Report 2

My Adapting to the Internet

e-mail me
Dr Leon James' Homepage
My Homepage
Report 1--My Travels Through G1 and G2
Database Assignment Topic--I Can't Stop Wanting to Be Rude to Some Drivers
Topical Index
Contributions

In the beginning...


When I first registered for this Spring 1996 semester, I guaranteed thought it would be a fun and less stressful semester for me because I registered for two sociology courses (my minor), which are both a lecture type class, and two psychology courses (my major), one is a lecture type class and the other is a writing intensive class. Boy were my intentions wrong! From the first week of school, I was ready to drop out of my two major courses. I thought long and hard about the consequences and came to this...I am not going to be, or want to be a "Loser". I am ready to risk what ever it takes to get through this semester. But I must say, the course that was, and still is, giving me the most trouble is this psychology 459 WI--Traffic Psychology course. This course really caught me by surprise because it seems like a computer class rather than a psychology class. From the first day of class, all we lectured on was about computers--the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), Cyberspace, and other computer vocabulary words and commands. I was in aw when I was taking notes on that first day due to the fact that I knew nothing about this new technology that is known to be our future. I was totally computer illiterate. At that time I was not familiar with any words the professor, Dr. Leon James, was saying. It felt like he was talking in a different language, and perhaps I was in a different world. The only computer word that I could relate to that first day was "e-mail",or electronic mail.

Before I entered the psychology 459 class, I was interested in learning how to use the e-mail because it seemed to be the "in" thing. My friends would talk about e-mailing a friend in the mainland, some television commercials are advertising their e-mail address on the screen for comments or information, and even on Beverly Hills 90210, Brandon Walsh would e-mail his parents back in Minnesota. Because this new technology was getting so popular around the world, I wanted to learn all about it. I wanted to see what this new technology could do and what exactly it was all about.

Getting Started...


During the first three weeks of school I could actually say that I was no longer computer illiterate because I learned a whole knew concept within computers. I was able to mail e-mail to friends on the computer, I can navigate cyberspace with netscape and look at different wonderful and exciting files, and so on...I can do many marvelous things with this new technology of ours. But, the most exciting accomplishment I made during these first weeks were finally learning to e-mail friends on the UH Manoa Campus. What a feeling to say, "I know how to do electronical mail". And a big plus to this is that it saves money, time, and now I can continually keep in touch with friends through pine.

Getting to know the process of the computers is not as easy as some may say it is. Of course there are some computer whiz that can learn the computers with ease, but for people like me, it can take a long journey to know exactly what computers are all about. What it all comes down to is that you need to put in a lot of time and effort to encourage yourself to learn, and pass the course. Like the saying goes, "practice makes perfect". To begin with, I admit that I was not putting enough time and effort in this class because I honestly did not have the time to come to the computer labs on campus due to work. I am not trying to ask for sympathy or sorrow, I am just admitting to myself that to get a good grade I need to work harder to achieve my goal. So I started to familiarize myself to the different computer labs on campus and went to the ones that I felt comfortable with and that were available to me within my daily schedule.

The Problems I faced...


The first major problem, (out of many problems), that I came about with adapting to the internet was, can you believe it, logging on to the computer. I had to get four different access account codes for the various files and remember what codes go for what files. Without the codes I would not be able to work on the internet. Not only did I have to remember my four codes, but it was also wise to know what the addresses were for the telnet commands. What are addresses and why do we need them? Addresses leads us to a specific file to look at. A piece of advice you should always keep in mind is, always copy the addresses exactly what they should be because from one small line or period or capital letter can get you no where. The file will say "not in command 404" (or something like not in service). To make life easier, write the codes and addresses on a separate sheet of paper so that you can always look back on if you tend to forget or having difficulties bringing up a file. So always remember those little things. With the continuous use of computers, the codes started coming to me automatically. (I even had dreams about the different codes and addresses unconsciously in my sleep).

Second problem that drove me crazy was learning the different unix commands and what their purposes were for. A specific command that I had problems doing was the ".signature" file. As easy as it was to do, I could only accomplish making that file recently with the help of asking a friend. Asking around to friends, the lab workers, and Dr. Leon James can help you out a lot with ease. There is no harm in asking someone for help. It is better to ask than to be lost and get no where.

When it was time to make my own homepage for the class with all the files Dr. Leon James wanted on our directories, I began to stress a bit on how to do certain commands again. Just when I thought I knew what I was doing, BANG, I get shot down. Making the file names, the heading, and the title were basically easy to do because Dr. Leon James showed us the basic steps on how to type in the commands. But when it came down to making the links on my files I was completely lost. I did not know how to go from my files to the other generations file. If my address was not correct, the linking command would not be found. It took me a while till I could finally make my first link, thanks to my friends in class. I must say that even though I now know how to make some links, I am still not an expert at it. Of course, I do come across some difficulties here and now, but it all makes better sense to me now than it did then.

Learning how to do icons or .gifs for pictures was not as easy as I thought it would be. First of all I was told to look through Dr. Leon James' icons files to look at different pictures that I could possibly use to decorate my files a bit. Ok...looking through all, I believe, 5 icons files of Dr. Leon James was kind of interesting. I saw cute and funny pictures that I wanted to use for my files. I copied the address and tried to link it to my files, but the wrong pictures would show up on my files. Now I'm stressing out big time because I could have sworn I copied the address correctly, for I had to keep going back and forth each time I tried to make the picture show up on my file. What was I doing wrong? I started to look through my fellow generation three classmates' files and view/source their homepages on how they made their beautiful pictures. I admit, I actually cheated my way out in the beginning because I saw a homepage that had the exact icon that I wanted, but for some odd reason would not boost up on my file, so I copied that address on his/her (I don't want to mention names), homepage and pasted it onto my file. Ok, now the picture came out. But why did it not show up when I did it the first time? I insisted to know the reason why my icon did not appear in the first place. Come to find out, it was a stupid, careless mistake because I typed the address out as "img scr" instead of "img src". Just one small typo got me no where. Like I said before, you need to make sure the addresses are exactly, and completely as it should be. Thanks to that someone's file that I view/source, I was able to find my mistake, (and hopefully learn from that stupid carelessness).

Just about midterm time...


Starting to stress to the max now...Pushing myself to be at the computer labs whenever I am available, staying late at night at the Porteus Lab to finish my files and reports, drinking caffeine to stay awake, and still learning other commands that I should know for my files to be graded during midterm time. Question?...How do I type my report if we are not suppose to type them on pico? How do I save my reports? How do I print my papers? These are the questions I came about when typing my reports. It was like I lost my mind because I forgot how to type a simple paper on the computer. Now that I am learning how to work with the internet, I feel like the easy things are hard to do. I think I forgot how to work with the basic word processor