Internet and the Web

Today in a seminar when the presenter used the terms Internet and Web, not interchangeably, but as two separate items. At that moment, I could not understand why he used both terms separately.

With nothing available, except my phone, I asked the question to my Twitter friends. "Do the terms the Web and the Internet have different meanings?"

Some of my followers thought like I did. They used these terms interchangeably. However, some others spent a little time finding the answer on the Web.

In fact the two terms are not synonymous. Eli Sagor tweeted a response that included  The Difference Between the Internet and the World Wide Web,  The Internet is a network of networks--an infrastructure of networks.

The Internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. Information that travels over the Internet does so via a variety of languages known as protocols.

The Web is one of the uses of the Internet.

The World Wide Web, or simply Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet.

The Web also utilizes browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, to access Web documents called Web pages that are linked to each other via hyperlinks. Web documents also contain graphics, sounds, text and video.

In the Twitter exchange, Jonathan Davis and Janyne Kizer pointed out that the Internet supports the web, email, video conferencing, instant messaging, and other applications.

The web is just one resource/use of the Internet. Vconf, VOIP, and email are others that not necessarily web-based.

Thanks to Dusty Hall who referred to two different Wikipedia articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.

Thanks to Matt Laney, John Dorner, Brian Webster, Janyne Kizer, Matt Brooks, Peter Fleck, Greg Parmer, and Kevin Gamble for helping with my understanding and joining the conversation. Some of the replies can be found in Summize search.

So now I know. These two terms do not mean the same thing.

del.icio.us Tags: Internet,Web,Twitter

Tips for starting a team blog

Michele Martin asked Manish Mohan of eCube to describe his experience in starting a team blog. The tips are certainly some to keep in mind as some groups within my organization are beginning to consider team blogging.

Summary of his tips are:

• Identify the objectives and goals of the blog. 
  • What problem you are trying to solve and for whom?
  • Who will be the content creators and who will be readers?
  • What content is important for them?
• Blog for the audience. "The audience is the most important part of your team blog."
• Identify specific people who will contribute to the team blog.
• Suggest a list of topics to the authors to give them ideas to blog.
• Write a few posts to give authors examples to start their own contributions.
• Encourage authors to start by commenting on posts if they are not comfortable writing their own posts.
• Encourage authors to blog about their experiences.
• Give some thought about widgets, like feeds and blog rolls, to include on the blog page.
• Use labels or tags for the content on the blog.
• Promote the team blog by sending personal email updates and information on the blog.
• Use other pages to link to the blog (like Facebook, Flickr, etc.).

Read the entire post for more explanations.

Thanks to Manish and Michele for sharing. I hope Manish continues this conversation as the authors of eCube continue to blog.

By the way, eCube stands for encourage, engage, and explore as these verbs pertain to learning.

 

del.icio.us Tags: blogging,tips,howtos,teamblogs

My most important tools

About a week ago, I accidentally clicked on a link that installed spyware on my lightweight Sony Vaio. Although I knew almost immediately what was happening I could not disable the processes. It locked me out of the task manager.

I recognized the links and pop-ups that claimed to fix the spyware and tried not to click on them. It was almost impossible to avoid them. I was so frustrated. I tried to fix the problem and get rid of the spyware by using Spybot and other Spyware programs. After reading about Ultimate Cleaner, I realized that I would probably have to edit the registry. I was tired and afraid I would make a mistake trying to clean up the registry, I decided to hand the computer over our helpdesk. They kept the computer several days trying to rid the spyware. They got rid of most of it, but a pesky little remnant was still there. I decided that it would be okay to start fresh and re-install the software to the factory settings which meant that I also had to re-install all my packages.

The helpdesk installed our site licensed MS Office package and offered to install the other programs supported by our technology unit. I turned them down and am installing these programs as I need them.

Over the last couple of days, I have installed programs as I needed them. I supposed that these are the most important tools for me this week.

1. Installed MS Office (university site license). I am currently working on a few documents that I need to finish and they are in MS Word 2007.
2. Installed McAfee anti-virus software (University site license).
3. Installed Witty. I wanted a desktop Twitter application. While I was very happy with the usability and features of Twhirl, it seems that Adobe Air is giving me problems on my Vista computer so I am trying Witty which is a .NET application. The features are nice; it has an automatically spell checker.
4. Logged into my Google Reader account and made Google Reader my homepage.
5. Logged into Twitter web page and made it my second tab on my homepage.
6. Installed Pidgin. I needed to have instant access to colleagues and family.
7. Installed our email client, Novell GroupWise (University supported enterprise system).
8. Installed our VPN client.
9. Installed Windows Live Writer and pointed it to my blog.
10. Logged into my del.icio.us account and installed the del.icio.us toolbar because I wanted to share a bookmark.
11. Installed Acrobat Reader because I came across a PDF I wanted to read.
12. Logged into my Google Analytics account.
13. Logged into my Feedburner account.
14. Installed Jing.
15. Logged into my Flickr account.
16. Logged into my Facebook account.
17. Created a Twitpic account. This looks like a neat way to share photos from my phone.

The applications and pages I need to log into that I have not had a reason to, yet.

• Slideshare
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• IRVanView
• Adobe Acrobat Professional (University licensed)
• ma.gnolia My friends have sent me invites. I have not created the account yet.

Interestingly, almost all of these applications are online applications and pages that I stay logged into. Even though I had complete access to them at the house, not having access at home made me feel out of touch -- like I was being left behind. I was also frustrated because I could not communicate as easily or as often as I wanted.

I am certainly glad to be back into the swing of things.

 

Create presentations and educational materials without breaking the law

As Alvin Trusty explains which kinds of works can be used in presentations and educational materials, he gives tips on how to make PowerPoint presentations effective. His presentation "How to create a great PowerPoint without breaking the law" can be found on TeacherTube.

Some points he made about making effective presentations are:

• No reason to use bullet points.
• Don't read your slides. Research shows that if you read the slides your audience will remember less than if they read it without your assistance.
• Use color contrast. For examples, white on black, black on white, and black on light yellow. Avoid red on green.
• Use no more than two different fonts.
• Use at least 30 point font.
• Use proper capitalization. Avoid all caps. May use all caps for 5 or fewer less.
• Use only 2 types of transitions--fade through black and fade to smooth.
• Build presentation without live Internet
• Use Microsoft help for learning techniques in producing PowerPoint presentations.

He covered these topics when he explained copyright:

• Copyright law: Title 17
• First Sale Doctrine
• Fair use
• Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH Act) 2001
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• Creative Commons licenses
• Creative Commons  Content Directories which is a listing of directories that use Creative Commons licenses.
• Public domain.

There are over 58 million pictures on Flickr that you are able to use for free because they have Creative Commons licenses. 

flickrleech.net displays 200 Flickr photos on one page with an advance search feature.

flickrcc.bluemountains.net finds photos that you may edit.

The links that Alvin used in his presentation can be found on his del.icio.us page:

The video is 44 minutes long.

del.icio.us Tags: PowerPoint,presentations,copyright,fair use,public domain,creative commons