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.