So... wow... what a journey! What have I learnt in Net 11?
1. Communication & technology go hand in hand in the internet evolution.
2. Without technology there is no internet; without users there is no internet evolution.
3. To not understand some of the technology of the internet is to under use the medium.
4. To not understand communication processes, netiquette and the asynchronous nature of the space is to under use the medium.
5. Without due consideration to individual context, organisation and discernment the user under values the potential of their use of the internet.
6. Without due consideration of others and communities online the user is not developing the skills required to become an advanced user of the space.
7. Without practice and refinement of techniques and a holistic approach to understanding of the internet space, the user short changes himself and others because the information ecology of the internet is amazing!!
Why don't we talk of a 'communication ecology'? I don't know. We should, because that's a perfect definition, in my opinion, of the whole experience. Without communication the internet is not an information ecology. In my Concepts Assignment (below) topic re Virtual Library, I reference Tim Berners-Lee and the future of information on the internet re linked data which relies on communication. Future developments, applications, uses, direction - everything depends on the engagement and ongoing communication processes of us - internet users. The better we become at understanding the medium, the more involved we become with the processes and with sharing information online, the greater opportunities we have, individually and collectively, to maximise our experiences, enhance our lives and integrate the medium fully in the true spirit of the global village.
I'm sold!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Is it any good?
Of the three sites found on my earlier search task, I've evaluated their relevance according to the guidelines in the Ohio SU Tutorial.
ANNOTATION:
Rolling Stone Magazine was established in San Francisco in 1967 as a magazine borne of its time, dedicated to music, culture and politics. In four decades of publication, the magazine has barely strayed from its founder, Jann Wenner's ethos and has remained relevant in every era since, covering important milestones in youth culture, to remain at the forefront of its market today. Many of its writers and contributors launched their subsequent stellar careers between Rolling Stone's pages and include the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, , Cameron Crowe, PJ O'Rourke and Ben Fong-Torres. The site is an adjunct to the magazine and is easily navigable, informative and topical. In 40 years of publication Rolling Stone Magazine has well and truly established its credentials and its iconic status, amongst music aficionados in particular, which has helped to define it and position it as a credible source for the latest music and pop culture news, reviews and profiles.
ANNOTATION:
Rolling Stone Magazine was established in San Francisco in 1967 as a magazine borne of its time, dedicated to music, culture and politics. In four decades of publication, the magazine has barely strayed from its founder, Jann Wenner's ethos and has remained relevant in every era since, covering important milestones in youth culture, to remain at the forefront of its market today. Many of its writers and contributors launched their subsequent stellar careers between Rolling Stone's pages and include the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, , Cameron Crowe, PJ O'Rourke and Ben Fong-Torres. The site is an adjunct to the magazine and is easily navigable, informative and topical. In 40 years of publication Rolling Stone Magazine has well and truly established its credentials and its iconic status, amongst music aficionados in particular, which has helped to define it and position it as a credible source for the latest music and pop culture news, reviews and profiles.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Concept 7: “Netiquette describes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ conduct in online communication (amongst other forms of internet use). But what is important about Netiquette is the concept that there are these ‘agreed’ rules of what is good and bad.” (Allen, n.d.)
Since the internet is a largely unregulated, collective space, guidelines for codes of behaviour are imperative in order to avoid total anarchy. Given that there is no one governing body, as such, legislating that behaviour it falls to internet users, citizens of the internet, to dictate what does and doesn’t constitute ‘proper’ behaviour and to come to an agreed and implicit consensus. The responsibility for ‘policing’ those rules rests squarely on the shoulders of the participant members of each respective community – as individuals and as a group - and although these standards vary according to offline cultural norms, and can be difficult in cross-cultural communications, it would appear that the basis of appropriate behaviour is a common civility.
In traditional media – press, TV, radio – there are regulatory bodies that set the standards of behaviour for each medium and within different territories. The fact that the internet has no geographical boundaries means regulation cannot possibly come from a particular governing body nor be country-specific.
I agree with the many commentators who have likened this apparent ‘lawlessness’ to the old Wild West in America. A society that was created by the people had to determine for themselves what was right and fitting behaviour and what penalties would be incurred should those rules of behaviour and conduct be contravened by an individual. These rules were formed on a value system that was based on civility. Morriss (Morriss, A.P., 1998,), in making his comparisons between the Wild West and the internet, illustrates the effectiveness of the ‘citizen police’ model online:-
“Despite the lack of centralized control, the Internet exhibits a remarkable degree of order. Without government coercion, millions of users have managed to adopt standardized protocols enabling the network to function, Social norms have arisen in a wide range of contexts, norms that are enforced by communities of users rather than a centralized police force.”
Pregowski (Pregowski, M.P., 2009) asserts that there are two types of users who contravene the rules of netiquette either through lack of technical understanding, “newbie”, or through intentional disregard, “egoist”. In terms of community response to each of these types, most users will attempt to guide and instruct the former while censuring the latter. Non-observance of netiquette results in a variety of agreed community-enforced consequences for the individual. Pregowski further states that competence is required in order to fully understand the different applications of netiquette that effective internet engagement and communication require.
“In order to loose [sic] the eventual stigma of a newbie, one should gain competence and act responsibly. By following what is expected from us – and written in netiquettes thus present in the propagated personal pattern of appropriate Internet user – we define or re-define our online self-identities, hopefully becoming more responsible and careful. The stigma of the egoist is more powerful than the one of the newbie and more difficult to loose [sic].”
Regardless of the forum, netiquette requires each individual user to apprise themselves of the rules of engagement. While these are myriad and diverse, best practice online puts the development of individual competence and the maintenance of community civility above the individual ego.
ANNOTATED SITES:
SITE 1:
Pregowski, M.P. (2009). Rediscovering the netiquette: The role of propagated values and personal patterns in defining Self-Identity of the Internet user. Observatorio (OBS*), 8, 353-367.
http://www.obs.obercom.pt/index.php/obs/article/view/241/248
The author presents his research into the personal patterns of ‘the appropriate internet user’ in terms of netiquette practices. His research methodology involves a comprehensive search for the definitive ‘norms’ that recur regardless of the application. Identifying certain individual and collective values as they relate to internet behaviours and contrasting negative behaviours with accepted standards of best practice, Pregowski aims to illustrate the ways in which individuals determine for themselves and in concert with others appropriate behaviour online and, further, ways in which community values provide important cues for new users.
_________
SITE 2:
Hambridge, S. (1995). RFC 1855: Netiquette Guidelines. Found in http://oasis.curtin.edu.au/help/general/netiquette.cfm Retrieved May 2, 2009.
http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html
The author, together with members of the IETF-RUN Working Group of Intel Corporation, has drafted a comprehensive set of guidelines for netiquette that cover a wide range of applications and protocols. Drawing from many sources, both academic and popular, Hambridge presents a ‘how to’ guide to one-to-one and one-to-many communications online using plain English that is easily understood by new users. Covering specific netiquette guidelines for mail, chat, mailing lists and information services, this informative memo and its well-referenced sources provide the internet user, who wishes to become a more advanced practitioner, with a basic framework for appropriate netiquette behaviours .
REFERENCES:
Allen, M. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11 The Internet-Communications. Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
Morriss, A.P., (1998). The Wild West Meets Cyberspace. Vol.48. (7). In The Free Man Online. Retrieved May 4, 2009, from The Free Man Online.
Concept 22: “Public Space and Regulation: Aside from some regulation of ‘obscene’ or ‘illegal’ content in some countries, the internet is a very unregulated publishing space”. (Allen, n.d.)
There is a polarity of opinion in both academia and in public discourse that positions the internet as either utopian or dystopian, democratising or anarchic.
Beyond that are the ongoing discussions over the ‘space’ … is it private or public? Can it be regulated and, if so, by whom and how?
