The last post was on 16th of April. Now five months later, the new computer user is still not confident in doing the many basic things. I'm amazed about how long this learning process has taken.

This is not because the computer is never used. On the contrary, it's used every day, often several times a day. So we need to understand what is commonly done. These things:

• The computer is turned on and email opened.
• Email is read (3-6 daily). A reply might be written to one of those.
• Email to someone in the address book is written.
• Email is written to someone not in the address book
• The web browser is opened: A purpose build homepage displays. (About 40 links available)
• Facebook opened: Read and visit the pages of several family members.
• Writing a short comment on Facebook.
• Accepting software updates: e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird and Adobe updates.
• Using software called WebWord Pro: Thesaurus and Dictionary. (for Crosswords)

Those are the tasks of an every day nature.  About 35 letters a week are coming in, and 5 or 6 letters a week written.

Interestingly, my new user, after five months is, producing a use pattern that is right in line with the data I produced two years ago. Here is the research: The Bryndwr Group. See in particular the median user for each of the measures taken. How does your own use compare? These are weekly participation rate, median scores (the middle user out of 100 people).

• Topic -                  Bryndwr Group - My User
• Email received -                   25          -       36
• Email Sent -                         5            -       6
• Announcement Lists Joined - 2            -       2
• Video Watched -                   0            -       0
• Downloading -                     0             -      0
• Printed Pages -                     1            -      4
• Social Networks -          Facebook       - Facebook
• Self Search on Google -         0            -      2
• Purchases Online -                0            -      0
• Use of Trade Me -                 0            -      0
• Use of Skype -                      0            -      0
• Internet Banking -                 0            -      2

There are also a few other common tasks that are now easily accomplished, by my new user.

• Access to electronic banking.
• Completing transactions on electronic banking.
• Making a search on Google.
• Reading web sites to find out something of interest.
• Typing in the address of a new web site.
• Going from an email link to a web site.
• Using the email form in a web site to send a message.
• Opening the word processor (We use Open Office )
• Writing a document on the word processor.
• Editing a file on the word processor. (Standard Spell-Check)
• Making a call on Skype.
• Sending an e-card from Blue Mountain Cards

These tasks have been done several times but are still causing hesitation and difficulty.

• Highlight: Marking a passage of text with the cursor.
• Copy: Using Control C to copy the text to memory.
• Paste: Using Control V to paste the text into a document.
• Using Control A to highlight all the text on a page.
• Adding a new address to the email address book.
• Adding a new group in the address book.
• Copy and paste a letter from email to the word processor.
• Saving files in the word processor.
• Attaching a word processor file to an email.

These tasks are not yet easy to do:

• Making a new folder.
• Naming new folders.
• Remembering to save a file to a folder.
• Saving video files.
• Saving Pictures.
• Saving Music.
• Joining groups. (Social networking beyond Facebook) 
• Opening a saved PDF file. (Or where do I find it?)
• Saving text files to a directory.
• Saving text files in both Open Office and Word formats.

This software exists on the computer and is not yet being used.

• Whitesmoke (Writing software spelling and grammar check.)
• Keepass (Password generator and safe storage.)
• Sticky Notes
• Notepad
• Media Player (There are three available on the system.)
• Bluefish (Free HTML writer.)
• FeedDemon ( Blog Reader)

These are common tasks not yet part of the usual routine.

• Downloading new software.
• Saving media files (video, pictures, or music)
• Joining email lists.
• Joining Groups
• Writing to a group site (Beyond Facebook)
• Writing a blog.
• Converting an HTML web page to text for printing.
• Writing in HTML.

What does this teach us? For most people the process of becoming internet literate takes a long time. You have to do new tasks many times before they become easy to do.

The computer remains a black box that does things you don't understand until you take control of it yourself. (And even then some of what it does may be mysterious.) My new user is not yet able to go into the Control Panel and change the settings, for instance.

There is a friend overseas, travelling in Eastern Europe. She's sending an email at least once a week that's four pages long when printed in small text on the word processor. That letter is very hard to read as an email, and when you print email, the result is seldom satisfactory. We've adopted the practice of copying the email to the word processor. Highlight All = "Control A". Copy = "Control C". Open the word processor, usually Open Office or Word, and paste the contents there. Paste = "Control V". Now you can edit the email, removing any unwanted text, like the previous letter, or some personal notes. Give the Letter a name. You may need to remove the line feeds, to lengthen the lines, to create proper paragraphs. The page length may need to be altered to get more text on the printed page. The paragraph style may need to be altered to improve how the text looks on the page. A spell check should probably be done. Finally, how many pages is this? Can we print it on one piece of paper? Or double sided on one piece of paper. If we're partly into a third page, what happens if we change the size of the font? Can we save a page?

My beginner, is also doing quite a lot of email sharing recipes. These are once again much better presented in a word processor than in an email. So I recommend cutting and pasting the email to the word processor. Edit it so that it looks good. SAVE it to a recipes folder. And print it for yourself.

When you want to share that recipe with someone else, don't re-paste it into an email. Instead send the word processor version to your friend, attached to your email. You might be best to send two versions both Open Office and Word, unless you know what system, your friend is using.

