Net11 SP2 2009

It's driving me nuts! I'm not sure what everyone else is doing but each time I have a spare minute I check in on the discussion boards, or add to any assignments I have going and not being able to login is freaking me out. I know we were warned but it's just such a long time. I wonder why this couldn't be done during the uni holidays. I wish I had prepared better than I had.

"Begin by opening up the program Notepad and working through the following basic but fun tutorial for a step-by-step guide to writing html. Don't forget to save your html document as .html, because Notepad might want to save it as a text file:

So, you want to make a Web Page! by Joe Barta is where you will begin your html journey! It has 26 lessons but they are all short and broken into easy steps - its a great tutorial and I am sure you will have fun writing your first web page. When you have finished your page, you may consider playing around with the content - can you make changes to your pages content that may be useful for an Internet Basics related help site? Your list could contain helpful sites, or helpful hints? Make it brief though as your time will be put into the tutorial, the skills it has to teach you and reflecting upon your experience"s." (Allen, M n.d)


Wow! I loved this task and I had so much fun, maybe too much fun. What a sense of achievment creating a page from scratch with just words (and a few symbols).



First of all here is the page:

The icons on the left side of the page (curtin uni, Blogger, Skype & pagetutor.com) all work & click through to their respective sites. The ladybug icon is an email me link.

I probably spent much longer on this than I should have but I just couldn't stop - Many things were removed/replaced before I ended up with the above image.

HTML was much easier than I thought it would be and I think I'd like to explore it more.

Allen, M n.d "Module Three: Contributing to the infosphere; e-writing?" Retrieved on June 20, 2009 from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_18825_1%26url%3d

"TASK OPTION - Other chat options:MSN, YahooChat, SecondLife or imvu (sign up is laborious in Second life but the dedicated can give it a try )
imvu is a virtual chat space and fast to start, download and learn. MSN and Yahoo chat both are text based systems which are very easy to implement and learn.
Please do not purchase an account from any site for the benefit of this unit - all virtual sites have guest account systems for non paying customers - please use that for now.
For any of these options you choose Arrange with other students in the unit to meet up for a chat Record your answer and reflections in your learning log
LOG ENTRY: Record your outcome and reflections of your experiences and thoughts on this task in your learning log" (Allen, M n.d)


I have ICQ on my pc, and have done ever since I started using the net 15 years ago. I used it both at home and as part of my work day. It was an essential inter office communication tool. Back in the dial up days my mum used it on her pc to contact me when I was online.

I've never chatted in a virtual world, so I headed off to second life where without any trouble I created an account, activated it and then downloaded the viewer. I'm now well on my way to neglecting the kids while I dress up my avatar. Unfortunately it wasn't as initially user friendly as I had hoped and I quickly lost interest - actually I got stuck in a room and couldn't get out! Then while trying to get out I lost myself . Perhaps if I was more into chatting I'd be more inclined to stick around and try and work it out.

I thought I'd give IMVU a go while I was here, I registered & it seems a lot quicker that secondlife at this stage, I downloaded and installed and realised that IMVU is much easier to navigate. I was chatted up by an apparent employee of the Saudi Arabia ministry of agricultur only to be abandonded when he realised my age and marital status . I also really liked the design of IMVU over secondlife.

"LOG ENTRY: Record your outcome and reflections of your experiences and thoughts on this task in your learning log" (Allen, M n.d)

Took a little to find everyone, then I found it confusing in regards to who was talking (and some times about what). I think I still prefer ICQ and one on one chats.

Interesting task!

Allen, M n.d "Module Two: Communicating in the infosphere" Retrieved on June 18, 2009 from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_18825_1%26url%3d

"You may want to read a comparison of different communication types at How Stuff Works Think about the following questions (it may help to discuss them with other students on the discussion board) " (Allen, M n.d)

• 
  What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?
• 
  Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?
  
• Record your conclusions in your learning log

In my experience, lists can be useful, entertaining & informative. The can be equally useless, offensive & annoying. Myearl experiences with list were the latter, I'd signed up to mostly un-moderated groups which meant anyone could join and post anything they wanted to - usually spam or highly offensive material.

