REFLECTIONS

Well it is all over! Albeit a little belatedly thanks to my bad run this study session!

I have truly enjoyed this subject. Unfortunately ill health and family related traumas made it difficult to engage with this subject to quite the extent I had hoped I could. Regardless, I feel that my understanding of the internet is far greater than it was prior to my commencing this unit.

I believe that the information I have learned in this subject will equip for the rest of my internet related studies, and that issues such as accessibility will always be at the forefront of my mind as I approach NED11 and beyond.

INFORMATION ECOLOGY

Well, I am finally here! I had previously read Stalder's article on Information Ecology at some point during my Concepts reading, but it didn't end up being included as one of my sources for reasons I cannot now recall.

Thanks to my illness and m panic to get everything done for NET11, I largely forgot what Stalder had said in the article so I have re-read it with the following questions in mind:

• How might the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ impact on the way you think about, understand or use the Internet?
• How are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?
• Why don’t we talk of a ‘communication ecology’?

How might the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ impact on the way you think about, understand or use the Internet?

First of all, I had already felt that the concept of an information ecology was already impacting on my understanding and use of the internet, largely thanks to having come across the term before. First of all I will state that I have related to this concept with my understanding of ecology in general (thanks to HSC Biology) as being the way in which denizens interact with their surroundings.

Stadler states that there are four 'basic dimensions' of an information ecology:

• Interdependency
• Change
• Time-boundness
• Differentiation

My understanding of Stadler's article is that an information ecology is a way of enabling us to understand the way in which information impacts upon its environment (the internet, in this case). In terms of my understanding of the internet, it has simply reinforced my approach to the net that is defined to a significant extent by the was in which it enables interaction between people, and how the information involved impacts on the environment of the web.

How are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?

My understanding is that the information in this case is the varied material that we as individuals place in the ecology (the nodes) and that communication is the way in which this matrial passes between individuals and places (the flow) (Capurro). I feel that my interpretation might be quite crude, but I found the language a little heavy going and about as sensical as I found biology, so I hope this is in the correct sort of vein.

Why don’t we talk of a ‘communication ecology’?

I decided to search "communication ecology" to see whether 'we' don't speak of this term. I found quit a lot of information on the topic, and believe that it too is highly relevant to the way we use the internet. It is largely about the way in which individuals relate to the information in an information ecology, or at least this was my interpretation. I feel that a communication ecology is equally as relevant as the information ecology - though in some ways the two seem to be different methods of saying a similar thing when it comes to how information works in the ecology of the internet.

• 'Towards an Information Ecology' on Capurro.de, Rafael Capurro, 1989, retrieved June 12 2009. http://www.capurro.de/nordinf.htm
• http://www.metamorph.org/research_areas/communication_ecology_and_icts/
  

EVALUATING THE WEB

I didn't search anything related to the concepts document, so I decided to search Web 2.0 for the purposes of making this annotation.

I got a number of reliable looking results on the first page, but I decided to read an annotate this one:

http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html

Paul Graham is a programming designer, who worked on the first web-based application in the mid 1990s. He has been actively involved in the development of the internet and is educated on the issues related to Web 2.0. I believe that his professional and educational background makes him a reliable resource n Web 2.0. The article was written in 2005 and I feel that it is still an accurate explanation of the basics of Web 2.0, and it is useful to read it whilst having contextal experience of the technologies he is discussion. I feel that this aricle gives a valuable staring point for individuals who wish to learn more about the history of Web 2.0 and the technologies involved in its development.

Reflection:

I did this task after completing the Concepts document as a result of chronic illness. I feel that my annotations were lacking in terms of reliability of my sources but that my analysic of the article and its usefulness for my purposes was executed correctly.

Organising Search Information

In my Hannah and Pineapple searching, I found that the most relevant result was actually related to Hannah Montana. So I selected the three results that were reliable information about Hannah Montana and the Pineapple incident, and collated them.

I had a go at Google Notebook, but ran into my original problem with it, which is that I don't find it particularly intuitive. I much prefer Delicious as a method of managing my search results, because it is easy for me to load a page onto my archive, sort by subject and add notes including author, publication etcfor each entry. I much prefer the interface, even if some of the fields aren't automatically available for me to use.

