Module 1 -Reflections – Communications

After reading my previous post  Peter sent me the following comment “Verbal communications just a cultural artifact? No? What about visual clues? What are we using online as a replacement to these clues? What does your blog layout say about you? What other communications are going on?”

My first reaction was  “what the heck does that mean?” and what do artifacts have to do with verbal communications? I thought that a little research and a some sort of response was appropriate. An artifact is an object that is often used to communicate information about oneself. includes clothes, jewelery as well as colors ,status or lifestyle. With artifacts, one can be distinguished from others by demonstrating his or her own tastes of life and philosophy. (Language and Communication within the Culture. )

According to various web Design experts and research  (Newark1 Web design Guide and Suite101.com) one of the most influential artifacts is the use of color. The colours that you wear can tell other a lot about your personality.  Some colours and their interpretation are listed:

Red indicates an assertive, passionate and enthusiastic nature.

Blue displays a cool , calm and peaceful nature.

Green shows you are responsible, hopeful and into green issues.

Black means you are mysterious, unconventional and dominant.

The colours that we use on our blog sites can thus give an indication of our personalities. Does the colour I have chosen on the header reflect who I am? I would like to think that I am responsible, I do commute to work by bicycle.  I leave it for others to judge.

What other communications are happening?

As we write we attempt to lead the reader along the path. We do not want them to skip over the first paragraph and just read the last sentence. How do we achieve that. The various Web Design books published by Sitepoint all stress the importance of drawing users into the text by means of sub headers, short paragraphs and other well documented tricks.

The way in which we use the language in our writing is also an important issue .  When we write for the web we do not know who is going to read our articles.  Should we write in a highly formalised style , such as submissions to company cChief Executives, or should we go to the other side of the spectrum. In my opinion we should stick to a middle of the road approach. We need to ensure that we use everday language that cna be easily undestood. It helps , where appropriate, to instil some humour to the blog. The use of language over history has caused many a conflict. Thus it is imperative that the language we use is clear and unambiguous.

How do you show emotion in your writing. I suspect that unless you are a Shakespeare, or Chaucer et al then the easiest way is to use emoticons available from many sites on the web.

All of the above help to inject our own personalities into the article. W all have a different style of writing. Some of us are more chatty,whilst others are a littl more formal. This is who we are. Just because we are writing does not mean that a reader should not get some taste of our persona.

In this short blog, I hope that I have addressed the questions posed. Please feel free to agree, disagree or add to the conversation.

 

Module 1 – Internet Tools Further Exploration

Not completely content with the task just completely, I followed the course note suggestion to explore a little further in to the use of ping and traceroute. The number of hops and time taken in the previous task were between the Centralops and Network-tools servers located in the USA and the Curtin server located in Australia. I proceeded to download A-Tool bar from Tucows. I then carried out the same exercise to traceroute and ping to Curtin. The results are as below.

Traceroute to Curtin using A Tool bar

As you can see the number of hops required is significantly less. My educated guess is that both my local PC and the Curtin servers are in Australia, thus reducing the number of hops required.  I was very curious to find out where the Hosts were located. I input the IP address into the DNS look up tool of A-Tool bar , only the 198.142.160.xxx addresses returned a name. Both of these were my ISP. The other IP addresses returned  “not found”.  Not totally satisfied I headed off toDNS Network Tools. I input each of the IP addresses and at least found out that they were all located in Australia. No other information was available about them.

Not being able to progress any further with this, I then proceeded to ping Curtin from Network Tools and from  my laptop . In my opinion the results again reflect the locations of the originating computers. Network Tools is located in the US and my ISP is located in Australia.

Ping using A-Tool bar

Ping using Network Tools

So what does this all mean?  IMHO traceroute is a valuable tool to discover where the bottlenecks are when transferring packets of information. Usually there will be nothing that you can do , but wait patiently until the traffic jam clears.  Ping on the  other hand can tell you whether a server is responding to your requests. From a diagnostic perspective, it alerts IT departments to problems with a server and corrective action can be taken

 

Module 1 – Internet Tools- Traceroute

The study notes provided as part of our NET 11 course say that Internet tools are based largely on the UNIX operating system that was commonly used in the development of the net in the 1980’s onwards. These tools enable users to gather crucial technical and identification information about Internet activity. Most users do not require the use these tool on a regular basis, but it is important that they are aware of the various tools available.
In a previous life I was introduced to pinging servers. The IT personnel used this tool to see whether a host was responding across the network. According to Wikipedia it is also used to self test a network interface card of the computer, or as a speed test. But back to the task in hand instead of reminiscing about previous roles.

According to Living Internet the traceroute command traces the network path of Internet routers that packets take as they are forwarded from your computer to a destination address. The “length” of the network connection is indicated by the number of routers in the traceroute path.

Traceroutes can be useful to diagnose slow network connection. For example, if you can usually reach an internet site but it is slow, then a traceroute to that site should show you one or more hops with either long times or marked with “*” indicating that the time was really long. This blockage could be anywhere from your Service provider to the backbone provider. Usually there is little you can do except wait patiently.

