Chat Task

Here we are finally on the topic of Chat sites. I have been an avid user of chats sites for as long I can remember and still use at least 2-3 times everyday. I have used many different sites over the years but have still been drawn back to MSN or as its known now "Windows Live Messenger".

When I first started on the Internet I used ICQ as it was back then, suggested by family and friends as the chat site they used. In the mid-to-late 90's it was one of the best around, until MSN messenger took over and wam bam thank you ma'am that was it for me.

The most appealing side to MSN is its easiness of use. The GUI look has made this chat site easy for the absolute chat beginner to pick up straight away. I have several friends who are what we call "Spaztechs", in other words there technically spastic or challenged lol, but when told to join up with MSN, have grasped the concepts of chatting brilliantly. In fact some of them now feel they have moved up to a new rating of partially spaztech.

Most people, when I have asked them what draws them to Windows Live, say they like the ability to received hotmail emails at the same time as using the chat function because of the pop-up screen alert. They all love the idea of the emoticons/winks and feel that some of them actually denote how they feel better than what they could put into words. The multiple chat function to is a plus for most. You can very easily add others to your chat session making it more of a get together with your mates than just a solo chat or one-on-one.

Another bonus to Windows Live is the "Appear Offline" function. I find it interesting to sometimes show as offline and sit back and watch how many users actually log on and off the chat site over the course of an hour. This handy little tool is also good when the study is going hard and you know you shouldn't be chatting. With this tool you can pick and choose whom you speak to.

I personally find online chatting much better than face-to-face chatting. I feel I can say more to someone without putting my foot in it because I have the availability to read my post before pressing send. This in turn allows me to delete anything that may sound offish, self-centered or even condescending. I tend to open my mouth before thinking so for me its a blessing. Thank you Windows Live Messenger for saving my bacon on more than one occasion.

Email Lists

When it comes to lists I have to admit I haven't been an avid user in a long long time. Many moons ago when we decided to join up to this weird thing everyone called the "world wide web" I signed up to as many lists, newsgroups and chat sites as possible, eager to get out there and see what it was everyone was raving about. Now I find a lack of time stops me from being involved with allot of unnecessary Internet time waster sites but with studying Net11 I came to find myself looking once again at certain lists.


I ventured to yahoo, got myself an account and took a look. If only I had decided to do this before now I could have saved myself allot of time and aggravation. I came across a list that once signed up will send you daily notifications of proxy sites. I now feel I can keep up with the kids at school that are banned from using these sites but are forever finding new ones to use.

So all i can say is look out kiddies I'm back on track and right there watching lol.

In Net11 we are asked to record our thoughts on two questions:

1) What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?
2) Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

For me the pros and cons between email lists and discussion boards is this. I feel that email list are there to find out something about a certain topic you are interested in. For example you sign up to certain list which take your fancy therefor you receive only information that you want to know or need to know. Discussion boards differ in the way that many topics may appear on the one board. Most discussion boards have threads that are ongoing or you have the ability to start a new thread if you need assistance with a certain question.

So getting back to the question "What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?" I see the pros as being email lists will give you direct answers/information to a specific field of interest whereas a discussion board can contain many different topics and the con is that you have less ability to ask an opinion for a topic which is does not have anything to do with that list unlike discussion boards where you have the ability to ask anything about any topic and you will more than likely receive an answer from someone who is active with that board.


We are then asked "Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?". This for me was where I stumbled. I really don't find that there is a huge difference between the two except that a discussion board is as it says. It is a discussion therefor allowing for many opinions to be written and spoken about. Allot of people tend to go onto chat sites to discuss further something that may have been written on a board. By using chats Internet users tend to feel they are having a face-to-face chat without actually being in the same room as the other people they are online to.

Overall I think it is a personal choice for the individual to decide which one they prefer. Discussion boards tend to take up allot of time whereas for me I can sign up for a email list topic that I need information from and do not feel obligated to respond if I don't want to or don't have the time for.

Mod 2 - Emails

What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?

When an email is sent to you regardless of which email program you use, you will always see the persons email address of who has sent it, the domain from where it came and whether or not it is a reply to an email you had previously sent or not. Along with the name is normally (dependant on whether or not the sender has used one) a subject heading and the date on which it was sent.

Some people do not bother to use the subject line which can be a real pain, especially if the email itself is a spam mail. Because of their lack of courtesy in not using the subject line you are forced to read through a percentage of the email to get the gist of what it is about.

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

I find it useful to use 'cc' when sending emails to allot of uses. For example I work in a High School IT Dept and send emails to all staff on a regular basis. By using 'cc' I can send the same email to multiple users at once and I know that everyone has received it. I do however use 'bcc' if I need to keep certain staff members email address's private and this is normally when we send an email to a student but would like their teachers to receive a copy so they are informed of all correspondence made.

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

An easy way to make sure all emails you send are readable by the recipient is to make sure they are written and sent in plain text. Not all software on computers are the same therefor this can cause a problem when opening and email and especially attachments. A perfect example of this was with the release of Office 2007. Allot of people when it was first released were attaching word documents to their emails and not realising that there was a change in the way it was saved. Office 2003 used .doc whereas office 2007 uses .docx. Therefor anyone using Office 2003 was unable to open any file saved or created using .docx files.