Without defined boundaries or locales within traditional territorial jurisdictions the internet represents a space that is unable to be regulated by conventional, localised legislation. Steve Jones (Jones, S., 1997. pp.20-21) refers to the attempts made in 1996 by the United States Congress to enforce some legislation on the internet via the Communications Decency Act (CDA) , parts of which were rejected by Federal Judges as infringing on the free speech of adults. He asks, “…is the CDA a response to the dissolution of the boundary between public and private and the fears that dissolution brings?.”
In her Introduction, Diana Saco (Saco, D., 2002. p. xxvii) posits the ongoing dichotomy as, “The jumble of institutional and individual linkages and of local and global connections over the internet, for example, creates contradictory possibilities both positively for international democratic activism and negatively for new forms of covert government surveillance and control.”
Further illustrating the difficulties faced by individual territories and organizations who seek to impose regulations via censorship on the internet Peng Hwa Ang (Peng Hwa Ang, n.d.) suggests that,
“The Internet, by combining the traits of traditional communication media, poses problems for censorship because it becomes difficult to classify it and to decide who regulates it and how. This is the problem of regulatory paradigm.”
He adds:
“Should the Internet be treated as a postal service because it has e-mail? Or do the capabilities of Internet Relay Chat and voice-telephony make it a telecommunication service? Then does the presence of electronic newspapers make it a print medium? Or should the availability of radio and television stations make it a broadcast medium? Should its use of the computer mean that the computing model of regulations apply? Can the advertising model--where advertisements are often screened before they are placed in the media--be used for censorship?”
In the absence of externally enforced regulation and giving further consideration to my own analysis [above] of Concept 7: “Netiquette.” (Allen, M., n.d.), the notion of ‘citizen police’ suggested by Morriss (Morriss, A.P., 1998,), to describe the internet individual and community as enforcers of the rules of appropriate behaviour online would seem most workable. This model calls on internet users to refer to their own moral compass and the shared values of their fellow net citizens to recognise the individual rights of others within this democratic space whilst also acknowledging that without a group consensus and ‘citizen police’ enforcement of some form of standards and regulation, the space becomes anarchic and unusable.
In order to co-exist as private citizens in a public forum with no geographical boundaries and in the absence of any one regulatory or governing body online the people who use the space, therefore, are required to be the gate-keepers.
ANNOTATED SITES:
SITE 1:
Jones, S., (Ed.) (1997). Virtual Culture: Identity & Communication in Cybersociety. Sage:London.
Editor and Contributor Jones provides an interesting overview of the emerging technological age of the internet in a prescient study, published 12 years ago. In his chapter “The Internet and its Social Landscape” he discusses concepts of space as it relates to public fora and, specifically, how the internet can be interpreted within that definition. Referencing other critical thinkers in this area, Jones formulates his own theories on the role community plays in, and the possibilities for, the regulation of the internet space.
SITE 2:
Peng Hwa Ang, (n.d.). How Countries Are Regulating Internet Content.
http://www.isoc.org/INET97/proceedings/B1/B1_3.HTM
Peng Hwa Ang is Dean of the School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the author of the book “Ordering Chaos: Regulating the Internet”. (Cengage Learning: 2005.). In this undated paper, he sets forward a concise argument for the difficulties inherent in external regulation and censorship of the internet and explains those difficulties as they relate to individual countries and their specific cultures and societal standards. He concludes that there is no one universal model of regulation that can be applied because of these cultural differences.
REFERENCES:
Allen, M. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11 The Internet-Communications. Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
Jones, S., (Ed.). (1997). Virtual Culture: Identity & Communication in Cybersociety. Sage: London. Retrieved May 9, 2009, from Google Books.
Peng Hwa Ang, (n.d.). How Countries Are Regulating Internet Content. Retrieved May 9, 2009 from Internet Society (ISOC).
http://www.isoc.org/INET97/proceedings/B1/B1_3.HTM
Saco, D. ,(2002). Cybering Democracy: Public Space & The Internet. University of Minnesota Press:USA. Retrieved May 5, 2009, from Google Books.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=p0oyDlBwatYC&printsec=frontcover
OTHER SOURCES:
Concept 32: “Virtually a Library?. What advanced users seek to do is to exploit the advantages of the idea of a library in a way that suits their personal needs, effectively creating personal virtual libraries.” (Allen, n.d.)
As we head towards an inevitable Web 3.0 it becomes more apparent that applying some traditional ‘library’ systems of classification and organisation to the online storage and retrieval of information is necessary to deal with the large, and growing, amount of data uploaded daily to the internet, but may not be the whole solution.
In a recent talk, Tim Berners-Lee (Berners-Lee, T., 2009), inventor of the World Wide Web, revealed emerging Web 3.0 technologies to be even further centred around ‘linked data’, wherein a search for one category of information will take the user further and further into related and inter-related areas of information sources, all provided by and contributed to, assessed and rated by everyone and anyone. The practice of social networking as it relates to Web 2.0 , he predicts, will expand into a much greater contribution of information sharing of government, enterprise, science, academia and personal/social data.
How the individual user learns to access relevant data and evaluate and store the information retrieved relies as much on being aware of personal meaning and context and individual behaviour, that allows for a personalised system of organisation of online-accessed information, as it does on merely being technically proficient enough to understand the mechanisms that underlie search and classification methods. In order to dodge information overload the advanced user organises for him or herself their own library storage system for retrieved information, taking public information and personalising it by creating their own ‘private’ library. My own library is created using bookmark folders relevant to classification of information that is contextualised according to a set of categories and standards that work best with my methods.
If Berners-Lee is right then it will be individuals and communities who continue to provide assessment of information and rank that information for other users according to standards that will include, but are not limited to, credibility and usefulness and categories that define the format in which that information is provided, size of files, source and related information via hyperlinks. Going beyond Web 2.0, tomorrow’s virtual library will rely on peer-evaluated guidance and peer-constructed micro-libraries.
Since data available on the internet is not only text, a standardised method of classification as used in traditional libraries would be difficult to implement. There is also the question of how to classify user-generated data and how to distinguish it from data from a more ‘legitimate’ source.
Ultimately, to be able to take full advantage of this vast information repository an individual user will be obliged to look closely at their own needs – what do I want from an online library? How do I assess and use the information at my disposal? How can I best organise the information I retrieve? With Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 will these pieces of individual data be collected together in micro hubs of categories grouped together by communities representing those interests? Will peer or community endorsements assist with our evaluation of the information we find? What is the best method for me to store information and create my private library?
ANNOTATED SITES:
SITE 1:
Berners-Lee, T., (2009). Talks: Tim Berners-Lee on the next web. TED.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
Tim Berners-Lee gives an insightful talk at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference in February 2009 about the future of information on the internet and the specific concept of ‘linked data’. He cites examples of the ways in which individual and community sharing of raw data in economics, government, science and social networking will enable internet users to drive the future of the evolution of the concept of classifying and sharing information online.
TED is an annual conference, established in 1984, to bring together the world’s greatest ‘thinkers and doers’ in the fields of technology, entertainment and design.
SITE 2:
IPL: The Internet Public Library. Established 1995.
http://www.ipl.org/div/about/iplfaq.html
The Internet Public Library is an interesting example of communities, in this instance an academic community (from the School of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan, USA.), initiating online library systems in order to assist particular users and researchers to easily access relevant online information. To the question of whether the IPL attempts to replace ‘traditional libraries’ the response is: “What we are trying to do is explore what the rich history and intellectual traditions of librarianship have to offer the dynamic but, let’s admit it, chaotic world of the Internet.”
REFERENCES:
Allen, M. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11 The Internet-Communications. Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
Berners-Lee, T., (2009). Talks: Tim Berners-Lee on the next web. TED. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
Chen, H. & Schuffels, C., & Orwig, R., (n.d.). Internet Categorization and Search: A Self-Organizing Approach. University of Arizona. Retrieved May 5, 2009.
http://ai.arizona.edu/papers/som95/som95.html
Herz, J.C., (2005.) The Space Between: Creating a Context for Learning. Educause Review. 40 (3). Retrieved May 5, 2009.
