Week 4

Lecture
Lecture 4 was about the world wide web. The Web is a universe of accessible information stored on computers throughout the world. The information is available through a gigantic network called the Internet. A network of servers are linked together by a common protocol, allowing access to millions of hypertext resources. I learnt that .com – commercial (of a commercial nature), .org – organisation (non-profit), .net – network (when .com not available), .gov – government, .edu – education


Tutorial
In this weeks tutorial i had to had to look at http://www.haggishunt.scotsman.com/ and http://www.molossia.org/ and discuss the authenticity or the spoofed.
The website appears fake as its about haggis which is sheep's intestines although on the website there are pictures of platypus's another reason that it appears fake is that there is a lot of advertising on the website usually on a real website there is hardly any advertising. The website contains a lot of pictures rather than more information which doesn't help it look authentic. When you open up the web page there is always a fact, one of the facts states that it is a mistaken belief that haggis is some type of pudding made from sheep's innards where in actual fact that is what haggis actually is.




The Molossia website seems to be a spoof as well as down the bottom of the page it states that "The Republic of Molossia bears no relation of any kind to the ancient Greek nation of the same name" which is saying that it has no relation with the actual country. Another reason is that when you go the home page of the site you do not really understand why the website exists as you do not get much from the home page you have to browse a lot through the website to find out what it is all about. Another reason could be that the pictures on the website seem a spoof they seem to be there to joke about and not real as looks like they have been edited. The web page consits of a online shop where most information websites do not consist of online shops.



The following Web address: http://www.martinlutherking.org/ i had to write down what i expect to find on this website than actually look at the website and write what i thought of it.


I expect to find a lot of information about his life and his famous speech. I do not expect that many pictures of him as i think it could be more written information rather then pictures of him at places.


When the site loaded my first impression was that there was not any information straight out or any of his famous sayings at first glance i did not like the website as it also had little advertisements as such saying rap lyrics and learn more about kwanzaa which i thought it made the site seem not great to use.


After researching on martin Luther king i thought the website was good as it had a lot of information about his thoughts but there was a a little to much advertising on the home page which put me of a little bit although once looking around i realised there was actually a Fair amount of information about him.

After completing these exercises i have learnt how to tell the difference in real websites and spoof websites, this allows me to complete assignments knowing that i got information using real websites that are not just advertising and there for no reason.

Reading 1
The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be done through networking was a serious of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider in August1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. In late 1966 Roberts went to DARPA to develop computer network concept and put together his plan publishing it in 1967. In 1968, after Roberts and the DARPA funded community had refined the overall structure and specifications for the ARPANET, an RFQ was released by DARPA for the development of one of the key components. In October 1972 Kahn organized a large, very successful demonstration of the ARPANET at the International Computer Communication Conference. This was the first public demonstration of this new network technology to the public and from then on it became huge.

Reading 2
The Internet is a system for allowing computers to communicate with each other. The first step towards the modern computer was Samuel Morse's invention in 1844 of communication using electronic impulses.
The War had produced a considerable advance in design technology, but were still at the stage of large and complex calculating machines.
In 1972, they successfully employed a new program to allow the sending of messages over the net, allowing direct person-to-person communication that we now refer to as e-mail. This development we will deal with at length in the next section.
The WWW concept was designed in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and scientists at CERN, the European centre for High Energy Physics, who were interested in making easier to retireve research documentation.
1990 Archie, developed at McGill University (Montreal) first search engine for finding and retrieving computer files. At the time these large institutional computers placed their data and program files into two categories: open and closed. When you 'logged-in' to another computer, you could access the 'open' files by identifying yourself as "anonymous" and using your e-mail address as the password. Then you could browse through their archive and download any files you wanted.

Week 3

Lecture
Online libraries was the first part of the lecture showing us why they are good some reasons were convenience, currency and you can have access anytime of the day. Different types of online library's, artworks, musical, online journals, although there are limitations not often updated so can be out of date, sometimes you have to pay. Second part was online databases i learnt the definition " An organised collection of information (data), characterised by the use of data fields, that provide procedural methods for retrieving information. " and types of these are
People Searches,E-mail Directories, Maps & Atlases and News & Media. Some advantages are that they are, Comprehensive, Current, Browsable, Searchable, 24/7 Access and they are in Electronic Format. Some disadvantages are difficult to navigate and also there is lots of information sometimes to much, lots of advertising.


