The Road Less Traveled

To all the fellow students who have followed this blog and contributed to the wonderful experience of this class I tender a heart felt thank you.

Now for a bit of advice:

Always try to wander down the roads less traveled. One will not always find the going smooth are without worries, there may be surprises and even a bit of danger. The pay off comes in the form of experience, the knowing that one can do more than what is expected and find enjoyment in the encounters with the new or unusual.
Always start the journey from the known to the unknown and in very little time, the magic of learning will transform the unknown into something comfortable.

I hope each of you enjoyed this class as much as I do.
Finally, Thank you Dr. He for exposing us to applications and concepts we will certainly use to advantage in our careers and personal lives.

Fair Journey!
Tamoul

Week 12 Muddy Point

Going back to the week 6 assignment, my muddy point is how is it possible to delete the public folder from the program. Once the folder is deleted why can one not restore it by reinstalling the program?

Week 12 Readings

Using a Wiki to Manage a Library program: Sharing knowledge to better serve patrons.

Librarians can make use of the Wiki to provide or share information across a network. When used to assist with instruction, staff members invited to the Wiki can edit and input resources to achieve a well rounded and rich tool set. The oppertunities for collaberative works alone make the instructional Wiki more interactive than plain text files. In my opinion, the wiki as an instructional tool is more valuable when those in need of instruction or input are great distance from those who have the resources to share.

WebBlogs: Their use and Applications In Science and Technology Libraries:

This article details the history, functionality and popularity of Web blogging. The range of blog types run the simple one page list of friends to call, to complex industry project logs. Children Blog about favorite shows and activities, teens may blog about social life, adults express their views on current hot topics. In library settings, Blogs contain information that is both time sensitive and mission critical, announce new resources and exchange a loose collection of work-culture ideas.


Creating the Academic Library Folksonoy:


Just as Google revolutionized the internet search, social tagging is revolutionizing the way people (researchers) access, collect and store those internet resources after they have been discovered. I see it in terms of effort reduction. By use of social tagging someone who found information on a topic of interest to me will have left a sign-post that says: "It's over here!" about whatever that topic is. The other nice thing about social tagging is the location. The collection of tags are always online which means one has access to them 24/7 via whatever device gets internet connectivity, plus keywords used and identification of content. So, instead of an exhaustive Google search that may produce content that is off-topic, I can search through social tags that have narrowed the parameters in advance.

As a Reference Librarian, where the entire reference interview may only consist of 13minutes, an accurate, dependable and fast search method that has pre-defined the content is a major tool to use in getting an answer to the Library user's questions or needs.


Jimmy Wales On the Birth of Wikipedia:

How to take the Concept of We The People to defining information on the Web. Wikipedia is doing for the internet what World Book Encyclopedia has done for the K-12 set. Most administrative functions are staff by volunteers which has reduced the operating cost. Considering that Wikipedia is multi-lingual and multi-cultural in scope. The content is edited for political balance and monitored for offensive content. Social policy and management software is employed to maintain some control of the issues under discussion.

Week 10 and 11-Muddy Points

My muddy point for week 10 and 11 is how so many organizations while trying for the same goal, have not achieved better networking methods and standards.

Why are University digital repositories not open online to the general public?

Week 9 Comments

1. Adrien's blog- https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5116479294225641407&postID=8570092441742701385&page=1

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5116479294225641407&postID=8570092441742701385&page=1

2. Bo's blog- http://analogfailure.blogspot.com/

3. Stephanie's blog https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5053881157949942224&postID=1769399562575819471&page=1

Week 11 Readings

Digital Libraries:


Digital collections are capable of holding a wide variety of content from plain text files to .gif and .jpg images, pdf, and WAV audo/video files. The efforts of several government and industry programs are currently engaged in compiling content from the world wide web for inclusion in digital archives. Access to these archives has not been conclusively determined. One example of a digital library that is free to access is Google Scholar.

