ‘Spam’ is part of everyday life and enforcing anti ‘Spam’ law is “problematic because e-mail crosses jurisdictional boundaries so readily.”(Hayes n.d.) This has lead to a war like situation ultimately harming both the spammers and people trying to “stop spam, block spam, or kill spam.” (Software 2009)

One of the key netiquette issues in my research appears to be an email-based issue regarding ‘top posting’ it seems to ‘officially’ be a bad habit. I don’t believe that top posting is bad netiquette, but top posting seems to have divided the online community “since the rise of email.” (Meiert 2008) It seems that this “formulated rule” (Aarseth 1997) will be the topic of online discussion for years to come with the most passionate response coming from those who are opposed to the practise. With this in mind I have come to the possibility that the issue of ‘good or bad’ netiquette only really arises in a global context where email is concerned. With “detailed studies noting that few blogs last more than a couple of weeks” (Arnold 2005) and as little as 19% of the American online population are contributing to “a Web site, creating an online diary, or posting their thoughts on an online bulletin board or other online community” (Arnold 2005), email appears to be the only global online communicative process where the practise of good and bad netiquette is really an issue.

“Netiquette, the etiquette of the net, a loose set of rules or conventions for proper behaviour on mailing lists, news groups, and in email. These are usually formulated by individuals who, with the best of intentions, wish to impose a certain standard of polite behaviour on the motley and sometimes unpleasant crowds on the internet, usually by pretending that these formulated rules reflect the wishes and preferences of a mythical majority of net users.”(Aarseth 1997)



Site 1: Netiquette Home Page, http://www.albion.com "Netiquette" is network etiquette, the do's and don'ts of online communication.”

Albion.com has been “greeting and orienting new Internet users since 1990” this longevity coupled with the authors skills at presenting a “technical and literary approach to web publishing” constitutes credibility. The information contained in this site on netiquette is aimed at fledgling Internet users and was an informing basis point for my research into netiquette. Pages such as “The Art of Flaming” are easy to understand and inturn point to a relevant issue that affects all online users participating in online communication. In an ever-changing landscape www.albion.com is a stalemate.


Site 2: Email Etiquette (Netiquette), http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~davidt/email_etiquette.htm / - full

David Tuffley presents an educational perspective with an emphasis on Email Netiquette. Although I was only the 26th visitor to this web page I found that the ‘rhetoric of reliability’ (Nettleton 2005) I used was that of “real versus virtual organizations” this was achieved through Tuffley’s and this web sites clear association with Griffith University visible through a banner at the top of the page and a direct link just above the footer. The definition given to various acronyms and emoticons was very informative and something that is not touched on in many academic web sites though is crucial to correct netiquette.



Concept 10: Automation

"Searching for information can involve significant degrees of automation or, at least, surrendering control to seemingly ‘intelligent’ agents. The advantages are, of course, in time saved; and the obvious risk is that you will not get exactly what you want because the agent is less capable than it appears to be or cannot cope with the peculiarities of your specific request. A greater risk, however, is that, using various automated processes can make one question the reliability of the results you receive…by surrendering control over information finding to others we are either lulled into false security or constantly nagged by doubts that the process is time-efficient but quality-inefficient. " (Allen, n.d)

The issue of quality-information in regards to “surrendering control to seeming intelligent agents”(Allen n.d ) seems to be a prevailing problem when searching for health information via the Internet. Although “The rapid growth of healthcare websites in the 1990s was accompanied by initiatives to rate their quality, including award-like symbols on websites” (Gagliardi 2002) the issue of automated response from search engines seems to be a key factor.

The ‘intelligent agents’ or search engines number in there thousands globally but only a handful of these are responsible for the “vast majority of all search engine traffic.”(1cog.com n.d.) So it leads me to the question, Can these ‘intelligent agents’ be trusted to produce accurate and honest results and is the automated response by search engines too easily accepted by a naïve online community? I don’t believe the online community at large is naïve and whilst researching I found that there are rules that people draw upon when “articulating why they trust some online sources and not others”(Nettleton 2005) Nettleton identifies six rules people use when trusting automated search results. These rules were followed across both ends of the socio-economic spectrum leading me to the conclusion that the online community is not naive.

The notion that automated search results or word frequencies put forward by ‘intelligent agents’ are derived purely via mathematical calculation adds weight to the trustworthiness of search engines. The internet “seems to display quite a number of power-law distributions.”(Adamic n.d.) It seems that search results put into the context of mathematical ‘laws’ such as the ‘power law’ produce a “winner-takes-all”(Hindman 2008) outcome, where search engines aid the process of the ‘rich getting richer’. With this in mind there is the option of paid search automation, which is worth considering if you have a business perspective where you are trying to reach a certain market.

“Human skill in search is undersold, is undervalued”(Goodman 2009) although “the complexity of industrial and social systems under human management leads to serious unexpected consequences, caused by human errors or by deficiency in planning.” (GADOMSKI 1995) The current form of the Internet relies on automation in conjunction with user input. With ever increasingly complex and vast data, information available, it is essential to have automation. The notion that Intelligent Agents “cannot function efficiently in chaos” (Alexander D. Korzyk n.d.) Is clear therefore Intelligent Agents should “make rational decisions, i.e., blending proactive ness and reactive ness, showing rational commitment to decisions made, and exhibiting flexibility in the face of an uncertain and changing environment.”(MichaelWinikoff 2001) leading me to the conclusion that to surrender control to intelligent agents in a constantly changing environment such as the Internet is unrealistic.

