Week 14 Muddiest Point

Who is responsible for the upkeep of cloud computing? Does an institution bring in outside tech support to deal with problems that patrons have accessing digital contents within the cloud? Also, with technological upgrades, could the cloud lose some, if not all of its digital contents?

Week 14 Reading Notes

Gruman's article on cloud computing cleared up a number of questions I had regarding what cloud computing is. It alleviated my skepticism about cloud computing's usefulness. Prior to reading the article I felt that remote file storage, while solving some problems, created new problems with storing digital information. Thanks to the article I now see that cloud computing gives new space saving opportunities for libraries and other institutions. I see it helping out businesses and schools as well. With the future of cloud computing the sky's the limit (pun intended).

The video, while not visually stunning, was very informative and explained cloud computing in easy to understand terms. It really drove home the importance of interconnectivity and communication with cloud computing. The flexibility cloud computing brings to the information sciences appears very valuable. This further promotes collaboration The question this leaves me wondering though is how one performs upkeep and maintenance on the cloud computing software. In spite of this, the remote accessiblity of cloud computing looks very convenient and I see it driving the future of computing and information technology.

Frey's article described the future of the library in an effective manner. It showed that as libraries keep up with changing technologies, they remain relevant and essential to society at large. I feel that this once more emphasizes the importance of library science as a field of continuing education where individuals involved with it must keep reading up on new information technologies and how people use digital media to satiate their needs. To meet the demand for information libraries must stay on top of technology, especially with digital media. The not that libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture shows that they can remain relevant in the future, just with a different means. I agree that if they keep the experience of patrons enjoyable, stay on top of new technologies, embrace their communities, and experiment with new options that aid patron creativity the library has a bright future. That said, it will take the work of not just the librarians in charge but the entire community it serves to establish a scholarly and informative atmosphere for years to come.

Week 12 Muddiest Point

I have no muddy points for this week.

Week 12 Reading Notes

Prior to reading Blossom's article I never thought much about social media. It is interesting that collaborative projects via the World Wide Web aid in learning and human progress. Hopefully I can find a way to become part of this movement and receive feedback for any work I produce. The fact that I could use my Facebook account as a means to promote learning or research is fascinating and something I may look into doing in the future. As for the remark about using blogs to turn a profit, I nor any of my friends who post blogs do that. I still am unsure of how to look into gaining a profit from a blog though I'm sure more about this will be revealed as people keep collaborating on the World Wide Web.

Allan's article shows the roles wikis could play in an academic environment. As an undergraduate I took a course on the history of Central Asia in which one of the collective learning projects we could do was create and manage a Wikipedia page that focused on some aspect of Central Asian history. This is a good way to promote the spread of discussion toward any academic topic. The only problem I see is dealing with the people who may troll the entries and change them to whatever they want. If the entries are restricted only to scholars, though, then they are not serving their purpose. It will be interesting to see the direction collaborative learning and research via wikis goes over the next few years.

The idea of social tagging looks like an excellent one for people doing research. If people look up one source online, they can see several complimentary sources tagged to the one they looked up. More than just promoting sharing, library patrons now have the ability to see similar sources to the ones they looked up, thus strengthening whatever research they did. Arch also acknowledges the problem that spam tagging presents to those doing research and potential methods to deal with people TROLLing the wiki entry. I thought that her explanation of what when problems arise makes social tagging a key element of scholarly research in the digital world.

The video of Jimmy Wales' presentation shows how active Wikipedia is and how different it is from traditional encyclopedias. While Wikipedia is free for everyone to use people can easily change the information presented in an entry to whatever they want it to say regardless of the facts. It was good to see Wales acknowledge the weaknesses Wikipedia has and how to circumvent them in addition to the benefits Wikipedia gives the scholarly community. I also liked the explanation of how Wikipedia leads to communitity involvement and how peers, whether scholars or not, play a role in moderating entries and keeping them at least quasi-accurate. I had no idea that the changes to entries could be tracked so well. While I wouldn't use Wikipedia for scholarly research I would turn to it if I had a generalized question about a topic. Wales' explanation for future use of Wikipedia as a collaborative means of scholarship sounds like it holds more academic potential than experts claim, though it will take much further development and collaboration to make it a reality.