If this is a passion of yours, you might also send a photo as an attachment, or included in the word processor file.

The recipe sharing could also be done in a blog. The process is really little different than what we've already done. Go to http://posterous.com/ and register yourself. Create a private space there, and experiment with posting your recipes there. You can invite people to view your space. When you are more confident, you might like to make the space public.

Now you are actually writing HTML, although you are only using ordinary text. As you want to add photos, or format the page you will need to learn a little more about how HTML works, but in the beginning that knowledge is not necessary.
Following on from that, you might search for other recipe blogs. Copy the RSS feed from those blogs and subscribe in FeedDemon or Google Reader. Now instead of you having to search for updates, on each blog, all those updates will come to you.

I've discovered another effort to publish useful pages for Internet newbies. ABSOLUTE Beginner's Computing Guide. This is just beginning so there's not too much to see yet. If you like it, contact the authors and tell them what you need to see next.

And PLEASE, tell others about this blog if you've found it helpful. You can comment here too. What are you learning here? What do you need me to explain in detail?

Please use the comments below to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

http://johnsveitch.posterous.com/the-long-process-of-becoming-confident

Technorati Tags - John Stephen Veitch email Address Book Web Browser Facebook WordWeb Pro Electronic Banking Copy and Paste Open Office Posterous RSS Feed

Too many people only use products they purchased from a retail outlet, or the software that came with your computer. Most of those who have been Internet users for many years have a whole bag of alternative software that we use. I've just helped a family member to buy a laptop. It wasn't expensive, $800.00, and we added 2 gigabytes of memory, a wireless mouse, and a router to send a wireless signal through the house.

The next task was to get the system running. There is quite a lot of form filling to complete the set up, which took us about 45 minutes. The system needed to stop and start several times. Then we needed to leave it plugged in for almost three hours while the battery was fully charged.

At the same time on a second computer the wireless router was attached to the existing system. Follow the instructions carefully. I thought I saw a shortcut and caused myself a problem. Maybe not a simple task for beginners, but it's doable.

This essay is about the software I recommend. I'm writing for Windows users. When you get a new computer of the sort most retail outlets sell it comes with a lot of software already installed. Some of this software comes with the computer system, and that's "free". Some of it is part of the operating system, Windows 7, in this case, that you've paid for. Many of it the installed programmes are trial software, with a future cost if you continue to use them.

What is there installed that we don't want? In our case, an effort by Amazon to sell Kindle. And a full suite of Microsoft Office Software, and Norton Internet Security, plus Norton Backup. There are a few other bits an pieces too the names of which I don't know, and the function they perform remains a mystery. We'll get to them when we get time.

Removal of what we don't need

I removed Norton security and backup. The entire Microsoft Office suite was removed. The Kindle programme was removed.

I also removed The Microsoft Live System. I have never used it on my Windows XP system and finally I disabled it. This could be a step too far. Many young people are happily using Windows Live, and I have not taken the time to investigate it myself.

Anti Virus Software

Unless you want to live as a hermit, you can't avoid the risk, so you MUST take steps to protect yourself. There are several FREE anti-virus programmes available. (Do a Google search.)

AVG Free provides you with basic anti virus and anti-spyware protection for Windows. http://free.avg.com/au-en/homepage

An alternative that currently seems to be popular is Avast! Free Anti-virus which provides protection against viruses and spyware. http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

To get protection against web site threats and phishing attacks I prefer to pay for a solution. I have used Trend Micro PC-cillin for several years at a cost of about NZ$60.00 a year. The product keeps improving. The 2011 version is called Titanium Internet Security. This link will take you to world map where you can find the local dealer. Sadly the cost is up.

In our case If you buy Trend Micro you always get two installations for the cost of one. So, as a Trend Micro customer for no extra money I could protect the new machine.

Internet Browser:

Using Internet Explorer, we downloaded and installed Firefox. http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/
That went very smoothly. The icon for Internet Explorer was on the desktop and we removed that, without removing Internet Explorer itself, which is sometimes handy.

Password Management:

This is where I made a mistake. I delayed installing a password manager. Then four days later when we already had a good number of all the same passwords I've realised my mistake. We are now using this programme:KeePass. It's really easy to use, so there was no disadvantage in installing that early, and beginning on the right track with using passwords.

Email:

I prefer Thunderbird as an email programme. http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-GB/thunderbird/
(Remember I deleted the Windows Live option.) So we downloaded Thunderbird and installed it. We had a small problem not being able to remember the password to our ISP supplied email account. There's a lesson there, WRITE down the details of your set-up in a hard covered book they you'll always keep. I try to do that, but I slipped up here. (KeePass will help too.)

I also use Gmail to supply webmail accounts. I've found it convenient and effective with excellent spam control. So using Firefox we go to Gmail. We are going to use the Gmail account for social networking. I recommend you use a Gmail Name that is clearly you, rather than some unrecognisable nom-de-plume.
http://mail.google.com/mail/

RSS Reader

This seems a bit advanced, but everyone should use an RSS Reader, but very probably you don't. This is your chance to change that. RSS Readers and news aggregators let you follow news and blogs easily, comfortably and efficiently. RSS feeds are a spam-free, quick and efficient way to read news and weblogs. It's like making your own personal newspaper, based only on sources you've chosen.

