how might the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ impact on the way you think about, understand or use the Internet?

Now that I have read more about the term Information Ecology’ I am having a more critical look at my own approach to technology and communication.

• at home. Here I have a lot of software tools and I am more than willing to try new tools at the drop of a hat before analysing what the impact might be of yet another tool and whether it complements my other tools. I think I am definitely more interested in the pursuit of new tools over better practices.
  
• at work. This is a more structured environment that takes much more thought to implement new software to. There is a chain of command where three different levels must be convinced there is a valid reason to buy the tool and the benefits must be justified. This requires critical though and submissions of supporting arguments. This process of course takes time so forward planning is required rather than spontaneous actions.
  

So I experience two completely different ecologies on a daily basis. I think they both have merits but I would have to admit that my work ecology is much less distracting and achieves more from a productivity level. I do also think that my home ecology provides an environment to experiment and try new software and concepts that can eventually find there way to the work ecology.

how are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?

What I have learn by reading the study references about ‘information’ in the context of ecology is that it is hugely important and has massive ramifications. I think I used to only think of information from my own perspective and hadn’t really thought about the effects of information poor groups.

“Information is power – for good, for bad. In a world of violence, poverty, and ecological crisis on the one side, as well as of peace movements, industrial productivity and scientific-technological development on the other, the production, storage, exchange, diffusion, selection and use of information has also become a key issue” (Capurro, 1989)

Communication is describes as one of the elements in the information ecology.

why don’t we talk of a ‘communication ecology’?

Information ecology is the umbrella that incorporates an “a system of interrelated people AND tools” (Allen, n.d)

Communication is one of those tools and as such is not in the same category. It is also promoted in the readings to not focus on the technical details as they will change / evolve over time. It is more about using the tools effectively than getting distracted by the tools themselves.

Allen, M. (n.d). Retrieved 21 March, 2008, from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_a/scripts/serve_home

Capurro, R. (1989). Towards an information ecology. Retrieved 18 May, 2008, from http://www.capurro.de/nordinf.htm

The site I have chosen to annotate from my previous search is:

Taylor, P. (n.d.). The Hasselblad 500 Camera. Retrieved May 7, 2008, from

http://www.patricktaylor.com/hasselblad-500 .

The author, Patrick Taylor is the owner of the website. Previous experience was and Architect and Public Sector Manager. Currently a web designer chose to add this piece about the camera as an article on his website.

The main point of discussion from this article was the grand qualities of the classic camera. The perspective is from the lover of good design from his architecture days and a passion for attention to detail. The Hasselblad has these qualities in abundance.

This article was written to provide an example of what the designer could present in the form of product description for prospective website and also to add an item that portrayed the essence of his own standards in style and quality.

My observations between the 2 styles of recording a web article

As far as future use goes I would be using both methods of annotating website articles depending on the article. I believe that if I am reading an article that I want to use on a personal level in future I would still take to option of a small snapshot using something like the www.clipmarks.com tools.

If I was recording links for future study or my own academic or professional articles I would use the more formal annotated reference to provide a very clear picture of the validity of the author and the depth of the content.

For external user recommendations I again find the two styles hard to offer a clear winner as the context really affects my choice. Web user that scans the internet for new information rapidly will prefer the very short snapshot with screen shots to decide whether to read the article. For the web user that takes there time and prefers longer, more descriptive articles the full annotation would be the preferred style.

Author: Patrick Taylor

URL: http://www.patricktaylor.com/hasselblad-500

Description: A glowing description of the Hasselblad 500 camera. I love reading these

types of descriptions when I want to motivate myself to buy something like this.

Result: 2

Author: Paul Addix

URL: http://www.oztion.com.au/buy/auction.aspx?itemid=3185789

Description: A classified add that I also like to have as a reference for what the market is like

before purchasing.

Result: 3

Author: Unknown

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad

Description: A good general Wikipedia article written about the invertor of the Hasselblad camera.

Of course author is unknown as with most Wikipedia articles

I recorded these websites using a tool installed from www.clipmarks.com that allows selected images and text to be save for future

reference. I made sure to save the authors details and website name where applicable.