Dewey Meets Turning:

From the prospective of Librarians the NSF's DL Initiative was a avenue to new funding and a way to experience new technologies. For the computer science professionals the partnership would mean a step into the social markets served by Libraries. What Paepcke calls a "Cuckoo's Egg" was the advent of the WWW and its proliferation of on-demand, open access information delivery. Here is the implied threat to computer science and library functions appears in which non-technical minded individuals with access to simple home computer can call up detailed content web pages from any server on the WWW.
I think society is still struggling to embrace the scope of the WWW and to a lesser degree the Net. How do different cultural groups assimilate the content concepts from outside their world view when encountered online?

Institutional Repositorities:

A Institutional Repository is those database resources held by places like Universities, Colleges, and Research Facilities or Information warehouses. The content of such Repositories can run the spectrum from simple cooking recipes to the chemical formula for a new flu vaccine.
Couple this content with the ability to network on a global scale and the true potential of digital Repositories becomes apparent.

Week 10 Readings

Digital Libraries-Challenges and Influential Work

Mischo sets out to describe the complexities involved in the creation and maintainence of digital Libraries. He states that a digital library is more than a collection of sound, image or data files.

AOI Meta Data for Libraries

Open Archive Initiative Meta-data Harvesting Protocol is a way to collect information about the structure of archived data. The OAIMH protocol was designed as a simple, low-barrier way to achieve interoperability through meta-data harvesting. Exactly how useful meta-data sharing will be has not been fully determined. However, considerable interest in OAI and experience with early OAIMH implementations is encouraging(Warner, S., Exposing and harvesting meta-data protocol, 2001).

Deep Web Surfacing Hidden Value

Programs called spiders or web crawlers are deployed to hunt the web pages in search of content. Some types of content, however escape detection by being buried or hidden from those commonly used detection programs. Think of it as viewing a photo. One can see what is in the foreground with little effort, but may need a magnifying glass to pull up finer details. The web crawers function as this magnifying class but is limited to commonly detectable elements. To get a veiw of the finer details or detect encoded meta-data, different program was needed. BrightPlanet technology was invented to read header packets and detect content by the size of the files. While this sounds simple it is very effective. Small content files do not use much in the way of bits and bytes, but files with larger files do.

Site characterization required three steps:

1. Estimating the total number of records or documents contained on that site.
2. Retrieving a random sample of a minimum of ten results from each site and then computing the expressed HTML-included mean document size in bytes. This figure, times the number of total site records, produces the total site size estimate in bytes.
3. Indexing and characterizing the search-page form on the site to determine subject coverage. (Bergmen, M. , 2001).
   

Muddy Point - New development:

After attending the lecture on campus, my muddy points have been addressed.

My Web Site Assignment

My Web site assignment was created using notepad and html code. This site is not fancy but
I hope it fulfills all the assignment requirements.

Here is the URL:
http://tee.qua.freehosting.net/

Not: because this is a free host it has ads and pop-ups.

Week 9 Muddy point

This week I find myself pretty much back on familiar territory and do not have many questions that will not be answered by the time the assignment details are posted.

Week 9 Readings

Web authoring and XML

XML is a supercharged version of HTML that is intended to be more semantic and browser independent. While the scheme is a bit more demanding to learn, XML has more stablility and functionality. Martin Bryan does a good job of explaining what the Language is and what one can acomplish with it. I found the way he introducted DTD (document type defination) better than most of the resources I have encountered. While the tags may appear a bit different, they still serve the same function ad HTML in the same manner. One the major differences of XML is user defined tags (as in create your own) that is not really possible with HTLM.

A Survey of XML Standards,

The second document is a wealth of information on the XML "standards". I have bookmarked a number of these resources as reminders of information that comes in handy when using XML. Like most any language both HTML and XML are always evolving and W3C the commission with oversight of the language keeps their web site updated.

Extending Your Markup
The last document really has working examples of the XML code. Another way to see the code in action is to open a browser, select a web page and go to Page source under the View tab. By reading the active code and referencing unfamiliar elements with the tutorials and documentation it isn't very hard to learn new what functions the unfamiliar components represent.

