Net 11 - Judi Z

Module 4 – Evaluating the Web

2009-02-26T18:52:00.003+10:30

Computing Machinery and Intelligence
A.M.Turing
http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.php
published on http://www.abelard.org/ by permission of Oxford University Press.

This is a reliable site which contains the same article as a number of other sites. Abelard.org is a public education site whose mission statement reads “to advance rational education…this site is designed to provide the tools for the spread of sanity in education and culture”. The particular page that displays the article by Turing was originally published by Oxford University Press on behalf of MIND (the journal of Mind Association), vol LIX, no. 236, pp.433-60, 1950.

A.M.Turing has been cited thousands of times in relation to discussions on computing machinery and intelligence. Turing uses the article to put forward a way of deciding about computer intelligence and paves the way for future generations of computers to be tested for the ability to think. Turing has been classed as the “Founder of computer science, mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker, strange visionary…” among other things. He Worked at Bletchley Park in the UK during WWII as a code breaker, broke the Enigma code, and was then instrumental in breaking the “updated” Enigma code. He was fascinated by the idea of building a brain, and was ostensibly the forefather of the modern digital computer.

This site was produced for the purpose of research – to enable Turing’s article to be freely accessed by others who are researching various avenues of computing and those who are interested in reading about the description of a computer test to show if a computer can think or not. This was an early article (probably the first) on Artificial Intelligence.

1. 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?

The original site that I used to get this information (http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.php) is specifically an education site. It has a transcript of Turing’s original article. If I hadn’t already known about the Turing test, I may not have even gone to this site. There are other sites that link into this site, one of which discusses prizes for the first computer whose responses were indistinguishable from a human's and for the most human-like computer each year (http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html. Because the prize and the test are based directly on Turing’s original article, there is a link in the site that goes to another copy of the original article (http://loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html). I used the title of this article to find the article published by abelard, and to ensure that both were the same article (abelard is deliberately spelled entirely in lowercase as stated in the website).
In terms of my own future use, I would probably rely on abelard’s site, because I now know what it is about.

2. 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?

In the term of external users, my description of the article may be of more use to them, because it doesn’t just jump straight into the article, it is a brief description of what the article is about, who the author was, and what site it can be found on.

Module 4 – Search Engine Task

2009-02-26T16:44:00.006+10:30

My most commonly used internet search engine is Google. Like a lot of people, I use this because I’m basically lazy when it comes to searching, but if Google doesn’t give me what I’m looking for, I also know there are a number of other decent search engines around to use as well.

My search topic was “Great Danes”. Google gave me 22,100,000 hits, and the first hits it showed me were images, even though I hadn’t asked for images.

Here is a screenshot of the first 5 hits:

Then I tried a number of other online meta-search engines, and got the best results from Clusty.com with 274,000 hits. Clusty accesses Live, Open Directory and Ask.com.

By this time I’d downloaded Copernicus, even though I didn’t want to after some of the posts I’d seen in the discussion board. I noticed that while Copernicus will search a number of different search engines, you need to tell it how many hits from each search engine you want. It was initially defaulted to 10 hits per search engine, and to go through 11 search engines (AltaVista, AOL Search, Ask.com, Copernic, Enhance Interactive, FastSearch, LiveSearch, Lycos, Mamma.com, Netscape Netcentre and Yahoo). Any of these search engines except for Copernic, Enhance Interactive and Mamma.com can be turned off. At 10 hits per search engine I got 43 hits, so I reset the default to 100 hits per search engine and got 416 hits, with the list saying none came from Mamma.com.

Each of these hits came from a number of different sites.

On first glance, Google gives me a better number of hits and Clusty comes in second. Unless I’m going to go in and reset the number of hits from each search engine that Copernicus gives me, it comes a bad third, particularly seeing as it has to be loaded to your computer, whereas Clusty.com and Google are both online. As further contrast, I also searched using Mamma.com. This site brought up 66 hits, most of which came from Google. So, if Mamma.com is using Google, and Copernic is using Mamma.com, that means that Copernic is also using Google as a search engine.

Considering that the topic of my search was “Great Danes”, there is no way to do a Boolean search on that topic unless I was going to try to ensure that I was only getting information from one particular site. If I only wanted information from Australia, I would use Google and click the radio button for Australia. If I didn’t want information from Denmark, I would Google it with the search field of [ “Great Danes” –“de”].

To get information coming only from university sources, I would either put +”.edu” into the search engine or go into the advanced settings and tell the search engine there to only look in the .edu domain. Doing an advanced Google search on “Great Danes” only in the .edu domain gave me 98,000 hits. The same search run through as a normal Google search as a Boolean search gave me 801,000 hits, through Clusty gave me 7,180 hits and through Copernic gave me 487 hits. Once again, I’d choose Google over Copernic. And as a metasearch engine, I’d choose Clusty because it doesn’t have to be downloaded to my computer.

The three screenshots above come from the following URLS:

• Google = www.google.com.au
• Clusty = www.clusty.com
• Copernic = downloaded from www.copernic.com, released by Copernic Inc

Did a screen dump of each of the web pages showing my search results (print screen) then (in the beginning) pasted it into a word document. All my blog entries have been saved as a word document in my own computer before putting them online, just in case something went wrong and everything went missing. I then pasted it into Paint Shop Pro, where I saved it as a .gif file so that I can easily put it into the blog.

Copernicus has now been deleted from my system. Or at least it will be when I reboot, according to the little grey box that jumped up in front of my face.

Module 4 – Tools for using the Web

2009-02-26T15:37:00.003+10:30

I already have loaded (and regularly use) all the various programs you suggested until I got down to “Search Managers/Combiners”. Considering that I had read a lot of people in the discussion board stating how out of date and not very useful Copernicus was, and that I am running a Windows O/S, I decided to try Glooton.com. On opening this program website I found it was next to useless, because it is a French site, written in French, with no link for an English translation.

Considering that now only left a Bookmark Manager and Offline Browser/Copier, that left me with very limited choices as to what programs to download.

The Windows option for a Bookmark Manager was “Bookmark Buddy”, a program that, if I believe it’s blurb, will do everything for me and remember everything for me and should just about leave me wondering what on earth I did before I downloaded it (can you hear the sarcasm here? I don’t tend to believe much about program websites that blow their own horns so loudly). It’s got a 30 day free trial, but it is a program that needs to be paid for, so once I’ve downloaded it and had a look around it, it will be being deleted because I don’t think (at the moment) that it has anything in it that I am so desperate for that I will buy the program.

I downloaded the program and placed it on my desktop (so I can find it easily to delete it later). When I went to open it, the first thing that occurred was that my computer gave me a security warning – “The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?” Well, no I’m not sure, but I’m hoping that the University wouldn’t be steering me in the wrong direction and assisting me to download a virus or something, so yes, I will run it.

When I first started to download the program it told me NOT to load it to my programs file, but put it on my desktop or My Documents, but when I go to install the program it wants me to install it to programs. Does this program KNOW what it is on about? Ok, removed it from my startup list and only let it give me a shortcut on my desktop.

