Assignment 5: Koha

http://pitt4.kohawc.liblime.com/cgi-bin/koha/bookshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=42

Assignment 4: Jing w/ Flickr

Jing Video Set:
http://www.screencast.com/users/randhall/playlists/twitter_tutorial

Note: I taped my tutorial in three segments, not realizing that Jing doesn't allow you to edit clips together. The above URL links to my playlist of those three clips; please simply watch them in order and think of them as comprising a single video.

Flickr Photo Set:
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919556395/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919557807/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919560359/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919562945/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919566637/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2920413380/in/set-72157607800019414/

Alternately, you can watch a slideshow of the six photos with just one click:
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/sets/72157607800019414/show/with/2919556395/

Week 7 Readings: Comments

http://ngrey666.blogspot.com/2008/10/reading-notes-seven.html?showComment=1223311740000#c2950138452860498583

http://dgs18.blogspot.com/2008/10/week-7.html?showComment=1223312220000#c3626771852330189046

Muddiest Point: Lecture 6

I understand that computers send messages over networks by splitting each message into packets and sending those packets out individually. However, I don't understand how packets get put back together again to reform messages. How does TCP work?

Week 7 Readings

The article on Internet infrastructure was most helpful for me when it explained how caching works. I understood that my computer was saving some sort of information to make for faster loading times, but I didn't understand the principles involved until now. Article author Jeff Tyson is right to say that Domain Name Servers' ability to work together to handle billions of requests every day is a testimony to their design.
Reading the article on Integrated Library Systems felt a bit like being thrown into the deep end; I can't remember the last time that I read anything so impenetrably jargon-laden. If I understand the gist of the article, libraries have had no luck establishing standards for themselves, and vendors can't be persuaded to design interoperable modules. But the upshot is that the Web is currently making both of those problems irrelevant. Right?
The video on Google was fairly interesting even though it was filmed over four years ago. I found it amusing that when I did a search for Google Answers, I learned that the service was discontinued two years ago. I then found it even more amusing that when I did a search for Orkut, I learned that over 60% of the site's users are now located in Brazil. I can only imagine what was on display at Google's invite-only meeting this year!

Assignment 3: Zotero & CiteULike

http://citeulike.org/user/randhall

Note: every time that I tried to import new articles from CiteULike to Zotero, I got an error message stating, "An unknown error occurred while saving this item." I posted about this problem days ago on the Technical Discussion board, but no one was able to help me. So, for the second time in a row, I've been unable to do everything that was assigned, through no fault of my own.

Week 6 Readings: Comments

http://monicalovelis2600discussion.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-6-readings.html?showComment=1222472460000#c6996120905331742559

http://egriswoldlis2600.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-6-readings-computer-networks.html?showComment=1222473360000#c4567931830942777900

Muddiest Point: Lecture 5

I was most interested this week by the comparison of the many different image file types that are available, and I was wondering: if PNG seems like the best-of-all-worlds, is there any reason not to discontinue the use of GIF and JPEG entirely?

Week 6 Readings

Encarta's article on computer networks offers a shorter, more authoritative definition of LANs and other networks than anything available on Wikipedia. Most of this information I already knew: LANs handle small distances, WANs (like the Internet) handle huge distances, and Ethernet is used to wire everything together. The YouTube video was helpful for its brief descriptions of PANs and MANs, neither of which I had noticed before. In sum, this was all pretty basic information, and I'm sure it will be covered almost identically in our next lecture.
The article on RFID tags in libraries was actually a really interesting one. I'd read about the technology's applications for fast transactions and package tracking, but I hadn't thought about its potential applications in our field. The several limitations noted - for example, size and cost - are a little discouraging, but the technology is improving all the time. I was most impressed with the idea that RFID tags could prove helpful even when books aren't going anywhere, just by facilitating inventory sweeps. Shelf reading, we hardly knew ye!

Week 5 Readings: Comments

http://bkf1lis2600.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-five.html?showComment=1222043460000#c272688998892353908

http://amarti27.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-5-readings.html?showComment=1222043880000#c8573409077984132830

Muddiest Point: Lecture 4

We briefly noted that there are four main types of databases: relational, object-oriented, object-relational, and multi-dimensional. What's the difference between an object-oriented database and an object-relational one?