Google Reader is easy to use and so we began there. http://www.google.com/reader/view/#overview-page

I installed the feeds to my two blogs, and we'll do some more later.

Word Processing and "Office" Software:

I recommend Open Office. I've been using the earlier versions of this product for 10+ years. It keeps getting better and better.

Of course Open Office gives you spreadsheets, and presentations, and a database too. You can save any document as an HTML file and get an HTML document you can post to a web site. You can also export a document as a PDF file.

If you are preparing text for use on the Internet, it's generally considered advisable to use a simple text editor like Notebook or Wordpad, rather than Word or Open Office. The latter two programmes may include formatting in the files that you don't want.

Facebook:

Joining Facebook is simple and easy to do. You'll be finished in 15 minutes.

Do you have a picture to upload, a small headshot? Of course you can use the on-board camera to take a shot of you at the keyboard. To do that you need to install Adobe Flash, but you need that software anyway, and the download and installation doesn't take long.

Finding your friends on Facebook may be easy or hard. I our case we've got a whole team of family members who are Facebook members, so finding four or five people to "friend" was easy just searching for names. (Relatively uncommon family name.)

If you have a fairly common family name. you might need to search using email addresses.

Skype:

Signing up for Skype is also a quick and easy task. Less than ten minutes.

Finding people you know who have Skype ID's is also fairly easy, searching either by name or by email address.

In the next post I'll tell you about the learning process. Right now the new user is "full to overload" with new things to know and remember. Time to stop and let some of the new processes bed in, before continuing with the set up. More in a couple of weeks.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

http://johnsveitch.posterous.com/setting-up-a-new-computer

Technorati Tags - John Stephen Veitch Facebook Windows 7 Internet security Microsoft Live Firefox Trend Micro password Google Reader email Thunderbird Open Office Skype

On his blog The Obvious? Euan Semple asks; Does the web change everything? In the light of the events of the last month in the Middle East, I have commented about that in three posts to my Open Future blog. Here I want to give you the bare bones of that.

In the first post, I talk about the brain injured people who I met online in 1996. These people were "driven" to use the Internet because they so badly wanted to talk to other people like themselves. Brain injured people are often protected by their parents or by a hospital from harm. But for the individual it seems like being kept in a prison where their real needs are not being met. For instance, the ability to carry on a conversation adult to adult. You can't do that with your mother, especially when she still thinks of you as a child.

In 2002 and again in 2009 I tried to find out how people were using their Internet connections. This is a strangely secret activity for individuals. The work in 2002 didn't proceed very far. I tried to speak to people chosen randomly. Knowledge of the Internet and how to use it was very weak, and the people I interviewed were embarrassed to show me what little they knew.

In 2009 I used a different technique. I asked to interview the person in each household who used the Internet the most. I didn't actually interview them. I gave each person a list of things to count from the history the computer maintains, and to give me numbers they were confident about for a few other things. I ended up with 90 records and 10 refusals. The results are available here.

In my assessment, for 20% of the best users, the Internet was changing quite a lot. For the other 80% nothing essential or really important was changing. For me that's sad. Remember this is the most proficient user in each household. For the population of New Zealand as a whole the Internet is useful sometimes, but it's not yet making a significant change in people's lives.

In the second post I look at the use of the Internet by young people in the Middle East. However, I start with the story of Brian, a brain injured person who I helped to write and publish a personal story about his injury and it's effect on his life. People like Brian found there was huge value in using the Internet to tell and to hear personal stories about their common experience.

In my 15 years online I've also met many people from poor and remote countries who are struggling to make good use of the Internet. In the early days, these people were always leaders of some kind, often aspirational leaders in business or for social causes. Those people are still there, but so are government agents, criminals and fraudsters. Today's Internet is much more dangerous than it was ten or twelve years ago.

I make some estimates from the people I'm connected to on LinkedIn about the use of the Internet in various countries. There are revolts in countries with both high use and low use. I conclude that while the Internet is useful to the protesters, it's television, particularly Al Jazerra, and cell phones, that have enabled the revolution.

I review the use of Facebook by the young people of Egypt. For me it's the brain injury story repeated. People who have a need to connect and to share stories about what's really happening in their lives, found that Facebook was one way to do it. Facebook didn't cause the revolution, but Facebook did allow the people who eventually became part of that revolution to know more about each other, and to form some alliances.

The third post looks at my own experience on the Internet. I began creating a web site called NZDances in 1995. After five years that web site was closed. Despite my best efforts to understand the Internet and to use it to create a business I was unable to attract any revenue. What I did achieve was the creation of a large network of supporters and contributors of content to the web site.

In the last ten years, I've become heavily involved in what we now call online social networks. I started with Ryze, but later joined over 20 new networks as they developed. There is no need today to join large numbers of these networks as I did. They all do similar things. You can't connect to everyone, so for most purposes what you need to do, is find groups who share your own interests, where sensible discussions are occuring.

