Internet Studies

I haven’t been writing in this blog for a couple of weeks. We were scheduled to go on leave a few days ago and I was trying to tie loose ends and prepare many things for our trip. We went away last week and I’m still trying to get over the jetlag and continue with my course.
Just wanted to say that I’m back :)

I started searching for resources for my second essay for NET12 unit yesterday. It was the first time I didn’t even touch Google for my search. Instead I used the following:

• National Library of Australia
• Wiley InterScience
• Technorealism
• Internet Public Library
• Communication, Cultural and Media Studies
• CorpWatch
• Project Muse
• ProQuest

A couple of the above websites, asked me to purchase my selected articles, which I can understand but I didn’t plan on paying this time. The last two, Project Muse and ProQuest asked me to login before I could use their services. I logged in with my Curtin student login details. I appreciated this ability to allow me to use these resources. I also loved the abundance of academic articles I was able to search. There are some advantages of being a part of an academic institute, even if I’m only their student.

Module 1—Internet and Protocols

Coyle K., (1998), A Primer on Internet Privacy, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: Karen Coyle discusses how our activities on the web are monitored and raises questions on privacy as a choice. Coyle introduces the Internet Protocol and how computers communicate. She explains how advances in computing technology provide an ability to collect and aggregate information of the user’s activities. Coyle then continues to review server logs, clickstream and cookies. In her summary paragraph Coyle concludes by saying that education and responsibility are the key to our freedom of accessible information. This article relates to two concepts with the first one being Identity and Location. Fundamentally the Internet is a network of identified end points and communication is achieved by passing data packets between locations of known identities. This concept also raises the notion of Privacy and Security. Advanced Internet users should be aware of privacy and security concerns that are implied by the nature of the network.

Maslen P., (October 1996), Control, Change and the Internet, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: In this four-chapter work, Patrick Maslen examines the history and development of the Internet from three aspects: physical, logical and social. In chapter one, Maslen explores the competition of the Internet protocols, mainly the American TCP/IP versus the European ISO protocol. Chapter two reviews the major operators in the eighties that influenced the spread of the Internet. In chapter three Maslen explains the developing ideals that contributed to the Internet culture. And lastly, in chapter four, Maslen discuses the ways in which the Internet Protocol helped with internationalisation of the Internet as well as the problems it created in the process. This article’s concept is the Persistence of History. In order to fully understand the Internet today, it is critical to first look into its past. It provides context to the present and supports any future development.

Module 2—Net Communications

IT Security Staff, (November 2006), Hacking Email: 99 Email Security and Productivity Tips, IT Security, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: As its name suggests, this article provided 99 practical guidelines and recommendations for using email from etiquette, how to communicate, considerations when sending emails to mobile phones, productivity tips, how and what attachments to send, to privacy and security issues we should be aware of. This article also includes links to further readings specific to each subject such as a post about further five fast email productivity tips which in turn leads you to a tutorial on how to set up an email template. This article relates to many Internet concepts such as Email, Privacy and Security, Asynchronicity, Effective Internet Communication Combines Technical and Communicative Competence and Netiquette to name a few.

Office of Privacy Commissioner, (March 2003), Guidelines on Workplace E-mail, Web Browsing and Privacy, (Accessed on March 15, 2007)
Reference: An invaluable article to workplace and government organisations and employees as one. Staff at the workplace might be under the impression that their online browsing activities and emails are private when in fact these activities can be monitored. Furthermore, their actions might compromise the organisation’s security systems. This article discusses the privacy concerns of emails and web browsing in a workplace and is designed to assist with the development of good practices. Its purpose is to help organisations understand the legal issues involved and develop a policy that will be provided to its employees with clear instructions of proper use of email and web browsing while at work. This resource relates to two concepts. First concept is Permanent Emphemerality. Staff should concede that their electronic communications could be easily stored and accessed for future reference thus be aware of the inherit implications. Second concept is Privacy and Security though in this instance this resource examines issues of privacy and security in the context of the workplace.

Module 3—e-Writing

Sheerin P., (October 2001), The Trouble With EM ‘n EN (and Other Shady Characters), (Accessed on April 10, 2007)
Reference: Peter Sheerin covers the subject of bad practices of web typography and their alternatives—proper Unicode characters—for specific situations such as punctuation, analphabetic symbols and spaces. He also touches on some grammatical rules and browser bugs to be avoided. By following Sheerin’s advice, your work will improve immensely and will be regarded more professional. Even though this article’s subject is not about frames, the concept that can be applied to it is Information Display Challenge. The challenge of displaying information correctly and consistently across various computer platforms with various encoding systems can be alleviated by the use of proper Unicode characters. Following this practice assists in further globalisation and reach of information across the Internet.

