Blog 5

Evaluating Wikipedia

So the task is to pick two subjects that I’m an expert on and verify their accuracy and to consider the following:
Is this an accurate article? * Does it cover all the basic facts that you'd need to understand this topic?* Does this article follow the Wikipedia guidelines for useful articles?* Is this article fair and balanced, or is it biased towards a particular side or argument?*What changes would you make to this article to improve it and make it useful for the wider Wikipedia community?

Any way I chose just Jeans and Splendour in the Grass.

Just Jeans/Just group:
The page actually way smaller than I thought it would be, it did cover the basics of the company and it was accurate but there probably could have been way more info in there because it’s a pretty interesting company in terms of expansion.
The article wasn’t at all biased; pretty much achieved that by mentioning criticism of the company.
I would have put in more because there is a lot of history with the company and it is pretty impressive for an Australian company that now dominates the market users would find it useful if they needed it.

Splendour in the grass:
This page is way better than the Just Jeans one. It has decent amount of information on there about the history of the festival, where it is and the vibe of the festival. It also has a detailed section on ticket scalping and how the organisers changed the system and were the driving force behind new legislation laws. Also on there is a detailed list of each year’s line up with nearly all the bands names being hyperlinked to their page which is helpful. From what I know all the information was pretty accurate and the article was well written. I wouldn’t say there was a lot more that could have been added as it covered a lot.

Birth of the computer
So, in our 6 week lecture we looked at the history and evolution of the computer and subsequently the internet. This is an extremely short and recapped account of the history that’s missing a lot of info but you get the idea.

Originally the first form of a computer was created in 1936 by Allen Turing and it was used to crack Nazi cribs, which the code changed for daily. The idea was that they would eliminate the wrong answers and be left with the correct.

Commercial commuters didn’t surface until the 1950’s when IBM created them for military and government work. These remained expensive, large and generally unattainable for the average person until the invention of the PC in 1975.

Apple:

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were the founders of the computer company Apple, focusing on evolving the PC they created and released the Apple I, it was basic with no keyboards or features we use today but it was a start. After deciding their best option was to create a PC that was user friendly for consumers who were interested in the software aspect rather than the hardware side of things.

This led to the release of the Apple II and eventually the purchase of VisiCalc, which led to the business world sitting up and taking notice as a PC was now an asset not just a toy.

IBM:

While all this was going on IMB realise they were missing on the PC action and made plans to enter the market. The used the concept of ‘open architecture’ where they would acquire the products needed from other companies and assemble them themselves. Leaving only the software to be worked out. Enter Microsoft owner Bill Gates. Together they acquired the software to get them up and running but eventually Windows was created and together IMB and Microsoft were dominating the market.

We also looked at the Internet and the Web, two very different things. The Internet is a network made up of other networks that are linked via phone lines, or more recently via broadband cable.

The web is a use of the Internet that evolved allowing users to communicate via email ECT and use search engines that were emerging such as geocities in a HTML format. I.e. the word processing style people were familiar with.

That’s about it really, cya!