Having built a large network to support NZDances, I was keen to build large networks elsewhere. In particular about 270 on Ryze and over 9000 now on LinkedIn. The process of connecting to a lot of people takes time, and it is of necessity a superficial contact with most of them. Even so, each contact does have the possibility of blossoming into something bigger, and many of them do. You get to know a lot about the world and the aspirations of the people you meet.

Does the web change everything?

Euan Semple says; "I guess my own feeling is that the web will change nothing until we use it for that propose but the way it enables us to do so is new. What matters is that people understand it and use it. Take it seriously to shape the world. Not just see it as another channel to consume."

Euan is saying, "It depends how you use it. "

To which I would say, "It depends on who you are and on what DRIVES you."

This blog is to help people who aspire to make better use of the Internet. Please comment on your own experiences, and feel free to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

http://johnsveitch.posterous.com/does-the-web-change-everything

Technorati Tags - John Stephen Veitch The Obvious Euan Semple brain injured head injured NZDances/ Internet aspirational leaders Facebook Al Jazerra LinkedIn Egypt

It's not unusual for people who first see Twitter to completely dismiss it. That's a mistake I almost made too. This is a guide to get you started. There are also lots of guides for people who want to develop expertise. Use Google to find them.

The source for many of the comments here, was Steve Wheelers Education Blog Learning with E's, Why Twitter is so Powerful. in April, 2010.

Taking Time to Learn

Despite all the fuss, Twitter is only about 2% of the online population, but Twitter is very democratic and inclusive, and people who would never write an essay, are quite happy to write two lines. But it's an unusual way of communicating at first.

wendyhjones said...
I really appreciate twitter, and all the useful ways in which it can be used. However, in my experience, most people take at least 6 months to get to grips with twitter and see its value. It is not until you start to build up useful contacts that twitter comes into it's own, and that ahha moment arrives.

Patrick Larkin, said...
Twitter is quite a gift! Glad I had the patience and made the time to get to know this new tool. I have learned more in the last year than I have in the previous 10 combined.

First Steps: Sign-up on Twitter

So why don't you join Twitter, starting here. The sign on procedure is very standard. The amount of information about you required is minimal. You should say where you are from, and your expertise, or give a link to you blog or LinkedIn page. Many people DON'T join under their own name. You make take up the name of a cause you are promoting. You may have several Twitter accounts. (I'm going to be "GDPnoMore" for this account.)

Twitter requires your real name, and the username you choose for this application, a password and an email address. (Some people are making strong efforts to hack twitter accounts. Choose a strong password. Get yourself a password manager.)

There are five main uses of Twitter:

1. To get your own message out.
2. To find out what people you have chosen to follow are thinking and saying.
3. To discover new people who you want to know better.
4. To gather your own group of followers who are interested in what you have to say.
5. To get a quick set of opinions about Xxxxxxx when you need to know today.

Twitter is powerful because it allows people share ideas and emotions without excessive analysis and thought. Who you are shines through.

Who to Follow

Task one is to find some people to follow. Twitter suggests at least 10. They begin with "Interests". I've put five topics in the search box and I've chosen to follow fifteen members.

Twitter will find people you know, if you invite people using an email address. Twitter asks me to use my Gmail account or LinkedIn to connect to people I already have contact with. I suggest you do that, but with my 9000+ LinkedIn connections, I'm going to skip it, for now. My method of finding new people to follow, is this. Click on someone (or the organisation) you are following. Open up their list of Followers and you'll see a list of brief profiles. Click once on the profile. On the right three recent tweets appear as well as a history. No point in following people who seldom tweet. People who follow almost nobody, are users not contributors. Choose to follow some of the interesting looking ones.

Of course you could also research the people your link is following in the same way. Once you've got a few connections, Twitter itself will begin to offer you suggested connections. You should choose who you connect to. But don't be excessively fussy about it. You can always unfollow. You want your chosen network to have good information, of interest to you, but you also want a little bit of noise, some other stuff, that isn't directly of interest but sometimes offers you a gem of detail you can use.

The Twitter Community

Twitter provides a medium for oiling the wheels of relationships. I don't know many of the people who follow me, nor, if you take the concept of knowing someone to mean you have at least met them in real life, do I know many of the ones I follow. Twitter gives you an easy way to extend your network.

George Siemens says - If the community is the curriculum; Twitter provides that community.

Steve Wheeler said...
It's the critical mass of the network, all those people you are connected to that makes Twitter so useful. Twitter is probably one of the top 10 tools without which I couldn't properly do my job.

Your Own Personal Learning Network

Twitter is a great way to make connections on a global scale. You can use Twitter to form our own Personal Learning Network, and use it to share and collaborate. Click on interesting links people offer. The link opens in your browser. When you've opened several links, go to your browser. Sort out the good from the bad. Bookmark the best links with four to six tag words on a service like http://www.delicious.com/. Slowly you'll build a resource of self selected web pages on topics that interest you that are easily searchable by your own keywords.

Blair said... Twitter and other social networks become useful when they generate discussions and ideas that can be converted into action. Without interesting discussions amongst those you follow/are followed by, the network has little value. I think this is why Twitter has been so useful, because a large mass has been willing to use it a means of having interesting and fruitful discussions. One does not have to always actively participate in those discussions to benefit from them, but participation strengthens the connections in the network.