It comes already loaded with 6 “SmartFolder” categories and 35 bookmarks. About 3 of those bookmarks I would use under normal circumstances. I’m not going to bring my Favourites list over to be put in Bookmark Buddy, because I don’t want that to disappear when I delete the program, and I’ve got no reassurances that that wouldn’t happen.

Ok, I’ve downloaded it and looked through the help file. I can see some bits of information that may be useful, eg: export & print bookmarks list and fill out login forms, but frankly, IE7 already has the ability to do those things. This seems to be another way of doing something that IE7 and Firefox can already do, and being further charged for the privilege of doing so. The program is not a common program in wide use, at least not here in Australia, and not amongst people I know elsewhere either. It has now been deleted, or at least my computer assures me it will be by the time I reboot.

Then I went to the OfflineBrowser/Copier. Once again, I decided to look at the websites for WebCopier & PageSucker, but this time, before I downloaded them, I also decided to check out if there were corresponding functions in IE7. Yes, there are. If I open a webpage & click on “tools” and then “work offline”, I can read the entire page without being connected to the internet. If I open a webpage & click on “Page” and “save as”, I can save the page to my computer and access it offline or even save it to disk or to my thumbdrive.

I have not downloaded either of these programs, but I did have a good look over their websites. PageSucker’s homepage was last updated on 05Jul03, and its latest “bug fix” was 22Sep2002. That makes this program nearly 6yrs old without having had further updates. There is a free demo version, which means it has some of the capabilities of the program, but not all of them, and the full version is $US10. This is “old” technology.

WebCopier is copyrighted 1999-2009, and has a 15 day free trial with a cost of $US30-$40 for the program. I can’t easily find another date that tells me the last time WebCopier’s site was updated, but in the User forums there is a question dated 23Feb09. This question hasn’t been answered yet, and the previous question was dated 20Oct08. This question was answered on 30Oct2008, so this site is a lot more current than PageSucker, but still doesn't seem to be a highly used program.

WebCopier states that it will download entire websites, I wasn’t sure if PageSucker would do that or if it would only download the current page.

I can see that it may be useful in some situations, but I’m not sure that the programs do anything more than IE7 does, once again at an added cost. They could be useful in the situation whereby a person is still on dial-up, with limited hours, or on prepaid wireless remote, once again with limited hours, but if you’re paying for a download limit, not hours, it’s not going to make any difference. It’s still going to “cost” the same amount whether you download all the pages directly to your computer to view later, or whether you view them as you open them. It could also be useful if, like me, you work at times where there isn’t any internet connection, but you know beforehand that you are going to need to access certain websites. But considering that the majority of people now have an “always on” internet connection (cable, adsl, wireless) that measures downloads (& uploads) rather than the number of hours online, this would have to have a very limited market.

Neither of these programs is a standard, or becoming a standard or becoming common. In fact, I would be very surprised if many people had even heard of either of these programs.

Module 3 – Web 2.0

2009-02-26T12:56:00.001+10:30

I am assuming in looking at the Blinklist page and the html page, that we are simply comparing the way the two pages set out the information. They seem to have different links, but have the same type of information on them (ie, links to other websites that may be useful in this course).

Looking at the differences between the two sites brings to the fore what Jakob Nielsen was saying in the link to his Alert Box, Oct1, 1997 – How Users Read on the Web. He stated that people usually scan rather than read web pages, and that highlighted keywords & links will attract the eye. Yes, they will both attract the eye, but if you are offered a choice of looking at thumbnails of links, compared to just highlighted links and keywords, the thumbnails are usually easier to look at. Unfortunately being easier to look at doesn’t necessarily mean that they have more information or even the information that you need.

In this situation, considering both sites have information on them that would be useful to anyone doing an internet course, both sites would have to be carefully combed over and the information on them picked through painstakingly to ensure that all the useful information had been retrieved.

Just comparing how the two sites look and the “ease of looking at them”, the Blinklist page is easier on the eye – easier to look at and easier to see the information it offers. The html page contains as much, if not more, information, but because it is simply laid out in links, it is harder on the eye and actually requires reading, rather than just scanning through.

I personally prefer to look at the Blinklist page, but if I was looking for the various pieces of information that are scattered over the two pages, I would be reading both pages very carefully to get the best “value for money”.

Module 3 – Legal Issues – Copyright

2009-02-26T12:31:00.000+10:30

According to the Copyright pages in the Curtin site, computer programs are classified as “literary works”. It also states that copyright protection is automatic, without needing to have the copyright symbol attached.

On the link regarding Intellectual Property it states that the Curtin University claims ownership of Intellectual Property created by Staff members in the course of their duties, but that the University doesn’t generally claim ownership of Intellectual Property created by students.

I probably have used images or words on my web page that contravene copyright laws in that I have taken screen shots of various programs to illustrate my findings or views. All the information in my various assignments has been fully referenced, and all other rantings and ravings on my blog are my own words. Some of those words have been tamed down, but they are all my own.

I ran the Fair Use Visualiser against the work in my blog, and came up with a Fair Use Score of 86. The Fair Use Wizard to calculate a Fair Use Score would not work when I tried to use it (came up with a runtime error of “Server Error in '/' Application), so I have no more information about what the Fair Use Score actually means. I’m not sure how useful this Visualiser is, given that the calculator asks me to complete it based on how I perceive my use of the information.

If I put the Curtin logo at the top of my web page for an assignment I MAY be in breach of copyright. If I said nothing else and just had the logo there, it would seem to anyone looking at my page that my blog was approved by the Curtin University or in someway representative of the Curtin University. If I had the Curtin University logo next to a post that stated something along the lines of “I am a student at Curtin University, they are giving me a wonderful education and here is their logo”, I’m not sure that I would be in breach of copyright. However, if I had the Curtin University logo next to a post that viewed the university in a negative light, then I’m sure that whether I was breaching copyright laws or not, Curtin University would be very upset with me and would probably have me in the courts rather quickly.

Module 3 - Blogs

2009-02-25T23:50:00.000+10:30

I must admit, even since starting this course, I still haven’t read many blogs. I just don’t find most people’s blogs interesting. However, it has been suggested to me that I should start a personal blog. Not about my family “personally”, but about where we travel and what we see, to be aimed mainly at friends and family overseas. I’m not sure how I feel about doing that. Part of me is saying it would be a good idea, part of me is saying “no way, ANYONE can pick up information from it”. And that is what scares me. That I have absolutely no control (really) over who does or doesn’t see it.

Yes, there are ways of locking people out, but one thing I’ve found with certain people on the internet – the more you try to lock them out, the harder they’ll try to break their way in.