Week 11 Muddiest Point

Given that I completed assignment 6, I have no muddiest point to elaborate on.

Here it is: Assignment 6 - My website

Working on this assignment gave me a new appreciation for the websites people do. Publishing one is a lot of work and given how convoluted the whole process is, making an appealing website is quite a challenge. On an additional note, the embedding code I posted for my Youtube work didn't embed properly but the hyperlinks in the code still work so you can click on them to see the three Youtube videos I was involved with.

http://www.pitt.edu/~afc16/Site/Welcome.html

Week 10 Muddiest Point

I read up about the different kinds of markup languages one can use to design a Web page; there are a lot more of them than I previously expected. Is there anything that makes HTML stand out from the other markup languages that results in it being the one most commonly used to design websites?

week 10 Readings

When I saw the search diagram I found it somewhat overwhelming at first. As I kept reading the article it made more sense though. I never really thought that searches on the web were that complex. I also was surprised to see that the emergent digital library technologies from 1994 were still used today. I don't know if this means libraries are falling behind technologically or if they are ahead of what is expected. I also think the metasearch initiative will help make it easier for people to conduct searches not just in a library setting but at home as well.

Paepke's article shows the importance digital technology has for a variety of fields. As someone with a BA in History, I never really thought much about how digital technology affected the realm of historical research though the article really showed me how they go hand in hand. I also found it interesting that the libraries struggled to get research funding for it while the sciences achieved it easily. The sciences have money and PR to get what they need and I am not sure why more libraries haven't sought to have stronger PR with their communities to get the funding they want. Does this also mean that librarians should also become computer programmers? It is an interesting issue.

Lynch starts off by mentioning that scholars are moving beyond traditional passive user means of conducting research and scholarship and instead plan to work on a more active approach to scholarly activity. I also found it interesting that an institutional repository went beyond just hardware and software. Lynch's call for libraries to extend from traditional means of scholarship and record keeping and think about the potential digitization holds for them is an audacious yet intriguing one. I think the potential it brings with collection and distribution strategies is strong and beneficial for those who use them. I also found it beneficial that he mentioned ways that a digital repository can fail over time. His call for partnering up at the end of the article also touches on the importance teamwork can bring for a repository. With the teamwork comes added PR and the smoothing out of things that are amiss with the repository. Lynch's points are well backed up and it is very important that libraries follow them to make th emost out of the new digital world.

Koha: an interesting library cataloging option

At the bottom of this post is the URL to my Koha assignment. At first I found Koha very user unfriendly, though once I figured out how to properly search for things and save barcodes it worked out just fine. It seems like a good service for librarians to use. I would not recommend it for patrons, though, given how difficult using it was. If the interface was more user friendly I would swear by it. While it will probably get better over time I would not recommend it to patrons unless it becomes more user friendly.

http://upitt04-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl

Muddiest Point Week 10

What is it about HTML that makes it the popular markup language of choice for people to use for webpage design compared to other markup languages such as Pagemill?

Muddiest Point Week 9

My muddiest point involves something I learned last week. If one searches for inurl:/view/index.shtml on a search engine, one can get access to a variety of cameras that are connected to some form of computer network. For instance, at http://soewebcam.cs.unm.edu/view/index.shtml one can view a security camera on the University of New Mexico. What I wondered was if changing the HTML code with the website could impact the results of the video feed. Can it and if so what would the effects be?

Week Eight Readings

I loved the HTML editor featured in the W3schools tutorial. It gave me a better sense of how to use HTML to design Web pages. I wanted to enter some of the HTML code into this post. Unfortunately by doing that, it caused blogger to crash and I lost everything I planned do post here. Regardless, the HTML tutorial was very useful and it answered a lot of questions I had regarding HTML Web page design

The HTML cheatsheet contained more HTML attributes that would cause blogger to crash if I posted them here. However, I may go search some websites on Google and see if i can type in different HTML into the URLs and change the websites according to the options described on the cheatsheet.