__________________________
Concept 3: “Effective Internet Communication combines technical and communicative competence.” (Allen, n.d.)
In the very early days of IT, to be ‘information literate’ was to have technological proficiency, or even mastery, of the online space. In 2009 it is even more imperative that information literacy incorporates competency in communicative practices and despite much discourse at an academic and policy level it would appear that the solution is most likely to come from individuals recognising that developing both sets of skills, in tandem, is critical to engagement with others online and requires practice and attention at both the technical and social communication levels.
Whitworth, (Whitworth, A., 2006. pp.3-4) believes that placing too much emphasis on the technical obscures the importance of the social meaning and asserts that,
While it does require knowledge of traditional communication protocols, the internet is a completely different space from all previous methods of communication. As the internet continues to evolve, and users become more acquainted with the technology and new developments, so the requirement that the user understand the medium as a tool for communication becomes more critical for continued effective communication practices.
With hypermedia now taking us beyond hypertext in the myriad ways in which we can communicate (not just with language) online, effective internet communicators will be those who apply the ‘practice makes perfect’ rule of thumb, or perhaps, more aptly in this constantly evolving space, ‘practice makes competent’, since the space is far from static and always developing, as each user individualises their practices thereby maximising their experience.
Castells (Castells, M., 2003.) suggests that it is in the understanding of the differences between other communication methods and those made possible via the internet and the development of personal skills, through regular use, and exploration, that the individualisation process can occur.
To either merely appropriate the space to continue entrenched practices of offline communication without understanding how the medium works or to be proficient in the technologies without understanding and incorporating social literacy, is to underestimate, and under-use, the potential of the internet as a powerful communication tool.
ANNOTATED SITES:
SITE 1:
December, J. (1996). Units of Analysis for Internet Communication. Journal of Communication, 46 (1), Winter.
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/december.html
The author is a PhD candidate in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. Taking concepts of communication as they apply to the internet, this comprehensively referenced article additionally details the technical processes that enable data dissemination and delivery. December provides concise definitions of both terminology and functions relating to communicating in the internet space, augmented with diagrams and graphics to support his thesis that the ways in which internet communication is made possible and can be effected by the user are best understood through an analysis of the individual elements that combine to make the whole.
SITE 2:
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/,edia/?sid=3008327
The 2007 recipient of The John Farradane Award, in recognition of outstanding work in the field of information science, Intute is a consortium of seven UK universities and their various partners. A free online service providing websites for education and research, the database is comprised of individual sources evaluated and selected for inclusion by Intute’s subject specialists. The Virtual Training Suite is a set of online tutorials that enable users to learn more about effectively searching, evaluating and communicating on the internet. The Tutorials are free and interactive and designed to improve internet research skills.
REFERENCES:
Allen, M., (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11 The Internet-Communications. Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
Castells, M., (2003.). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business & Society. (p.6). Oxford University Press: London.
Whitworth, A., (2006.). Communicative Competence in the Information Age: Towards a critical theory of information literacy education.
5 (1). Retrieved May 7, 2009 from the ICS Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy.
http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5-1/pdf/Whitworth_final.pdf
In the very early days of IT, to be ‘information literate’ was to have technological proficiency, or even mastery, of the online space. In 2009 it is even more imperative that information literacy incorporates competency in communicative practices and despite much discourse at an academic and policy level it would appear that the solution is most likely to come from individuals recognising that developing both sets of skills, in tandem, is critical to engagement with others online and requires practice and attention at both the technical and social communication levels.
Whitworth, (Whitworth, A., 2006. pp.3-4) believes that placing too much emphasis on the technical obscures the importance of the social meaning and asserts that,
“The technical aspects have, in fact, damaged its [information literacy] ability to be seen as a subject whose tools may include technological ones but whose field of interest is social.”It may appear naïve to state that I had, prior to commencing my studies, not considered the internet as a communication medium. I regarded it as a whole, a mysterious yet useful entity – ‘the Internet’ – that contained invisible tools that allowed me to send emails, search unlimited sources of information and publish a website. I did not stop to ponder how that happens and I never thought of the internet in terms of how I communicate.
While it does require knowledge of traditional communication protocols, the internet is a completely different space from all previous methods of communication. As the internet continues to evolve, and users become more acquainted with the technology and new developments, so the requirement that the user understand the medium as a tool for communication becomes more critical for continued effective communication practices.
With hypermedia now taking us beyond hypertext in the myriad ways in which we can communicate (not just with language) online, effective internet communicators will be those who apply the ‘practice makes perfect’ rule of thumb, or perhaps, more aptly in this constantly evolving space, ‘practice makes competent’, since the space is far from static and always developing, as each user individualises their practices thereby maximising their experience.
Castells (Castells, M., 2003.) suggests that it is in the understanding of the differences between other communication methods and those made possible via the internet and the development of personal skills, through regular use, and exploration, that the individualisation process can occur.
“Neither utopia nor dystopia, the Internet is the expression of ourselves – through a specific code of communication which we must understand if we want to change our reality.”By constantly discovering and learning ‘how’ communication is enabled via technology it becomes easier to understand ‘why’ use of this space relies on the user becoming a become a better internet communicator.
To either merely appropriate the space to continue entrenched practices of offline communication without understanding how the medium works or to be proficient in the technologies without understanding and incorporating social literacy, is to underestimate, and under-use, the potential of the internet as a powerful communication tool.
ANNOTATED SITES:
SITE 1:
December, J. (1996). Units of Analysis for Internet Communication. Journal of Communication, 46 (1), Winter.
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/december.html
The author is a PhD candidate in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. Taking concepts of communication as they apply to the internet, this comprehensively referenced article additionally details the technical processes that enable data dissemination and delivery. December provides concise definitions of both terminology and functions relating to communicating in the internet space, augmented with diagrams and graphics to support his thesis that the ways in which internet communication is made possible and can be effected by the user are best understood through an analysis of the individual elements that combine to make the whole.
SITE 2:
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/,edia/?sid=3008327
The 2007 recipient of The John Farradane Award, in recognition of outstanding work in the field of information science, Intute is a consortium of seven UK universities and their various partners. A free online service providing websites for education and research, the database is comprised of individual sources evaluated and selected for inclusion by Intute’s subject specialists. The Virtual Training Suite is a set of online tutorials that enable users to learn more about effectively searching, evaluating and communicating on the internet. The Tutorials are free and interactive and designed to improve internet research skills.
REFERENCES:
Allen, M., (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11 The Internet-Communications. Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
Castells, M., (2003.). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business & Society. (p.6). Oxford University Press: London.
Whitworth, A., (2006.). Communicative Competence in the Information Age: Towards a critical theory of information literacy education.
5 (1). Retrieved May 7, 2009 from the ICS Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy.
http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5-1/pdf/Whitworth_final.pdf
Friday, May 15, 2009
Space and Time
Digesting everything learnt so far in Net 11 studies in order to get my head around some of the concepts that particularly interest me. Regular readers of my blog will know I've grappled with technology and terminology and have given myself to musing over the concept of time more than once.
Coming into this Unit I believed that the internet was a big space 'out there somewhere' that was without boundaries - no geographical boundaries, no time boundaries, no legal boundaries. This space enabled me to save time. Quickly and efficiently I could find information. Searching was one of the first skills I developed because it appealed to the nosy me ... the one who loves to research anything! And what a minefield of information out there!! A joy for someone like me. I was an early email adopter and, once I started running a business from home and then starting up a Web 2.0 website my internet learning curve was rapid and, I thought, pretty comprehensive.
The space got bigger for me and the concept of time grew to include the revelation that I did not need to hop a plane to 'take meetings' in the US to do business for my site ... I merely exchanged emails, forwarded hyperlinks, received hyperlinks to develop business relationships across the other side of the globe ... a time (and money) saver indeed! How would I have gone about making those contacts without the internet?
Then I discovered, courtesy of Net 11 studies, that I'd only skimmed the surface of all there is to know. More terminology to grasp, more tools, more concepts to think about and all related back to the question of how my use of the internet is effected by and affects ME.