One use for blogs that I’ve heard about that I think is interesting, is the use of blogs for people who have long term illnesses and who need to stay in hospital for a long time. Personally, unless I knew the person really well, I still wouldn’t read them, and unless their illness was something that I wanted to know more about for some reason, their blog probably wouldn’t interest me at all. But I do think it’s a good idea, if they want to do it. It would give information to friends and family who either can’t get in to see them due to distance, or who can’t bring themselves to visit a lot because of their own feelings about the illness. This is one reason that I think it would be useful to have all hospitals fully equipped with wi-fi connections. It would help so many people pass the time while they are in hospital, and if they aren’t feeling up to having visitors, they could leave some information on their blog just telling everyone how they are getting on.

The blogs that I’ve seen that I really don’t like are the ones that are (to me) just so indulgent. I can remember seeing a blog from a young woman once that was basically a tribute to her menstrual cycle! The depth of information that she obviously felt comfortable sharing with the world was just a little TOO much information!

I can’t say I’ve seen much in the way of citizen journalism (or maybe I’ve seen it but just haven’t recognised it). But then, that may also be because I really don’t have much time to give to searching for blogs. Unfortunately between work, study, family and life, I just don’t have the time I’d like to be able to just wander through the internet and absorb everything I’d like to.

Module 3 – WWW Standards

2009-02-25T23:32:00.000+10:30

I believe the 5 most important “rules” for writing online are:

1. Planning
There’s not much good writing if what you want to write isn’t planned. That’s the same for online and offline, and isn’t only confined to the words. The format and outline of the page need to be planned, as well as breaks in the text, pictures, colours and fonts. If your page isn’t inviting to look at in the first instance, most users will not stay to read what you have written.

2. Simple Text
Use simple text that can be understood by the greatest number of users. Keep your words and concepts fairly simple to keep the attention of the maximum number of visitors.

3. KISS (Keep It Stunningly Simple)
Keep your page simple. Having too many things flashing and moving on your page distracts from reading the text. Some pages in the various national news sites are guilty of not keeping their pages simple. When someone is reading the news, particularly a story that isn’t funny, they don’t want advertisements flashing and pictures changing while they’re trying to read the text. The more things move and flash on your page, the shorter the time that people will actually spend on your site.

4. Spelling and Grammar
Check your spelling and grammar. Unless you’re writing an English thesis, most people will forgive “spoken” grammar – grammar that sounds normal when it is spoken out loud. However, a lot of people won’t forgive simple words being misspelled, words and phrases being misused and the “accent” of the page changing every few sentences. If you start your page in US English, keep it there, don’t change part way through to UK, Canadian or Australian English.

5. Legality
How legal is your site? Have you plagerised someone else’s work? Have you borrowed a copyrighted picture without permission? Have you slandered someone purposely or even accidentally? Even though the World Wide Web seems to be totally anonymous, the various legalities still apply, with the various punishments according to the exact law that has been broken.

I think a lot of information that Nielsen wrote about is still current, no matter how much some people may like to think it’s not.

Module 3 - html

2009-02-25T00:06:00.001+10:30

HTML

The only problems I really had with making my page were:
• I haven’t touched html since I had to make my homepage for a previous internet course back in 2001 so I’d forgotten some of what I had to do,
• Remembering to close tags, and
• Remembering to spell in “American”.

Do I feel a sense of achievement? Not sure if it’s achievement, but I love making things change. Unfortunately I’m never satisfied with the changes and end up in changing things a million times over. I also find that it’s all too easy for me to get too caught up in “playing” in html – time just runs away from me. Even making this simple page, I have been sitting here making changes and exploring how things work for over 3hrs now. This should have taken me around an hour, but when something doesn’t work the way I want it to, I go in and keep changing things until they do.

Html and blogging are two totally different animals. If you were designing your blog from scratch, you would be using html to actually set up your page and make it look the way you want. By using Blogspot etc, all the html coding has already been done, so there is no need to even really think about it.

I prefer coding the html, but unfortunately unless I was good enough at it to make web pages for other people, anything I’d code would probably never see the light of day because I still don’t feel comfortable with writing the blog.

Module 2 - Emailing, Mailing Lists, Discussions

2009-02-24T23:58:00.003+10:30

Email Tutorial Questions

Which of the following elements must be included in an email address?

Both are correct. E-mail addresses always include the username (or account) as well as the domain name of the computer(s) that provide mail services.

To check for new e-mail, you must

You must provide your password at some point to check e-mail. Your e-mail address is not needed for this task. The POP mail server address is only entered when you configure your e-mail program.

If you don't know what kind of computer or software your recipient has, send a document attachment as a:

A plain text (ASCII) file can be read by anyone, regardless of what type of computer (PC or Macintosh) or software they have.

You can transfer messages to another mailbox by

Both are correct. Use the program's menu to move and file messages as you read them, or set up a filter to place certain messages into a special mailbox automatically.

"Flames" are:

Flames are remarks that provoke arguments or anger. They can be avoided by taking a careful look at your message before it is sent.

Module 2 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?

Surface Metadata will tell you who the email is to, who it is from, what the subject is, who the other addressees are (as long as they are visible), the urgency with which it is sent, and the time sent. Once the email has been received by you, it will also tell you if it has been read and if it has been replied to or forwarded. If the email is simply forwarded to you from other people, you will sometimes be able to see who else has received the email, depending on whether the last sender removed all the “forwarding addresses” inside the email.

Extra information can be retrieved from the metaheader. In Outlook 2003, right click on an email, click on “options” and the internet header data is shown as such:

Received: (qmail 81706 invoked from network); 23 Feb 2009 00:23:35 +1030
Received: from smx2.mail.adnap.net.au (219.90.133.168)
by hurricane.mail.adnap.net.au with SMTP; 23 Feb 2009 00:23:35 +1030
Received: from blu0-omc2-s6.blu0.hotmail.com ([65.55.111.81])
by smx2.mail.adnap.net.au with esmtp (Exim 4.63)
(envelope-from )
id 1LbEly-0002bg-Rb
for XXXXXXX@XXXX.com.au; Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:23:35 +1030
Received: from BLU137-W51 ([65.55.111.71]) by blu0-omc2-s6.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:53:32 -0800
Message-ID:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_4d8f2996-a1bc-4872-bd64-ee11ba54e5e4_"
X-Originating-IP: [219.90.227.18]
From: Judi Z
To:
Subject: just testing this
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:23:32 +1030
Importance: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 22 Feb 2009 13:53:32.0799 (UTC) FILETIME=[F315C0F0:01C994F4]
X-XXXX-Whitelist-Server: Yes

This shows further information regarding where the email has come from and where it has come through before being directed into your inbox.

By following the instructions in Outlook Tips you can have the whole message displayed in the internet header box instead of just the header.

According to what I can find around, yahoo doesn’t allow you to see the metaheaders, and hotmail has changed its format so you can no longer see the metaheaders in there either.

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

The first two terms initially came from the days when typists typed up all correspondence on manual typewriters – the days before electric typewriters (though it was still done then) and photocopiers. CC is “carbon copy”, BCC is “blind carbon copy”, a carbon copy that no-one else gets to know was sent. This was done using pieces of paper in between the carbons, to ensure that the original letter was the only one that had all the addresses or names on it. Now CC is used to include other people in who are not the major addressees but who the information would be useful to. BCC is used to include people who would find the information useful but who are to be kept “invisible” and Reply All is to answer every person who is included in the original address.

