PlanetUSF

WEBSITES :

ICANN - http://www.icann.org/

ICANN is an international orgnization that is designed to keep the internet secure and reliable. ICANN coordinates the names or numbers that makes a web address unique. The ICANN website discusses current news and general information. The website also includes information about the structure and includes a variety of resources. Finally in terms of design, this website sucked. Its layout is very confusing.

Web Stats -

Internet Traffic Report - http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm

This website shows the current flow of data around the world.

Internet World Stats - http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

This website is very colorful and includes very helpful graphs and charts. The purpose of this website is to give the statistics on world internet usage and population statisitcs. The site also include additional internet information sources and usage statistics.

CAIDA Internet Infrastructure - http://www.caida.org/home/

CAIDA stands for Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis. The purpose of this site is to create cooperation between countries in regulating internet traffic.

Pew (non-profit research center) - http://pewresearch.org/

This website was developed to give numbers, facts, stats on all types of world topics such as voting, war and etc. I did find a graph on internet trends such as whether people use broadband or internet penetration. This website had a lot of information and I liked the format of the site. It was easy to navigate.

Nielson Net Ratings (private research center) - http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/

This site allows businesses or other companies to monitor their sites traffic and audience.

USF -

USF Web Style Guidelines http://usfweb2.usf.edu/ur/webadmin/webguide.html

This web page gave an error message that it could not be found. It was either no longer available or had been moved. I would have to contact the webmaster in order to find the location of this page.

Readings:

Creating Web Sites:

Chapter 5: This chapter goes into more detail about HTML text tags. A web developer has to know the basic tags to help structure their web page. There are two basic tags. They are logical tags and physical tags. Logical tags describe the content and physical tags are about formatting. The text tags are important because they help structure your text that will be shown on your web page. This chapter is very useful to me as i am developing my pages.

Chapter 6: This chapters covers the topic on style sheets. Style sheets are complicated because they are filled with rules. There are three types of style sheets; they are external, internal or inline. These three types of style sheets to me varies in levels of difficulty in use. The style sheet is important because it brings the web page to life because it adds the colors, fonts, borders and etc. to the pages. I found this chapter to be very overwhelming.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design:

Chapter 1- This chapter walks you through the best ways to layout your web page. It inludes a section on composition as well. I liked this chapter because it listed additional websites for reference. Also, it gave me a good idea on how I wanted to design/ layout my web pages.

Chapter 1 in Principles of Beautiful Web Design is loaded with information. It adds some humor and breaks down web design in simple terms. The example is a business web site, but the methods work with any type of site. The important things to understand when designing the site are what does the company do and what is the goal of the site, what information will be on the site, who is the audience and who are the competitors of the site. There should be a good balance between content and design, the design should help lead the user into the information, and it should be easy to move around the site. The overall style needs to be consistent throughout the site, and the site should capture the “identity” of the company or person in which it was developed for. White space even plays a part in the design as it also lead the user around the site and serves to balance each page. Too much information and graphics on each page can be overwhelming. The pages need to be balanced with some specific emphasis on key item to lead the user to the next page and more information. Shapes, colors and texture are all used to tie the site together.
Chapter 5 in Creating Web Sites, first talks about how resolution is related to the amount of contents that fits on the computer screen. Higher resolution equates to more content. Formatting improves the look of the site, and CSS defines how each item in the document is to be formatted. Some other key points are no long paragraphs, divide up content into several pages, the most important information should be presented first and always proofread your work. Content and structure should come first, and then, it all should be formatted.
Chapter 6 in Creating Web Sites talks about style sheets. Style sheets contains all the formatted information which your browser uses to format your web pages. It sets the style/format throughout the site. The color of the text and background are important. Black, white and a darker accent color work well as does a lightly shaded background and color in a box. Some font types are safer to use like Times, Arial and Courier as unfamilar fonts on other computers can produced unwanted results. Font size should not be too small or big. Borders also add some extra zip to an area and act to separate certain bits of content.

Well, I have given up using komposer. Back to Notepad! I spent several hours redoing my original page making it more like I want. It now uses an external style sheet. I had to poke aroun the tutorials and the Web to find some expinations and examples of what I wanted to do and I made quite a few typing mistakes as I created this fromscratch. But it’s starting to come together.

This was a very interesting site but mainly if you tracked down the links. I even ended up on a site that showed how the current IP addresses were running out. Follow this LINK.

Elluminate recently released a new version of Elluminate (version 8.2). Currently we are using Elluminate 7. Elluminate 8 has several new features and we have now upgraded our servers to Elluminate 8 (May 28, 2008). This upgrade will not affect your existing sessions, session links, Elluminate moderators login url (http://elluminate.acomp.usf.edu), user records, and past recordings. The user interface will also remain the same with a few additional buttons and menu items that refer to the new features.

