NED11 Module 1

Hobbes' Internet Timeline - http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/

We have to select 5 milestones most relevant to the World Wide Web, screen design, and multimedia design issues – along with the time they happened.

Bit distracted by all the funnies! in particular RFCs like the following:
RFC 1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
RFC 1178: Choosing a Name for Your Computer

NET12 Module 1

Just read Rob Kitchin's "Introducing Cyberspace" from Cyberspace World in the Wires. Excellent material there. I wouldn't mind getting hold of the entire text. Next reading is from http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/20quests/hownet.htm

Other useful readings:
How Internet Infrastructure Works from How Stuff Works
Living Internet (re-visit from NET11!)
Primer on Internet Technology by Roger Clarke

NET12 The Machine is Us/ing Us

This is an excellent movie produced by Professor Wesch, it has been used to describe Web 2.0 technologies and the semantic Web. It demonstrates how we, the users both drive and fuel the Web.

It lead to an interesting discussion on WebCT with Helen, about how computers were expected to create a paperless society, but we are instead inundated with more paper. I made the comment that the faster technology helps us to work, the more work we seem to do - who is the slave, us or our technology?

REA11 is over!

Well I managed to get my final assignments handed in on time last night (just), and I'm very pleased that the aggravation is now over. In hindsight it has been a very useful unit, but it just about wore out my brain!

I don't want (and don't expect) to top the class, I just want to pass. I am kind of pleased with my final topic-of-choice essay Web Accessibility and Developers though, considering this final version was dashed off in the space of two or three hours. Even I can see it's a huge improvement on the version I submitted for my first assignment.

Those analytical structures really do work! That sucker took the best part of a day (it helped to have previously worked on the topic in other assignments), while the other analytical structure exercise we had to do must have taken me all week. Worth the effort, although it would have been less stressful if I had allowed myself a more leisurely pace (ie. not wasted so much bloody time with texts that weren't required reading!)

REA11 Universal knowledge

One of the fiery debates at REA11 has been about the existence of a universal knowledge which holds true for all.

The modernist take is that universal truth exists once you screen out elements of bias and get to a purely objective view.

The post-modernist belief is that it is impossible to be completely objective, there is no one truth, but that truth exists in many forms according to social context.

Some students felt this challenged certain religious beliefs, but it doesn't need to be so. If one holds that knowledge is but a perception of reality, one can still believe in an absolute reality yet hold that knowledge exists in context.

Prepare for SP2

Doing two units next SP:

• NET12 The Internet: A Socio-technological Introduction
• NED11 Internet Design - Introduction.

Looking forward to doing NET12 with a couple of the students from this SP, REA11 class. Just checked the unit outline and it has a couple of essays to write, and 30% final mark is based on discussion board participation.

Have heard a lot of good feedback on NED11, students from my NET11 class last SP LOVED it.

According to somewhere I was reading (OUA site I think) it was recommended to have Photoshop and Dreamweaver for NED11. I ended up getting a pretty good deal ($235) on the student edition of Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 from a software dealer Berlin Wall. Getting the serial number from Adobe was a bit of a pain. I had to send them a claim with a copy of my student ID to prove I was a student. It took about a month with a few phone calls and emails to finally get anything from them.

The only set text I have to worry about next SP is for NED11 - HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition: Visual QuickStart Guide by Elizabeth Castro. The publisher, Peach Pit Press has an e-book version which offers a quick and inexpensive way to buy it. I'll shop around a little more and come back and get this if I can't find it anywhere cheaper. At least with the e-book I wont have to wait for it to arrive in the mail.

REA11 coming to an end

Well there are two weeks left of this unit and it looks like I'll be busting a gut again to hand in assignments on time!

So much reading in this unit. Thank goodness I only took the one unit this SP (study period) or I'd be going crazy.

This SP has been SO different to the last one when I did NET11; not everyone has been enjoying the subject, and there has been disappointment with marks on our assignments. There have been some very opposed views expressed on the discussion board which have become heated to the point where our tutor had to shut it down and delete threads.

Despite this, I think the course is well designed and interesting. The amount of material we are getting through, it seems too much is compacted into the time we have. Feeling a bit stressed.