Some of the tools I have dismissed as downright useless for me. Some I have marvelled at and may incorporate. Some I'd like to get to know better but require me to find the time to explore at greater length.
Ultimately I conclude that making the most of this incredible space means evaluating time and its relationship to my world. If I'm going to be any good at incorporating the internet into my world, in a manner that serves my needs, then I need to develop the skills to be the best practitioner I can be. I need to be discerning. I need to understand that some things will be useful and applicable and some things I can reject. I need to understand the asynchronous nature of the space and give communication and connection due consideration.
Coming into this Unit I believed that the internet was a big space 'out there somewhere' that was without boundaries - no geographical boundaries, no time boundaries, no legal boundaries. This space enabled me to save time. Quickly and efficiently I could find information. Searching was one of the first skills I developed because it appealed to the nosy me ... the one who loves to research anything! And what a minefield of information out there!! A joy for someone like me. I was an early email adopter and, once I started running a business from home and then starting up a Web 2.0 website my internet learning curve was rapid and, I thought, pretty comprehensive.
The space got bigger for me and the concept of time grew to include the revelation that I did not need to hop a plane to 'take meetings' in the US to do business for my site ... I merely exchanged emails, forwarded hyperlinks, received hyperlinks to develop business relationships across the other side of the globe ... a time (and money) saver indeed! How would I have gone about making those contacts without the internet?
Then I discovered, courtesy of Net 11 studies, that I'd only skimmed the surface of all there is to know. More terminology to grasp, more tools, more concepts to think about and all related back to the question of how my use of the internet is effected by and affects ME.
Some of the tools I have dismissed as downright useless for me. Some I have marvelled at and may incorporate. Some I'd like to get to know better but require me to find the time to explore at greater length.
Ultimately I conclude that making the most of this incredible space means evaluating time and its relationship to my world. If I'm going to be any good at incorporating the internet into my world, in a manner that serves my needs, then I need to develop the skills to be the best practitioner I can be. I need to be discerning. I need to understand that some things will be useful and applicable and some things I can reject. I need to understand the asynchronous nature of the space and give communication and connection due consideration.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Blue Screen of Death
I came home from a lovely day out to find a blue screen message. I had never seen it before, knew not whether it was 'for real' or a hoax so picked up the 'phone and called one of those wizard people who know everything. "Aaaaah", laughs my friend, "You've got the Blue Screen of Death!". He told me to turn off the computer for 30 seconds then restart and then go about uninstalling any recently installed downloads that I thought were not necessary. So, Farewell Bookmark Buddy. Gone. Farewell Copernic. Go!. I said Go! It really didn't want to go ... not only that but up came a window asking me to complete a survey asking why I'd opted to ask it to Go!
Another new experience on the interwebs. Blue Screen of Death.
Another new experience on the interwebs. Blue Screen of Death.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Reserving my judgement
Well I didn't get rid of Copernic as boldly stated in my previous post. I was too lazy to uninstall. In the meantime, I've had cause to use it when other search engines have failed to turn up what I was looking for ... and even though it returns far fewer results, I have to say the ones it does return are pretty spot on! So, I'm reserving my judgement for now. I'll hang onto it a while.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Eddie Vedder Drinks Bile Beer!
Did you know that? Neither did I! But 15th result on Copernic ....reveals that interesting piece of information: WARNING NS for those with a weak stomach ;)
The words of my choosing were 'Eddie Vedder', he of Pearl Jam fame. I used Google which is my preferred internet search engine and there were 2,150,000 results. Popular guy! Copernic, on the same search, returned 18 results, most of which appeared to be gathered from yahoo. Hmmm.
The first result in Google was for wikipedia , the first in Copernic was imdb (which was 6th on Google). I'd take a wiki entry in this instance over imdb if purely for the fact that fans have obviously compiled it and everyone knows fans do their homework! - loads of links, cross-references, discographies and sources noted .... if you wanted to do an in depth study of the man, starting here, this wiki has it all.
The most promising results? 2,150,000 vs 18.... I'll keep googling.:)
I didn't realise that what I do when I search is 'Boolean'. I remember when everyone said you had to use a '+' to link two or more search terms together in a search which was fine until one day I forgot the '+' and got the same results and concluded for myself that the '+' was redundant.
I didn't think 'Eddie Vedder' was narrow enough for this task so I pretended I was searching for a particular song he had done and, in the first instance named it, and the second searched as if I could not recall the name. I used Google.
Eddie Vedder Hide Your Love Away - 22,400 results
Eddie Vedder song beatles - 174,000 results
Eddie Vedder beatles cover - 303,000 results
The top search result for all was a youtube link to an audio of the track with a clip from the Beatles' film 'Help'. It had 22,544 views. It was disconcerting watching the Beatles but hearing Vedder so I instead clicked on another alternative at youtube, courtesy of ann19oct of Vedder singing with an accompanying montage of stills of him singing. This one had 277,007 views - clearly people like to look at him while listening to him as the recording was identical in both clips ;)
I also selected a result from Rolling Stone magazine 'Weekend Rock List: Best Beatles Covers' from March 2008. It's a trusted source and I've been collecting Rolling Stone for a hundred years or more so I was happy with this pick.
Then I found consequenceofsound.net and a review by Michael Roffman of an August 2008 performance by Vedder at the Roosevelt Uni Auditorium in Chicago at which he performed Hide Your Love Away. The review, pictures, set list and detail were a great read and their 'About Us' says they cover the music scene in Chicago and New York. It's a music e-zine specific to those two cities and well written.
So I bookmarked the youtube video and consequenceofsound and recorded all my results and the Rolling Stone info in a simple word doc for future reference for this Unit.
Copernic is, sadly, going to have to be uninstalled. Although I can see the benefit of having another search engine at my fingertips, every time I now access Mozilla I'm being prompted to select Copernic as my default and that's irritating :)
The words of my choosing were 'Eddie Vedder', he of Pearl Jam fame. I used Google which is my preferred internet search engine and there were 2,150,000 results. Popular guy! Copernic, on the same search, returned 18 results, most of which appeared to be gathered from yahoo. Hmmm.
The first result in Google was for wikipedia , the first in Copernic was imdb (which was 6th on Google). I'd take a wiki entry in this instance over imdb if purely for the fact that fans have obviously compiled it and everyone knows fans do their homework! - loads of links, cross-references, discographies and sources noted .... if you wanted to do an in depth study of the man, starting here, this wiki has it all.
The most promising results? 2,150,000 vs 18.... I'll keep googling.:)
I didn't realise that what I do when I search is 'Boolean'. I remember when everyone said you had to use a '+' to link two or more search terms together in a search which was fine until one day I forgot the '+' and got the same results and concluded for myself that the '+' was redundant.
I didn't think 'Eddie Vedder' was narrow enough for this task so I pretended I was searching for a particular song he had done and, in the first instance named it, and the second searched as if I could not recall the name. I used Google.
Eddie Vedder Hide Your Love Away - 22,400 results
Eddie Vedder song beatles - 174,000 results
Eddie Vedder beatles cover - 303,000 results
The top search result for all was a youtube link to an audio of the track with a clip from the Beatles' film 'Help'. It had 22,544 views. It was disconcerting watching the Beatles but hearing Vedder so I instead clicked on another alternative at youtube, courtesy of ann19oct of Vedder singing with an accompanying montage of stills of him singing. This one had 277,007 views - clearly people like to look at him while listening to him as the recording was identical in both clips ;)
I also selected a result from Rolling Stone magazine 'Weekend Rock List: Best Beatles Covers' from March 2008. It's a trusted source and I've been collecting Rolling Stone for a hundred years or more so I was happy with this pick.
Then I found consequenceofsound.net and a review by Michael Roffman of an August 2008 performance by Vedder at the Roosevelt Uni Auditorium in Chicago at which he performed Hide Your Love Away. The review, pictures, set list and detail were a great read and their 'About Us' says they cover the music scene in Chicago and New York. It's a music e-zine specific to those two cities and well written.
