Good Lord this is Ugly

I just had a quick look at my blog and realised how hideous it is.

Sorry to anyone with as empty a life as me who wants to browse my musings...

Might give it a quick makeover in the next couple of days, some structure and less walls of text might help.

quiz questions

I'm a little late on this one;

Tutorial task for week 4.

To try find out the answers to these questions without Wikipedia or Google... I tried my best...

1. What did Alan Turing wear while riding his bicycle around Bletchley Park?
He wore a gas mask

I Popped this into ask.com and actually received another student's blog as the first result and thieved it from there. I think they used

alta vista )

2. On what date did two computers first communicate with each other? Where were they?

Sept 1969 – First node at UCLA

Oct 1969 – Second node at Stanford – They communicate for the first time

Searched in PCWebopedia - which im 90% sure just searches in google for just their url. I'm going to pretend I didn't notice the likeness.

3. What is Bill Gates’ birthday and what age was he when he sold his first software?
Born on October 28, 1955. I could only find that he created his first software when he was 13, not necessarily sold?

Microsoft.com , a little boring.

4. Where was the World Wide Web invented?
Switzerland.

yahoo! Answers

5. How does the power of the computer you are working on now compare with the power of a personal computer from 30 years ago?
In June 1979 - Apple Computer introduces the Apple II Plus, with 48 kB memory, for US$1195.

2009 - Using a 13'' Macbook Pro 2.53ghz dual core, 4gb RAM , 250gb SATA drive etc US$1499

Typing out that price is always a little depressing - apple.com and another ask.com result.

6. What is the weight of the largest parsnip ever grown?
8 pounds 6 ounces.

A simple lycos search led me to http://www.vintageassessments.com/vd/rawf_2003.html

7. When did Queensland become a state and why is the Tweed River in New South Wales?
Became a State on June 6, 1859. It separates QLD and NSW and I couldn't find info to suggest it lied in/belonged to either state.

Got from my brother's high school Jacaranda atlas, sitting on the table in front of me for some unknown reason.

8. What was the weather like in south-east Queensland on 17 November 1954?
Wet, Rainy, Cyclonic.

I asked my Dad.

9. Why is is Lord Byron still remembered in Venice?
I succumbed to wiki for this one after a bit of searching ; I could only really find some info on him naming the Bridge of Sighs in Venice and also google returned another Griffith NCT student's blog who had;

"He was a leading poet, and commonly known as the "Don Juan De Marko" of Venice, for his romance and antics with women." , Not sure where she got that from though.

Wikipedia/Google

10. What band did Sirhan Chapman play in and what is his real name?
Black Assassins and his name is Stephen Stockwell.

Fantastic.

week 4! Search engines etc...

I honestly can't remember what I used in the time leading up to me discovering google. I know as a primary school student in the mid 90's I vaguely recall arguing with my friends about whether Alta Vista or Lycos was better and the misguided attempt at marketing to kids that yahooligans! was. We're asked how search engines work, and being a bit of internet fiend I'm surprised I've never investigated in any length before. I ran into a number of sites that seem to throw out the same words to describe how search engines operate and return results;

Getting indexed and keyword density ;

One of the the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Call it the location/frequency method, for short.

Also a number of complex algorithms written by very intelligent men that I'll never understand.

Ranking of returned results

Wikipedia's explanation for ranking results ( complete with embedded links thanks wiki!):

By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce

the impact of link manipulation. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.The three leading search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Notable SEOs, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published their opinions in online forums and blogs.SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms..

Some sites I came across that give some interesting info on who search engines work:

20 Ways Search Engines May Rerank Search Results

Top 5 Ranking Factors in 2009

These days, I'll always use google. I've had a bit of a bash around with Bing and if I'm at work I'll jump on yahoo for a client's sake ( a lot of them seem to use it as a search engine, so if I ask them to search for something I like to see what they're seeing) , but nothing stands up to google for me in terms of simplicity and ease of use. Imagesearch, blogsearch and other parameters I can put on my search make it better than anything else I've found.

something i'll never understand...