Reply All can be a very dangerous function to use, because sometimes the replies to the email aren’t meant to be seen by everyone. Sometimes the reply is only meant to be seen by the last person who forwarded the email, not everyone else on their list. By using “reply all”, everyone on the addressee list of the email will get a copy.

Much damage has been done through some very large companies, where information has been passed around, and instead of using “reply” the last person to receive the email has hit “reply all” and sent inappropriate comments through to people who weren’t meant to get them.

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

By using a plain text (ASCII) file or by verifying with the recipient that they have a program that will read the attachment file that you are sending them.

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

I don’t have any filters or rules set up in either my home Outlook account, or my work one. I don’t have any in my home account, because that is my very private account, and very few places have that address. I have never received any spam or junkmail in there, and have no need for filters or rules.
I don’t have any filters or rules in my work Outlook account, because we aren’t allowed to. Every time we turn our computers off, the accounts revert to a specific layout and formula, so I would be having to reset rules and filters every day.

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

I have no folders in my home Outlook account because I have very few emails go into that account, and all the emails that go in are dealt with immediately.
I have folders in my work account so I can keep track of various work topics as they come in. I have the folders set up under “Inbox”, and if a topic has been completed and the emails are no longer needed, I delete the folder. Besides the signature block, this is about the only “personalisation” that will be accepted by Outlook in my work environment. If the emails are needed for further information, I save them to our records management system.

Email Lists

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

A mailing list is a list of e-mail addresses of people interested in the same topic. This is usually a “one way” discussion with information coming from a specific site and being sent onto addressees who have registered an interest in receiving the emails. Brochures and newsletters usually fall into this category. People sign up to receive specific brochures and newsletters because they are interested in the topic or goods, and while they receive the information regularly there is limited ability to be able to reply to them.

A discussion board usually consists of a number of posts made by people either on the same subject or following a particular theme. Within the discussion board posts are often broken up into “threads” which mean that particular subjects within the theme are more easily traced.

Mailing lists
Pros
• Regular updating of requested information
• The information is held on your personal computer – don’t have to be online to access it
Cons
• Can quickly fill your email inbox
• Limited ability to be able to reply to information received
• Must “unsubscribe” to stop the emails coming
Discussion boards
Pros
• Information on a particular subject is all in one area
• New threads can be started by participants discussing linked subjects or adding further information
• Opinions can be left by anyone who is registered at any time
• The information is not held on your personal computer – able to access it from any computer
Cons
• Have to access another site to get the information
• Have to be registered at the site to be able to participate in the discussion & often to read the info
• If participants don’t adhere to threads, the information can become very unwieldy
• Some participants take comments personally, or make personal comments at other participants, thereby hijacking threads and making it awkward for others to read the information

Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?
I would suggest that information that needs to be disseminated but doesn’t need to have the ability to reply would be more suited to email lists. This would include information like newsletters, offers and brochures.

Discussion boards are more suited to a number of people sharing ideas. They give the opportunity to not only put forward your own views or information you have researched, but also to see views or information from others, and to discuss the various differences or similarities.

OK, That's Done!!

2009-02-05T17:19:00.001+10:30

Ok, my concepts assignment is now submitted. I am going to breathe now. Yes, I still have more work to be done (& more studying for the other subject, but THAT one has been submitted too), but the work to be done isn't "scaring" me as much as trying to get these two assignments in that were both due on the same day!!

Now I'll be walking around with my fingers crossed - I just need to PASS!

Conceptual Research & Reflection Project

2009-02-05T16:55:00.003+10:30

Concept #23. HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERFACES

“The internet lessens the recognition of difference between humans and computers because, at a distance, it often feels similar to communicate and act on the Internet regardless of whether one is speaking with a human or machine.” (Allen, n.d.)

Years before computers became common household items and the internet became reality, man envisioned a time when everyone would communicate with mechanical beings on an easy, individual basis. Most sci-fi movies had a “friendly robot” or computer which would do the verbal bidding of its master, understanding almost everything that was said to it.

However, the scientists and computer programmers knew that reality wouldn’t be so easy and rosy.

In 1950 Alan Turing posed a question “Can machines think?” (as cited abelard 1999). He went on to develop a game called “The Imitation Game”, where the aim was for an interrogator to pose questions to an unseen answerer, with the goal of determining if the participant was a human or a machine at the end of 5 minutes of questioning. The final decision was to be based on whether or not the participant could form answers that were not merely imitations or paraphrasing of the questions, but give a cognitive answer, even using different concepts and ideas. This became known as “The Turing Test” and is one of the benchmarks used to determine if a computer program has intelligence. When talking about the test today, if after 5 minutes you cannot decide if you are talking to a person or a computer when having a text based conversation, then the program is said to have “passed the Turing Test”.

Since I’ve been online (Feb 1999) a number of chatsites have tried “chatbots” (chatting robots, or bots) in their sites to encourage visitors. The aim was for it to look like at least one “person” was always in the site to greet visitors and hopefully encourage them to stay and induce others to enter and chat. As far as I’m aware most of these failed, and they didn’t pass the Turing Test. They could be easily programmed to greet an incoming chatter by name, and provide some details about “themselves” (as human chatter might), but after a couple of exchanges, it became obvious it was a bot when the only conversation it could have was to either repeat set phrases or to paraphrase the incoming chatter’s own words. Obviously some bots are more sophisticated than others, and depending on the previous chatting experiences of the human, some chatbots could seem real.

In some respects I disagree with Allen’s (n.d.) statement at the beginning of this concept because, at our current state of development, I feel while it may be harder to discern the difference between chatting with humans and bots online, it is not impossible because Artificial Intelligence machines have not yet reached the capability of being able to hold random conversations with humans. Logical “brains” have not yet been able to replicate the thought processes of “messy” biological brains.

Whether this is a good thing or bad at the moment, I don’t know – many people worry about “robots taking over”, while others pray for the day of 100% unemployment because robots look after everything. However, reading Asimov may give mankind some tips!

Reference:

abelard, (1999) Computing machinery and intelligence – a.m. turing, 1950, Retrieved January19 2009 from http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.php

Allen, M., (n.d.) Concept #23. Human-computer interfaces, Curtin University of Technology, WA, Retrieved from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home
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In 1990, Loebner underwrote a contest designed to implement the Turing Test. He pledged a number of prizes and medals to developers and programmers to develop a machine that could be said “to think”. The 2008 winner produced their creation Elbot. So far, the major prize remains unclaimed.

While the yearly winner may in fact spend a lot more than their winnings in developing their machine, I feel that this is an incentive to developers and programmers to try to advance computing to where we may no longer know if we are conversing with another human or a computer.

