MODULE 5 - Ecology

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

Using information ecology as a metaphor allows us to understand how our influence has shaped technology and how it will influence the change in the future. It is like the environment; what we do to the environment determines the conditions we will encounter in the future, this applies to technology too.

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

Information refers to the people shaping technology and the actual technology it self. We are the information which helps shape the future. If we didn't put technology to use, there is no progression because we wouldn't know where to improve and understand what we want and need.Communication refers to the human interactions with the technology. How we use it and the way we operate the programs.

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

I would imagine it would be a hard topic to talk about because it is about our personal interaction with technology. As there are so many different users, how could you determine the way in which it gets used, if there are thousands of us individuals using it.

MODULE 4 - Evaluating the Web

http://www.kaspersky.com/#_jmp0_
AnitVirus

This website is very educational. It teaches you all the facts about Malware.
Malware is a problem which we will encounter as some stage. In this website, you can find all the information in regards to Malware such as Viruses, Trojans and Worms. If covers in-depth information about where it all started, how it will develop in the future, who creates them, the different types of Malware, where you can get infected, how to detect it and what to do if you are infected. There is also a list of the latest Malware infections with details from the date it was developed, where it will infect and how to remove the virus.

The company is located worldwide, they established 12 years ago. They have highly- qualified specialist finding strategies to stop new malware and hackers. They develope their own software, helping over 250 million users all over the world. Not only do they help PC homeusers, but also corporate networks.


In terms of your own future use, which 'body ' of information (ie. the original 'snapshot' of the site, or your own, annotated, analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to?

I would definitely choose the analytical version as this has more information than the sceenshot and has a summary of the most important and informative part of the site. It gives you a good insight of the information and you can also quickly scan the analysis to see if this is appropriate with having to go to the website and reading it all.

In term of external users (i.e. if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them?

I believe the analytical version would be more use to them, as it is more informative than looking at the screen shot of the URL. When you search for information through google, the results do not give you a good intial information. You need to go into each site to see whether the information is approriate. The only information gaind by the screen shot is: cited by, related articles, all (number) versions and a sentence extracted from the webiste with the key word. To make judgement of whether it is useful or not would be very difficult. Reading what someone has analized would give you quality information as they have viewed and evaluated the site already.

MODULE 4 - Organising Search Information

URL: http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/tp/aatpavwin.htm#_jmp0_
AUTHOR: Mary Landesman
INSTITUTION: The New York Times Company
SCREEN SHOT REFERENCE: (Mary Landesman, 2009)

URL:http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/#_jmp0_
INSTITUTION: TopTenREVIEWS
SCREEN SHOT REFERENCE: (TopTenREVIEWS, 2009)

URL: http://www.kaspersky.com/
AUTHOR: Kaspersky Lab
INSTITUTION: Kaspersky Lab
SCREEN SHOT REFERENCE: (Kaspersky Lab, 2009)

I have decided to use the new program DEVONagent to save my web address. When I have the web page open, I have the function to archive the websites. It creates a folder named "Antivirus Software" as this was the search I made, then within the folder, it saves all the websites I have chosen. The most useful aspect about using this is the fact that I can access these websites when I am offline as well!

MODULE 4 - Boolean Search

The biggest number of hits relating to these key words?
Boolean search - antivirus OR anitvirus program
Search hits - 38,000,000

Information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to look for?
Boolean search - antivirus software NOT antivirus
Search hits - 59,800,000

Information coming only from university sources?
Boolean search - antivirus AND university
search hits - 18,700,000

It's very interesting to see the different search results. I wish I had of learned this years ago, this would make searching much easier. But I wonder if it is better to get less results rather than searching in a broader spectrum. I sometimes find, I will come across information from larger searches because random information will appear. The university search will only be appropriate to use if you can only use information from universities, but otherwise, it will limit your search, if you can use other source.

MODULE 4 - Searching the web

Unfortunately, I cannot find "Copernic" or "Sherlock" for my Mac OSX, but i came across a program called DEVONagent. This program searches through various amount of search engines and finds the most appropriate one for your topic. The search does not separate the search engine results, but instead filters and collects the most appropriate websites and analyzes each site and lists them for you with the information and not just the links.
I like the fact that you can read the most important information before you even open up the link, this would save you a lot of time as you don't have to sort through which site is relevant, this has been done automatically.
You can also set the result on automation and once you have archived your first search, it will keep updating the with new results in your archive. I believe this would be very handy and good for my future searches.