Prior to starting this unit the only search engine that I used was Google; during the course of studying this unit I found Google Sholar and SurfWax.com to be two of the most valuable tools when searching for information. I have also come to the conclusion that they are only ‘tools’ and when used informatively and correctly, information and resources are abundant. This unit has given me the skill-set to use these tools to find information in a time-efficient and quality-efficient manner.






Site 1: https://www.brint.net , “Welcome to the World's No. 1 Resource for Business Technology Management and Knowledge Management” (http://www.brint.org/ 2007)

The fact that this site is recommended by Business Week, Computer world, Fortune, Information Week, New York Times, Wall Street Journal creates a cense of credibility. The forums contained within this site are a wealth of knowledge themselves; the practical knowledge contained with in the forums is extensive. I found the downloadable Articles and Interviews to be very useful with information from and array of industry experts and leaders in respective fields. This site contained links to information relevant in regards to automation displayed in an easy to access format that is clear and concise.

Site 2: Content Management Matters www.cmswire.com “CMSWire is a rapidly growing web magazine dedicated to all things content management and a few other things we considered related.”(Dunwoodie 2009)

www.cmswires.com is an excellent source of information in regards to content management and automation. I used CMS wire as a base point for exploring issues and found it very useful in my education of automation. The author is Brice Dunwoodie who has worked for Oracle, Andromedia, Macromedia and Cylogy thus the credibility of the web site is unquestionable. This web site is very easy to navigate with easy access to News, Lists, Reviews and more. A site with information made available about tools with reviews making automation of web tasks somewhat an easier task choosing what tools to use in what instance.

Concept 28: The paradox of the World Wide Web

“The Web embodies a fundamental paradox:

It is designed to be user-friendly information environment, fun to use and unthreatening;

BUT

It is the exemplification of a community/industry/technology which by its very nature is innovative, constantly changing and growing in complexity.

It therefore tends to be easy to use on the surface but is, at a deeper level, difficult to understand and use" (M.Exon, 1998).

Moreover, simply understanding and coming to terms with this complexity is not sufficient. We must see through it to the conceptual basis of the web: a system that encourages decentralised participation, exploratory and entrepreneurial behaviour in a manner that bypasses traditional government and corporate systems. What makes the Internet ‘work’ is this level of decentralisation, which drives innovation and empowers the individual; what makes the Internet ‘fail to work’ is the extraordinary demands it places on users to cope with many complex facets and more decisions than normal. Furthermore, complexity can disempower those who lack the skills, time and opportunity to learn.

Advanced Internet users recognise the character of the Web, seek to utilise its advantages, ameliorate its deficiencies and understand that not all users have the same abilities as themselves in reconciling the paradox of the WWW.

The World Wide Web is also beginning to encompass more and more of what we do on the Internet, at some cost. People tend to assume that the Internet is the WWW: it’s not; on the other hand, we can see the cultural forces at work to make the WWW do all the things we want to on the Internet – it’s more effective for large companies to profit from, and creates a sense that using the Internet is ‘easy’ (useful to convince reluctant customers). (Allen, n.d)

The Internet and its use for communications is the most powerful and resilient infrastructure built by mankind. The simplicity of the Internet lies in the generalisation of the uses that the Internet is capable of. The only issue with the current form is that of data transfer speeds, which is limiting functionality. The traditional communication companies will not profit from a truly decentralised system(Weinberger n.d.) A truly decentralised system “ threatens not only the market power of the media giants but also the very survival of the telecommunication companies and software giants.”(Andrew Herman 2000) In the current form that the Internet takes there are still groundbreaking innovations occurring and the ability for the individual to gain empowerment is still available.

Would an Internet without limitations imposed by telecommunication companies further “disempower those who lack the skills, time and opportunity to learn” (Allen n.d ) or would it simplify what now appears to be a complex system and truly be a “user-friendly information environment , fun to use and unthreatening.” (Allen, n.d.) With a simpler form of the Internet, free of limitations, free of constraints imposed by capitalist influences. An Internet available to everyone at little or no expense is the only way to truly empower the individual. This view is utopian and relies on the “transformative powers of the web.” (Andrew Herman 2000) The World Wide Web is seen as having a “gradual development followed by an exploding impact.” (Patricia F. Murphy 2008) No one can tell what the future holds and what the ‘transformative powers’ will lead to but the web will always be a “medium that honours multiple forms of intelligence-abstract, textual, visual, musical”(Patricia F. Murphy 2008)

The question of wether the World Wide Web will have a positive impact on social involvement or negative impact is starting to become apparent. The Internet has made it possible to “further privatise entertainment, to obtain previously inaccessible information, to increase technical skills and conduct commercial transactions from home.” (Kraut 1998) Advances like these seem to have a positive effect on superficial social interaction but when it comes to social interaction where stronger ties are involved and are normally supported by physical proximity results are unclear. (Kraut 1998) The notion that superficial social involvement could be accessible to the general population within a global context before the Internet was unfeasible.