Reference:

Loebner, H., (2007) The Loebner Prize in Artificial Intelligence, Retrieved January19 2009 from http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html

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Turing (1950) believed that within 50 years computers would have a program storage capacity of 109 which would enable them to play the game so well that an average person would only have a 70% chance of success. Current computers have a storage capacity far exceeding this size, and yet are unable to carry on a human-like conversation.

I feel part of the problem is that while computers can be taught to mimic a certain amount of human speech (hands free programs, chatbots), they are still unable to actually undertake Natural Language Processing, and therefore can’t “chat” – in any language.

Reference:

Turing, A.M., (1950) Contrary views on the main question, Computing machinery and intelligence, (Ch6, para2) Retrieved January19 2009 from http://loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html

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Concept 17. THE IMPACT OF TEXT-BASED REAL-TIME CHAT

“Real-time internet-based text chat is a significant part of contemporary internet use.” (Allen n.d.)

Think about the shift worker, coming home at 3am, tired but too wired to sleep, can’t call anyone to talk to, nothing’s open, can’t visit anyone. Sleep isn’t beckoning, but they’ve got to get out of their dirty clothes, so they shower and start their computer, open their instant messaging program or favourite chat-room and there are a multitude of people who are willing to “talk” to them.

No-one needs to see what they are wearing, no prying eyes can “inspect” the room behind them and scrutinise their belongings, they can choose to participate in multiple conversations without having to worry about having missed something that was said by a quiet voice or having a loud voice overshadowing everything. Having private conversations and public conversations all at once, allowing their eyes and brain to transmit information to their fingers to reply to the chatters they choose to respond to.

In text, no-one needs to see the things a chatter doesn’t want them to see. Disabilities, advantages and disadvantages – can all be ironed out in text. While body language may no longer be available for non-verbal communication, a lot of chatters take that into consideration and give clues into hidden meanings behind their words, or even use more detailed descriptions in the first place. Chatters who wish to be obstructive can cause problems by not using clues to their meanings, but they soon discover that if they wish to find people to “talk” with, they need to give clues.

If a chatter is involved in an important conversation, there is always the ability of being able to save relevant pieces of text. Put that phone number or link to a site somewhere “safe”, recall the details of a previous conversation or save your own copy of that baby picture in the family album.

In chat with multiple people, think of being at a party. Only a couple of conversations at a time can generally be pursued, and if one is a private conversation it generally means no other conversations can be entered into at the same time. With text-based real-time chat, public and private conversations can be undertaken simultaneously, each without disturbing the other. Obviously the speed of typing will dictate the number of conversations that can be entered into at any one time, but it isn’t necessary to only concentrate on one conversation unless that is what is desired.

Is text-based real-time chat a significant part of internet use? I think so, after all, it offers most of the speed of a telephone call; the ability of a letter to be able to show words and pictures; the privacy of not having someone watching your surroundings; the luxury of time to “think out” your replies; the ability to track a number of conversations at once, both private and public; the flexibility of different time-zones, allowing chatters to converse at their convenience; the discretion to be able to multi-task without causing offence to others; and the quietness of keyboard to be able to chat with multiple people without disturbing anyone else in the household.
Reference:

Allen, M., (n.d.) Concept #17. The impact of text-based real-time chat, Curtin University of Technology, WA, Retrieved from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home
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If there is one group of people who have grasped the concept of text-based real-time chat, it’s teenagers. Barker (2006) finds that this isn’t just online, but on their phones as well. Who needs to talk on their phone anymore – just text! Instead of using the phone all night, a large number of teens now prefer to spend their time texting online or on the phone, interacting with their peers, passing information, broadening their networks and playing games all via the written word and their keyboards. Are teenagers losing the power of speech, or just using an alternate method of communication?

Reference:

Barker, O., (2006, 29May). Technology leaves teens speechless. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-05-29-teen-texting_x.htm?POE=TECISVA

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In 1991, a coup d'état attempt was staged on the capitol of the Soviet Union. A group of Communist Party Leaders prevented journalists from reporting events by enforcing a media blackout. Journalists turned to internet-based real-time text chat (IRC) to garner information on the offensive from colleagues and eyewitnesses. The application was also used by journalists to share news during the Gulf War. (De Hoyos, n.d.)

These are two examples where text-based real-time chat has proven to have been significant part of contemporary internet use. Without it, information may never have been fully disseminated about these world-changing situations until it was completely rewritten.

Reference:

De Hoyos, B., (n.d.) The world’s first IMs - Peer-to-Peer Protocol, Talkers and IRCs, IM History – the early IMs, Referenced January20, 2009, from http://im.about.com/od/imbasics/a/imhistory_2.htm

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Concept 18. Non-speech communication through text: audience and authors’ responsibilities

“The responsibility for effective chatting lies not merely with the author of a particular comment, but with its audience…if IRC is to be rich and valuable as a form of communication (and it can be), then both those saying things and those reading them must share the tasks of making it so.” Allen (n.d.)

Imagine every emotion and feeling people go through when talking with someone, all the common expressions they use regularly to describe certain things and all the “hidden” non-verbal clues everyone gives out during the course of a simple conversation. Now think about how to convey all this information to someone through words alone.

Imagine receiving a message from someone whose idiosyncrasies of speech are entirely different to yours, and you’re left confused as to how you are meant to interpret the message. They don’t even have to be from another country or culture, you can be left in the dark by simply receiving a message from a friend if it doesn’t have any hint as to whether they are being serious or sarcastic or silly.

In text-based chat, it falls to both the author and the audience to have some way to communicating feelings and non-verbal body language during the course of a conversation. Without any of these clues, conversation can become dry and humourless, simple situations could escalate into arguments or degenerate into confusion if there is no form of body language. And just because you don’t have a body in text-based chat, doesn’t mean you can’t have body language!

Most people are now aware of the simple smiley face :) that means someone is smiling at you, and anyone who regularly sends or receives text messages will have received a number of them. This is a simple form of body language, and is usually understood by both the sender and receiver of a message. Depending on the words it accompanies, it generally means the message is happy, or the sender is sending “good feelings” to the receiver. People are also used to reading about body language in books, but in text-based chat, there usually isn’t the time or the space to write a novel.

A lot of text-based chat rooms not only use the various “web-wide accepted” forms of written body language, but also have other actions that might be common in their rooms. One form is to use asterisks or brackets around actions. This separates the actions from spoken words, and allows another form of body language. If a person enters the chat room and posts a message like {“hi” *walks across the room and sits on the couch*}, it is generally taken that the person is saying hello and imitating the action (at least mentally) of walking across the room and sitting on the couch – usually a fairly relaxed and open action. Whereas if someone types a message and then uses the term *frown* they may be annoyed or confused about something.

Just as you might learn to decipher the tone of a conversation in real life, by watching carefully and asking questions in text-based chat rooms, most people gradually learn the more accepted forms of expression that would normally make up the non-verbal body language they use during a conversation. Once both the author and audience are using very much the same terms, misunderstandings are a lot less likely to occur, and text-based chat becomes a rich and valuable form of communication.

