Catchup?

Well do I bother or just jump in where I am technically up to? 😐

I have done all the week 4 reading. I have been keeping notes in a word file and printing them out for my personal reference. I have been feeling like I am behind but really I am up to date – except for updating this blog! Sooo does it really count considering its not assessable at all and is really just a place to practice posting stuff in wordpress?

Speaking of wordpress. I have started my web presence assessment. I have a friend who is helping me through the “hosting blog” process. The site is purchased (we thought it would be good to use wordpress.org instead. BUT she is having trouble uploading wordpress onto it for me.  I am now in the position where I wonder if I continue to wait (and severely limit my time to create and get the site running) or do I start it in wordpress.com instead? :S I don’t know what to do! She is one busy chicky

Otherwise my assignment was submitted Friday afternoon which is good. Fairly comfortable with it… not sure quite what mark to expect though given I don’t know quite how the marking is judged. Shall wait and see :S

So don’t expect any comments from week 4. I shall start week 5 today and blog once the readings have been done. The topic is “blogging” so thats rather appropriate!

Cheers

Jo.

World wide web week 3 discussion.

Sky asked the questions (among others but these interested me most)

* Do you think the model of ‘the Information Superhighway’ or ‘surfing the Web’ is more appropriate for understanding the Web today? Why?
* Was it difficult to adjust to the associative, non-linear style of the Web, or did it feel natural?

I must admit that this week I have had trouble following hte threads on the board. So this is rather late. I think I have jumped in here and there but felt uneasy with the content. So I will just jump in whereever I please before moving on to the next topic 🙂

Information superhighway to me refers to someone searching for particular information as opposed to surfing the net which is a more casual and relaxing activity. Internet users are either after entertainment or information.

For me adjusting to the non linear style of the web was gradual. I would have been about 19 or 20 or so when my dad got it at home first. I had little exposure to computers (except for basic office programmes and very basic computer games) so it was a simple enough transition. To me the internet definately works the same way my brain does. I jump topics alot in my head the same way you can with the internet. Its second nature now.

Week three wrap-up

This week we looked at what the world wide web actually was. Unremarkable on its own and for me I had trouble focusing this week (hoping that changes next week). It was a trip down memory lane for the most part – what the web was like when it was first introduced and what we were able to use it for. Netscape was a name I had not heard in years.

Hypertext was an interesting thing to read about and I would like to think about this a bit more – perhaps developing it into part of the reflections assignment. Not as itself but perhaps as a vision of what it could still become… not sure if that is what the assignment can be about though so will need to investigate.

One of the activities this week was to view HTML behind the scenes of a blackboard discussion post. It was interesting but nothing I have not seen before. I don’t know how to write in HTML of course but I do recognise tags and the very basics of their use.

Why the fuss of hypertext is not a difficult question to answer “why not” to. Its potential is enormous. Not as it is in its current format (while that in itself  is already amazing when you view something such as wikipedia, and any other programme linking millions of pages together by a simple mouse click) but more in the format of a three dimensional virtual world such as only the imagination can provide at the moment. I have a vision created in my head through watching too much science fiction movies.

The world wide web is an unmeasurable web (there really is no better word) of pages linked through this HTML (and other methods). There are millions of pages a sole individual may never see. Its size is amazing. Its potential for humanity is staggering – both in terms of good and bad.

My next chore will be to read through the posts on the discussion board for this week. I have not been able to keep up with the conversations this week – they have tended to blend and overlap in a most confusing manner. If something takes my interest I will post it in a seperate blog here to keep it in mind.

My next chore after that is to read next weeks readings in advance so that hopefully i can keep up in the discussion board!

Week 3 so far…

Well I open up my blogs dashboard to see 3 new responses to approve. I get a little excited thinking ohhh a way to put off posting myself by reading other things only to find they are SPAM! I hate SPAM. Its bad enough in the can but online! Wonder if it was named after the tinned crap? PMSL.

Anyway. So I have not posted this week for week 3… topic 1.something. I must admit to having felt a little overwhelmed by the conversations on blackboard. The topic itself was interesting enough. I have yet to listen to the lecture *hangs head in shame* but I have dutifully read all posts in the blackboard discussion and attempted to understand with little success.

I know little about the legalities of domain name registration, even less about the “governing bodies”. I have only just found out they exist in Australia. I know nothing about internet censorship in the workplace being a stay at home mum. Half the programmes people mention have me scratching my head. Here I was thinking I loved the internet too much but not as much as some. Perhaps I just love chatting too much! PMSL.

So tonight I plan to spend my Saturday night reviewing the weeks material. I will also review the blackboard discussions and attempt to follow them. They get a little muddled in the feeds and I must admit to being rather overwhelmed when I try to read them. I may actually pick out some comments and post them in here with my thoughts on them and do a little research if appropriate.

So for anyone who has been following this I apologise for the lack of content and vow to review that tonight. Or tomorrow depending on the kids and hubby.

Week 2 – Activity 2 Who owns what?

Who own a domain name – logic dictates its either an individual or a business… this site helps to determine that. www.hexillion.com/asp/samples/AutoWhois.vbs.asp

Its suggested we try curtin.edu.au first up. Seems its owned by Curtin University (as the registrant)… no surprises there. It also seems to give out other information such as tech (technician?), contact names and IP addresses.

Flickr.com seems to be owned by markmonitor but after further scrolling down the page it seems its actually Yahoo who owns it…

Going with the same theory youtube.com is owned by Google and Markmonitor is again involved… it seems to be a domain management company… at first glance but methinks there is something else going on…

Mickey.com is Network Solutions…

My parents domain is owned by Godaddy… lol

Then I remembered an add I had seen for a new search engine – bing.com  This it turns out is also involved with Markmonitor! Not surprised actually…  The registrant is microsoft corp.

