Module 4: Website Evaluation

Answer:
URL: http://www.livinginternet.com/
Author: William Stewart
Site Title: The Living Internet

The website that I have chosen is great for resource information about anything to do with the internet. The 'comments and reviews' section of this website speaks for itself. I will be using this site as one of my reference sources for assignment 1.

Reliability and authority...
The name 'William Stewart' on Google search revealed that the author of this website has taken many years to built this website with help and resource from many people. He has also written documents on: The Fun Standard, and runs FreeOpenSourceSoftware.net.

Main ideas...
The website has an extensive list of contents - too many to get through. It is regularly updated and has more then 600 pages and 2000 external links. This website is a resource material for anyone that is interested to learn almost anything about the internet.
It is also a great source for links to other useful websites for software, mailing lists etc.

Purpose...
The website was originally written by William Stewart because he saw the power of electronic communication in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square rebellion in China.
I think that this website now provides information and resource for the all types of internet users - from the beginner to the advanced.

Question: Which part of the site is most useful to me to refer back to?

Answer: When I first stumbled across the website (The Living Internet), the first three titles on the main contents page ('The Internet', 'World Wide Web' and 'Electronic Mail') took my interest. I guess the main reason was because of easy and simple way that things are explained in reference to these subjects. It relates directly to this subject (NET11) and the whole 'Internet Studies' course.

Question: How will other users find this site useful?

Answer: I think that there is a vast amount of material in this website for all levels of internet learners and users. Personally, I think that users of the website will appreciate the way that the website is simple to read and understand for new internet users and equally as engaging for advanced internet users.

Module 4: Organising Search Information

Task: We have to choose the best three sources found in the previous task and record the following:

• The URL
• The Author
• The Institution
• Copy a Summary of the website
  
• Explain what software we use to store the information/URL and why we saved it.
  

Answer 1:
URL: http://www.livinginternet.com/
Author: William Stewart
Institution:
Blurb: " This site is a free, in-depth reference about the Internet, prepared to provide living perspective to this most technological of human inventions. The site was written from 1996 through 1999, posted on January 7, 2000, last updated August 28, 2006, includes 700-odd pages, and receives more than 80,000 visitors a month. It has received input from many of the people that helped build the Internet. Enjoy" (William, n.d.)

Reference: Stewart, William Living Internet. Retrieved January 02, 2007, Web site: http://www.livinginternet.com/

Answer 2:
URL: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/csslibrary/category/C1/ Author: Dynamic Drive
Institution:
Blurb: "Welcome to Dynamic Drive's new CSS library! Here you'll find original, practical CSS codes and examples such as CSS menus to give your site a visual boast." (Dynamic Drive, 2006)
Reference: Dynamic Drive, 2006 Retrieved November, 02, 2006, Web site: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/

Answer 3:
URL: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/extensions/ Author:
Institution:
Blurb: "The award-winning Web browser just got better. It's free and easy to use. Join the millions of people worldwide enjoying a better Web experience. Surf faster and smarter!

The innovative Firefox browser makes surfing the web faster and safer. With the included Google Toolbar, features like AutoFill and SpellCheck will make browsing more convenient. Together, they'll change the way you use the Internet - for free." (Mozilla.org, 2006)

Reference: Mozilla.org, (Copyright © 2004-2006). Retrieved November, 08, 2004, from Mozilla Firefox Web site: http://www.firefox-2-0.com/au/

I save all my useful URLs in the normal default 'bookmark' folder of my web browser. However, I use an addition software called 'Blue Organizer' and 'Blue Mark' (which are free add on software from Mozilla Firefox) to get more information about the links that I have saved.
The websites that I save in my bookmarks are always in folders that I name appropriately (a practice that I have always done) and I generally leave all the current folders open so that I can always see the bookmarks. (See pic below)

Module 4: A way to search - 'Boolean'

The 'Boolean' searching logic on the internet is something that I've been using without knowing of its origins. I also didn't know how to use it properly until I read the tutorials.

I used 'Google' as my search engine for all the tasks on the 'Boolean' logic.

TASK: We have to record the hits to the words 'advanced internet users':

'Advanced Internet Users' as all the words with the following results:
About 113,000,000 for advanced internet users. (0.24 seconds)

With Boolean logic operators 'OR' and 'AND':
About 267,000,000 for advanced and internet and users. (0.17 seconds)
About 282,000,000 for advanced or internet or users. (0.35 seconds)
About 282,000,000 for advanced and internet or users. (0.13 seconds)
About 282,000,000 for advanced or internet and users. (0.20 seconds)

With Boolean logic Keyword Searching:
About 102,000,000 for +advanced+internet+users. (0.06 seconds)
About 104,000,000 for +advanced +internet +users. (0.04 seconds) (space between words)

With user fill in template:
About 13,700 for advanced internet users "advanced internet users". (0.06 seconds)

I think that the best way to look for anything in the internet is to refine the search as much as possible. We can look at searching in various ways:

1. Do we just want as many 'hits' as possible and then go through the websites and filter information or;
2. Do we want to have less hits with more relevant information that the search engine filters for us.
   

Personally, I prefer the search engine to filter the information for me. It makes life much easier.

TASK: We have to record hits by attaching a skill based to the words 'advanced internet users'

I've interpreted the 'skills-based' part of this question as a particular skill in advanced internet use. The skill I will use is 'Web Design'.

