I completely fangled this one. We had to create an anno-bib using six or more resources for the question we wish to do in assignment three. I left it too late and although I found some good resources, I didn't allow myself enough time to read and assess them. I managed to write at least a brief comment for each one (far short of the required 100 words). Worth 10 marks. Oh well.
As fellow student Spike said with the last assignment - you get what you put into it. Not much in this case!
4 August 2007
NED11 Second Assignment
Results back for first assignment - 80%. Tutor comments:
Good point. I have a few strategies to address "skinny" content panels.. but with precise positioning on this site it might be a struggle.
Poor tutor was ill, and our results were delayed. Very kindly gave us an extra week to complete our next assignment, which is very good news for me! I've been able to tackle it at a more leisurely pace and incorporate a little more research.
From wireframe document to design prototype. The subject is fictional, and the choice of colours from a randomly chosen palette at Adobe's Kuler site. Sort of McDonald-ish?
It really is a rather old fashioned layout, next time will aim for something more Web 2.0-ish and make use of ae larger display size.
Hi Melissa, you could prolly have a go at doing a 1028 x 768 site these days. I wonder whether 800 wide will look a bit lonely on some widescreen monitors as that seems to be what's happening with many of my older sites. Excellent use of breadcrumb navigation. Clear and consistent navigation. Very nicely researched. Great work! Plus I really liked your layout.
Good point. I have a few strategies to address "skinny" content panels.. but with precise positioning on this site it might be a struggle.
Poor tutor was ill, and our results were delayed. Very kindly gave us an extra week to complete our next assignment, which is very good news for me! I've been able to tackle it at a more leisurely pace and incorporate a little more research.
From wireframe document to design prototype. The subject is fictional, and the choice of colours from a randomly chosen palette at Adobe's Kuler site. Sort of McDonald-ish?
It really is a rather old fashioned layout, next time will aim for something more Web 2.0-ish and make use of ae larger display size.
30 July 2007
NET12 Bank tellers and technology
One of our NET12 unit readings is the Langdon Winner paper Who will we be in Cyberspace? which expresses reservations on the changes wrought on society as new forms of technology are adopted. He specifically mentions traditional roles such as bank teller and teacher disappearing, which made me recall the changes I’d observed during my time in the banking industry.
I posted this story in the student discussion area, and thought I would put it here too.
I worked for one of the “big four” banks for several years from the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s, so I was fortunate to see what it was like before and after the old mainframe terminals and paper reports were replaced with PCs and GUI, before and after telephone banking and internet banking came into existence. By that time ATMs had been around for a few years, and I recall an old highschool teacher of mine steadfastly refused to use ATMs because, sharing Winner’s fears, he declared it put bank tellers out of jobs!
The first PCs in bank branches appeared in the managerial departments, and it was the death knell as far as the managerial staff were concerned. The traditional role of bank manager, who knew everything about their customers and made important credit decisions based on their local knowledge, faded out of existence as the content of customer files became digitised and decisions became centralised.
A new breed of bank manager emerged, the locally respected financial authoritarian was replaced by an anonymous salesperson who, with a swathe of new financial products (thanks to various legislative changes) had high sales targets and high expectations of the branch staff.
The branch staff were transformed from the operational role of performing the bank’s functions, to a primarily sales role. Tellers were expected to flog products as they counted coin. Where monthly sales targets were consistently not met, decisions were made about the viability of keeping the branch open. The local bank branch was transformed from an institution to a MacDonald’s franchise – a “fast-finance” outlet. Staffers who didn’t like the new sales regime of the branches looked to the new operations centres, or left the bank altogether.
I was one of those who moved into an operations centre. These were shrinking too, they began as regional centres, by the time I worked in one it was a single state centre based in each capital city. By the time I left the bank, the state centre was about to be further rationalised into a national centre based in Melbourne, the number of bank branches had been severely reduced and uptake by customers of phone and internet banking was huge.
Some time after leaving the bank I switched my accounts to one of the community based banks that have sprung up in recent years. These seem to be filling the void left by the closure of the other bank branches. Even so, it is pretty rare that I venture into my local branch. I much prefer the convenience of internet banking, when I think of “bank” these days I tend to picture a web site rather than a building! I sometimes think about my old highschool teacher who hated ATMs, and wonder what his take on all the changes might be.
I posted this story in the student discussion area, and thought I would put it here too.
I worked for one of the “big four” banks for several years from the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s, so I was fortunate to see what it was like before and after the old mainframe terminals and paper reports were replaced with PCs and GUI, before and after telephone banking and internet banking came into existence. By that time ATMs had been around for a few years, and I recall an old highschool teacher of mine steadfastly refused to use ATMs because, sharing Winner’s fears, he declared it put bank tellers out of jobs!