So I bookmarked the youtube video and consequenceofsound and recorded all my results and the Rolling Stone info in a simple word doc for future reference for this Unit.
Copernic is, sadly, going to have to be uninstalled. Although I can see the benefit of having another search engine at my fingertips, every time I now access Mozilla I'm being prompted to select Copernic as my default and that's irritating :)
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Passing time with Eminem
I downloaded Quicktime without any difficulties. The task was useful actually because I have encountered a few instances where I've needed Quicktime to watch something and haven't been bothered at the time to go through the download process ... now I have it! And I watched Eminem's clip of "We made You" (hilarious - the more times you see it the more things you pick up.... the less colourful John Mayer/Jennifer Aniston moment can pass you by if you're not paying attention!) while I waited for Bookmark Buddy to download. It seemed an interminable wait. Again it brings me back to concepts of time. I remember when a download used to take hours not minutes - you had to go away and leave it and keep coming back to check how many more minutes the thing was expected to take! Here I was in 2009 being irritated that Bookmark Buddy took about 6 minutes to download.
I had a play around with the Buddy and decided - nah it's not for me. Too cumbersome. I'm happy with the way I have my Bookmarks working already courtesy of Firefox - simple, easy to navigate and retrieve.
I had a play around with the Buddy and decided - nah it's not for me. Too cumbersome. I'm happy with the way I have my Bookmarks working already courtesy of Firefox - simple, easy to navigate and retrieve.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Web 2.0 Rules! Bring on Web 3.0!
I'm a visual person so purely from that perspective my preferred format is the Internet Communications Furl List. The web is a visual medium so that appeals immediately rather than the bland presentation of highlighted blue links.
With Web 2.0 applications in place I also get the added advantage of seeing each link rated, how many discussion entries pertain to each link, members and number of views.
This information is provided by my peers, others who have accessed the information and whose evaluation of that information I can reference immediately. I may disagree with their assessments or their comments. I may agree with some or all. Instantly I am part of an activity that is 'shared' and the solo search I may be engaged in is no longer just a solo search. Instead of just being in task-driven mode I am now taken into an asynchronous interaction with strangers who share a common interest with me.
It's like following a well-trodden track in the sand - someone has gone before me and left their mark. Someone will, no doubt, come after me and walk in my footprints. The process is one of unending engagement.
Web 2.0 has taken the old perception that being online is an insular or anti-social pastime and turned it into a vastly social activity. In cyberspace you are not alone!
With Web 2.0 applications in place I also get the added advantage of seeing each link rated, how many discussion entries pertain to each link, members and number of views.
This information is provided by my peers, others who have accessed the information and whose evaluation of that information I can reference immediately. I may disagree with their assessments or their comments. I may agree with some or all. Instantly I am part of an activity that is 'shared' and the solo search I may be engaged in is no longer just a solo search. Instead of just being in task-driven mode I am now taken into an asynchronous interaction with strangers who share a common interest with me.
It's like following a well-trodden track in the sand - someone has gone before me and left their mark. Someone will, no doubt, come after me and walk in my footprints. The process is one of unending engagement.
Web 2.0 has taken the old perception that being online is an insular or anti-social pastime and turned it into a vastly social activity. In cyberspace you are not alone!
Everyone Has An Opinion
Blogs first came on my radar with all the hoo-haa in the media when Arianna Huffington launched The Huffington Post in 2005. I was fascinated by this apparent group blog and the notion that several people could contribute their thoughts to a constantly updating log that wasn't a website. It was a public airing of individual opinion and I thought that sounded fab!
Around the same time I received an email from my ISP telling me I'd been allocated FREE blog space and since I was already engaged in wonderful, lively, opinionated political and social conversations via email with a friend, I suggested he and I use the offer of the blog space and make our own blog.
We never did because really we had no idea how to create a blog or the time to figure it out - we just totally and excitedly loved the concept of having a dedicated space online in which to sprout our thoughts,opinions and theories about our world and our times.
The motivation would seem to have been then that we would have a forum for our views beyond our one-to-one email exchanges but did we consider if anyone else would be at all interested in what we had to say? Probably not. But I think we thought if Arianna Huffington and her celebrity pals could have their say why couldn't we.... pseudo journalism for the ordinary folk?
The Huffington Post stands out for me as a great example of the rise of the blog. In his article in The Washington Post, July 9 2007, "The Blog That Made It Big", Howard Kurtz makes the following observation:
Read the whole article here.
Around the same time I received an email from my ISP telling me I'd been allocated FREE blog space and since I was already engaged in wonderful, lively, opinionated political and social conversations via email with a friend, I suggested he and I use the offer of the blog space and make our own blog.
We never did because really we had no idea how to create a blog or the time to figure it out - we just totally and excitedly loved the concept of having a dedicated space online in which to sprout our thoughts,opinions and theories about our world and our times.
The motivation would seem to have been then that we would have a forum for our views beyond our one-to-one email exchanges but did we consider if anyone else would be at all interested in what we had to say? Probably not. But I think we thought if Arianna Huffington and her celebrity pals could have their say why couldn't we.... pseudo journalism for the ordinary folk?
The Huffington Post stands out for me as a great example of the rise of the blog. In his article in The Washington Post, July 9 2007, "The Blog That Made It Big", Howard Kurtz makes the following observation:
" ...skeptics dismissed it as a vanity outlet for her [Huffington] and her Hollywood friends. But The Huffington Post has become an undeniable success, its evolution offering a roadmap of what works on the Web."
Read the whole article here.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
HTML I love you ... yes I do!
I am so in love with HTML and myself now it's ridiculous.
As a web publisher but not one of the site's content contributors, the CMS and coding on site has always been an imagined labyrinthine mystery world of gobbledygook for me. When I'm asked to have a 'piece of code' or a tag placed on the site by a third party I send it to an IT wizard person without even looking at it. How the contributors' content appears on the site via the magic of our CMS has always been beyond me.
So I followed the tutorial with great trepidation, I stepped into the forbidden world and - guess what? - it SO makes sense! Now any of you who have been following my blog will know that I have struggled with FTP, Telnet, terminology and technology consistently. But HTML - the scariest of the lot? Pffffft ... I am now officially one of those wizard persons.
Well not quite yet but you get the idea.
It's a very logical sequence of codes. It is not at all difficult to grasp how a coded instruction becomes web content. A big window has opened for me now and I'm going through it with gusto. This is the start of me understanding 'the web' in a very real and practical way.
The hardest part of the task was trying to figure out how to take a screenshot, how to save a screenshot and now I'm about to attempt to post those screenshots (thanks everyone on the BB - what an amazing resource your individual and collective contributions are).
I'm not fancy enough to create my own web page just yet so I'm posting the tutorial exercise to back up my wizard claims.
As a web publisher but not one of the site's content contributors, the CMS and coding on site has always been an imagined labyrinthine mystery world of gobbledygook for me. When I'm asked to have a 'piece of code' or a tag placed on the site by a third party I send it to an IT wizard person without even looking at it. How the contributors' content appears on the site via the magic of our CMS has always been beyond me.
So I followed the tutorial with great trepidation, I stepped into the forbidden world and - guess what? - it SO makes sense! Now any of you who have been following my blog will know that I have struggled with FTP, Telnet, terminology and technology consistently. But HTML - the scariest of the lot? Pffffft ... I am now officially one of those wizard persons.
Well not quite yet but you get the idea.
It's a very logical sequence of codes. It is not at all difficult to grasp how a coded instruction becomes web content. A big window has opened for me now and I'm going through it with gusto. This is the start of me understanding 'the web' in a very real and practical way.
The hardest part of the task was trying to figure out how to take a screenshot, how to save a screenshot and now I'm about to attempt to post those screenshots (thanks everyone on the BB - what an amazing resource your individual and collective contributions are).
I'm not fancy enough to create my own web page just yet so I'm posting the tutorial exercise to back up my wizard claims.
Chat is great!
