Friday 29 December 2006

Module Three - FTP continued

Well I have had no success in using Ipswitch WS-FTP Home.


I checked out the details in OASIS.

I put in the details as below.

next screen

the result: failure

Wednesday 27 December 2006

Module Three - Blogs

As in a previous post I've set up my blog. You're reading it.

Below is the screen shot of my blog (Learning Log)



It is suggested that if we wish to continue with our blog we should consider the sorts of ‘bloggiquette’ that are emerging.
"Rebecca Blood has written about the ethics of blogging in her The Weblog Handbook, which suggests a list of standards to which bloggers should adhere."
In your learning log, record your top five tips for new bloggers

Taken from Rebecca Blood's blog rebecca's pocket

  1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
  2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
  3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
  4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
  5. Disclose any conflict of interest. plus
  6. Note questionable and biased sources.
The following are list of sources that I found on blogging & ethics

A Bloggers Code of Ethics. Cyberjournaslist.net
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php

Code of Blogging Ethics Debated at AEJMC Convention. Blogging Ethics
http://blogethics2004.blogspot.com/

Code of Blogging Ethics at Desirable Roasted Coffee. Allan Jenkins
http://www.desirableroastedcoffee.com/codeofbloggingethics.htm

The blogging ethics and disclosure debate, the dark undercurrent among the bloggerati. A view from the Isle.
http://blog.larixconsulting.com/blog/_archives/2006/12/15/2575770.html

Bloggin and ethic. Miles Burke

http://miles.burke.id.au/blog/2006/07/17/blogging-and-ethics/

Blogs and your business.Open all hours. SMH.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/openallhours/archives/2006/11/blog_readers_an.html

Module Three - FTP

Well I've completed modules 1 through 3, apart for the FTP part, and am reading module 4 as of today.

I have gone through a tutorial to implement a style switcher. This tutorial can be found at CenterKey. This should be acceptable for the Javascript section of the html tutorial.

I've implemented several css style sheets and have updated my page for Student Presentations.

Next I will upload via FTP so that Module 3 is totally complete. I hope I don't have the same or similiar problems that some students have had regarding FTP and OASIS.

Module Three - Legal Issues & Copyright

First, visit the Copyright Website, which provides a good overview of copyright issues related to the net, with information on ‘fair use’ and ‘public domains’.

Next, go to the Curtin home page and find the policy documents that relate to copyright and IP in IT use.


Drawing on these sources, consider these questions:

* have you used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws?

No. I create all my own images, usually.

In a previous post on Newsgroups & Chat I found information supporting my stance regarding issues of security about MSN. I have sourced and linked where I found that quote text.

* Would you be in breach of copyright if you put the Curtin logo at the top of your web page for an assignment?

The Curtin logo is the Intellectual Property of Curtin University. I am unsure if I would legally be able to use the logo on a site (for assignment) within the Curtin Intranet. I most assuredly would not be able to use it outside of the Curtin space, without written authorisation from Curtin Corporate Services.



Module Three - Rules for writing online

Think about any differences between the articles: for example, is the advice in Nielsen’s paper -- written in 1997 – still current?

In Nielsen's paper one of the first things he mentions is scanning. In all my Interface design for sites I alway keep this in mind.

While Nielson's ideas are relevant, they are insufficient if you wish to design an easily readable page. For him text is king and without any design I feel he throws out the baby with the bath water. The computer screen is not a paper page with text on it and you cannot design a page as if it is.

Nielson has some strange ideas, and I feel he refuses to budge, the result being I don't use his site as his pages are too hard to read. I find his pages to be one of the worst offends of visual presentation, making it harder to read. Reading a 17" screen which is approximately 30 to 33 cm wide is tiring. see below

If you have alot of text it is important to have a decent left & right margin. No more than 20 cm wide.



Optional Task 1


Make a summary of what you believe are the 5 most important ‘rules’ for writing online.

The list below comes from: Dennis G Jerz of Seton Hill University


  1. Have your most important material first
  2. Have clear, relevant and meaningful links
  3. Consistent navigation
  4. Consistent interface design
  5. Scannable text

This list below is from MaxDesign and is what I tend to follow:

Basic Usability


  1. Is there a clear visual hierarchy?
  2. Are heading levels easy to distinguish?
  3. Does the site have easy to understand navigation?
  4. Does the site use consistent navigation?
  5. Are links underlined?
  6. Does the site use consistent and appropriate language?
  7. Do you have a sitemap page and contact page? Are they easy to find?
  8. For large sites, is there a search tool?
  9. Is there a link to the home page on every page in the site?
  10. Are visited links clearly defined with a unique colour?

Optional Task 2

Test your web page according to the W3C standards by going to their ‘validator’ page. If your page does not conform (it probably won’t!) record in your learning log why you think this is: try and identify the particular tags or code that are causing trouble. Are the problems related mostly to display, usability, or accessibility?

My webpage in the Student Presentation area passed XHTML 1.0 Strict validation. Yeh me! see below


Since we are valid xhtml we are proudly displaying the fact.