Audrey Nay said... I know that I learn best when collaborating with others. Hearing what they have to say and reflecting on it has been a very effective learning strategy for me. I too try to share some information that may assist others. Together we all benefit. Twitter provides a great vehicle for many people, myself included, to develop new knowledge and create a deeper understanding of many issues.

wendyhjones said...
I agree with what everyone is saying, and the ways in which we support the discussion and enter into meaningful dialogue is important. However, I think the social aspect is also important. Although we do not personally know most of the people with whom we network and enter into discussion, we somehow feel we know them better, by the tweets about themselves and their own lives.

More Help with Twitter

The Twitter Help Page is here. I don't suggest that you go there now. Play around with Twitter a little first. Take a few weeks to get the feel for what's happening. Then go to the Help Center and check that you have got the basics in place.

Please use the comments box below to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

http://johnsveitch.posterous.com/using-twitter-for-beginners

Technorati Tags - tweet Follower Follow community social networks collaborating Personal Learning Network PLN dialogue discussion Twitter John Stephen Veitch

A good friend, Bob, asks if he should have a Facebook page, particularly because he's planning an overseas trip.

For most people after email, Facebook is the first time they become digital publishers. With email, you usually know who you are writing to, but remember you have no control over who that person, or persons, pass (forward) your email on to. So even when writing email, you should assume that anyone and everyone can read it, although that's not what you expect to happen.

When you write to an email list, a group of some kind, that's more like real publishing, although mostly the readership in any list is small, I expect less than 10% of the members.

On Facebook it's more obvious that you are publishing. For most people it's the first time they are exposed to the possibility of public viewing. You do have control over who can see your "Wall", which in facebook is the place were public comments are written. And you have control over who can see your private details. Don't worry about it. For most people dealing with privacy issues on Facebook isn't any problem at all. Facebook successfully handles people like you, thousands of times every day. Trust them to help you out.

It will take you several weeks to understand all the features of Facebook. This short essay, is just to get you into Facebook and using it in a basic way simply and easily. Facebook has it's own Help Centre, and there are dozens of other Facebook Guides you can find with a Google Search. I suggest before you start you get yourself a secondary email address for social networking use. See the previous blog entry about that.

OK, now to get started. We're going to Facebook which is here. (If you are on someone else's computer you may be automatically logged in. Log out, it that's the case.)

On the Sign-up Page your are asked for your first name, and your last name. Then your email address and a password that you have chosen. They ask you to signify your sex and your birthday, but you can hide your birthday details.

You also have a choice about what language you want your page to be in. The options are English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Arabic or Hindi.

Once you register Facebook sends you an email. Once you pick up that email, you log back into Facebook where you can now see your own Facebook pages.

Once you've registered they ask you to say a little about yourself. Who are you? What are you doing, particularly, what are you hoping to do on Facebook, but also what are you trying to achieve in your life? You might like to explain where you grew up, or what process and experience brings you here today. Nobody expects fancy writing. Just explain who you are.

There's a problem for many people. They have never needed to explain who they are, and they don't know where to begin. No problem really. You'll strike this problem over and over. Some people have a short pocket "who I am" statement they use in lots of places. It's actually better for you, if each time you face this problem that you simply write something fresh, in your own words. You can always edit it later. With practice you actually get better as finding those words and in the process more sure about how to describe yourself.

Finding your way about

On the top right there are three links: Home; Profile; Account.

Home: This link takes you to the news feed, which is all the information your Facebook friends are posting.

Profile: This link takes you to your wall, where messages intended for you appear.

Account: Takes you to privacy settings and the Facebook Help Center. That's where we are going now.

The Facebook Help Center

The Help Center opens with a full menu, and on the navigation menu on the left is a list of frequently used help pages. Open the link that says "Getting Started".

That page opens on "Find Your Friends" because until you have some friends facebook doesn't function as it should. Use "Friend Finder" and send invitations to be your friend to at least 3-4 people.

Set Up a Profile: Use the link to Set Up a Profile, and you'll get some more help about making a Facebook Page about yourself.

Explore Facebook: The third link is one you might not spend time on today. When you are ready, this link will start to open the features of Facebook for you.

There's often concern expressed about privacy on Facebook. You need not worry about that for a few weeks. Find out how Facebook works first. When you feel you know your way around, got to Account; Privacy Settings. You'll see that Facebook is already set up with a recommended set of privacy settings. If you want to change away from those, this article might be helpful. 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Help Elsewhere

Chance Chapman from We Teach Facebook has a Facebook 101 Video here.

From Hub, A Beginner's Guide To Facebook: Learn The Basics Of Facebook

Facebook Resources for Beginners. This seems to be a resource still being developed.

Newbie's guide to Facebook, from Cnet Australia.

Please use the comments below to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

http://johnsveitch.posterous.com/digital-literacy-on-facebook

Technorati Tags - Facebook Facebook friends privacy your profile publishing secondary email Facebook Guides John Stephen Veitch

One of the things that worries many people is the "overload" they seem to get on the internet. TOO much mail, far too much mail.

