SUMMARY OF LECTURE SEVEN
The lecture gave an introduction to the largest module of the course. I had previously used "the Internet" and "WWW" interchangeably but discovered that they are not the same - that the WWW is just one part of the Internet - it is a big catalogue that sits in the Internet network. More correctly, "The Web is a universe of accessible information stored on computers throughout the world. The information is available through a gigantic network called the Internet." The web was developed in 1989 in an effort to make the sharing of information possible. We then learned about URLs (Universal Resource Locators) and how to "read" them - what all the abbreviations mean and in what order they are placed. This makes predicting what will be on a Website easier before you visit it.
We then discussed the physical tools required to get onto and use the WWW - computer, modem, dial-up software, telephone line etc. Web browsers are programs that allow the user to see the pages of the WWW - it is useful to know that there are more that just Internet Explorer. Most browsers have a similar interface and it is a good idea to get to know what the toolbar icons all do eg. Netscape and FireFox have a better Tabs and Bookmark system. There are some useful interface shortcuts, some of which I know already and others which will be good to use.
SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP SEVEN
In task 1 ,we had to evaluate two given Websites for authenticity and reliability. Tasks 2, 3 and 4 were to evaluate and answer questions on a Website on Martin Luther King.
Task 1:
http://www.haggishunt.scotsman.com/ attempted to appear authentic with its professional layout. It included photographs and a lot of tabs to allow the user to get more information. It was a very detailed site with a lot of information.
What struck me immediately was that a haggis is a Scottish dish made from sheep's or calf's offal, oatmeal, suet and seasonings boiled in a skin made from the animal's stomach, not as the Website was claiming that is is an animal that lives in Scotland. They made several ridiculous claims like the migration of the Haggis happens on 31 December each year, when humans are in no condition to hunt them (!) and also that their mating season starts exactly on 25 January each year (no animals mating season is based exactly on our calendar). They also had made up words like "haggisclopedia" and that they are a member of the "duck-filled phatypuds" which are nonsense, but nonetheless amusing. It is for these reasons that I could see that the site was to be taken lightly and seemed to have been made for amusement.
http://www.molosia.org/ tried to appear authentic , again by having a professional layout with tabs to direct you around the site. It also claimed to be the "official website of..." and even had a photograph of their president as well as a flag and coat of arms! It was also a very detailed site with a lot of information.
However after taking a better look you realise that this site is also produced for amusement (who are these people that they have so much time on their hands to come up with these sites?!). The site could have been making a mockery of things that other nations have and are proud of. The railroad was clearly a model trail set in the photograph. The gold medal winner at their Olympic games was the only runner and was performing in front of an empty stadium. The currency's value was based on a tube of cookie dough. The size of the country was 2.5 hectares and it fought a war over a buried dog. All these and many more like it point to the fact that this Website is not serious and give it away as a spoof.
Tasks 2, 3 and 4:
http://www.martinlutherking.org/
Before visiting the Website, I expected to find information on the life of the activist for civil rights for blacks in America. I was expecting to find a historical account. The top-level domain ".org" gave me the impression that it had been constructed by an organisation - purely information based, although because it was from an organisation the information may be biased.
My initial impressions when visiting the site were that it was presenting another side of Martin Luther King - perhaps a lesser known side to his life.
Looking around the Website, I realised that the site had clearly been constructed by an extremist group with a very one-sided viewpoint with the intention of spreading hatred. Very anti-black and anti- Martin Luther King, the site is biased and was not what I initially expected.
This further pushed home the message that we should always look at Websites with a very open mind and always ask the question "What is the purpose of this site?", when using it for accessing information, as the information could be very biased and really just someone's opinion. The information gained from such a site could be useful but we should take care and not necessarily believe everything that we find on the WWW. I am embarrassed to admit that this has been an eye-opening experience for me!
SUMMARY OF READINGS
SUMMARY OF "SEARCH ENGINE WATCH TUTORIALS" http://searchenginewatch.com/resources/article.php/2156611
This article was useful as it contained general, introductory information on the major search engines (eg. Google, Yahoo) as well as the lesser-known ones (AllTheWeb.com, AOL Search, HotBot, AltaVista etc.). The information was balanced, giving the features of each and was applicable to Website owners as well as the "surfer". Google is the top choice for those searching the Web and has a wide range of features. Yahoo is the Web's oldest directory but in recent years has made the shift to a crawler-based engine, while still retaining its directory.
