Net11 Reflections Week Four

Before this week (and year) gets away from me I thought maybe a word or two about last week was in order.

After my comments last week about managing my time online more efficiently, I got smacked by the on coming train that is Christmas. So while I had every intention of getting more uni work done and being productive in general, this wasn't the actual case. In fact, I had less time on the net in general. May I point out though this was not necessarily a bad thing! :)

So while I didn't get a chance to set in place life changing program, I did have plenty of time to think about how exactly I will approach this seemingly mammoth task. And after much thought, I have come up with cunningly simple plan: Before I sit down in front of my Mac, I will state out aloud to myself what it is I want to achieve. I will then also write this down on paper for later reference. In this manner I put accountability on my session and upon myself*. By placing accountability upon my time on the net hope that I will focus on the task at hand and procrastinate less.

Of course I will do this regardless of if the session is for study, work or just surfin' the interwebs!

With the little time that I did have to spend on course work, module two revisited some interesting areas of my past. I enjoyed the technical aspect of relearning some old tools and protocols such as IRC and Usenet, and discovered some great insight into their impacts on the net and contributions to the world. Also to date the discussions and insights from my fellow students has been inspirational, and I really am looking forward now to where the next couple of months are going to take me. Let the learning continue.

*No really this took much thought on my part.

Peerless Is The Oracle

While completing my Usenet/Newsgroup task I came across some geek humor which I thought deserved it's own post :)

The Internet (Usenet) Oracle is ongoing geek humor which originated on Usenet. Essentially one submits a question (serious or not) to the Oracle in order to receive an answer (more than often not serious) from the Oracle. Over time a structure and format developed and metamorphosed into the now common Oracle format.

If you have even just a little bit of geek in you, then I highly recommend exploring this and if possible, seek the wisdom of the Oracle.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} You owe the Oracle one comment.

Module 2 - Chat Task IRC Option

I use some form of realtime, synchronis chat on most days. Whether it is Messenger at work for communication with interstate team members. ICQ, Google Talk to catch up with friends and family or Skype, iChat to keep in-touch with business colleagues and partners. I can pretty much safely say that at some stage or another I have used most forms of chat.

Because of this reason, I chose to go with the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) option to complete part one of this task. Fortunately for me I all ready have an excellent Mac IRC client, Linkinus, installed on my machine so all I needed to do was brush of the cobwebs and away I went.

IRC is a different beast to the more common Instant Message (IM) clients such as MSN and ICQ. For one it's been around since the late 80's and in general IRC takes a bit more to set up than an IM client. Once online though IRC offers a world of opportunity for obtaining and sharing information or just plain socialising.

The main difference between IRC and that of other chat tools is the channel or group aspect of the system. IRC was created not as a one to one chat such as MSN or ICQ and as such it is primarily a mass communication tool where a large groups of people can communicate. As the chat is conducted primarily in a channel, IRC can be useful for sharing knowledge amongst a large range of users working on a project or with a shared interest. In times of emergency or world events, IRC has also been a major contributor to news gathering and reporting.

Most channels which I visited had regular users who you could approach for help or to find out information. An immediate draw back if unfamiliar with this group chat concept is the speed of conversation and background chatter that can occur. If you are new to IRC or online chatting this can be very disconcerting. That said, if needed you can also have private chats within IRC which allow for a more restrained and manageable chat environment.

I find that once you are over the technical obstacles of IRC, it can be a very rewarding method of communicating. For one you don't have to wait until friends are online, you can just log onto a channel and find someone like minded (or not) to chat with. Personally I feel this makes the whole IRC experience more sociable than IM.

Module 2 - Newsgroups Task

Usenet and Newsgroups are not a new idea to me. Created nearly 30 years ago Usenet and Newsgroups could be considered the original Social Networking medium of the internet. For those geeks out there or those just interested (admit it, you have to be a geek to be interested) then check out how it actually works.

Like most people who have explored the internet over the years, I innocently stumbled across Usenet and Newsgroups and found some of it's more nefarious uses. Besides this murky all to common side of what now is Usenet, a lot of people seem not to realise how much has evolved from the Usenet over the last 29 years. Giganews posted this list "Worst. Top 10 List. Ever." ;-) 10 Things Started on Usenet which highlights some interesting contributions to the net from Usenet.

In completing this task I had a play around with a few options including Google Groups and a stand alone reader for my trusty MacBook.

To begin with I shot over to Google and their implementation of Newsgroups; Google Groups where as a Gmail and Google Reader user, I all ready had an active account. Google Groups is home to vast range of topics and interests some of which correspond to Usenet while some which are exclusive to Google Groups. Content is made up of some 3011712 groups available through the service. Very similar in actual content using Google Groups itself was also relatively easy as the interface shares similar layouts and features with other Google services.

Next I decided to download a stand alone reader with my first stop to find some software. After a little searching I re-downloaded a demo version of my previous reader Unison. Installing Unison was a snap, the hardest part was actually finding a server which a) was free and b) was still active. Thanks to Newzbot.com I successfully got online and trawled through some Newsgroups across a couple of servers. Again accessing the content was easy thanks to the beautiful interface of Unison.

Through the course of these two tasks I began to remember why I moved on from this corner of the online world last time. While there is a lot of useful information and discussion on Usenet, it is far outweighed by spam, or links to porn. Newsgroups for binaries dominate the landscape while even the heavily filtered Google service wasn't immune to these activites.

Usenet was probably once a very useful means of communication, yet today I find it is full of spam and host to the underbelly of the net. Yes there are still valid conversations and sharing of knowledge going on within this world, but I find they are far outweighed by the rest. Although I hope it doesn't come to this.

Module 2 - Lists Task

While I am a regular user of announcement type email lists (common subscribe to a newsletter type deal), discussion mail lists are something of which I have never been big fan or user of.

Mail lists have been around for ever and have played a large role in providing a simple means and opportunity for discussion and knowledge dissemination. While this is true, I can't really say they are my cup of tea. I think in all the years that I have been using the internet, I have been compelled to only subscribe to one or so discussion lists.

Putting my personal biases aside I went out and completed a little research, seeking out the hidden world of mailing lists. The results, to put it simply, have amazed me with what is available on the net. With my first stopping point Yahoo Groups, I found a massive range of topics covering all walks of life. If you want to find out some random and obscure information say about the world of Bollywood, then this is a great starting point.

So why is it so many people find mail lists relevant still? Not everyone has broadband, if your access to the internet is limited then being on an email list as digest may have great benefit to you. The ability to read the email offline would allow you to catch up with news and information at your convenience, rather than trawling through posts in a forum to find what you need would be very appealing.

On the flip forums or discussion boards such as VBulletin, SMF or PHPBB, offer a richer and fuller user experience which can require more resources and time online. From my personal experience, I find the communities created through these types of forums an attraction. Now coupled with RSS feeds available on most popular forum software, you can keep track of conversations or find support (now my general reason for using forums) quickly and easily.

Interestingly enough after this task I now have a better understanding of where discussion mailing lists sit in the wide web world. And while I'm not going to be rushing out to sign up to find out about Mermaids; I now understand how both forms of communication fit in the general scheme of all things net. And although I don't think either is particularly any better than the other for communicating information in general, each offers the user a different experience in communication depending on their end need or available resources.

As a final piece I found this great little piece by a blogger Alexander Gomes on just this subject. While Alexander's bent is pro forum, some interesting alternative points are raised through the comments. Enjoy.