Saturday, June 25, 2011

Week 4 What is Web 2.0?

Another week has gone by and I am closer to figuring out what this Web 2.0 business is all about. According to Dr Tama Leaver (2010), it is all about users conversing with each other, the read/write web, the provision of tools with which to converse, participate and exchange ideas, and best of all you don't have to know coding to use it! It includes tools and platforms which allow people to interact with each other and share ideas and content. These include social bookmarking, blogging, social networks, and platforms for content and video sharing. Tim O'Reilly, who runs some giant publishing company, is considered the Web 2.0 guru.

O’Reilly (2005) summarises the main attributes of Web 2.0 which make it different from Web 1.0. Firstly, Web 2.0 is about services rather that software packages. Secondly, users are co-developers and with more use, data becomes richer, harnessing a collective intelligence, and authors are no longer reliant on knowledge of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to be able to produce work. In Web 2.0 the content and form of a document is separated (Leaver, 2010). And thirdly, the PC is no longer the only connecting device as hand held devices such as phones are able to connect to the web (O’Reill, 2005).


And then there is RSS (Really Simple Syndication) - really! With RSS you can catch up an all the latest updates from sites you subscribe to without having to go check them all to find out if there is anything new. (Leaver, 2010) What a great time saver!


So get ready for a change from consumer culture to the culture of participation! (Leaver, 2010)


O'Reilly, T. 2005. What is Web 2.0. Design Patterns and Business Models for the next Generation of Software. Accessed June 2011 from http://oreilly.com
Leaver, T. (2010) ... and what is the World Wide Web? [Lecture]. Retrieved from http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/lectopia.lasso?ut=2417



Saturday, June 18, 2011

More on the 'web'

I sat through a video called 'The Web that wasn't' and would not have called it fascinating. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen but it didn't. From Ted Nelson on was a bit better. Then I listened to and watched Clay Shirky speak about the impact of the interactivity of web 2 as against the passive inactivity of media......; the wasted intellectual hours watching TV when production and sharing could have been done (as against consuming). Just imagine what could have been accomplished if TV had not happened!!!.....I certainly could have painted a way lot more paintings. I can't wait for the non-rating season when there's nothing on to watch.

Clay Shirky, 2008.
Here Comes Everybody -Web 2.0 Lecture, Web 2.0 Expo SF
Alex Wright , 2008."The Web that Wasn't" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72nfrhXroo8

Week 3

This week we looked at the World Wide Web to find out what it was and how it was different to the 'Internet'.

The World Wide Web is a system of interconnected networks spanning the globe, where routers and switches establish links between networks. Communication packets move between firewalls behind which are LAMS. Firewalls regulate which packets make it into a network web server (Elam et al, 2002).

The WWW is an application, which makes use of the functions of the Internet. It is a system of file sharing of hypertext documents from one web user to another. To use the WWW you need a piece of software, which facilitates access to the WWW, i.e. retrieve and display hypertext documents served on servers around the world.

The WWW is a feature of the Internet, which has contributed to the Internet’s growth. It is a method of posting and accessing interactive multimedia information. It has been called an “information superhighway” and allows users to access information quickly and easily. It uses a set of open standards, which allows software and data files to be downloaded by most computers, and requires an Internet connection and a Web browser. (CenterSpan, 2001)



CenterSpan, 2001. http://www.centerspan.org/tutorial/www.htm Accessed June 5, 2011.

Elam, G., Stephanson, T., & Hanberger, N. (2002). Warriors of the Net [Video].Accessed June 5, 2011.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Week 2

It is the end of the second week of this course.
I have listened to an interesting ilecture explaining what the internet is and how it came to be. So there were the Americans, worried about communications being interrupted in case of an atomic attack, so they decided to connect their computers so they could share information. Then someone had a brilliant idea and they invented a server so all the networks of computers could be connected, and so they had the internet. The French scientists at CERN (Conseil European pour la Recherche Nucleaire) came aboard with their ideas too. But the networks had different languages so they invented TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol) standards, guaranteeing that they could all talk to each other in a common computer language. And so email came to be. I can hardly believe all that started over 40 years ago!

References: Leaver, Tama Dr. (2011) What is the Internet? Web101 Web Communications iLecture Accessed 6th June 2011 from: http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/casterframe.lasso?fid=691873&cnt=true&usr=14897694&name=not-indicated

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

First post

Well, here we are. Web 101.
I found it fascinating to learn about the origin of the internet and www. Thinking about the way it works and the speed with which information can travel across the world is mind boggling.


I was amazed at the huge number of online places in list given on nameck.com. I am already using some of the familiar ones, like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, but others I had never heard of. On checking my usernames I have found a couple which I could use in this coarse. I visited some of the sites and I must admit I can't see the point in most of them anyway. But it did reinforce to me that I need to register my domain name ASAP so I don’t lose the one I want.


I am looking forward to a clearer idea of how it all works and what I can do with it.

I invite you all to follow my blog, and look forward to chatting with you.


Ingrid