Lists

What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?
Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

After actually being part of many email lists in the past (eg. DBW dirtbike worls, AVS audio video science) i have probably already formed an opinion on the pros and con's. I also frequent many discussion board for troubleshooting and for product research. Whenever i buy a major purchase i normally troll around discussion boards reading peoples opinions.

Pros of e-mail list versus Discussion Boards are,

• Ability to have all the information/messages automatically sent to you.
• Anonymity to others on the list. You can just receive a list without input in discussion.
• Ease of browsing new messages.
• Can be read off line.
• No having to go online and browse boards.
  

Con's

• Sometimes large and cumbersome files.
• Receiving updates even when you don't want them.
• Can lead to being spammed!! (happened to me).
• Cant filter what you want to see.
  

Overall I'm not a fan of lists. I like to chose when i want updates and when i want to browse messages. Which i find more suited on discussion boards. They do still serve a purpose on certain requirements for people but i honestly think they are not as easy to use as discussion boards. I like being able to select what i want to view, and not have to go thru every post.

Discussion boards i find are logical and easy to navigate, and also easy for the beginner to post and contribute. Just an old school way of internet chat i guess.

E-Mail Tasks

1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?

Well to answer this question i perused threw multiple e-mails in my inbox. Looking into the e-mail after scanning the actual contents there are a few things you can gather.
Firstly you can see the address the message came from, and from this you can work out the domain of the e-mail account. eg ght@hotmail.com would be from the public email host hotmail.
By looking at the last part of the address you could Google search the name and ascertain if its from a business, private/public address or spam most of the times.

You can also work out if its from a list server and if it has a reply address the same or different from where it came.

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email?

The 'cc' function is a an often useful function for many. 'cc' or carbon copy is pretty much what it stands for.
In the work environment it is useful and sometimes necessary to cc managers or colleagues when dealing with people. For accountability, to show you have responded and to also keep others in the loop of progress or movements with tasks.

'bcc', or blind carbon copy is similar to cc with the major difference of not letting the recipient know that someone else has received the e-mail you have sent.
It is something that can be invasive and useful.
By invasive i mean an unaware recipient could think they are privy or exclusive to what has been sent but in actuality others also have received the same message. Which can be sometimes misleading.
But on the flip side, its useful if sending something out and you do not want people to know a certain somebody is receiving the message as well. As to not offend someone.
It still regardless is a clouded line in email etiquette.

The 'reply all' function is also a very useful and sometime annoying feature of email.
If the message in your reply is important to all on the mailing list then it simplifies the process of not having to entering all the email address's manually which can be quite time saving.
Some times this function acts as a real pain... when people just hit reply all when the information they are replying has no bearing directly on you at all! So if the the mailing list was lengthy and most people replied for example, there shoe sizes, then you would have a lot of new emails with information, as you as a fellow recipient have no point wanting. Annoying indeed!

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

In this current day i have found that interoperability between systems is not as much of a problem as what was say 10 years ago. These days if i send document in either pdf or word documents most people should have no problem opening them. As long as the version of word is supported. For example, i save all my word documents as .doc files in office 2007 instead of .docx which word by default tries to save it as. Just in case someone doesn't have the required plug ins to open it.
Talking about plug ins, that's the real problem with sending multimedia via emails. Some files use different codecs for encoding/decoding audio and video files. And if both sender and recipient don't have the necessary software and codecs then the file can not be properly interpreted. Which can lead to problems.
So sending multimedia is always a tricky situation to the unskilled recipient who may not know how to open the file. I find it best to encode audio and video with windows media player standards so most people can easily open files i send.


4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?

In the email program i have setup, which is a public Gmail account, there is an automatic spam filter setup. This filter is in place to grab unwarranted mailings and bulk spam that i do not want to read.
I have also a filter setup to put personal email's, from my family's email address's into there own folder so i can quickly ascertain between what emails are for business and what emails are for me on a personal level.

5. How have you organized the folder structure of your email and why?

Since mainly using my g-mail account in the last couple of years, for portability reasons (can access my mail via a web portal anywhere in the world) i have not had a lot of folders setup as such.
I have one folder for family, one for work, and another for school. Any other mailing that i want i archive or leave in my in box. To find mail i always use the search function if in doubt.

Ping Pong

After the last task there was the option of further investigating of network tools.
So i decided to download A-Tools which was recommended on the syllabus.
I then went ahead and sent a ping command to the webct server.
After a few times i got an average roundtrip response of 255 milliseconds.

The response time is pretty much what i assumed it would be, within decent time but probably not as quick as what it would be for Australian based student.

Next task at hand was to run a tarceroute between my local PC and the curtin.edu.au server and record how many hops it took. Keeping in mind how many hops it took earlier from the tools site. In advance i figure my tests would be similar to earlier due to my locality here in Missouri, USA.
Below is the screen capture of my results.

As you can see above there was less hops from my local pc. 19 hops in total. This was a little surprising to me. Due to the tools server being not far from my locality i thought there would have been very close in total hops.

In summation, it just goes to show that even though all roads may lead to Rome, there are many ways to get there. Some shorter than others.
Because of so many different network topology's around the Internet, and variables such as traffic and network downtimes, there is no one way for data to travel. Data can take whatever route is available at the time. Ingenious and amazing really.

Traceroute

After some technical issues, eg- Power outages due to severe storms in the Midwest!!, i have finally came back online.
This move to the US is starting out kind off rough.
One thing you learn from being without connectivity is how dependent on the Net i actually am.
No internet = no school
= no online banking
= no bill payments
= no entertainment!
But anyway back to the job at hand.... Using traceroute.