My list subscriptions have now been refined, I now belong to only two. The first one is my local area freecycle, a group that enables me to recycle my unwanted goods, take up an offer of someone elses goods or ask specifically for something I need that someone else has and no longer requires - for free. If your not a member of your local group (and it's worldwide), I suggest you join, One man's trash is anothers treasure as they say.

My second subscription is to a Fabric co op, a group of like minded adults into sewing that purchase fabric/products at wholesale prices and split the product/fabric. I'm able to ask for the opinions on fabric/sewing supplies and receive answers and get dramatically cheaper items.

I have the option to receive individual emails, or a daily digest containin all the emails from that list for that day or not to receive any mail but insted go to the site to read all updates.

For me these lists are great, there is never any ' off topic' talk and never any spam.

Allen, M n.d "Module Two: Communicating in the infosphere" Retrieved on June 18, 2009 from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_18825_1%26url%3d

"The first email task consists of undertaking this Email Tutorial to ensure you understand (or have reviewed) all the basic email functions. Make sure to take the little 'quiz' at the end of each 'lesson', and to try out functions such as setting up folders and filters in your own email account. Then, answer the following series of 'reflective questions', and record your answers in your learning log."(Allen, M n.d)

I have been using email for atleast the past 15 years and I have to admit that I glanced at the reading and then zoomed to the task - How wrong I was. I only wish I had of read this a couple of years ago when I worked in a customer suport role for an adult personals website and dealt with 400+ emails on a daily basis. This task would have enabled me to deal with them so much better - Hind sight!

Anyway, onto the questions:

1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message? (Allen, M n.d)

• The senders eamil gives me an idea who it is from. Say for instance the email was from accounts@mytelephonecompany.com.au , I'd know that the email was from my telephone company, in Australia and from the accounts department.
• The subject line may alert me to is importance, or lack of and if it was perhaps spam (junk mail). It could also indicate if it was an on going conversation by the presense of RE: ... or if the email was forwarded onto me, indicated by FWD:
• The body of the email would give me the infomation in which to decide how I would need to respond, if at all.
• I could also see the time & date the email was sent

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email? (Allen, M n.d)

Using my role as the newsletter editor as an example, I use the 'CC' function when dealing with a an issue that involves a few people. The 'cc' allows me to write one email and keep several people aware of what is going on. Similarly, the 'Reply all' feature allows me to write one email (with or without attatchments) and send to several people without having the individually enter email address, possibly containing typos or leaving out addresses entirely.

I use the 'BCC' feature when emailing out the newsletter, it hides the email address's and keep the email header less cluttered.

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver? (Allen, M n.d)

When sending an attatchment, I could ensure it was easily encoded, decoded & opened by all I should send it as an ASCII text or also known as plain text

4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose? (Allen, M n.d)

Currently I have very few filters set up. The few that I do have set up are usually in response to spam so that it is delivered straight to the junk mail folder on not the inbox. Having said that, I have several ideas for new filters/rules after reading module 2.

5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why? (Allen, M n.d)

My current email set up includes the folders:

• Inbox
• Deleted
• sent mail
• junk mail
• drafts
• a persoanl folder
• club newsletter folder
• club website folder

The inbox is for all mail, except those with filters/rules in place. After downloading the emails, the inbox is then sorted manually, emails that relate to club newsletter are moved to the 'Newsletter' folder, mail relating to the club website are moved to the 'Website' folder and personal mail is moved to the 'Personal' folder. This is done so that if need be I can refer to an email quickly by determaning what folder it would be in.

I really enjoyed this task, I thought I knew just about everything to do with email. I have now set up a new email account on my new laptop and intend to put into practice the things learnt in this module.

Allen, M n.d " Module two: Communicating in the infosphere" Retrieved on June 18, 2009 from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_18825_1%26url%3d

I stayed up way past bedtime to fisinish the PING task, woke up the next morning with excruciating pain which upon inspection by my GP was declared to be appedicitis. I was then sent straight to the hospital where the offending item was removed with 3 days rest in hospital.

