Report 2: First Attempt

My Learning to Use Web Search Engines :

Lycos

Dr. James' Home Page

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Table of Content

Introduction
My Search
Lycos
Daily Hassles
Parking and Traffic
Choosing the File
Evaluation
Annotative Links
Epilogy

Introduction

Every morning you get up and see the sun rise. You wonder what a wonderful day it's gonna be. Then you are reminded of all the daily hassles that you are going to encounter. You stop and think "Maybe I don't want to get out of bed." But you know that you have to get up and face the evil morning traffic. After you spend about an hour in traffic, you spend a good half hour looking for parking. Then you have to walk all the way to your class. By the time you reach your class you are so tired that you want to go home and jump right back into your bed. There are a lot of other people that feel the same way.

I am not a morning person. I can stay up all night. But as soon as that sun comes up, I am tired. I guess you can say that I am nocturnal. I get up every morning wishing I could sleep longer or stay home. I hate the daily hassles that I go through everyday. I especially hate to drive through morning traffic. I dread the stop and go traffic. I drive a standard car. Imagine driving in traffic with a standard car all the way from Waikele. Waikele!!! It's about a 45 minute drive. It drives me crazy. I am glad that my car has a good radio. There's something to keep me occupied while I drive. Driving in traffic and finding parking are the worst daily hassles that I know. My search is about the daily hassles that people encounter.

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Do you hate traffic as much as I do? Let me know!

My Search Through Lycos

We were given a list of topics to choose from. The topics were in Dr. James's home page. It was under the Generation 3 I chose Lycos for my search engine because it was a search engine that I was most familiar with. I used it once before to look up Winnie the Pooh. I found it easier to use then the other search engines. When I used the Infoseek, they called up Garrett Chun's paper on Traffic Psychology. I thought that it was interesting. I did not use the Infoseek because I felt more comfortable with the Lycos Search Engine.

Lycos

Once I got to Lycos, I scrolled around. I browsed through everything that was on the screen. The things that I did not know what it was I clicked on it and read it. There were advertisements on the top of the screen. I just looked around and read whatever was there.

Daily Hassles

I types the words daily hassles in the search engine. I got a lot of infomation that was very irrelevent to my search on daily hassles. The files taht were called upon were stuff like the daily newspaper. Hassles of things that weren't daily hassles so I could not use it at all. There were some articles that had to do with daily hassles but it had nothing to do with the daily hassles of driving in traffic and looking for parking. I did not use the options because I felt very aprehensive about using the options. I felt very confused about using the options because I was not sure what would happen if I clicked on ceratin things. I felt frustrated because I felt that there was an easier way to do this but I could not figure it out. I did not use the search engine instructions because I used it before and I felt that I was comfortable with what I knew. The information was organized but I felt that I did not need to use it.

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Traffic and Parking

After I looked at some of the daily hassles files I felt that my search had to be a little more into detail. So I typed in traffic and parking. I got a lot more information that was relevant to my research. It was interesting to see what kind of results came up. I felt better about my research because I found information that was very beneficial to my research. The results were all formatted in a way that I could make sense of it.

Choosing the Files

There were so many files to read that I did not know where to start. I just looked at the subtitles. i tried to see which files would be relevant to what I was looking for and I clicked on it. I bookmarked some of the files that I thought was very interesting. There were files that talked about problems with traffic, parking, the freeways and other problems that were associated with traffic and parking. There were subjects on parking problems at universities, on the road and how the police approached the problem of parking. There was also a file on maniac drivers and suggestions to make the traffic flow. I took some notes on the subjects.

Evaluation

1) What was the overall level of self-confidence as a searcher?
O = At first my self-confidence was very low. But as I got the hang of the search engine it rose very high.

2) What was your stress level?
-2 = It was very stressful. I did not know what I was doing. Eventually I got the hang of it and it wasn't that stressful.

3) How satisfied are you with the ease of using the search engine?
0 = In the beginning of the search it was not that easy because I was not getting the results that I was looking for. But after I realized that the computer was just doing what I was telling it to do, I was satisfied.

4) How useful to you were the results?
2 = The results were pretty useful.

5) Did the results give you a better understanding of the topic?
1 = I thought that the results were more interesting than understandable. It did not give me a clearer picture on traffic and parking. I just realized that I am not the only one that feels this strongly against morning traffic.

6) How likely is it that you'll find what you need in a future search?
2 = It is real likely that I would be able to find what I am looking for in a future search. I am a little more comfortable with using computers. I feel that I could do another search in the future.

Need a break? E-mail me and tell me what you think so far!!

Annotative Links

1)http://www.rpi.edu/dept/NewsComm/Review/nov95/nov10/park.html(3K)

I choose this link because it had to do with the parking problems on the roads. The problems that people trying to find parking everyday. This refers to parking along the streets.

2)http://www.c.s.purdue.edu/acm/CSGkedGuide/subsection3.3.10.html

I choose this link because it deals with the parking problems that the university students have to face. This particular link has to do with more than just one university.

3)http://www.wicip.unplatt.edu/community/plattvill/police/parking.html

I choose this link because it gives you a look a parking from the police point of view.

4)http://www.ucknor.edu/okdaily/issues/fall1995/aug22/web--park--problem. process.html

This was another link that looked a local university parking problems.

5)http://www.access.dig.ex:net/~newline/traffic.html

This link talks about the maniacs on the road and the peole grumbling about them.

6)http://nrelinto.nrel.gov/documents/cities_countries/electrf.html

This link talks about ways to make the traffic flow better.

Epilogy

I enjoyed my search through Lycos. It was easier than I thought. I was apprehensive about using a search engine at first. I understood what I was doing and my confidence level rose. I felt a little better about using the computer and the search engines.

I think that the information on the internet is very valuable. You can do your research and type it out at the same time. You can save the time it would spend going from your house to the library and back. With the information that is on the internet, you can do your research at the time that is best for you. Some people work and they can not make it to the library in time. The internet gives them the option of staying at home and doing their research. The information on the internet compared to the information that is in the library is two very different things. The information in the library is more of a hard copy. It will always be there. You can get this information even though you do not have a computer. The information that is in the library is facts that will never go away. The difference is that the facts in the library is already there. You do not need to input any data.

I think that I have learned a lot about computers by doing this search engine exercise. I think it is very beneficial to students. I would never known what the internet could do for me. I thought it was just a chat line that people are getting rich off of and making little cafes.

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