Leave a Message for Nitsa Mc
Carthy?PSY. 409
SEP. - 05 - 1995
W/ DR. LEON JAMES
Week 2 Report
Assignment:
Use Netscape's
features: Add/View/Bookmarks and Go To; send a document to yourself by e-mail; try several search
engines; view source files; save an image (.gif file) to a temporary
directory on the hard disk.
Self-assessment ratings
How difficult was this week's task (lumping all the sub-tasks
together)?
Circle one.
Very easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very hard
This week's rating = 5
How much Negative emotions did it cost you, in all?
Very little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very much
This week's rating = 6
How Valuable for later use is this knowledge or skill going to be for
you?
Not useful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very useful
This week's rating = 10
How likely is it that you'll be getting good at this week's tasks?
Not likely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Quite likely
This week's rating = 9
How satisfied are you with the computer and Internet systems?
Not satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very satisfied
This week's rating = 10
How hard did you try to get through this week's tasks?
Gave up easily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Refused to give
up
This week's rating = 10
Analyzing self-assessment
figures
Difficult?
There are many ways to interpret the "degree of difficulty" rating. My own
interpretation of it includes tasks that I tried to accomplish with no success.
This does not mean I thought this week's tasks were beyond my comprehension or
that I thought the task itself was difficult. It simply means that I
encountered many dead ends and problems in completing the task. Examples of
this include: transferring my week 1 report to my Home Page file; sending a
document from Netscape to my e-mail address and not receiving it; and copying
an image to Temporary Files on the hard drive and receiving the text but not
the image. This week's sub-tasks were neither hard nor easy, hence, a 5 will
suffice.
Emotions?
This week's task was accompanied by negative emotions such as frustration,
confusion, stress, and tension when things did not work out. When things did
work out, positive feelings such as satisfaction, success, and confidence were
involved.
Later use?
I know that this week's task will be valuable for later use. That's why I
gave it a 10. I do need to know how to upload, transfer, and copy information;
I will need to use search engines many times in the future, and it will be
helpful if I can copy images as well.
Getting good at?
How likely is it that I will get good at this week task? Well, I gave it a 9
since I'm determined to learn how to use all the tools that will help me
explore and retrieve information from the Netscape. Also, I'm eager to learn
how to communicate with other members in my class and around the world via my
Home Page.
Satisfied?
I gave a 10 to satisfaction with the Internet since it is a great tool for
obtaining information.
Tenacity?
Refusing to give up (rated 10)? Well, I often refuse to give up. Be careful,
I'm a very stubborn person! In this week's task I reached many dead-ends and
got a lot of negative messages in the status box. However, I tried to find
different paths to solve problems.
How Keller Hall 204 feels like?
My first session this week started on Aug. 31 at 7:03PM at Keller Hall
204 (the Mac lab). I haven't visited this lab before and when I entered I felt
the cool, refreshing air in the room. I saw just a few individuals using the
computers. I felt relieved since I could easily get a computer and work on my
second week's tasks. Sitting down I felt comfortable since the lab has
cushioned chairs and the keyboard is adjusted so you can type without straining
your back.
Putting up my Home Page: a challenge that ended in...
My aim that evening was to transfer my week 1 report to my Home Page. I
reviewed my notes in which Dr. James described the steps of how to put up a
Home Page. The first step heading read "from UH UNIX % Telnet (return) to CSS."
I couldn't remember what it meant. However, I remembered that this terminology
and these commands (i.e. Telnet, %, etc.) are similar to the commands used when
you want to send an e-mail. I was right. After I logged in, I typed Telnet
instead of Pine. Then I opened the CSS account, which I believe is where our
Home Page is located. It asked you to login so I typed my personal account
number that Dr. James gave me and then I typed our password. I wanted to
change the password, yet, it read: www: ~$. At this sign I typed our password
(i.e. the old one) but I didn't receive any of the next steps written in my
notes. That is, type the "old password" [return], then the "new password
[return]." I was worried that I'd somehow messed things up (remember...