Couple of students I've spoken to all agree - will be glad to have REA11 behind us!

Free domain/hosting for students

Here are details of this offer I found from Hostess Web Hosting. Only available to uni students (you must register with email address ending in .edu.au) it includes a free .au.com domain name and free web hosting. Check it out on the Hostess web site (click "Uni Students" from the menu).

No php support but does offer a cgi-bin for perl scripts. My free site? http://www.mja.au.com/

REA11 - Halfway through

Taking a breather from assignment two to record a bit of info about this unit before I leave it too late.



The unit outline from OUA:

Expand your skills in critical thinking. This unit provides you with an introduction to the practical application of concepts and analytical procedures associated with reasoning. It aims to develop your abilities and confidence to think clearly and analyse effectively, teaching better techniques of reasoning. You will develop an understanding of the need for a critical attitude, how to conduct research and analyse and communicate more effectively and flexibly. This unit is useful to students from any discipline or any degree but particularly those studying arts, business, law and information technology.

I'm enjoying this unit, it is really well organised and the subject material is getting the grey matter ticking. I'm in with a handful of students from last SP NET11 - I think some of us were a little bit nervous after feedback from students who took REA11 last SP. I was; the main reason I took this unit on its own instead of taking two units this SP. It certainly has taken the pressure off.

Our REA11 tutor Wendy Sahanaya (I can't help thinking "sayonara") is very helpful. She exercises a bit more control over the discussion board than Cynth did, but I think it's a good thing as it helps keep us on track. There also seems to be a more sensible approach to the submission of assignments - 'if you're late, you might not get as much feedback but we're all adults here'.

This SP is going quickly! I've enrolled in two units next SP - NED11 and NET12. It'll be upon me before I know it.

NET11 Officially over!

Well I have most of my grades back for NET11 - which included an essay on how a conceptual understanding of the Internet could help deal with information overload (very appropriate!) and an assessment of this blog.

So now I have to make a decision about what to do with my blog. I'm inclined to keep it going, to help me track my subjects as I work through my degree.

At the moment I am in Week 4 of REA11 - Applied Reasoning, with my second assignment due in two weeks. Enjoying it so far!

UPDATE: Final grade in for NET11 was pleasing - 92 (HD). One unit down, 23 to go.

Social bookmarking

I'm in a quandary.. I have social bookmarking overload! Thanks to Yani at NET11, I have become hooked (finally) on del.icio.us but Greg had to go and push ma.gnolia at us! :)

So for the moment I am using both, but it is highly impractical. I'm tossing up the idea of going back to one (but which one!) or using both for different contexts of links - for example, one for uni links, one for fun links.

Decisions, decisions!

NET11 - Module 5: Info-Communication Concepts

A little bit of reading material for Module 5: my reflections on each subject are presented in italics.

Information ecology

• Towards an information ecology, by Rafael Capurro
• Information ecology, by Felix Stalder
• NET11 iLecture notes
  The Internet is not simply a communication tool, a storehouse of information - it is a resource that has the potential to empower or pollute the ecology in which it operates, according to the uses put to it by the people who use it. In light of modern environmental concerns, use of this resource carries a responsibility to apply careful consideration of the effects on society and culture.
  

Case Study: Peer-to-peer
P2P as software/technical network. I am approaching this topic from the culture of working for an ISP, where P2P is largely frowned upon as a piracy technology used by bandwidth 'leechers' and copyright infringers, and thus subject to general suspicion. In saying this though I am aware of its innocuous uses, such as sharing open source software such as Linux 'distros'.