Tutorial
In the tutorial we did and activity that we had to Log onto and explore the ECU Library Service(http://www.ecu.edu.au/library/) then find a journal article on a online journal on the economic impact of global warming on business then to record in my log a list of 10 useful functions or search tips from the ECU library site, giving a brief explanation of each. I then had to search the MED line plus website (http://www.medlineplus.gov/).
People who would use this service and benefit from it would be people who are needing to find out other opinions and who don't want to waste time searching all over the Internet they can just go to the databases.

Here is the link of my chosen article:
http://0-proquest.umi.com.library.ecu.edu.au/pqdweb?index=1&did=64546299&SrchMode=2&sid=3&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1211790125&clientId=7582For

The next part of the workshop have to discuss ten tips which i think would be most helpful in using the ECU Library site.


1. Use one of the six topics under 'Find' on the ECU Library homepage.
Books, CDs and more (Catalouge)
Journal Articles (Databases)
Reserve Reading
Journal Titles
Websites
Library Resources by Faculty
This will help as you will be able to categorise your topic for your search.2

2. To find opening hours, rules and borrowing times for the library click on students under resources for.



3. Use the ECU Catalogue. This will make you search easier as you can type in the topic you are looking for and the site will provide you with the information to find it.




4. Use the link Websites under Find to search for a website of your topic. This will make things easier as it already has the links of your topic and has been editied by the main librarian to check for accuracy.




5. When looking for a article database click on the link journal article (database) under find. Then click on find database by title. A popup of a list of topics should come up, look for ProQuest 5000 International. Another popup should appear, and you should be able to type in key words to search for a database article.




6. When you are looking for online journal database you can also find the topic you want by go through the same procedure before, but instead of clicking the ProQuest 5000 International link choose the title to do with your topic.




7. MetaQuest is another way of searching for your desired topic as it gives you many options do to with your topic once you have logged in.




8. Reserve collection services is a good way to collect material in in digital format from the libraries catalogues. This is can be accessed twenty four seven.




9. To learn about the loan services of the ECU library click on loan services under services. This will give you a list of rules and ways to borrow books.


10. If you need to ask for help from a library member and there is none around, click on the link Ask the Library under learning assistance. This will give you a list and links of ways to get help.





For the next part of the workshop i needed to go through the site http://www.medlineplus.gov/ and choose a drug or condition of my choice that i am interested in. The condition i chose was the digestive system. This talks about all the health problems that can come across in your digestive system while using drugs such as, abdominal pain, Anal Cancer etc. A person that may use this site would be person who is studying about a certain drug or condition or may have a certain condition that they want to find more information about, as it contains much information of many different things.
Here is a screen shot of the site:




Reading 1
Finding what you want on the web was by Bill Thompson a man who decided to make his new years resolution to break his addiction to Google as whenever he was given an assignment he always used Google and didn't result to books or not Even using online journals, he stated "Good online research has to involve more than just typing a couple of words into a search form and clicking a button."

Reading 2
Bare bones Lesson 7: Basic Search Tips was quick tips about when searching things this helped a lot as it taught me a few ways to get to what i really want and not having to go through pages of junk before I find what I want. This helps me cut down on time searching and am able to spend the time not wasted on making the assignment a bit better.

Week 2

Lecture
Application skills being the topic of this week’s lecture I was taught a lot of common PC tasks Using an application such as Windows Explorer in this I learnt how to, understand the files & folders , ZIP technologies and file compression and also windows commands. Microsoft word although being familiar with it I still am learning bits and pieces I did not know, although still managed to learn about formatting styles, document mapping, working with templates, Inserting and formatting images and tables. Excel I am not too great with but learnt a lot about data types and how to do sums using special formulas. PowerPoint I learnt more about animating images and texts to appear on the screen and learnt a rule KISS (keep it simple stupid). I learnt statistics on browsers to find that Internet Explorer - 54.7% is the highest used web browser followed by FireFox - 37.2%. I learnt more about viewing PDFs. This will help us in our tutorials and future university courses as we will be able to know what internet browsers to do research on and what applications best fit out assignments.