The only change you will notice is that when you and your students log in to a session after we have completed the upgrade, you will experience an increase in the time taken to download the software for Elluminate. This should not take long. However, if your students will be connecting by dial-up (slower Internet connection), they should be advised to log in early for the first session after the upgrade. Also, after the Elluminate session window opens you will notice a few interface changes which are mostly aesthetic. Some major changes include:

• Support for PowerPoint 2007, when uploading slides to Elluminate
• Ability to send text messages to all breakout rooms
• Ability to send an Announcement to all users in the session, which opens up as a dialog box (to attract attention)
• New tools for learning and teaching, including timers and automatic sorting of participants by raised hands
• Enhanced video quality and Interactive two-way video, which provides resolutions from 160 x 120 to 640 x 480 and allows users to take snapshots of video feeds and paste them onto the whiteboard area of the Live! interface
• The ability to publish clickable URLs from Web tours to chat and whiteboards, including the ability for moderators to switch sessions to full-screen Presentation Mode
• Synchronized notes, allows users to take notes during a live session and notes can be saved, edited, and shared with other users
• Indexed recordings, giving users the ability to move playback to any of the index marks
• Improved compatibity with Windows Vista and devices used with Windows Vista (headsets, cameras, etc.)
• Improved support for USB microphones

To learn more about the features in Elluminate 8 and for great moderator training in Elluminate 8, consider attending our workshops on Elluminate in the Fall and Spring semesters. Go to http://www.cte.usf.edu/workshops/#synchronouselluminate to register for the workshop when the new schedule is posted (usually at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters). More details on the workshop are listed on the site.

Also visit: http://elluminate.com/support/docs/8.0/moderator.jsp for online moderator tutorials on Elluminate 8.

While we do not normallly perform upgrades to the system during the semester, we were unable to perform the upgrade as planned during the intersession due to the unplanned unavailability of our system administrator.

Many moderators choose to share their entire desktop when using application sharing. This means that the participants viewing your desktop can see everything that you as a moderator can see, including private messages in the Chat window. You may not want other participants to view these private messages, so here is a little trick.

Using the Chat Filter (at the top of the Chat window), simply switch the default setting of “All” in the From Menu to “Public” and only the public messages will appear in the discussion region. Then when you stop sharing your desktop, simply revert the filter back to “All” and you will be able to view all the private text messages that were sent. Read more about this feature at http://www.elluminate.com/support/docs/8.0/moderator.jsp in the section on Chat.

Information Source: Elluminate Techline

Occasionally, users attempting join an Elluminate Live! session may receive the message, “Your session is running on a different session server - please retry or contact your administrator.”

It is important to launch your session from links provided by our administration system or via your moderator (for students) and not from .jnlp files previously saved on your computer, as they may be associated to an incorrect server.

If you receive the message shown above, try one of the following solutions.

• Clear your Java cache. See this Knowledge Base article for complete instructions.
• Search for and delete all .jnlp files from your computer. Then join your session again.

This is extremely important for Mac users using the Safari web browser since Elluminate Live! .jnlp launch files are saved automatically to the desktop. Elluminate Technical Support recommends that these files be deleted immediately after your session, thereby reducing the risk of reusing them again.

For more information, refer to this Knowledge Base article or contact Elluminate Technical Support at 866-388-8674 Option 2.

As a moderator in Elluminate Live! V8, you can use Presentation Mode to change the view of the whiteboard or an application-sharing window to fill the entire Elluminate Live! window. When you use Presentation Mode, everyone in the session automatically has the same full-window view until either they “opt out” or you end Presentation Mode and return the content to normal view.

To present whiteboard content in Presentation Mode, click on the “Present Content” button in the Moderators interface. Then select Whiteboard and Present to send all participants into a full-window view of your whiteboard. Participants can move out of this view by clicking the “Return to non-presented layout” button. This will allow the participant to access the raised hand button, chat window, and audio window.

To present application-sharing content in Presentation Mode, start application sharing as you normally would. From the Host Applications window, select “Show in Presentation mode” to present the application to all participants in a full-window view. As the moderator, you see the default application-sharing view.

For more information on Presentation Mode, visit our training website at: http://www.elluminate.com/training.

Source: Elluminate Techline

When each user joins an Elluminate Live! session, a private work area is created with one blank screen called Private Screen 1, which can’t be seen by anyone else, including the moderator. While moderators can use their own private work areas at any time, participants can use their private work areas only when granted permission.