• How the old 'napster' worked, by How Stuff Works
• An introduction to peer-to-peer computing, by David Barkai
• An introduction to peer-to-peer networks, by Vinod Musuthamy
• Wikipedia entry on file sharing

Information transfer

• P2P networking: An information sharing alternative, by Parameswaran, Susarla and Whinston
• Peer to peer goes corporate, by David Lipschultz (not available, alternate article sourced below)
  
• Peer to peer for academia, by Andy Oram
• Peer to peer goes corporate, snapshot by Peter O'Kelly from WSJ.com subscription-only article by Bobby White
  

Community

• Playing our song?, by Henry Jenkins

Legal issues: Copyright

• "Copying is Theft ..." And other legal myths in the looming battle over peer-to-peer, by Mark Rasch
• Rip, Mix, Burn: The Politics of Peer to Peer and Copyright Law, by Kathy Bowrey and Matthew Rimmer
• Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Since Napster, by Magdalena Heim-Smith

Security and privacy

• PCStats Beginners Guides: Spyware protection and removal
• Is your computer talking to strangers, by Gene and Katie Hamilton
• Spychecker.com

Socio-political considerations

• p2pnet.net - p2p news
• The Internet debacle - an alternate view, by Janis Ian

From copyright 'piracy' issues to corporate implementation, P2P is a controversial topic. The benefits of lower cost, efficient distribution are weighed against indexing problems, and fear of loss by corporations who wish to control creative markets.

The 'big bad wolf' in the P2P case is presented as the production companies who claim to be protecting artists rights and are terrorising Internet service providers and individuals; there is a case for the distribution of material (with permission) in providing exposure for the artist and increasing sales through non-corporate channels (consider the emergence of independent artists like Sandi Thom through webcasts, and 'discovery' of new artists through showcase services like MySpace).

The next corporate war may well be against the Google-owned Youtube (sharing of video formats), with dissatisfaction in the way Google is handling copyright material.

Preparing for 'future shock'

• Internet2
• PlanetLab
• PlanetLab builds test bed for new Internet services, by Peter Sayer
  One of the problems emerging from the Internet is the rapid pace of change and the inability of technology to keep up with the new and expanded uses found for it. Existing Internet technology is (as cited in Sayer's article above) becoming "harder to change and easier to break". Technological advancement for the Internet must be developed alongside existing technologies however, it is not a case of simply switching over from one system to another. Advancement is not necessarily more complex than current technologies - one example is the development of OWAMP a "one way ping" tool. The traditional ping measures a return trip between two fixed points (two trips), the one way ping simplifies this even further by measuring the latency in a single direction, thus helping to more accurately pinpoint network congestion.
  

Forecasting

• What the Net did next, by Mark Ward BBC, interview with Vint Cerf
  Prior to this unit the real significance of TCP/IP hadn't really struck me, the concept that data is data, in all shapes and forms, interchangeable with any system, any network. The Net works so well that it is easy to disregard the technologies that make it work. In this interview even Cerf mentions that the great potential of a common protocol between all networks and systems did not occur to him immediately. I also listened to a podcast interview with Cerf in which he discusses future Internet trends. He believes the Internet will come to play a large part in mobile communications - from geographical map indexes to standardised communications for interplanetary exploration.
  
• The UCLA Internet report: Surveying the digital future
  This report compiled from 2000 statistics, checked the subsequent reports and the trends confirm what I already believe - increasing numbers of people accessing the Internet; email, web browsing the most popular activities; growth in broadband use accompanied by increase in time spent online; growing number of users publishing information. The latest report has the Internet ranked ahead of television and mobile phones as the technology people could least do without; perhaps reflective of the multiple uses the Internet is put to in terms of information, communication and entertainment.
• The Internet is broken, by David Talbot
  There are different conceptions of what the Internet should provide as a technology. One belief is that the Internet has already reached its potential, allowing a neutral, free flow of data in all forms. Any control of data flow is then implicit upon the user, to apply various patches/programs to employ security measures and the like. The argument propounded here by Talbot is that the Internet should incorporate levels of authentication and security to protect the user. However, it is very difficult to see how a new Internet platform could permanently plug security holes, when the development of spam and virii seem to stay neck-in-neck with current security technology. It may in fact create a new set of problems - the objections and challenges faced by developers of new Internet technologies includes selling change to those who believe "it it aint broke, why fix it?".
  

