My 5 Top Tips for New Bloggers.

Okay, after much thought and analysis, below are my 5 tips for new bloggers, which I am one of them.

1. One must always keep it simple and proof read.
My philosophy is that everything in life should stay as simple as possible. It stops misunderstandings and if what you are reading is complex, eventually your brain will turn off and you will not remember anything of what you have just read.

Proof reading your post before publishing it, will avoid looking like and uneducated person. Good grammar and spelling is essential to all forms of writing. I am still re-learning the grammar side of things, so there is room for improvement. haaa.

2. One must always be polite.
Being polite is an essential ingredient any form of communication. One must always remember that there is actually a human being on the other end of the message/post/blog and that they have feelings as well. One idea would to be very clear in what you are writing and balanced.

3. Keep it light, fun, and interesting.
Nothing says boring like an uninteresting blog. I think blogs are meant to be light, fun, and interesting. Adding a bit of your personality lets the reader understand a bit more about the way you write. I think your blog should put a smile on the reader's face.

4. Stay true to yourself.
One must never pretend to be something one is not, as it will always come back and bite you on your bottom. If you do not know what you are writing about that will be apparent to the reader, and you will look silly. If you stay true to yourself you will win more and more readers, as I think everyone prefers honesty to dishonesty.

5. Always reference your sources appropriately.
If you ever use someone elses work, make sure that you reference their work appropriately. This will avoid plagiarism and any legal ramifications. Plus it is just good form and shows that you respect the original author's views and opinions.

Anyway they are what I think every new blogger should think about before publishing a blog, unfortunately I did it backwards but hey sometimes it pays to just jump into the deep end and see if you either sink or swim.

Happy blogging.....

Module 2 - Group Task

I have used msn for the past 1 ½ years and have found it to be easy to use. I have recently downloaded skype and made my first call via the program to Tina Valentine and I have to say it put a big smile on my face to be able to talk to her, as we have only ever communicated via msn. I now log in to both every time I am on the computer to accommodate those users who prefer msn and those who prefer skype.

I do not see much difference in all the chat programs as they essentially offer the same thing. It is just that others are probably harder to navigate around initially, until you get used to the way things work that is. But some are generally easy to navigate around from the get go.

This task was easy for me as I have gotten to know the art form of ‘chat’ quite intimately and can honestly say that I would be lost without it and that it is the way of the future.

Module 2 tasks are officially done and dusted. Yahooooo.

Module 2 - Chat

Well in this task I had to download a chat program, luckily I already have msn and skype so the downloading part was done. But I have to say downloading both programs was easy and painless.

With MSN, your login screen looks like:

Once you have signed in successfully, all you have to do is add your friends contact details and wait for them to come online. The following is a snapshot of what the main window of messenger looks like.

When they are online all you have to do is right click on their name and choose ‘Send an instant message’ and the following screen appears.

You then proceed to start typing in the lower screen in the window, and when you hit the enter key or click on the send button, your message is then added to the top screen in the window. All you do is wait for a reply. You can also add emoticons to enhance your message if you so choose to.

Along the top tool bar on the conversation window, you have a choice of seven (7) other options, they are:

1. Invite someone to this conversation.
2. Share files.
3. Start or stop a video call.
4. Call a contact.
5. See a list of activities.
6. See a list of games.
7. Block this contact from seeing or contacting you.

So that is a very brief lesson on how to generate a conversation using messenger. You may go forth and experiment with the program. May the art form of chat be with you….

Module 2 - Newsgroups

For this task I decided to join a newsgroup that dealt with the problem of the supernatural. No not really it was the TV shows newsgroup that I was interested in as the show is quite enjoyable to watch.

Unfortunately I think it should be renamed the Dean and Sam are hotties fan club. I agree they are great eye candy, but the story lines are interesting as well. I know I am showing my sci fi side, but hey we all have our faults.

Here is the copy of the message I posted onto the

I found this task to be pretty painless and unfortunately my newsgroup was pretty inactive over the couple of days that I followed the newsgroup, but it was interesting looking at all of the newsgroups that are out there.

There is a newsgroup to suit everyone’s taste, it is just a matter of whether you have the time and energy to put into the newsgroup.

Module 2 - Lists

Until this task, I had never even looked at email lists, as I am not the sort of person to sit on the computer all the time talking to people about my interests etc.

What are the pros and cons of email lists versus discussion boards?

I have looked at a variety of lists available on both yahoo and lists.topica, and I have to say that I really do not feel like joining any of them. Some of the lists had so many rules, and some were very outdated and others had just too many users. Is this wrong? I do not think so, as I have a great network of people that I speak to online about numerous topics, so I do not require lists to satisfy my interests.

The pros of email lists:

• You get a daily log of all messages from the desired list.

• You can reply either to the group as a whole or to the individual sender.

• Has asynchronous communication, thereby allowing people in all time differences the ability to communicate.

The cons of email lists:

• Can be very hard to get your message herd.

• List could have too many members and be overwhelming.