Yesterday in the tutorial we checked out some online worlds , most of us got involved in Activeworlds. Having never engaged in a 3d chat program before ( Outside of WoW ), I was pretty disappointed with how it all plays out. You log into an awfully rendered 3d world, presumably fly around chatting to people you ( for the most part ) don't know and build up some sort of reputation and potentially build a house or buy yourself nice things.

Now I've spent far too many hours in the World of Warcraft to judge someone for sitting in front of their computer pretending to be someone else but...

This seems to be a way for people who are so unsatisfied with their life they feel the need to project their ideal image of themselves onto the internet for nothing ( or very little) in return. I make the comparison to WoW as it's the closest I have, and as hollow and insignificant as they may sound the achievements and sense of accomplishment one can feel in a game knowing they are better than someone else , or having bested a challenge laid out to them by a developer seems to far outweigh anything I could hope to feel by purchasing a couch for my imaginary house or deciding on my skin tone and which one of Dennis Nedry's shirts I'm going to wear *big breath in*.

/rant.

social networking/ web 2.0

Week 5 lecture was presented by Adam on New Media, Social Media and the idea of web 2.0 .

He first went through how the internet used to be a way for people to share ideas with each other and communicate with others who have similar interests. While this still occurs today, the net is full of new virtual communities, an ego-centric social network where the focus has moved away from groups of people with common interests and settled on people posting about themselves.

The idea of web 2.0 and how the internet is all about me is something that both excites and frustrates me. Like the fellows from the twitter cartoon we watched I get annoyed that I suffer this constant barrage of mundane info from my friends, but I guess I put myself in this position by signing up in the first place so who am I to complain ?

We're asked what would happen if facebook or myspace were to disappear tomorrow?

I guess my inner voyeur would be a little disappointed, no more scoping babes when I've got nothing else to do... But these networks for me are a little redundant. Fortunately I post on a number of very active forums that house a lot of people who share the same interests as me and I'm treated to the information and discussion I want to read without the dribble ( not to say it isn't interesting from time to time). And the people I don't speak to often on these forums are just a click away on my msn or phone now that everyone is on a mobile cap they will never reach.

I'd suggest there'd be a lot of very lost individuals without this little outlet they have and the convenient way they can keep a tab on their friends and within days we'd have an alternative.

Social networking ...

Social networking was something I scoffed at after leaving school and refused to get actively involved with.

I created a myspace profile in the beginning purely so I could search for bands myspace pages and check out photos of my friends in 2002, a year before finishing school. I actually created my page in that I added photos and an "About Me" etc in 2005 when a forum I often read had a thread to link to your myspace, and I felt I should get amongst it.
I started using Facebook due to all of my friends switching to it from myspace, and that was only in December of last year that I made the switch. Submitting to peer pressure I guess was the main cause for me deciding to move my life online.

My personal privacy isn't a huge issue for me,if my photos are tagged and they're a little embarrassing or incriminating I'm likely to untag myself on Facebook/Myspace, and I'll usually only upload pretty tame photos of myself and others. Privacy isn't really a concern to me but I know that it's an issue for others so I try to be as respectful as I can to them. I personally don't really mind what info of mine is used by google or whoever, being that if I've decided to share this information on the internet I'm pretty comfortable with it being seen by whoever wants to take the time to find it.

As for meeting people from the net, I play a lot of online games so there have been hundreds of people I've known over the years throughout Australia and the world . I've met a lot of them over the last couple of years and have lived with someone who I'd known for 3 years on the internet but never met in real life when he needed a place to live in Brisbane and we had a spare room. A lot of people I know I've met through other friends, but have also had interaction with on the internet before meeting them . I've never been in a particularly awkward situation with any of these people as a result of only knowing them through various online networks but especially with gamers there can be a social barrier due to the fact that a lot of them don't spend a great deal of time interacting with other people.

This seemed as appropriate as any a video to link to after my little rant, a bit dated now but caught my eye back when the whole "No Clean Feed" topic was pretty hot on the net:

The Internet!