Rutter R., (2005), The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web, (Accessed on April 10, 2007)
Reference: The Internet began as a medium to share information. For many years the syntax that was meant to present information was exploited for presentational purposes. With improvements in technology of the underlying markup, web browsers, screen resolutions and text rendering capabilities, the ability to create compelling web pages is now hindered only by lack of know-how. Richard Rutter relies on Robert Bringhurst’s book “The Elements of Typographic Style”, which is an excellent resource by itself, as a guide to translate typography principles from the print to the web. He introduces the concepts of rhythm, proportions and motion that are good and valid subjects, even for newcomers to typography in general. Rutter offers practical advice and examples that reinforce his guidelines to better web typography. You should also check his bibliography—“How to size text using Ems” on Clagnut in particular.

USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, How to write for the Web, University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, (Accessed on April 10, 2007)
Reference: The Internet in itself is a publishing medium. Its readers’ attention is one of the most sought after commodity. Most Internet users skim the web page looking for the next place to click. Most likely advanced Internet users will not only be passive readers but also active participants. In this how-to-write guide, we are presented with a few basic tips to help writers and readers as one. The tips covered are separated into short sections suitable for various mediums of writing online such as blogging, wikis, discussion boards, as well as general tips. They provide a concise introduction to writing online. This resource relates to Information and Attention concepts, where online content is accessed and processed efficiently.

William Strunk Jr., (1918), The Elements of Style, Bartleby, (Accessed on April 10, 2007)
Reference: The art of writing comes natural to some but many others could use some practice of composition. In this classical book, William Strunk Jr. aims to provide a brief introduction to essentials of writing English literature. Even though this book is intended to use as a resource to English courses, it can also be an invaluable resource to current online contributors. Subjects covered are elementary rules of usage, elementary principles of composition, a few matters of form and commonly misused and misspelled words and expressions. The book covers only a small segment of English style writing but concentrates on the essentials. Relating concept is Information and Attention where clear and proper writing would help our readers especially when reading off the screen.

Module 4—Web Search and Evaluation

Barker J., (March, 2007), Finding Information on the Internet—A Tutorial, UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshops, (Accessed March 15, 2007)
Reference: The Internet is a host of countless resources, some useful and some maybe not. Finding quality resources on the Internet is a vital acquired skill. This tutorial on how to find information on the web was prepared by Joe Barker for Internet Workshops offered by the Teaching Library at the University of California at Berkeley. Barker structures this tutorial in an ascending complexity order starting with an introduction to the Internet, things you should know before you begin searching, types of search tools, recommended search strategy to methods to evaluating and citing your results. This tutorial relates to two concepts: Information and Attention and the challenge of ‘Fast’ Data. Information on the Internet evolves continuously. Advanced Internet users should hold appropriate skills to find information on the Internet and evaluate its worth.

Smith C., (December, 2006), Searching and Evaluating Web Resources, Warwick- Centre for Academic and Professional Development, (Accessed March 15, 2007)
Reference: As advanced Internet users, we might use the Internet as a medium for research. Our research can only be as good as our search queries. Christine Smith starts with an overview and examples for effective process to deciding on powerful search queries. She then continues to summarise strategies to searching and evaluating online resources in summary points that are succinct and easy to understand. It is an excellent brief and at the same time a thorough resource to using search engines including practical tips to searching and analysing your results. And again, relating concepts are the challenge of ‘Fast’ Data and Information and Attention.

Missing Subjects

RSS Feeds

Concepts: Asynchronicity, The challenge of ‘Fast’ Data, Information and Attention

Nottingham M., (2005), RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: Even though this tutorial includes an introduction to feeds syndication, it is aimed at web developers who are already familiar with XML. Mark Nottingham produced a simple tutorial to start webmasters on the right track to creating RSS feeds.

RSS Reader
Reference: An RSS aggregator application for Windows platform that is available for free. It is a simple feeds reader that comes with no pre-subscribed feeds. It is so intuitive that it even lacks a help file.

Time Atlas, RSS Tutorial—How to Add RSS Feeds to FeedDemon, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: A seven-minute Flash demonstration provided by Time Atlas that provides an interactive orientation to RSS feeds. It shows how to easily find RSS channels and how to add them to your newsreader. FeedDemon application is used for this demonstration.

Microformats

Concepts: The Relationship of Data to Meta-Data, The Mobility of Electronic Digital Data

Costello R., (2007), Tutorials on Microformats, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: Roger Costello starts these series of tutorials by introducing Microformats, which are specific HTML markup constructs that many web services can understand and therefore reuse the data provided helping these applications to work smarter. Costello includes an overview of Microformats, their purpose, Microformats examples and their syntax.

