The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Editorial
Carol Daniels
 cad@melbpc.org.au

Ash, you've done it again! Thanks to Ash Nallawalla, Melb PC is developing quite a reputation in cyberspace. Our Master User Group Page, which Ash developed, made the Iway 500, a listing of the top web sites in the world. Iway's annual evaluation rates web sites based on seven criteria:
  • Serves intended purpose
  • Depth of content
  • Accuracy
  • Accessibility
  • Design/style
  • Navigation
  • Performance.
In the computer category, where the page was placed twenty-fifth (out of 25), they also looked at: technical help, spec sheets, FAQs, white papers, reviews, downloadable updates and bug fixes, e-mail for one-to-one tech support and documentation. Visit Iway's Top 500 page at http://www.cciweb.com/iway500/iway500.html, you'll be impressed with the company we keep.

Here's what Iway had to say about the page: "User groups are incredible resources for learning, for asking, and for sharing. But how can you locate one? If you're in the market, Ash Nallawalla's site is the best resource for finding a user group that suits your interests. You can find user groups in your geographic area, by platform, and by brand; find resources for setting up a group, and even pointers to user-group newsletters on the Web. There's no other resource like it."

Melb PC Internet service subscribers are already familiar with our home page. But you don't have to subscribe to our service to visit our page. If you have access to the web - through a school, business, commercial service provider or a public access site at a library - stop in at http://www.melbpc.org.au.

Melb PC - through it's work with other user groups, PC Update, and now our web presence - may be doing more to raise the international profile of Melbourne than all the major sporting events, festivals, etc the city has hosted.

Education, formal and informal

One thing I've been doing since taking on the role of Assistant Editor for PC Update, is learning Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) so that I can put the new issues of PC Update online. It's been a learning experience, in many ways. I've never been much of a web-surfer, so my knowledge of HTML was superficial, at best. HTML isn't the only markup language but it's one of the most commonly used to create World Wide Web (WWW) HyperText documents, like the home pages that are all the rage on the net.

And I'm still on my L-plates. All I'm doing is formatting each month's issue to fit an already established style. The hard work - establishing the site's structure and a basic style for the publication - has been done. Eventually I'll be looking for ways to improve on what's already there.

Now, I have to be more interested in web pages (at least that's my excuse). What I find as I visit other sites is that many site developers and page designers aren't as conscientious as Melb PC. So many pages seem to have been developed backwards. Style first, content second and structure last.

That's a shame. From my perspective, the beauty of HTML is that it forces the author to think about the logical or hierarchical relationship between elements of the document. Actually I should have said, "Used properly, HTML forces the author to think about the logical or hierarchical relationship between elements of the document." Advances in HTML, web browsers and the frenzied hype that surrounds almost anything that has to do with the Internet, have turned web page design into the DTP of the nineties. Now we have people producing absolutely awful web pages faster than they ever could before.

Gold or fool's gold?

In line with this issue's theme, "Education," I spent some time testing the Internet as a research tool. I focused on a few subjects I'm interested in, professionally and personally. As I did I was reminded of the way that electronic communication multiplies your access to information and experts. That's the double-edged sword of electronic researching. When you collect more information than you could possibly use and make contact with more experts than you ever believed existed, you have a big chore ahead of you.

The more I use electronic communication, the more I'm convinced that nothing spreads faster than misinformation and no one talks louder than a crackpot. That revelation won't see me named the new, Australian Nostradamus. Mischief makers who thrive on strife, usually of their own creation, have always been with us. Computers and electronic communication just make it easier to for them to spread information (and misinformation) faster and further than ever before.

A lot of misinformation is spread by ill-informed people with good intentions, rather than by those intentionally trying to mislead. In any group, large or small, you'll find some people with their own agenda (usually hidden) who are willing to bend the truth to serve their purposes. When you are new, it's not easy to distinguish between the genuine expert, the well-meaning fool and the diehard crank.

Electronic communication makes it that much harder. And no wonder. A lot of electronic communication is carried out between strangers - who might live across the street or on the other side of the world. But even without common knowledge, culture or experience - all those things that add context to interactions between people - real communication can take place. That's part of what makes electronic communication so exciting.

The good news is that the same sorts of early warning systems that work for you in the real world will serve you well in cyberspace. You just have to remember to use them. I'm not advocating paranoia, just caution. Pack a healthy dose of scepticism on your adventures in cyberspace and you'll do just fine.

Using the information you've found

Copyright, intellectual property rights and the application of "fair use" have always been complicated legal issues. The Internet has only made them more so. (If there's a member out there with legal knowledge in these areas who like to write a lay-person's guide to copyright in the electronic age for PC Update, I'd really like to talk to you.)

In the absence of an expert voice right now, I'll stick my neck out and offer some advice. Resist the temptation to take articles, reports, stories, etc. you find on the BBS or Internet. This sort of theft is harder to track when the source is in Istanbul and you're in Warrnambool, but it's not impossible.

Myths about copyright make the rounds in cyberspace with depressing regularity. Learn the difference between using facts to create your own work and taking someone else's work. If you do want to use something you've found on the 'net or on the BBS, ask first and always credit the originator.

If you are unclear about the difference between "public" and "public domain" or are planning a book of e-mail messages you've received or newsgroup postings you've read, you'll want to visit one or more of these copyright related web sites.

Reprinted from the April 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

[About Melbourne PC User Group]