We all know data is the raw information itself. For example, the photograph or even this content you are reading this very instant, is data. So let’s talk about the content of this post. What kind of information is it? Can you tell me more about it before I read on?

Meta-data is information about the data. The type of content (text and often some images); categories and tags the author gives a post; name of the author; the date/time that it was published; are just a few of examples of meta-data. Another brilliant example is the meta-data associated with a photo on flickr.

A great failing of most web browser and management software is its inability to allow people to easily organize and reorganise information, to catalogue and sort it, thereby attaching their own metadata to it. (Allen, n.d.)

In terms of this blog, at present all the organisation and cataloguing is done by yours truly. I started with the Better Tags Manager plug-in but have since found Manageable to work more effectively and manages more meta-data fields.

Whilst you, my audience, can filter the posts on any of the categories/tags that I’ve nominated, there’s no facility for a reader to add his/her own tags yet. Meanwhile, a search for any other keywords is available via the search form.

The Commons on Flickr is an interesting project of photographic content with public users contributing to the tags describing that content. Quite a successful website strategy. Flickr members can open their own content to tagging by others also.

Firefox 3.0 makes it simpler than ever to bookmark and organise websites. I’ve been using Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer to ensure I don’t loose bookmarks and can maintain the same bookmarks across different computers. Brilliant!

At last, in Firefox 3.0 we have the ability to tag our bookmarks. (Maybe it was in earlier versions but only as keywords…) There’s also a neat library feature described there to save searches into automatically updated smart folders. Need tips on how to make it all happen? Those people at Mozilla have thought of everything. Tips for beginners, intermediate and advanced internet users.

So there you have it. Data and meta-data all taken care of. Go plug yourself in to The Matrix!

Our task was to build a web page utilising all the basic HTML constructs. I’ve been a Dreamweaver user since version 1.0 and I’m relatively familiar with HTML. I was excited to try hand-coding without the funky extras that Dreamweaver provides, knowing that better knowledge of HTML is always worthwhile.

What’s HTML? HyperText Mark-up Language, the fundamental language of web pages.

This source code I wrote for my HTML task 3 will be rendered in your browser something like… Well click it and take a look (http://vfowler.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/HTML_task3.html). There’ll be minor browser variations of course. Similarly, when you buy Arnott’s Tim Tams, they always taste different to other brands.

With solid HTML we can always code better and faster. Obviously the same goes for CSS, JavaScript or anything else you care to code. More sophisticated web pages are simply employing more CSS, graphics and other media. If you’re interested in clean HTML code (you should be, it’s too expensive in both time and money, to write dirty and non-standards compliant code) please remember that tables are for tabular data, never for layout. When you have tabular data, try Klaus Komenda’s best practice guide to the mark-up. I’m sure you’ll agree the resultant data table is well worth it.

What’s a blog? Perhaps you were born yesterday, or too many yesterdays ago. Try this great article from Dented Reality titled Blogs: What are they good for? including some great headings

1. What is a Blog?
2. Why Blog?
3. How do I blog?

The majority of blogging folk are creating content via the blog engine’s visual editor. Within the engine constraints, they don’t need to know any HTML to publish to their heart’s content.

When I blog, I always hand-code the new content, just the post itself. Naturally, the blog engine takes care of all the automated tasks associated with content management. I started out with a free hosted Blogger blog, but a year later moved to this self hosted WordPress blog. Blogging in this way gives me the control I want with the semi/fully automatic handling of mundane tasks. No regrets.

Will I go back to Dreamweaver? For blogging, heck no. It’s overkill. For creating other new code segments, maybe. However, I’m learning more and more about Notepad++ and enjoying it. Like any good program, when you personalise the workspace and learn the keyboard short-cuts, you’ll maximise your efficiency.

This from our NET11 course curriculum:

Once we began to store and access documents electronically, it became possible to deal with non-linearity in a new and exciting way. There was no longer any necessity to create a physical document with pages in a particular order. Instead the separate elements which made up a non-linear document could be stored as separate packages of information, which might consist of a single paragraph, a single image or (as computer systems became powerful enough to deal with them) a single moving image or sound. The user would be enabled to move from package to package in an order chosen by the themselves, accessing information as desired and ignoring that which was unnecessary.