Overall, these documents and tutorials will enable the beginner to at least get a "feel" for the structure of the language, and with a bit of an adventurous spirit one can experiment ones way into a comfort zone with the content. Just remember that to learn a language takes time and attention to the little details. As with HTML, if a tag is not closed with the punctuation there will be an error. Anyone can write code starting with a simple set of notepad tags. To be compliant, the code must conform to the scheme conventions.

Week 8 Comments to Other Blogs

1. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4736393327020365268&postID=3136540489914330767&page=1

2. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5053881157949942224&postID=2854120791463412261&page=1

3. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4906315101547628497&postID=3337558703757866778&page=1

4. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6958200230416907745&postID=8124769927139738555&page=1

Week # 8 Muddy Point

Not really a very Muddy Point, but the requirements for the "My Page" assignment are not posted. What elements will the web pages need to contain, and what site will we use to host our pages?

Week 8 Readings

The W3schools HTML tutorial is an excellent primer for the basic structure of Hyper Text formating. One can use Text pad to create the Web Page, but one must paste the source code into a web browser to create the web pages. I am looking forward to this week's assignment as creating Web pages was the most enjoyable class in my undergraduate course of study.
Once one gets familiar with the use of "tags" (think old fashioned word processor type writers) and learning how to use the "href" code to import links and images, it is possible for a person with little experience to build a rather complicated Web page.

CSS -Casscading Style pages allow authors to enforge a theme throughout the entire set of Site pages. This is helpful when one wishes to use links to navagate from one page to another, display a logo on all pages in the same location, provide a consistant set of font, color and other elements from page to page.

The Cheat Sheet is a handy visual reference tool, but I would suggest to anyone who falls in love with greating Web pages to get a copy of Patrick Carey's HTML and XHTML. This book will take you by the hand and lead you through the steps of Web creation with concrete examples.

Koha Assignment Completed

URL to Virtual Book Shelf:

http://pitt5.kohawc.liblime.com/cgi-bin/koha/bookshelves/shelves.pl?shelfnumber=5&modifyshelfcontents=1&viewshelf=5&addbarcode=10010&modifyshelfcontents=1&shelfnumber=5

Week #7 Comments to Other Blogs

1. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4331968769876525173&postID=6414118446144952549&page=1

2. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1128670142701200699&postID=1676426029565176377&page=1

3. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=61837130736160649&postID=4740099175044384559&page=1

Week 7 Muddy Points

One much install Apache server and MySQL before installing Koha, but Apache
for Windows has firewall and security application issues that do not allow it to function.
The developers are looking into creating a bundled or integrated package installion but better instructions are needed to trouble shoot the background apps before one can move on to the installion of Koha. Is there a workaround to the firewall and security issues that a lay-person would understand?

Week # 7 Readings

How Internet Infra-structure Works:

Just like this week's Koha assignment, there are background applications that must be up and functioning before the main application will work correctly. On the hardward side, a router or modem or both (for home networking) must be present and correctly connected. On the software side, an Internet Service Provider has to appoint a TCP/IP and port address which is the electronic equiventent of ones house address for the internet. While humans are comfortable with the use of URLs to get to the sites of interest, the machine uses numberic sequence unique to each PC to manage server load and direct internet traffic.
The naming convention allows the sites from different organizations to be recognized. The dot-comes are "Communications", while the ORG's are "Organizations" and Edu's or GOV's are "Education" such as universities, while "Government" covers State, local and Federal agencies.
Domain Name Servers function like toll bridges for the Internet, once you get access the road is open. Browsers are the cars one drives over the electronic roads. URL's function as street addresses and let you find what you are looking for.

Ted-Talks: Larry and Sergey (the Video):

These are two men who want to see just how many uses and how far Google can expand in terms of goods and services via the Internet like Google Grants and Google Foundation which will be a contributor to other charities . The very first image illustrated just how many countries are making use of Google and at what times. Australia and African are under represented markets. The single second view of transmission appeared like something from the movie "The Matrix" or old fashion "snow" on an analogue TV screen. The content, he pointed out varied widely from health and career to online games. Google's goal is to increase the amount of searches conducted on Google engines. One thing I notice about Google is that they are willing to invest time and resources in small projects - I'd call them risk-takers- but innovations are resulting from this approach.

