Week Four Blog

Lecture: This week's lecture was all to do with the WWW (world wide web) and the background information behind it. From questions asked by our lecturer we learnt that the internet was invented by a man called Tim Bernus-lee and that the first ever web page was constructed in 1989. Since then the WWW has come along way as it was originally built for academic use by university students but now is used for basically anything ranging from social uses to even shopping online.

Although the internet seems easy enough to use there are certain protocols behind it, the main four include:

• TCP/IP

• HTTP

• DNS
  

• URL
  

These protocols basically allow signals to be passed through existing phone lines and networks which are then converted back once they reach the desired computer.

As well as the certain protocols in place there are also different endings to web adresses other than .com (commericial), these are:

• .org (organisation)

• .net (network)

• .gov (government)

• .edu (education)

All the information we learnt from todays lecture can help us be more efficient when browsing the internet.

Workshop:

In this week's workshop we had 4 tasks to complete all involving web adresses and determining weather or not the website is authentic or something that isn't ment to be taken to seriously. From this we can evaluate sites more effectively and choose which information is actually useful to us.

Task 1:

Part One:

The first part of this task reuqired us to comment on if we thought these sites would be authentic without visiting them, the sites

were as follows:

http://www.haggishunt.scotsman.com/

This site is a commercial site which indica

tes it may not be as reliable as a site that is an organisation, education or government based website

http://www.molossia.org/
Due to this site been organisation based I would take it more seriously and think that the information provided is reasonably credible

Part Two:The second part of task one involved us evaluating the site and finding four clues that show it's something not ment to be taken seriously

Four points for http://www.haggishunt.scotsman.com/ :

• The profile on Farqhuar Farqhuarson isnt real as the information on his birthday states "probably" and for sex it states "we profoundly hope not"

• Farqhuar Farqhuarson's name changes when you open up his profile

• The image on the front is manipulated so that there is the head of a platapuss on a hedgehog body
  
  
  



• The haggis facts are very fake and in a way commical, for example "Only one substance can hide the odours of a haggis hunter: whisky"
  
  

Four points for http://www.molossia.org/ :

• The website has no real structure and is poorly presented which suggests it isn't produced by a professional editor
  

• The hyper links on the left don't show properly, when you mouse over them no hand appears
  

• The information provided on different sections is very small, and often questionable
  

• They have a navy which consists of three rubber boats, this is commical
  

Part Two:

The first part required us to comment on www.martinlutherking.org and what we thought we would find there. From the URL I'd expect it to be a biography on Martin Luther King which would include his achievements and the various things he has done for society.

Once actually visiting the site i was appalled to find a site purely based upon racist views which was unfair to Martin and the black community, this site defiantly cannot be taken into consideration as biast views are clearly present and the information isn't what it should be.

• A screen shot of the homepage showing racial headlines

• Showing a link from the Martin Luther website and the racist views present
  

From seeing this website i went further and decided to see what Martin had actually done and the achievements he had accomplished. The research showed that he was a leader for the black community against racism and was one of the first men to stand up for their rights. He was also influential in the civil rights movement which helped provide equality between the white and black community.

Evidence showing

Extra reading:
This weeks extra reading was to do with the history of the internet and were it originated from. From reading the first article there were a few key points that were noted:

• The idea of the internet was first put forward in 1963

• It wasn't until 1965 that it was fully working

• As the internet developed it became a competitive field to be the best ISP available

• The potential for the internet is unlimited and we should see the speed increase over the years that follow

The second website was much the same explaining the history of the internet, it had 5 chapters each detailing a different section about the internet:

• "the development of computers till 1960's"

• "from ARPANET to world wide web"

• "history of electronic mail"

• "search engines"

• "basic net data"