Internet Studies

There is a lot of reading required for this module. I just finished reading How the Refrigerator Got its Hum and aparently gas refrigerators have been around as long as compression refrigerators have. They are actually a simple machine will less moving parts, easier to maintain and better for the consumer. Even though, the compression (electric) refrigerators took over the market.

A few years ago, we used to work on a very remote island with limited and unreliable source of electricity. Our bosses owned and managed an eco-lodge. They used to charge a set of car batteries every day for a few hours using a portable generator and used these batteries to power the lodge. They were looking into buying a gas refrigerator, which was a very expensive item. Till then, I had no idea gas refrigerators existed. I grew up with our electric refrigerator knowing nothing about better options.

I think, a couple of the last paragraphs summarise the point of the article best:

We have compression, rather than absorption, refrigerators in the United States today not because one was technically better than the other, and not even because consumers preferred one machine (in the abstract) over the other, but because General Electric, General Motors, Kelvinator, and Westinghouse were very large, very powerful, very aggressive, and very resourceful companies, while Servel and SORCO were not. Consumer ‘preference’ can only be expressed for whatever is, in fact, available for purchase, and is always tempered by the price and convenience of the goods that are so available. At no time, in these terms, were refrigerators that ran on gas really competitive with those that ran on electric current.

In an economy such as ours in the United States, the first question that gets asked about a new device is not, Will it be good for the household - or even, Will householders buy it? but, rather, Can we manufacture it and sell it at a profit? Consumers do not get to choose among everything that they might like to have, but only among those things that manufacturers and financiers believe can be sold at a good profit. Profits are always the bottom line, and profits are partly compounded out of sales—but only partly. Profits are also compounded out of how much staff time has to be spent, whether a marketing arrangement is already in place, how easily manufacturing facilities can be converted, how reliably an item can be mass-produced—and similar considerations.

Link: Donald MacKenzie, Judy Wajcman, 1985, How the Refrigerator Got its Hum, The Social Shaping of Technology, Open University Press

These are a few excerpts from ‘Introducing Cyberspace’ by Rob Kitchin I took as a way for me to summarise the major points I found interesting.

The emerging technologies do more than just electronically simulate traditional forms of communication-they also provide news means of interaction.

An alternative to mailing lists is provided by bulletin boards… the system works in the opposite way to mailing lists. Whereas all mail on the mailing lists is posted to all members of the list, on bulletin boards, all users must go to the board to check for mail.

Cyberspatial technologies are determined to be transformative technologies, changing the way we live our lives…Moreover, these technologies are going to affect the lives of individuals regardless of whether they actively use them or even want to use them…. Cyberspace is helping to transform society into a system fundamentally different from the one that gave rise to high technology.

In relation to culture and society cyberspace is… leading analysts to rethink accepted notions of the body, identity, community and nature… In addition, many analysts have been examining the potential affects of cyberspace upon notions of community. It is well documented that on0line communities are forming; centred on common interests and affinity rather than coincidence of location… Cyberspace thus offers us the opportunity to reclaim public space and recreate the essence and nature of community on-line. Paradoxically, cyberspace is also helping to form off-line community groups… who adopt a technology/new age based life style.

In relation to politics… cyberspace raises a number of issues concerning ownership, regulation and content.

In relation to economics… Cyberspatial technologies are set to revolutionise how we conduct business and alter our patterns of work.

Commentators have focused upon one of three ‘revolutions’ to explain why cyberspatial developments are so significant. Firstly, cyberspace is challenging our traditional ideas concerning mass communication and the form of communication. Secondly, cyberspace is helping to radically transform space-time relations and create new social spaces. Thirdly, cyberspace is leading to a rethinking of concepts such as reality and nature. Although often discussed independently, these three ‘revolutions’ are highly interrelated.