Week 5 Readings

As much as it pains me to say it, the Wikipedia article on data compression was really helpful for understanding what the concept is all about. The basic example provided to show the difference between lossless and lossy compression was such a useful one! Sure, it's cool that you can compress 25.888888888 to 25.[9]8 and save space without losing any information, but if you just round to 26, you can save even more space... as long as you don't mind losing some of your original information.
The article on imaging Pittsburgh was amusing for its anecdotes on the difficulties inherent to any grand cross-institution project. The author writes, "Speaking as project leader, it’s difficult for me to judge whether the silence means everyone knows exactly what to do and are doing just that, or they are so busy doing other jobs that they don’t have time to communicate. Likely it is a bit of both." Dear Mr Galloway: likely, everyone involved grew silent because they stopped caring about the quality of their work once they realized that virtually no one will ever want to seriously utilize a database of old pictures of Pittsburgh.
My favorite article, though, had to be the ALA article on YouTube. It is totally, absolutely true that libraries could conceivably make little home movie how-to videos and upload them for patrons' benefit. It's just funny to think that librarians will be uploading these self-help clips to the same site that I use to watch music videos and Rick Roll my friends. In all seriousness, though, the potential for distance learning is enormous.

Week 4 Readings: Comments

http://aaj8.blogspot.com/2008/09/reading-iv.html?showComment=1221353700000#c4372900456066962861

http://kerricimineralis.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-3_12.html?showComment=1221358980000#c81710883548567736

Week 4 Readings

The article on databases was interesting in that I hadn't known before that there were so many different ways of organizing data: according to the hierarchical, network, and relational models, at the least. It makes perfect sense that not every block of data can be organized in the same way as every other, since there are so many ways that data can relate to one another.
I also didn't realize how many applications there are for metadata. It's somehow odd to think that every time I tag a picture online or write a caption, I'm providing information about information, even though that's a fairly straightforward description of what I'm doing. The fact that some metadata actually exists from the time of certain data's creation is noteworthy.
The Dublin Core Data Model article reminded me of some of my readings in the philosophy of language over the past few years. It really is difficult to try to invent a natural way of naming and connecting every thing in the world. And that task just gets more difficult when you realize that you have to somehow leave room for speakers of other languages to insert their own names and make their own connections. It's scary to consider!

Muddiest Point: Lecture 3

As usual, there really wasn't much confusing about this week's lecture, so I'll just ask another question out of curiosity. With regards to the history of different versions of Windows, why is it that so many after 95 have had such short lifetimes? It seems that NT, 98, 2000, and Me were each considered top-of-the-line for only 1-2 years each. What's different about XP that has allowed it to succeed despite so many earlier versions having failed?

Assignment 2: Flickr

http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/sets/72157607204900490/

All ten pictures are available in five sizes.
(Just click "All Sizes" above each picture.)
To view each master copy, select "Large".
To view each resized copy, select "Medium" (or "Small").
To view each thumbnail copy, select "Thumbnail" (or "Square").

Week 3 Readings: Comments

http://melhohman.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-3-readings.html?showComment=1220926140000#c6545428521112617052

http://jwi5.blogspot.com/2008/09/reading-notes-3.html?showComment=1220926680000#c3082898237196693293

Week 3 Readings

Of the three articles we were to read regarding operating systems, the one on UNIX/Linux was easily the most interesting. It's a relief to know that before I was even born, someone had the knowledge, motivation, and talent required to design a free, universally-compatible operating system. All I've ever heard about UNIX/Linux has been negative - specifically, that it's difficult to learn to use and that only total geeks opt for it - and while all of that seems to in fact be true, I can't help but have a much healthier respect for the OS now.
The Mac OS X article was for the most part too jargon-heavy for me to make much sense of it. I understand that Macs in general have benefits other than easy media manipulation and system stability. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that OS X is mostly more of the same, but with some nifty new applications such as Exposé and decent speech recognition.
I'm not entirely sure what we are meant to gather from the article on Windows XP, Vista, and a ways-off Version 7 other than what most of us already know: the majority of PC users - such as myself - have XP and see no reason to switch to Vista, yet Microsoft is doing its best to force Vista upon us, even implicitly threatening that we'll never be able to fully acclimate to Version 7 in the future if we don't start learning Vista now. I can't say I'm scared.

Week 1 Readings: Comments

http://iit2600.blogspot.com/2008/08/notes-for-week-one-iit.html?showComment=1220661120000#c8651963118663218317

http://michellesintrotoit.blogspot.com/2008/08/reading-notes-for-week-1.html?showComment=1220661660000#c1438943155978952704

Muddiest Point: Lecture 2

Most of Lecture 2 was straightforward, so there weren't too many muddy points to choose from. Out of curiosity, though, I have to ask what the connection is between USB cables and computer buses. The lecture made it seem as though buses are purely channels that allow devices within a computer to communicate with each other. If that's the case, then what makes cables that connect devices to computers externally "Universal Serial Buses"?