From looking at the CSS tutorial, I gathered that CSS is very similar to HTML. It said that I can change the text, layout, background, and margins all in one file. Does this mean that to change all those things in HTML I must save them in separate files? I am curious to try this out, though for the sake of not having my browser crash now I'll old off on it until I am doing something less important.

The Beyond HTML article helped me understand the importance of knowing HTML in case something goes awry with the website for any prospective institution I may work for. I also liked the description the article gave for an HTML template. I don't know a lot about content management systems though I plan to do some independent research on them to see how they work. I now am curious regarding how a content management system relates to HTML and how I can utilize them both with designing and maintaining a website.

Muddiest Point Week 8

The articles and video explained everything I needed to know. Thus I have no muddiest point this week.

Reading Notes for October 20

Tyson explains how computers connect in very clear terms. I also had no idea that routers must handle so much from large networks. This explains why whenever I used my computer with a large wireless network such as in a hotel the connection speed is very poor. With a network that features fewer computers, the processing speed for Internet work goes quickly. I also learned that URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and that http at the beginning of URLs stands for hypertext transfer protocol. His article was informative and I plan to use it in the future if I have basic questions about how website design and function go.

I had no idea the internet led to the demise of Integrated Library Systems. I also did not expect integrated library systems would be nearly impossible to reestablish. The interoperability of computer systems in libraries though sounds like it will supersede and outperform integrated library systems. I also agree with Pace's closing statement that to rebuild the ILS we may need to dismantle it first.

I found Brin and Page's Google usage display fascinating. I also found it interesting that they could track the individual languages being used on Google. Also, parts of the world considered "developing regions" had less Google activity. I had no idea Google activity could be tracked so closely by anyone. In some ways that is good because it helps the programmers determine the order of search results. I also never really thought in depth about the Google toolbar on the Firefox browser. I plan to use it much more now. In addition, even though the ads may be relevant to the search topic, I can't say that I plan to click on the ad links. Google has the right idea by doing constant vigilance over search results plus not accepting money from the results themselves but from advertisers helps Google's integrity that it will help people find exactly what they search for.

Whoops, accidentally misread the flickr instructions

In my previous post I only included the central link to the flickr photos rather than links to the individual photos. Here are the links to each individual photograph. Each photo has a caption explaining what the image is.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/4017256306/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/4017256288/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/4017256232/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/4016491851/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/4017256138/

This should make everything better. Enjoy!

Here's the Jing Assignment

I meant to have this up sooner but I ran into some snags with other work I needed to take care of. Regardless, better late than never for this Jing assignment.

http://www.screencast.com/users/Iceman0427

My screencast feed focuses on http://imacomputa.org/sax/, a website devoted to saxophone solos in popular 1980's music. I was impressed that Jing captured the audio from the website, though I expected Jing to have better editing options for the video program. Regardless, it seems good for presentations and podcasts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/sets/72157622598053942/

The screens I captured for flickr include my flickr page, garfieldminusgarfield.net, www.fark.com, the quotes page of a friend, and my personal information on my band Skallys' website.

Muddiest Point Week 7

I have a pretty good understanding of the different networks so I have no muddy points right now. If any come up I will post them later.

Zotero Results

file:///Users/Iceman/Documents/Grad%20School%20Work/My%20Library.rdf

When I first read the findings of my Zotero export, I found them difficult to comprehend. That said, when I reopened the Zotero box opened up in my browser, I could read everything just fine. What I gathered from this is that the results of Zotero are only as good as what one enters into it. I must make sure I copy down every bit of useful bibliographic information and use it with a specific style guide when establishing a bibliography. While it is not as convenient as just exporting the results into a Word document, it still makes organizing bibliographic content fairly painless. I am pleased with Zotero now that it works in my browser and I plan to use it in the future.

Muddiest Point Week 6

Having resolved my issues with Zotero, I have no muddy points for this week.