In addition to our writing style, the nature of interaction is also changing… Skilled users can follow these multiple threads and contribute to many of them simultaneously… cyberspace allows people to construct their self-presentation much more carefully and play with their on-line identity…

Slouka’s fear is that we are increasingly ‘seeing’ and understanding the world in isolation staring through glass windows…

Robin’s contends that we must remember that cyberspace is not fundamentally different world. Rather, cyberspace overlies real space in symbiotic relationship. He argues that the changes that cyberspace is predicted to bring about must be placed within the broader context of the social and political upheaval that is taking place in the world today… It should also not be forgotten that Cyberspatial technologies are the children of military-funded inventions, and it will be business and industry that will nurture future developments…

As such, cyberspace is best understood by appreciating that technology is both sociocultural and political-economic construct. Essentially, at the local scale technology is socially produced and mediated through culture.

This is a summary for me of module 6 that discusses site navigation.

Navigation should…

1. be easily learned
2. remain consistent
3. provide feedback
4. appear in context
5. offer alternatives
6. require an economy of action and time
7. provide clear visual messages
8. use clear and understandable labels
9. be appropriate to the site’s purpose
10. support user’s goals and behaviors

Copyright Curtin University, Internet Studies, NED11 Internet Design, Module 6

I should really start reading the development blog news on my dashboard. The message to upgrade my WordPress install is five days old. So, guess what I’ve done this morning? Welcome to my upgraded new site. The good news is that I now have a backup of my assignments.

Task: Once you have completed the lessons, you should have a page with all the above elements—save it as ‘index.html’ and upload to your space in the presentations page of webct.

I didn’t need to go through the lessons to learn something I already know. I created my page, validated my markup and my CSS and uploaded it to my space in the presentation area. I also uploaded it to NED11 Students Web Space area. The page include links to all my tasks and answers that I have completed so far. I will update it as I keep progressing.

I styled the page to be scrolled horizontally. This is not something that I would normally do, but I felt like doing something different—a change. Here’s a screenshot of the page I uploaded.

Task: A search for the words Advanced Internet Users:

Google: 99,200,000 hits
Copernic: 46 hits
Meta-Crawler: 62 hits with all search engines and moderate search selected
Alltheweb: 52,400,000 hits

There is a huge difference in number of hits. Which one is the most promising? I don’t know yet. I will need to check the search results to decide.

I also did a test search on Google Books (1287 hits), Clusty (Top 223 results from 20,910,000 pages) and Google Scholar (215,000 hits).

I had a look at the results and wasn’t impressed with many of them. They were not what I was looking for and most results were the same on all the search engines (minor variations). I was looking for resources. So I will try to add that word to my search or adjust my search query (next section).

The First 5 Hits of Searches

Google:

• Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE
• Advanced User’s Internet Training Resources
• Advanced Internet Users, School of Continuing Education
• News @ Cisco: China Supports Advanced Applications for Internet
• StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

Copernic:

• Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium..[Gigablast, Ask.com]
• Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE [Ask.com]
• Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE - Saving Web Pages [Ask.com]
• Finding People on the Internet? [About.com]
• Msen Advanced Internet Users Links Page [Ask.com]

Boolean Search

Task: Taking the same key words of your last search, , think about how you would best search for the following:

The biggest number of hits: Advanced OR Internet OR Users

Sources relating to skills-based information: +”Advanced Internet Users” +skills
This search gave 7 hits on Copernic, 71 hits on Metacrawler, 139 on Clusty and 11,600 on Google (with Dewa’s log as first result)

Information coming only from university sources: +”Advanced Internet Users” +.edu
This search gave me all the courses each univeristy offers for Advnaced Internet Studies.

I also had a surprise to find Dewa’s progress log for NET11 from January 2007 as my third search result on Metacrawler when I searched for sources relating to skilled-based information. Also, Wendy’s blog came up on Clusty as second result.

Let’s try Advanced Internet Users +Online Resources: Couldn’t find anything that grabbed my attention as a resource that I would like to use. I think the problem is that I am not sure what I am looking for any more. I’ll go back and check the assignment.