The issue of cyber bulling is a definite paradox to the “fun to use and unthreatening”(Allen n.d ) aspect of the World Wide Web. “The motives and the nature of cyber communications, as well as the demographic and profile of a cyber bully differ from their offline counterpart.”(WiredKids 2009) The case of a thirteen year old girl who committed suicide after a MySpace love interest rejected her, when the love interest was actually the 49 year old mother of her former classmate(CNN.com/crime 2008) would not have happened had the internet not been involved. So from this perspective the Internet has a negative effect on social interaction.

Site 1: CNN.com http://edition.cnn.com “The international edition of CNN.com is constantly updated to bring you the top news stories from around the world. It is produced by dedicated staff in London and Hong Kong, working with colleagues at CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and with bureaus worldwide. CNN.com relies heavily on CNN's global team of over 4,000 news professionals. CNN.com/International features the latest multimedia technologies, from live video streaming to audio packages to searchable archives of news features and background information. The site is updated continuously throughout the day.”(CNN.COM/INTERNATIONAL 2009)

The ability of news corporations to offer constantly updated information from sources in a global context is invaluable. With companies such as Time Warner producing sites such as CNN.com the information that is provided can then be examined and checked for credibility, but the question of credibility is from each source rather than the site itself. The site is very easy to navigate splitting the top level selections into geographical context and inturn into business, technology, entertainment, sport and travel making it user friendly. I have found this site to be useful not only for the propose of research but also to maintain an informed view of current affairs.

Site 2: Centre for Safe and Responsible Internet Use http://www.cyberbully.org
“The Centre for Safe and Responsible Internet Use provides research and outreach services to address issues of the safe and responsible use of the Internet. We provide guidance to parents, educators, librarians, policy-makers, and others regarding effective strategies to assist young people in gaining the knowledge, skills, motivation, and self-control to use the Internet and other information technologies in a safe and responsible manner.” (CSRIU 2002-2007)

In an environment where young children are harming themselves due to the actions of others through online social networking web sites a site such as CSRIU is a great reference for parents to safeguard their children. The fact that this site offers tools in the form of ‘Free Documents for Schools to Send Home to Parents’ is invaluable and resources like this help maintain an element of credibility for the web site. Another aspect of credibility is the fact that the Author Nancy Willard is the executive director of the Centre for Safe and Responsible Internet Use speaks volumes. She received a Bachelors of Science in Elementary and Early Childhood Education from the University of Utah in 1975, a Masters of Science in Special Education from the University of Oregon, 1977, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Willamette University College of Law in 1983. Proving that she has the qualifications to advise on issues such as internet safety for future generations.

1. Asynchronicity

Asynchronous communication means that the sender and receiver deal with the communication between them at different times. We are familiar with asynchronous communication, for we use it regularly with letters, faxes and similar media. However, email often appears to be more similar to the conventions of real-time (or synchronous) communication and thus the particular nature of asynchronicity is different. People often expect a response to email in faster time than a letter (perhaps because they themselves respond rapidly to email). People expect to be able, through email, to conduct a conversation, with much back and forth, similar to an oral conversation.

In other words, asynchronous communication does not render time and schedules unimportant (as is sometimes claimed). Rather it requires us to think up new rules to assist us in managing communications that, from one perspective are 'instant' and, from another, are 'lagged' and that, standing back, are about the differences in temporal location of the people communicating.

Asynchronous electronic communication is not the opposite of real-time, synchronous communication: rather it describes forms of communication that appear differently 'located in time' depending on the perspective of the sender and receiver.



This concept applies equally, of course, to the other forms of asynchronous communication that are very similar to email, or use email (newsgroups and lists). What is perhaps less obvious is that FTP and the World Wide Web can also enable asynchronicity: indeed they depend on it, by allowing individuals to access material in many different personal ‘time zones’. For example, teaching online is predominantly effective where students cannot gather together in class to hear lectures but need to access them individually, at their own time.(Allen, n.d)

A synchronicity is an inefficient form of communication when used in the context of a discussion board where information is broadcast and instruction is put forward with the assumption that the intended recipient has understood or complied with the information that was put forward in the communication. Assumption “is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were true based upon presupposition without preponderance of the facts.”(Wikipedia 2009) Is the discussion board currently used for this unit designed as a teaching tool or is it a place of confusion and irrelevant information. The forced dialog and contribution, threatening grades if dialog is not executed has created a space that is clogged. Are we as an online community broadcasting for the sake of broadcasting and are we loosing the ability to “look listen and learn.”(willowb100 2009)

There is no denying that asynchronous communication is an inferior precursor to synchronous communication. Is it the fact that asynchronous communication is stored digitally to be viewed over and over again or in some cases not at all, that it appears to be taking up ‘space’ wether on a hard drive of a server or stored locally on your own computer that information becomes irrelevant over time and this stored irrelevant information somehow has an impact on our day to day life. Can going to far with displaying your life in an asynchronous communication forum like Face Book affect your every day life, I did a search to see what impact it has on people who are involved within the Face Book communities life I used key words ‘fired because of Face Book’ returning 106,000,000 results including everything from employees fired because of social networking when they had the day off due to a migraine and couldn’t use a PC to a site telling you how to Avoid getting fired because of Face Book.