Reference:

Allen, M., (n.d.) Concept #18. Non-speech communication through text: audience and authors’ responsibilities, Curtin University of Technology, WA, Retrieved from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home

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There are a number of ways to express non-verbal language in text-based chat. It’s common to use a number of different acronyms to show different feelings or expressions. One very common thread throughout most text-based chat is the idea that typing in all capital letters is shouting, and is generally classed as being rude. (TeleComputer Services 2009) Acronyms are also very handy for slow or disabled typists and can be a quick and easy way to type an expression or feeling, or even post an entire sentence. (Disabled-World.com, 2008) Chat rooms often have their own ways to display body language, which quickly becomes clear to newcomers.

TeleComputer Services (2009) Acronyms Online, Retrieved January20, 2009, from http://acronymsonline.com/lists/chat_acronyms.asp
Disabled-World.com (October9, 2008) Text shortcuts for chat rooms messenger programs and SMS texting. Retrieved January20, 2009 from http://www.disabled-world.com/chat/text-shortcuts.shtml
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In the early days of college bulletin boards in the US, a problem was noted amongst the participants in being able to decipher the meaning of another person’s message. Was it serious or in jest? If a joke was posted, and the message misunderstood, a lengthy diatribe could follow (Fahlman, n.d.). So in 1982, Scott Fahlman suggested the use of the characters :-) to show when a message was meant to be lighthearted. From this simple start we now have a spin off of multiple text based characters all meant to show various forms of emotions and make reading text more personal.

Reference:

Fahlman, S.E., (n.d.), Smiley Lore :-), Retrieved January21 2009, from http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm

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Concept #26. Privacy and Security

“The internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced Internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about themselves in any form.” (Allen, n.d.)

Before people ever start to use the internet, one thing they should think about is to be very careful about whom they give their personal details to. Just like in real life, not everyone is friendly and helpful online, and while the people or even the websites that are visited may seem friendly and helpful, there may be a hidden agenda to their assistance.

The agenda could be something as innocuous as gathering information about your computer to allow you to open the website easily the next time you visit, it could be information about your browsing and shopping habits to offer you “targeted advertising”, it could be gathering information to send “spam” (unwanted correspondence) to your email address, or it could be as harsh as someone wanting access to your computer to use it for things like Denial of Service attacks on other computers or someone gathering information for the purpose of stalking you (cyber-stalking) or stealing your identity.

Cyber-stalking and identity theft, while becoming more prevalent, seem to not be as commonplace as gathering information regarding browsing and shopping habits, but all involve a certain degree of invasion of privacy. Just because someone visits a particular website or buys something (either online, or increasingly, in shops that are asking for personal details from their customers), doesn’t mean they wish to have more advertising supposedly specifically aimed at them.

There are a number of ways that someone can keep their “online profile” and details as low as possible and try to protect their privacy. Being aware of what personal details are given to various websites or people you chat with is one way. If a website requests email details for registration or for receiving something like a newsletter, one of the easiest ways to keep most personal details private is to set up a free website like hotmail or yahoo, with limited personal details in it and use that. This often also tends to keep your “main” email site fairly free of spam.
Some sites, particularly those offering free downloads may also be loaded with spyware, malware, adware and various viruses, trojans and worms.
Generally adware is simply a pain. It is software that periodically causes targeted advertisements to show up on a user’s computer (PCMag n.d.). If it is installed on a user’s computer without their knowledge, it is generally classed as spyware, and often collects further information on a users browsing and shopping habits to report to a third party (PCMag n.d ). Malware however is designed to cause major problems in computers (PCMag n.d.), along with viruses, worms, trojans and a number of other “nasties”.
Having a good firewall and virus protection is important too. If the firewall and virus protection are up to date, and people are aware and careful about the information they release on the internet, then most people have no problems with the various “net nasties” that can infect their computers or impinge on their lives.

References:

PCMag.com (n.d.), Adware, Encyclopedia, Retrieved 22January 2009, from
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=adware&i=37577,00.asp
PCMag.com (n.d.), Malware, Encyclopedia, Retrieved 22January 2009, from http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0%2C2542%2Ct%3Dmalware&i%3D46552%2C00.asp

PCMag.com (n.d.), Spyware, Encyclopedia, Retrieved 22January 2009, from
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0%2C2542%2Ct%3Dspyware&i%3D51898%2C00.asp

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The weakest link in any security system is the human element. Ledford (n.d.) defines social engineering as “the practice of deceiving someone, either in person, over the phone, or using a computer, with the express intent of breaching some level of security either personal or professional.” A lot of people are wary of giving out information online, but will gladly hand it out over the phone or throw out paperwork with names, addresses and banking or billing details. Granger (2001) shows instances where social engineering has resulted in theft and fraud on a large scale, which can also relate on the smaller scale to the individual.

Reference:

Ledford, J., (n.d.), Social Engineering, About.com: Identity Theft, Retrieved January22 2009 from http://idtheft.about.com/od/glossary/g/Social_Engineer.htm

Granger, S., (2001) Social Engineering Fundamentals, Part I: Hacker Tactics, Retrieved January 22 2009 from http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1527

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Identity theft is one of the fastest growing types of consumer frauds (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 2004), and a lot of governments around the world are looking into more sophisticated ways of stopping identity theft. Some of the various methods being considered are biometrics, scanning software, two or three factor user authentication and tokens. These methods are available for general use in one form or another, but are generally considered too expensive for the home user. Most users find that a good firewall and virus protection are sufficient for their home computers, but more visibility needs to be cast on the privacy and security problem of social engineering.

Reference:

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (2004), Putting an end to account hi-jacking identity theft, Retrieved January22 2009 from http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/idtheftstudy/identity_theft.pdf

I MADE IT!!

2009-01-18T19:50:00.002+10:30

Ok, I made it to the ICQ chat again tonight. And found out I'm not the only one struggling with more than 1 subject (I knew I wasn't, just feels that way at times).

I'm not apologising for the previous post. I am having some problems coping - some of the reasons are actually my fault, others are because I don't want to turn my family away. I have to spend too much time away from them all as it is for work (due to be away from home for up to 21wks this yr), so when I'm home if they need me I'll do what I can.

Anyway, tonight may get some more stuff done, but tomorrow is another day and I'll be at home on my own. Hubby will be at work, & so will the rest of the family, so I shouldn't get any more "help me mummy" calls between about 7am & 4pm - plenty of time to get some of those concepts chased up and some of the other stuff completed (but how do I read the text for my other subject without falling asleep???).

RANT

2009-01-18T11:19:00.002+10:30

Ok, I'm going to have a rant/vent/whatever you want to call it. I REALLY regret allowing myself to be talked into studying 2 subjects this study period! Yes, by rights, I should have been able to handle it, having 6wks off work, but that was without the fact that I seem to be the only one that most of my family will call on to do things. But then, I suppose, I should have looked a little deeper into those 6wks - the week before Xmas, a write-off trying to get everything sorted for Xmas; we went away for a week & I had no computer access (though I did take some readings from the other subject & TRY to get into them); about a week lost in being admitted to hospital - so that removed 3 of those 6wks. Then we'll add certain members of my family into things!

