Commenting on my own experience of the Internet, I would have to say I’ve come along way. It seems a lot like comparing chimpanzees to Albert Einstein, with so many facets of change in simple routine habits. What was once an exciting frontier, seems to have moulded into the omnipresent.

Humble beginnings

How did you first encounter, hear or read about it?
Actually… I think it was back in high school when we did Computer Studies in Year 9 or 10. I can’t recall the teacher’s name but I remember his appearance. I’m sure he mentioned that it was quite powerful and we would be able to do some great stuff. This notion went down like a lead balloon as we stared at the screens of Apple IIe computers with a flashing green square cursor. I was definitely more interested in databases in those days – they seemed to store vast amounts of data and the fat controller would have the power.

When and how did you first ‘go online’ and what did you think of it?
Since I can’t remember exactly how and when I went online, I’ll describe my earliest memories. It was definitely all about email, Hotmail to be precise. Back then, in late 1996, it wasn’t owned by Microsoft and we looked at the messages through IE 1, 2 & 3, and sometimes Netscape Navigator – before we even knew there’d be browser wars.

Not only was I one of those geeks who knew what the HTML means in HoTMaiL, but I also quickly aspired from building the RMIT Outdoor Pursuits Club’s members and equipment database, to crafting the first incarnation of their website.

The sky and today’s limits

How do you use it nowadays?
It might be quicker to define what we don’t do on the internet these days. Today’s communications come in a variety of forms such as Skype video calls to my brother on the other side of the globe. Socialising via Facebook and other networking is a small part of my online life. I took a quick spin on Second Life, but found it too time consuming and interfering with my real life. Photo (and to a lesser extent video) sharing are my regular online gigs. Blogging is something I started to do as a diary, a journal method, (which doubled as a script for a trilogy of films) and it has also evolved into my noting and recording space for things like my studies. Banking, bill payments, clocking payroll timesheets, some shopping, a little entertainment, research, education (both giving and receiving), weather forecasts, navigation and travel arrangements, calendaring and scheduling… They’re all online for me now. Have I missed anything – probably.

Do you think of it as different or part of your everyday life?
Clearly, the internet is a big part of my day to day living. In fact, so pervasive is it, I’m constantly on the lookout for tools and practices to better manage my online life.

After a long delay, finally I’ve completed my short essay for NET12. From our 2 questions, I chose The Internet is a product of the U.S. military. Discuss. I’m praying our tutor will accept this and at least pass my essay. It’s worth 20 marks and about 1000 words.

I haven’t written an essay since high school! I found http://citationmachine.net a useful website for getting my citations and reference list in the proper format.

DARPA Challenger – One Motorcycle

I’ve enjoyed the essay writing experience, but the deadline really killed me. I must admit, it felt a little bizarre to listen to my own memories of what I’ve been teaching to my academic English students. Topic sentences, thesis statements, support your arguments, cohesion, summarise, paraphrase, quote, etcetera…

As an afterthought, I checked out the website for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Google revealed the change of name to DARPA, and the history of that change becomes interesting around 1993 with President Bill Clinton restoring the non-military acronym, putting an economic twist on it. Technology for America’s Economic Growth, A New Direction to Build Economic Strength. Although that was soon reverted in February 1996 well before the November presidential election, in which Clinton was re-elected.

While DARPA haven’t got Luke Skywalker’s arm nor the bat-mobile on their plans, a Google image search reveals some other cool/scary stuff in the works.

Okay all you NET12ers out there, I’ve finally made a start on the material. Here’s the proof: this smart YouTube video clip on web 2.0 done by Mike Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in Kansas State University, raising some interesting issues and questions. I’ve just got to watch it again.

So HTML as many of us know, was designed for structurally marking up the document content. Then those nasty bold and italic tags came along, paving the way for content formatting. In the HTML wedding, document structure and format were married, inseparable until death.

Next uncle XML, the perpetual bachelor of structure, entered the reception describing data AKA content. Like all good drunk uncles, the XML stories are told again and again (the data is exportable). Picture a team of broken record players playing that embarrassing song over and over – uncle XML remembers every detail and the nephews and nieces are continuing to regurgitate the stories verbatim, all in their own accents of course (that’s RSS to the rest of us).

It was easy for the nieces and nephews to create their own stories too. Unlike HTML who’ll never divorce the divine formatting, Uncle XML made blog engines possible, he’s like a stud on Viagra. So with a blog born every half second we begin to wonder about single child policies. More on that later though…

The creative parents birthed all forms of content, more text, photo, video, and geographical; WordPress and Blogger, flickr, YouTube and Vimeo, and Google Earth just to name a few. Uncle XML also encouraged us to party, mixing our different contents together to form some delicious cocktails such as flickr maps.

Finally a way of classifying… As Jerry McGuire said, Help me… help you. Help me, help you. The machine needs our help here. We all give tags to the children because we found categories too box-like and didn’t cater well for the many permutations. ABC News stories give us the opportunity to tag. Through XML, your tags and mine, we create a database of all the content. This collaborative management is helping the machine to help you in your research.

Hypertext is not just linking pieces of content together. Web 2.0 is linking people, people sharing, trading, collaborating, and doing… Up for consideration are dozens of issues:

• copyright
• authorship
• identity
• ethics
• aesthetics
• rhetorics
• governance
• privacy
• commerce
• love
• family
• ourselves

Finally back at it. I’ve started studying my Bachelor of Arts (Internet Communications) and made a little progress reading the piles of stuff. The way forward is not only in books, but also on-screen. It’s Back to School Power Tools for the Savvy Student. Thought I’d have more time for catching up with friends, making travel plans for our honeymoon to Italy, my home videos (Spielberg is going to eat dirt when he sees what I’ve got!)

Ha! Who am I kidding? Free time just went out the window. I’m paying for this?? 4 x 10-hour subjects (that’s double the full-time load) and the other 3 days (4 contact hours + 4 hours preparation and marking = 24 hours) to work at my income.

Top five tips for new bloggers

• Preview, proof-read and edit (check spelling, punctuation, etc.) before posting. When possible, do this with fresh eyes. If it’s a touchy issue, try to ask a friend/colleague to check over your post. You should moderate it yourself though.
• Try to include a piece of media to stimulate interest, at least a picture. If you have a flickr account, link your flickr account to your blog for easy posting from any photo. WordPress users may prefer the wp-flickr plugin.
• KISS – Keep It Short ‘n’ Simple.
• Identify and link to sources when possible. *
• Distinguish between advocacy, commentary and factual information. Even advocacy writing and commentary should not misrepresent fact or context. *

* Those last 2 points are from A Bloggers’ Code of Ethics. There are also 22 steps you must do after setting up a blog and then 16 tips you must check before publishing an article.