Validate me

The next part to the week 3 tute. WWW Consortium validation!

Yikes, didn't really expect that I would need to run the page I made in the last post through the validator... silly really, considering this tute is about standards and correct coding! :o

Expecting the worse, there weren't many errors. 3 errors and 4 warnings. All 3 errors and 3 of the warnings related to character encoding and doctypes. In layman terms, the webpage didn't start with the correct document headers as outlined by the w3c's HTML 4.01 transitional standards.

Unfortunately that was one area that was overlooked in the tutorial.

You are probably wondering about the 1 warning I haven't talked about yet. Well it turns out I miss used the <b> bold tag and used it as a block level element >.< shouldn't use it to surround a chunk of tags. Ah well.

Yay! Some coding!

Finally getting around to doing a little coding in this subject. Even if it is rather simple.

The tutorial was terrific! Very nicely laid out, easy to follow and very informative. Everything a learner needs to understand the basics of HTML (and a little CSS).

I was even impressed if the notes on possible shortcomings and things to look out for as well as tips and links to other resources.

So after following some of the tips and tags, i came up with this:


(gah! i wish this blog would just display the image in its original format and size...)

I already knew a lot of the tags described in the tutorial and didn't expect to learn much more, but i was surprised to discover several tags i never knew existed!

Tags such as the definition list, quote, and attributes for the horizontal rule might just be handy in the future ;)

I think HTML is still the simplest and the best. Modern scripting languages might enable people to develop funky looking sites, but sometimes the simplest of things are the best. There is nothing like a clean, well laid out site.

Obviously WYSIWYG editors, such as that in a blog are a great way to quickly make content, but even knowing a small amount of HTML can be far more powerful in what you are able to achieve.

I have returned

Well, not really. I was always here, but as you probably noticed, I haven't posted in a long time.

Why? Not sure. Don't really have a lot to talk about, and constantly just posting about tutes is boring...too many are doing that.

I think of a blog as something "unique", so doing all the same ol' same ol' as everyone else in this course would be quite a drag on the tutors...I'd hate to sit through dozens of blogs with very similar content. That's not to say my blog is somehow different...it's hard trying to be "original" all the time.

So I come back to the original point; not posting for a while. Procrastination isn't going to help me pass this subject, so it's time i get stuck back into it.

Disjointed Conversations

heh it appears i missed one of the tasks in week2 tutes.

Well i decided to try MSN as the chat program.

It was a great start...I couldn't even install it...for some reason, the online downloading app just sat idol...no downloading progress. So i did the slightly convoluted way of installing it. I searched for an older, standalone version, and once that was installed, upgraded it with the streaming download.

This gave me the chance to see the two different versions of MSN. Quite frankly, i prefer the older look rather than the jazzy new interface, although the new interface is interesting and offers a little more in the way of customisation.

As with any new chat program, the path of the conversation i had was rather predictable. Starts of with the "hello!" "hi!" and works into the "so where are you from?" to "what do you do for a living" and "i like artichokes too!!!" and before long, they get the general gist of sending messages, and turn to the more annoying past times of emotes, and MSN specific "winks" and "nudges" >.< gah!

I'd like a dollar for every different emote, wink and nudge i received ;) hehe

But in all seriousness, i found MSN to be rather good. Not spectacular nor inadequate, but it seemed it has been created for it's purpose; sending quick messages and the exchange of greetings.

I'm used to Skype which is essentially a VOIP or in other words, online telephone system which happens to have the added advantage of chat, and file transfer.

It's clear to see that MSN is far more suited to messaging than chat. setting up voice was a pain and when it did finally work, not everyone was easy to hear. Skype is far superior in that regard.

Over all, i think MSN is a pretty popular and useful tool. The adverts are annoying but most can be removed and from time to time, the connectivity can drop out for no apparant reason, but as i sooned discovered after mentioning it to my friends, most people seem to use it as a means of staying in touch.

Clarity

It was a surprise to see senator Conroy on Q&A last night. I think it was a very brave move considering the turmoil he's created in regards to the compulsory internet filter.

What was more of a surprise was my reaction by the end of the program! He pretty much summed up what i suspected; people have blown the scheme way out of proportion, and that the sensational claims have no factual basis.

