Saturday, October 30, 2010

11/1 Comments

http://edenorelove.blogspot.com/2010/10/unit-8-reading-responses-html-and-web.html?showComment=1288467163856#c481012455642565318

http://saralis2600.blogspot.com/2010/10/reading-notes-for-111.html?showComment=1288467547030#c8758793178380912447

http://kaitmlyons.blogspot.com/2010/10/muddiest-points-1025.html?showComment=1288466422060#c8171142354364793393

11/1 Reading Notes

W3 HTML Tutorial
Like others, I have bookmarked this for future use, because it is plausible that I will need to know the fundamentals of HTML as some dark point in my career. My web-cool friends have informed me that most programs I will be using to build and host sites with will take care of the HTML for me, but one never knows. I like the specificity of the site, and the concrete nature of the language. So much of what I’ve studied before has had large fields of gray; this is all black and white.
I must admit, though, that the claim: “HTML is easy to learn - You will enjoy it,” terrifies me. Right off the bat, I know the trajectory of the task. I’m dealing with people who openly overestimate my tech-savvy. This is either casual blindness or shameful marketing.

Learn tight-rope-walking for fun and profit in one easy step!

Webmonkey
This is more a reference tool than an article to comment on, but as such I suppose it could end up being more helpful in the learning process. I can see how, until you’ve mastered the process, this guide would be invaluable. This whole HTML process is reminding me quite a lot of a Japer Fforde novel. It takes some mental redirection (like backing up a trailer) to accept that web pages are born from such chicken-scratch.


W3 CSS
Let me see if I’ve got this:
Cascading Style Sheets are essentially a designer-created matrix for HTML documents. So if I have to input or update information into twenty different pages of a site, I do not have to start from scratch on each page. I design my CSS once, and it will determine the style (translated for Philistines like myself: “look”) of all twenty pages. I can then simply focus on the content of each page, and be home for dinner on time.

Goans, D., Leach, G., & Vogel, T. M. (2006). Beyond HTML: Developing and re-imagining library web guides in a content management system. Library Hi Tech, 24(1), 29-53.
I think I would need to know more about a few things to fully understand the study referenced here. I understand that the FrontPage-published websites that GSU’s Libraries had been using were poorly-designed, inefficient, and unsecured. The CMS, by comparison, gave its users more flexibility and greater security, while saving every page in a database, and allowing librarians (and maybe patrons) to customize their own links…. I’m still honestly fuzzy on some of this.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Muddiest Point 10/25

A bit off-topic, but here it is:
Would search-engine-marketing or pay-per-click experience be valuable to academic libraries? I know that there is a push toward heavy marketing in public libraries, but is the same true of academic institutions?

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Comments, 10/23/2010

http://kaitmlyons.blogspot.com/2010/10/reading-notes-1025.html?showComment=1287847182843#c8520820253260098701

http://marclis2600.blogspot.com/2010/10/readings_21.html?showComment=1287847867238#c7172393115263972308

http://cstalkerlis2600.blogspot.com/2010/10/unit-7-internet-and-www-technologies.html?showComment=1287848322255#c240249638888962712

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Muddiest Point Fast-Track-Style

I would just like to say thank you to all the on-campus types who welcomed us Fast-Track stepchildren with open arms.
And: I had planned on making connections with actual people so that I could connect faces and hasty first-impressions with their blogs, but I failed, and I apologize.

10/25 Reading Notes

Jeff Tyson: Internet Infrastructure
This was wildly informative. I’ve heard simple descriptions of how the internet functions, and I’m sure that Tyson has only scratched the surface here, but I think I got the basics now. It is fantastic to me to think that the magical, futuristic connectivity that spans the globe (and allows most of humanity to communicate almost instantly) can be reduces to cables underground or up in the air. All that data still hums through something similar to the telegraph wires that crossed our nation in the 1860s.
I also appreciate that it is the agreement between huge companies that allows this to function at all. I didn’t realize that the West had underhandedly exported the free market around the world. I guess the Google-in-China debate has layers I hadn’t thought of….

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems
Libraries have earned such a reputation for thrift (or stinginess, depending on your bent and motives) that vendors know they won’t be buying their best technology. Tech-developers have begun to hawk basic service platforms, so librarians won’t need to hack or jury-rig them. Librarians are the Cuban mechanics of software, apparently (Cuba is filled with old US or Soviet-bloc autos which keep running for decades longer than intended).