With Boolean logic operators 'OR' and 'AND':
About 76,700,000 for advanced internet users and web design. (0.15 seconds)
About 38,100,000 for web design and advanced internet users. (0.14 seconds)

With Boolean logic Keyword Searching:
About 37,700,000 for advanced +internet +users +web +design. (0.12 seconds)

With user fill in template:
About 1,180,000 for advanced internet users "web design ". (0.13 seconds)
About 792 for web design "advanced internet users ". (0.10 seconds)

Here again, the 'user fill template' was the best result with less hits and more relevant websites for the search.

TASK: We have to search universities for the words 'advanced internet users' and record the results.

For this task, I've only used the 'user fill in template' search to get results. From all my previous tasks, I think that searching the internet this way gets the best and most relevant websites.

Search in general for 'university', 'education', 'college' and 'teach' with the following results:
About 298 for university "advanced internet users ". (0.70 seconds)
About 350 for education "advanced internet users". (0.62 seconds)
About 194 for college "advanced internet users". (0.43 seconds)
About 195 for Teach "advanced internet users". (0.41 seconds)
Very relevant information and websites were displayed in the above search.

Search for Curtin:
About 53 for curtin "advanced internet users". (0.56 seconds)

The narrowing of the search to 'Curtin' resulted in very relevant and useful results as well. Most websites were about the NET11 course and the student weblogs.

Module 4: Search Engines

TASK 1: Search the words - 'advanced internet users' - using a common search engine.

Results as follows:

Answer: I used the 'Google' search engine for this and got the following result:
(Results 1 - 10 of about 126,000,000 for advanced internet users. (0.07 seconds)
FIRST HIT: The first 'hit' for the recommended search was: CIESE website.
NUMBER OF HITS: about 126,000,000

TASK 2: Search 3 search engines - including the 'deep' web.

Results as follows:

Answer: I used 'Copernic Desktop Search' for this task. The search result was 59 hits.

Differences?
Answer: The most outstanding difference is the number of hits on both the search engines. 'Google' got 126,000,000 hits whereas 'Copernic' only got 59 hits. Another difference was the the time it took for the results to come up - 'Google was much faster.

Why?
Answer: I think that the enormous difference in the number of hits is because 'Google' searched for each word in ("advance" "internet" "users") as individual words and as a phrase whereas 'Copernic' searched it as a phrase only. Also, less websites are registered with 'Copernic' compared to 'Google'.

Which search showed the best results?
Answer: At first glance 'Google' seems better because of the number of hits and the speed at which it got the results. Also, there are more choices in the 'Google' search results. The 'Google' search engine can also be modified more to get more refined searches.

TASK 3: To record 5 hits each of the two searches.

Answer: First 5 hits for 'Google':

1. http://www.k12science.org/tutorials/advanced/
2. http://www.k12science.org/tutorials/advanced/saveweb.html
3. http://www.vicnet.net.au/training/advance.html
4. http://www3.uwm.edu/sce/course.cfm?id=6835
5. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/global/asiapac/news/2005/pr_09-21.html

Answer: First 5 hits for 'Copernic':

1. http://cfprod.imt.uwm.edu/sce/course.cfm?id=6835
2. http://www.softstack.com/advink.html
3. http://www.internet2.edu/
4. http://netforbeginners.about.com
5. http://www.k12science.org/tutorials/advanced/

Module 4: Download tools and plug-ins

1. Adobe's pdf reader: I already have this programe/software installed in my computer. It is used often to view PDF web pages/documents. I also have a software called 'Software995' which I use to create PDF files. It is a cheap software that does the job very well.

2. Flash/Shockwave Players: These 'plugins' are a must for interacting with websites that support it. I had to download 'shockwave' software. Both do very similar things according to what I can see.

3. Media Players: I use WMP11 as my default media player. I've also got 'Quicktime' set up just to open files that are set up for it. I will install 'Real One' at a later stage if needed. One thing with these softwares is that they have to be configured properly otherwise they are set to be the default media players in your computer.

4. Search Manager/Combiners: I downloaded 'Glooton' and 'Copernic Meta for PC'. I found Glooton to be a very slow meta search engine. In fact, the searches never gave me any results at all. Copernic brought up errors with my IE7 when I installed the software (I tried twice with similar results). I installed the programme to see how it works. Maybe I'll like it!

5. Bookmark Manager: I use the default bookmark manager on my internet browser - which suits me well. I often go through the bookmarks and tidy it up. It is portable as I can import or export the bookmarks from one internet browsing software to the next without any changes. All my bookmarks are in a logical order in folders.

6. Offline Browser/Copier: I downloaded 'Pagesucker' and came to the conclusion that it is a great tool for portable devises such as the 'pocket pc' and 'blackberry' etc. A great way to catch up with electronic reading. Not useful to me as yet.

Module 4: Search/Locate/Evaluate

I've started this module by reading the supplied notes. I must admit that I don't like downloading software unnecessarily however I will do it to try them out for this module research purposes.
The first assignment is also looming and I've started to read what we need to do for it. I'm a bit confused about the assignment at present - hopefully the answers will be in the student discussions. I've also started another weblog for assignment 1.
Another late night...

Making some headway...

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to catch up with all the modules. I think that I'm making some headway - still a long way to go. The problem I find with playing 'catchup' is the lack of time in reading materials thoroughly.
I was lucky in many ways for doing NED11 - it saved me a lot of time with the HTML tasks.
I will continue tomorrow - feeling pretty exhausted...