Module 4 - Evaluating the Web

Vicnet (Victoria’s Information Community Portal) (nd)
Retrieved 16/2/07
http://www.vicnet.net.au/training/advance.html

This above link will take to an excellent section of a website from the State Library of Victoria. The site contains many links to an abundance of information about the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). There are tutorials and helpful hints for beginners to advanced Internet users and comprehensive list of Australian and International Search Tools. The site also has a link to an even more comprehensive list of online resources from YAHOO. As this website is community information portal, it is hosted and managed by Vicnet, a division of the State Library of Victoria, so the content is constantly monitored and updated regularly. The site will give anyone the opportunity to develop the necessary skills for a good grounding in Internet use. I have no hesitation in recommending this site beginner to advanced user alike.

Question: in terms of your own future use, which 'body ' of information (ie. the original 'snapshot' of the site, or your own, annotated, analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to?
Answer: I think my annotated, analytical version would be more useful as I have checked out and analysed the site and given my opinion it becomes more relevant to me when looking back over the annotation.

Question: In term of external users (i.e. if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them?
Answer : I feel my explanation and annotation of the site would be helpful for anyone searching for the information about the Internet/WWW use.

Module 4 - Organizing search information task

Being a beginner to advanced Internet techniques I have never used any additional Bookmark Managers. The way that I organised my bookmarks is by using the inbuilt facility that comes standard with most search engines. I usually click on the bookmark button on the tool bar and save the URL into an appropriate folder I have named e.g.Curtin University, sometimes with a sub folder like NET 11 This method has served me well to date.

But for this task I have downloaded and installed to types of Bookmark Managers the first being a Firefox add-on called Hyper BK Bookmarks. This Bookmark Manager has features which include automatic classification and history enhancement. It will automatically categorize a webpage with respect to the bookmarks thus the history is sorted out by category. Also it offers lots of features regarding bookmarks like verification, caching and page thumbnail.

The other Bookmark Manager is called Check and Get (Freeware Edition) http://activeurls.com/ Check & Get lets you monitor web pages for updates and notifies you when changes were made to the page. It can save a snapshot of the page for offline viewing, detect dead-links, duplicated and mirrored web pages and allows you to search and sort your bookmarks by URL, description and keywords. You can import your existing Favorites from Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape and Opera, and manually add new items to the list as well. It offers customizable settings per site, each with individual schedule and criteria that trigger an update notification. The notification options include sound, email, and popup alert. Additional features include keyword search and highlighting, integrated browser display etc.

Snapfiles (nd)
Retrieved February, 16^th, 2007 from
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/checkget.html

Because I’ve only recently downloaded these two programs I haven’t had time to familiarize myself properly with all of their features, so an opinion of their performance would be premature. Although having said that, once familiar they may be helpful in managing my bookmarks ( especially Check & Get )…time will tell.

As well as using the Firefox default Bookmark Manager for general book marking, I would, if the information was of greater importance, save the URL information as a word document file placing it in an appropriate folder in “My Documents”. The following is how I would organise this information.

Vicnet (Victoria’s Information Community Portal) (nd)
Retrieved 16/2/07
http://www.vicnet.net.au/training/advance.html
Been connected to the Internet for a while? Want to get more out of the services it offers?Here's a select list of the many excellent Web-based courses you can work through at your own pace.

Rocky Mountain Web Studio (nd)
Retrieved 16/2/07 from
http://www.rockymtnweb.com/free/advanced/index.htm
Some links for more advanced internet users, How To’s and Hints

CIESE (Centre For Advanced Engineering & Science Eduction) (nd)
Retrieved 16/2/07 from
http://www.k12science.org/tutorials/advanced/
Choosing a link below will bring you to a web page that describes a specific procedure or aspect of browsing the internet. This tutorial ultimately directs you to the browsers help menu for specific directions. After you learn about your chosen topic, try the recommended Practice Exercises to sharpen your skills. Information about using your internet browser's Help Menu is available and linked from each tutorial web page.

Module 4 - Boolean Search Task continued

Question: Sources relating to skill-based information on advanced internet users?

Answer: The question seems vague, what skill-based sources?
So for this Task I substituted skill-based for web design using Google with Full Boolean and logical operator ‘and’ my results were 85,000,000 hits for advanced internet user and web design. (0.14 seconds)
The Boolean logical operator ‘and’, picks out the search results to include the words “web design”

Question: Information on 'advanced internet users' coming only from university sources.