Amazon.com is network solutions…

cnn.com is corporate domains.

One wonders how they get them in the first place… who determined who the “big guns” would be… will there eventually be one that  rules them all? Rather like VHS vs BETA? Will Apple vs IBM be the next big competition? Food for thought.

Week 2 – Activity 1 Routing in Action

This task involves the following website www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert/ which a website that basically tracks where your “link” goes before it reaches its destination. The initial address shown is google.com (of course *rolling eyes* and my map looked like this…

It may be a bit hard to read being that small but you get the idea… it took 25 hops and 23.6 seconds to get to google headquarters. My internet provider is iinet so they were part of the list… apparently they originate in the middle of Australia and I am in an “unknown” location but I presume thats something related to iinet… will investigate other traces and think about it…

We were also challenged to try wikipedia.org which took 24 hops and ended up in the united states as well. The challenge became to find an address not based in either USA or Australia.

After attempting many websites that I use on a regular basis and failing, I finally found one that worked… not sure if it counts though as it ended in New Zealand who may as well be Australian anyway! 😛

Trying from scratch

For anyone who has been wasting precious minutes reading these posts you may realise I having a bugger of a time getting pictures to upload into posts!

Sean (and one day I will learn to link here I think) graciously added a post titled “Help! I’m Stuck in the WordPress Picture Gallery”. That gave me a good giggle in itself. In this post I am working through that guide and will hopefully become successful. If I am not we may be finding out if WordPress deletes blogs with profanity expressly spelt out!

I have gathered my intended picture, cropped it in paint and airbrushed over my “name” because thats going to be unveiled at a later date (building my own anticipation here lol). Its saved as a JPG. AND IT WORKED! When I uploaded the first attempt I selected “Save all changes” instead of “insert into post”. From there my file drifted over to the gallery which was not an issue cause I found it. BUT once in the gallery there was no “insert into post” button!!!

So for me hte secret is to insert immediately… no saving pictures for a rainy day here!

Thanks will have to be sent out to Sean for his help in this frustration! PMSL 🙂

Now… back to this weeks activities now that I can upload 🙂

Week 2 – What is the internet?

This week the lecture and reading notes covered what is the internet. Its been distinguished from what is the world wide web. I previously had never thought of them as seperate things. Being 34, I can remember time before the internet. I can remember when we first connected to the internet at home, but I had never contemplated what made it all possible. I also don’t really recall anything Pparticular – however I do recall using it at uni (1994-1997) for email and such but I was never a heavy user and used it as required only…

After uni I had a couple of years travelling/working around Australia and know I used email but no real internet use was available in the workplaces and I was too socially minded to spend time at home with it. Then came 2000. I moved back home with my parents for a while and became interested in yahoo chatrooms. It was here that I eventually met my now husband (it turned out he lived down the road and pleaded begged suggested that we have a lunchdate). Sporadic use from then on until I  became a stay at home mum and had ever sooo much more time on my hands to play around on the internet. Now… I am not sure what I would do without it.

Anyway I digressed. The  topic this week covered how the internet developed – with a scientific/military purpose in mind. Packet switching. Domain Name mapping onto IP addresses. The concept of a hierarchy of domain names was introduced. Network types (peer to peer or client/server). Other concepts fundamental to understanding the internet at a basic level.

Cyberspace as a concept its suggested was imagined in the movies long before it became/becomes a reality depending on how one defines cyberspace. This personally led me to wonder if we will ever have a world like that in Star Trek or Voyager if movies are an indication of a potential future for our world… Will we one day be “transporting” around the world instead of current means of transport? Just how far fetched is such a world? Baby steps…

See I ramble. Hence  a category for rambling.

Why I chose WordPress…

over other blog sites such as blogger/blogspot etc. As I said in my introduction I have flirted with blogging a few times but have never managed to be consistant or committed to posting and there was never a real reason.

Blogger I have tried out before and found the options limited and confusing, what we call widgets here was confusing there, searching other blogs mostly ended up with me looking at pictures because they were written in unknown languages.

WordPress on the other hand had a simple to understand dashboard, widgets that were mostly easy and if not obvious what they were it was easy to experiment.  Editing posts is easy so it seemed the obvious choice.

Today I changed the theme here and found that this new theme has a tonne more options too which is nice. The blogroll is in a better spot (for me) and it seems easier to add new “pages” to the top of the row so I can “group” my focus areas better…

Week 2… so far.

Well this week has not gotten off to a great start study wise for this subject. Multiple kid sicknesses at the beginning of the week delayed my ability to focus… and therefore fed my procrastination ability. I have decided to not summarise each week in these logs but rather post the main activities and then select topics from the weeks discussions to post my thoughts about. I will therefore welcome other students and readers to comment if they would like.

So today the kids are home and tomorrow they go to daycare. Yep all 4. LOVE daycare days 🙂 I have a  list running for tomorrow’s to do’s.

* visit all the other blogs and read/comment and  link back to my blog. Plus subscribe to them so I see any updates etc and so I can comment and hopefully we can develop things to “reflect” on later.

* Figure out how on earth to install *&^%$ pictures!  Yes I used profanity there through sheer frustration! I “normally” pick up these things easily so it takes only a short time to get frustrated! I am hoping the kids sleep better tonight and allow me to focus tomorrow.

* Post things about this weeks reading/notes etc.

* Post some preliminary thoughts on my web presence idea. I have drawn a mindmap today with ideas everywhere. I actually want to purchase the domain name… its available and has potential for more than this subject alone… if that is allowed!

* Read up on the first assignment cause its due in less than 3 weeks now…

It may be a busy day…