Tutorial
In todays workshop we had to copy and paste a text and follow the instructions to change it to university standards. This consited of changing the type face, headings, line spacing, header and footer etc. We then had to add a reference and contents table. This has taught me what my assignments are going to be exspected to look like in future and how to use Microsoft Word 2007. Here is a screen shot of the work sheet:







We then had to complete another task in Excel. In this task we had to copy the text in Excel and follow the instructions. This envolved adjusting the width, borders, allignment and more. This will help us in the future because we will know what will be exspected in assingments envolving Excel. Here is a screen shot of the worksheet:



I then had to put the data into a pie graph, here is a screen shot of my results:





By means of understanding this tutorial activity, I will be able to format and edit my assignments according to the ECU assignment requirements.

Reading 1
Reading one Using Microsoft word for APA tasks was general tips about word, information included in the reading was how to delete hyperlink, how to undo things how to centre things, how to fix the margins and alignments, how i can alphabetize the reference list, how to customize toolbar, how to fix irregular spacing.

Reading 2
Reading two was how to screen capturing and file formatting, in this reading it showed that to get a screen shot you press the screen print botton then open paint and then copy it there then to save it as a JPEG file type.

Reading 3
Reading three was about adobe photoshop first thing was about Bitmap as BMP is the standard Windows bitmap image format for PC's. CompuServe (.gif) GIF is a compressed format (max 256 colours) that is designed to minimize file transfer time over phone lines. Joint Photographic Experts Group -JPEG format is commonly used to display images on the Internet. Unlike the GIF format however, JPEG retains all the color information in an RGB image. The Tagged-Image File Format TIFF is used to exchange files between applications and computer platforms as it can be read by both Macintosh or IBM compatible / Windows (PC's) computers.
PhotoShop Document (.psd ~ .psp ~ .spp): The image formats discussed previously are all flat images. That is, they have one layer of visual data. Layered image formats are formats that support more than one layer of visual data.

Week 1

Lecture Summary

Lecture one of UPCOOO4 was more of an introduction to university and the course, the lecture contained information about the modules of the course being, Using Computers, Online Research Strategies, Communications, Information Management, Building Knowledge, Social & Ethical Issues. I also was taught what is expected of me as a university student that i should,
Attend lectures, Attend Tutorials/Workshops, Complete ALL workshops, Know ECU Plagiarism policy, Check ECU email regularly and log-on Blackboard regularly.

Tutorial Summary

In the tutorial we were taken through Step by Step: How to create screen shots where it showed me how to take a picture of the screen and then save it as a picture, Step by Step: Registering & Using IMAGE SHACK this enabled me to get the picture pf the screen onto my blog web page. Step by Step: How to Create a Blog this process was fairly easy and allows me now to access my blog to type in it every week.

I learnt how to use blackboard. This will allow me to access lecture slides, tutorial worksheets, etc.




Reading 1 Summary
PC Lube and Tune is a Service Station and convenience store, it supplies usable introductions, tutorials, and education on technical subjects to the large audience of computer users. It stated that although some product may Dell or HP on the outside, on the inside it is put together from a range of standard components manufactured by companies.


Reading 2 Summary
How PCS work was a good website as i learnt a lot from it, The main components of a typical desktop computer are

1) Central Processing Unit - is the brain of the computer system and everything that happens or is done is overseen by the CPU

2) Memory- There are a few specific types of memory in a computer:
RAM - temporarily store information that the computer is currently working with.

ROM- A permanent type of memory for data that does not change

BIOS- establish basic communication when the computer is first turned on
Caching -Storing of data used often in extremely fast RAM that connects directly to the CPU
Virtual Memory- Space on a hard disk used to temporarily store data and swap it in and out of RAM as needed

3)Motherboard- main circuit board that all of the other internal components connect to.

4) Power supply - An electrical transformer regulates the electricity used by the computer.
5)Hard Disk- large-capacity permanent storage used to hold information such as programs and documents.
6)Operating system - basic software that allows the user to interface with the computer.
7)IDE Controller -Primary interface for the hard drive, CD-ROM and floppy disk drive.
8)SCSI - When you add things such as scanners.

9)AGP- Very high-speed connection
10)Sound card- record and play audio by converting analog sound into digital information and back.

11) Graphics card -Translates image data from the computer into a format that can be displayed by the monitor.