Online Credibility

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Weblogs, blogs for short, are an oncoming fad in our society. The ability for anyone to post their thoughts and have it published to a worldwide audience has never been possible until this day and age. Credibility is the number one issue that comes with this phenomenon. What can we trust online as truth and what is just a farce?

A high school student down the street from you or a distinguished college professor could each have their own blog. How does one decipher what is credible and what is not? That is the predicament we are in. What are the standards that we must use to determine their credibility.

Whenever I need to research a topic, whether it be for class, work, or my own enjoyment, I open up google.com and perform a search. I would even buy a college essay most times from a reliable online site. This team of professionals would create an original, well writing term paper or essay at a great price. It was definitely worth my money. When I wouldn’t do this, I would use google and the results appear on the web site and nine times out of ten it is exactly what I want. College English classes won’t let us use many online resources as resources even though their accuracy could be better than the New York Times. However, they would let us use the College Paper World, for just about anything. The difference between a blog and a credited newspaper is the publishing process. Journalists must have a college education and a high level of skill in order to even write for a credible publishing.

The process to create a blog is very easy. Simply go to a popular blogging site such as Blogger.com and sign up. Within five minutes you have your own domain, bradysblog.blogger.com. You are now an author, a publisher, a writer within minutes. The whole world is your audience. Compare that to the rigorous task of an author attempting to write for a major magazine such as Newsweek. Intense college education, years of experience, and very good talent are a requirement to be a part of such a publication.

Can blogs be recognized as a credible source? Anyone can write truth. Not only distinguished journalists but also the college student. Each of us are professionals in our own area and should be able to write about it. Web developers or Botanists. Fast food workers or custodians. High school students or mothers. Each us of has a right to publish the truth and have it recognized.

Truth eventually weeds itself into the popular eye. A simple google search will return the best results on a few keywords. This search is all based on popularity. Popularity online becomes truth. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that is open source, is a great case study to look at. Anyone can edit an article if they have more truth on the subject. Will this style of accumulated writing eventually circumscribe itself to near perfection?

Though anyone can post information online, a user can use standards to determine if the information is accurate. More often then not, the information will prove itself to be truth and worth your time. We need to determine what these standards are to develop online credibility.

Reference List:
MacKinnon, Rebecca (2005). “Blogging, Journalism, & Credibility. Battleground and Common Ground�. Source: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/wp-content/webcredfinalpdf_01.pdf
Jstor: Using weblogs in the classroom

Edward, Steven (2005, 26 Apr). “Evaluating Blog Credibility.� Source:http://blogcorevalues.blogspot.com/2005/04/evaluating-blog-credibility.html

Harvard Law School:
Site: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/
PDF: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/wp-content/webcredfinalpdf_01.pdf

Jstor: Using weblogs in the classroom

Online Credibility.
Weblogs
Forums
Expertexchange.com
Magazines online
Online newspapers

Best Web Hosting

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Host Gator

I have finally found the best hosting out there for the best price.
http://www.hostgator.com

Hostgator offers hosting of unlimited domains for only $9.99 a month. If you are a web developer and have clients, they have reseller accounts for only $25.00 a month. You can then bill each of your clients separately.

After trying out 2advanced.net’s web hosting and the foobah that happened there, I will never, ever go back to them. Their server uploads speeds were slow. Uploads were continually interrupted. They didn’t even have MySQL 4.0 nor did they intend on upgrading (so much for having WordPress 2.0). They never responded to my ticket requests. They refused to give me a refund on my money even though they offered a 30 day money back guarantee. Don’t get 2advanced.net hosting.

Go check them out:
http://www.hostgator.com

How To Build a Computer, p5n-e SLI Style

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In all my nerdery, I have never built a computer from complete scratch. I am back from my mission, and my computer is four years old. I need a new computer. I got a new computer. After deciding what I wanted, and $846.56 dollars later, I returned with my precious.

My intent on publishing this article is so that history does not repeat itself. Please educate yourself and learn from me. It was a great learning experience, and I’m now hardware competent.

