English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

Per our group's, this week was spent mostly working on research. My goal this week was to carry out my personal plan for research on Internet Explorer, which included figuring out the browser of an IT professional and then using those criteria to search for information on Internet Explorer.

I spent the beginning part of the week just getting a feel for what kind of information would be important in this application. As one might expect, browser security was the number one concern. Throughout the week, I did some poking around on Google for related information on the IE browser. My searches resulted mostly in repeated blogger sentiments that IE is totally uncool and probably not as good. I did come across a couple key phrases (like "frequency of vulnerabilities") that later led to some bigger breakthroughs. Late in the week, I found my way to a database of computer program vulnerability fixes, which should give us a great way to compare security. To my surprise, that data seems to point to IE being a relatively secure option, although I still need to do more analysis. I also found some information on network administration between different browsers, once again pointing to an IE advantage. In addition, I've also come up with a couple of ideas for graphics for the white paper, based of the research.

I also completed the thumbnail exercise this week, including feedback to other group members.

Before our next group meeting, I would like to review and compile all of our research and incorporate it into our working outline. Next week my focus will be supporting our writer in his role, and making sure the process of editing (my role) is timely so that all group members will have a chance to review the draft and we have time to make changes.