Saturday, December 20, 2008

I have decided to download the Copernic application because it sounded interesting, I have heard of this type of application before but never tried one. I also downloaded Apple Quicktime and installed it.

So based on the topics for reviewing these tools, here are my results:

Apple Quicktime

An application that plays Apple Quicktime format movies and other movies, very simple application in it’s free mode, but obviously has lots more features on the non-free version.

Cost - downloading the free version, is free of course, Apple is hoping that you can’t live without it and purchase the full version, I have not done this, nor do I intend to.

Ease of use - Apple’s interface for this tool is very basic and definitely needs a makeover

Functionality - It’s pretty good when it comes to the amount of media types it can play, with the exception of some of the *.wmf (Windows Media File) files, obviously Apple didn’t spend a lot of time getting their application to play a Windows centric format.

Utility - Not really that applicable in this case, but if I had to put something down here, then I would say it does not save me any time at all because the user interface is weak

Commonality - Yes Quicktime movies are a standard, however it is not as widespread as MP4 or AVI is, mainly because of the backing of these formats by Microsoft and other large companies

Copernic

Before I downloaded this tool I was under the impression it was an advanced Internet search tool that would do deep searches of the Internet, however. It seems that this tools main function is to index all the files on my computer and allow me to search these for content. This is not what I expected and a bit of a disappointment, especially since I already have this feature with Windows Vista, I think I will be deleting this application fairly soon, unless it begins to wow me.

Cost - bit disappointed that the installation program for this application asked me if I was using this for home, or corporate or educational. I chose educational but the installation program then asked me to pay a fee for download, so I reverted to the home version, which was free. I am surprised that the educational version was not free also.

Ease of use - Interface has a nice look and feel, but the layout of this is a little dated compared to more modern user interfaces.

Functionality - disappointing when it comes to searching the Internet, but seems ok at finding information on my computer.

Utility - could be pretty handy when you have to find an important email or presentation that contained a certain phrase or phrases.

Commonality - with the new search tools in Windows Vista then I don’t see a huge future for applications like this, I don’t get the impression that this application is setting any standards.

Search Engine Task

I have decided to use for this task and compare the results against a standard Google search.

Google Results

I searched for the words “eckhart tolle” (including the “”), since he is my favourite author and I know that he has a lot of hits on the web. Incidentally I was surprised to find that I now got nearly 2 million results compared to the same search that I did earlier on in this course and got 1.6 million results, he is becoming more popular every day! I did noticed that the search became a lot quicker each time I did it, it looks like a certain amount of caching tool place that made the search quicker each time I did it, the first search tool 0.19 seconds and the last search tool 0.07 seconds.

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,940,000 for "eckhart tolle". (0.19 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,940,000 for "eckhart tolle". (0.20 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,940,000 for "eckhart tolle". (0.17 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,940,000 for "eckhart tolle". (0.08 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,940,000 for "eckhart tolle". (0.07 seconds)

Copernic Results

I used the Copernic web search feature to do a search for the “eckhart tolle” phrase again and got a very disappointing, almost funny, result of 82 hits on average.

Results: 1 - 20 of 81

Results: 1 - 20 of 79

Results: 1 - 20 of 82

Results: 1 - 20 of 86

Results: 1 - 20 of 84

Analysis

I can’t understand why the Copernic search engine only got an average of 82 hits for the same search terms as Google. I was under the impression that Copernic would search multiple search engines for my phrase and end up giving me more results than Google. From what I can gather the Copernic search web feature is almost useless for finding information on the web.

Boolean Search Task

I am aware of Boolean logic and use it every day when I search the web. My initial searches for “eckhart tolle” utilise the “” around the words to tell the search engine that I want to search for this exact phrase and not a combination of both words. This is good for searching for peoples names, I could have put “eckhart tolle” OR “tolle eckhart” into the browser and this would have delivered me more hits, because some people may write the name with the surname first. For this task it seems that I have to try to get different results from this search, by trying the following.