According to How stuff Works, I should be able to use the MS-DOS tracert command to see how many routers are involved in sending information from one location to another. I tried this. As soon as the final destination was reached the  command window disappeared not allowing me to get a screen shot. I then went to Central Ops. It was simply a matter of typing in curtin.edu.au and the following data was returned.

Route between Central Ops and Curtin University

The data above indicate an average time of 254ms and the routse in Australia went from Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth. The Curtin server’s IP address was shown as 134.7.179.53.

Just for comparison I also used Opus One the results are below:

Opus One to Curtin University

Interestingly there are no time outs via that particular route and the time take is marginally shorter.

If you do a whois inquiry on the curtin.edu.au name who return the following:

Who is inquiry on curtin.edu.au

You will notice that the whois query returns a different value than the traceroute command. I imagine that Curtin will have multiple IPO addresses for various servers.  My guess is that information is received into curtin via different servers than the location of the Domain Name. But this is only a guess.

 

Module 1 – File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

I did not need to download FileZilla (although I did need to upgrade to the latest version) as I had installed it last study period in NED 11- Internet Design and completed several exercises in exploring some available ftp sites. A list of sites I found are listed below:

ftp://ftp.pcworld.co.nz

ftp://ftp.bbc.co.uk

ftp://ftp.eur.nl

ftp://ftp.apple.com

ftp://ftp.intel.com

ftp://ftp.kodak.com

ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov

ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi

Wikipedia (even though it has not been accepted as an academic source) has the following definitional information regarding FTP.

FTP is a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network such as the Internet.

FTP is a file transfer protocol for exchanging and manipulating files over a TCP computer network. An FTP client may connect to an FTP server to manipulate file on that server.

FTP sites are typically used for uploading and downloading files to a central server computer, for the sake of file distribution.

In order to download and upload files to an FTP site, you need to connect using special FTP software. There are both commercial and free FTP software programs, and some browser-based free FTP programs as well

This information is confirmed by the definition from Webopedia

Short for File Transfer Protocol, the protocol for exchanging files over the Internet. FTP works in the same way as HTTP for transferring Web pages from a server to a user’s browser and SMTP for transferring electronic mail across the Internet in that, like these technologies, FTP uses the Internet’s TCP/IP protocols to enable data transfer.

FTP is most commonly used to download a file from a server using the Internet or to upload a file to a server (e.g., uploading a Web page file to a server).

The typical information needed to connect to a FTP site is:

1. The “server address” or “hostname”. This is the network address of the computer you wish to connect to, such as ftp.microsoft.com.
2. The username and password. These are the credentials you use to access the specific files on the computer you wish to connect to.

A host which provides an FTP service may additionally provide Anonymous FTP access as well. Under this arrangement, users do not strictly need an account on the host. Instead the user typically enters ‘anonymous’ or ‘ftp’ when prompted for username. Although users are commonly asked to send their email address as their password, little to no verification is actually performed on the supplied data.

As modern FTP clients typically hide the anonymous login process from the user, the ftp client will supply dummy data as the password (since the user’s email address may not be known to the application).

Below is a screen shot of FileZilla, showing the directory structure of the curtin site  which we were asked to log into:

FileZilla Screen

There were several folders in the directory, I opened each one to find the readme.txt file. I then dragged and dropped the file into my local C drive. I first opened the file in Notepad. The text was not word wrapped, even when I turned word wrap on in notepad the format looked terrible. I saved the document as an MS-Word document and this created a file that was much easier to read.  i have pasted below the first couple of sentences of the file obtained from recall.curtin.edu.au

* ATTENTION MAC, OS/2, MS-DOS and MS-WINDOWS users:

This server runs on a unix platform, so CAPITALIZATION MATTERS!

A file named “file.txt” IS NOT THE SAME as “FILE.TXT”

It was a relatively simple matter to retrieve the required file.   The obvious use of FTP would be to upload files to a server as is the case in keeping websites up to date.

 

Module 1 – Telnet Task B

Task B says that if telnet left you unimpressed then “do yourself a favour” (shades of Molly Meldrum) and telnet over to towel.blinkenlights.nl for a bit of fun.

Trouble is telnet did not leave me unimpressed. I marvel at the simplicity . GUI tends to over complicate and clutter screens with all matter of stuff that we may use at some time or other. The telnet / MS-DOS screens were simple and uncluttered. I do remember playing a “Haunted House”  game in those times . There were no graphics so all instructions were typed in . I cannot remember any of the graphical equivalents because I was never good at search and find type of games. But I digress a little from the task at hand.  Below is a screen shot of the starwars “movie” in text.

Starwars via telnet

If you really think of it, the amount of work involved in setting this up is enormous. Each frame needed to be carefully crafted using only text. I suppose this is no different to creating the old flip or flick book.

All of this was a precursor to animated movies that were first produced by the Disney organisation and developed to the level that are currently available (i.e SHREK, Finding Nemo etc).

I received a comment from Simon on my previous post musing about where all this is taking us. I have the same thoughts. Where does this all stop. The Age / Sydney Morning Herald had an article Ten prophecies for the digital millennium . Among other things he predicts the death of newspapers and TV as we currently know it. He also predicts he growth in hanndheld computing  to the detriment of the personal computer. This is not rocket science  and already the signs are there.

