This week I rated as a 6 difficulty because as much as I tried I couldn't figure out the bookmark function. I did manage to send myself an e-mail, this wasn't too difficult and it was pretty fun. I also used a few of the search engines to find some interesting bits. I got so carried away with using the search engines that I found I didn't have time to save an image to the hard drive. The thing that really made this week difficult was a lack of computer time. I went to a couple of the Keller labs and they were booked for class use. I did get to use a couple of my friend's computers which helped immensely. Even with this help, I only managed to get on the computer about 7 hours, I ca n only imagine what happens around midterms or finals.
I did experience more negative emotion in comparison to week 1, so I rated this week
a 4. The search engines were a blast to use and the amount of information to be
gleaned from said source
is staggering, but (and it's a big but, no pun intended)
the bummer was lack of computer lab time. It's to the point where I am thinking about buying
a new computer just so I don't have to fight with the crowds. I only have a 286
at home with no mod
em, up to this point my computer was for games and word processing,
not surfing the net.
It also has been a little frustrating trying to figure out the
various
functions from a dead start, but since my group is responsible for the
online
instruction and help functions, it has been helping me out
personally. For example,
I found a Pine help manual that has been a big
help.
In terms of being valuable, this week rated a 9. You could
spend hours upon hours
just using the search engines alone. I do
think
that learning the bookmark function is important and is a great time
saver and
after sitting for a while and working at it I feel so stupid
at how easy it is to
use. My only question is if bookmarks can be saved
to diskette. Saving images is
something that should be learned and is
fun but as far as being useful, I really couldn't
tell you
how.
I am very confident that I will be improving in the use of these skills. So confident am I, this week rates a 9. I used the Infoseek engine to look up one of my favorite bands, named Jawbreaker. I used the engine and found two soundclips. This was my first taste of online audio and I am loving it. Even though I have the CD's it was still cool to be sitting school and listening to music as part of my homework. In addition to this search, I used Infoseek to find my group work under the search "pine help". I found a document called Introduction to UNIX Pine. This document contained some useful commands, that I think can help tremendously. Finally I used the Webcrawler to search for information regarding another band I like, Smashing Pumpkins. The searches came up and I looked at the link Cool as Ice Cream. This link contained song lyrics (which I perused for my reading pleasure) and guitar tablature. Now I play a little guitar (and I can't read a note of music) so this greatly interested me, but the screen warned that the file was really big and seeing as how I was in the CLIC lab I thought it would be in bad form to print it all out. I think it was the Rolling Stones who said, (ok, I know it was the Stones' but it doesn't have enough of a pompous quality without the "I think it was...") "I can't get no satisfaction!" The lack of available computers was frustrating and the ones in CL IC slow and the faster one's are always occupied. Keller was booked for ICS labs in the Mac lab and the IBM lab had a crazy waiting list. My friend's can only accommodate me so much and I have to work around my work schedule. Another hassle was tryin g to set up my Web page, this did not work out so well.
Ok, it wasn't a good week and the frustration of not getting computer time some personal problems culminated in a trying time. As I mentioned before I only managed to get 7 hours in this w eek, not to good I am disappointed.
The subtasks this week were pretty varied but I guess just starting out without knowledge
nothing seems to connect. The underlying concept was one of exploration and feeling
out the environment and getting acc
limated.
No real repeated lapses or fossilized errors to speak of but lacunae returns again.
My typing is horrendous and I suppose I never paid much attention to this fact,
until now that is. Typing quickly and accurately would save me a lot of
time, so
let's hope it gets better.
In terms of
progression, I think starting out any undertaking the first steps feel
like leaps and bounds. This is where I'm at, I think maybe I'm too
ignorant to realize
the enormity of it all and the sizeable amount I
have yet to learn.