Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Mod 4 Annotation Reflections

In looking back at my annotation and comparing to the site I think i would use my report as a guideline as to whether the site in question would serve my needs. My annotation is only a review of the site its author and publisher, and would probably benefit me better than a snapshot of the page as i have already read the site and my annotation then becomes an aid to memory.

Even though I have tried to be uninfluenced by my own beliefs and needs my annotation is probably not as unbiased as i would hope it to be. Therefore I would have to say that a snapshot of the page in question would probably be of better use to an outside user as they can then judge for themselves whether the information contained within is relevant or of a certain standard.

Mod 4 Evaluating the Web: Annotation

I have had to choose new search terms for this task as the search terms I previously chose were not applicable to this activity. My new search terms are Internet, behavior and Netiquette. Hopefully these new terms will provide me with a link to a site applicable to my needs.
The site I have been given is http://www.abacon.com/compsite/conversation/netiquette.html
Here is my annotation.

Internet Behavior and Ethics: Netiquette

This site is both a reference site for the subject of netiquette and an Advocacy site as it tends to portray this topic as a needed tool rather than an unbiased discussion on the pro's and cons of netiquette. I was unable to discover much about the author Daniel Anderson, but the publisher Allyn and Bacon are a leaders in the field of humanities and social studies publications for higher education. The content of this site is merely an outline of the topic the real information on this topic lies in the links to other relevant sites of which only three work out of the four located here.
I do not feel that this site has been maintained and updated regularly the last time any addition was made to this page was in 1999 and although the topic of netiquette is not likely to change much over the short term, maintenance would have repaired the broken links and possibly added some more. I didn't find many sites linked to this one only nine which conveys to me that this page although useful has not been widely recognised.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Module 5 Information Ecologies

What do I think about the idea that the Internet can be viewed as an ecology, well an ecology is a conglomeration of various species of living organisms located within a certain environment. Firstly can my use of the Internet be compared with an ecology, when asking this question of myself i am not tryng to discover whether the Internet is a living organism surviving in the realm of cyberspace. I am questioning whether my Internet use in some ways mimics the relationships between living organisms in an ecology. As I am not a biologist my understanding of ecology's is somewhat limited but from what i do understand ecology's rely on symbiotic relationships, in this respect the use of the Internet is very similar from my relationship with my keyboard to the relationship between the server and my query. One cannot complete a task without the others input in this way it can be considered a symbiotic relationship, and therefore by extension an ecology. It changes my view of the Internet from a simple information retrieval and storage device into a realm of infinite possibilities where information is the power source, my imagination the tool and communications are the directions.
As an ecology has many components communication cannot be considered an ecology as it is only one species of organism within the ecology of the Internet. Even though there may be different family groups within a genus, this does not constitute an ecology. The same applies to communication there are different forms of communication, but still they are only one genus or family and therefore are only a part of an ecology not the whole.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Mod 4 Organising Search Information Task

Firstly I saved the top three sources to my favorites list in a folder named florist.







This gives me access to their sites as soon as I'm online. As to the other information I need to save I have chosen to do this in my outlook contacts book. The first site was American Beauty Florist unfortunately the author of this site could not be found, here is a screen shot of that contacts page.








The summary I copied from the site and pasted in to notes section, here is a copy just in case its not clear on the screen shot above.




“American Beauty Florist in Huntington Beach, CA specializes in the following flowers and gift arrangements:
Large inventory of fresh flowers Tropical Plants European/dish gardens Contemporary and traditional arrangements High-style floral arrangements Silk arrangements Dried floral arrangements Weddings Funeral designs Extensive gift line Gourmet and fruit baskets Gift baskets Greeting cards Candles Stuffed Animals Balloons "(American Beauty Florist)



The second site was saved in the same manner and although the site authoring was done through superpages the author him/her self could not be identified. Below is the contacts page for the second result.




As with the first contact I will copy an excerpt of the contact summary below.


“We Owe Our 21 Years of Success To:


Our deep commitment to customer service
Carrying only the freshest flowers in town
Our always-reasonable prices
Preparing every arrangement with special care and an eye for detail


We Offer:


Dependable, same-day delivery service
Wire delivery of flowers anywhere in the world
Most importantly, time to listen to our customers


When you order an arrangement from Love N’ Bloom, you can be sure that they will always say exactly what’s in your heart.Love N' Bloom can service any occasion — from a birthday to an anniversary to a bereavement. If you order a floral arrangement, a fruit or gourmet basket, or a gift, any selection can include a bottle of special wine, champagne, or even a balloon bouquet.”( Love N" Bloom)


the third result was Lavender memory flowers and gifts the contact details for this company was like the other two before saved in windows outlook contacts book.