The biggest number of hits relating to these key words

The biggest number of hits relating to these key-words are achieved by simply change the search to read eckhart OR tolle and yes I got the biggest amount of hits that I think are possible for this name.

Results 1 - 10 of about 28,300,000 for eckhart OR tolle. (0.21 seconds)

Information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to look for!

In this case, because this guys name is so unique, then by simply using the “eckhart tolle” (with “”) I am already getting what I am looking for. I could put “eckhart tolle” OR “tolle eckhart” into the browser and this would give me more hits, but that may not improve the chances of me finding what I am looking for, more hits may just decrease the chance of me finding what I am looking for. Of course I could take it to another lever and start using bolean like this +eckhart +tolle in this case it will give me all pages with those words in them and they don’t have to be beside each other. Let’s show some results here (all results were from Google).

Using “eckhart tolle” OR “tolle eckhart” I got the following results: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,880,000 for “eckhart tolle” OR “tolle eckhart”. (0.29 seconds)

Using +eckhart +tolle I got the following results: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,810,000 for +eckhart +tolle. (0.08 seconds)

It is not surprising that these both results give similar enough amount of hits, this is because people will normally only ever say this name with either the surname and the beginning or at the end of his name.

What is more surprising is that when I just use the simple “eckhart tolle” I actually get more hits than thw two entries above, see the results below.

Using “eckhart tolle” I got the following results: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,940,000 for “eckhart tolle”. (0.18 seconds)

I am not sure why this happens, it may be something to do with a database timeout, if the transaction starts taking nearly have a second, then the search engine may decide that’s enough data and return, so on the more complex searches this may happen. I am sure there is lots of other optimization logic going on inside Google that I couldn’t even speculate about.

Information coming only from university sources

Ok this is an interesting question, I guess if it was me just doing a casual search I would just include the word +university in the search criteria but this would just bring me up pages that have the word university and may miss other university related information that doesn’t include the word university.

Next thought that I had was: ‘maybe I could search the databases of Universities?’ So I had a look at this page at the Griffith University. It looks like I can search the database at this University, but not all universities, and I have to pay for the privilege with Griffith University.

So I am looking for a way to search all university databases, but I have a feeling that this may not be possible, may be to do with information privacy and security. I will update this Blog if I find a way.

Organising Search Information Task

I decided to use Zotero for this because it looked the most appropriate for using with academic type bookmarks. The way you can use it to add citations to your Word documents is looks good, although I haven’t ventured down that path yet. The interface is a little complicated at first, and it only works with Mozilla for the moment.

I have created a subcategory below my NET11 folder in Zotero to store three of the best sites that were found in the previous task. One of the great advantages I can see to using this tool is the automatic way it can create a bibliography, I have put this bibliography at the end of this section to show how nice this feature is, and I will not modify the bibliography after it is automatically generated.

My Zotero library exported to Citeline

I used Zotero to create a library of the three most useful search results, I then installed the addition to Zotero called Zotz and used this to publish the library to Citeline. The following screenshot shows this library exported to Citeline, but it doesn’t look like I can show the snapshot of each webpage in the Citeline list, this is a shame because it would help me to easily identify each webpage from the list.

Evaluating the Web

I shall evaluate the previous Zotero entries based on the tutorial provided here Ohio SU net.Tutor as part of this task.

A New Earth on Time with Mayan Calendar Prophecy link

Purpose

“Determine whether the main purpose of the site is to inform or to persuade (advocate for a cause. This might include any apparent external interest, intellectual motivation or contextual information”

The main reason is to inform, the writer claims that Eckhart’s two recent books are in line with the Mayan Calendar and the spiritual development of man. There is a little bit of persuasion involved, but not much,

Author

“The best sites are produced by those who have appropriate education, training, or experience to write with authority on the topic. Check site documents or external sources to find out more about the author“

The author Shellie Enteen is an established holistic health and astrology practitioner ,educator and writer, she writes in multiple places, including a monthly newsletter here.

Content

“Consider whether content seems biased. Does the author have a "vested interest" in the topic? Look for documentation of claims and a balanced point of view”

The content is a little biased towards the writer’s expertise. I don’t think there is any vested interest in the article and the books that it writes about.

