Retrospective...part 1

I've decided, to blog up my notes for this unit thus far and until the end. I'm hoping that by doing this the information I now have somewhere in my brain really sticks, and also, I hope to help myself with Assignment 4 (more on that later).

It will be rather dry reading. For the weeks that are LONG ago, I think I will pretty much directly type up my notes...So let us begin...

WEEK 1: What's in a name?
Was I able to find a suitable username for each of the platforms mentioned...delicious, twitter, blogger, wordpress, flickr, linkedin, friendfeed?
Why, yes, I was. Many of these platforms have been my friend in the past and I was able to secure my preferred username.  Still, to this day, I haven't been able to get wordpress to work. I go, I download, and NADA. This is the main reason for my web presence assignment my main node is a blogger blog.

That was short - I might add WEEK 2, now...

WEEK 2 - What is the Internet?
Lecture notes (in retrospect don't make all that much sense to anyone except myself - sorry!)
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), World Wide Web and Cyberspace all separate and they are NOT the Internet. (although are all part of each other). TCP/IP - a way for networks to communicate and share information with other networks important verification.

Sputnik1 - 1957 1st made item launched and returned to earth

U.S in response created NASA and (D)ARPA (advanced research projects agency). ARPA was created to research and develop ways of keeping information away from the main site and to protect information.

Packet switching breaks files into manageable chunks, sending one piece at a time and sorting them into correct order at the other end.

Sep 2 1969 first 2 computers connected.
1984 - Domain Name System (DNS) -

Definition: The DNS translates Internet domain and host names to IP addresses. DNS automatically converts the names we type in our Web browser address bar to the IP addresses of Web servers hosting those sites.(http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/domainnamesystem/g/bldef_dns.htm)

The activities for week 2 looked at routing in action. It was so interesting to see via http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert/ how far you can virtually travel in a small amount of time. My results are on the uni discussion board.

The 2nd activity looked at who owns what on the internet. We used a site hexillion.com to who is at the other end of websites such as flickr, youtube, mickey.com, google.com and yahoo.com. I looked up chanel.com, that ended in France at an unknown location and zara.com finished up in Ireland, which is unusually to me, because I always thought that the label Zara was Spanish.

That's it for my physical notes. The tutorial also covered different file sharing  & communication protocols that make the internet useful, by utilising the network. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the protocol that allows email to be sent and received. File Transfer Protocol (FTP), which allows files to be downloaded and looked at later.

Phew, I'm out.
Sarah