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems:

Can you say "In-ter-operability"? Well old ILS systems and newer ones can't. According to this article, not only do incompatibilities arise between one vender's product and another, but also between modules by the same vender. What Library staff want most is to be able to keep applications that work, discard those that malfunction more often than not, and have the ability to build onto exsisting (and sometimes older but more stable) applications.
In the section titled "Starting over" the article states that Sirsi Corporation discontinured the DRA ILS (which I think is miles better than Unicorn Workflows for reservations and item maintence) in 2001. True, DRA didn't have the full support to run on Windows, but in my opinion developers would have achieved a better product for building that support. According to the article the rewrite attempt failed, but I wonder if modifications to needed modules would have succedded.
Discussions about home-grown solutions to ILS problems are not meeting with great success either. The cost of Programmers and the complexities of the programs make the purchase of a new automated system more economical. What is therefore required is access to working demos of prospective products that are not so expensive as leave only the poorer engineered versions as options.

Jing/Screencast Assigment- In progress

Here is the URL to the Screencast.com portion of the Jing assignment.
http://www.screencast.com/users/NeferDragon/folders/Jing/media/eac90ce1-621b-4f61-bc9e-1405c8ca15cd

Jing photos on Flickr:

http://flickr.com/photos/29966241@N02/

Week #6 Response to other blogs

1. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7203734298375207400&postID=5979923452270935045&page=1

2. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7203734298375207400&postID=5979923452270935045

3. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4736393327020365268&postID=7210400771684751838&page=1

4. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5671000685629389967&postID=6339064433645300516&page=1

5. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1306183455487090817&postID=4369305451792631369&page=1

Week 6 -Muddy points

My muddy points are about the assignments. Information on how to get articles from Zotero into BibTex were not clear and gave many students I spoke with had great difficulty. The same can be said of the Jing assignment where it is unclear when to use Screencast and when to use Flickr.

Theres applications are fun projects and I hope to make some future use of them in a library setting.

Is there a required number of posts required in response to other student's blogs? Do you lose points for not having a "Muddy"?

Week 6 - Readings -Those 3 Letter Words

It's all about going out to play on the internet/World Wide Web. Even when users don't have a technical background they may have heard some spicy three letter words batted about. LAN-MAN-WAN. No, it's not a new song from the Woo-Tang-Clan. LAN stands for Local area network. An example of a Philadelphia LAN is Comcast, Verizon, and Sprint. These for Fee services provide a gateway connection from the customer's modem or DSL to hardware and software that form the connection to the internet.
MAN stands for Metropolitan Area network and provides city wide internet service to a large area. Philadelphia has "hot spots" where anyone with a wireless interface can connect to the Internet from their mobile devices. This service connection is free or Open Access. The final three letter word (WAN) stands for Wide Area network is used to connect to satellite networks internationally.
Without WAN the WWW(or Web) would not be truly gobel.

I have a LAN at home. It consists of my desk top computer unit, a DSL modem (service provided by a For Profit ISP-Internet Service Provider), a wireless router and a lap top computer with internal wireless technology. This network is considered a "closed system" because not outside computers have access rights to my Internet connection. Discovering Computers, describes a LAN in more detail(Cashman et, al. 2008, Chp. 9, pg.471).

All of the above Networks operate on a Client/Server configuration. Clients subscribe to a provider who then grants access to transmission and database servers.

YouTube on RFID:

This little video made me think a lot about the way companies like FedEX, UPS and other common carriers track purchased online and have shipped to our homes. We can go online and with a few clicks of the mouse tell if that package has been received at points along the way. The video showed the strips that look like common tape with circuits on the back that can slapped on almost anything. Want to track a box of Kix from the warehouse to the customer's checkout line, read the information on the RFID just like reading from a barscanner. The video voiced privacy issues, that I feel can be used or abused at will. What is the difference between these RFID tags and the computer chips now being shot into the family pet? How long before someone lobbies for the right to place such tracking items on law abiding citizen? Just how much control is too much control? How long before web cameras invade every street corner and satilite devices are programmed to pick up information from computer chips implanted into infants in hospital nurseries? Does give one a lot to think on, and a bit to be concerned over.

