A1W Krishan Lakha

Blog Questions for Week 10

2008-12-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

Ten Commandments Of Computer Ethics
Created by the Computer Ethics Institute. If Duplicated, please cite the Computer Ethics Institute
1. Thou Shalt Not Use A Computer To Harm Other People.
2. Thou Shalt Not Interfere With Other People’s Computer Work.
3. Thou Shalt Not Snoop Around In Other People’s Computer Files.
4. Thou Shalt Not Use A Computer To Steal.
5. Thou Shalt Not Use A Computer To Bear False Witness.
6. Thou Shalt Not Copy Or Use Proprietary Software For Which You have Not Paid.
7. Thou Shalt Not Use Other People’s Computer Resources Without Authorization Or Proper Compensation.
8. Thou Shalt Not Appropriate Other People’s Intellectual Output.
9. Thou Shalt Think About The Social Consequences Of The Program You Are Writing Or The System You Are Designing.
10. Thou Shalt Always Use A Computer In Ways That Insure Consideration And Respect For Your Fellow Humans.

Do you agree with all the 10 Commandments of Computer Ethics above?
I do agree with all 10 Commandments as I believe they are simple and promote good computing practises and prevent any misuse of computers.
Which do you disagree with (if any)?
I agree with all Commandments as they are a good set of rules for anyone to follow.
Do you think they leave anything important out, if so explain what?
I think they could have mentioned several acts and policies put in place such as the Copyright Designs and Patents act in connection with Rules 7 or 8, or the Data Protection Act. Also I think they should have discussed accessibility for people with disabilities and the Disability Discrimination Act.
What is not covered above that should be covered?
I think they have covered all the basic points although in my opinion I think they could go into more detail with some of the points.

Blog Questions for Week 9

2008-11-30T05:02:00.000-08:00

How could you advise a visually disabled friend to complain about a website they couldn't access?
Visually disabled people who come across a website that is difficult for them to access should try to contact the author of the website by phone or e-mail to complain. If the website remains unchanged after the author has received complaints legal action should be taken against them as they are in violation of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
The World Wide Web Consortium website contains a set of accessibility guidelines under the Web Accessibility Initiative which all people should follow when designing websites.

Here is an example of a legal case concerning website accessibility:
In Australia in June 1999, Bruce Maguire lodged a complaint under the DDA against the website of the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG), which Maguire alleged was inaccessible to him as a blind person.
On 24 August 2000, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission released its decision and supported Maguire’s complaint, ordering certain access provisions to be in place on the Olympics.com site by 15 September 2000. SOCOG ignored the ruling and was subsequently fined A$20,000.

There are a number of solutions which could help visually impaired people when accessing websites:

Some websites contain accessibility options that allow users to modify the size of text or different colours to make pages easier to read
People could use screen readers that will read out text aloud to them
Special keyboards are available where buttons and text can be larger or Braille can be used

References

Information on DDA
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/uk-website-legal-requirements.shtml

Information on WAI
http://www.w3.org/WAI/gettingstarted/Overview.html

Legal Case
http://www.contenu.nu/socog.html

Blog Questions for Week 8

2008-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

What are the advantages and disadvantages of 3-Tier Architecture in Web development?
A 3-Tier client-server architecture contains three components: a web server which contains pages where data is presented to the user, an application server which contains the business logic or calculations and a database server where data can be sent or retrieved from, updated or deleted.
There are several advantages to using a 3-tier architecture:

Reduces the number of required concurrent client licenses
Enables any internet connected node to run client processes
Insulates client from changes in the database schema
Enables client applications to be coded in any language
A more scalable approach

However there are disadvantages to a 3-tier architecture:

Works in a more complex environment
Maintenance is more complicated
The separation of application servers and datbase servers may affect performance

References

http://members.tripod.com/ChannuKambalyal/NTierArchitecture.pdf

http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/article71.aspx

http://learninformationtechnology.blogspot.com/2007/12/3-tier-architecture-implementation-for.html

http://d0server1.fnal.gov/projects/OfflineCalibAlign/Calibration/DB_Browser_Workshop/DB_Server_Concepts.ppt#256,1,Database Server Concepts and Possibilities

Blog Questions for Week 7

2008-11-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

What advice would you give to next year's students about preparing for the A1W group presentation?
A suitable amount of research into the subject is important when giving a presentation to people. Researching will allow you to gain an understanding of the topic and provide your presentation with information.
Communication between other members of your group is also an important part of preparing for your presentation. You should attend meetings with your group, to discuss topics regarding the presentation, such as what information should be included, what resources could be used, the structure of the presentation etc. and these meetings should be held on a regularly basis. You should also keep in contact with your group outside of the classroom via phone or e-mail.
The presentation should be completed well before the date that it is to be given, to allow for enough time to rehearse it. Rehearsing the presentation with your group will allow you to point out any flaws in the presentation or how it could be improved. This will in turn build up your own confidence and prepare you for the real thing.