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

With my email programs I must say I dont have allot of rules set nor do I have allot of filters in use. I do however use the filter to blockout adult content. I have my spam and junk email filters always on and they seem to do a really good job of keeping my inbox clean and free of rubbish emails. I do have to admit one of my biggest pet hates is junk mail. If I dont know the sender I normally delete it straight away.

How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

My folder structure in my email accounts are always the same. I have a private folder, a funnies folder, business folder (I run my own home business) and uni folder. This way I can easily direct myself to where my emails are stored.

Internet Tools - Traceroute

Okidokili, well I had no troubles at all doing this log using http://network-tools.com/ in fact the network-tools web page made it very very simple.

I managed to locate Curtin Uni using the above web site with the following outcome:

I did however get a bit confused when trying to figure out the average time it took to get from the tools site to the server at Curtin but the 2 figures I came up with are 289ms and 96.3ms. Any body who can clarify this for me please feel free to leave a post as maths was never one of my stronger points and obviously still isn't up to today lol.

The IP address or number I came across for Curtin University was 134.7.179.56

Over all I found this task to be quite easy to do and I have to admit, since finding traceroute I have been tracing allot of different places on the web and have come across a few surprises, especially where my Internet goes to, or goes through I should, say before reaching my final destination.

'CAPITALIZATION MATTERS'

"according to the readme file, 'CAPITALIZATION MATTERS' - what word goes in the blank?".

I am presuming that this is the correct answer to the question. I did struggle with this task but thanks to the message boards on the Uni website I was able to guide myself through. Thanks to those that left directions for this task it certainly helped me out.

I found downloading the FTP program easy that was fine, but when it came to actually using it that's where I drew a blank. I have never used an FTP client before so trying to figure out exactly what was going on or what I was meant to do, was a bit daunting, especially when your a firm believer in "instructions are only there to be used if all else fail's" lol. Next time (and from now on) I think I will be at least having a quick browse over instructions, as I'm sure it will make things allot easier.

Although I managed to do this task successfully I still feel I am missing allot of vital information on FTP itself. Looks like there's some surfing to be done in regards to FTP's so I'm off to ride the www.

Telnet - Come on Try It!

Telnet ...... "What Is It".......

Personally I had never heard of telnet until starting this Course. At first I had trepidations with using it as I really don't like the thought of connecting remotely to another computer specially through command lines after being bitten badly once before, but after giving it a go "WOW".

Connecting to the Library Resource was cool but trying the Star Wars over at blinkenlights made me laugh. I really had no idea such things were possible to do. My Internet knowledge has already been expanded over the years but I have to say with applications like this I'm thinking somehow I will definitely be seeing the net in a new light.

Who ever designed the Star Wars program needs a pat on the back, certainly helps make studying and learning something new more fun.

"Top Five Tips for New Bloggers"

"Top Five Tips For New Bloggers......Mmmm Let Me See"

Okay let me start here. Its Saturday afternoon, no-one home and I decide to get my act together and enter the world of blogging for the first time. I am no where near a newbie to the www or computers for that matter, but boy oh boy wasn't I made to feel like one lol.

After surfing around the net I finally came across a site (blogger.com) which seemed simple enough, so i thought, to get myself my very own blog page. Signing up seemed very easy, picking a template again yep very easy but then I decided hmmmmm lets change the way in which the page looks. Well instead of just simply doing changes that were available through the website itself, I decided nope lets go for a surf and search for free downloadable templates. Geezzzzz what was I thinking lol. After googling several different web pages for FREE downloads and I shout the word Free because they only seem to be free to look at but not to use, I finally came across a design I liked. Again this seemed fairly simple just follow the instructions. Well this is where the fun began!

The instructions said to copy and paste the text into the text box . Yes okay I got that but which text box? The one on the download site or the one on my blog site. After trying several different ways I gathered they meant to paste it into the HTML section on my blog site.

OK I'll try that seems to make sense. Yeah right wrong again! This time I was greeted with a whole lot of errors and boxes that needed closing before it could accept the HTML code. By this stage I was starting to lose my cool and it didn't help that one sticky little fly decided to enter the house and use my ears as a resting post. So by this time I am still without a decent looking blog page and getting angrier by the minute. I decided to do one more web search for easy and free blog templates. Woohooo I finally hit the jackpot. A page that finally had reasonable instructions for implementing a blog template. After struggling a tad more I finally had a template that I liked. Now it was time to start my blog, the easiest part of all when starting a blog page.

Because of my experience, or I should say inexperience, with the world of blogging I can only suggest to any one deciding to do this type of communication 5 helpful tips:

1. Patience


2. Patience


3. Patience


4. Patience


5. And if the above 4 tips do not work, find a teenager to set it up for you, as I'm pretty sure they will have it sorted in a matter of minutes.

On a more serious note though the best advice I can offer someone thinking of making a blog page is to search the Internet, look at whats available and what is easiest for them to manage and don't be afraid to try something new. Now that I have the blog page design finished, I am very confident in the fact that I would and will use this form of Internet communication again, although next time I'll borrow someones kids to have on hand just incase lol.