For some fun

• Imagining the Internet: Predictions Database
  It is fun to imagine what might emerge from the Internet, as use of the Internet expands it seems the possibilities are endless, they are only limited by our imagination. The most practical predictions however are based on what the Internet is capable of now, and the ability to expand that capability - particularly when you think of the Internet in terms of an 'information ecology', capable of evolution. One prediction is that the Internet may evolve into a form of artificial intelligence, not that far-fetched when you consider the human-like response of bots. Another prediction, mentioned above is fast becoming a reality, Cerf's discussion of Internet technologies into space exploration.
  

NET11 - Module 4: Tools for using the Web, Searching the Web, Evaluating the Web

Downloading tools/plug-ins task
In your learning log record which programs you downloaded and note which (if any) facets you think might prove useful.
The two programs I downloaded were Copernic Agent Basic - a search engine client; and URL Organiser from Bookmark Buddy.

Copernic has a couple of features which could make it useful, such as saving searches, verifying links and integration with Internet Explorer. I'm not yet convinced on the benefits of using this tool over accessing other search engines via their websites, it will need a good test run to prove its search capabilities.

URL Organiser is a very simple tool but already I can see how useful it might be for maintaining large lists of website links. The interface is more open and flexible than the link manager in a browser, links can be easily sorted and annotated. This is a good example of the important relationship of data to meta data, particularly in cases where there is a large volumes to manage and utilise.

Search engine task
1. Choose your most commonly used internet search engine and do a search for the words: advanced internet users
A search for the exact phrase from Google Advanced Search produced around 13,300 listings, the first (and second) in the list was the 'Advanced Internet User Tutorial' at the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE).



2. Using copernicus or similar, set it up to search at least three search engines (including one that will search the 'deep web') and repeat exactly the same search
For the same search most surprisingly, Copernic produced just 38 listings in its results even though it had been set to retrieve results from eleven search engines and directories. The CIESE site ranked high in the listings here also.



Boolean searching task
How I would best search for the following:

• the biggest number of hits relating to 'advanced internet users'
  Of the three Boolean logical operators, results are least filtered by OR therefore I would use 'advanced OR internet OR users' to obtain the greatest number of hits in my search
  
• sources relating to skills-based information on 'advanced internet users'
  I would first define the skills-based information I was seeking, for example the XHTML markup language. My entry into the search engine would be for the exact phrase 'advanced internet users' with the logical operator 'AND xhtml'. This would search for pages which contain the phrase 'advanced internet users' and filter out those pages which did not contain the word 'xhtml'.
  
• information on 'advanced internet users' coming only from university sources
  Some search engines provide an option to search within specific domain name addresses. To utilise this option for searching university sources you need to know the characteristics of university domain names. In Australia, these typically end with 'edu.au'. In the US it is just 'edu'. In the UK it is 'ac.uk'. My search on Google allowed me to combine the results of all three of these as follows: "advanced internet users" AND site:.ac.uk OR site:.edu OR site:.edu.au
  

Organising search information task
From the above task I saved the following sites in "URL Organizer", the software I installed earlier. The software makes it very easy to organise URLs into categories and sub-categories, and allows an annotation to be saved with the record.

As much as I like this piece of software, I have since been introduced (by another NET11 student) to an online bookmarking service located at http://del.icio.us which uses a system of "tags" to categorise URLs. I prefer this online service to URL Organiser because it makes it possible to access my bookmark list from anywhere, not just my computer. Also, the service encourages sharing of bookmark lists with other users. The resultant directory of URLs is another great resource for searching the Web.

• http://www.webfoot.com (linked from "Internet Guidebooks", Google search)
• Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
• World Wide Webfoot Press
• This is a site dedicated to educating internet users about the effective use of email communication. The author, Kaitlin Duck Sherwood has also published a couple of books on the subject. She explains the concepts which make email different from other forms of communication, provides guidelines for understanding how email addresses are formed, how to find email addresses for people you wish to correspond with and how to effectively write email messages. There are links to another site produced by Sherwood at http://www.overcomeemailoverload.com which deals with the organisation and management of email messages. Both sites are a little dated but the information is still useful and quite relevant to several of the concepts we are studying in NET11.
  