Week Six Readings

When I first heard the term Local Area Network, I thought of it in terms of multiplayer online PC games such as Quake and World of Warcraft. A number of my friends were very into playing games like that. When I found that LANs existed as far back as the 1960's, I was very surprised. I also did not know that larger LANs used redundant links with switches to manage their wide volume of users. I know that whenever I use a computer in a lab I sign on to a LAN though I never knew about the complexity of the network until reading about it.

I never really thought about a computer network being larger than a LAN, though after reading the article I see just how large the scope is of the Computer Network. I also did not consider how much the technology with the connections has advanced in just the past few years. I also never knew about the complexity of the switches that power the networks. Routers also apparently serve as packet facilitators with internet-linked computers. I know from personal experience that recieving packets is a sign that my internet connection is working and that if I do not recieve packets, something is wrong. Personally, I do not think most libraries do not seem huge enough to warrant something beyond a LAN, though given the advancement of technology along with the increased use of eBooks, I see libraries having their computer networks take a more prominant role with libraries.

I thought Frank Klein's video was very informative. He acknowledged that is audience might not know a lot about computer networks and he explained them in very easy to understand terms. I did not know about metropolitan area networks prior to this video and I wonder if the city of Pittsburgh has anything like that. Despite not containing anything flashy, the video got the point across.

Coyle's article makes me equate Radio Frequency IDentifier to what makes the E-Zpass transponder work on toll roads. If it works for E-Zpass I definitely see it working well for the library. While it might eliminate most of the human interaction one encounters from signing out a book it certainly seems that it would make signing out books much easier. That said, given the few occasions where my transponder did not get read on the turnpike, I feel that there needs to be more certainty with the RFID technology before libraries implement it. That said, RFID seems to be the way to go with signing books out in the future as it is fast and painless.

Week Five Readings

The entry on data compression led me to consider a few things. My old PC had considerable difficulty compressing data. It always ran low on virtual minimum memory and I had to delete older files just to clear up space. I planned to purchase an external hard drive originally though I decided I was just better off purchasing a new computer. The loss free storage for data sounds really interesting, though I am unsure when that technology first came into practice.

The Data Compression Basics website did a much better job of explaining the theory behind data compression and how it works. That said, I found their descriptions of coding confusing. Much of this is because I do not have a computer science background and I did not do any computer programming. I am unfamiliar with many of the coding terms used on this website. If I experienced more computer programming I might be familiar with those terms and methods but I am unsure what they mean. If I find out how they work I will post a response to this expressing my understanding.

First Monday is a peer reviewed Internet journal. The site has links to all of its past issues. I checked out one article from the September 2009 issue that focused on blogs as a medium for news and politics. The article mentioned the importance of blogs for both major US political parties in the 2008 presidential election. I agree that the political blogs bring more people to follow politics and that they further polarize the political system in the US. Another article discusses the role Google plays in how people obtain information and the impact it holds for libraries. This journal seemed very interesting and I enjoyed the articles I read. I plan to keep checking this site periodically to see how it keeps addressing topics that emerge in the information technology realm.

Zotero Muddiest Point

To complete the next major assignment, I downloaded Zotero onto Firefox. However, when I click on the link to it within Firefox, it tells me the Zotero user data DB version is newer than SQL file. I updated Firefox and I still get this message. Should I uninstall Zotero and reinstall an earlier version of it, or should I try re-updating Firefox and see if it works that way?

Muddiest point Week 4

I checked out the Dublin Core website and found it fairly informative. I liked how it provided links to different software downloads that one could use for different computer programming projects. This left me wondering if the Dublin Core is the only widespread metadata service provider out there and if so, why have they not created a common worldwide metadata model for people to use. Why is this the case?

Week 4 Readings

I found it interesting how the database information related back to the software we learned about last week. It seems like software serves as the building blocks for the database. I now have a better idea of what network encryption does for a computer and how it can protect publicly used computers in a library setting. They seem to lock down and protect computers. This makes me wonder how some viruses and spyware can get through this and corrupt PCs since the science behind the computers seems very complex. That said the database seems like a good way to store and organize a set of computers in an information science setting.