The Specs:
Motherboard: ASUS P5N-E SLI
CPU: Intel 775 Core2 Duo 6300
RAM: 1 GB DDR2 800 MHz
Video Card: nVidia e-Geforce 600GS 256 MB (Video Card overheated and blew capacitors)
New Video Card: Sapphire HD 2600 XT
DVD-Rom: Pioneer 18x DVDRW
Wireless Networking: Marvell Libertas 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Client Adapter

Case: AZZA Xion 4 Black 450 Watt
BlueTooth USB

Mmmmm… Tastey.

I encountered 3 distinct problems, here they are, and here is how I solved them.

#1: Motherboard wouldn’t turn on (or boot up).
After installing everything properly and connecting all the power cables and the CPU, etc, my computer simply wouldn’t turn on. I messed with the frontside power cables to the case. I started taking everything apart one at a time and trying to turn it on, simply to find that nothing worked. Something kept prompting me (in my religion, I refer to this as the Holy Ghost), to LOOSEN THE SCREWS! So I did. And….. It Worked! My Computer actually turned on, the blue lights lit up, a smile came across my face.

#2: After being on for three minutes, my computer would simply shut off on its own.
I tried taking everything off, one at a time, again. Simply to find that this didn’t work either. I tried taking out the ram and repositioning it (many forums suggested this, it didn’t work in my instance.) I finally read and realized the my CPU was overheating and as a defense mechanism, it was turning itself off so that I wouldn’t waste $200 on my brand new Intel Dual Core cpu. I like my computer. So in the 3 minutes I had after boot up, I went in the BIOS and located the Hardware Observer that allows you to view the temperature of your CPU. My CPU was starting at 30 degrees Celsius and would climb to 68 degrees and then shut off. I found the problem. To solve it, I took off my heat sync, rotated it 45 degrees (so that the INTEL faced East), popped it in. Solved. My CPU now stays at 30 degrees Celsius.

#3: My Motherboard wouldn’t detect my DVD-Rom.
I switched the IDE cable to the secondary IDE position on the motherboard. Started up my computer. My motherboard loves my DVD-Rom now.

So here I wait while my 320 GB hard drive is being formatted so I can install XP. Please take notes, and let me know if this saved you some frustration. I do this simply to help others.

The Web Standards List

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Article: What’s Next? The Same Thing! @ The Autistic Cuckoo

Many ask what web standards are. Here’s the list that web standards prevent.

Web Standards prevent:

  • lack a specified document type,
  • contain invalid (X)HTML,
  • use tables for layout,
  • require a particular browser to work,
  • require client-side scripting to work,
  • require third-party products such as Flash to work,
  • cannot be used by people with disabilities,
  • are semantically meaningless,
  • are unnecessarily heavy to download, thereby also placing unnecessary load
    on the server,
  • force links to open in separate windows whether the visitor wants them to
    or not, and
  • do not allow the text to be resized in the most commonly used
    browser.

Jason Santa Maria | Grey Box Methodology

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Article: Jason Santa Maria | Grey Box Methodology

Great article on the methodology of designing a web site. You start with pen and paper freeing yourself of technology to create a design. Next you move on to Illustrator using the ‘Gray Box Methodology”. This step allows you to create a perfect functional layout without worrying about which font works best or which color to use. You have a simply grayscale layout to look at. Then you finally move on to implementing the CSS / XHTML / FLASH / PHOTOSHOP graphics and coding at the end to produce exactly what you want without the distractions. Read the full article.

Audible.com – Digital Audio Books

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Was about my business tonight surfing and found a link to Audible.com — an Online Store for Digital Audio Books. Quite an amazing online business and very well run. Their offer (free month subscription and one free audiobook) caught my attention and I signed up. Within 10 minutes of signing up I recieved my free audiobook of my choice, The Face by Dean Koontz. You have the option to select from 4 different audio qualities to download, plus the option to stream. It took me all of 5 minutes to download the first half of the book (128 MB) at highest quality and is now transferring to my iPod. Quite impressed. Now I can finally get all the audiobooks I want on my iPod.