Module Three - Tasks Web Page & Blog

This module requires two forms of ‘e-writing’: a basic web page and at least a ‘test’ blog.

My web page is already up on the presentations area, and I am using this blog as my learning log.

For the web page component I have not done the html tutorial as that would be a regressive step for me. My page is written in xhtml with presentation controlled by css, all in notepad.

For the javascript I will perhaps look at a way of implementing user switching css style sheets.

When I have completed / updated the page to how I want it to appear, I will ftp it to the OASIS area required. I certainly don't exprect any problems in this module.


Module Three - Contributing to the Infosphere: e-writing?

This would be the part of this unit that I am probably most comfortable with. I have been creating and maintaining websites for approximately the last five years. I have just recently finished a major redesign of a private secondary school intranet. I was responsible for the technical aspects of the coding, particularly in the initial stages of the planning and design.

Web Standards are of particular interest to me in light of the redesign, and before that. Because there were many pages that were created in FrontPage by library staff with little idea of Web Standards, coding, colour or design and unfortunately a love of massive, intricate image-maps it made for a lot of work. Even then, it was hard going to implement standards, as some of those involved in the project didn't understand the importance of standards and so felt that they weren't important.

Ironically, that Intranet has been shown and demonstrated for the last 18 months, with much praise and admiration at several international conferences. While the PDF doesn't actually show the Intranet it does show all original images & design by yours truly. On slides 7 & 12 it shows a design I created to decorate a space 1m high by 11m long approx. on a wall in the library.

On actual writing as opposed to coding and designing, I am hoping to participate in a writing course to improve my writing, in the new year. My main writing experience has been abstracts and procedures manuals in the past.

Until now I have never had an interest or a need to have a blog. That doesn't mean I don't regularly read them. There are many excellent blogs on many different subjects areas that I read regularly.

After I finish this unit, I will be looking at various blogging tools that can be hosted on a server as part of the website rather than the blogger.com type of blogging tool.

Module Two - Newsgroups & Chat

I have been part of newsgroups for Photoshop & Illustrator in the past. I am not at present and for similiar reasons as below don't wish to have to join a newsgroup just for this. Too much System Admin work. I understand the process and will use them again as and when appropriate.

I have organised a ICQ no. and looked at Trillian, but ultimately have real issues having any of these on my computer. All of these utilities install on your system and are quite invasive. I point blank refuse to have MSN function on my computers. I looked at yahoo and installed that. Now I have to uninstall Firefox and update to get rid of the bloody thing. I'm that annoyed I've barely done any study for the last two weeks. Most of these types of utilities have vulnerabilities that allow code to execute on your machine. i.e.

"The susceptibility comes from an unchecked buffer in the code that handles the input of a parameter in the MSN Chat control. By invoking this parameter in a specific manner, an attacker could overflow the buffer and gain the ability to run code in the user's security context."

If you have broadband, you have serious vulnerabilities. I don't want to spend all my time acting as a system admin for my home network.

I do have skype on my machine, which has a chat function. I have used this to chat & speak with at least 2 other NET11'ers. As an optional task in the future it would be good to have those students with broadband experience skype (IP telephony). You can chat & talk, see & be seen, bringing the online student community closer.
That would be Nikki.

Sunday 24 December 2006

Modules 1 & 2 Quizz

I've finally gone back to do the quizz, having forgotten about it. Might need to do a touch of revision already.

View Results

Name: Jennifer Murray
Attempt: 1 / Unlimited
Started: 08:00 24/12/06
Finished: 08:11 24/12/06
Time spent: 11 min. 12 sec.

Total score: 13 / 20 = 65.0%


Q7 The World Wide Web is currently being monitored and regulated as a whole by ICANN.
True or False?
Student Response: True
Score: 0/1

Q9 When you use a mail client such as Pegasus, your incoming messages are downloaded through the SMTP server. True or False?
Student Response: True
Score: 0/1

Q14 The Usenet is a distributed system of messages and is divided into ...?
Student Response: groups
Score: 0/1

Q15 When using ICQ, apart from nickname, first name, last name and ICQ number, what other parameter can you use to search for existing members?
Student Response: Not answered
Score: 0/1

Q17 WS-FTP, Bulletproof FTP and Fetch enable the transferring of files between computers and are examples of separate stand alone programs otherwise known collectively as ...?
Student Response: ftps
Score: 0/1

After checking the module 2 discussion board, Kerri Bennet in #952 said FTP Client, which suggest that I should use proper terminology, and not be lazy. She also suggested looking at the following site:


Q18 If I don't have an account on an FTP server, I would need to logon as an anonymous user. To do this I would use [Answer1] for the username and my [Answer2] as the password. (The answer to this question needs to be in the following format: Answer1, Answer2)
Student Response: Not answered
Score: 0/1

Q19 I am interested in finding out the time it takes to send and receive a small text packet to a server. What command would I use?
Student Response: traceroute
Score: 0/1

So, I'm off to go do some more reading. But hey its christmas eve, I've done all my shopping and maybe i'll go and have a coffee instead.