Module 2 Tasks - Chat

I kind of like ICQ, its small, not too flashy and over the top like MSN. We have an IM system at work, just a contacts list you right click a name and select chat, and off you go, just type and communicate; no pictures, no emoticons, no funny animated question marks or pictures appearing when you type certain combination of letters. I like that system I find it useful and less contrived. Some of the MSN stuff, seems to get in the way of real communication, instead of chatting I'm looking for cute little pictures that I can substitute instead of using words. Perhaps I just need some time, its like learning a new language, at least with the straight text chat facilities I feel a little more comfortable, but hey I'm not saying I couldn't learn to speak fluent MSN, after all my 12 year old appears to have mastered it over night

Module 2 Tasks - Newsgroups

OK I am going to admit defeat and move on, I really could not find a newsgroup that I wanted to post to. Instead I have dug up an old posting to a technical forum, yes I know not quite a newsgroup, but I believe the concept is the same and I find these forums a lot more useful than most of the newsgroups I have looked at.

lfindlater newbie Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 2

Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 7:16 am Post subject: migrating JMS app from WAS 4 to WAS5.1 Hi We are currently migrating a JMS application from WAS4 to WAS5.1, and have been unable to get the application to work. As far as I understood, the only difference in configuring WAS was that in WAS4 you used JMSadmin, but in WAS5.1 I would have to use the adminconsole to define the queue connection factory and the queue destinations. We are running websphere mq 5.3 (csd06) on a seperate server to the WAS boxes, and have installed the MQ client onto the WAS boxes I have configured the QCF and Q destination using the WAS adminconsole, and i have set the MQ_INSTALL_ROOT to point to the installation directory for the websphere MQ client libraries. The application itself places a message on a remote queue definition on the Websphere MQ server, which is transmitted to another queue manager running on our mainframe, the application then sets up some sort of receiver to wait for a reply message on a temporary queue. However after migrating to WAS5.1, the receiver times out (as the message seems to arrive on the transmission queue, but does not go any further) . On further investigation (and after changing the remote queue to a local queue on the MQ server) I noticed that the queue depth for the queue that the message was being sent to was incrementing by one, but on trying to browse the message in MQ explorer, there appear to be no message on the queue? There are also no errors being generated either on the appserver side, or in websphere MQ? Unfortunately I am posing this question from a WAS administrator point of view, as I have not developed the java application myself, so I am wondering if perhaps changes to the code might be required when migrating the app from WAS4 to WAS5.1(has the JMS API changed??), or if there is some further configuration required in WAS5? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. regards Lisa

Module 2 Tasks - General

I wonder if I am the only person who has a serious aversion to newsgroups? I don't know what it is , but I'm yet to find one that I could see myself becoming a regular contributor of! Most of them don't really appear to stick to topic, and they seem to be frequented by a bizarre bunch of (well I don't really no the PC term so I'll leave it there). For the sake of learning I will persevere and find myself a newsgroup that I can develop a general affinity too - but gees its hard!

Module 2 Tasks - Other Infosphere Comunications

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

Relevancy/Usefulness of information provided
I think in comparing email lists to discussion boards the primary difference ( and major pro in my opinion for discussion boards ) is the interactivity. With email lists its true that you can subscribe to topics that you are interested in, but for each topic there is often a diverse range of discussion to be had, not all of which you will be particularly interested in, yet all are distributed as part of that list. I quite often find on email lists, that if I receive an email once a week, I may only come across a small 'snippet' of information that interests me say once a month. With discussion boards, I can visit narrow down my search not only to a specific topic but to a specific thread within a topic quickly finding me the required information.

Accurateness/Verifiability of the information provided
Quite often the information in email lists I have subscribed to are prepared by 'experts' in the field and come from one source, which makes it easier to verify. Discussion boards contain the opinions of a broad range of people on one particular thread, picking out the relevant/reliable sources of information can be a little more difficult.

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

Searching for Technical/bug fixes
I'm also quite busy and find that receiving weekly email lists from multiple services is info overload. I need to scan these just in case there is something relevant to me, which takes time. I find with discussion boards I can narrow this down a lot faster. I must admit as a techie I spend a lot of times in forums looking for answers to those weird and wonderful issues we encounter on a daily basis, email lists just would not provide me with the information in a timely or focused fashion. Quite often you don't need to wait for answer as someone else has already asked the question before you!

Tech/Security Alerts
There are email lists that are the exception to this rule (for example) tech alerts and security updates, and in this case email lists definitely have the advantage as they can be issued as soon as the problem arises. It might be disastrous if you did not find out about these things until you visited the appropriate discussion board!

Module 2 Tasks - Email Question 5

Ahhhhh - and we come to the last one.

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

My folder structure evolves depending on what I am involved in at anyone point in time. I have a couple of standard folder like Bills, Subscriptions, Family etc, But I will add new folders when email from a certain source is going to be coming on a regular basis or a subject will involve a number of email (normally more than 2 or 3). For example I now have a folder called Uni, under that folder I have Curtin and then OUA, under the Curtin Folder I have Net11 and Net12. I usually try to organise my folders so that they can grow in a logical manner. I do believe that everyone has their own style when it comes to creating their folder structure

If I am researching something, I'll create a separate folder. We recently built a pool, so while I was getting quotes and further information from various companies I created a folder called Pool and placed all email on that subject in there. Once we had completed the whole process. I pretty much deleted the contents of that folder.