“ About the Company

Lavender Memory Flowers and Gifts has been proudly serving Huntington Beach. We are family owned and operated with one location serving Huntington Beach and surrounding area's of Orange County, California. We are committed to offering only the finest floral arrangements and gifts. Which is backed by our service that is friendly and prompt. We feel all our customers are important so we have our professional staff which is dedicated to making your experience a pleasant one. This is why we always go the extra mile to make your floral gift perfect.
_______________________________________________________________
Areas Covered

Our shop serves the following areas: Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Seal Beach, Westminster, Garden Grove and Sunset Beach
_______________________________________________________________
Business Hours

Our shop is open 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, Monday through Friday and from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm on Saturday.
We are closed on Sundays.”(Lavender Memory Flowers and Gifts)


Finally I hooked my Apple iphone to my comp downloaded the new contacts list onto the phone and edited my calender to show those contacts when certain events occur such as b'days and valentines day, better not forget that one, lol.:)


In refection setting up all these contacts can be a little time consuming, but if the events that they portend to occur at least annually you will be saving time and embarrassment down the track.

Mod 4 Boolean Search Task

To receive the most number of hits using my previous search terms, I used the Boolean logical operator OR. I soon discovered getting the most results does not mean that you get the right result. Although the search engine responded with 51 perfect matches, they were only perfect in relation to the parameters set in the search, which as I was using the Boolean OR were pretty broad.
The terms used were huntington OR beach OR florist OR tulips.


To receive the most relevant results in my search I would need to use the Boolean logical operator AND. In this way I would be getting results that Incorporated all of my search parameters.
The terms used in this attempt were huntington AND beach AND florist AND tulip.


When trying to search through university only sources I used (university)thinking that by putting this term in parenthesis would ensure that sites containing the word university would be the first searched I then added Boolean AND with the rest of my search words, as you can see it didn't turn out quite as expected.
With this attempt the search was set out thus, (university)AND huntington AND beach AND florist AND tulip.


I did try a less Boolean approach that yielded absolutely no results lol. I searched using the domain name edu.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Mod 4 Engine Search Task 3

These are the first five results from Google.

Tubs of Tulips, Huntington Beach CA 92605 -- MerchantCircle.com
Tubs of Tulips is located at Huntington Beach, CA. Phone: 714-843-6150. ... Florist Worldwide and Local Delivery 24 Hours Find this company on the map ...www.merchantcircle.com/business/Tubs.of.Tulips.714-843-6150 - 30k - Cached - Similar pages
Huntington Beach Florist Flowers Delivery Service
17 Jan 2009 ... We are the leading Huntington Beach Florist, a local Huntington Beach Flowers shop with on-line delivery service you can trust to send ...www.firstchoiceflowers.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages
Valentine flowers, Valentine's Day Flowers,florist Fountain Valley ...
27 Jan 2009 ... Valentine flowers and arrangements, florist Huntington Beach, ... of White Hyacinth, Red Tulips,. Bouvardia and tied with a sheer ...www.theflowerplacefv.com/Valentine-flowers-valentines-day-Fountain-Valley-florist.htm - 56k - Cached - Similar pages
Local business results for Florist, Tulips near Huntington Beach, CA, USA




Tubs of Tulips - maps.google.com.au16440 Pacific Coast Hwy, Huntington Beach - +1 714-843-6150Directions and more »

FLORIST IN LOS ANGELES - www.centurycityflowermart.net9551 W. PICO BLVD, LOS ANGELES - +1 800-576-7372
9 reviews, directions, hours, and more »

Ruffled Tulip - www.theruffledtulip.com401 El Camino Real, Tustin - +1 714-544-01771 review, directions, and more »



More results near Huntington Beach, CA, USA »
Send Tulips in Huntington Beach CA - A Secret Garden Florist ...
Send Tulips from A Secret Garden Florist & Gifts for delivery in the Huntington Beach, CA area. A Secret Garden Florist & Gifts in Huntington Beach offers a ...www.asecretgardenflst.net/huntington-beach-florist/tulips-92385c.asp - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