The first PCs in bank branches appeared in the managerial departments, and it was the death knell as far as the managerial staff were concerned. The traditional role of bank manager, who knew everything about their customers and made important credit decisions based on their local knowledge, faded out of existence as the content of customer files became digitised and decisions became centralised.
A new breed of bank manager emerged, the locally respected financial authoritarian was replaced by an anonymous salesperson who, with a swathe of new financial products (thanks to various legislative changes) had high sales targets and high expectations of the branch staff.
The branch staff were transformed from the operational role of performing the bank’s functions, to a primarily sales role. Tellers were expected to flog products as they counted coin. Where monthly sales targets were consistently not met, decisions were made about the viability of keeping the branch open. The local bank branch was transformed from an institution to a MacDonald’s franchise – a “fast-finance” outlet. Staffers who didn’t like the new sales regime of the branches looked to the new operations centres, or left the bank altogether.
I was one of those who moved into an operations centre. These were shrinking too, they began as regional centres, by the time I worked in one it was a single state centre based in each capital city. By the time I left the bank, the state centre was about to be further rationalised into a national centre based in Melbourne, the number of bank branches had been severely reduced and uptake by customers of phone and internet banking was huge.
Some time after leaving the bank I switched my accounts to one of the community based banks that have sprung up in recent years. These seem to be filling the void left by the closure of the other bank branches. Even so, it is pretty rare that I venture into my local branch. I much prefer the convenience of internet banking, when I think of “bank” these days I tend to picture a web site rather than a building! I sometimes think about my old highschool teacher who hated ATMs, and wonder what his take on all the changes might be.
26 July 2007
NET12 Informing ourselves to death
Amidst acclamations of the wonders of the computing age, an academic named Neil Postman gave a lecture in 1990 to a group of Stuttgart computer scientists about the pitfalls of computers. Computers, he says are about information. And no amount of information causes or prevents things from happening to us.
The problem, says Postman is the message all this information leads us to believe. That all the information, and management of information will lead to a solution to our problems.
He finishes off with some sage quotes from philosophers, and summarises:
An interesting point of view, you get tired of hearing about the miracle of computers and the information age. Although, I do wonder what reception this paper received at that Stuttgart conference.
Postman’s paper at eff.org
The computer is, in a sense, a magnificent toy that distracts us from facing what we most needed to confront – spiritual emptiness, knowledge of ourselves, usable conceptions of the past and future.
The problem, says Postman is the message all this information leads us to believe. That all the information, and management of information will lead to a solution to our problems.
Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education? Who knows what we could learn from such people – perhaps why there are wars, and hunger, and homelessness and mental illness and anger.
He finishes off with some sage quotes from philosophers, and summarises:
It is all the same: There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.
An interesting point of view, you get tired of hearing about the miracle of computers and the information age. Although, I do wonder what reception this paper received at that Stuttgart conference.
Postman’s paper at eff.org
NET12 Some play, some pay
I’m no gamer so this seems incredible to me, but there is a demand for people to play multiplayer online role-playing games on behalf of others who don’t have the time. The idea is to build status and “experience points” for their game character without the hard slog, by paying someone else to do it.
The Gamer Revolution documentary profiles a busy mother who outsourced her game character to a company in Rumania. She chose the level she wanted to be at, paid her money, and the company logged into her account and played the game around the clock to build up her character’s experience level.
It’s called “power-levelling” and one of the comments from the doco is that it is creating a new time economy for poorer countries to capitalise on the faster-paced lifestyles of Western societies. However it creates certain issues with the gaming companies, who say the practice is a security risk and against their terms of service; and the other players themselves, who view it as a weak move on the part of the player who pays someone else to “level” their character.
In the end, isn’t playing games all about having fun? these people are taking it wa-aay too seriously.
External links
The Gamer Revolution documentary profiles a busy mother who outsourced her game character to a company in Rumania. She chose the level she wanted to be at, paid her money, and the company logged into her account and played the game around the clock to build up her character’s experience level.
It’s called “power-levelling” and one of the comments from the doco is that it is creating a new time economy for poorer countries to capitalise on the faster-paced lifestyles of Western societies. However it creates certain issues with the gaming companies, who say the practice is a security risk and against their terms of service; and the other players themselves, who view it as a weak move on the part of the player who pays someone else to “level” their character.
In the end, isn’t playing games all about having fun? these people are taking it wa-aay too seriously.