Well, I had a fresh look at the assignment and I think (hope) I’m back on track.

A funny thing happened, I clicked on a link on Google and wasn’t too impressed with what came up, so I returned to the search results page and clicked on similar pages and better results came up. The first result was Internet Tutorials by Laura Cohen. (Sounds familiar?) I then clicked on the second result and it took me to Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial by Berkeley Library. I Think I will use that as a resource for module 4 in the assignment project.

Organising Information

Task: Choose the best three sources found in the previous task and record the following information about those sites:

URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/
Author: Various
Institution: The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Summary (taken from Site): The Berkman Center is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. We represent a network of faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace.
Screen Shot:

URL: http://eserver.org/courses/w01/tc510/orange/designing1.htm
Article: Designing for Advanced Users
Author: Andrew Hinkelman
Institution: Orange - an online journal of technical communication and information design
Summary (taken from site): The qualities that once distinguished advanced computer users from less knowledgeable users are becoming more commonplace and may in the future be regarded as standard. Computer users in general are becoming more comfortable and experienced with computer technologies, and often utilize the Internet for intellectual pursuits like information gathering or learning new skills. Furthermore, access to higher bandwidth Internet connections continues to increase. This article discusses these qualities in reference to an advanced or experienced user.
Screenshot:

URL: Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial
Author: Joe Barker
Institution: UC Berkeley Library
Summary (taken from Site): This tutorial presents the substance of the Internet Workshops (current schedule) 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.
Screen Shot:

Evaluating the Web

Task: Choose your best ’source’ or site from the three you used in the last task, then evaluate it.

Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial

Audience: Univeristy Students
Source: Credible
Content:

• An intorudction to the web
• Intorduction to Online Search
• Search Types and Tools
• Evaluating Web Pages - Why and How
• Style Sheets to Citing Internet Electronic Reources
• Glossary of Internet Terms

Style: Site laid out clearly, logically and well organised. Even covers the subject of evaluating web pages-why and how.

My annotation:

Which one was better?

Task: Choose at least one program you don’t have, download it to your computer, experiment with it and reflet on the downloading process.

I had all the common applications suggested (PDF Reader, Quicktime…). I didn’t understand why we will want to use the offline browsers as this is a feature we can set up in our usual browsers. I didn’t trust Glooton and Bookmark Buddy based solely on the appearnace of their web site. So I decided to check Copernic (which web site looked more current Web 2.0) but to compare it to Google Desktop before downloading either application.

First, I checked each application’s features, which are very similiar. Both allow searching and indexing my computer and the web. Coopernic won Cnet Editor’s Choice Award but I am familiar and happy with other Google’s products. The Google Desktop was more than just a search utility. It offers other gadgets and integration to other Google Services, which is more than what I am looking for.

My concern was with security. Would my personal files be available to any other but myself? Do these applications secretly keep track of my personal files? I couldn’t find any information about security issues with either. So, I tried to check FAQ on Copernic and the Help pages on Google Desktop. On Copernic I found the following question:

I am concerned about the privacy of my personal data. What is your policy regarding privacy?
We understand your concerns and CDS was designed with your privacy in mind. Rest assured that the data indexed by CDS stays on your PC and on no account will it be transferred to us or any of our partners.
Furthermore, computer activity is never logged. It is solely monitored to enable or disable the indexing process.
Consult our software privacy policy for additional information.

Google Desktop had a full page with questions and answers in regards to privacy. It had answers to questions I didn’t even think of but found very important to know. It was more thorough and informative.

As a whole, I would be happy to use either application and my final judgement can only be after trying them out. But for this exercise I decided to try Copernic. I also liked that they do not log computer activity, just monitor it. So, here we go…

… later …

I liked that Copernic installed a small input field in my system tray and that’s it. Very low profile. Great. But then, I tried to search for something, and the web search came up. OK, I need to check the preferences. It needs time to index my computer. OK then, I will come back to it later. This gives me time to learn how to use it and to check about security measures if I uninstall it. I also opened the application’s options and changed a few settings.