I'm a yapper so chat gets a big tick from me. Thanks to Bee and Ernest for participating on Skype last Sunday. Together we figured out a few Skype-specific options to enhance the chat experience and being able to watch the little pencils move to indicate who was currently writing a reply meant being able to regulate the flow of the chat between three people a little better than if that visual indicator was absent, I think.
I could see if either and/or both were in the process of writing a response and wait my turn.
The discussion via chat had an intimacy and an immediacy that, for me, felt more like a telephone call or a face to face conversation than email or forum posting. Chat is friendly. I'm a fan!
I could see if either and/or both were in the process of writing a response and wait my turn.
The discussion via chat had an intimacy and an immediacy that, for me, felt more like a telephone call or a face to face conversation than email or forum posting. Chat is friendly. I'm a fan!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
A Question of Time
It's a big concept to consider ... time.
As I expand my understanding of new and different ways of communicating with others via the internet I begin to re-think my concepts of time - for time is of the essence, there's no time like the present, a stitch in time saves nine.
To date I've held firm that the internet saves me time. I can email quick and efficiently for work and pleasure and receive prompt replies via the same means. I can save time using my browser and quickly access all sorts of interesting, meaningful and helpful information. I can chat whilst I'm working which means I can continue working and talk at the same time without wasting precious minutes.
If I want to bookmark something it's there for my ready reference permanently. I can subscribe to RSS Feeds so that I know when there's something new on my favourite sites at a click. I can subscribe to email newsletters and updates which are delivered daily into one of my many mail boxes ... and all this happens without me having to leave my home/office.
The process of opting in to an email list was time-consuming. It also meant I had to create a new email address and password - I already have 5! It means I have another email inbox to check. It also means I have a load more emails to check. It's taking up more of my time!
The Lists are designed to bring together a group of people for discussion with a common interest. If 'discussion' is key and 'common interest' is key then what is the benefit over joining a forum where common interest discussions take place every minute? There's no 'baggage' writing a quick post on a Forum. If it's a moderated forum the post still has to be approved first (like a List) and if it's not, then the discussion can continue in real time without any lag. The discussion sits in cyberspace not in my inbox that requires me to log in and out, read all the unread emails that have piled up and clear my inbox regularly.
My experience of joining an email list has shown me that it is an activity that requires more of my time to participate. It requires more of my time to execute. It's time consuming not time saving. Even if my interest in a subject was profound I believe that the internet provides far more time efficient options for group discussion for me to participate in than a List.
I think, like all good things, the internet best serves the individual when the individual opts to be discerning rather than all-embracing.
As I expand my understanding of new and different ways of communicating with others via the internet I begin to re-think my concepts of time - for time is of the essence, there's no time like the present, a stitch in time saves nine.
To date I've held firm that the internet saves me time. I can email quick and efficiently for work and pleasure and receive prompt replies via the same means. I can save time using my browser and quickly access all sorts of interesting, meaningful and helpful information. I can chat whilst I'm working which means I can continue working and talk at the same time without wasting precious minutes.
If I want to bookmark something it's there for my ready reference permanently. I can subscribe to RSS Feeds so that I know when there's something new on my favourite sites at a click. I can subscribe to email newsletters and updates which are delivered daily into one of my many mail boxes ... and all this happens without me having to leave my home/office.
The process of opting in to an email list was time-consuming. It also meant I had to create a new email address and password - I already have 5! It means I have another email inbox to check. It also means I have a load more emails to check. It's taking up more of my time!
The Lists are designed to bring together a group of people for discussion with a common interest. If 'discussion' is key and 'common interest' is key then what is the benefit over joining a forum where common interest discussions take place every minute? There's no 'baggage' writing a quick post on a Forum. If it's a moderated forum the post still has to be approved first (like a List) and if it's not, then the discussion can continue in real time without any lag. The discussion sits in cyberspace not in my inbox that requires me to log in and out, read all the unread emails that have piled up and clear my inbox regularly.
My experience of joining an email list has shown me that it is an activity that requires more of my time to participate. It requires more of my time to execute. It's time consuming not time saving. Even if my interest in a subject was profound I believe that the internet provides far more time efficient options for group discussion for me to participate in than a List.
I think, like all good things, the internet best serves the individual when the individual opts to be discerning rather than all-embracing.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
More to Email than just beating snail mail!
Oh yeah I'm getting alot to think about ;) ... the key word here for me is THINK! I'm realising how much I do online everyday that I take for granted, that I don't THINK about and, to that end, email is just something I deal with every day that's a more rapid form of communication than snail mail.
Now I appreciate the applications that have allowed me to create folders and organise my email ins and outs into a logical and easily accessible filing system. I appreciate that I can email to one or many at the same time at my whim and how instantly I know from whom my correspondence has been received and what it's about BEFORE I get to the contents.
I operate my business and personal emails from the one spot. How convenient! I have four separate email addresses being delivered to me daily. So that I can sort them easily I have rules set up that instruct each mail received to pop into its appropriate folder on receipt. At a glance I can see any new mail to any of the four addresses and keep everything separate.
Immediately after reading an email and taking action I deliver it to an appropriate sub-folder for safe keeping. I do the same with my Sent mails, that way I can quickly and efficiently find any correspondence at a later date. Within folders I may have even more sub-sub folders!
On receipt of an email, the Header tells me exactly who has sent it. I may know them I may not. I look at domains for a clue to origin if the email is from someone I don't know personally or an organisation I'm not familiar with and often I'll google the domain to discover more about the organisation before deciding whether to respond and/or what to respond.
Often the subject is unhelpful in providing clues to the body of the message so I tend to skim over the subject and get straight to the message. Again, if it's an unsolicited email I'll check out the sig and do a bit more googling before replying.
I have a spam mail folder which I've set up to immediately deposit anything that might appear dodgy. I always check it because many times a perfectly legitimate email has ended up relegated to the spam folder. Each day, sometimes several times a day, I send the spam items to delete and then delete the lot so that I can be sure I'm doing daily housecleaning of my inbox - I don't like clutter ;)
I'll tend to use cc when someone needs to be copied in or included in a discussion. If an email arrives to me with cc to someone else I always determine whether or not the cc recipients need to be included in my reply and if not I reply only to the sender. If I receive a chain mail all-inclusive thing from a friend I always remove all the prior forwards before forwarding. I do that for a couple of reasons - 1) I find it really irritating to receive a great long chain mail with a thousand and one addresses on it and 2) I believe by removing the 'priors' I'm ensuring that the person or people to whom I'm forwarding the email are not privvy to others' addresses and only need to see that it's me who is forwarding it to them.
bcc is tricky. I've only ever used it a couple of times because generally all my correspondence, even work-related, is transparent and doesn't require a 'hidden' third-party recipient to be included. I'm not sure where I stand on the whole bcc thing and since I don't really use it I had forgotten about it - which does leave me wondering: How many emails have I received and/or replied to all where there is a bcc?? It's a bit sneaky isn't it? More reason to be absolutely certain your email correspondences are pleasant.
I'm always thinking before I email because I'm aware that although it's an electronic form of communication it is a written communication therefore it's prudent to check, double-check and re-read before hitting send to be certain you haven't said anything that could potentially come back to haunt you!
Thank you email - as of today you are officially appreciated beyond just being considered a fast method of written communication. :)
Now I appreciate the applications that have allowed me to create folders and organise my email ins and outs into a logical and easily accessible filing system. I appreciate that I can email to one or many at the same time at my whim and how instantly I know from whom my correspondence has been received and what it's about BEFORE I get to the contents.
I operate my business and personal emails from the one spot. How convenient! I have four separate email addresses being delivered to me daily. So that I can sort them easily I have rules set up that instruct each mail received to pop into its appropriate folder on receipt. At a glance I can see any new mail to any of the four addresses and keep everything separate.
Immediately after reading an email and taking action I deliver it to an appropriate sub-folder for safe keeping. I do the same with my Sent mails, that way I can quickly and efficiently find any correspondence at a later date. Within folders I may have even more sub-sub folders!