There are two key techniques for dealing with that. One is the secondary email account. The other is to use RSS feed instead of getting mail.

A secondary email account is ideal for social networking mail and for groups of email lists. Most of this mail isn't personal, so the your world will be just fine, if you choose not to read it at all. The purpose of group mail is to share knowledge and help people who share an interest to find each other. The best of these groups, have a lot to offer and you should try to find some that interest you.

You can almost certainly have a free account, if you accept a little advertising. If you choose to pay as little as US$10.00 a year you can probably get add free mail and some other useful services too.

When I look at the options there seem to be FOUR. Which one you'll choose will depend quite a bit on how you feel about Microsoft, and Google, and Yahoo. I've been very happy with my Google service, but yes it does concern me that Google does "everything" and does it "free" but it's also collecting huge amounts of personal data. One day, that might go bad.

Here are the options :

Windows Live ID

Windows Live ID gets you into Hotmail, Messenger, Xbox LIVE. I'm a Microsoft avoider, so I don't use it. But if you are using Windows Live for Chat, then this is a natural option for you.

Gmail

I've been a Gmail User for about five years. I didn't like it in the beginning, but it's ability to search and come up with that old lost letter is remarkable. (My Google mail contains about 16,000 letters.)

Yahoo Mail

I once had a Yahoo Mail account. Perfectly functional. Today they are offering email with "apps". Some of you might like this option

Fastmail

FastMail is a fourth option. In this case there's a very limited free version, and for quite a small number you can get upgraded services. If you are really concerned about the big companies controlling all the data, this is one option.

How to use your new account.

When you join social networks use the secondary email address.

Almost all the mail coming to you in Social Networks is non-personal, it was written for a group of people to read. So if you do, or do not, read it, isn't mission critical.

Create folders or labels (Google) to separate the mail into groups. You use filters, to separate the mail as it comes in. I'll tell you how to do that if you need help.

Go through your mail in your personal email account. How much of this is non-personal? For most people the great bulk of their mail never need to be read. So open letters like that, find the subscribe and unsubscribe links. Remove your personal email address and re-subscribe with your secondary email address. It might take a few weeks to complete this task, but slowly you'll get your mail under control. That will be especially true if you turn some of your email updates from web pages off, and get an RSS Feed instead. I talked about using RSS here.

Please use the comments below to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

http://johnsveitch.posterous.com/an-email-account-for-social-networking

Technorati Tags - personal email RSS Feed list mail Social Networks Yahoo Mail FastMail Google Mail Hotmail Windows Live secondary email John Stephen Veitch

I wanted to write about the importance of online social networking, a topic in which I have lots of practical experience, but I've found it difficult to know what to say. People don't appreciate how much the use of the Internet is changing our society. It's not after all an information revolution that's happening. Something different is going on. I don't want to use this post merely to repeat what you ought to already know.

Social Networking

In New Zealand, almost 80% of all households are involved in using the Internet, About half of those households have somebody who's a Facebook member. Surprisingly, to me at least, for the majority of people Facebook is the only online social network they are involved in. Facebook is about you and your family, primarily. That's what it does best. There is a strong effort to make Facebook a platform for social and community action and to make it a platform for commercial transactions. I think in the long run, that will fail. Quite likely, Facebook itself will suffer the same fate.

There are literally 1000's of online social networks. Each one connects people in a sightly different way. What are we learning here? On Facebook, you tend to share information with people who you really do know quite well, and a few more people you are getting to know better. Facebook works because it has human scale.

In most of the other networks, you end up being connected to lots of people you don't really know at all. By exchanging messages with these people, by engaging in group discussion, you get to know more about them and to understand better who they are. They become contacts (who you often call friends), but over time if the contact is maintained they do, in fact, become friends. Social networking inevitably has the effect of expanding your world.

Helping Each other

In the two most notable business networks, LinkedIn and Twitter, the objective is quite different. Although LinkedIn keeps emphasizing that we should connect ONLY to people we "know" for most people the whole purpose of linkedIn is to connect to people you don't know, who might be useful to you in the future. Following people on Twitter has the same purpose. You follow people you don't know, but who have interesting things to say, or you follow people you do know, just because you know them. LinkedIn and Twitter are tiny in comparison with Facebook. About 40%of all households (In New Zealand) have someone who's a Facebook member. Only about 3% of households have someone who's in LinkedIn or about 2% are Twitter users.

The principle that drives connecting to more and more people on LinkedIn and Twitter is that you can only use resources that you can reach, in your business and your life. Those who are close to you, the people you really do know, your strong connections, have similar knowledge to you, and are probably sharing the use of the same resources as you. They often, are not in a position to help, when you need assistance. The thirty people you really know well offer what you've already got. Now we learn about the mysterious world of weak connections. This might be 100 people, or several thousand, who you've connected to so you can help each other. You hardly know these people at all. However, if you ask for help, it's often surprising who answers the call and what they have to offer.

In a long blog entry started on 15 December 2010, "The Science of Social Relationships", John Tropea writes, "I spend some of my time helping others ... I do this for free". He goes on to explain how the culture of helping others tends to extend through the firm and how that makes both formal and informal collaboration possible. He writes; "If you create conditions for people to build rapport, have dialogue, then this positively affects performance and collaboration. ... Focus on making fertile soil for relationships to grow."