I understand the point of Google Notebook from a rich content point of view and the idea that it is to mimic the experience of a notebook, but it doesn't work for me. I think the primary issue with managing your search results is to work with what suits you, rather than trying to stick with something because it 'technically' should suit you more.

I'll be sticking with Delicious!

BOOLEAN SEARCHING

I searched the same terms from my last post for this task. They were 'Pineapple' and 'Hannah'.

• pineapple OR hannah: 121, 000, 000
• pineapple | hannah: 121, 000, 000

• pineapple AND hannah: 904,000
• +pineapple +hannah: 945,000

• (ADVANCED SEARCH) pineapple hannah site:.edu: 2590
• pineapple hannah edu.au: 125,000
• pineapple AND hannah edu.au: 126,000
• pineapple hannah AND edu.au: 129,000

It was interesting to see the impact that specifying your search terms and prefered sources can have on your results.I was particularly interested to see that scholarly sources found more results than non-scholarly. This might be an issue if you want specific results for an assignment (I personally found this to be an issue for the concepts document).

SEARCHING THE WEB: COPERNIC vs. GOOGLE

I generally use Google for all my internet searches, I find that it generally meets my needs.

I decided to search 'web 2.0' for this test of Google, with the result being around 472 million related items found. Then I searched two entirely (or so I thought) unrelated terms, 'Hannah' and 'Pineapple'. There were over one million related results. I think the primary point of interst here is that these were not presenter in any particular order in order to best indicate why these terms were related, and that there were a lot where pineapple and Hannah happened to be used on the same page, and this resulted in a hit. It is indicative that Google search algorithms do not a effecive library make.

I decided to use Copernic for the next part of this task. After I figured out that Copernic Desktop was not what I needed, I downloaded the Agent Basic. Then I was in business! Or so I thought. I tried to use the Agent repeatedly and it kept telling me to reboot my computer to complete the insallation. After the fifth go, I gave up.

I decided to still test different engines by using a few different options including Lycos, Metacrawler and and the results for my search terms were as follows:

• Lycos: 47,999
  
• Metacrawler (multiple engine search portal): 55
• Yahoo: 1.6+ million
  
• BUBL (dewel decimal system): 1
  

Metacrawler was interesting because it uses Google results and there were stil only 55 results and from what I could see the reason was that it actually searches for the phrase rather than the words 'anywhere' on a web page.

Overall hits are dependent on what the engine is searching for and through - in the case of BUBL its range of interest was obviously small and therefore the terms were unlikely to yield many results.

This exercise has taught me that searching the web is as much about using the correct channels (search portals) as it is about asking the right question to suit your needs. It will save a lot of page trawling looking through unnecessary extraneous material.

I would like to try and get Copernic to work, as I feel it would be valuable to me in the future.

TOOLS FOR USING THE WEB

I have a lot of tools for using the web downloaded, but I needed bought a new computer and needed new versions of Quicktime, iTunes and Adobe Reader.

Luckily, all three programes are free, which incidentally is my favourite price! I simply went to each site for the respective programs and downloaded them using the processes that are easily available on the site. Then it was just a matter of a short wait and to find the setup icons in amongst all the junk I have saved directly to my desktop.

I have found that the process for installation for these programs is always straightforward and without issue. It is simply a matter of clicking on the setup icon that is downloaded to your desktop and going through the motions with the setup wizard and before you know it you're all set up!

I would say the most difficult prgram is iTunes. I think this is largely because I am a PC user (for now!) and the programs used a lot of memory on your computer. It used to crach on my old laptop, but on my new ones it runs at a relatively good speed and doesn't seem to interfere with other progams. I have used it on older Macs and it doesn't impact on the system at all, so imagine par of this is PC/Mac compatibility as well.

I think that Quicktime and Adobe Reader are becoming standard programs to instal on one's computer in order to be able to use the net with a minimum of strain. The main standard program is obviously Flash Player, but I had previously installed it (such was its necessity) so I was not able to download it for the purposes of this task.