Zotero and CiteUlike-using BibTex

Here is the URL:
http://www.citeulike.org/user/QuakhaanTee

This was the most confusing assignment to date. I'm glade we had this assignment because all my Librarian friends didn't know a thing about CiteUlike or BibTex and now I can show them.

Week 5- Comments to Other Blogs

1. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4736393327020365268&postID=538258743774207874&page=1

2. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8246859739839578614&postID=3688707504678862386&page=1

3. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4181925387762663697&postID=2509969814099689784&page=1

4. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6411265268178233609&postID=3377650723589560831&page=1

5. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1129785935180596689&postID=7374628139044541268&page=1

Week 5- Muddy point

If students get to pick the topic of the Google Scholar articles are they restricted to information digital services, Library functions or some scientific area? Would a search on Popular Literature be acceptable? Will the citation generator not work for this topic?

Week #5 Readings -More for Less

Data Compression on Wikipedia:
Data compression saves on storage space. If one has ever used Win-Zip, the concept of more for less will be somewhat familiar. Compressed code or the bits and bytes of machine language take more time to transmit and more space to store depending on the size of the file(Wikipedia).
The other side of the coin is decompression, where file data is expanded back to it's original size. Think in terms of shrink to send and expand upon reception.

Compression Basics:
Compression Types,
Lossless:
Just as there are different types of operating systems for a computer, there are different types of compression software. In the online article, Compression Basics, two types are discussed. The Wikipedia example of Lossless compression stated that compression was accomplished by means of a mathmatical formula called a "algorithm" (remember your algebra?). The formula works by removing "redundant" or re-occurring bits. To paraphrase the Wiki example, Lossless compression would look like: A-to the second power, B-cubed, etc.
Here is my version:
(Original) left over dinner-(compression) lft ovr dnr =>(decompression) left over dinner
Transmission of the first part of the statement would take less time and space than the statment on the last side of the equasion.
Lossy compression involves the remove of qualities such as picture clairity, sound fidelitly, or other features not ususally apparent to the human eye(Wikipedia). Using this compression type an original photo may lose some of it's contrast, or brightness, etc.
Lossy:
There are two basic lossy compression schemes:

• In lossy transform codecs, samples of picture or sound are taken, chopped into small segments, transformed into a new basis space, and quantized. The resulting quantized values are then entropy coded.
  
  
• In lossy predictive codecs, previous and/or subsequent decoded data is used to predict the current sound sample or image frame. The error between the predicted data and the real data, together with any extra information needed to reproduce the prediction, is then quantized and coded.

(Retrieved online from: http://www.maximumcompression.com/lossless_vs_lossy.php)

FirstMonday Article:

Project increased cultural diversity of current collections.
Experienced the differences between results oriented and work-product-output results.
Expects to experience increased demand for service.
Fostered greater appreciation for digital conversion of old photos as a preservation method.


Youtube and Libraries:

good features,
Streaming Video format independence.
No technical Knowledge required for use.
Login and password account creation secure
Easy access from any internet enabled video device (MP3, iPod, Cell Phone, etc.)
Use a presentation or instruction video tool.
Wide range of Viewership.

Benefits to Libraries?

Virtual tours, catalogue linking to library servers, promote social events and communications, staff and user training sessions. Community outreach tool to children and teens.

Week 4 - Comments to Other Blogs

1. bf1lis2600- https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5848364238363716642&postID=2536497492260298933&page=1

2. Nileda- https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7435433289349349739&postID=7292513573689845377&page=1

3. -
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1306183455487090817&postID=1025117614346331319&page=1

Week 4 - Simple version of Metadata

As stated in the articles and books for this week, Metadata is information about information. Here is a simpler explanation.