This is the first time I heard the term metadata. The definition "data about data" gave me a better understanding of it; basically, it serves as the building blocks for data. I also had no idea that there were different standards for data based on what it contains and the quality it has. The fact that there are different categories for it shows how important metadata is for computer networks. The universalization of DCMI requirements ensures that all databases run on a uniform network and they can get their job done. I also liked how metadata is not limited to digital technologies; people used it for collections since they began. Physical card catalogs are an example of this. While the technology changes over time the ideas of people using data in these tadabases remained. The developments metadata make over the next decade seem interesting.

Eric Miller's involvement with OCLC gave him validation for his over view of the Dublin Core Data Model. He describes the nature of the database and explains why it serves the needs of those who use it. The coding and symantic elements of it are designed to be universally understood. Through this unity of consistent terms and understanding one can use it to better understand what to do with the database regardless of where one is. Personally I am not too familiar with the OCLC database and I hope to learn more about it as the course progresses. It seems that a formal data model is required to make a database useful for the patrons who use it. Miller also mentioned that his work with the database is not complete. I plan to keep posted on that website to see if Miller updates it and I look forward to finding out more with how to use a database like that.

Another Week, Another Muddiest Point

The muddiest point I have this week regards open source software. I checked out the open source urls discussed in class and I found that many of them contain useful information one could use. The biggest problem I had, though, was the lack of conformity those sites had in terms of navigation and searching for items. Is there any way to enhance the searches so that they are more direct? Also, which of those websites is most recommended for one to use?

Muddiest point

The muddiest point I have for this week relates to the hand-on point as well as some general questions about operating systems. The Google Desktop hand-on point sounds interesting but I feel reluctant to download it. I am uncertain that it will work well on a Mac OS. In the past I encountered some bad experiences downloading programs like that for Windows XP and I see a similar outcome with using it on my computer. It probably is not a big deal, I just have my doubts about it, that's all.

Week 3 Readings

I thought Garrels' guide to Linux was very informative. I've only ever seen one Linux computer in my life though it seemed to work just fine for being an older model from around the year 2000. I don't know anything about the C programming language but from the description given it seems like it works much like a Mac operating system. I currently use Mac OS X and I am satisfied with it so far. If given a chance I would try out a Linux based system as it seems pretty straightforward although I do not know what kinds of software run on it. The description says I would like to know what kinds of software it runs, what it has for a word processor, photo editing, etc. Perhaps that makes for a potential muddy point.

Amit Singh's Mac OSX page gives more of a narrative regarding how his experience with the Mac OSX and how it converted him into a primary Mac user. He wrote that he tried a number of different operating systems before he went to Apple and that the Mac OS X became his favorite OS. The reasons he gave for enjoying it are similar to the reasons why I enjoy it. It does not have the crashing, virus risks, or headaches that Windows causes and even though it does not run a lot of computer games, the software it uses for photo, music, and video editing are easier to use than on Windows. On a more local note Carnegie Mellon University developed the XNU hardware used for the Kernel. The technical terms looked very complex and while I do not have the experience to program on Mac OS X, I remain willing to use it as my primary computer of choice.

Of course, most libraries use the Windows operating system for browsing. I think much of that has to do with the cost of the OS plus more people being familiar with it. Bill Veghte, the Senior Vice President of Microsoft, published a letter discussing how people preferred the Windows XP OS to Windows Vista and what the future holds for Windows 7. He noted that the hardware on Vista is significantly better than on XP. Having used both systems, I did not see much of a difference between the two and in many ways Vista was more cumbersome to use than XP. For instance, Microsoft Word 2007 replaced many of the written commands on the toolbar with visual depictions of what they did. While Word 2008 for the Mac works a lot like Word 2003, I have found the visual commands confusing and often found myself wishing they just kept the written options while using Word on Windows Vista. Veghte also mentioned that Windows will support XP until 2014. Hopefully by then Microsoft creates an OS without the headaches or security risks that Vista has.