It was for the reasons above that I cancelled my Face Book account almost two years ago. For interests sake I started another Face Book account through the course of this study period and currently only have two friends both trying to sell me something. The current forms of asynchronous social networking sites all appear to be wallowing in the same sea of irrelevant information. With only half of the Face Book community logging on daily (Eldon 2009) is this also the opinion of half the online community involved with Face Book. The application of asynchronous communication can be positive and informative.

There is definitely a time where asynchronicity is valuable and works well and efficiently. The use of asynchronicity within email works really well but can also be used as a “collaboration tool.”(Ashley 2003) Without the concept of asynchronous communication streaming of audio and video would be impossible. The idea of learning online would be impossible without asynchronous communication.


Site1 Embedded.com http://www.embedded.com (Embedded.com 2009)

Embedded is a great source of technology information if you are looking for anything to do with tech breakthroughs I will always start here. The columnists are leaders in their respective fields providing Embedded with the site a credibility that cannot be manufactured. From columnists providing insights into new technology to a strong online community that is helpful and informative. The site is easy to navigate with dropdown menus helping define navigation. The blogs are a great source of information providing a different perspective on a wide range of technology topics.

Site2 TechOnline http://www.techonline.com/

“Launched in 1996, TechOnline is the design and engineering resource for engineers and engineering managers involved in the electronics sector. To achieve this goal, TechOnline provides users with a host of education resources, which range from Webinars to online courses to a research library of white papers. At the same time, the site offers engineers the chance to evaluate products using TechOnline's patented VirtuaLab technology, the ability to sort through new products from around the Electronics sector, and insights into design approaches through the site's Under the Hood tear down section.”(TechOnline 2009)

This site is an amazing resource for technical engineers and with my background I find that I spend more time than I should looking at this site. Some people have a hard time with Face Book addiction I can empathise when TechOnline comes up in conversation (unfortunately this happens less than I would like maybe once every blue moon). The focused design channels are a fantastic web based resource covering networking, power management, and topics such as green electronics. The fact that TechOnline has been up and running since 1996 is what gives the site such a massive amount of credibility. It is truly a stalemate in the tech world.





Bibliography

• 1cog.com. (n.d.). "Don't say 'search engine' - say 'Google'." 1 cog-web design-search engine optimisation Retrieved 13th May, 2009, from http://1cog.com/search-engine-statistics.html.
• Aarseth, E. J. (1997). Cybertext: perspectives on ergodic literature
• , JHU Press.
• Adamic, L. A. (n.d.). "Zipf, Power-laws, and Pareto - a ranking tutorial." Retrieved 16th May, 2009, from http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/ranking/ranking.html.
• Alexander D. Korzyk, S. (n.d.). Towards XML As A Secure Intelligent Agent Communication Language, Virginia Commonwealth University
• School of Business
• Department of Information Systems: 14.
• Allen, A. P. M. (n.d ). "Internet Communications Concepts Document." Net11 The Internet - Communications Retrieved 6th May 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
• Andrew Herman, T. S. (2000). The World Wide Web and contemporary cultural theory, Routledge.
• Arnold, B. (2005). "uptake and persistence." Retrieved 11th May, 2009, from http://www.caslon.com.au/statsnote2.htm.
• Ashley, J. (2003). "Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication Tools " Retrieved 22nd May, 2009, from http://asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/articledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=13572.
• Bashkin, A. A. (1994). Beyond Netiquette. Op-Ed Piece Prepared for the Conference on Ethical, Legal and Technological Aspects of Network Use and Abuse, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• CNN.com/crime (2008). Guilty verdicts in case of MySpace user's suicide. T. Tamura, CNN.com.
• CNN.COM/INTERNATIONAL. (2009). Retrieved 22nd May, 2009, from http://edition.cnn.com/.
• CSRIU. (2002-2007). "The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use." Retrieved 22nd MAy, 2009, from http://www.cyberbully.org/.
• Dunwoodie, B. (2009). "Content Management Matters." Retrieved 19th May 2009, from http://www.cmswire.com.
• Eldon, E. (2009). "A look at Facebook’s latest statistics: More status updates? More content sharing?" Retrieved 22nd May, 2009, from http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/08/trying-to-analyze-facebooks-latest-statistics-more-status-updates-more-content-sharing/.
• Embedded.com. (2009). Retrieved 22nd May, 20009, from http://www.embedded.com.
• GADOMSKI, A. M. (1995). ABSTRACT INTELLIGENT AGENTS:
• PARADIGMS, FOUNDATIONS AND
• CONCEPTUALIZATION PROBLEMS Reflections after The First International Round-Table on Abstract Intelligent Agent (AIA93). J. M. Zytkow. Rome, ENEA.
• Gagliardi, A. (2002, 2002;324:569-573 ( 9 March )). "Examination of instruments used to rate quality of health information on the internet: chronicle of a voyage with an unclear destination." Retrieved 11th May, 2009, from http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/324/7337/569.
• Goodman, A. (2009). "Search Engin Land." Paid Search Retrieved 18th May, 2009, from http://searchengineland.com/paid-search-automation-choosing-a-vendor-16833.
• Hayes, B. (n.d.). "Spam, Spam, Spam, Lovely Spam." Retrieved 8th May, 2009, from https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3330,y.0,no.,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx.
• Hindman, M. S. (2008). The Myth of Digital Democracy, Princeton University Press.
• http://www.brint.org/. (2007). "www.brint.org." Retrieved 18th May, 2009, from http://www.brint.org/.
• Kraut, R. (1998). Internet paradox:
• A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? V. L. Michael Patterson, Sara Kiesler,Tridas Mukophadhyay,William Scherlis Carnegie Mellon University.
• Lerdell, C. G. a. D. (2003). Mainstream Rebels: Informalization and Regulation in a Virtual World. New technologies at work: people, screens, and social virtuality, Berg Publishers: 250.
• Meiert, J. (2008, October 2, 2008). "Thoughts on Email." Top posting must Die Retrieved 8th May, 2009, from http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080610/thoughts-on-email/.
• MichaelWinikoff (2001). Simplifying the Development of Intelligent Agents. L. P. a. J. Harland. Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
• Nettleton, S. (2005). The mundane realities of the everyday lay use of the internet for health, and their consequences for media convergence. R. B. a. L. O'Malley. Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 9660 Garsington Rd, Oxford.
• Patricia F. Murphy, K. H., Patricia F. Murphy (2008). Learning and Practice: Agency and Identities, SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Software, E. (2009, April 10, 2009 21:51). "The Red Queen Principle." Retrieved 18th May, 2009, from http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Red_Queen_Principle.html.
• Szewczak, E. (2008). Selected Readings on the Human Side of Information Technology, Idea Group Inc (IGI).
• TechOnline. (2009). "TechOnline." Retrieved 22nd May, 2009, from http://www.techonline.com/.
• Weinberger, D. i. a. D. (n.d.). "The Paradox of the Best Network
• ." Retrieved 19th May, 2009, from http://netparadox.com/.
• Wikipedia. (2009). "Assumption." From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Retrieved 22nd May 2009, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumptions.
• willowb100. (2009, 2009-04-14). "Relevance." Brain Juice Run-Off Retrieved 2nd May 2009, 2009, from http://willowbl00.livejournal.com/5157.html.
• WiredKids. (2009). "Why do kids cyberbully each other?" Stop Cyberbullying Retrieved 22nd May, 2009, from http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/why_do_kids_cyberbully_each_other.html.