This is how I selected the information I wanted to keep.

Taylor, P. (n.d.). The Hasselblad 500 Camera. Retrieved May 7, 2008, from

http://www.patricktaylor.com/hasselblad-500

Screen clipping taken: 7/05/2008, 8:40 PM

This is where the 3 websites are stored online in my own private ‘clipmarks’ collection.

Screen clipping taken: 7/05/2008, 9:13 PM

• to increase the number of hits to 5,780,000 I changed the search term to: Hasselblad OR 500c
• to get more relevant information and reduce my hits to 28,400 I used: Hasselblad +500c +camera
• to get my hits (only 9 this time) only from university sources I used the search term: hasselblad +500c +site:*.edu
• a similar result can be achieved by using www.clusty.com and in the advanced search area as seen below entering edu in the host area searches only for edu references.

   

   

Screen clipping taken: 7/05/2008, 6:17 PM

Hasselblad 500 Series (V System)

Number of Hits: 130 000

1. Used Copernic Agent Personal for the same search.

    

   First Hit:

Screen clipping taken: 6/05/2008, 6:42 PM

Number of Hits: 45.

A lot less than the previous number and more than enough for what I would want to look at.

Also dead links were verified so there would be less wasted time on dead links.

At first glance I think that copernic was more informative with less marketing material and had more promising results.

1. Google Hits

Screen clipping taken: 6/05/2008, 6:24 PM

Copernic Agent Personal Hits

Screen clipping taken: 6/05/2008, 6:44 PM

Copernic Agent Basic – http://www.copernic.com/en/products/agent/index.html

Cost: Free

Size: 3.38MB

Benefits:

• search agent could be very useful as it searches 10+ search engines
• all are alternatives to google so more change of an original answer when
• previous searches saved making it easy to review past information

Download 2 – Offline Browser/Copier

Webcopier – http://www.maximumsoft.com/products/wc_windows/overview.html

Cost: $30 (US)

Size: 2.21MB

Benefits:

• ability to backup online information. For example our online blog
• store a website for reference to limit the number of times it needs to be
  downloaded to once and therefore save on internet usage costs.
• if a website has daily changes for example a ‘front page’ news story a snapshot can be taken
  before it is replaced with the next days headline.

Sites like the new online word document editor by Adobe called buzzword (http://www.buzzword.com )
is another fine example of a web2.0 website that acts like a software package.

The ‘blinklist’ webpage format makes such a list much more current. It no longer needs a web developer to
keep adding links manually. It evolves moment by moment and its format can be changed by the user
they want to sort it differently. An interactive growing list web2.0 is much more interesting than the older variety.

So in closing I am very excited about web2.0 in the forms I have mentioned and feel that they are the
websites of the future that will allow user to login from any computer in the world and work on documents
online due to web 2.0 technology.

I think that the ability of a blog to get noticed on the world stage much faster than a regular website is really interesting.

It has really opened my mind to the concept of simple websites build on the foundation of a blog being really effective and I would consider recommending them as an option in the future when people ask me to build a website but want to regularly update it themselves. Obviously a unique domain name needs to be attached to such a plan but that is quite a simple process as well.

I have been so taken with the idea I have also started a small blog to comment on software and websites that I come across and will see how that goes as a medium for increased web traffic.

its web address is http://keepordump.wordpress.com/

So all in all really happy to have delved in this area because of this module and will blogging after the course has finished.

the link to my page is

http://www.justbecos.com/html_in_a_nutshell.html

item 2 –

(Planning, 2004)

The logo is a registered trademark and is protected from unauthorised use which requires permission from the Executive Director Corporate Communications.

The fair use policy for an image doesn’t help as it would be virtually the whole image that would be used so unless I was to only use a portion of the logo which would defeat the purpose of using the image in the first place.

Planning, D. V. C. S. a. (2004, September 2007). Logo Use Procedure. Retrieved 15 April, 2007, from http://policies.curtin.edu.au/documents/Logo_use.doc