I rather enjoyed the analogy which followed, describing the method of accessing information as a personal journey. Did you ever read those Choose your own adventure stories as a kid? Disappointed when you got to the end because your journey was over? Well fear not sea-faring adventurers, for this W³ is the never ending story.

The analogy which was employed to express this new method of accessing information in documents was that of a personal voyage through a world of information, different for each reader. Because of this, the process of moving through the information is described as navigation, and the methods used to help the reader to do this are called navigation tools.

Hang on sailors. We read earlier that the path was chosen by the user and that we are helped by navigation tools.

Well hyper-links, the #1 WWW navigation tool, may be a little better than the old compass, but we’re really at the mercy of the link manufacturer. So we are not exactly choosing our own adventure after all. Rather we are following a guide on a well trodden path that has already been explored.

Site maps aren’t much easier. When did you last navigate to a site map? It’s a known fact that many people can’t read maps!

The well known search is our #2 navigation tool. The speed of your voyage is now entirely dependent on your telescope skills. You’d be stunned at just how many people will click-and-trawl 1-by-1 through search results. Talk about sailing against the wind! Read some of that meta-data (title, description, and address) before clicking over to your next port.

Of course some telescopes are better ‘n others. GooglePreview is a Firefox add-on to clear things up a bit. Combine this with your metal detector, namely your browser’s Find feature, you’ll soon know where to dig up treasure. If your eyes are tired from the small thumbnail of GooglePreview, then feast your gaze around the http://www.searchme.com engine.

• What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?
• Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

I joined the Yahoo group Bookworms Reading Group, partly out of interest to help my wife get into our Maundy Thursday Book Club, mostly to complete this task for NET11.

So I’ve subscribed to the digest format which comes daily – a bit too frequent for my interest, but the only other subscription offered is individual posts! Around 7 o’clock this evening it successfully arrived in my email inbox. 12 messages and all threaded-up and linked in a nice table of contents; I’m glad I chose the HTML fomat.

A recent activity notice tells me there are 23 new members – they must all be fresh today! Most new members are introducing themselves with a quick post. Some having technical problems that another member has solved for them already. This really is quite an active bunch of people.

Apart from new member messages, there’s a couple of threads about a book known as FNKC. I have no idea what this title could be. Upon reading the messages from those who’ve finished reading FNKC, I was pleasantly impressed to see that members actually care about what and how they write. Those that were including spoiler content mentioned it in the subject of their posts. The body of posts appears grammatically gorgeous, well punctuated and easy to read.

I like how each post in the digest includes links to reply to the sender only or to the entire group. These facilitates easy switching to private responding when desired.

Like another member though, I’ll be opting for the back seat. That is, to take the no email preference and visit the website when I am ready to choose a new title. There is a good search function and we can always see the current reading list (3 months worth and 3 titles) from the home page of the group.

Last time I was on an IMDB discussion board I read only a few posts until the errors frustrated me. The brevity of posts and lack of identity and author responsibility could deter some from discussion boards.

Some immediate pros and cons that come to mind:

Who is suited to what then?

Active members of (especially smaller community) groups will benefit more from an email list. Many to many communications between clear identities and on contemporary topics are suited to the fundamental email list.

Researchers may need to look into history or simply search through past threads and this is much more intuitive via a web interface. If you’re only occasionally interested in a group, or prefer to be anonymous, the discussion board offers a less committing channel. Beyond text, multimedia groups such as flickr groups can only work via discussion boards.

I’m studying Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin) 1A through Griffith University. It’s worth doing a search through Firefox add-ons for Chinese within language support for things like

• Chinese-Japanese-English Character Hint Bar
• Moji side-bar and dictionaries can be found at http://moji.mozdev.org/
• Chinese Perapera-kun: Chinese Popup Translator
• Try tunes from Petrol Exotic’s Shanghai: The Sex, The City, The Music like track 2 The Wandering Songstress Remix by Chow Hsuan