Sergey and Larry
If my employer (if it hadn’t just laid me off) would have given me 20% of my time to pursue my own projects, I would probably not have created anything worthwhile. But I would be roughly 20% happier at work….
I don’t know what to think about these two Smashing Young Men who have made my own goals and accomplishments look…unambitious. Okay: pathetic. Sergey and Larry basically just spent 20 minutes explaining how much cooler their company is than the company I would own if I could have been bothered to start one instead of teaching my kids how to ride their bike without training-wheels or developing a taste for pho.
Thanks, Google. Thanks a ton.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Jing Assignment! Jing Assignment!

Jing video about how to feed my blog-fish:

http://www.screencast.com/users/andrewkulp/folders/Default/media/1cdc564c-998e-498f-8b63-e65aa0a157e8

Jing-Flickr image captures

RFID
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54021778@N04/5068729663/
Koi Thing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54021778@N04/5068708143/
Blog Capture
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54021778@N04/5068700559/in/photostream/
Odin's T-rex
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54021778@N04/5068690339/in/photostream/
Penny
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54021778@N04/5068658511/in/photostream/

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Week 6 Comments

http://annebetz-lis2600.blogspot.com/2010/10/week-six-muddiest-points.html?showComment=1286637201081#c1404734980205733931

http://annebetz-lis2600.blogspot.com/2010/10/week-6-readings.html?showComment=1286638188315#c7383922289432177224

http://deyslis2600.blogspot.com/2010/10/week-six-readings-post.html?showComment=1286638528022#c8259712143109129754

Week 6 Reading Notes

Wiki LAN
The other day I used the LAN at my local McDonalds to research for an essay. Next week I may try to use the internet at my local grocery store, or possibly the nearest Home Depot. I guess the necessity to connect to the internet everywhere we go has made it possible to do so…. At some point, after everyone has a LAN, and we have all learned to violate each others’ password protections, we will have blanket coverage wherever we go. I saw a commercial for a cell phone that creates a portable LAN for other devices to use wherever it goes. This whole thing is getting out of control.

Wiki Networks
I appreciated the diagrams on this page; networks make more sense to me when they can be mapped, Lombardi-style.
In my current terrible position I use a VPN network to access the home office’s network while in “the field.” It seems to be a secure enough way to share sensitive information over distance while maintaining access to the databases in the office. It also fails to work properly fairly often.
My previous employer used a local network with a twisted-pair connection that was far more reliable, but limited my ability to run through the halls with my machine, which is never truly necessary, but nevertheless often daydreamed-about.
It makes sense that the internet was initially (and still is in places) an overlay network for the phone system. I guess that matrix will continue to be used as overlay networks layer one another in the future. Elmo on Sesame Street told me the other day that high speed internet is a basic right of all children in the US (akin to life liberty, etc.). I assume that at some point we will all have access to free connectivity wherever we go, and that separate overlaid networks will ensure the security of private firms and institutions.

YouTube Networks
I should have watched this before I read the wiki article. Basically the same information abridged for the ADHD crowd, and with almost no technical jargon or instruction: I approve wholeheartedly!
I would also like to speculate that if Mr. Klein were to lower his sweater zipper by even a couple of teeth, his head might fall off. For the record I hope that I am wrong, or that at least this does not happen.

RFID in Libraries

I think that RFID applications are a natural fit for libraries. RFID tags could handle some of the tasks which needy and overly-hip undergrads typically perform in libraries, making good economical sense. Additional savings in lost and damaged materials and collection movement analysis makes RFID tough to challenge.
Privacy issues are justified, but I'm not sure they are prohibitive. Apparently current library RFID tags are too weak to usefully track materials that accompany me to my seediest haunts. I've always assumed that the bar-code on my library card enabled librarians (and, hypothetically, Big Brother) to research my borrowing history. In an age when our web footprint is traceable and when every citizen could be packing a (GPS enabled) video recorder, worrying about which library materials I check out seems...quaint.
I think RFID improvements for library usage may be more policy- than technology-driven: Educating the public about the uses and limitations of the tags, and encouraging transparency amongst institutions, the public, and the courts.
Note: This last bit was taken from my previous Blackboard Discussion Board post.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Muddiest Point 10/4

Since a good library is something like a big, semi-organic database in which we all have a role or function, does anyone else feel like those cleaner-fish who swim around the bigger, sloppier fish making everything run more smoothly?

Maybe an ant farm is a better metaphor.

Nevermind.