To those of you who don't have children yet - DON'T!! To those who have young children, be thankful that when you put them to bed & they go off to sleep, they'll usually stay asleep all night, & it's not all that late when they go. To those with teenagers, be thankful in some respects that they've decided that they don't want much to do with mum & dad (oh, how embarrassing!!), and that they know everything. When they become adults and move out of home & realise that you DID know what you were talking about, you suddenly become the expert again (just like when they were little, only more helpless it seems!), and you start getting the phone calls where everything is an emergency and you have to drop everything NOW and help them.

I thought my children were fairly independent. It seems that was a facade they were carefully nurturing until it seemed that mum was "otherwise occupied". My own fault, I suppose, I showed them I could do almost everything I needed to.

Anyway, in the meantime, I haven't been seen on the discussion boards because it's often been quite late at night when I've gotten in there, & I've answered a few posts. Unfortunately, they've been long answers, written off the cuff, & just before I've gone to publish them, I've decided to just check something else - and three times now I've managed to delete the whole post just before I published it. IDIOT!! Then I can't remember exactly what point I was making a comment/answer to, tiredness has suddenly smacked me in the face to the degree of not being able to type without multiple corrections and I've decided to try to do it in the morning, only to not be able to work out which posts I was looking at in the first place.

I am still here! I am still reading posts and getting information etc together. And this week, I will try to remember the ICQ hookup at 7pm AEST tonight (if it's still on). Yes, I know everyone has other bits of life to contend with, I'm not the only one with "problems", but this blog was not to only be about our thoughts and how we coped with various exercises within the course, but our thoughts and how we were coping with the course in general. I'M NOT COPING!

Disclaimer - All the comments written above have been written because I have received yet another "help me mummy" phone call, my house seems to be falling down around my ears, going back to work is looming and it feels like everything is conspiring against me. Study will recommence (unfortunately the other subject needs precedence because I REALLY don't find it as interesting as this one) as soon as I have put the world to rights again! SUPERMUM TO THE RESCUE!

Module 2 - CHAT

2009-01-04T19:47:00.006+10:30

OK, it is Sunday 04Jan and we've just had a chat in ICQ. I don't know how many people were there, but it showed me again why I don't particularly like that form of chatting. While I like being able to speak with a number of people at once at times, I really don't like the screen "moving" by itself. I much prefer to have some form of control over the screen - to have it stay there while I type my answer to a person, and then move on when I hit the send button.

Yes, we know....I'm a control freak. I don't like pop-ups suddenly appearing on my screen (which is why I usually have them blocked), I don't like programs suddenly asking my firewall for permission to enter or exit, and when that email was being sent around years ago telling you that microsoft would give you a free can holder for your computer, I never liked that.....(even though I didn't notice it opening my disk drive to start off with because my tower was under my desk), I don't even like unexpected noise coming from my computer so I keep the sound off all the time. And yeah, I really hate it when the techs remote into my computer and take it over while they fix something for me.

I don't use Skype - when my husband was in the US, we tried using it, but it froze both of our machines, so we didn't use it again. I use MSN & ICQ for one-on-one chat, but I keep myself in "offline" or "invisible" mode. This is because my computer is always turned on when I'm at home, but I'm not always in front of it. That way I don't have people looking for me and getting upset when I don't answer immediately. Also, if I'm busy doing something else, I can let the messages come in without feeling like I have to answer people immediately, and once again, because they don't know if I'm there unless I answer, they don't get upset if I'm not answering their every comment immediately. My friends know I do this, and they know that if I'm available and I'm not busy (schoolwork etc) then I'll answer them immediately.

I use email for a form of chatting with my daughter when I'm at work. Neither of us can access any other programs like webmail or IM sites through work, so if we need to talk we email back & forth. We don't need to phone each other then, other people aren't listening in on our conversation and if we are busy when a message comes through or aren't at our desks, we can answer it a little later. While what may have been a 5min conversation may take all day, we answer each other as we can, and by not trying to rush through a conversation we are each more likely to remember something else in particular that we needed to say.

Other than that, I use chatrooms. I've got two I generally go to, though lately I've been too busy to go to either of them. They are both html chat, but in one you can change things like your font and post any pictures, in the other you have to use their pictures unless you are a paying member, and you can't change the font. With both of the chatrooms the only way the screen changes is when you hit the "send" button. That gives you a chance to read the post, answer the way you want to, and then send the post. Then you read through the other posts that came through while you were typing. They also give you the chance of speaking privately to one or more people while also chatting with a group of people.

I've been involved in this sort of chat since 1999, and have met a number of people in real time as well as through the internet. It was through this chat method that I learnt how to download and use first ICQ, then yahoochat and then msn. This is all still in real-time (though some people don't want to know that it's 11pm on Sunday night for you, while it's 7.30am Sunday morning for them), like MSN & ICQ, just in a different format.

Sat 20Dec08

2008-12-20T09:10:00.003+10:30

Well, it's Saturday 20Dec08, and I'm officially on leave for 6wks. This was why I signed up for 2 subjects this semester, because I was going to have the time to do them. Yeah right!

I knew we had booked to go away for 6days in late Dec & I knew I have to go to hospital for a couple of days in Jan, but what I didn't know about was all the stuff that my family has managed to blindside me with in the meantime. I wish the kids were still little, because people expected that I had my hands full back then, and I wasn't the "first port of call" when there was a problem. Oh well.

I've been trying to keep up on the reading of the discussion boards since I got back from my work trip, and posting a few posts, but I haven't been able to do anything else yet. My other subject has been left sitting on the floor at the moment (almost literally) because it's been so hard to get into. It's a very dry subject with a lot of reading, which I hope to start (again) this afternoon. I'm taking my computer and books and locking myself in another room (with no TV, no phone and no family) and hope to get stuck into the reading, and if I can't stay awake properly with that, then I'll try to do some of the other modules from here in between. The danger with that though, is that I tend to fall into the "geek trap" - I get so engrossed in what I'm doing on the computer that I lose all track of time and end up in not going back to the subject that I was taking a break from.

Well, one way or another, I'm going to get through this (but will my husband survive my studies?????) - I've got "grand plans" of how I'm going to allow a certain amount of time most days to study, hopefully I won't get too distracted by life!

INTERNET TOOLS

2008-12-07T17:35:00.003+10:30

The aim of this exercise was to show the number of “hops” (servers/stopping points) that a packet of information goes through to get from one point to another. The number of hops will be different for each machine, and will often be different each time the tracing is run, depending on the route that the information takes to get from point A to point B.

Starting at “centralops.net [70.84.211.98]” and tracing the route to “curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.53]” took a total of 21 hops when I did it. By averaging out the total time for each hop using mean averages, the total amount of time taken to get from centralops.net to curtin.edu.au was 2051.93ms (2.052 seconds). Therefore the average time in milliseconds from the tools site to the Curtin server was 97.71ms (mean), 0ms (mode) and 46ms (median).