Module 4

Using the info sphere: taking & organising

tools for using the web : searching the web : evaluating the web

Tools for using the Web

The aim in this task is both to introduce (or re-familiarise yourself) with additional programs you might wish to use, and also to put them into use as tools that might be helpful for your assignment 1.

In your learning log record which programs you downloaded and note which (if any) facets you think might prove useful.

1. Adobe's pdf reader:
Although a already have this application I do think that the PDF reader supplied by Macintosh called Preview is easier to use, it my be that I am more accustom to using it.
2. Flash/Shockwave Players:
The page to test if Adobe Shockwave and Flash Player are installed on your machine is quite intuitive and is located here. I have already installed Flash Player at an earlier date but I did not have a copy of Shockwave. I mainly use Firefox to browse so when the site was loaded below my bookmark tool bar I saw (please click on image for a larger version)

After I clicked on the install button I was taken to a window that advised me that no plugins were missing . Interesting given that I had just been informed that I don't have shockwave installed.

3. Media Players:
I have already installed and use Quicktime and Windows Media Player but I have never heard of Real Player so I downloaded a copy. I'm not sure that I will ever use this media player but it my come in handy on day.

4. Search Manager/Combiners:
we were asked to look at example Glooton for Mac and Windows but it appears that this web site is just an advertisement for a french company who produce web sites, I did use a translator site and didn't fined any useful web tools. After searching around the net I think this site was at one point useful:-)

5. Bookmark Manager:
I am greatly appreciative of finding a bookmark manager (this should keep the wife happy she hates my endless bookmarks in the tool bar)
I tried the suggested URL Manager Pro Mac but I didnt like the fact that I could not try the application before I was required to purchase it, I did and search through Version Tracker and found WebnoteHappy Lite its quite easy to use but I dont think its an app I will use.

6. Offline Browser/Copier:
As far as I can tell from the Page Sucker web site which is the recommended tool for offline browsing the app has not been updated since 2002 and appears to be quite old. The issue of offline browsing is no longer relevant with current broadband deals from ISP's.