That's all i have to say for now! I'll be back to discuss the next set of issues and readings, or at least to post a muddy point.

- Iceman out

Flickr assignment

Here is my flickr page along with the photos for this weeks assignment. I'll post on this week's readings and a muddiest point soon!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42302833@N04/

Week 2 Readings

The Wikipedia entry on computer hardware states that computer hardware serves as the physical component of a computer. It is installed on an operating system such as Windows, Linux, or Macintosh, and they contain a motherboard which contains the software necessary to execute all the processes of the computer, a power supply unit that regulates power usage plus fans to prevent the system from overheating, a graphics card driven video display unit that affects the resolution and quality of images the computer displays, media devices such as a CD-ROM drive that reads CD-ROMs and a DVD-ROM drive for reading and playing digital versatile disks. Some older computers feature floppy disk drives, a technology rendered outdated by CD-ROM drives and USB flash drives. Some computers even feature tape drives for editing digital video.

Moore's law is an observation that shows how rapidly computer technology increases over time. According to this chart, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Transistor_Count_and_Moore%27s_Law_-_2008.svg, the number of transistors required for computers to function at a high level is almost two billion more than what it was thirty years ago. As it is, the size, density, and speed of computer components are increasing at an exponential level today. This truly shows how far computer technology traveled over the past thirty-some years.

http://www.computerhistory.org/ features the development of computative technologies over time. It includes written descriptions on how computers evolved over time as well as images of various hardware elements with computers. Early on computers took up an entire room and they did the same functions as a standard pocket calculator today. The site also contains descriptions and accounts of the people who influenced the history of computers as well as a timeline of how computers progressed. By checking this website one gets an idea of how rapidly the technology with computers increased over the past forty-some years with computers.

In chapters four through seven of Digital Copyright Litman writes that most people do not understand copyright laws and often people violate them with computers, whether it is with downloading music or the manuscript to a book. The copyright law is very complicated and people do not care about intellectual property; as a result, they will often download things that they should otherwise pay for, thus undermining copyright law. While some are embracing the technology, such as with iTunes, other feel that the easy access to downloadable copyrighted material is copyright infringement and should be treated as such.

Reflections on Week 1's Readings

Upon reading Clifford Lynch's Information Literacy and Information Technology Literacy: New Components in the Curriculum for a Digital Culture, I saw the important need for education regarding the new forms of technology and how to use it. Both Information literacy and information technology literacy work hand in hand to enhance the experience of those who use them. People must posess a level of information technology literacy for a variety of tasks, whether it is for their career or just personal use.
The article Information Format Trends: Content, Not Containers explores this issue further by explaining how information is being disseminated through different means now than it was in the past. Basically, people are not concerned with what contains the information. The big thing that concerns them is how easily they can access it. Consequently more people use sources such as blogs, streaming video, and other forms of multimedia in the same manner that they utilize traditional sources like books, magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. Over the next few years one could see libraries utilizing these new information sources.
There is also considerable concern with people using wiki engines over traditional academic means of research. People do not care that strongly about the origin of sources anymore; they are much more concerned with how easily they can access and use those sources. In Brian Lamb's article Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not, he writes that more people are using wikis as a collaboration tool, that they post things on the wiki, others edit them, and they reach conclusions about the matters at hand. In a controlled setting like that the wiki can actually prove to be a useful means of developing and executing a task. It is when people use information posted on wikis as factual, academic research that problems arise. Lamb conclues that wikis are just one piece of the information network and that while their rise in popularity might be a concern, there are enough other information sources for people to use that their influence could diminish.
Jason Vaughan wrote that enough changed in how people obtain information in the past four years that people must be aware of what all the different options are. The ALA also recognizes evolving trends in technology such as the use of blogs for commentary on news and events. More people use ebooks and podcasts for sources of information now than they did before. As time progresses, new information sources develop and reach different audiences. If one pays attention to the new sources of information and technology developing in the world one can find the information source that works best for them.