• http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html (from "advanced internet users" + search, from Google)
• Joe Barker
• University of California, Berkeley
• "This tutorial presents the substance of the Internet Workshops ... offered year-round by the Teaching Library at the University of California at Berkeley. The content on this site has been updated to reflect the latest trends in search engines, directories, and evaluating web pages. The title reflects our belief that there is a lot of great material on the Web - primary sources, specialized directories and databases, statistical information, educational sites on many levels, policy, opinion of all kinds, and so much more - and we have better tools for finding this great stuff." (Barker, 2006)
  

Barker, J (2006). Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial. Retrieved February 9, 2007, from The Library - University of California, Berkeley Web site: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

• http://www.newcommreview.com (from "advanced internet users" + electronic communications, from Google)
• Society for New Communications Research
• The New Communications Review web site is produced by a non-profit group who study electronic communication and emerging technologies, and the effect on business, society and traditional media. The latest articles take an indepth look at the blogging phenomena and their impact on news media.
  

Evaluating the Web
I chose to evaluate the World Wide Webfoot Press web site because some of the articles incorporate concepts we are studying in NET11 - such as asynchronicity, effective use of email communication, reflective communicative practice, non-speech communication through text and automation.

• http://www.webfoot.com
  
• Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
• World Wide Webfoot Press
• In determining the credibility of this particular web site one needs to look beyond its appearance - it is basically just content with very little style and not the best navigation. The author, Kaitlin Duck Sherwood tells us she is a computer sciences post-graduate student, an early end-user of email, a code developer, author and trainer. World Wide Webfoot Press is her own publishing company, which has published two email-related books. The two books are now out of print, and Sherwood seems to have moved onto other things - there has been very little work done on the site for a few years (although I noticed one of the articles had been updated this year).
  
  There is little doubt of the credibility of this source when you search for back links - the site is linked from about 597 other pages, some of them university/college sites. Astoundingly there are over 16,000 pages which reference the author "Kaitlin Duck Sherwood". One of the pages contained an internet radio recording with her which was quite interesting - www.lets-talk-computers.net/guests/webfoot/overload
  
  The content of the site is informational, although Sherwood's opinion emerges in some topics, particularly about how email clients should work, and how existing commercial clients miss the mark. The site includes quite a good bibliography with wide coverage of the topic. Interestingly one or two of the web sites listed quote extensively from Sherwood's writings. She explains that her material was placed in the public domain, another signal to the purpose of her writing.

In most circumstances I think a description of the content is a more useful annotation than an evaluation of the source. Sometimes the title of the source is too general, and the descriptive annotation acts as a preview of the source, helping the reader filter out sources which aren't useful to their purpose.

I think a good annotation will include some signal of the source's credibility, such as stating the author's occupation or the nature of their interest in the material.

NET11 - Module 3: HTML tags, standards, ftp & blog

HTML tags
Using content from one of my own posts on a discussion forum I followed the instructions to create a HTML 3.2 document as per the tutorial.

I am familiar with later HTML standards and noted that some of the tags in HTML 3.2 such as <b> and <i> are now deprecated (not included in later versions). Since HTML 4.0 there has been a move for semantic markup to completely separate style and layout from page elements, through the use of cascading style sheets (CSS).

An excellent article recommended by Keith (a fellow NET11 student), Bulletproof HTML: 37 Steps to Perfect Markup by Tommy Olsson answers common questions about the most current markup standards and why validation is important.

Standards
As well as HTML markup standards there are standards for online content. 'Usability' of a web site has become a common benchmark as a way to ensure effective communication in the digital environment:

1. Text must be easily scannable - concise, main points accessible. People tend to 'scan' text on the screen, instead of reading it word for word so it is easy to miss information that is buried within a wordy document.
   
2. Consistent navigation - as a non-linear form of writing, readers will arrive and end at different points, and take entirely different paths. Navigation needs to be easily grasped without requirement for specific instruction, and consistent. This is probably one of the most obvious and important standards for web page authoring - consider 'back', 'next' and 'home' links on a web page.
   
3. Write in the language and style of the reader - the text should be easily and quickly understood without having to decipher its meaning.
4. Effective use of links - make them meaningful. Links can be a distraction - or they can be used to help highlight important points. A page should not be overloaded with links and they should not be gratuitous - they should fulfill the purpose of pointing to where further information is to be obtained.
   