computers respond to commands) so I decided to move on. I created my Home Page
file, using the editor PICO, with no difficulties. I felt pleased with myself;
so far so good. Now, I said, "let's see the results..." From the File menu I
clicked on Open Location and typed the long address that Dr. James gave us and
the following status box declared that "the connection
www.soc.hawaii.edu/club/leonpsy2/student2/p10/week1.html cannot be opened
because the domain name given was invalid." I checked for spelling, read the
notes again and ahhh! I realized that I was still in Telnet. I felt relived
since the notes' instruction is to view the edited file on Netscape. I opened
Netscape and again from the File menu I clicked on Open Location. I then typed
the address and hit the return button and received a status box... again? The
box indicated that "Netscape is unable to locate server." I did not understand
what went wrong since I double checked my notes and the address' spelling
again. I was really confused and thoughts kept running through my head, trying
to find a solution to this problem. I decided to access our Home Page via
generation 1 Home Page (I successfully accomplished it before). When I reached
it I clicked on generation two Home Page and then clicked on my name...Voila!
There it was, the title, heading, and link that I created. I felt happy,
proud, and satisfied since I had found a resolution to access my Home Page file
by myself.
Encountering problems while trying to
upload my Week 1 Report
I like challenges that end in success. I felt so confident that I decided to
go ahead and transfer my week 1 report from my diskette to my Home Page file.
At home I already saved my report in RTF (interchange) format. I printed the
Instruction for Publishing Your Report on the WWW that I retrieved from Psy.
409 Home Page and tried to use Fetch (since I use Mac) and upload the file from
my diskette to my CSS account. I encountered problems right away: 1) How do I
upload? (or, what does upload mean?); 2) If I didn't have access to my CSS
account while trying to create my file, how could I access it now? Well, I
called one of the individuals who works there for help and we tried to do it
together. We clicked on 1) Fetch; 2) Remote; 3) put folders file; 4)
open my diskette; 5) open my week 1 report; 6) Add; 7) Done; 8) Text
(raw data) [OK]. Then we went to the CSS dir., gave ls command to check
whether the file that we uploaded from the diskette was there. We copied the
WWW$: cd../../../rtf/rtftohtml_src command from Psy. 409 Home Page and pasted
it instead of typing it. We received a message that read " No such file or
directory." We tried various ways but to no avail. My helper told me that my
week 1 report was sent to the root directory instead and that every one could
read it. I told him that we must cancel that (since I didn't understand what
root directory meant even if he tried to explain it to me). He gave the
command rtm and told me that we canceled it. I felt stressed, tense,
and sweaty. Things did not work out as I wanted. I decided to try again but
my helper told me that there is no time since they are closing the lab right
now. I looked at my watch...boy, it was 9:35PM.
As I made my way out , I realized that the message that we received indicating that no such directory could be found might be because there is no such directory. That is, when I tried to access my Home Page file via my CSS account I couldn't (I could only access it via generation 1 Home Page). This gave me hope since I didn't do anything wrong and "it was not my fault". I asked the person who helped me whether my speculations are correct. He told me that it might be true. I thank him and went home.
The next day, Sep. 1, I went again to Keller 204 at 8:45AM and found out that I can not use the lab since they have a class session there. So I went to the IBM lab (room 213?). I felt a little bit challenged since I'm not familiar with the IBM environment, yet, that morning I equipped myself with positive feelings. I was determined to crack the Home Page file transfer problem. I decided to explore generation 1 Home Page to see if they have something to say about it (i.e. their aches and pains) based on their experiences. I reviewed some in the lab reports of Psy. 459 but realized that they explain how to do it via EMACS and LYNX which I'm not familiar with (yet). I entered Kevin's Home Page and he had some information about PICO. The information was too comprehensive, I printed it out so that I could read it later. I left the IBM lab at 10:05AM.
Learning how to use other e-mail
commands
On the same day I went to the CLIC lab during my break at 12:05PM. I checked
my e-mail and opened Kevin's message about lab time. In the message he gave us
a tip (what do I mean by us? Kevin addressed the message to other classmates as
well). That is, he told us that we can hit R to reply. I thought that it was
kind of neat since I did not have to quit the message in order to compose one.