Biological Science - Apoptosis

First a quick lesson in cell biology within the human body. Millions of cells die in your body every day, and they are constantly being replaced. The cells in your body are programmed to die, and die quickly if required. All the cells in your body are continually exchanging "don't die" signals with each other, provided each cell is correctly performing it's function. If a cell malfunctions or is somehow "out of position" the surrounding cells withhold the "don't die" signal and the cell dies "immediately". It's like turning off a switch.

A Networking Analogy

Let's assume also that far from being programmed to be selfish and greedy and independent, people are naturally cooperative, helpful and social, even to the extent of dying on command. (It's a thought experiment go with it.)

The person, is shaped by society, told how to be, and where participate and how to get "don't die" signals. We discover that "don't die" signals are of many kinds, love, respect, appreciation, acknowledgement and understanding. Can you see now how vital the text messages teenagers continually exchange really are? You can see that same activity on Facebook, and to a lesser extent on Twitter. We recognize that if we have membership status in several organizations, we can get "don't die" signals from more and more places.

So where is your membership respected? You are already a member of many groups, some formal with official names and constitutions. However, most of the groups you belong to are informal, there are no rules written down, but everyone understands what the rules are. If you break those rules your membership terminates immediately. People may never speak to you again. The social rules of some groups are very strong. In business it's usually accepted that a handshake is at least as binding as a contract. The people who sign a contract and then shake hands, certainly hope that they never have to test the contract in court. Jeremy Rifkin writes: "The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth." – Now you understand why the Internet is changing everything. Suddenly, humanity has the possibility of being connected, and is becoming connected, and that changes who we are. The concept of the global citizen is slowly being realised.

Online networks are relatively new. 12 years ago when the rules were hardly established, flaming and hot debate with verbal abuse was a regular event. Things have changed. Today verbal abuse is considered unacceptable, and hot debate has definite limits (This is social learned behaviour, there are no formal rules here.) Online there is a strong tradition of people helping each other. They call this paying it (my dues) forward. That's very strong on LinkedIn and Twitter. You may be surprised at how much help and advice is available. The exchanges may be unequal, especially in the beginning. Those who have a lot of skill or knowledge get many opportunities to hone their abilities. I've personally given hundreds of hours in this way. In the process, I've learn a lot, made some friends and built a reputation. When I ask for help, I usually get it.

Please use the comments below to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

This is the second post about the Internet tools I commonly use. I hope you can find some tools that are better than whatever you are using now. In the process of preparing this essay I have discovered some new tools that I intend to use in future. I also hope that in correspondence people will suggest even more tools we might usefully be using.

Password Security

I started to use the Coffee Cup Lockbox about a year ago. (After my Twitter Account was hacked.) http://www.coffeecup.com/lockbox/ I'm using it more and more, so I guess that means I'm happy. But it cost me about NZ$30.00.

KeePass Password Safe, is a free open source product that seems to do the job very well. http://keepass.info/

Chat and Conferencing

Skype is the tool of choice. Still free to use for most people. http://www.skype.com/intl/en/home

I've been involved in a telephone conference using Skype with 7 people. It worked well. Even more exciting I was involved in a Conference where there were 38 people all typing into Skype Chat at the same time. The topic was controlled via a web site. Surprisingly it worked very well with simple free tools.

Video and Music Player

Media players exist in a hotly disputed area. There are many products, and many versions of the files you might want to open on your player. There's frustration when Window's Media Player won't play a file, and you go to the Windows site for a plug-in and get nothing.

There's a lot of commercial pressure to create paying customers. Unless you have special needs you should resist that. There's no resolution to this that I can be sure of.

For a long time I used Real Player, until they gave me free use of an upgraded player (designed to play full length movies in HD) for a month. At the end of the month I decided the additional services were of no use to me. In my view they made it difficult to cancel that option and they began charging me to use it. I have been using a free version of Apple Quicktime 7 since them.

Because I was writing this, I tried to install a new version of Windows Media Player 11. First of all it checked to see that I had a registered version of Windows running. Then when it installed it insisted on taking over the computer, committing me to shopping and several other uses of the media player automatically. I wasn't happy. Then for the first file I tried to open an Ogg Vorbis sound file, the player said it didn't understand this file type. I went to the page where new add-ons are found and didn't get any help. I uninstalled the Windows player. (I did find out what to do, but by now I can't be bothered.)

In the process I found a new player. MPC Home Cinema. http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/download-media-player-classic-hc.html I downloaded that and it seems to work perfectly well.

Backup System

This is a problem I have not solved. You need to think carefully about what you have that you'll lose when your system crashes. Rest assured your system will crash and everything on your hard drive will be lost unless you have a back up.

For myself the most vital stuff are my web sites and my photographs. Both are held in alternative databases. The rest of my stuff, 5 years of email for instance and my email address books are at risk. So also is the software I've got installed on my machine. The rest, is saved text files. None of it vital in any way.