On receipt of an email, the Header tells me exactly who has sent it. I may know them I may not. I look at domains for a clue to origin if the email is from someone I don't know personally or an organisation I'm not familiar with and often I'll google the domain to discover more about the organisation before deciding whether to respond and/or what to respond.
Often the subject is unhelpful in providing clues to the body of the message so I tend to skim over the subject and get straight to the message. Again, if it's an unsolicited email I'll check out the sig and do a bit more googling before replying.
I have a spam mail folder which I've set up to immediately deposit anything that might appear dodgy. I always check it because many times a perfectly legitimate email has ended up relegated to the spam folder. Each day, sometimes several times a day, I send the spam items to delete and then delete the lot so that I can be sure I'm doing daily housecleaning of my inbox - I don't like clutter ;)
I'll tend to use cc when someone needs to be copied in or included in a discussion. If an email arrives to me with cc to someone else I always determine whether or not the cc recipients need to be included in my reply and if not I reply only to the sender. If I receive a chain mail all-inclusive thing from a friend I always remove all the prior forwards before forwarding. I do that for a couple of reasons - 1) I find it really irritating to receive a great long chain mail with a thousand and one addresses on it and 2) I believe by removing the 'priors' I'm ensuring that the person or people to whom I'm forwarding the email are not privvy to others' addresses and only need to see that it's me who is forwarding it to them.
bcc is tricky. I've only ever used it a couple of times because generally all my correspondence, even work-related, is transparent and doesn't require a 'hidden' third-party recipient to be included. I'm not sure where I stand on the whole bcc thing and since I don't really use it I had forgotten about it - which does leave me wondering: How many emails have I received and/or replied to all where there is a bcc?? It's a bit sneaky isn't it? More reason to be absolutely certain your email correspondences are pleasant.
I'm always thinking before I email because I'm aware that although it's an electronic form of communication it is a written communication therefore it's prudent to check, double-check and re-read before hitting send to be certain you haven't said anything that could potentially come back to haunt you!
Thank you email - as of today you are officially appreciated beyond just being considered a fast method of written communication. :)
As I continue to explore a new world of engagement through the various tasks assigned in this Unit, it's become more and more apparent to me that communication lies at the base of every process and activity undertaken online.
I've always considered myself an effective communicator. English was my favourite subject throughout my school years. I have a very good grasp of the English language and can communicate ideas and thoughts adeptly to others whether through oral skills or in writing. My working life has been centred around communicating - as a writer, a Publicist, a Public Relations Consultant, it has been imperative that my communication skills are top notch.
There have always been protocols in place: How to write a business letter; how to effectively communicate a message via a Media Release; how to compose a feature article for publication; how to write a news article for publication; how to conduct a business meeting; how to structure a presentation or pitch.
I have learnt these methods of communication and am a skilled practitioner. But I am now developing my understanding of how these protocols do and don't translate to the online environment.
Communication online has a different set of protocols for different types of online communication. There are right and wrong ways of contributing to Forum Posts; right and wrong ways of being involved in email lists and newsgroups; right and wrong ways to Twitter; right and wrong ways to effectively communicate via email.
It is not enough to apply standards used outside online communication to communicate online. There's a whole new set of rules to be learnt in order to become an effective online communicator.
So,if the methods and forms of communication are different between offline and online communication what, if anything, is the same?
Etiquette.
Underpinning all positive and productive communications whether offline or online is a type of social etiquette. It makes sense! There are a set of implicit social rules of conduct when communicating with someone else that need to be followed in order for effective communication to be achieved. More than that, these 'rules' allow people to have meaningful and productive exchanges via basic skills such as listening, responding, reacting and empathising.
Netiquette. An understood set of guidelines to appropriately communicate in an online environment, a 'network etiquette' that informs all effective, positive and 'human' communications conducted via the internet.
Well what an eye opener! I had given no thought at all to netiquette in the decade since I first logged onto the world wide web. I took my traditional communication skills and my social niceties with me and off I went to 'communicate' as I had always done, and with supreme confidence.
Sticking within the confines of what I already understood as good communicating meant I merely lurked in any space where I didn't fully understand 'the rules of engagement'. I was an observer but not a participant beyond emailing and some basic chat with friends.
How limiting! What a way to under use the full experience of the internet!
I'm on my way to further crunching of this theory but at this stage I have decided that the key to online communication requires an understanding of netiquette first and foremost.
I've always considered myself an effective communicator. English was my favourite subject throughout my school years. I have a very good grasp of the English language and can communicate ideas and thoughts adeptly to others whether through oral skills or in writing. My working life has been centred around communicating - as a writer, a Publicist, a Public Relations Consultant, it has been imperative that my communication skills are top notch.
There have always been protocols in place: How to write a business letter; how to effectively communicate a message via a Media Release; how to compose a feature article for publication; how to write a news article for publication; how to conduct a business meeting; how to structure a presentation or pitch.
I have learnt these methods of communication and am a skilled practitioner. But I am now developing my understanding of how these protocols do and don't translate to the online environment.
Communication online has a different set of protocols for different types of online communication. There are right and wrong ways of contributing to Forum Posts; right and wrong ways of being involved in email lists and newsgroups; right and wrong ways to Twitter; right and wrong ways to effectively communicate via email.
It is not enough to apply standards used outside online communication to communicate online. There's a whole new set of rules to be learnt in order to become an effective online communicator.
So,if the methods and forms of communication are different between offline and online communication what, if anything, is the same?
Etiquette.
Underpinning all positive and productive communications whether offline or online is a type of social etiquette. It makes sense! There are a set of implicit social rules of conduct when communicating with someone else that need to be followed in order for effective communication to be achieved. More than that, these 'rules' allow people to have meaningful and productive exchanges via basic skills such as listening, responding, reacting and empathising.
Netiquette. An understood set of guidelines to appropriately communicate in an online environment, a 'network etiquette' that informs all effective, positive and 'human' communications conducted via the internet.
Well what an eye opener! I had given no thought at all to netiquette in the decade since I first logged onto the world wide web. I took my traditional communication skills and my social niceties with me and off I went to 'communicate' as I had always done, and with supreme confidence.
Sticking within the confines of what I already understood as good communicating meant I merely lurked in any space where I didn't fully understand 'the rules of engagement'. I was an observer but not a participant beyond emailing and some basic chat with friends.
How limiting! What a way to under use the full experience of the internet!
I'm on my way to further crunching of this theory but at this stage I have decided that the key to online communication requires an understanding of netiquette first and foremost.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Lists
I've joined my first List. Yep I have. I don't know what goes on there, I don't know what purpose it serves. I don't know anything about Lists at all - but I figure I'm about to learn another new thing about the internet so bring it on!
Understanding the technology of online communication
My hand is up! I have discovered that I am one of those people who use the internet as a regular communication tool without any thought to how my communiques are being processed and delivered.
Tackling some of these tasks has been frustrating and highlighted the limitations of the logical side of my brain! I'm asking myself constantly why someone with good comprehension skills (that's me) has such great difficulty comprehending the 'language' of some of the tasks. I'm not really progressing with my grasp in the first instance but do understand the outcome when I eventually get there. I still believe it's a terminology issue for me and I find myself googling definitions and explanations constantly.
Now I have managed the traceroute task and it was an easy exercise once some handy tips had been posted on the DB - again thanks to all my fellow students :) - and I used Centralops.net for the exercise.
The outcome is that I have discovered that it took 19 hops from one IP to the Curtin IP ergo I understand now that there is a far greater process going on behind the scenes when one specific IP attempts to connect to another IP!
Is it a useful application for me? No. Will I traceroute again? No. Did I learn something. Absolutely yes! :)
Now I just need to learn, or should I say, comprehend, the instructions that will enable me to take a screenshot!
