March 2008
The Archives
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Internet
How To Behave On An Internet Forum
A fast-talking Englishman, clever animation and some actual good advice.
If you don’t see the embedded video player here, you can watch it on YouTube.
Popularity: 100% [?]
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Computers
Fighting Off a Virus
Photo: Andrzej PobiedzinskiBlogging was interrupted late last week by the urgent need to remove a virus from one of our computers. With the experience fresh in my mind, here are a few tips for the prevention and eradication of computer viruses.
Viruses are much easier to prevent than they are to cure. If you are a Mac or Linux user, you can sit back and gloat because viruses for these systems are so rare that they can almost be ignored altogether. But for us Windows users, these are the rules:
Popularity: 11% [?]
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World Wide Web
Where’s Google?
Jakob Nielsen is a web site usability expert. He knows what causes people pain and pleasure as they navigate around the web. Unlike most of us who became experts by just hanging around for a long time, Mr. Nielsen’s expertise comes from conducting carefully designed usability studies, using real people and real web sites. He publishes an online column called the Alertbox, which draws from these studies.
The latest installment of the Alertbox contained this shocker:
Popularity: 11% [?]
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Beginner Business, World Wide Web
Make Your Web Site Resonate
Free eBook by Skelliewag.orgThe ideas and philosophy at Skelliewag.org had a strong influence on the creation of the Internet Newcomer web site. I believe that simple design and compelling content are at the heart of any successful site.
If you are in the process of building a web site, or if you have one already, you owe it to yourself to read Skellie’s free eBook, The Simple Web. Here’s Skellie:
As bloggers and webmasters, we want most or all of these things: more visitors, more subscribers, more comments, more money, more inbound links, and more people saying good things about us. Our wants aren’t in question. It’s the how that gets us. It’s how that has us reading a dozen blogs a day, trying to find the answer (or at least a little piece of it).
You can stop searching, for now. The answer is in this eBook.
It’s true, you should read this book and try to put as much of it into practice as possible. I know I will. Here’s the link:
The Simple Web - eBook by Skelliewag.org (399KB PDF)
Popularity: 16% [?]
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Internet
BBC Webwise Online Course
Course MenuIf you’d like to take a more structured approach to learning about the Internet, the BBC website has a free online course, called The Webwise Online Course. It is presented in 10 sections and is available in both an animated (Flash) and text-only versions. Each section is followed by an optional quiz. Here’s their description of the course, from the Welcome section:
There are ten units and each one should last a maximum of one hour.
Each unit contains a list of guides, which you should follow in order. Start with the one nearest to the left of the screen. Don’t forget to test what you have learnt by doing the quiz after watching each guide.
All the guides look similar. However, in the guides you will be asked to perform certain tasks by clicking somewhere on the screen. When you are asked to do this you will notice the ‘next’ button is greyed out.
If you click in the wrong place don’t worry! You will see an arrow pointing to the right place to click.
After you finish a guide you should click on the ‘Back to the beginning’ link to return to the unit menu. It is here where you will see the link to the quiz.
Once each unit is finished, click on the ‘Back to the beginning’ link to return to the main course menu. Here you will be able to select the next unit on the course.
Keep going until you have completed the course!
This course is definitely intended for the beginner but it looks very complete. It is also full of Britishisms (”Let’s try and have a go at using a browser”) and quite up to the production quality you’d expect from the BBC.
If you decide to try this course out, please come back and leave a comment with your impressions.
Popularity: 9% [?]
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Internet Caregivers
Mom’s New Computer: Part 1
Photo by Michael Cote’My mother has decided to replace her 8 year old HP Pavilion with something that doesn’t suddenly stop responding for minutes at a time and can play online videos without stuttering. Since we no longer live in the same city, I can’t go shopping for one with her but I told her that we could still get her set up with a new system.
I haven’t tried this before but I think there are two keys to making it work. We’ll have someone on my mom’s end with some technical skills, a woman named Alyx, who does computer consulting. She will be able to get everything unpacked, plugged in and running. Once that’s done, she will also set up a remote desktop connection, using LogMeIn. This service is set up on her current computer and it has been a huge help when I need to see her screen or make changes that are too hard to describe to her. The free version of this service does everything that we need.
Popularity: 11% [?]
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Internet
RSS In Plain English
If you look over in the left column, towards the top, you’ll find the Subscriptions section. There you can request that the site notify you whenever we post new content. One of the technologies for doing this is called RSS (for Really Simple Syndication). When you think of syndication, it’s very likely that fond memories of Luverne and Shirley come to mind. Well, maybe not. On the Internet, it’s means something a little different. Here at Internet Newcomer, every post and all the comments are made available for other sites and applications to use. This content is distributed through a feed.
RSS is an incredibly useful technology that’s often not very well understood. Commoncraft has produced this video that does a great low-tech job of covering the basics in 3 1/2 minutes.
When you’re done watching, subscribe to our feed!
Popularity: 9% [?]
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Internet
An Internet Primer
Photo:
Eva FunderburghSenator Ted Stevens, (R-Alaska), U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing, June 28, 2006:
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Well…that’s one way of putting it, just not a very good way. Let’s see if we can’t come up with a definition that’s a bit more clear. The Internet is commonly referred to as a “network of networks”, which includes millions (yes, millions) of interconnected computer networks that are operated by commercial, academic, military and government institutions. Because these networks all use the same communication protocols (rules), they can share common online services, such as email, chat, file transfer and the World Wide Web, the service you are making use of at this very moment.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Internet Newcomer
Information and advice for Internet beginners.
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Internet Newcomer aims to bridge the knowledge gap that exists for most Internet beginners, allowing them to view the Internet less as a mystery and more as an interesting new landscape to explore. Read more...You might also take a look at how we do things...
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- How To Behave On An Internet Forum
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