In some ways i was very disappointed in the scheme in the first place. I don't think its the responsibility on the Government to enforce such restraints, but then again, it's their responsibility to do what it can to protect people that are unable to do so themselves such as children.

It was reassuring to know that the scheme is very much in a trial phase. And that, even after these trials, nothing is final and if the scheme falls over, they wont continue with it.

I say that if the filter does significantly slow the net, then of course they wont go through with it. But it seems it is part of a feasibility study to see if a number of systems, brought together, can make a difference and improve the safety of the net.

For all those out there saying "OMG! they can't censor the net! what about freedom of speech!?" well i have news for you: stop being a moron and actually look into what exactly you are saying...the filter is not designed to filter political content nor block peoples views...it is designed to block content that is ALREADY regulated by the ACMA. ie. content that is already considered inappropriate. content that is already classified but has skipped such classification because of the nature of the internet.

If you think that freedom of speech is an issue here, it's highly likely that you are a 1st year Arts student who after a few weeks of studying sociology, think you are the almightly expert on the topic. Either that or an easily convinced and simple minded fool who is likely to join your local universities Communist Socialist group.

If none of the above applies, then grow up and act your age. Use some common sense, and do some research before blurting out sensationalist and unfounded claims. Even just an hour of research will show you what the goals and objectives are of the scheme.

Email Lists

Well my experience of email lists was mixed.

I joined a Lord of the Rings email list focused around the books and the movies, and half the time, people wouldn't respond to others emails, and when they did, it was rather easy for the topic to go off on a tangent.

Despite that, it was a rather unique way to discuss topics.

The best bit is you don't necessarily need to look at topics you have no interest in as is sometimes the case with forums and discussion boards, and you can contribute and view posts on the go if your mobile has email access.

I will stick with forums, as it is a lot easier to follow the flow of the discussion, and i get enough spam everyday as it is :P

Communicating on the Web

Ah yes, more tutes to document...

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

The senders name, email address (of course), email account username, the domain the email account it's hosted at (often it is also the domain for a website), the country the domain is hosted in (.au), the type of domain as in whether it is an organisation (.org), company (.com) etc.

Other information that can be gleamed includes other recipients of the email, if it has been forwarded, the past senders of the email (in the body of the email), time and date the email was sent, and if the sender has a signature attached to the email, pretty much everything about the person including phone number, address, place of work, etc!

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

'CC' stands for Carbon Copy ('BCC' being Blind Carbon Copy). The term was coined in the early days of printing when a carbon based paper was used to create an identical copy of a document that had been created without having to retype it.

In regards to emails, essentially it allows the sender of the email to add additional recipients to an email. The same objective can be achieved by adding such recipients to the 'To' field, but the discrepancy is that if the email is not necessarily addressed to the recipient, it is better practice to add them to CC. It notifies all the recipients that those added to CC are being sent the email for refernece purposes.

BCC on the other hand, is similar to CC although no one knows that the email has been sent to them. It is a great way to address an email to a lot of people without everyones email address being visible to all recipients. Newsletters for example can benefit as each email may be sent to thousands of recipients and they don't neccessarily want to have to see thousands of email addresses on their newsletter!

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

There are a couple of methods. Using a universally accepted format such as .txt, .rtf, .htm/l for documents and internet standard image formats such as .jpg, .gif, .png (also helps to keep attachments small in size too).

Also, using a program to zip the files to a .zip or .rar format will ensure that the files sent are small in size, and won't be blocked my email filters.

On a more obsure note, keeping the name of the file simple and oppropriate will stop attachments from being blocked, but will also let the recipient know what the file contains.

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

Several. Spam filters to prevent spam getting through to my inbox, forwarding rules so that all my different email accounts will send a copy of all emails recieved to my main email account that i check often, saving time and easing the hastle of checking them all individually.

Others include rules that automatically send emails to certain folders in my inbox that are either from certain senders, or have certain titles (regular newsletters etc) and filters that block pesky senders.

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

As i often receive a lot of email daily, I have a few folders that are based on categories. eg, a folder for work related stuff, a folder for newsletters, a folder that contains emails from my girlfriend, etc.

It helps to break up all the emails into types so that i don't need to sift through hundreds of emails for the one I need or filter the list by name, date etc.