Back to it now :-)

Melissa

"Ping the Blackboard site and compare the time with the time taken to ping from the net tools site. Is it less or more than you expected?
Why?" (Allen, M n.d)

The ping task was very quick. As suggested I used the http://network-tools.com/ site and the results were:

"What to do;

For ease of use, and because free versions of internet tools are constantly changing this task only requires you to visit a site. (If however you would like to explore further, follow the instructions below).
First visit this site explaining traceroute
Next find a site that provides the common internet tools (traceroute, ping) some examples include http://centralops.net/co/ or http://network- tools.com/
Using the traceroute tool, answer the following questions:
Traceroute from the chosen site to curtin.edu.au - cut and paste the entire list of 'hops' from there to Curtin.
How many ‘hops’ are there?
what is the average time in milliseconds from the tools site to the curtin server?"(Allen, M n.d)

This task required me to do a Traceroute from the selected site to curtin.edu.au

I first tried the site http://centralops.net/



I entered the required info, and the results returned.

The answers for this example are 18 hops and the ip address is 134.7.179.56
267ms was the average time


The next site on my list was http://network-tools.com/ where I returned similar results






17 hops this time, and the ip address is ofcourser 134.7.179.56
259ms was the average time

I also used with windows comand prompt, it was slightly different to the previous 2 examples.
14 hops with the ip address 134.7.179.56
71ms was the average time

For this tool I needed to go via START>ALL PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES and then right click on the COMMAND PROMPT and select RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR

I then typed tracert curtin.edu.au, clicked enter



Obviously it was much quicker from the NSW/VIC border to curtin than from USA

I started the internet tools taks by visting the link provided with blackboard http://computer.howstuffworks.com/router5.htmThe how stuff works people really speak my language, I enjoy and more, importantly understand their articles. So after finishing reading I googled 'traceróute', the top result was from http://www.traceroute.org/ where I selected the country Australia. This took me to a list of sites to use, I selected the top one, Telstra (http://www.telstra.net/cgi-bin/trace)I entered curtin.edu.au into the destination box. My results were:traceroute to curtin.edu.au (134.7.179.56), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 vlan250.lon-service6.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.2.177) 0.33 ms 0.337 ms 0.256 ms 2 TenGigabitEthernet0-12-0-2.exi-core1.Melbourne.telstra.net (203.50.80.1) 0.503 ms 0.4 ms 0.384 ms 3 POS0-0-0-0.way-core4.Adelaide.telstra.net (203.50.6.190) 14.983 ms 14.87 ms 14.768 ms 4 POS0-0-0-0.pie-core1.Perth.telstra.net (203.50.6.214) 45.977 ms 45.666 ms 45.727 ms 5 TenGigabitEthernet9-2.wel19.Perth.telstra.net (203.50.115.29) 45.509 ms 45.562 ms 45.591 ms 6 optus6.lnk.telstra.net (139.130.159.18) 44.231 ms 44.15 ms 44.132 ms 7 * * * 8 61.88.226.115 (61.88.226.115) 44.703 ms 44.757 ms 44.715 ms 9 AARNET.o6ssc76fe.optus.net.au (61.88.166.134) 44.523 ms 44.8 ms 44.56 ms10 ge-1-0-3.bb1.a.per.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.1) 44.81 ms 44.821 ms 44.716 ms11 gigabitethernet0.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.178) 46.573 ms 46.438 ms 46.763 ms12 gw1.er1.curtin.cpe.aarnet.net.au (202.158.198.186) 45.401 ms 44.988 ms 44.861 ms13 vl7.b309-bs-1.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.16.169) 48.186 ms 47.629 ms 47.499 ms14 te2-4-b309-cr.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.16.46) 46.548 ms 46.32 ms 45.595 ms15 te1-1.b309-sr.net.curtin.edu.au (134.7.248.65) 46.273 ms 46.629 ms 46.033 ms16 * * *17 * * *18 * * *19 * * *20 * * *21 In total, there were 30 hops max.The average time in milliseconds from http://www.traceroute.org/ to curtin.edu.au was The ip address for the hostname curtin.edu.au is 134.7.179.56I also found http://member.dnsstuff.com/pages/help/traceroute.php really useful in interpretting the results.

Allen, M n.d. "Module one: Introduction to internet communications", Retrieved on June 1, 2009 from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_18825_1%26url%3d