Answer: For this one I just added edu.au (part of domain name) to my Google search.

Using the Full Boolean search and with the logical operator “and”, my results were 796,000 for advanced internet users and edu.au and university. (0.08 seconds) This of course are results for Australian education establishments only.

Module 4 - Boolean Task

Boolean Search Task using Google search engine

Full Boolean Search

OR: 316,000,000 for advanced or internet or users. (0.47 seconds)
AND: 279,000,000 for advanced and internet and users. (0.31 seconds)
NOT: 136,000,000 for advanced not internet not users. (0.07 seconds)
NEAR: 17,500,000 for advanced near internet near users. (0.23 seconds)

Implied Boolean Search
+ (and): 88,000,000 for advanced +internet +users. (0.35 seconds)
- (not): 14,400 for advanced - internet - users. (0.14 seconds)

Google Advanced Internet Search

Google Advanced Search, offers numerous options for making your searches more precisely enabling the user to get more useful results. I have used the Google Advanced Search facility below.

with all of the words: 81,500,000 for advanced internet users. (0.05 seconds)
with the exact phrase: 13,800 for "advanced internet users". (0.16 seconds)
with at least one of the words: 2,730,000,000 for advanced OR internet OR users. (0.32 seconds)

Advanced search help http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/help/refinesearch.html

Question: the biggest number of hits relating to advanced internet users?

Answer: The Full Boolean search gave me 316,000,000 hits using the logical operator “OR”
But using Google’s Advanced Search facility I got a MASSIVE 2,730,000,000 hits using the “with at least one of the words” Template Terminology.

Module 4 - Search Engine Task

Search Engine Task

For this task I am using Goolgle and Surfwax search engines.

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 93,900,000 for advanced internet users. (0.07 seconds)

Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE
Information about using your internet browser's Help Menu is available and linked ... Choose what web page will be shown when you start Internet Explorer. ...
www.k12science.org/tutorials/advanced/ - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

Advanced User's Internet Training Resources
VICNET Internet Training - More Advanced Users. Been connected to the Internet for a while? Want to get more out of the services it offers? ...
www.vicnet.net.au/training/advance.html - 16k - 11 Feb 2007 - Cached - Similar pages

Advanced Internet Users, School of Continuing Education ...
Advanced Internet Users. Nearly everyone knows how to use the Internet, but are you an expert? Can you find the number of people currently living in the ...
www3.uwm.edu/sce/course.cfm?id=6835 - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

News @ Cisco: China Supports Advanced Applications for Internet ...
Professor Li Xing, deputy director, of the CERNET Network Center said, "With the increase in the number of Internet users and the development of advanced ...
newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/global/asiapac/news/2005/pr_09-21.html - 48k - Cached - Similar pages

StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats
Detailed visitor stats and a choice of graphical counters. An invisible counter is also available.
www.statcounter.com/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

Below are the Meta search (Surfwax) engine results showing 52 200 000 hits

SurfWax® Search Results © 2003-2006 SurfWax, Inc.

[ Full Text of Results | Results Stats ]

Displaying 30 of about 52,200,000 pages found

Advanced Internet Users Tutorial - CIESE [AllTheWeb]
pressbox - uk press - release distribution - press stor... [WiseNut] www.k12science.org/tutorials/advancedWindows 98 Using W... [CNN]
Advanced Internet Kiosk Free Download- Build Internet k... [WiseNut]
Windows 98 Using Windows 98: Exploring the Internet-Tip...[AllTheWeb]
Designing For Advanced Users [AllTheWeb]

Results Stats:
Timing (in milliseconds)
Prepare: 9
Search: 5180
Processing: 20 (19 for safety checking)
Display: 19
Total Time: 5228

[Found: 42, Displayed: 30, Invalid: 11, Bandwidth: 0, Duplicates: 1, Stale: 0 ]
AllTheWeb: 10 pages found in 322 ms (parsed in 1 ms)
WiseNut: 10 pages found in 278 ms (parsed in 1 ms)
CNN: 12 pages found in 1071 ms (parsed in 9 ms)
LookSmart: 10 pages found in 5165 ms (parsed in 3 ms)

The Google results seemed more promising with 93,900,000 hits against Surfwax meta search engines' 52,200,000 hits a possible reason for this,

Few meta-searchers allow you to delve into the largest, most useful search engine databases. They tend to return results from smaller and/or free search engines and miscellaneous free directories, often small and highly commercial.

UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshops (nd)
Retrieved February, 13th, 2007 from
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/MetaSearch.html

Module 4 - Internet tools Task

Another Internet tool I have been using recently is Cooliris Previews, http://www.cooliris.com/Site/index.html. Cooliris Previews is a free browser add-on (I use with Firefox)that lets you preview links without clicking or leaving your current page. At first I found that it took some getting used to, because I was so used to clicking onto another site to search for information, but once you get into the habit of using it it's pretty cool. It enables you to browse the Web just that little bit faster.

Cost: Free !

Ease of Use: Really easy to use, beginner friendly.

Functionality: everything is there, ready to go.

Utility: effective in saving time browsing the Web.

Commonality: Not sure?

Module 4 - Internet tools Task - Video

On my system at the present I am running Windows Media Player 11, which I use exclusively for playing music and videos. I find that Media Player is perfect for my current needs whether listening to the web radio (Just love those 70’s stations) or watching the occasional DVD.

But I also have Apple’s Quicktime Player and RealOne just in case they are needed when surfing the web.

It seems to me that they are all very similar programs with the only difference is file format Quicktime (.mov), Real One (.rm) and Windows Media Player (.wmv)

It’s unfortunate that there isn’t one universal file format as I would prefer to have one program that play any video, that way I would also be using less hard disk space installing programs that I don’t use on a regular basis.

Module 4 - Meta Search Tool Task ( Take Two)

After my previous experience with Glooton I decided to download another meta search engine. This time downloading & installing Copernic Agent Basic, http://www.copernic.com/ and found it to be an excellent program, easy to use and understand and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Cost: Free

Ease of use: Easy to use and understand, even for absolute beginner.

Functionality: As a stand alone meta search tool, very complete.

Utility: Yes, as it incorporates many search engines when surfing for information.

Commonality: Yes it is a standard meta search engine tool.

Module 4 - Tools For The Web Task

I downloaded and installed the Glooton Meta search engine http://www.glooton.com/. Using the default amount of 20 plug-ins and typed my name in the search bar with complete web search and after waiting for about 4 minutes and NO RESULTS showed. I then typed in Suzuki Baleno GTX (my next car…hopefullyJ) waiting 6 minutes with NO RESULTS showing again!
I gave it one more try; this time typing in cricket and putting sport in the preference bar, and guess what? NO RESULTS showed yet again!! Thinking it is something I’ve been doing wrong I re-read the Glooton documentation, finding I’ve followed the instructions to the letter. I’m stumped I think it’s time to call on my fellow NET11er’s on this one.

Cost:Free
Ease of use: It is easy to understand and use, but it doesn’t work! (For me anyway)
Functionality: Everything seems to be there for a meta search engine.
Utility: I’m not sure of it's effectiveness as I couldn’t get it to work properly.
Commonality: I think it may be a common program, but I have only heard of it a couple of times, never using it before.

Overall I wasn’t impressed with Glooton, not only because I couldn't get it to work properly, but it is bland/boring in appearance and it took ages for the searches (with no results) even though I have a reasonably fast broadband connection.

module 3 - FTP

I must admit when I came to do this task I found the instructions a little confusing, and from some of the posts on the discussion board I wasn't alone. My problem was I wasn't sure what I was to UPLOAD to my Curtin web space, was it the "lava web page" (14 HTML lessons) or did we have to hand code another web page for this task ? Anyway I decided to upload the Lava page again for this FTP task. (Even though I have already uploaded the lava web page to my presentations area in a previous module 3 task via the Webt upload facility.)

I downloaded Core FTP client, following the Help File instructions and armed with the following info FTP Server : ftp.student.curtin.edu.au, Username : 12701379, OASIS Password : It's a secret :-) uploaded my "lava" web page to the WWW file at Curtin, everything went smoothly....Until I tried to Google The page (http://www.student.curtin.edu.au/12701379), I kept getting page not found, after checking everything (numerous times) I still couldn't access the page. :-e Disappointing yes, but I will re-visit this task at a later date.

Overall I have learnt a lot during this module, and being an absolute beginner when it comes to FTP and HTML hand coding I am quite proud to say that I now have a good basic understanding of the subjects. yipee! :-)...but for now it's on to module 4.