Coverage

“Shop around for the best source. You can compare the page to others on the same topic to see which provides better coverage”

I have compared the article to similar articles on the Internet, for instance there is a very similar article here that explains it in a more simple way, but /I like the technical way Shellie has written her article.

Currency

“If you are looking for the most current information on a topic, be sure to determine when information was added”

This article was published on Feb 28, 2008 which is pretty recent, in this case, the date of the article isn’t that relevant because the ideas put forward are not going to change in a year.

Recognition

“Try to determine whether the site has been recognised as exemplary by others linking to it, tagging or citing it”

I am not sure if the writer’s theories could be considered exemplary, but this article has been inked to in lots of different paces, including here.

Reliability

“The reliability and authority of the site / source / article”

With the topic and information covered in this site, it is hard to say wether this article is reliable or not, because it’s a persons opinion. The internet site suite101.com is a quite well respected online magazine written by writers for writers, so I am happy that the overall reliability is good in this case.

Subjects & Ideas

“The main ideas or subjects discussed in the article“

The main subject is that the writer is comparing the new wave of consciousness that is being generated throughout the world with the ancient Mayan Calender that seems to match up with the timing for this wave of consciousness. The writer thinks that the big interest and popularity of the Eckhart Tolle books coincide with the calendar.

Automatically Created Zotero Bibliography

I must say I wish I had found this utility before now, because this feature is great. I will check out the different APA styles at a later date, this is using the default APA style.

Shelly Enteen, Eckhart Tolle and 2012: A New Earth on Time with Mayan Calendar Prophecy, Writer Network, suite101.com, February 29, 2008, http://philosophy.suite101.com/article.cfm/eckhart_tolle_and_2012
MKinley Jesse, Eckhart Tolle: America's guru of the moment - International Herald Tribune, International Online Newspaper, International Herald Tribune, March 25, 2008, http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/24/arts/tolle.php.
Eckhart Tolle: This man could change your life - Profiles, People - The Independent,” Newspaper, England, independent.co.uk, June 21, 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/eckhart-tolle-this-man-could-change-your-life-850872.html.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Module 3

Optional Standards Task. 1

Online Writing Guidelines. 1

Observations from articles provided. 2

Legal Issues. 3

Blogs - Reflection. 3

Web 2.0. 4

HTML Task

“Thoughts about HTML, do you feel a sense of achievement? What are the differences between HTML and blogging? What do you like best?

The HTML task was easy for me, since I have been involved in HTML and other web development for quite a while. I decided to create a web page that was useful to me, and hopefully to other NET11 users. The web page contains the most frequent links that I use when working on NET11. It also contains a few of my favourite websites. I like HTML.

It is difficult to decide if I prefer HTML over blogging because blogs are HTML. I like the way that blogging opens up HTML functions to somebody who doesn't want to learn HTML. Similar to what Wikipedia does, Wikipedia takes blogging to a new level in my opinion. Since I am quite technical, I do like getting my hands dirty with HTML, but I also like the convenience of having the HTML code written in the background for me, which is what blogs and Wikipedia do.

Optional FTP Task

Please click the image below to go to the working HTML page that I wrote (index.html) for this assignment, I have uploaded this page to the Presentations space on WebCt.

I realise that the images/logos on this page may contravene copyright laws, but I am going to keep them here for the moment, mostly because I don’t have time to change it and partly because I like the look of the page with the graphics in there.

Optional Standards Task

Online Writing Guidelines

The 5 most important rules (rather than call them rules, I will call them 'current guidelines') for writing online are:

Be careful with flashy websites

Sometimes a website is created with the intention to blow the user away with so many flashy animations and interactive user interfaces that they end up doing the complete opposite and turning the user away. Apart from the obvious problems with too many graphics and too little content, there are issues with compatibility, formatting, browser support, security and download speed that make needlessly flashy websites something to avoid as much as possible.