Do we really need to go down this path?

Do we need to be contactable 24/7?

Do we really need to have instant gratification?

Do I really care that one minute ago there was a car accident?

I don’t have any answers only more questions. As an older person( only 56) I have gone through a massive change in technologies and communication styles. I have embraced them and am trying to learn more about them but I still have the same question. WHY?????

 

Module 1 – Telnet Task A

Having read most of the discussion about this task, I approached this learning project with some trepidation. Somewhere in the depths of my mind I seem to recall having used or at the very least been aware of Telnet. Before I commenced the actual physical task of going into the Deakin Library system I used Google to find out what Telnet was or did. Wikipedia as usual had a definition along with a lot of other details. I really wanted a simple explanation telnet.org provided the simplest explanation.

Telnet is a network protocol and is commonly used to refer to an application that uses that protocol. The application is used to connect to remote computers, usually via tcp port 23. Most often, you will be telneting to a unix server system  or perhaps  a simple network device such as a switch. For example , you might “telnet in from home to check your mail at school”. In doing so, you would be using your telnet application to connect from your computer to one of your school’s servers. Once you established your connection, you would then log in with your account information and execute commands remotely on that computer. ……

In most remote access situations , telnet has been replaced by ssh for improved security across untrusted networks. However, telnet continues to be used for remote access today and remains a solid network troubleshooting tool as well.

The operating system on my laptop is XP, so from the start menu I selected Run. In the program box I typed telnet and pressed OK. This bought up the telnet operating screen. The black screen with the blinking cursor immediately bought back memories of my early days using a computer. I remembered that the ? key would bring up a help screen. The help screen gave me the commands that I could use. For the task at hand o -open host name port- connect to host name was the required instruction.

Telnet Commands

I was then asked for a terminal type. Not really being sure I selected the first type offered. Then the search criteria were displayed as on the screen below.

Search Criteria

From then on it was a simple matter to sect Author and type in Bennahum. This bought up two books. I then used a further criteria to display the book titles.

Search Results

The task then required us to email the results to ourselves.  I selected Print and then selected E-mail printer. I then typed in my in private email account (not my curtin student email address) and shortly after the following email lobbed into my inbox.

You searched for the AUTHOR: bennahum
2 AUTHORS found, with 2 entries; entries 1-2 are:           LOCATIONS
Bennahum David A 1936
______________________________________________________________________________     1  Managed care : financial, legal, and ethical M,
Bennahum Ninotchka
______________________________________________________________________________     2  Dance & community : Congress on Research in  M,

I found the task simpler than I had imagined. WhenI first started using computers back in 1985, the first screen you were presented with was the MS-DOS blinking cursor.  This technology was simple and straight foward. Admittedly the range of products and things that we now do with computers was not readily available to the general public. The laptop I use now has more computing power than the first main frames that were in use. The old technology was stable and, I seem to remember, required fewer keystrokes than today. Today’s environment is about usability and universal  accessability, whereas back in the old days (jeez that makes me feel old) computers were used only in business and certainly not universally available.

 

5 Tips for New Bloggers

As a newcomer to blogging  I do not really feel qualified to give this type of advice. On the other hand, because I am a newcomer, having spent some time trying to work out the how, why and wherefore of this blogging lark I am not really giving tips but sharing my learning curve with other interested parties. So here are my 5 tips for new bloggers.

1. Be prepared for criticisms: Blogging is similar to writing a letter to the editor of a daily newspaper (with a HUGE readership). Everybody has an opinion and these will almost certainly be different to yours. It is possible that your opinion will push the right or wrong buttons of  other bloggers and result in comments to your blog. Accept them as a robust expression of free speech.

2. Sharing Personal Information: Only share that personal  information that you are comfortable sharing. You need to remember that all blog posts can be viewed by a worldwide community (unless you only create a private blog).

3. Remember the KISS principle: When I was at school (in another lifetime it seems) my teachers always insisted that we keep our essays simple and easy to understand. Each paragraph should only contain one idea.  The same is true of our blogs. Each blog entry should only be about a single issue. Therefore it is important to start with a meaningful heading that you can flesh out in the main content. The same also goes for the layout of your blog, the less clutter on the page the more a reader can focus on the written content.

4. Read and Comment on other bloggers: The blogging community is kept alive by reading and making comments on other blogs. This is exactly the same as carrying on a face -to- face conversation. As we listen to others , thoughts come into our heads and we then express those thoughts in response. I find it a little difficult to respond the same way in written form. But hopefully by the end of this study period I will be as comfortable  tapping out conversations on a keyboard as I am having face – to -face contact.

5.Netiquette: I looked this up in my dictionary (obviously an old one) and it did not exist. Put simply, it means to treat people as you yourself would like to be treated. There is no need to be rude or dismissive of other peoples’ opinions. It is quite easy to do as on the net it is possible to hide behind a shroud of secrecy. If you would not do something in the “real” world then you should not behave any differently in the “cyber” world.  I think Louwna said it best when she reminded us that it could be your children, parents or grandparents reading your blog.