I replied and then tried to do a spell check (^T) but accidentally hit the ^O
key, a postponing message command. I did not know what to do so I called for
help. The individual that I called for help messed things up and wiped out my
message. He told me that I have to retype it..."Thanks a lot!," I responded.
Frustrated I decided to view other messages instead and left the lab at
1:15PM.
Delving into Netscapes' search engines and
sending a document to myself
My next session began at 12:45PM on Sep. 3. This time I wanted to explore the
Netscape's week's tasks. I clicked on Net Search and found several search
engines such as 1) W3 search engine (which is published by the University of
Geneva; it covers various topics but isn't updated very often); 2) CUSI,
stands for the Configurable Unified Search Interface, (it is offered by Nexor,
UK. and is a single form to search a large number of different WWW engines for
documents, people, software, etc.). I recommend this engine for you to use.
If you click on the Table of Contents it gives you all the places that you can
navigate to. For example, they offer Sponsor Index, Contact Information,
Netscapestore, Download Software, and Netscape Galleria. I was interested in
the Netscape Galleria and it offered several links. I chose the Accelerated Learning. I found
some interesting information in that document so I decided to send it to
myself. I chose File from the menu and then 1) Mail Document ; 2) Mail
To: my e-mail address; 3) Attach; 4) Document Text; 5) Attach; 6)
Send. That's it, I sent it.
Next, I found other search engines such as the LYCOS Home Page (allows you not only to search for titles and contents, but for headings, links and key words as well), and WebCrawler Searching (this one collects documents from the web).
Feeling lacunae while trying to save an
image
So far it has been very entertaining to explore and navigate on the Netscape
search engines. I decided to save an image to a temporary directory. I wanted
to find a picture of a dolphin since it is my favorite animal. How do I find a
picture of a
dolphin? At that time I spoke to Ms. or Mrs. Cortez (our
classmate) and she told me to try the Net Search. Well, I felt stupid since I
just finished exploring all these search engines and the idea did not come to
my mind. So I clicked on Net Search and then on LYCOS and typed dolphin. It
took me to several links and I chose
The
Dolphin Alliance Information. I selected a
picture, then, 1) I opened the Temporary Files from the hard drive; 2) chose
File from the menu; 3) Save As; 4) Desk Top: Temporary Files [open]; 5)
Save as Dolphin. After it saved it I opened the Temporary Files to find the
image but I only found the text with no image. I called for help. The
individual told me that I can copy only certain graphics that enable you to
copy them and that the command .gif is only available on IBM. OK. I
went to see how Ms. Cortez was doing since she tried to do the same thing and
used an IBM computer. She did the same procedure such as Save As and then
clicked on the .gif file but nothing happened. Well, I told her if she
reached any resolution to let me know.
What are Bookmarks for?
I went back to explore the Bookmarks menu which gives an opportunity to
mark pages that you can access easily later. You can add and view Bookmarks at any time while you surf the Netscape. The GO
menu brings you to pages that you viewed before so you don't need to quit in
order to explore these places again.
I'm not alone: classmates share same
fossilized/lacunae problems
I realized that I had spent enough time exploring the Netscape so I clicked on
the Pine window which brought me back to my e-mail messages (remember, you do
not need to quit Pine in order to access Netscape since you can open many
programs at the same time). I looked for the document that I sent to myself
and I couldn't find it. I went to Ms. Cortez and she told me that the same
thing happened to her. While we were discussing the matter we moved on to talk
about other problems which we shared with Ragna (our classmate). We all
realized that we couldn't transfer our week 1 report to our Home Page file.
Ahhh! That meant a lot to me since I was not the only one who stumbled. We
are all in the same boat. I decided to end the session since it was 5:31 and I
called my husband at 4:17 informing him that I'll be home in about 15
minutes...ha...ha...ha... forget about time while you're surfing the Web!
Summation on navigation
In sum, in navigating the Internet I learned that it is necessary, as a tool,
to have a map that directs you to the right places or gives you the right
commands. Without it you feel lost and reach many dead ends. It is the same
thing when you move to a foreign place; before you explore it, you need to
learn the map and plan your way to the target destination. Good Luck.