Allow the user to create/add content

You should also encourage the users to write comments on your content, although it is advisable that these comments are passed through a vetting process that monitors them for abusive content. With a blog this is different of course because it's part of what blogging does, but with a custom built web site, then this is more applicable.

Make the content customisable

Allow the user to configure various aspects of the web page to suit their needs. This is dependent on the website being able to store cookies on the user’s browser. A good example of this is iGoogle and the BBC's new main page, both of these web pages allow very customisable content, with the BBC website getting it just right in my opinion.

Be constructive not destructive

Try to avoid berating people and places because they don't somehow fit with your views. Be careful before you write comments that could hurt a person or make them feel like they are somehow not 'good enough' to write on the Internet. A lot of people abuse their fellow Internet users and one or two mislaid comments could really have an impact on that person, so much so that it could put them off writing anything else on the Internet.

Don't lie

For example if you are deciding to give medical advice or other information about a product you see on the Internet, don't lie and if your not sure if your really correct then say that, or don't advise at all. The Internet has a bad name in the Medical profession for instance, quite rightly too. But the Internet is a great place to find information about health if you know where to look and don't get sucked in with people trying to tell you your very sick when your not. This is a fairly new phenomenon on the Internet, where people are self-diagnosing to the extreme and making themselves sick with worry needlessly.

Observations from articles provided

The advice in Nielsen's paper is a little less relevant today, since the Internet is now less corporate and more personal and social. With the invention of Wikipedia and blogging the rules go out the window.

As more and more people write on the web, the Internet becomes much less corporate and more public. The Internet now runs on people power.

I don't think you could get a typical Internet contributor to read rules on writing on the Internet because I don't think they would care, which is good and bad, since most everybody could do with some training on the subject before they get stuck into writing on the Internet.

Sarah Horton's guide is more relevant for today's writers, since she is more interested in how you present your information, chunking documents and providing ways to let the user read the documents like an encyclopaedia are good hints. She declares that writing for the web is different to writing traditional books and articles, she is totally correct, that's one of the disadvantages of the Internet.

To get traditional journalist/writers content onto the Internet a manual (or these days some companies automate it) process needs to take place to convert the traditional document into an Internet version. The automated option here is commonly used on newspaper websites, where the traditional print is converted into HTML automatically. Often it can be seen that some logic is put into the conversion that spots relevant words that are good candidates for turning into a hyperlink. An example is the Irish Independent newspaper website. The articles on this website have automatic links that allow the reader to click on a word to get more information on that subject or person. This has its advantages and disadvantages; if the article has mentioned a persons name and you didn't know who that was then its a handy reference point, but if its linking to something that your not interested in (which is more often than not) then your eyes get drawn to that link and you may miss the content. Sarah talks about the overuse of hyperlinks in your online writing; this is a good example of that. I am aware that I have also used a link in this blog to jump to a few websites; in this case I think it was a good use of hyperlinks to add to my blog.

Legal Issues

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

I don't believe I have, the images I have used are just the logos of the companies that I have linked to, I think it is common for the logo or image of the website that you are linking to be used as the actual URL to that site. The fact that the images and words I have used are being used in an educational context means that the copyright people would consider this fair use. If I was somehow using this material to make money or pretend that I am somehow representing that website/company then I would be in breach of the laws on copyright.

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

No, because the course is part of the Curtin University and the web page is part of an educational assignment then there should be no copyright infringement. I think that the context of this blog allows me to use images from the University that I am attending. It depends on the image of course; I don't think the logos are a problem in this case because of the context of the web page.

Blogs - Reflection

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

I must say I was sceptical at first. I can't say that I was a huge fan of blogs until I started to actively use them for this assignment. I was a little bit judgemental, thinking that blogs were a sign that the blogger was a bit needy for attention. I still have a feeling that some people write blogs to try to belong or to get acceptance socially, where they are not able to in other ways, wether that is right or wrong is not for me to say.

There is a possibility that the blogger can get obsessed with comments and positive feedback, to the point where it becomes unhealthy to blog. I have seen that there are some great examples of blogs out there, some of these I have mentioned earlier, and on the flip-side there are some useless blogs that don't seem to provide anything to the user. It could be that these blogs also have their place in Interspace.