As I can't really compare with the correct program (copernic or sherlock) it's hard to see the difference. But the search result was not the same only a couple were the same. But I would have to say that I prefer to use DEVONagent in the future as the results are easier to identify and it would be a time saver. I like the fact that I can read about the site before even opening up the site. I also like the fact that it high lights your searched word in all the site, this allows you to read the appropriate sections. Another highlight of this program is the result can also be viewed in topics. As I searched for Antivirus Software, DEVONagent catagorises the topic. eg. software, protection, security. This is just an added bonus!



Top 5 Google search

Search Engine - Google
Search word - Antivirus Software
First hit - http://www.avast.com/
Amount of hits - 37,800,000



Top 5 DEVONagent search

Program - DEVONagent
Search word - Antivirus Software
First hit - http://www.youtube.com/results?num=40&q=antivirus+software&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=w1#_jmp0_
Amounts of hits - 39( i'm not sure if this is correct, but it says that there are 39 documents, but i think it has been extracted from 69 pages)

MODULE 4 - Tools for using the web

Real Player

This is a very a easy program to download and install onto your computer. The website gives you step by step instructions, allowing the most basic user to perform the installation easily. The only confusing process is choosing the correct free download. One option is to have a free trial, but there is another for a free download. The free trial requires your bank detail, so you need to make sure that you download the "freeload".

I played around with the program, and I found it very similar to other programs such as Quicktime and VLC. Real player is also very easy to use and allows you to play many types of files such as MPEG, SWF and AVI. You can also set the program as a default player when you have chosen to play these certain files. I find that this program is very useful for all aspects but because it is a common program i dont think you need to have the similar programs installed. I really need to trial this program for a few weeks to get a good feel of it, but after using it for a short period of time I believe that it is very easy and user friendly. I am not familiar with the differences with the extensions, but after reading up on the quicktime player and real player it seems as though the only difference with the 2 programs is that the quicktime player can play windows extensions.

URL Manager Pro

This is a very interesting program which I haven't installed on my computer before. I haven't really come across using a program such as this, but I am really interested in exploring it further. I usually use my Firefox bookmark organiser and I haven't really had any problems but it would be good to use a program which doesn't need to be connect to the internet. I don't think there are a lot of programs such as this, I personally haven't come across any. I searched around to see if there were other's which are simiar but only came across 2 other names opera and powermark.

The program is very easy to download and install, but the only problem with this download is the fact that you need to pay for it to use all the settings. Although it doesn't cost much, but it would be good if you could trial the complete program before purchasing.

I found this program to be a little fiddly and hard to get a hang of. The instructions are not very helpful but eventually I worked out how to use it. This program seems to be similar to outlook express but with the bookmarking system to be the main component. I like the fact that you can also check your email from here too. When you have all the site bookmarked through this program, I think it would be much easier to find and navigate. The bookmarking system on Firefox is very simple and once you begin to save a lot of sites the tabs can appear messy. With this program, it allows you to have folders (the same as Firefox) and group the same topics in one place. But when you look through these folders, they appear as though you are searching for documents on your computer, this is very easy on your eyes. The "fav" setting is also a good feature. I like the fact that you can have all your sites organised with the appropriate heading. The best part of this program is the search function. If you have forgotten where you have saved the url, you can easily do a search for it, this will save you so much time!

MODULE 3 - Web 2.0

HTML or Diigo?

I really like the interface of Diigo as I found it very organised and easy to follow. When I looked at the net11 HTML site, I found it extremley hard to glance over the information because all I could only see unorganised text. Although you have the links and information clearly colour coded, there was no format on the webpage. Diigo was neatly set in a frame and heading, and all other information was formatted so you could glance over the information and not get lost.

The differences I could visually see were:
Diigo - Dates, Tabs, Heading, web address, Annotation
HTML - Heading, Site info

One major difference between the two sites that is a huge benefit was the fact that the html site can be printed with the same layout as the site. The diigo site lost all the structure so when you went to print, it wasn't the same as what you had seen online. I'm not sure if any one would print this but I guess you need to be able to execute any command.

Diigo


HTML



I came across a HTML bookmarking list on Ellen Von Unwerth and I actually found this one as easy to read as the diigo site. This HTML site was organised well and was set in frames with Pages for the site clearly marked. The writer for this site has carefully made this clear for any reader. This site is carefully grouped as article, info and biography with each one containing the heading, date and topic name on the bookmarked page. In comparison to the diigo page, I think this one is much better as this one is simple and very clear!


I guess it all depends on how the author organises and designs the site. My initial preference was diigo because of the visual difference compared to the net11 HTML but now that i have seen an organised HTML site ( Ellen Von Unwerth) I prefer this at it has the same info as the diigo but looks more simple.