External links
- Gamer Revolution Youtube Clip (thanks to Helen in my NET12 class)
- Outsourcing your 'Warcraft' skills, Feb 2007 article on CNet
- Blog entry on The power-levelling industry by game design Raph Koster
- Wikipedia entry on experience points and power levelling
- Gamer Revolution page on ABC TV site
- ABC Message Board discussion about the documentary
10 July 2007
NED11 Fun with Gliffy
Gliffy is an online diagramming tool, I thought I'd give it a try for the flowchart in my web site design document. You can sign up for a free account, which allows you to store up to five diagrams and you can print or export them (with Gliffy logo).It was really easy to use, although it helped to have ideas down on paper beforehand. In this web site flowchart I've shown page hierarchy levels, and used colour to group the pages according to purpose. The hardest part was showing the navigation. The sub-level pages can only be reached via their parent page, but they allow navigation to the upper levels. See I can't even explain it well. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard about it.
5 July 2007
NED11 First Assignment
...is due next Friday the 13th. Hope this isn't an omen!
We have to prepare a blueprint document containing a "comprehensive analysis and visual depiction of a World Wide Web site". I've created a few web sites over the years but this level of planning is novel for me - now I know where I've been going wrong all this time!
We base the web site on a topic of our own choosing. I've been mulling over this and it is a toss up between re-creating the old "Bunch of Leunig" site I did way back in 1997 (about cartoonist Michael Leunig), or creating a site for the local Chamber of Commerce group (who have asked me to do one for them anyway).
UPDATE: Well I finished and handed it in on time! My topic ended up as a combination of the two - based on a Chamber of Commerce web site from the fictional town of "Curly Flat" (borrowed from Leunig).
The toughest part was trying to work out the best way to create the darn wireframes. I have Illustrator, I just don't know how to use it yet! haven't had time to play around with it. I ended up creating the wireframe in HTML with Dreamweaver, after reading Julie Stanford's article on the subject. I did a quick tables based layout, which served the purpose of this assignment. For my later assignment I shall have to recreate the site in a divs based layout (without Dreamweaver - we aren't allowed to use it).
We have to prepare a blueprint document containing a "comprehensive analysis and visual depiction of a World Wide Web site". I've created a few web sites over the years but this level of planning is novel for me - now I know where I've been going wrong all this time!
We base the web site on a topic of our own choosing. I've been mulling over this and it is a toss up between re-creating the old "Bunch of Leunig" site I did way back in 1997 (about cartoonist Michael Leunig), or creating a site for the local Chamber of Commerce group (who have asked me to do one for them anyway).
UPDATE: Well I finished and handed it in on time! My topic ended up as a combination of the two - based on a Chamber of Commerce web site from the fictional town of "Curly Flat" (borrowed from Leunig).
The toughest part was trying to work out the best way to create the darn wireframes. I have Illustrator, I just don't know how to use it yet! haven't had time to play around with it. I ended up creating the wireframe in HTML with Dreamweaver, after reading Julie Stanford's article on the subject. I did a quick tables based layout, which served the purpose of this assignment. For my later assignment I shall have to recreate the site in a divs based layout (without Dreamweaver - we aren't allowed to use it).
24 June 2007
NET12 First assignment
A pleasant surprise this morning when I started pulling materials together for my essay. The due date is actually Mon 2nd July, not 29 June as I've been thinking. I'm not sure why I had the date wrong, but it is nice to realise I have a couple extra more days than I thought.
My copy of Weaving the Web by Tim Berners Lee arrived last week. Haven't had time to start reading it yet, but had a quick scan. It looks set to become another one of my favourites.
Dropped into the local library the other day and re-borrowed the John Naughton book, Brief History of the Future. The first time I read this book was not for any particular study requirements, it was just out of interest and I could not put the book down!.
As it turns out, I am not required to do extra research outside the supplied unit materials for this essay, so if I am pressed for time I shall probably not reference Naughton.
UPDATE 4 July 2007: Well it was done and handed in on time, after much thought and a change of tack. I decided to support the opposing view, with a major BUT..
Here it is: Internet a product of the U.S. military? [PDF]
I didn't reference Naughton - space was the issue, but some useful material was sourced from DARPA itself. It is interesting that despite being so heavily involved early on, DARPA is quite matter of fact about the Internet - it's like "yeah, we did it, so what.. we've done all this other cool stuff too..".
My copy of Weaving the Web by Tim Berners Lee arrived last week. Haven't had time to start reading it yet, but had a quick scan. It looks set to become another one of my favourites.
Dropped into the local library the other day and re-borrowed the John Naughton book, Brief History of the Future. The first time I read this book was not for any particular study requirements, it was just out of interest and I could not put the book down!.