And these are the results from Copernic"s Advanced search

1.
Huntington Beach Florist Huntington Be...
Buy flowers from your local florist in Huntington Beach, CA - LAVENDER MEMORY FLORIST & GIFTS will ... TEMPTING TULIPS Arrangement $45.00, $55.00, $65.00 Shown at $55.00
lavenderexpress.com [Found on Windows Live, Yahoo! Search]
2.
Huntington Beach Florists and Flowers Hu...
Huntington Beach flower delivery by a local Florist. ... Fast flower delivery in Huntington Beach Same day ... Pink Tulips
www.e-florist-inc.com/Huntington-Beach-florist.asp [Found on Windows Live, Yahoo! Search]
3.
Huntington Beach Flower Shops - brillian...
Huntington Beach Flower Shops - Local Listing: Moore ... Tubs Of Tulips: 19488 Beach Blvd. 16440 Pacific Coast Hwy ... American Beauty Florist: 21562 Brookhurst Ave. 17851 Beach Blvd.
www.avonibp.co.uk/californiaflower/huntingtonbeachshops.htm [Found on Windows Live, Yahoo! Search]
4.
California Flowers Brea Fullerton Yorba ...
Golden Hills Florist ... Our Delivery Area In Orange County Includes Brea, Fullerton, Yorba Linda, Anaheim Hills, La Habra, Placentia, Orange, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Lad...
www.goldenhillsflorist.com/ [Found on Ask.com, Yahoo! Search]
5.
Huntington Beach Florists - Flowers Hunt...
A Secret Garden Florist & Gifts, your local Huntington Beach florist, sends fresh flowers ... 35.95 - [TFWEB487] Tulips and Pine
www.asecretgardenflst.net/ [Found on Windows Live]

Mod 4 Engine Search Task 2

On a previous task I downloaded Copernic so I guess that the route I'll take for this project. Firstly I couldn't find a setting that allowed you to choose which search engines to use and there was nothing about a deep web search although in my answers at least three search engines were listed in the results.

As you can see below the top result was a little different.


Huntington Beach Florist Huntington Be...
Buy flowers from your local florist in Huntington Beach, CA - LAVENDER MEMORY FLORIST & GIFTS will ... TEMPTING TULIPS Arrangement $45.00, $55.00, $65.00 Shown at $55.00
lavenderexpress.com [Found on Windows Live, Yahoo! Search]



And the amount of results found was.

Results: 1 - 20 of 66

After comparing the two searches I would have to say the Copernic gave the better results. It sent me a direct link to a buisinesses web page were as Google sent me to a buisiness directory.

As for the why, well Copernic had the resources of multiple search engines, and Googles first result was of a page that supported Google advertising. Im would have to say that the Google result was influenced more by financial concerns than an accurate search using my parameters.

Mod 4 Engine Search Task 1

Up until this point my most commonly used search engine has been Google. The words I chose for this exercise were Huntington Beach, Florist and Tulips.








The top result I got was.

Tubs of Tulips, Huntington Beach CA 92605 -- MerchantCircle.com
Tubs of Tulips is located at Huntington Beach, CA. Phone: 714-843-6150. ... Florist Worldwide and Local Delivery 24 Hours Find this company on the map ...
www.merchantcircle.com/business/Tubs.of.Tulips.714-843-6150 - 30k - Cached - Similar pages





The number of hit received for my query was





Results 1 - 10 of about 5,400 for Huntington beach, Florist,Tulips. (0.26 seconds

Monday, February 9, 2009

Mod 4 Tools for using the Web

The only program that I didn't already have or want installed on my computer was Copernic. The downloading process was very painless, being only approx 7Mb, as for installation that too was easy the only obstacle you may need to overcome is choosing whether you would want to install the toolbar that came along with the App. As for learning Copernic, that to was relatively straight forward, all the search choices are in plain view. If you wish to tweak the program in the options menu this to is a very simple process. I have never used a desktop/online search App before, and I found this freebie to be easy to use as well as useful. I compared this with the windows desktop search App and found that the Copernic program was easier to understand and quicker to learn. The windows software had the look of windows help desk and was initially just as confusing. It also lacked the online search facility. Simplicity of use in this case was the deciding factor for me, Copernic had an online search capability across multiple search engines, which certainly saves time when looking for something online.