Searching the Web

Choose your most commonly used internet search engine and do a search with words of your choosing.
I decided to do a search with the keyword 'surfing'.

record the first hit and number of hits in your learning log
First hit was google images
Results 1 - 10 of about 63,800,000 for surfing

Using copernicus or similar, set it up to search at least three se arch engines (including one that will search the 'deep web') and repeat eactly the same search
Garry Ried suggested in the thread RE: No sherlock, No Copernic in the unit disscusion board to view the UC Berkeley site where the meta search tool www.surfwax.com was suggested to be "A better than average set of search engines.Can mix with educational, US Govt tools, and news sources, or many other categories." so given my subject matter I decided to try it out. The initial search returned 201,000,000 pages clearly a lot more than Google with first hit being a CNN article titled 'Layoff Worries Keep Many From Taking Vacations, Experts Say'.Interesting given that I searched 'surfing'


record the number of hits in your learning log, and compare to your first search. What differences did you notice? Why? Which search, on first glance gave you the most promising results?

Surfwax returned 201,000,000 pages where Google returned 63,400,000. The main difference I noticed was the fact that Google listed images above the actual pages. I think it is hard to say what search results were more 'promising', I do think that both ways of searching have a place. I think if my search was aimed at retriving information Surfwax would appear to yield the most promising results.

save at least the first 5 hits of both searches.

As you can see from the images above Google's results included I mages, www.surfingaustralia.com, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfing, www.surfingmagazine.com and then video results for surfing.
Surfwax returned Wikipedia for the top two followed by a Sand Diego surf report then answers.comand lastly a photo page.

Taking the same key words of your last search, think about how you would best search for the following:

• the biggest number of hits relating to these key words

• information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to look for!

• information coming only from university sources

Discuss your strategies with the class and record the exact search terms you used in your learning log

The search results during this exercise have been larger by around 50% using the site Surfwax.com
when searching for broad results with a large cross section of both academic and informal entertainment sites both Google and Surfwax.com delivered similar results. when searching for information coming from University sources the site Google Scholar had results that the other search engines had not retrieved.
The clusty search tool was recommended by another student so searching with Boolean techniques I added some more criteria to my search surfing+waves with the following results

When I searched with the key words surfing and waves my results were subtlety different

Evaluating the Web

First, work through the following short, but clear tutorial on evaluating and understanding the information that you find. (You should also see that managing information is closely tied to evaluation: how you store, keep track of and otherwise 'manage' your surfing results is very important.)
Next, choose your best 'source' or site from the three you used in the last task, then evaluate it according to the tutorial below.
Ohio SU net.Tutor
This source should be appropriate for your annotated sites in your Concept Reflection & Research Assessment if you haven't yet completed it. In any case, the source should be relevant to this unit.
In your own words, write an annotation for the source which could communicate to a reader both your 'judgement' of the site according to what you have learnt from the tutorial, and also the following information:
the reliability and authority of the site / source / article
the main ideas or subjects discussed in the articlethe purpose for which the site was written (this might include any apparent external interest, intellectual motivation or contextual information)

The site I have chosen for annotation is
http://www.surfing-waves.com/

The above mentioned site provides relevant information in regards to the sport of surfing including surf maps with a global context which is great for the traveling surfer. There is quite an extensive forum with views and opinions from topics such as surf travel to associated hardware involved in the sport of surfing. I found the section of basic rules to surfing quite informing and educational. This site is to educate and inform whilst creating a sense of community. It is quite hard to verify who the author of the site is although attached to the privacy policy and terms of service there is a mailing address pointing to WA Australia. The content of this site appears to be unbiased and information is displayed in a transparent manner with news being updated regularly adding to the currency of the site. The value of this site is recognize by around 80 pages linking to http://www.surfing-waves.com/ through Google although it returned a delicious a result of no public bookmarks I still believe the content is valuable.

Compare your final analysis and annotation with the material you saved for the last task, and think about these questions (you may wish to discuss these questions in your group)

in terms of your own future use, which 'body ' of information (ie. the original 'snapshot' of the site, or your own, annotated, analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to?

In term of external users (i.e. if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them?

Record your reflections in your learning log

Module Three

HTML tags : web standards : ftp : blogs : web2.0

Having completed NED11 last study period this section of the module was a basic recap for me. I found the process of creating small images and linking them to a larger version of the same image very useful I do think this will come in very handy in the future.

I found that CSS is quite a powerful tool when building a site with many pages that require the same look.

HTML is great if you require a page that is unique and you are either advertising a product or service. Blogging on the other hand is perfect for publishing a study log for instance.

It's hard to say that HTML is better than Blogging and vise verse because I believe they both play a role in creating a web with rich diversity.









After doing all of the exercises for HTML I proceeded to get inspired so I created a web site for my casual occupation as an Antenna & Audio Visual Installation guy the site is www.northerndigitaltv.com any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I ran the site through W3C validation and there were 43 errors found. Most of the errors were typing mistakes but there were few mistakes in the coding. The Validator is an important tool as it helps you learn from your mistakes.

I did feel a sense of achievement after completing the site, the FTP process is very strait forward using Fetch and it feels good once the site is up and running.

Blogs

In your learning log, record your thoughts. Consider various uses for blogs such as citizen journalism and personal blogging. Have you seen in your net travels any interesting uses for blogs? This blog entry is an opportunity to tell us what you really think of blogging!

