Module 4 - Evaluating The Web

As a part of the Concepts assignment I was introduced, in no uncertain terms, to the concept of evaluating and annotating my reference sites. At the time I really thought nothing of it and felt it was more a waste of time rather than to my benefit; really why couldn't those 200 words be better used writing ABOUT the concept.

Now with the assignment behind me and finally completing Module 4, I have come to truly appreciate and understand the need for this type of evaluation and annotation. As a direct result, I have become more and more reliant on tagging my bookmarks and writing a brief annotation about the page, if needed. In this manner I have began to really manage the information presented to me and cross reference it for future use.

What really intrigues me though, more and more online resources are allowing Internet users to do this quickly and easily. From social bookmarking with Delicious, Diigo's text highlighting or Google's SearchWiki feature. Browsers are even getting more in on the deal with Firefox now auto suggesting popular tags for sites and allowing notes (annotations) in bookmarks. It seems that information management is really starting to come to the fore.

So as we move forward on the Internet, these type of features are definitly becoming essential to manage the vast amount of information presented to us, and how we use these tools becomes even more important.

Module 4 - Organising Search Information Task

After you using the Internet for awhile, you soon realise that you need a good strategy for managing all that information you come across just by browsing, searching or other nefarious means.

My primary method of managing this information is bookmarking. As I always have a browser open, I generally bookmark and save into one of several folders that I have arranged. As I sometimes use 2 or 3 different browsers on 2 or 3 devices (laptop, desktop, iPhone, work machine, etc), keeping bookmarks in sync has been a bit of a problem. To manage this issue I use the Foxmarks plugin to sync all bookmarks across all machines and browsers.

Another bookmarking method I have recently started to embrace is Delicious. An online social bookmarking site, I love how Delicious allows me to find other peoples treasure and for me to share mine. Because of Delicious (and Net11) I have also really started to tag my bookmarks (both in Delicious and my browser) and add short annotations (notes) to help me manage that information in the future.

In relation to the task I bookmarked my top three results via Delicious. These were bookmarks relating to my study hence this method. I tagged each result "ouanet11, module4, search, result" and made a short annotation as to the information on the site (and reason for bookmarking the page).

I really like the idea of social bookmarking, sharing tags and notes on pages, finding other peoples nuggets of useful (or not so useful information). Now through Net11 I have been able to have more of a play with Delicious and now I'm now starting to think about moving all my bookmarks there, really it's just another step towards the cloud.

Module 4 - Boolean Searching Task

As Google automatically assumes the Boolean operator AND my initial search results were actually pretty limited so you could say there was some room to wriggle.

To achieve absolute maximum results I used the Boolean operator OR between each keyword "desktop OR meta OR search OR osx" and closed up "os x" to "osx". This resulted in an increase from 206,000 results to a more respectable figure of 7,090,000,000. Heh!

Obviously this is not a manageable search as Google is looking for pages which contain anyone of the keywords. To narrow down my results I began by removing the OR operator and changed my keywords "meta search" to "metasearch"; I now had 111,000 results to go through. The really funny part about doing this; results 3 and 4 are my own blog entry regarding the Search Task! Have a look if you don't believe me.

At this stage I felt that my initial keywords were affecting the quality of my results. To try and improve results I switched keywords and included the operators + and - with various keywords. As a result my search of "metasearch software +mac -windows" now yielded only 13,400 results. Much more manageable and of better quality overall (it didn't include my blog entry).

Now, other than using a specialist search engine, I'm not fully aware of a foolproof way to only get results back from university sites. It was mentioned on WebCT to use "+.edu" to achieve this, personally I found that this did not filter results enough. In the end I added "-.com" to my search string and again changed my keywords including adding another Boolean operator. As such my search string was now "(metasearch AND software) +.edu -.com" which gave me 519 mostly results from government or educational sites.

Of course I could have just used the keywords "metasearch software mac" on Google Scholar to get something similar results wise.

Module 4 - Search Engine Task

For the non-mac users in the unit, OS X's Sherlock has been replaced by the much niftier Spotlight. Unfortunately I have not been able to work out how to make Spotlight search multiple online search engines, nor have I been able to find a desktop metasearch engine tool for a Mac. As such I have used the online metasearch engine Search.com to complete step two of this task. Now on with the show.

Search 1
Site: Google.com
Keywords: desktop meta search os x
Results: 206, 000

Check out the search results from Google

Search 2
Site: Search.com
Keywords: desktop meta search os x
Results: 166, 020

Check out the results from Search.com

Google not only yields more results, but the relevancy of the results is also far better with Google than Search. Google's first result is indeed for a desktop metasearch app (albeit something similar to spotlight rather than for the web) unlike Search.com's self referencing list of web search sites.

I am a big fan of Google. 9 times out of 10 it finds what I am looking for and when it doesn't, I use Google to find me a specialist database or directory to try and find more particular information on what I am searching for. Then I go back to Google and refine my search.

Module 4 - Tools For Using The Web

I have used most of the tools listed in this task at one time or another. Because of this I have gone off in search of some various "other" tools for the internet. As a result of my exploration what I found was an avalanche of tools allowing you to better utilise your time and be more productive on the internet. Without writing a thesis on the various applications I explored I thought highlighting the following three apps would give enough insight into my experiences.

Managing Bookmarks
First off is Webbla; a Mac application for managing bookmarks from all your browsers. Webbla allows you tag and add notes to each bookmark. The usual search and grouping options are present alongside some more advanced features such as site tracking (tracks updates to pages), popularity (your last visit and how many times) plus a very fancy page preview (view your page visually without visiting). All up Webbla was easy to install with lots of preferences and features to manage your bookmarks including hooking into OS X's Quick Look and Finder. In my mind though it was a little too complex and feature rich (bloated) for this simple task.

Managing Passwords
With the explosion of Web 2.0 sites, social media and web apps it seems we are drowning under logins and passwords. 1Password is a little application which helps manage all these logins and passwords plus a slew of other things relating to your online life. To make sure all your details are stored securely the app hooks into OS X's Keychain application to provide maximum security goodness. After using the app for a day I found it extremely useful and something I will probably use in the future. Downside was it doesn't auto fill logins such as Firefox's built password manager.

Managing Online Updates
Alert Thingy is an Adobe Air based application which allows you to manage and view all your updates from various social media sites. It's an interesting app as you can see status updates from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc in the one application without having to go to the actual site. Installation was simple although extended due to having to install Adobe Air before the app itself. Alert Thingy doesn't have a lot of preferences but it is very useful for keeping abreast of the growing status and update feeds associated with social media.

So what did I learn from all this? I think Internet users can sometimes forget (or take for granted) the most essential tool for our online lives: The humble browser. Pretty much all the above tasks can be completed by your browser, be it native or with an additional plugin.

My browser of choice, Firefox, allows management of bookmarks with tags (Keywords), annotations (notes) and much more. It has built in features for managing passwords with strong built in security for such. Various addons can also be installed to manage social media updates and the like, and that's just the begging of what it can really do.

It is this that makes the browser the most powerful tool for accessing and using the internet. Of course not all browsers are created equal and many people will have different preferences as to what they want from a browser. But it's worth remembering that your browser can offer so much more than just a window to your online world.