Sunday 8 April 2007

yay

i passed!

"2006 OpenUnis SP 4 NET11 The Internet-Adv Skills: Distinction"

Wednesday 28 February 2007

The day the (aussie) music died

vale billy thorpe

it's hard to find words to express what I feel today. as my daughter puts it, he's over the rainbow now.

farewell billy. thanks for the great music

Friday 23 February 2007

lastfm

many things have i discovered in the course of net11. this little piece of interactive web is a real gem for music lovers:

http://www.last.fm/user/graemeholt/

Saturday 17 February 2007

away

i've been away on hols, and the internet access i expected failed, so i have neglected my studies.

because of the short time left to deadlines, i find myself in a 'gumption trap' to continuing. (see reading). there is no other choice i am going to have to bulldoze my way through the week step by step and hope it all comes out in time.....

Saturday 27 January 2007

super searching


google search for "advanced internet user"
shows 98.9 million hits






seekz search for"advanced internet user" shows 54 million hits

downloads

acrobat, flash and shockwave are all active on my system.

quicktime and realplayer
I already have these on my system, but realplayer annoys me with its aggressive advertising and trying to take over all video files. I recall seeing a freeware alternative for both these programs, so I decided to uninstall them and install the alternative, media player classic.

I also upgraded windows media player to version 11.

I downloaded and installed the software and it works beautifully for those files winamp doesn't cover.

In reality, I only use these three media programs for a small number of video files, as winamp handles most codecs, and is my preferred media player. I have tried several media players over recent years, but I find that winamp has the most intuitive interface and excellent features, plus a huge list of plugins and skins.

I looked at the copernic website, and downloaded copernic, only to discover i had downloaded and installed a desktop search system, not a metasearch engine! Back at the website, I discovered a few pages in that I should have downloaded copernic meta. I uninstalled the the first copernic, and started installation of the second, only to have the installer crash halfway through. It is late and I now have lost patience with copernic, so i decided to look for something else.

I found a meta search engine with an online interface, so i decided to try it. seekz.

Sunday 21 January 2007

ftp take iii

further to previous post i rec'd an email from pauline about server
problems. meanwhile wanting to move on i have ftp'd my index.html and my
website task to my server optusnet.

it is http://members.optusnet.com.au/~graemeholt/index.html

to tempt you i have added a new kitten pik.

easy when it all works right.


ftp take ii

i want to embrace open source, i have now downloaded filezilla.

the help file claims support for ssh. i've entered all the info correctly. here we go!

cannot connect!

back to the help, it says some servers don't like ssh2 (ssh2 now!) try ssh1.

i've set to ssh1, i've reviewed my info, all set, let's go!

cannot connect!

ok better do everything exactly as oasis says, so i download coreftp, fire it up and try again. guess what.

cannot connect!

this is frustrating, rarely have this sort of difficulty with web based transfers, can't even get past first base. the worst part is there is no clues, it doesn't say wrong password, or site not available or any such message, just cannot connect.

either the site is down or something is missing out of date in the instructions. guess i'll have to try again later.

watch out for take iii

ftp take i

amazing i've been downloading and uploading files to the net for over a decade, and never used a ftp program!

so for module 2 i'm gonna have a play with ftp. i downloaded a firefox add on called fireftp. entered all the information as shown on oasis and pressed connect. hey presto! this was the result:











on closer investigation i notice the instruction in oasis help "make sure ssh box is checked"
ah! ssh.
the fireftp help site came up with the following:



on to take ii
copyright

is copyright a tool of the greedy or the means of income for struggling artists? the answer: both.
  • have you used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws?
no the words and photos are all mine,
  • would you be in breach of copyright if you put the curtin logo at the top of your web page for an assignment?
the logo is a graphic symbol so is subject to copyright. i may be able to plead fair use being a scholarly document.

to me the question is should curtin university really be bothered by the trivial use of its logo in a way which does it no harm?

another issue for which i didn't see an answer is the course material for online students. what are our rights? is it legal to print off the complete material ie is it the same as the handouts we would get in a live class. if not how can we access the information for future review when doing subsequent studies? it doesn't appear to me that these issues of online study have been adequately addressed by any course providers.

simple website task

i have posted my simple website on the student presentations folder.

thanks to my last study period (ned11) i had no problems creating a simple web page

Saturday 20 January 2007

evaluating websites

working on my annobibs today. found this website very useful. the tool for evaluating websites is for high school students, but with a little modification would be useful at uni level, and also could be used to gather all information for the bib part of the annobib

i have loaded a copy of the tool on my presentation page, i turned the tool back on their website.

the link for the site is on the bottom right under useful links: evaluating websites

time gone?

just noticed that that was my first post for 2007. what hapenned, seems like only yesterday.... or am i just getting too old? No.

chat day

have joined the chat line and threw in my bit about friday deadlines. The chat box keeps stealing the focus as i try and type in here, painful. So i fired up second computer so i could write in here and follow the chat.

14 people on board at the moment. the chat seems to have become a personal story lots of children, sloppy husbands and of course little kittens.

half an hour in Cynthia has to go.

it is very hard to follow a line of thought coz all these other thoughts are jumping in while i am thinking and typing.

12:35 down to 10.

a contributor has mentioned something about this being like a room full of people. i say no. in a room with people, if it is a small group, they tend to be one topic at a time, and diversions are marked by links such as "by the way". if the number of people becomes larger, then everyone breaks off into small groups and each has their topic of chat. people float between groups and groups break up and new groups form, but within the group topics can be followed.

in the chat room, half a dozen thoughts flow by in a random pattern, and all you can do is scan for a word and then respond. by the time your response gets there the chat has moved on.

one could concentrate on just chatting with one or two participants and ignoring the rest i suppose.

3/4 hr into the chat my interface started to play up, was like the 80s, hit a key and wait 60secs for it to appear. interaction became impossible as many lines pass by as you try and type. at on time by the time i managed to type "no" and enter it, it answered the completely wrong question five lines below the one it was meant for. (check the log and see if you can find it)

i left and restarted, by the time i got back it was down to just four participants, it was much easier to chat at this level of course.