Blog Questions for Week 6

2008-11-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

Describe THREE typical functions performed by the Apache HTTP Web Server?
Apache is used to serve both static content and dynamic web pages on the world wide web.
Apache is capable of virtual hosting, a method that web servers use to host more than one domain name on a computer. Virtual hosting allows one Apache installation to serve many different websites.
Apache also contains a rewrite engine, a piece of software that modifies a URL's appearance.

Compare the similarities and differences between the terms ‘Static’ and Dynamic’ Web sites?

SIMILARITIES - Both static and dynamic pages manage and store web content. Without static pages and dynamic pages there would be no world wide web.
DIFFERENCES - With static web sites, requests for pages are handled by a web server delivering the content of these HTML files. They are called static because they don't change very often. With dynamic web sites there is a difference. For each request, the page (the HTML) is constructed from information stored in files (such as images), information stored in databases (textual content) and programming logic (both server side such as PHP, Java, ASP etc and with "Web 2.0" more client side - Javascript). Dynamic web sites are constantly changing and the content is dependent on what the site visitor actually asked for.

References

Apache HTTP Server: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server

Static/Dynamic: http://www.purpleoar.co.nz/static-v-dynamic

Blog Questions for Week 5

2008-10-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

You have to thoroughly research your subject, not only from the link supplied but also from library and other internet sources

Carrying out more research into a subject usually gives the researcher more insight into the topic and the confidence to be able to ask any question put to them during a presentation. It also shows the person has an interest in the topic given and is therefore able to produce an impressive presentation.

Blog Questions for Week 4

2008-10-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

Advantages of using a mobile internet device to send and retrieve e-mails

E-mails can be accessed from anywhere and anytime
E-mails can be received instantly without having to connect

Disadvantages of using a mobile internet device to send and retrieve e-mails

Mobile devices contain insufficient memory for storing e-mails
Small screens are unsuitable for displaying e-mails

References

Advantages

http://www.sproutsearch.com/blogviewer.php?blogname=c06365711

Disadvantages

http://www.isode.com/whitepapers/mobile-sync.html

Blog Questions for Week 3

2008-10-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

Describe why IP addresses for devices connected to the Internet are due to run out shortly and propose what possible solutions have been put forward to address this massive ‘time-bomb’

Every device connected to a computer network is assigned a unique IP (Internet Protocol) address to allow it to communicate with other hosts on the network. IP version 4 uses 32-bit addresses, allowing for a maximum of 4,294,967,296 possible addresses. IPv4 addresses are are ususally represented in a dotted decimal format (eg. 147.135.16.1) with each octet of the address being a number from 0 to 255.
However there is a shortage of available IPv4 addresses, with several factors threatening the Internet with address exhaustion including:
Mobile phones have become potential Internet hosts, meaning that every phone on the planet has an IP address, causing a reduction in the number of available addresses.
Always-on connections, such as broadband connections remain constanly active meaning that it always requires a persistant IPv4 address.
The growing number of Internet users across the world is taking up IP addresses.

While a number of measures have been put forward to help solve the IPv4 address exhaustion problem, the introduction of new IPv6 addresses is considered to be the long-term solution. Instead of using the current 32-bit address, IPv6 will use 128-bit addresses providing about 50 octillion addresses.

References

IP addresses - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Address

IPv4 address exhaustion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion

Blog Questions for Week 2

2008-10-09T05:11:00.000-07:00

a) Describe how the Yahoo search engine works and give one advantage and one disadvantage in this method of searching

Yahoo searches websites that contains specific keywords found within the query. When using the Yahoo search engine you are not actually searching the entire Web, only through the Yahoo index. If yor query receives no hits Yahoo will give you the option of searching using the Alta Vista search engine which will search the entire Web. You can also allow Yahoo to feed yor query into other search engines.

Yahoo has a good user interface and a easy-to-navgate subject catologue. However only a small portion of the Web has actually been catalogued by Yahoo.

b) Describe how the Google search engine works and give one advantage and one disadvantage in this method of searching

Google uses a crawler-based search engine. The "crawler" visits a webpage, reads it and follows links through to other pages. These pages are than saved and catalogued. The search engine searches through the pages stored in this catalogue to find matches with a query and sorts them in order of relevance.

An advantage of Google is that it is capable of doing something called "deep crawl" meaning that Google is capable of gathering many more pages for your website. However Google does not support meta keyword tags. Meta tags are inserted into the head area of pages and are used to communicate information users may not be concerned with.

c) In your view explain which search engine you prefer to use when searching the web and justify why you have this preference

I prefer to use the Google search engine over Yahoo because it is more simple in terms of function and design, as opposed to Yahoo which contains more links, graphics, advertisements etc.