How can you use your private work area? Here are two examples.

• To prepare content during the session, a moderator or co-moderator can add content to the private work area and then copy the screens to the main room or a breakout room. For example, if you are co-teaching a session, one instructor can be loading or creating content in the private work area while the other is teaching the planned lesson. Then the new screens are copied and pasted into the main room as needed.
• To make notes during a session, moderators and participants can use the Notes Tool at any time. However, there may be an exercise that is better executed by using a whiteboard screen. The private screen can be saved and printed.

Note that the moderator cannot see a participant’s private work area. If Follow Moderator is selected, participants cannot access their private work areas. To enable participants to access their private work areas, the moderator must deselect Follow Moderator and select Roam.

Source: Elluminate Techline

For years we have made do with a single connection DSL router. Problem was when our daughter was home she could only connect her laptop with a 50′ cable and we could not use the main desktop at the same time.

So I decided to look into wireless and found a router for $50 and picked it up today. Installation was simple and now the main computer can be on, three others can be hard wired to the network, and we have had my daughter’s laptop and mine (old Thinkpad from daughter #1 using wifi together. It even works all the way from one end of the house to the other.

This will make life easier for everyone and allow more than one person to be on the Net at the same time.

Hi Everyone,

I am now safe in Costa Rica. It´s the first full day, Sunday May 25, on the ground. I live with three other classmates who are all girls. We live with an older retired couple that own a good sized home. The decor is similar to Europe, but it has all the modern conveniences that you would find in the U.S. The family is very nice and the house is absolutely immaculate.

We start classes tomorrow at 8 am and they go until noon Monday through Friday. We have every weekend planned with an interesting excursion.

Colleen

Websites: Review and Critiques

W3 Consortium http://www.w3.org/

the W3 is an international organization that develops web standards, protocals and guidelines in order to maintain a successful web. This website includes technical reports and publications, discusses activities, W3C news (current events), and links to a variety of other sites. I find this website cluttered and I really have no use in viewing this website.

W3Schools - free web building tutorials and references. The HTML and CSS tutorials are especially helpful http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp

I really liked this website because it offered tutorials in how to use HTML coding and other web developing tools. I actually completed the HTML tutorial and I now feel a little more comfortable using it. I think that this site would help any web developer whether beginning or advanced because it has tutorials and references.

USF specific tutorials at http://www.cas.usf.edu/lis/distance/tutorials/

USF’s tutorials helps USF students learn how to use the different resources that are available to them such as using Blackboard, Oasis and learning about how to create and use the SSH Client system to create a student web page. I wish that knew about this website when I started the program because I had no ida on how to use any of these tools. This website should be included in the acceptance letter for incoming LIS graduate students.

Weekly Readings-

Creating Web Sites:

Chapter 3- This chapter informs the reader on how to put their web page in the web. This chapter is a very infomative because it introduces the whole process on how web hosting works and teaches about URL’s, domain names, and how to actually get a web space and finding a web host. I particularly liked the section on domain names. It really gave good ideas on how to actually pick the right name for your url. I will use this section when I create another web page for my personal business.

Chapter 4- This chapter focuses on the different HTML editors and how to choose the one that best suits each individuals needs. There are a lot of free HTML editors. But the book discusses the professional HTML editors that have to be purchased such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver. I purchased Dreamweaver for this class. It was expensive but so far I find it easy to use. This book helps walk you walk through using these different progams. Ultimately, I know that I certainly like any program with a WYSIWYG editor.

I went over the tutorial for attaching the SSH client to my USF webspace and it went just fine. I went ahead and uploaded the basic index.html page I had worked on in komposer and was able to view it in IE. I did rename the original USF placeholder page first.

I experimented with different background colors and settled on light blue for now. The color theme I want will be a light colored background with dark blue text. The banner is a yellow triangle with dark blue text.

I checked in komposer on setting it up to publish directly but did not get it to work. I’ll have to try again when I have more time. I have used Frontpage direct publish before but usually I just attach via FTP client and upload the files/folders directly.

The Wiley InterScience database, by publisher Wiley-Blackwell, will be unavailable on two instances due to maintance work:

• Saturday, May 24th, from 7:00 AM EDT, for a period of 4 to 8 hours
• Thursday, May 29th, from 4:00 AM EDT, for a period of 1 hour

In observance of Memorial Day, the USF Lakeland Library (and the Open Use Lab) will be closed on Monday, May 26th.

LTB 1115 will reopen Tuesday, May 27th at 9:00 AM.

I found a oddball drum set photo on ebay from the Harmony Central Drum Forum.

Awesome!

Announcing the latest addition to the online collection of the USF Libraries—- International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text.