• You can still receive spam/junk email.

I have used discussion boards in every subject I have studied so far from UniSA, Monash University and now Curtin University. So far Monash’s discussion board has been the easiest to use as it has clear headings and you only get the unread messages all in one window.

Pros of discussion boards:

• You do not receive any junk email/spam.

• Some are very easy to navigate through.

• Through some of them you can reply personally to the sender so that your message is not seen on the discussion board. Similar to email lists.

• The threads are easy to understand and navigate through.

• As the discussion board is monitored by tutors/course directors, it is the fastest way to get an answer to any question.

• When posting a question/concern, you get multiple view points.

Cons of discussion boards:

• Some are very hard to navigate in.

• Pressure to read every message for participation grade.

• Pressure to check in every day as the fear of getting hundreds of messages is stressful.

• Feeling unintelligent by reading some of the messages, thereby creating fear about joining in.

Are there certain kinds of communication or purposes more suited to one than the other?

I think that distance learning is better suited to a discussion board as you are only communicating with the other students who are studying the same subject as yourself and being able to communicate with the course director/tutor faster.

Email lists are better suited I think to a more social structure other than learning. Email lists expand your network of friends who have the same interests as yourself and I think that both have their place in society.

Being polite and remembering that there is a human being on the other end of the message you are going to post is critical in both forums. We have enough foul language and rudeness in the world without it being used in either email lists or discussion boards.

Now I am off to conquer Newsgroups..

Module 2 - Email Task

In this task I had to do an email tutorial and it was easy peasy. I then had to answer the followign questions.

1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?
Well an email address it constructed of 2 parts:
First there is the username, e.g. joeblogs
Second is the domain name, e.g. @hotamil.com

The domain name tells us whether it is:
A free host e.g. joeblogs@hotmail.com
A company host e.g. joeblogs@tycoint.com
A government host e.g. joeblogs@qld.gov.au
A education host e.g. joeblogs@curtin.edu.au

The .au on the end of the domain name means it is Australian, and having nothing on the end of the domain name means that it is international/universal. I think.

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all' functions of email?
I have used the cc (carbon copy) function in the past for work purposes. It is used when you want to include someone into the email communication, while letting the recipient know that you have cc'd someone into their communication.

As an example, in my last subject I had to submit a report that was a group effort and I had to cc all of the group members into the email so that they got a copy of the attached completed report, and they could use the email as a receipt of submission.

I have to say I have never used the bcc (blind carbon copy) function before, as I have never needed to. I suppose it would be useful in a case where you are replying to a person and bcc’d a another person in on the communication but did not want the recipient to know that you have included anyone else in on the communication. It sounds a little like backstabbing in that example. Sorry, probably a very poor choice of examples.

The bcc function, could also be used to huge mailing lists, where the recipient only sees there name and is unaware that the email has been sent to anyone else.

The reply all function can be used when you receive an email from a group of people and you want your reply to be seen by everyone.

Example: A group of friends sends 1 friend an email inviting him/her to a party. That person wants all the senders in the group to see the reply to he/she would use the reply all function. This way the response would be sent to everyone who was the sender on the first email message.

You have to be careful when using the reply all function, as if you only want to reply to one recipient you would create a whole new email and copy and paste the original message and your response into the new message, so that your response does not go to everyone who was the senders on the first email you received.

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

One way would be to confirm which type of computer program they are using, so that the attachment can be saved under a compatible format. You could also save the attachment as a ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), also known as “plain text”, this would make sure that the attachment could be read by the recipient no matter what type of computer or software they are using.

Making the title of the attachment interesting will make certain that the recipient will open it e.g. attached is the ‘boodylicious’ file that will want to look at.

Do not send large attachments, as they take far to long to download, so compress any large documents etc using winzip etc and then send them as an attachment, makes it much easier and less time consuming.

Think outside the box, as you can get very used to your own system and what it is capable of, and just assume that the person you are sending the attachment to has the same hardware and software that you have. Assume makes an ass out of u and me. Or assumption is the mother of all booboo’s.

4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?

I have a standard filter for incoming junk e-mail messages. This means that most junk e-mail is sent to the junk e-mail folder to be deleted later. This filter makes it easier for me when viewing my inbox, there are only legitimate messages to be viewed. However, I do look at the junk e-mail folder every week to make sure that no legitimate messages are being filtered there by accident.

I also have set up some filters fro incoming messages to be sorted into their appropriate folders automatically, this saves me the time in doing that. As I am a stay at home mum, I really do not get a lot of e-mails so do not need to use a lot of rules or filters, but it is good knowledge to have for when I re-enter the workforce.

5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

I have folders for every type of email that I receive ranging from my family members, friends, uni, and I keep a folder for every subject that I am studying and remove it when I know that I have passed the subject.

This helps me keep a track of everything and helps me when searching for information. I also go through my sent items and drag them to the appropriate folders as well. This way each folder has both incoming and outgoing messages in it, for easier retrieval.