Too much of my life in recent years has been consumed by the internet, be it sifting through 6 months of Kevin Smith twitter updates or getting lost in Azeroth until the wee hours.

Since 1994 when my Dad came home with the fresh 28,800 dial up modem I've been intrigued with everything relating to the internet and how certain people deal with it and how some people abuse it. I'm a little upset we didn't get to touch on the lecture that was missed from the course outline due to the Ekka but I've had a bit of a browse around and asked some of my friends for their take on how the internet has affected their learning and how it's involved with their every day lives.

There are a number of arguments for the internet and the positive effect it has on people's lives and the world in general. The Internet as we know it has allowed us to communicate on an entirely new level with 24/7 news and information and the ability to find out what we want whenever we want. I guess there are arguments for and against social networking but say what you want it's definitely changed the way people can interact with each other , and in a good way in my opinion. From a personal point of view, access to the internet has allowed me to view my interests in a whole new light. A passion for gaming and film is fed online, and fortunately the nerds of the world share my interests feeding me with pages on pages of news, hype and ultra-biased opinions on everything from actors they hate to leaked information ( World of Warcraft expansion? Blizzcon this weekend and a lot will come to light I suppose ) from data mining and "hacking".

I suppose it's only fair to touch of a few reasons why some people aren't so keen on the internet. In our course material we were linked to this news story outlining the security fears that some people ( like the Police ) have regarding the internet. While all sorts of crime occurs on the net whether it's credit card fraud, identity theft or the more traditional "hacking" (I guess generally resulting in theft of some sort?), it strikes me as odd that people would even play with the idea of getting rid of the internet entirely , at least in the form we are accustomed to. People put their information on the internet for other people to see. There are varying degrees to which they do so obviously as you only want certain people to have access to this infomation. The problem arises when those who aren't supposed to have access to this information , gain access to it. The obvious solution is to never put this information out there for these criminals to gain access to, but then everyone would lose this ultra convenient tool everyone has just assumed would be there whenever they want it. How can we have the best of both worlds? Where i can safely buy my Back to the Future action figures from America without fear of some dude in Romania buying a plane ticket with my credit card? And post pictures of my kids swimming at the beach without them winding up on 4chan being chased by pedobear? I don't know but I'm sure there are much smarter men than me getting paid lots of money to find other solutions.

For the moment I guess we will deal with what we have and as far as I see it : If you are willing to put your life on the internet for people to see , or take the risk of ordering things from Nigeria on your Mother's credit card, you deal with the potential consequences of doing so.

We've all been scammed in one way or another online but just like walking through the City on a Wednesday night with no government curfue telling me I have to be sitting at home inside, people just need to use common sense and regular caution when approaching the internet and know what they're putting out there has the potential to be seen by other parties. I guess that begs the argument that certain companies have a duty to protect our information but i might go into that another time because I'm sitting in bed writing this when I should be sitting in my news and politics lecture.

first post from tut #1!

I'm not sure where to start with this being my first foray into blogging , I've linked to a few of my favourite blogs ( or at least I will link to them as soon as I can figure out the gadget tool within blogger! ) and hopefully I'll draw some inspiration from them. Perhaps a small introduction to who I am, and why I'm choosing to do this course...

My name is Rory Cox, I'm a 23 year old ( first semester ) Arts Student. I have an interest in music, FIlm/Television and sports which may be apparent from my choice of links. I'm doing this course hopefully to learn how to write effectively for an internet audience, being out of study for the last 3 years putting my thoughts into text for someone to actually read and take in is something I think I'm going to struggle to get back into the swing of. 

I'll begin my reflection on course material with today's lecture which went through a brief history of computing and the internet. Having done a course in the past that centred on the history of computing, it was interesting to see another take on the subject and what Stephen/ Adam felt were the more important and significant moments to include. Unfortunately we didn't get through the content that was outlined in the lecture notes nor the video that Stephen had planned for us to get through so it's something I'll be getting onto this evening.