Section 2. Self Assessment Ratings:
How difficult was this week's task (lumping all the sub-tasks
together)?
Very easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very hard
This week's rating=1
How much negative emotions did it cost you, all in all?
Very little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very much
This week's rating=1
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=10
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
I think that this week's assignment was not very difficult. Pine is one of the easiest programs to use, so there really can be no difficulties in using its basic features. Getting to know how to use UNIX can be very valuable for future use. Many of the commands can be helpful when transferring files or doing any other types of tasks. Actually, a lot of things that needs to be done for this class requires the knowledge of how to use certain UNIX functions. I did not have to try very hard to accomplish all of the week's tasks. I think that because we are still doing basic commands and functions, it would not be hard for many people. Usually, the beginning levels of learning how to do things dealing with computers is the easier part. As you get more in dept of how the program works and the features availible, that is when it can become more complicated. For the most part, I found this to be true.
The subtasks were somewhat connected. It kind of works in a chain. When you perform one task, you can then go onto the next one. You can probably start anywhere in the chain as long as you're at the correct stage to jump in. What I mean is that you don't necessarily have to take a message from e-mail and then put it onto a diskette, and then put it back into the CSS server. These procedures can be handy for doing other things, like putting a file into the CSS server. The user would then start with the file on diskette and work from there. Knowing how to do this is very important for this class because if you type out the weekly reports on a word processor, you need to know how to take a document from a diskette and put it into the CSS server in HTML format. Because we will be doing this weekly, I think that by the end of the semester, it will become second nature.
As for fossilized errors, I did not notice any. There weren't areas which I had made errors or performed certain incorrect functions over and over again. I suppose I just felt that I could do it if I didn't let it intimidate me so I felt fine about doing the assignment. I am sure there will be times in the future that I will be making mistakes constantly. But as of now, there has not been anything in particular. To keep this kind of feeling, I think that the main thing is to know that it is possible to learn and to take it one step at a time.
Again this week we had to send a Netscape document to ourselves
using e-mail. This is what we had to for
week #2 report
. This was just a review from what we have
done
already.
Leaving an e-mail message on someone else's homepage was quite simple because many people have places that you can click on in their homepage to leave messages. The only thing that is required is that you have an address that it is coming from. Once that is set up, you just click send e-mail message, or whatever they called it, and a dialog box pops up. The next thing to do is to just fill it up accordingly and type the message in the message box. Then send it. This was quite easy to do.
The next task was to export an e-mail message to a UNIX document and download it to a personal diskette. To save an e-mail message to UNIX, you have to just save it, and the program will have a prompt where you can type in a file name and then hit enter. After that, you just check your files in UNIX and it should be in there. Once the file is in the UNIX account, using an IBM I used FTP and downloaded it to a diskette. Using FTP is self explanatory because dialog boxes pop up and you just follow the directions.
Putting the file back into UNIX is just as easy using FTP. Once in UNIX again, you can ftp the file into the CSS account. Or, you could put the file directly into the CSS account without going into UNIX if the computer allows.
In order to convert the file to HTML format, you just need to follow Dr. James instructions to publishing a report on the WWW. To view it in pico, type pico and the file name and the document will appear. In order to view it in netscape, the file must be typed into the homepage file. Once that is done, the document is accessible in netscape.
Overall, the assignment for the week was not hard to do. I think that all it took was some patience and time to accomplish. Once I was sitting down at the computer and actually trying to do the tasks, it was simple. The main thing to do when trying something new, is to take it one step at a time. For the future assignments, I will need to follow this line of thinking because the tasks will probably be harder. Also trying to think that things are not always going to work out helps to understand what may be going on in the computer. Staying calm and not getting overexcited about everything also helps.