Think of unsorted laundry. You put whites in one pile and colors in another. Meta data would tell the data base manager/application to create a chest of draws and put baskets inside. As items are entered the Meta data identifies the type: "This is a white sock, place it and all other socks in chest-draw #1. This is a blue T-shirt, place it and all other T-shirts in chest-draw #2 (where chest-draws =storage tables). Meta data also tells the data base that 999 baskets will fit in each chest-draw (where one basket= one data entry record), that there can be seven or more draws available and that each has whatever number of filled baskets, etc. When the chest-draw is full one must create/open another draw.
One must also note that unsorted Laundry cannot be dumped into draws labeled for sorted items. Only like- types are allowed. While you can put blue, green and white T-shirts in the same draw, they still have to be T-shirts. One can not place a white sock in with a white T-shirt. Likewise, one cannot place more than one sock or T-shirt in each basket. Meta data also says to name each basket something unique. Most databases have what they call a primary key. This key is usually a number (SSN, Acc, Order#, ect) that is used to quickly access the draw where the basket holding the T-shirt or sock that you need is stored. That way one need not rummage through every draw and basket looking for the Hello-Kitty socks or the Born-to-Bust-A-Move T-shirt.
To conclude, Meta data is the instructions that tell the storage, processing and retrieval functions how to behave. I hope this helps.

Week # 4 Databases, MetaData and Dublin Core

Database and Metadata by example:
Defining a data bases one could say is like selecting a container to hold a harvest of different kinds of beans. Each bean is some bit of information. However, unsorted one could spend a day finding the all the beans for a pot of limas or pintos. Therefore, beans need to be sorted into subcontainers. These subcontainers are called records. The information stored within each record is the raw data that one can manipulate, modify, retrieve or delete.
Most everyone knows how to use an index. Indexes indication the location of records containing desired information. That said, an index is Metadata, information about the infromation stored. A database is manipulated via a question or query. Queries are nothing more than search tools in the form of a set of search parameters.

According to the Wikipedia article for this week, the first electronic filing systems were operated with punch cards. My Dad worked for IBM (Owego, N.Y.) and I recall his having to get up at odd hours and drive to work because some staff member ran a "bad batch". The cards were hole-punched and run in sequence. To get a bad batch all one had to do was invert one of the cards from the correct order, or punch the wrong coding on the card. Finding and Fixing errors often took hours.

The Database Management System and the use of ad-hoc-query method solved the problem of information access and retreivel(Rob and Coronel, 2005). Three main types of databases are currently in use today: the private computer user, business networks and Governmental/University mainframe servers. Some databases are said to centralized when housed on site while other are considered distributed when housed at several different locations.

Dublin Core Data Model:

To put this simply, database query languages come in several flavors just like ice cream. You have MS Access, Oricle, SQL server and others. Some incompatibility issues exhist between these applications. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative seeks to discover a language that is platform or application independent. To achieve this goal the focus has been placed on " semantics to represent all resource descriptive requirements", "means for semantically refining such elements in order to say something much more specific", "specify a particular encoding scheme critical to the interpretation of metadata types", and "describe the content of resources" (Wikipedia).

Of equal importance is the establishment of shared values for Metadata semantics.


Reference:
Rob, P. , Coronel, C. (2005) Database Systems Design, Implementation and Management, pg. 3

Week #3 Comments

Week 3 Comments posted to Other student- Bloggers:

1.
http://elise-lis2600.blogspot.com/feeds/5388612374078564594/comments/default

http://nicplana.blogspot.com/2008/08/week-2-reading-notes.html

http://woodss53.blogspot.com/2008/08/week-2-readings.html

Week # 3 Reading Notes and Muddy Point

Introduction to Linux:

A computer operating system software designed to give a computer the instructions needed to function. The Software was written in "C" a programming language closer to human communication than machine language that is binary code. One of the features of "C" is that the code can be used more than once, meaning a section of code written for program can be "plugged into" another program to add functionality. Linux now has several versions most of which are open-course operating systems such as Somba, Red Hat and Knoppix are examples of Linux which now provide GUI's (graphic user interfaces) that look and feel like Microsoft Windows.