When I realised I had to write a blog for this course at first I was a little annoyed, I thought "why am I being asked to do something so visible to everybody on the Internet?" Then I realised that by doing this task you got an understanding of what it means to contribute to the Internet rather than use the Internet as a tool. I must admit that most of my experience on the Internet (except for Facebook) was in a business sense, where I have designed websites and tools, that was contributing, but not in a personal way. Now that I understand blogging more, I am happy that I have had to write this blog, and it has shown me that my preconceived ideas about blogging were wrong; this is normally the case though when you make up your mind about something before you actually try it.

Web 2.0

Everybody keeps asking what Web 2.0 is, which is a bit of a problem, if you have to keep asking; then it’s dubious if it even exists. Plenty of people profess that they know what it is; they write long articles on the Web to verify that they are experts in this field. I will not be foolish enough to say anything other than this: Web 2.0 is just the development of the www in motion; it doesn’t have to be labelled with a version number.

People like to give things names and version numbers, the Web is not like a movie, it doesn’t exist as a document that has many revisions, were not going to come to a point in time and say “ok now that’s Web 2.0 finished, lets start on Web 3.0”.

I suppose the latest giant leaps in social networking and media sites like Facebook, LinedIn and YouTube could be considered the catalyst for the Web 2.0 labelling frenzy, but there is so much more going on now that these sites are only part of the story. It’s handy to look at advancement as giant leaps, and that’s all very well if you’re bringing out a new version of a car or a games console, but version labelling doesn’t work with Web, maybe that’s why it’s causing such confusion?

Before we all get too excited about the way the Internet is developing, we need to take a look at our lives in general and how the Internet is really improving them on a daily basis. This is a hard thing to do, because I see certain aspects of the Internet as very addictive, social network sites especially and this can be a bad thing for people’s health, as speculated recently on the BBC Website. I am sure that in the future we as a human race will look back at these times of Internet advancement and think “what were we thinking”, akin to when we look back at the 60’s and 70’s now and think “what was I wearing and why was I dancing like that”. I believe that we are only just beginning to understand how the Internet can help us to communicate, but that’s only the very edge of what we eventually will get out of it. So labelling is fine for some people when it comes to the Internet, version 23674.0 won’t roll off the tongue as well as 2.0 does though.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Module 2

“The tasks for this module consist of a series of explorations of various forms of online communication.”

Content

Email Tasks. 1

Deconstruct an Email 1

Cc, Bcc & Reply to All 2

Email Lists & Discussion Boards Comparisons. 5

Chat Task. 5

I did manage a small chat! 5

Group Task. 5

Extra Personal Experience. 5

Email Tasks

Deconstruct an Email

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?”

I took the information from an email my wife sent me from yahoo.co.uk to my work email address. From this I can see the following email metadata/headers.

