Lists

15th March '08

What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?

In my experience with email lists, I have found that discussion can easily stray from the topic. Although straying from the topic can be fun, it can be frustrating when you want a specific topic to be covered as completely as possible within the group on the list.

As the webct discussion board is the first one I have encountered, and managed to place a new topic up, I have found it very good at staying on topic most of the time, and many of the students helpful.

Overall I find email lists easier to access than the discussion board as having to log on takes time. As there is usually no instant response, unless someone is accessing the emails or the discussion board at the same time, the response time is the same.

Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

Email list postings are on your computer when you download them and can be responded to later. Discussion forums on the other hand have to be accessed online, read and either let pass or respond to whilst on the forum.

In the former you can keep a record of the emails if you wish. In the latter, by cutting and pasting, you can keep the particular topic.

I think I have got myself utterly confused now.

Module 2 - Tasks Thursday 13th March '08 12.16pm

EMAIL TASK

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?

If the subject heading does not have "re:" in front of it, it means that it is a new subject. If it has "important" in the heading, I assume the sender wants me to read it as soon as possible. If it is a reply ("re:") then it is a response to my email.

If I do not know the sender of an email, or by the subject line, I have a choice to read it or delete it. I instantly delete any email that does not contain a subject.

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

The 'cc' allows me to send the email to more than one recipient. By using 'bcc', that prevents other recipients from seeing who else has received the same email.

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

Firstly, if possible, asking the recipient if they have the same program that would allow the attachment to open properly. If I cannot ascertain that, then send the attachment as a MIME, which is the default encoding.

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

As I mainly use the email for family and friends I have not set up any filters. I have been fortunate not to swamped by spam and immediately delete anything that I think is spam.

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

Most of my email is personal. If anything important is sent to me I print it out so that I have a hard copy to refer to if necessary.

Internet Tools

Firstly: the email we had to respond to came yesterday, I had to search back where I read about it, found it and replied to Cynthia.

Secondly: the date and time on this site are out by almost a day.....I hope this doesn't cause problems......on second thought I'll date and time my input from now on.

Friday 7 March '08.....2.34pm

Now the first task in Internet Tools

I did a lot of procrastinating before I decided to complete this one after my bad experiences with downloading programs, but took a deep breath and plunged in.

To my complete surprise and utter pleasure I didn't have to download a program, just use it as per instructions. It was fantastic.

To answer the first question: How many hops did it take from the Central Ops tool site to the curtin.edu.au. 20

What is the average time in milliseconds from tools site to curtin.edu.au. 249

Now this is the most calm I have felt since starting the course. I will endevour to continue on calmly.

The IP number for curtin.edu.au is 134.7.179.53.


3.00pm
For the Further Exploration section I decided to continue on and download the freeware at Tucows but the link said that page could not be found. I did an internal search of tucows, tried traceroute and came up with businesses that had nothing to do with what I was after. Tried a ping search and had a choice of two golf club businesses..

I remember reading someone else (Ruby) saying the link was broken so I re-read Cynthia's response and have decided I will leave it at that unless someone else mentions the problem and take it from there.

Many hours later and thanks to a response from Dylan, I just typed in the ftp in the url of my browser, found the mystery word and bob's ya aunty and Mary's ya uncle, all done. So easy.
"According to the readme file "CAPITALIZATION MATTERS". Capitalization being the mystery word. All done and dusted in about two minutes.

I will now delete forever that stupid ftp software program I downloaded and hope to clean my desktop of all the extra icon things that are now littering it.

As I have always been wary of downloading programs I'm not sure of, I feel justified in my initial dislike of doing it, due to the disaster of the Telnet problems I had and now this.

File Transfer Protocol

Now I feel like I'm drowning. I downloaded the recommended program okay, read the directions, filled in the relevant bits (probably with wrong information). It won't let me connect. I've put up a new topic (pats myself on the back) asking, or should I say screaming for help, the desktop is covered with all sorts of picture thingys......oooohhhh I do hope there is someone out there, I'm too scared to delete any of them.

Part B

I just come back from towel.blinkenlights.nl/telnet. Wow that was spectacular. I would not even want to guess how long it took the designer to do that. Would it have been done in program language or just using the keyboard? I would consider it to be a forerunner to the animation cartoons by Nicholson. I hope for future historians that pieces like this are never lost.

Task 1

Well that was very daunting. Not knowing what to do I went to the discussion board and found a thread on Telnet. Christoper kindly put up instructions on how to access the hyperterminal on my computer (for another student) and I followed the steps recommended. ( I also asked where to find my email address to which he suggested I go back to Oasis, gawd do I feel like a dummy!!)

Back to the Telnet saga. After about six tries, and much frustration due to nothing happening on the screen, I went back to the discussion board to find two other students had put up links to dtelnet. Wandered over to there, and after much huffing and puffing on my part worked out how to download it. I got it up and running and hey presto, there I was a the library, with prompts on what to do. Whew. I don't want to go through that again. I anxiously await my email from Deakin to assure me I did the right thing.

It took me back the 1980's when I first got on a computer and didn't know what to do. What and experience. I now appreciate how far computers have progressed in 20 plus years.

Going back to start.

When I first connected to the webct, after logging in to Oasis, I found the unit, did the orientation tutorial, discovered I learn in a multimodal way. I then went to the discussion board and read the welcome from our tutor Cynthia, read the other students responses as well as posting my own with throw away line asking was it too early to ask for help. Tony Consentino (my hero of the hour) responded. I was quite taken aback at first, but then started to feel I belonged to a group. My help query was in creating a blog!!! As is shown I did manage with a tip or two from Tony.

Now I am off to do the B part of task one............