Software developers have observed that Linux is a very stable platform and most tools for the creation of applications is included in the system software. Examples of applications for Linux are Open-Office Suite, a set of MS Office comparable programs that offer word processing, data-base management, spread sheets and browsers such as Opera, Amaya (a free browser/Web page editor), Konqueror ( a browser that looks and feels the most like Internet Explorer that I have experienced), and FireFox (which has been adapted as an platform independent application - meaning that the application is suitable to run on Windows or Unix/Linux operating systems).

Kernelthread.com- What is Mac OS?

MacIntosh operating System, (or Mac OS as it has come to be called today) was Apple computer's response to the popularity of Microsoft Windows. The Mac system is Unix-kernel based which means most of the systems is operated from the command line. From the Beginning version called Darwin to the tenth version known as OS X, the system upgrades were not compatible with it previous versions. Speaking for personal experience, the Mac was easier to navigate in terms of creating and saving documents. PC's of the save era required complicated steps like writing in an entire file path. For example to save the file "Overnight" one had to type in C://Overnight.txt. This instructed the processor to store the file "Overnight" in the C-drive as text. In contrast to save the same file to a Mac one only had to create a desk-top folder, name the older, name the document and save it to the folder.


Update on Windows Roadmap:

There is good new and bad new for Windows XP lover such as myself. According to the article, Microsoft will continue offer support the operating system due the large numbers of users who still use the system. Last week I was able to download SP#3 for my laptop which included several security patches. The bad new is that Microsoft will no longer license and sell the O after June of this year.

The article also mentioned that Windows XP will still be available to users of Vista Ultimate and Business versions as a "Downgrade right" (Vighte, B. 2008, SuperSite Blog). Backward compatibility was one of the hallmarks of Windows systems, but Vista in the areas of network compatibility, Service Pack issues and IP issues.

The mention of Windows 7 toward the end of the artical made me wonder if most customers were less than pleased with Vista. One suggestion offered by the artical as an alturnitve to Vista was continuing to use XP with SP#3 and IE 7 until Window 7 is launched.



Muddy point: For Week 3 readings and muddies are due by what time on Friday? Comments are due by what time on Monday? If the submissions are online, do we have until 9pm?

Photos on Flickr

I have selected a set of photos that express my heritage and interests.
URL: http://flickr.com/photos/29966241@N02/?saved=1

Now that I know my scanner is working and how to use Flickr, I can send photos to friends and family. Thank you Dr. He for requiring this assignment.

Other thoughts One Week 2

The PDA and cell phone have converged into the "smart Phone". Will the "Tablet PC" or "Hand-held"computers converge into a voice activated, web-cam enabled, Internet surfing, VoIP Mobile computing device?

Embedded computer add functionality to GPS systems, fuel injectors, air bags, anti-lock braking systems and environmental controls in cars. This same technology is moving into home electronics and common appliances as heating and cooling, light fixtures and sleep-number beds.

Computers are our Doctors:

From CAT scanners to MRI imagers, computers now play a major role in the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of all but the least common health care issues. Websites like WEB-M.D.com now offer Internet users aide to determine if a set of physical or mental conditions suggest a visit to ones family health care provider. In the operating room, computer-programmable devices are replacing the hands of surgeons.

Ethics and Issues:

Should "Big Brother" have the right to place the average law abiding citizen under intense surveillance as a matter of course? No. I feel such a practice violates the basic civil rights of American citizens to exercise the first amendment. Surveillance technology should be reserved for intense study and determent of foreign "hate and home-grown "supremacy" groups.

Digital Literacy and other thoughts from Unit 2

Understanding the digitizer- Any handwriten item on a page, human vocalization conducted face-to-face are considered Analog.
Digital=binary(on/off or 1 and 0)
A bit is the smallest portion of storage and it takes eight of these units to make one byte. One byte of bits is needed to transmit enough binary code (also called machine language) to represent a single number, letter or charactor in human language. Bytes are then used to store data sets(units of information to be retrieved later) in a computer memory device such as a hard drive.