It explained how search engines work - crawler- based engines (eg. Google) create their listings automatically and as a result if you change your pages, the search engine will find this and change how you are listed. Whereas human-powered directories (eg.the Open Directory) depends on the Web owner to submit a short description for the directory for the site and as a result as the site changes, the listing will not - unless a new description for the site is written.
On the crawler-based engines there are ways to increase your rankings - that is how high you are on the list of hits. Good web-page design is important as well as HTML tags, frequency of use of keywords (without over-using them).
There was also a section on tips for when you are searching. Be specific when entering keywords - the engine will search for what you ask it to. A + helps you to be more specific as all the keywords will be in the site. A - sign means that words which are not of interest in a site will result in the site being discarded from your search. Inverted commas on either side of the words typed together mean that those words will appear in the found site all together. Another tip was that you could guess the URL of a site that you are looking for. Something to bear in mind is that when you are using a search engine you are only searching through the engine's collection of WWW documents and not the complete WWW. With the help of a search engine you can only retrieve WWW documents on the exact words that they contain.
Some other sections included a blog (news items on search engines posted by various contributors), a forum (offering advice on using search engines), and news items by search engine watch experts (eg Aaron Shear discusses the importance of site speed for site owners).
I found this site useful and will mark it as a favorite as it may prove useful in the future. I printed out a list of Internet terms from the site to include in my file with this week's lecture notes for future reference.
SUMMARY OF "HISTORY OF THE WWW" (from the W3C) http://www.w3.org/History.html
This article was a list of the chronological events of the history of the development of the WWW.
It all began in 1945 when Vannevar Bush wrote about a photo-electrical-mechanical device called a Memex which could make and follow links between documents on a microfiche. The 1960's was the hypertext era. The word Hypertext was coined and hypertext browsing and editing began. In 1980 a consultant for CERN, wrote a notebook program allowing links to be made between nodes. Each node had a title, a type and a list of bidirectional links. In 1990 a the development of a global hypertext system begins and by the end of that year the line mode browser and WorldWideWeb browser was demonstrated. By March of 1993 commercial use of the Internet is allowed, followed by an agreement by the directors of CERN that WWW technology would be freely usable by any one. Later that year workshops were held on using the WWW and the resultant Web traffic increased by 10 times what it had been the previous year. By January 1994 the "Internet in a box" product brings the web into homes and by mid-year the load on the first Web server was 1000 times what it had been 3 years earlier. In 1995 the Web was the main reason for the theme of the G7 meeting in Brussels and conferences and seminars are held to educate people about the use of the Web.
SUMMARY OF "THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB" http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/frame_theorie.html
This reading was divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter dealt with the development of computers up until the1960's, beginning with Samuel Morse in 1844 inventing communication using electronic impulses. The 1890's brought the digital processing machines and in 1961 IBM introduced a compatible time sharing system where different terminals could access the same hardware.
Chapter two began with the formation of ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1957 in the US as a reaction to Russia launching the Sputnik. Their initial focus was on space, ballistic missiles and nuclear test monitoring. Communication between the operational base and its sub-contractors became necessary and John Licklider had the vision of building a "galactic network". 1966 saw a plan in place for ARPANET and in 1968 the interface message protocol (IMP) was completed. The following year the network was first tested ....and it worked! By October 1972 ARPANET was demonstrated to the public and more networks appeared. In 1974 a common language was developed to allow the different networks to talk to each other (TCP- Transmission control Protocol or IP- Internet Protocol) and in 1982 ARPANET finally adopted it - leading to a connected set of networks using TCP standard. In 1984 DNS (Domain Name Servers) were introduced. In 1985 the first workshop to include the private sector was held and by now there was a huge surge in Internet use but information was difficult to find and transfer times were slow. In 1990 ARPANET was wound up and the first Internet search engine was born - Archie. In 1991 the www was released to the public. In 1994 there were 3.2 million hosts and 3000 websites and by 2001 there were 110million hosts and 30 million websites.
Chapter three discusses the history of electronic mail. Work on e-mail applications began in 1961 (once computers were linked, it became possible to leave messages for each other). In 1971 the world's first e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson - he sent a test mail to himself on another computer and ....it worked!
Chapter four looks at search engines. In 1990 the first search engine was developed for finding and retrieving computer files - it was called Archie. This chapter discussed the various search engines and gave some tips on using them. One of its references was the Search Engine Watch tutorial summarised above.
Chapter five showed some interesting data regarding the Internet eg Internet users have grown from 38 million in 1994 to 580 million in May 2000. It gives some interesting statistics on gender, age and country usage and how they have changed over time.
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