Final Summary

Peter Fraser
MPI 104 2010
Assessment 2

What I have learned so far


In week 2 we learned about Google Applications. Since then I have been using a few of these on a regular basis. I already had a Gmail account which I regularly use simply because it is a straight forward application. I also use Calendar, Reader and Translate. We also learned about how google uses hypertext reference and SRC links to navigate through the web.

Week 3 we set up our own blog on Blogger. We learned about HTML and how the internet consists of text decoded into webpages. We also learned about W3schools html tuturials and their web validator.

Week 4 and 5 we learned about folksomy, which allows a user to add tags to their content that a search engine can find. We also learned about web 2.0 and how it basically a myth. We set up a flickr account, which is a social networking tool that allows you upload and view photos. Flickr uses folksomy so you can search for a specific category. You can upload your photos and edit them in a Google application called Picnik.
We opened up a delicious account that saves your bookmarks on the web, and organises them according to the tags you attatch to them.

Week 7 we touched on how Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) give a webpage it's style attributes. CSS is usually coded on it's own independent page, so that the basic loading of a page can still be achieved without it needing to load the CSS. This also allows the attributes of a CSS page to be assigned to any of html pages.

Week 8 we discovered File transfer protocol (FTP). This is a method of transferring information from a user to a server. How it works is reasonably confusing to me. We built Iweb page and uploaded to our Athene accounts using CSUs FTP host.

Week 9 we learned about hit counters and RSS. Hit counters get information about how many times a site is hit. RSS feeds allow a user to subscribe to a site, so that when the content is added to, the user will either be notified or the content can be automatically downloaded using Itunes.

Week 10 we learned about PINGing and Technorati. PINGing is a way to send a signal to an IP address to see if you have a connection between your computer and the server.
Technorati tracks a site by reading its html code and tracking its activity. The site is then rated and given authority. It useful for monitoring trends and to see if anybody is visiting your site.

Overall, we have been given a good understanding of how the internet works, and how we can manipulate to give our own site credibility and popularity.