Tackling some of these tasks has been frustrating and highlighted the limitations of the logical side of my brain! I'm asking myself constantly why someone with good comprehension skills (that's me) has such great difficulty comprehending the 'language' of some of the tasks. I'm not really progressing with my grasp in the first instance but do understand the outcome when I eventually get there. I still believe it's a terminology issue for me and I find myself googling definitions and explanations constantly.
Now I have managed the traceroute task and it was an easy exercise once some handy tips had been posted on the DB - again thanks to all my fellow students :) - and I used Centralops.net for the exercise.
The outcome is that I have discovered that it took 19 hops from one IP to the Curtin IP ergo I understand now that there is a far greater process going on behind the scenes when one specific IP attempts to connect to another IP!
Is it a useful application for me? No. Will I traceroute again? No. Did I learn something. Absolutely yes! :)
Now I just need to learn, or should I say, comprehend, the instructions that will enable me to take a screenshot!
Tracing route to curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.56]...
| hop | rtt | rtt | rtt |
| ip address | domain name |
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 70.84.211.97 | 61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com |
| 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 70.87.254.1 | 1.fe.5746.static.theplanet.com |
| 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 70.85.127.105 | po51.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com |
| 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 70.87.253.1 | et3-1.ibr03.dllstx3.theplanet.com |
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 157.238.225.5 | xe-2-4.r01.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net |
| 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 129.250.3.73 | ae-3.r20.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net |
| 7 | 41 | 47 | 42 |
| 129.250.2.168 | as-2.r20.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net |
| 8 | 47 | 100 | 43 |
| 129.250.5.254 | po-1.r00.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net |
| 9 | 37 | 138 | 37 |
| 204.1.253.166 | |
| 10 | 186 | 184 | 186 |
| 202.158.194.157 | so-4-0-0.bb1.b.syd.aarnet.net.au |
| 11 | 196 | 197 | 198 |
| 202.158.194.33 | so-2-0-0.bb1.a.mel.aarnet.net.au |
| 12 | 205 | 207 | 205 |
| 202.158.194.17 | so-2-0-0.bb1.a.adl.aarnet.net.au |
| 13 | 233 | 233 | 233 |
| 202.158.194.5 | so-0-1-0.bb1.a.per.aarnet.net.au |
| 14 | 234 | 234 | 234 |
| 202.158.198.178 | gigabitethernet0.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au |
| 15 | 233 | 233 | 235 |
| 202.158.198.186 | gw1.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au |
| 16 | * | * | * |
| | |
| 17 | * | * | * |
| | |
| 18 | * | * | * |
| | |
| 19 | 236 | 235 | 235 |
| 134.7.179.56 | systems.curtin.edu.au |
Trace complete
-- end --Friday, March 6, 2009
While the actual Telnet task outcome was underwhelming in itself, I've been considering the type of thinking that must have originally been behind the concept. Given that the technology precedes what we now know as the Internet those early initiators were clearly Super Thinkers!
What we commonly take for granted in the myriad ways in which the internet connects us to information anywhere in the world would possibly not be ours were it not for those bright sparks who had the foresight and the dedication to take a concept, a 'what if?', and make it work. Kudos!
Asking around tech-savvy colleagues and friends who have already completed tertiary education, the general consensus is that Telnet is 'old school' in terms of remotely accessing resource information. However, it is still used to facilitate some online gaming activities where remote access is required so perhaps it's not totally redundant just yet?
FTP, on the other hand, is still useful and as mentioned in my previous post, was the preferred method used in my PR/Publicist roles to distribute hi-res images, games screenshots and other big files to media. The fact that the file (especially big files) sits in 'cyberspace' instead of taking up space on my computer or the recipient's computer is an obvious plus.
Blinkenlights was a delight. Again I have to commend those incredibly creative and talented individuals of the world who continue to find new uses for existing applications. A few people I shared blinkenlights with, while acknowledging the obvious talent of its creators, also remarked that such creative output can only be the result of people having too much time on their hands.
Exactly! There is no innovation, development, discovery or creativity without dedication, effort, sheer dogged belief - and time.
What we commonly take for granted in the myriad ways in which the internet connects us to information anywhere in the world would possibly not be ours were it not for those bright sparks who had the foresight and the dedication to take a concept, a 'what if?', and make it work. Kudos!
Asking around tech-savvy colleagues and friends who have already completed tertiary education, the general consensus is that Telnet is 'old school' in terms of remotely accessing resource information. However, it is still used to facilitate some online gaming activities where remote access is required so perhaps it's not totally redundant just yet?
FTP, on the other hand, is still useful and as mentioned in my previous post, was the preferred method used in my PR/Publicist roles to distribute hi-res images, games screenshots and other big files to media. The fact that the file (especially big files) sits in 'cyberspace' instead of taking up space on my computer or the recipient's computer is an obvious plus.
Blinkenlights was a delight. Again I have to commend those incredibly creative and talented individuals of the world who continue to find new uses for existing applications. A few people I shared blinkenlights with, while acknowledging the obvious talent of its creators, also remarked that such creative output can only be the result of people having too much time on their hands.
Exactly! There is no innovation, development, discovery or creativity without dedication, effort, sheer dogged belief - and time.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
I am not technologically challenged!
I am terminology challenged. There's a big difference and undertaking the arduous journey that ultimately led me to the correct FTP and Telnet Task outcomes illustrates that difference.
I have learnt that you cannot download the FTP Server and expect it to do the job. No, you need the FTP Client. You knew that didn't you?
Sadly, I did not. Many, many hours blaming the computer and the operator, soliciting advice from the BB Discussion Boards, wandering around Google and, ultimately, using the 'phone a friend' lifeline, I got there - and it was a breeze!
Yep, I get it. FTP is a great tool. I also understand now why we used it for media instead of an Electronic Press Kit in my previous incarnation as a Publicist/PR. Up went the hi-res images and across to the journalist went the log in details. Hey Presto!
I also understand now why my system didn't have the features then to enable me access (blame the computer) and why I couldn't find them to install (blame the operator).
Sadly, true story and, yes, CAPITALIZATION [sic] matters but, in this instance, it was not the root cause of my dilemma.
TELNET was no easier - you can probably see where I'm going here. I don't want to re-live it so I'll keep it brief.
Again, search, email and skype pleas to friends and many many hours later, the BB Discussion Boards (thanks Hannah!) got me closer to my goal. With one final hurdle (thanks Kate!) I was done. Yes, I even managed the email part. I watched the fabulous blinkenlights and sat back in my chair.
There's no time for reflection on these useful tools just yet. I'm still doing the victory dance around the desk. I've pulled the blinds - I wouldn't want anyone to think I was up myself.
I am terminology challenged. There's a big difference and undertaking the arduous journey that ultimately led me to the correct FTP and Telnet Task outcomes illustrates that difference.
I have learnt that you cannot download the FTP Server and expect it to do the job. No, you need the FTP Client. You knew that didn't you?
Sadly, I did not. Many, many hours blaming the computer and the operator, soliciting advice from the BB Discussion Boards, wandering around Google and, ultimately, using the 'phone a friend' lifeline, I got there - and it was a breeze!
Yep, I get it. FTP is a great tool. I also understand now why we used it for media instead of an Electronic Press Kit in my previous incarnation as a Publicist/PR. Up went the hi-res images and across to the journalist went the log in details. Hey Presto!
I also understand now why my system didn't have the features then to enable me access (blame the computer) and why I couldn't find them to install (blame the operator).
Sadly, true story and, yes, CAPITALIZATION [sic] matters but, in this instance, it was not the root cause of my dilemma.
TELNET was no easier - you can probably see where I'm going here. I don't want to re-live it so I'll keep it brief.
Again, search, email and skype pleas to friends and many many hours later, the BB Discussion Boards (thanks Hannah!) got me closer to my goal. With one final hurdle (thanks Kate!) I was done. Yes, I even managed the email part. I watched the fabulous blinkenlights and sat back in my chair.
There's no time for reflection on these useful tools just yet. I'm still doing the victory dance around the desk. I've pulled the blinds - I wouldn't want anyone to think I was up myself.
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