In various employments i have partaken, traceroute was a tool i have used before. Not in any great capacity, but on the job to check connectivity issues.
For example, you could use traceroute to find out on a big network with multiple routers where your computers information routes through. Which could also lead to tell you if a particular router is not working.
For the task at hand, we had to go to a site with a hosted traceroute program. I went to the site http://centralops.net/co/
Well as you can see above in the screen capture, there was 22 hops along the way using the traceroute application.
The average time in milliseconds for a return trip from server to server is 252.3.
This the average of all three of the final columns responses.
Lastly but not least, from the traceroute tool we now discovered that the IP address for Curtain was 134.7.179.53 .

In reflection, you can see where traceroute would serve many purposes. From finding an IP address to finding the route your data travels.
The information really shows that things do a lot of work in the background for even the smallest Internet commands. These things being routers, servers and all other kind of network equipment along the way.
The internet indeed does bridge a huge gap that we are normally totally unaware of.
Now its time for me to hop of to work. Now wouldn't that look funny:)

FTP

Being somewhat familiar with FTP and FTP clients, i was already use to the interface and protocol. Filezilla was already installed on my PC so that task was taken care of. Ive used FTP before when updating some websites.
Ive found FTP to be fast and relatively painless as a whole.
For the task at hand, i had to logon to the curtain ftp site recall.curtin.edu.au. And from there look at the directory structure.

Find the file called README

Then download the file, look at it and answer the following question

"according to the readme file, '_______ MATTERS' - what word goes in the blank?"

So after browsing, i found the file in the MSC folder and not at the root as described. Which was a little bit misleading.The word that was missing in the question above was

CAPITALIZATION MATTERS!

And as described in the text document,CAPITALIZATION DOES MATTER! On a UNIX server as where the file was stored, the server is case sensistive. So if directly trying to FTP to the site via a command line, we would need to make sure our Case was rite.

First Module Tasks:)

TELNET


Well for one, the delay for me getting to this task is simple... 20 plus hours of international flight last week then having to get a broadband account setup at my US address! Pfff I now have my excuse sorted so now on to work!

Task A.


For task A i am supposed to telnet to the Deakin server... So far Vista wont let me install its telnet client so i have to persevere with another program.
So i installed Absolute Telnet and i was good to go.
I typed in the relevant address and was presented with a list of options.






I then continued to browse thru the menus until i found the author Bennahum.











From here i selected the print to e-mail option and forwarded it to my e-mail address.







Job done.......
The task overall was not a difficult one, though slightly cumbersome compared to modern search engine browsing. It does still serve a purpose for a redundant measure to access material still, but with todays GUI's and search engines i think HTTP is the protocol for the masses.



TASK B.



Now after watching Blinkinlights i was amazed...
amazed at how much effort someone went into. It was a great little presentation. But as my peers have probably noted i wish there was a fast forward button somewhere. I guess thats just one of the things as a modern net user i am used to. Having more controls available to me on the media i look at.

Now in summation, i think telnet still has a need. But that need is definitely for the masses.
Telnet's interface is foreign to very new net users. No mouse control and restricted functions. While great as a start i can see how this medium was made obsolete (for the most part) to the average user.

1ST Time

I have finally got around to entering the world of 'Blogging'.
This blog is primarily set up for the University course i am currently enrolled in and also as a bonus a social experiment... Laying my mind on the page to be openly scrutinized.

So now is the past..

Top 5 Tips for new Bloggers

These tips are valuable for writing a new blog. I, myself am extremely new to the world of blogging and can definitely say i have allot to learn. But Rome was not built in a day and neither will be my blogging prowess.

So read below for a good guideline and most of all, enjoy spilling your mind and creativity onto the page!

1. See Writing as a Skill to be developed.

A blogger needs many skills: design, seo, good relationships with other bloggers e.t.c; but, of all the skills, writing is the most important. For most blogs, it is writing that will determine the long-term success of your blog. Because of the importance of writing, it is worth spending a little time trying to improve your writing skills.

2. Choose the Right Topics

To make an impact on the web you need to be able to offer something different and unique. With so many blogs around, it is important to be able to avoid rehashing similar material that is floating around the net. The best thing to do is choose a topic that you share a genuine passion for. If you choose topics that you hope will be profitable, you may struggle for inspiration to write.

3. Write for the Benefit of your Readers

The blogs that attract me to subscribe are those who regularly offer something useful / interesting / funny. If your articles are focused on offering something to your readers, this is much better than writing for yourself or search engines. It is a mistake to try and write for search engines, they are too sophisticated. (Although, it worth considering helpful keywords from time to time). Writing for the benefit of your own ego, is also one of the easiest ways to put off readers.

4. Write in a Professional Style.

It is a mistake to feel that you are “only writing for a Blog” If you view your blog like a magazine it will help maintain a certain standard. Also, as a blogger you can open many future potential avenues of work.
Therefore, avoid delving into too much personal detail. At the same time, it can be helpful to embellish your articles with relevant personal experiences.

5. Gain Inspiration from Others

To become a good writer, don’t feel you have to be self-sufficient. Your writing will improve if you spend some time reading accomplished writers. If you can appreciate the good writing qualities of others, it will definitely help you develop as a writer. This does not mean you will seek to imitate others; this will never work. Each writer needs to develop his own style and personality, however, you can learn through others by a process of synthesis and osmosis. Gradually you will develop your writing.

Reference

http://www.netwriting.co.uk/2007/05/07/top-5-tips-writing-for-blogs/