International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text is the definitive research tool for the study of theatre and the performing arts. It indexes over 60,000 journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations on all aspects of theatre and performance from over 126 countries. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text contains more than 400 full-text titles such as Canadian Theatre Review, Dance Chronicle, Dance Teacher, Modern Drama, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Research in Dance Education, Research in Drama Education, Studies in Theatre and Performance, TDR: The Drama Review, and Theater and more than 270 full-text books such as Avant Garde Theatre, British Realist Theatre, History of European Drama and Theatre, Learning Through Theatre, Opera, Performance Theory, Shakespeare, Theory and Performance, Theatre and the World, Twentieth-Century Actor Training, Who’s Who in Contemporary World Theatre, and World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre.

For this database and other library resources visit http://www.lakeland.usf.edu/library/. Click on Search the Databases to begin.

I spent some time with GIMP creating a banner for my Web Project. It is very different from Photoshop in that the terminology for similar tasks is not the same. I made a nice triangular logo with text, then rotated it. I tried to scale it smaller but the text came out quite rough so I’ll have to try again if I want to use the “big logo/small logo” style I’ve used in the past.

I also tried Nvu but since I was not on the Internet I could not do much. The GA will be putting up a Nvu tutorial soon so that will help.

All in all, great fun!

I’ve been doing some investigation into the energy consumption of second generation P2P systems, specifically BitTorrent.

There is a pretty decent push towards using set top boxes in consumer’s home for legal content distribution. In fact, this type of system is being proposed by Pablo Rodriguez at Telefonica here. The benefits to content providers are tremendous. The most obvious benefit is that the ISP no longer has to pay for a data center. In effect, the data center is being pushed out into the subscribers’ homes. The subscribers now pay the associated power and cooling costs.

Unfortunately, we’ve theorized that the reduction in power costs to the ISP will lead to an overall increase in power consumption. The essential concept is that while ideally we would expect power consumption to increase linearly with utilization in reality this is not the case.

The graph above shows that power consumption increases dramatically from 0 to about 15% utilization. Additionally, increasing utilization past about 15% results in a negligible increase in power consumption.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that we want our IT equipment to be heavily utilized to get the greatest energy efficiency out of our hardware.

For set-top boxes to be truly effective peers in a swarm they should be available to other peers pretty much 100% of the time, however they are unlikely to be fully utilized 100% of the time, which in turn means a large reduction in energy efficiency. Ideally we’d like to put set-top boxes that are doing nothing but waiting for peers to connect to sleep, however this is currently not feasible as a peer must be awake to respond to requests from other peers! In fact, there seems to be a lot of protocol traffic outside of pure data transfer that a peer must be made available for.

In the above graph, the black line is all traffic, the red line is all BitTorrent protocol traffic and the green line is BitTorrent piece request traffic. (The Y-axis is packets per second)

The graph was created from a trace on a reasonably popular swarm (about 12000 peers composed roughly of 50% seeds and 50% leaches)

The question remains as to what amount of the protocol traffic is directly related to data transfer, how much (if any) might be pushed off to a low power proxy which would wake the high power machine up for data transfer, and what, if anything, might be done to ensure that only highly utilized peers are members of the swarm (i.e. how to reduce to the energy footprint of the swarm as a whole while still maintaining it’s usefulness)

I was feeling overwhelmed by the web project, and then I went to class! I am sure that all of the projects will be challenging: However, I am no longer terrified of failing. I hope that I survive this semester.
Things are looking up,
Michele

Ok, pictures are posted…take a look!

Colleen

Hi all,

This is my first attempt at using my Blog to update frinds and family. I just returned from an amazing trip to Budapest, Hungary from May 12 to May 19th. I got to stay at a hotel named after St. Margaret (I think) that is located on an island in the middle of the Danube River. This is by far one of the prettiest cities around - although I might be biased - but it’s worth putting on your travel calendar. I’m going to try to add pictures…so if I figure it out, make sure you take a look at them!

Colleen

Well, we still see the overall three column layout but with the USF typesyles and color scheme. A nice site in that the general topics are explained so the viewer can easily find the appropriate sub page.

One thing I noticed was the Spanish links at the bottom where not seen when the page came up inside of Blackboard. I found them when I scrolled down. Perhaps bringing up these links and making them single sentences on either side would let them show at the bottom of a normal screen.

Again I see a three column layout, though not as visually divided. This site contains a different type of information in that toutorials and examples tend to be more static over time. However, the center column still contains more “news” type information. Overall both W3 sites are very “clean” looking. High contrast text, tasteful graphics, and logical layout.

This is a great resource for web design students.