Metadata	Description
Received: from *..com.au (10.122.40.76) by awesch02..**.au (10.12.32.229) with Microsoft SMTP Server id 8.1.291.1; Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:46:49 +1100	This shows the Outlook Exchange server that received the mail on my behalf
Return-Path:	Shows how to respond to this email (senders address)
Received: from [116.50.58.190] by [10.122.40.76] with StormMail ESMTP id 56998.950239096; Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:55:15 +1100 (EST) Received: from web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com (web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com [217.146.177.178]) by rly09m.srv.mailcontrol.com (MailControl) with SMTP id mB40kilv019118 for ; Thu, 4 Dec 2008 00:46:46 GMT Received: (qmail 24363 invoked by uid 60001); 4 Dec 2008 00:46:42 -0000	Shows the path the email took to get here
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.co.uk; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Message-ID; b=IxRd1Zpu6Z1muoZOLJoQQsZz+qWjpcQc/7ah6xhL4kjrIo6Y7bWhNpLBmH 7finmw1PfnYjPohVQDC9WVlZO98lV7G3d55KYZfWnJb0Zw9z6dMa+r0OGlJK a7JOUUS1lsnDkBddTCMHErE2F1qCdRidZtIiUW42J+NhTjXVscm3k=;X-YMail-OSG: ZZqeQxYVM1nAmDkRT5X1Dq5IzmokHAnOqGfC8DdLl1ummn2hXyO9MLEK 1iipRA6sdqAtGlM41qaO6JIz9nygfbM5qwEv9x85mawxoKo8mMBTKw.Y2Xr_RB Jpo9mY4OWjdi2a6UAvE8HL7msBqUUF7unfTceXQmMXu.gFXeoSDmtkLc0-Received: from [121.217.143.212] by web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:46:42 GMT X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/1155.32 YahooMailWebService/0.7.260.1References: <08ff9f030b5ac3428e83ddeb24b45c3b35b9695a1f@awmail.**.com.au> <482415.35747.qm@web27405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <08ff9f030b5ac3428e83ddeb24b45c3b35b9695a51@awmail.**.com.au> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 00:46:42 +0000	The DomainKey is the sender authentication certificate information, in this case the following information was sent in this email, this email containts the following headers.
Header	Description
From: Non Blonde <****@yahoo.co.uk>	Senders Address
Subject: Re: Hotel	Subject of email
To: Keith ****	My address
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1933541526-1228351602=:24192"	Content type and MIME version
Message-ID: <495014.24192.qm@web27402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>	Yahoo's message ID so this email can be tracked
X-Mailcontrol-Inbound: DrF2jmRCQeA4fyE dFQMuw3PsnAW5+aCI5C4 VsUb3x5xAm!pCPuofWt7vmlLxU6jX X-Spam-Score: -6.1 X-Scanned-By: MailControl A_08_51_00 (www.mailcontrol.com) on 10.77.0.119 X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SCL: 0	Spam/Virus filter report

Cc, Bcc & Reply to All

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

Using Cc

I use 'cc' in an email when I want to include other people in an email but I don't necessarily want a reply from them. That’s the most basic way to use 'cc' and in my opinion the reason why it's there. People can use 'cc' for various other things, but it gets dangerous when you use 'cc' in various situations where it can cause problems with the interpretation of the use of 'cc'. For instance if you 'cc' a persons manager in an email thread that has already been active for a while, even though your intentions may not be that bad, the receiver of the email can get upset.

Using Bcc

I would use 'bcc' if I wanted to do a quick email to a bunch of people but I didn't want them to know who I sent the email to. I sometimes 'bcc' myself so that I can have a copy in my sent folder. It is also good to use 'bcc' if you want to include somebody in a business email, but you know that some people on the email may be sensitive to that person seeing the email, this has some dangers too though, especially if the person you bcc’d replies and then puts the other people in their 'to' or 'cc' fields.

Using Reply to All

I use the 'reply all' feature carefully, mainly when I am sure that the people on the email thread are ok about getting a response to the email. The 'reply all' button is probably the most dangerous button in the world, many people have been fired for saying something silly to the whole company without knowing it, this is so dangerous that some email systems don't allow you to reply all to certain lists of people.

In general I tend to scan the people in the 'To', 'Cc' and 'Bcc' fields in an email more than once, especially if I know it is a sensitive email. Sometimes simple typos or auto-spelling of names can leave you in a position where a sensitive email has gone to the wrong person. The Internet is full of horror stories where whole lives have been ruined in this way.

"Check and double check each person on your email distribution list before you hit the 'reply' or 'reply-all' buttons" - Me

Attachments

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

I think about the person I am sending the attachment to, if I know that they are computer savvy and have all the required software to view this attachment then I am not so fussy about what I send as an attachment because I am confident that they will know what to do with it. If however I am not sure about the person’s ability to view what I send then I will think about what attachments I am sending. For instance if it's a zipped/archived file then I may decide to unzip it and send it separately, if it's an embedded link/URL, I will mention that they have to click or copy and paste it into a browser. I am also aware of what information I can send through spam and email filters, so I am careful not to send executables or other files that alert filters to these types of mailboxes.