5. Chunking - segment information to make it easily accessible, may be repeated on each page to make it 'portable' for non-linear reading. Apparently chunking is a concept that dates back to the 50's. It was put forward by a Harvard psychologist George A. Miller and describes the capacity of short term memory. Miller's theory states that by grouping similar items into a small collection or 'chunk', short term memory can be expanded.
   

The 'usability king' Jakob Nielsen was studying interface usability before the world wide web phenomena even began. His 1997 report on Writing for the Web is still very relevant today, as it addresses common human behaviour such as the way people read content on a web site (by 'scanning').

W3C validation
My first page did not pass W3C validation because no character encoding had been specified in the document. I uploaded a second page which includes a meta tag specifying character encoding of ISO-8859-1 and it passed validation.

In my browser these two pages look identical, but this particular tag is important for accessibility across different languages and platforms. If the character encoding is not specified there may be unpredictable results. A good article about character encoding by Tommy Olsson is The Definitive Guide to Web Character Encoding.

Copyright
Have you used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws?
On my WebCT presentation space I have used an image of a smiling coffee cup which I obtained from a clip art web site claiming the material was 'free for personal use'. If a copyright dispute arose I would at least be able to demonstrate that I had acted in good faith, and that my use of the image was not commercial.

Would you be in breach of copyright if you put the Curtin logo at the top of your web page for an assignment?
In this circumstance I believe use of the Curtin logo would be allowable under the 'fair dealings' provisions of the Australian Copyright Act, since it is being used for academic purposes. This provision is mentioned in the copyright statement on the Curtin web site.

FTP
The url to the page I uploaded via FTP is mod3task.html

FTP is a tool I am very familiar with, and I used space on my own server so I did not experience any problems with this task - although I note some of the other students were having problems uploading to web space on OASIS. I believe the problem related to students being unaware of the requirement for specific security settings to access the OASIS server. This information was found in the relevant OASIS Help page. I later did a test connection to my OASIS space and uploaded a file at http://www.student.curtin.edu.au/~13713634/

Blog
The task calls for pasting a screenshot of my blog, which seems a little redundant since this learning log is being written on a blog provided by blogger.com!

Blogger.com, now owned by internet behemoth Google has been around since the early days of blogging and shares credit for the popularity of blogging today. It is a hosted, easy to use, free service and users don't have to worry about any of the technical aspects of running a web site.

Top five tips for new bloggers

• Decide a purpose or theme of your blog!
  
• Commit to regular posts - nothing worse than a dead blog
• Look at other blogs, participate, leave your url with comments
• Get to know your blog software/service - know the possibilities
• Observe blogging 'etiquette'

A good guide for beginners to blogging is Beginner Guides: Creating a Weblog/Blog at PCStats.com

I love blogging. I use a wonderful app called WordPress on my own personal site mja.blog. Even though I know how to create webpages 'from scratch', building and maintaining a website through blog or CMS software is so much quicker and easier. WordPress and other applications like it are quite flexible and dynamic, with support from a large developer community and multitude of plugins available to extend functionality.

NET11 - Module 1 & 2: Self-evaluation

I thought I would include here the questions I answered incorrectly for two reasons. Firstly, to help me remember the correct answers and secondly, to remind myself to pay attention!

Q1 - Which of the following is NOT an example of email metadata? a) Body, b) Subject, c) From, d) To, e) All of the above, f) None of the above.
I answered f) None of the above. WRONG. What is metadata? data about the message. The body is the message.. ALTHOUGH one of the concepts we've been studying (No. 6 - Reading the difference between 'surface' metadata and 'implied' metadata) suggests that sometimes we need to look at the body of a message to verify its suitability from various signals that are provided in the content.

Q16 - What program, still in use today, is widely referred to as the 'first' internet application?
I answered "email". WRONG. How could I forget about telnet?

A third question was marked incorrect also, although I was on the right track with my answer.

Q14 - The Usenet is a distributed system of messages and is divided into ...?
I answered "groups". I should have been more specific and used the correct term "newsgroups".