… later …

Copernic finished indexing my computer. I typed in a word and pressed Enter. It again, opened up my browser and did a web search but it also opened a pop up with search results from my computer. So I learned I shouldn’t press enter to get the search results from my computer. I actually like it. I might keep it.

Links:
Copernic Desktop Search 2.0
Google Desktop

1. Before you start you blog, sit down and think what will your blog be about? What do you want to write about? Also, make a bullet list of the subjects you will cover. This will help you decide your blog’s categories.
2. Have an ‘About’ page—because users will want to know who the writer is.
3. Use descriptive titles.
4. Publish quality content regularly.
5. Follow basic weblog ethics.

Further Reading

Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, 2005, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (accessed on March 05, 2007)

Rebecca Blood, 2002, Weblog Ethics, from the Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog, (accessed on March 05, 2007)

Joshua Porter, 2007, 9 Lessons for Would-be Bloggers, Bokardo-social Web Design, (accessed on March 19, 2007)

Have I used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws?

I have used a theme designed by Fredrik Fahlstad and is for free for personal use only. I may alter this theme as I like as long as I keep the link in to the designer in the footer.

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

Yes. Had a problem with trying to follow the legal text on the Curtin web site. Also, copyright issues are discussed in more than one place. I found that to be very confusing. But I actually found this link on Kelly’s Blog: Curtin Logo Use Policy Document.

The aim of this post is to cover basic disciplines to writing specifically for the web. Here are my five top rules to writing online.

1. Write Scannable Text—Web users do not usually sit down to read the whole text on the web page. They skim the page and look for the next link to click on. There are things you can do to help them:
   • Start with the most important stuff at the beginning. The first sentence in the first paragraph should be a summary.
   • Divide the text into logical divisions and use semantic markup to mark them up accordingly. Simply, break your content into smaller paragraphs.
   • Provide informative headings—Users will scan the headlines to know what the main ideas presented in the page are.
   • Draw attention to keywords by marking them with boldface (using <strong> tags) or using bulleted lists. This will highlight main points and will make easier to scan.
   • Use excerpts from the text through the text using <blockquote>.
2. Be Clear and Concise—don’t waste your audience time with blurbs or marketing texts. Keep it short and to the point. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to elaborate on the point if need be. There are studies that show web users are more comfortable with scrolling down nowadays.
3. Use simple language, not marketing or technical lingo—write to your audience in a way that will be easy for them to understand.
4. Spell Check—On the web, as opposed to print media, you can always go back and correct a misspelled word. Therefore, there shouldn’t be an excuse to have misspelled words in your text. Furthermore, this will give you a good chance to review your draft and edit it before publishing.
5. Use Meaningful Links—particularly important for screen readers, a link that says ‘Click Here’ is generic and doesn’t have a meaning. Use links that indicate where they lead you. The links you provide support and authenticate your arguments. Some believe that links within the text can become a visual distraction, offer half-told stories and recommend avoiding them within your text. A different solution is to use a list of references in the end of your article (as done in this one).

Further Reading:

1. Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, 1997, How Users Read on the Web, (accessed on March 05, 2007)
2. Sarah Horton, 2001, Writing for the Web, From Web Teaching Guide, (accessed on March 05, 2007)
3. Aaron Swartz, 2001, Don’t use “click here” as link text, W3C Tips for Webmasters (accessed on March 05, 2007)
4. William Strunk, Jr., 1918, The Elements of Style, (accessed on March 05, 2007)
5. Mary K. McCaskill, 1998, A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors, Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia (accessed on March 05, 2007)
6. Jared Spool, 2006, Long Pages Rule!, on User Interface Engineering, (accessed on March 05, 2007)
7. Nathan Wallace, 1999, Web Writing for Many Interest Levels, (accessed on March 06, 2007)
8. A List Apart, Online Magazine, Articles on the topic of Writing, (accessed on March 06, 2007)