Memory types:

RAM- Random Access Memory
ROM - Read Only Memory
COM- Complementary Metal-oxide Semiconductor
Cashe- (level 1 and Level 2 processors) aids processing speed
Flash- USB/removeable /temporary storage devices

Digitization

The question of Digitization's worth can be answered best not by counting the cost but rather by the impact it has on the user. The ability to deliver readable copy, vibrant images, to capture and thus preserve sounds, text and video in a medium that is less destructible that the original source, is in my opinion worth the time and cost.
For example, an out of print book item is sought online as a birthday gift for a family member who loved the story as a child. If someone, somewhere, at some time made a digital copy of this item the digital version (say it's a .pdf file) could be located, purchased and downloaded for reading on a computer or other reading device. Without Digitization, this item would remain unavailable.
The same argument would be made for saving family photos, Reunion videos, song collections, important instructional methods and other teaching tools.
Digitization cuts down on the dependence on paper copy. The movement to "Go green" may embrace the technology as a "tree-saver". Digital books are one of the Philadelphia Free Library's fastest growing collections, second only to the DVD collection for "current Blockbuster" movies (personal observation only).
Finally, as no method of medium delivery is flawless, problems with going digital may be reduced as the methods and technology mature.

Week One readings and Muddy Point

Muddy Point:

Don't understand the logic of requiring that week two assignment be placed before week one. Also, due having taken online courses in an totally different environment, getting accustomed to Black board is a small challenge. Please correct me but the down loads of software are not a major issue?

Week One Observations of the Readings:

• If books, CD's, ipods and DVD's are all just containers what will containers of the future become? What about the issues of copyright (will the content have the protection of the law or will the container ?). OCLC report: Information Format Trends: Content, Not Containers (2004)
  
• Working in a public library as I do provides a clear view of the differences between those who have a working knowledge of computers and the Internet vs. those who cling to analog methods and thinking. The time factor in searching for information (be it for pleasure or to fill a practical need) is accelerated for frequent computer uses. I would display that difference as the difference between the efforts of someone who is struggling just to learn how to read and someone who is capable of speed-reading both addressing a hundred words of text.

Comments to other Student Blogs:
Elizabeth Ferer- http://elise-lis2600.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Michelle Crouch- http://michellesintrotoit.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Eileen Akin - http://tophatsandflappers.blogspot.com
Suzanna Woods - http://woodss53.blogspot.com/

Week 2 readings

Computer Hardware (Wikipedia)

Certain parts of a computer are currently standardized as necessary to operate ones unit. However, with the rate at which machines are evolving I think these standard configurations will change.
My first computer was a Commodore-64 which ran on the DOS operating. (Just think "per-Java or before the Internet could do graphics). Such systems consisted of a stand-alone CPU, a Monitor that weighed a ton and a plug-in mouse. In comparison, the laptop that I currently use is integrated, compact and wireless. The Brain of my computer (the motherboard) is now located under the keyboard, the mouse has been replaced by the touch pad.

In terms of portability, the laptop is a more social machine. Laptops can function via wireless networks rather than be confined to a workstation in a fixed location. At the free Library here in Philadelphia our HomePage Cafe attracts laptop users with free Wi-Fi, cafe tables and a coffee vendor.

Newer laptops now have built-in web cameras that allow users to send and receive real time transmissions. All these advances leave me wondering if the line between TV broadcasts, web services and phone functions will blurr to a point as to be invisible.

Methods of Connection:

Broadband- DSL/modem
Fiber optic cable
Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity)

Service Providers: Connection for fee
Connections for free

Bandwidth= speed of data transmission

What's your address?

Internet Protocol address= virtual mailing location which usually resembles a set of numbers separated by a dot. Example: 198.652. 1.1
Domain Name = Name of the Web site, also used by browser to locate Web pages on servers.

Web site types:
Portals- goods and services
News- current events and concepts
Information- data collections

Browsers:
MS Internet Explorer
Mozilla FireFox
Netscape
Konquror (Linux/unix)
Opera
Safari

Features on Browsers:

Animation- movement on screen that simulates actions. Usually requires use of Java programs.

Streaming Media- continues transmission of audio/visual files in a flash or player program. (example Site: Stardolls.com)

Plug-ins- media players, PDF file readers, tool bars

E-commerce:
Some web sites function like brick and mortar stores that display or advertise goods and services to be paid for via electric funds transfer.