Rules

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

It depends on the email account your talking about, in my company I use a Microsoft Exchange system with Outlook. In this case I have filters and rules setup to push emails into various folders depending on the senders company/department/project and I rely on my email program to help me housekeep. I like to push the emails into 'personal' folders that are located on my local disk drive, and back this file up regularly to me network drive space. At home I am not so fussy, I use yahoo mail and I find it quite easy with the new yahoo user interface to maintain my inbox manually by moving emails into required folders for archiving.

Folders

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

As per my last point I use folders to store emails that have a common theme. So I have various folders for family and friends, but I also have business folders that can be broken down to the project level, project level email folders are harder to maintain with automatic filtering of data into respective folders based on the sender or spotting words, because as projects close the filters need to be updated. I like using folders in conjunction with filtering email into the respective folders, I find this is the most useful way to use folders. It is also good to have folders so it makes it easier to archive bunches of related emails.

Email Lists

I can't say I have had a great experience with Email lists, I see them as a bit of a nuisance if managed or used wrong and in lots of cases they are used for the wrong purposes.

Pros and Cons

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

Pros

I guess they could be good if you don't have access to the Internet but still wanted information or to take part in a group.
They are also quite useful in corporations when the company wants to send information to a large number of people.

Cons

The inflexibility to show creativity with the format of the information that is provided.
The reliance on an administrator to manage the content, whereas discussion boards can be self managed by the users.
The non-secure nature of Emails could also be a concern.

Discussion Boards

Pros and Cons

Pros

The flexibility of the administrator/owner to add graphics, spruce up the layout and make the content appealing is an advantage.
The ability to let the users maintain and add content is a big plus, that’s where the Internet shines.
The ability to search and find information quickly and easily also is a huge plus.
Can be used for a wide range of applications

Cons

The content is open to abuse unless actively monitored and vetted by an administrator.
There are a lot of them and its not always easy to find the right board for your topic
It often encourages people to rant long and hard about subjects that are not important

Email Lists & Discussion Boards Comparisons

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

Yes there are, I see Email lists as an information supply and that’s what they are good at, especially for people who are not that Net savvy. This communication is often one-way and that’s good in this case, so it has limited use. Discussion boards are very useful for applications where customers are reviewing products, discussing issues, or even internally in a company to encourage information flow from one person or group to another.

Chat Task

This was by far the most difficult task for me to complete successfully. I have to admit, I don't like chat programs, I rarely ever use them, after originally being excited about the concept and one of the first users of chat programs I have grown weary.

I did manage a small chat!

I got together with Natalie Spa for a brief chat on YahooChat on the train into work. But it didn't get to be a long chat about the course. Natalie also introduced another NET11 student to me by sharing my chat id with him, but I haven't seen him on online since then. Further update is that we did get to chat a small amount after this, but it was more to do with trying to arrange more official chats rather than anything else, but it was an interesting experience all the same.

Group Task

I still intend to get involved in a group chat, I see that there is one on Mondays, and I will install the chat program this week and make sure I attend that group meeting...more to come here…I did manage to get onto a small chat group on Monday, but my wireless broadband connection kept dropping out on the train. From what I seen of the 10 minutes I participated I felt it was very useful, if a little hard to follow and contribute with a dodgy connection. A consistent connection to the Internet for the duration of a chat is something that you need, and in this case I didn’t have that luxury so I found it a little frustrating as I tried to chat my comments were sometimes appearing 5 minutes after they should have.

Extra Experience

I designed and developed a chat program about 14 years ago, as part of my job at a company called Cylon Controls in Ireland. I decided to add this feature to a program that I was working on as part of a Building Management System (or Process Control system). This chat program didn't use internet protocols. It used a native data transfer system on the control systems we used. The main interface was a Visual Basic program that I wrote, the user interface communicated with control systems on site, in real-time through a connection to the control system hardware. The communication between chat programs actually travelled across the custom made control systems and not the Internet. The lag in communication was less than a second and it had a small amount of use in the industry. I think the engineers were not ready for chat yet :-).

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

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