I'm also big on keeping my Inbox clear! I move things out of there as soon as I have read them, if they need actioning of some sort I'll leave them there until I have done that. Once I have actioned them, I'll delete them or move them to the relevant folder depending on their importance. It acts as a kind of todo list/reminder tool as I normally check my email every day.

Module 2 Tasks - Email Question 4

Yes yet another - perhaps I could have entered them all in one post, but I'm a modular girl at heart :-)

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

• I have McAfee Spam Filter running in outlook express, while not a filter in the traditional sense of the word it does move email to a SPAM folder if any parts of the email match a set of predetermined rules for what constitutes a spam email.

• I have folders set up for any regular incoming mail that I receive so that I can immediately file message from a particular person/organisation in the relevant folder. A lot of the regular stuff I receive are account receipts, which I don't really have to look at on a daily basis so I have my filter dump them into folder thats I can just checkout when looking at my bill paying or accounts. Also newsletters from different organisations that I might refer to every now and then.
  
• the rule for my Telstra bills for example looks like this
• Apply this rule after the message arrives
  Where the From line contains 'info@online.telstra.com.au'
  Move it to the Telstra folder

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
- Philip K. Dick

Module 2 Tasks - Email Question 3

Email task questions continued - still!

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

• By understanding the level of 'Net experience' your intended recipient(s) may have.
  
• By understanding the tools that the recipient is using both for sending and receiving email and for reading attachments
  
• If you cannot establish the details mentioned above, use standard formats that are recognisable on most platforms, for example save your attachment in .txt or .rtf format. or convert the document to a html page, which will allow the user to view it in a browser.
• In some cases it may be worth considering cut and pasting the relevant parts of your document directly into the email message body, if reviewing the whole document is not required.
  
• For more complex or important document attach a small how to guide for referencing this document e.g. attachment is best viewed with Microsoft Word. Advise the user what to do if they do not have this facility e.g. please contact me if you cannot open this document so that I can resend in another format.
• 
  

He who praises you for what you lack wishes to take from you what you have.
- Don Juan Manuel

Module 2 Tasks - Email Question 2

Email tasks questions continued!

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email?

cc - If I was commenting on work/documents/suggestions made by a third party, I might want to cc that third party on the email in case they had anything to add or disagreed with my interpretation/comments regarding their work. For example I have completed a performance review for one of my staff and I am sending that through to the HR department with some comments. I may want to cc the staff member to show them I have forwarded this document on to someone else, that I have made comments about this document as it concerns them in a very personal manner.

I might also use cc if I was trying to communicate a message on behalf of a group of people, who are all interested in the response/outcome of this message. So for example I am writing a letter suggesting some improvements to the dress code at work. I have discussed this with some colleagues who supported the suggestion, so I am letting these colleagues no that this suggestion has been presented. I am also telling the recipient that the people cc'd on this message are interested in any feedback from this original message, and can be included in any response to this message.

bcc - Often a blindcopy might be used in more sensitive situations, or to protect yourself from recriminations. For example when dealing with a delicate personal situation, if the person I am emailing would feel uncomfortable with me sharing this information, but I personally felt that I needed the advice of a third party I would bcc that third party.

reply all functions - I use reply all as a form of ongoing discussion, or to encourage debate. If an email on a particular subject has been emailed to a group of people and I feel that my response to that subject may be useful, or perhaps just amusing to the other people who received the original email I would use the reply all function. In most cases I would only use this if the recipients to the original message are all familiar to me.

Module 2 Tasks - Email Question 1

Hi back again!

Have completed the Email Basics tutorial and following are responses to the questions posed as part of module 2.2 tasks for Email.



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?

To answer this question I have plucked a random email from my inbox to analyse. From this email I can gather that the email was sent from a mail server hosting the domain hbf.com.au. It appears to be an original email (i.e not a reply or a forward) as there is not indication of this in the subject or body of the email.

As I am using Outlook Express, if I go to File then select properties I can see the time that the email was sent(based on the time on his mail server) and the time it was received by my mail server(based on the time on my mail server).




By selecting File then Properties and going to the details tab I can see more information on the path that this email took by viewing the Internet Headers.

The following is a copy of the Internet Headers for the above mail message. It tells me the message was sent via the mail server mail.hbf.com.au and received by sv3.per.eftel.com.au(my ISP). Before this email was sent by mail.hbf.com.au it also passed through another server Aurilla.corp.hbf.com.au and was passed through the SurfControl E-mail Filter.

X-McAfeeVS-TimeoutProtection: 0
Return-Path:
Received: from hbf.com.au (mail.hbf.com.au [203.153.232.59])
by sv3.per.eftel.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39D9466C3D5
for ; Fri, 9 Feb 2007 11:55:43 +0900 (WST)
Received: from Aurilla.corp.hbf.com.au [192.0.8.44] by mail.hbf.com.au - SurfControl E-mail Filter (5.5.0); Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:55:41 +0900
Subject: D-Link stuff
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 7.0 August 18, 2005
Message-ID:
From:
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 11:55:40 +0900
X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on HBFMail1/HBF(Release 6.5.4FP1|June 19, 2005) at 09/02/2007
11:55:42 AM,
Serialize complete at 09/02/2007 11:55:42 AM
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=_alternative 00101556C825727D_="
To:
X-SEF-7853D99-ADF1-478E-8894-213D316B8FFA: 1
X-SEF-Processed: 5_5_0_191__2007_02_09_11_55_43
X-MSK: FRND