De Bruin R., (2006), Tails Export Extension for FireFox, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)
Reference: Robert de Bruin developed an extension for Firefox that detects currently available Microformats constructs on a web page and allows you to reuse them by exporting them to various applications.

Social Bookmarking

del.icio.us, (Accessed on April 10, 2007)
ma.gnolia.com, (Accessed on April 10, 2007)
Reference: The primary use for social bookmarking web sites is to store your bookmarks online, which you can access the same bookmarks from anywhere. This system’s advantages are many including efficient research and collaboration. You can add notes and tag your links, which helps you to remember your bookmarks as well as share your link collection with others. Another advantage of social bookmarking is the ability to find the best resources through people and not machines. In social bookmarking, you find the bookmarks that other people think are worth keeping.
Concepts: The Relationship of Data to Meta-Data, Virtually a Library?

I’ve selected my resources for the annotated bibliography assignment and even finished writing my annotations. Next step is to select what concept each resource relates to.

I’ve been reading each concept and so many of them relate to so many of my selected resources. How do I select which conceot to attach to which reference? I think I will chose the ones that are most prominent but then again so many of the concepts are interconnetced. Hence my hardship in selecting them.

With my current studies, the mailing lists I’m signed to, all the feeds that I follow, before even mentioning work and social life, I’m just not interested in joining any specific newsgroup.

With chatting and instant messaging, I’m signed up to MSN Messenger and Gmail Talk. In the past, I used to also use Yahoo, AOL and ICQ. I even still have my ICQ number: 222234966. Don’t know if it’s still valid. I used to use Trillian as the IM user agent to help with all the different accounts.

Since then, I gave up most of accounts and just stuck with MSN-not because it’s better but because I had a Hotmail account as many of my friends. Hence, even when I changed my email from Hotmail to Gmail, I stayed with MSN Messenger. And I have been IM with a few of the other students lately.

I now use Adium as my IM application. It is set up with my MSN account. Should set it up with my Gmail one as well. I also have been thinking of getting an imac email account but haven’t made up my mind. Why should I bother with yet another email? Furthermore hardly any of my friends use a mac. Maybe. Maybe not.

With my essay for NET12 submitted, I turned my attention again to NET11.

Many of the resources that I am considering to use in the Annotated Bibliography for Advanced Internet Users assignment are ones that I knew beforehand. What I found interesting while I was working through this assignment is that for a couple of the subjects, I had more than enough resources. With others, I had a hard time finding resources to use. Maybe, I couldn’t decide whether they are suitable and good enough as a resource because I was new to them. Maybe my search terms were not specific enough. I don’t know which one is the case.

With the subjects I was familiar with and already knew what resources I wanted to use I had a different problem. How many should I include? The assignment asked for a minimum of two resources but did not specify a maximum. So, I thogut I could basically include all. But what if my instructor will think that I can’t judge a good resource and therefore try to play safe and include more than the necessary? Or maybe I’m just seeing things that are not there.

I wonder what my instructor will think about the resources I chose for subjects I believe are missing from the course curriculum?

Module 1—Internet and Protocols

Indiana University Technology Information Services, Knowledgebase, What is the Internet?

Coyle K, (1998), A Primer on Internet Privacy

HTML Source, The History of the Net

Clark D., (1998), The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols

Module 2—Net Communications

IT Security Staff, (November 2006), Hacking Email: 99 Email Security and Productivity Tips on IT Security, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)

Office of Privacy Commissioner,(March 2003), Guidelines on Workplace E-mail, Web Browsing and Privacy, (Accessed on March 15, 2007)

Module 3—e-Writing

Rutter R., (2005), The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
A practical guide to web typography

A List Apart, 16 Articles on the topic of Writing for the Web
How to write good. Writing to communicate. Writing and editing for the web. Copy as user interface.

How to write for the Web, USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication

Module 4—Web Search and Evaluation

Barker J., (March, 2007), Finding Information on the Internet - A Tutorial, UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshops, (Accessed March 15, 2007)

Smith C., (December, 2006), Searching and Evaluating Web Resources, Warwick- Centre for Academic and Professional Development, (Accessed March 15, 2007)

Missing Subjects

Blogs and RSS Feeds

Time Atlas, RSS Tutorial-How to Add RSS Feeds to FeedDemon, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)

Nottingham M., (2005), RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)

Free RSS Reader

Microformats

Costello R., (2007), Tutorials on Microformats, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)

De Bruin R., (2006), Tails Export Extension for FireFox, (Accessed on March 06, 2007)

Social Bookmarking

del.icio.us
ma.gnolia.com

Any feedback??

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