As it turns out, I am not required to do extra research outside the supplied unit materials for this essay, so if I am pressed for time I shall probably not reference Naughton.
UPDATE 4 July 2007: Well it was done and handed in on time, after much thought and a change of tack. I decided to support the opposing view, with a major BUT..
Here it is: Internet a product of the U.S. military? [PDF]
I didn't reference Naughton - space was the issue, but some useful material was sourced from DARPA itself. It is interesting that despite being so heavily involved early on, DARPA is quite matter of fact about the Internet - it's like "yeah, we did it, so what.. we've done all this other cool stuff too..".
15 June 2007
NET12 Additional reading
YES! I managed to find an inexpensive second hand copy of Tim Berner-Lee's Weaving the Web on eBay!
I would also love to find John Naughton's Brief History of the Future but not having much luck. Shall nip down to the local library to see if I can borrow it again.
I would also love to find John Naughton's Brief History of the Future but not having much luck. Shall nip down to the local library to see if I can borrow it again.
7 June 2007
NET12 Technology & Politics
Langdon Winner. " Do Artifacts Have Politics?" The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.) pp. 19-39
"The things we call technologies are ways of building order in our world."
- (Mumford) two types of technologies: one authoritarian, the other democratic
- structuring decisions are made either consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently
- different people are situated differently and possess unequal levels of power/awareness
- choices quickly become firmly fixed in material equipment, economic investment, social habit
Some light reading: Who Woulda Thought. Famous last quotes about technology!
"The things we call technologies are ways of building order in our world."
- (Mumford) two types of technologies: one authoritarian, the other democratic
- structuring decisions are made either consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently
- different people are situated differently and possess unequal levels of power/awareness
- choices quickly become firmly fixed in material equipment, economic investment, social habit
Some light reading: Who Woulda Thought. Famous last quotes about technology!
6 June 2007
Looking at SP3
SP2 has just started but I've been looking at the units available for next SP. I'm thinking of taking these two from Curtin:
NET23 The Internet: Policy, Regulation and Governance
NED12 Internet Design - Advanced
I suppose I should also register with Curtin for this degree, it is recommended by the third or fourth unit, which I am studying now.
UPDATE 6 July: I've decided to take just one unit next SP and have enrolled in NED12. None of my level 1 NET units are available in SP4 so shall look at a VIS unit later this year.
NET23 The Internet: Policy, Regulation and Governance
NED12 Internet Design - Advanced
I suppose I should also register with Curtin for this degree, it is recommended by the third or fourth unit, which I am studying now.
UPDATE 6 July: I've decided to take just one unit next SP and have enrolled in NED12. None of my level 1 NET units are available in SP4 so shall look at a VIS unit later this year.
5 June 2007
Week two of studies
Two subjects, and I seem to be ploughing ahead through one and falling behind in the other!
NET12 I'm having difficulty with, due to some kind of performance anxiety I think! There is a requirement to participate in online discussions which isn't normally a problem, but it's been specified that for each topic there must be at least two posts - one has to be a substantial answer to one of the discussion questions (150 words minimum).
It is not difficult to respond to other people's posts, but it is difficult to construct two or three paragraphs with coherent and relevant thoughts on every single topic of the unit. I'm worried about being left behind.
NED11 has been pretty easy so far. I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into some of the meatier parts. I'm wondering what to do for my project web site. The local Chamber of Commerce asked me to put forward a proposal for a Web site, perhaps I might turn it into my project.
NET12 I'm having difficulty with, due to some kind of performance anxiety I think! There is a requirement to participate in online discussions which isn't normally a problem, but it's been specified that for each topic there must be at least two posts - one has to be a substantial answer to one of the discussion questions (150 words minimum).
It is not difficult to respond to other people's posts, but it is difficult to construct two or three paragraphs with coherent and relevant thoughts on every single topic of the unit. I'm worried about being left behind.
NED11 has been pretty easy so far. I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into some of the meatier parts. I'm wondering what to do for my project web site. The local Chamber of Commerce asked me to put forward a proposal for a Web site, perhaps I might turn it into my project.
REA11 Results
Results in today, couldn't be happier.. 84 (HD).
My marks dipped in both assessments where I had to produce an analytical structure document, but picked up in narrative forms. Earlier I credited the analytical structure exercises with improving my essay structure. Go figure!
My marks dipped in both assessments where I had to produce an analytical structure document, but picked up in narrative forms. Earlier I credited the analytical structure exercises with improving my essay structure. Go figure!
4 June 2007
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
3 June 2007
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
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