Initially I couldn’t work out why there were three columns for the rtt. I knew that was the return travel time, but I didn’t know why there were three. One of the sites I looked at (A graphic traceroute program)showed four columns (Min, Avg, Max, Cur), so I tried to work out if there were Min, Max and Avg columns, but the figures didn’t seem to fit this explanation. So I googled again and found another Using Traceroute site, which gave me a better explanation, even though the example I read was from a Unix trace.

One thing I did notice too was that the length of time taken for the rtt increased greatly once the route was being traced through Australia rather than the US.

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL (FTP)

2008-12-07T15:52:00.004+10:30

I read the instructions, downloaded FileZilla and then went off to read the FAQs and “A Quick Introduction to FTP”. I understand that this is a way to transfer files between 2 computers that you have access to, either across the room or across the world.

I looked at FileZilla while it was empty and immediately began to wonder what I needed to use to login. I re-read the task and decided to try to just use “recall.curtin.edu.au” in the Host and “anonymous” in the Username and see what happened. From reading the Quick Intro to FTP, I gathered that you don’t always need a password, and I had no idea about a Port number, so I just hoped for the best (I tend to do a lot of that).

The Local Site was “my computer” the remote site was “Anonymous”.

I couldn’t see anything called “readme”, so I just started clicking on the various folders and looking through them until I found readme.txt. Right click > View/edit and I found out that according to the readme file “CAPITALISATION MATTERS”.

My question with this exercise is though – is this the only way to find the exact file? If on opening the “Anonymous” file there had been another 30 files inside, each with other files and documents in them, would I have had to click on each of the internal files and trawl my way through their internal files and documents until I found the “readme.txt” that I was looking for? Or is there another way to dig down deeper more quickly in the situation where there are multiple choices of files to be searched?

TELNET

2008-12-06T18:45:00.006+10:30

I found my way to Telnet. I have used it previously and knew what the screen should look like, but (off the top of my head) I wasn’t sure how to get there. So I went to the discussion boards and tried a couple of different variations on themes to get to Telnet, and then finally discovered the post that simply read “start > run > telnet” (thanks Michael Gifford – Msg 91 in “Which Telnet App?"). Of course – that’s where I found it last time I needed it!

Open Telnet and I need the library address. I tried to just type it in, but it didn’t like that. So once again, I looked in the discussion boards – that’s right, it needs something to tell it what I want to do with that address, hit anything and then enter and see what happens. Ok, so then it told me that “?” = help. “?” then gave me a list of commands.

From then on, it was a case of just typing in “o library.deakin.edu.au” and just following the prompts. However, I did get a little confused when I was asked what type of computer I was using, and neither of the options was what I was using. So I just typed in the first option and hoped for the best. It worked!

The end result was the email telling me that I’d searched for this particular Author’s name.

From there I went over to towel.blinkenlights.nl. Someone had WAY TOO MUCH time on their hands!! It was strange, watching this “old technology” that I once thought was so new.

TOP FIVE TIPS FOR NEW BLOGGERS

2008-12-06T17:21:00.002+10:30

This is part of the first assignment in NET11 The Internet – Communications. The idea here is to list five tips for new bloggers.

As the assignment is a running log for the entire Study Period, I am not going to post five tips for new bloggers in general, but five tips in relation to setting up the blog required for this assignment. This is because the blog required for this assignment is a different category to the general blogs posted on the internet.

I haven’t had much experience with blogs, this is the first one I’ve written, and I don’t generally read them, because most of the blogs I’ve come across don’t hold any fascination for me. This blog, and the blogs of my fellow students are being written for an academic purpose – to show that we can use the tools, to allow us to show how we have gone about solving problems, distributing “hints and tips” we have found, to describe our other assignments and to show the path our learning in this subject has taken.

TOP FIVE TIPS

1. BREATHE!!! – It generally assists your marks if you are breathing while you are studying. The likelihood is that the instructors don’t like to give marks to those who stopped breathing at the first assignment. If necessary, taking deep breaths while walking around the room wondering:
• whose bright idea it was to start studying again?
• what on earth do I have to do?
• where do I start?
• why am I worrying – I CAN use all the tools they are telling us to?
• where have my family gone and why is the cat cowering on top of the fridge?
can be useful as you then have all the stress out in the one place. Try hard not to take the stress back inside again.

2. Familiarise yourself with the settings – Once you have settled on a site (or a number of them if you really feel masochistic), go through it all and play with the settings. After all, what’s the worst you can do to the site? Just don’t forget NOT to hit the one that says something like “delete my blog” BEFORE you have your marks at the end of the Study Period. There’s nothing worse than having hours (days/weeks/months) of work deleted at the touch of a button simply because you misread the label or pressed it because it got in your way. Back up all of your posts with text files, just in case the little internet gremlins get into your system (or theirs) and remove your posts. At least then you can repost long enough to get your marks.

3. Don’t overload your site with “features” – Just because the site CAN do it, doesn’t mean you HAVE to! Think about your target audience. Will they all really be able to read the flashing red gothic writing on the fluorescent green background? Will they appreciate the fact that you’ve made the cursor spit out stars as it moves across the screen, and turns into an explosion whenever they click on a link? If you have sound linked to your blog, do you really think they’ll all love the Sex Pistols blaring out “God Save the Queen” every time they open your blog as much as you do (alright, I’ve just shown my age)? Don’t forget that even now, in the broadband age, there are still people with slow computer connections, and every single “feature” that you put into your blog not only distracts from the information you are trying to post, but can also cause problems for the person trying to open your blog.

4. Be careful about personal information you post – Don’t forget, these blogs aren’t being posted in a “closed” forum. Anyone around the world can stumble onto your blog, and not everyone out there is “user friendly”. Just because the site says no-one can see your personal information, doesn’t mean they can’t. There are people around who will take that as a personal challenge to their skills (which can be very useful at times) and will attempt to break the security just for the hell of it. If you want to put private information into your blog, that’s your decision, but just be aware of what you are telling people. After all, does everyone really need to see the pic of the aftermath of the office party last Christmas when you were discovered face down on the photocopier?

5. Relax and try to have some fun with the blog – It will not help your marks if it takes the instructor 2 packets of No-Doze and a share in Gloria Jean’s Coffee House just to read through your intro. The aim of the blog is to show that you have understood the concepts and can use the various tools, but that doesn’t mean it has to be dry and boring. Don’t try to step outside of your comfort zone with your postings, but do still try to post to your blog in an informative and interesting way.

First post

2008-12-06T15:15:00.004+10:30

Ok, this is my first post on my first blog and I'm not sure I enjoy the experience. But, seeing as it's a requirement for NET11, I suppose I just have to "swallow" my misgivings and do it.

My next post will be the Top 5 Tips for New Bloggers. I haven't nutted any of that out yet, I've been too busy trying to chase around problems in another subject I'm studying to actually think about much here, but I hope to have them posted by tomorrow.