In Net12 this week our topic is politics, there has been some great examples of using blogging in a political sense.
Gauravonmics Blog
Provides us with a great use of political non biased public reporting on political issues.
Blogging is a perfect platform for citizen journalism the use of blogging in Iraq to tell the truth about atrocities committed by American military gives people back a voice in an otherwise censored environment were in Australia we are being lied to by mainstream media on a day to day basis.Sites such as Camera/Iraq is a great example.

Web 2.0

---

Now you've read about Web 2.0 what applications or "services" do you think are web 2.0 indicative?

TASK:
Take a look at the Internet Communications furl list we have set up for you as a bookmark site - compared to a html version think about the format and usability of a website/html written list with this same information.
whats the difference between the two? what are the benefits? which format do you think you would like better and why?

Module Two

Lists

Until this unit I was not aware that you could use email in such a way, I think lists are perfect if you "don't need an immediate answer" or "you want or need regularly updated information about a particular topic" also if you would like to join a community 'online' were members have the same interests as you.
The drawback with using lists is "spam-filtering programs might flag your message as spam or blacklist your address entirely, just based on the content of the message" leaving you with out the communication that you have subscribed to.

References:

How Newsgroups Work. Jeff Tyson.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/newsgroup1.htm
(accessed 5th April 2009)

Pros & cons of an email campaign
http://www.buyerzone.com/marketing/email-marketing/buyers_guide2.html
(accessed 5th April 2009)

Module Two

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?

As you can see from the first image of my yahoo inbox, there are four fields with information relating to the message 'From, Subject, Date and Size'. If you look at the first message it has been sent by Smith Micro, we can tell where the message originated from. The second field 'Subject' informs us that the email is advertising, 'Special 40% Store Wide Sale this weekend only', this field informs us of the content. The 'Date' tells us when the message arrived in the inbox and the 'Size' field tells us how big the message is.

The second image I have used is of my mail inbox, this image shows an example of a 'Signature' (highlighted in blue). 'Signatures' tell us a lot of information about who is sending the email. Signatures can contain the senders 'name, job title, email address, postal address, phone and fax numbers and website url'.

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

'Cc:' short for 'carbon copy', is useful in that it lets you send a word for word copy of your email to other recipients. You can enter multiple recipients in the 'Cc:' field separating the addresses of the recipients with a comma.
The negative issue with 'Cc:' is every recipient that receives the message you send using 'Cc:' sees the 'To:' and 'Cc:' fields with all addresses displayed. To stop this issue from arising the 'Bcc:' function is useful, when using 'Bcc:' "the only recipient address that will be visible to all recipients is the one in the 'To:' field."
Similar to the 'Cc:' function the 'reply all' function will send a message to everyone who initially received the original message.

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

Firstly within the message you should make the recipient aware that there is an attachment for them to download and view.

Then make them aware what format the attachment is in and what application is required to open and view the attachment.

I would also make them aware why they need to open and view the attachment.

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

Currently I don't have any filters or rules in place, before this tutorial I was not aware that these functions could be so useful. I am intending on implementing a rule that splits emails received intended for my wife and myself, as one of our email account's is shared.

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

As you can see in the image I have seven sub folders under in my '.mac account'.

The folders are structured to make future access simple and easy. The dodo folder simply archives phone bills and provides a reference as to how much we are spending on communication. The software folder contains serial numbers and passwords so this folder will be accessed if I was to upgrade machines and need to transfer software to a different computer.





References:

http://email.about.com/od/emailnetiquette/a/cc_and_bcc.htm
(accessed 02/03/09)

Log Entry 19/3/09:

Module One

Internet Tools

Using the traceroute tool, answer the following questions:

Traceroute from the chosen site to curtin.edu.au - cut and paste the entire list of 'hops' from there to Curtin.

Traceroute has started ...

traceroute to curtin.edu.au (134.7.179.56), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 10.0.0.138 (10.0.0.138) 0.556 ms 0.245 ms 0.191 ms
2 122-148-18-1.static.dsl.dodo.com.au (122.148.18.1) 33.736 ms 35.583 ms 32.970 ms
3 dodosyd-core001-vlan101.core.dodo.com.au (122.148.0.1) 33.114 ms 36.421 ms 33.482 ms
4 GigabitEthernet1-1.ken12.Sydney.telstra.net (165.228.144.93) 40.146 ms 34.119 ms 48.342 ms
5 TenGigE0-1-0-2.ken-core4.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.20.1) 38.145 ms 38.197 ms 39.674 ms
6 Bundle-Ether4.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.6.42) 39.911 ms 35.661 ms 39.777 ms
7 Bundle-POS1.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.6.14) 53.994 ms 50.099 ms *
8 POS0-0-0-0.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.6.190) 68.206 ms 68.258 ms 66.379 ms
9 TenGigabitEthernet7-1.way21.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.120.31) 65.277 ms 65.970 ms 66.252 ms
10 optusn1.lnk.telstra.net (139.130.33.214) 119.059 ms 67.326 ms 65.361 ms
11 10.250.61.2 (10.250.61.2) 95.989 ms 92.772 ms 92.551 ms
12 * * *
13 61.88.226.113 (61.88.226.113) 97.455 ms 95.758 ms 92.491 ms
14 AARNET.o6ssc76fe.optus.net.au (61.88.166.134) 92.643 ms 96.420 ms 92.086 ms
15 ge-1-0-3.bb1.a.per.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.1) 92.930 ms 96.959 ms 92.765 ms
16 gigabitethernet0.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.178) 92.855 ms 92.636 ms 92.985 ms
17 gw1.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.186) 92.779 ms 95.327 ms 91.852 ms
18 vl7.b309-bs-1.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.16.169) 94.319 ms 99.243 ms 99.005 ms
19 te2-4-b309-cr.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.16.46) 93.380 ms 95.694 ms 99.975 ms
20 te1-1.b309-sr.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.248.65) 98.011 ms 98.150 ms 92.117 ms
21 * * *
22 *

How many ‘hops’ are there?