I've had to rebuild my system from scratch three times. (And I guess the fourth time is coming.) The biggest problem is to reinstall all the lost software. You have disks for some of it, the rest is downloaded online. Where you've paid for software, the supplier is organised to recognise you as a paying customer and will allow you to restore your system without charge.

This year Trend Micro are offering me space to upload some files. There is also a service called Drop Box where you can store files. There are several free or partly free services now offering online storage of system files. If I was better organised myself I'd be able to tell you more.

World Clock

I'm often involved in meetings with people overseas using Skype or some Webinar System. It's important to be able to check the time of meetings. The world clock allows you to do that. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

My Personal Homepage

If you can write a little bit of HTML, you can make a home page with all your favourite URI's visible in one spot. This is saved to your hard drive, and you make that the homepage for your browser.

To use this, make a subdirectory on your c: drive, "html". Now go to this site and follow the instructions.

Closing remarks

I trust there is information you can use in the two previous posts. Please use the comments below to ask questions and to make further suggestions.

Too many people only use products they purchased from a retail outlet, or the software that came with your computer. Most of those who have been Internet users for many years have a whole bag of alternative software that we use. Maybe once because it was cheap, often free. Increasingly because it's the best software available. Usually this is open-source software. There are lots of choices. Most of the established programmes work very well and are entirely free to use.

In come cases the Open Source developers have a commercial version too. The Open Source version is the development version, fully functional, probably with the latest enhancements. That could in some circumstances mean you come across a software error, that causes a problem. Such issues are usually very quickly resolved. (Paid versions of Open Source software are for commercial applications. They offer additional installation and maintenance services and perhaps additional network security.)

This essay is about the software I am using. I'm writing for Windows users. If you are using Linux, you probably have enough experience to find your own sources. I don't have any knowledge about Apple software, but there will be forums to help you.

Phishing and Anti Virus Protection

When you are online your computer is open to attack from people who would like to use your resources for their own purposes. That could be a simple as using your computer to send messages (Spam sourced from your machine, or denial of service requests using your machine.). The objective could be to steal your passwords and probably your money, and perhaps your identity.

Unless you want to live as a hermit, you can't avoid the risk, so you MUST take steps to protect yourself. There are several FREE anti-virus programmes available. (Do a Google search.)

AVG Free provides you with basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows. http://free.avg.com/au-en/homepage

An alternative that currently seems to be popular is Avast! Free Antivirus which provides protection against viruses and spyware. http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

To get protection against web site threats and phishing attacks I prefer to pay for a solution. I have used Trend Micro PC-cillin for several years at a cost of about NZ$60.00 a year. The product keeps improving. The 2011 version is called Titanium Internet Security. This link will take you to world map where you can find the local dealer. Sadly the cost is up. (June 2011 edit: NZ price now $99. Too expensive I believe.)

PDF Files

You need to be able to read and print PDF files. The latest Adobe Reader is available here: http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html

Writing a PDF has always been a problem unless you purchase Adobe's software. Open Office allows you to export the document as a PDF. That seems to work. You can also download this PDF Creator programme from Source Forge. http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Email:

I use Thunderbird as my email programme. http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-GB/thunderbird/
I also use Gmail to supply webmail accounts. I've found it convenient and effective with excellent spam control.
http://mail.google.com/mail/

I don't do this, but for some purposes you may need an email account that disguises who you are. Gmail is ideal for that too.

Internet Browser:

I use Firefox. http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/
I have used Opera and Chrome recently.

Word Processing:

I recommend Open Office. I've been using the earlier versions of this product for 10+ years. It keeps getting better and better.

Of course Open Office gives you spreadsheets, and presentations, and a database too. You can save any document as an HTML file and get an HTML document you can post to a web site. You can also export a document as a PDF file.

If you are preparing text for use on the Internet, it's generally considered advisable to use a simple text editor like Notebook or Wordpad, rather than Word or Open Office. The latter two programmes may include formatting in the files that you don't want.

RSS Reader

Everyone should use an RSS Reader, but very probably you don't. This is your chance to change that. RSS Readers and news aggregators let you follow news and blogs easily, comfortably and efficiently. RSS feeds are a spam-free, quick and efficient way to read news and weblogs. It's like making your own personal newspaper, based only on sources you've chosen.

The reader I use is Feed Demon. It gives me the feeling that I've got more control over what I'm reading. I like the feature limiting my view to posts in the past 24 hours. http://www.feeddemon.com/

But I've also found that Google Reader is easy to read, and is probably ideal for beginners. I recommend that you begin there. http://www.google.com/reader/view/#overview-page

HTML Editor

Open WYSIWYG is a suggested editor for beginners. All WYSIWYG editors have their limitations. But most new users will never notice.

Try KompoZer for WYSIWYG. http://kompozer.net/

Of course you could use Open Office (or Word too I expect) and when you've got the text page looking as you like it, save it as html. If you edit and re-edit you might start to get a very untidy page. There are limits to what you can do like this.

http://www.alleycode.com/  Alleycode is an editor developed for use by experienced online writers. I have not used it. (I still use a product that's no longer available.) If I was looking for a free editor I'd choose this one for myself.

In the next post I'll talk about Video and Music Players, password security, and system backups.