19

What is the average time in milliseconds from the tools site to the curtin server?

50.000 ms, I am amazed at the speed this tool is very very cool.

Looking at these results, find out the IP NUMBER of the hostname curtin.edu.au?

134.7.179.56

mac has bundled these tools in Applications-Utilities-Network Utility

Ping the Blackboard site and compare the time with the time taken to ping from the net tools site. Is it less or more than you expected?

When I used the ping function in the Network Utility and entered: http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp I was presented with the following error: ping: cannot resolve http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp: Unknown host

After reading the posts on the discussion board(Course Discussions: Module 1: Internet tools task)

I found that I was entering the url of the blackboard site incorrectly so when I use the correct url of lms.curtin.edu.au it worked correctly

(134.7.180.137): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=0 ttl=110 time=96.853 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=1 ttl=110 time=96.741 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=2 ttl=110 time=96.222 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=3 ttl=110 time=96.347 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=4 ttl=110 time=96.733 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=5 ttl=110 time=98.159 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=6 ttl=110 time=97.055 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=7 ttl=110 time=97.897 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=8 ttl=110 time=97.702 ms
64 bytes from 134.7.180.137: icmp_seq=9 ttl=110 time=98.701 ms

--- lms.curtin.edu.au ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 96.222/97.241/98.701/0.784 ms

I decided to ping my own site
PING www.wecreateart.com.au (203.170.85.43): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=89.096 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=90.044 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=90.653 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=89.575 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=4 ttl=51 time=84.500 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=5 ttl=51 time=83.637 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=6 ttl=51 time=83.743 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=7 ttl=51 time=83.878 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=8 ttl=51 time=84.998 ms
64 bytes from 203.170.85.43: icmp_seq=9 ttl=51 time=85.132 ms

--- www.wecreateart.com.au ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 83.637/86.526/90.653/2.771 ms

I then pinged
PING www.network-tools.com (67.222.132.196): 56 data bytes

--- www.network-tools.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Why?

Traceroute from your computer to curtin.edu.au: compare the number of hops with the earlier traceroute.

What sort of differences can you observe?

traceroute to curtin.edu.au (134.7.179.56), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 10.0.0.138 (10.0.0.138) 0.570 ms 0.213 ms 0.181 ms
2 122-148-18-1.static.dsl.dodo.com.au (122.148.18.1) 37.279 ms 37.051 ms 32.990 ms
3 dodosyd-core001-vlan101.core.dodo.com.au (122.148.0.1) 33.237 ms 37.147 ms 33.198 ms
4 GigabitEthernet1-1.ken12.Sydney.telstra.net (165.228.144.93) 34.008 ms 38.364 ms 39.088 ms
5 TenGigE0-1-0-2.ken-core4.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.20.1) 33.907 ms 37.194 ms 39.675 ms
6 Bundle-Ether4.chw-core2.Sydney.telstra.net (203.50.6.42) 39.922 ms 35.588 ms 40.174 ms
7 Bundle-POS1.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.6.14) 54.164 ms 59.417 ms 61.603 ms
8 POS0-0-0-0.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.6.190) 73.868 ms 75.729 ms 63.648 ms
9 TenGigabitEthernet7-1.way21.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.120.31) 66.408 ms 65.962 ms 66.215 ms
10 optusn1.lnk.telstra.net (139.130.33.214) 66.772 ms 65.051 ms 66.144 ms
11 10.250.61.2 (10.250.61.2) 95.495 ms 96.302 ms *
12 * * *
13 61.88.226.113 (61.88.226.113) 91.882 ms 94.298 ms *
14 AARNET.o6ssc76fe.optus.net.au (61.88.166.134) 94.601 ms 94.152 ms 92.681 ms
15 ge-1-0-3.bb1.a.per.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.1) 93.043 ms 95.613 ms 93.110 ms
16 gigabitethernet0.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.178) 92.615 ms 91.893 ms 93.286 ms
17 gw1.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.186) 92.934 ms 93.327 ms 92.015 ms
18 vl7.b309-bs-1.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.16.169) 94.312 ms 97.840 ms 92.898 ms
19 te2-4-b309-cr.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.16.46) 94.313 ms 96.401 ms 99.088 ms
20 te1-1.b309-sr.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.248.65) 98.944 ms 95.953 ms 99.026 ms
21 * *

The initial part of the traceroute stages 1 through 9 were extremely fast and then the process slowed and took around 15 seconds to complete.