Assignment 4

Hey y'all.

I did Assignment 4 all about pirated YouTube videos. Pirating is a personal pet peeve of mine so if you do it don't tell me about it!

Here's the video I created: http://www.screencast.com/t/E2bCIGmip8l.

Here are the images I created, handily available in a slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/sets/72157607607965257/show/with/2901421707/

I originally thought I could make a video from the images, but I was either wrong or it was just so much easier to create a video too that I didn't bother. If you only want to see the core of the pictures (5 instead of the 10), you can click here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/2901420005/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/2901420005/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/2901420325/,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/2901420325/,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/2901420521/).

Week 6 Comments

This week's comments are brought to you by The Breakfast Club. What's your archetype?

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Week 6 Muddiest Point

I didn’t find the time to look into it myself after finishing the Wikipedia article on Networks, but are we going to go over Bluetooth networks in class? I should very much like to know more about them.

PS- I searched and searched and searched for a particular picture for this week’s muddiest point. As a young’un I loved the movie Drop Dead Fred about a girl and her imaginary friend (really her id) who keeps getting her in trouble. There’s a lovely mud pie scene in that film, but I couldn’t find a screen capture high or low. Anybody know where I can find a screen capture of it?

PPS- Are we really in week 6 already? Sheesh!

Week 6 Readings

YouTube
In my apartment building we all share one wireless internet connection. Does this count as a LAN or a PAN? I would have just jumped on LAN before this video, but now I’m thinking it might be a PAN since I don’t share any of my files with them—and I’m not sure that if I wanted to I could. It’s the same sort of thing at McDonald’s or Starbucks I guess—you’re all sharing the internet connection, but can you be said to be on a LAN?

Wikipedia: Networks
What advantages and disadvantages does a university the size of Pitt see in LAN WAN? Are the considerations different for universities the size of say CalU (California University of Pennsylvania) or IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) than for Pitt?

Wikipedia: LANs
I can’t believe the first LAN was set up in 1974! Do you think Harvard and Yale were very angry indeed that Cambridge did it first? I shouldn’t be surprised if Oxford is still ticked off—can you imagine not being able to invite them over for tea and crumpets (a most scrumptious delight) for decades over this business?
“Netware dominated[8] the personal computer LAN business from early after its introduction in 1983 until the mid 1990s when Microsoft introduced Windows NT Advanced Server and Windows for Workgroups.” Wait—what’s netware? What’s it got to do with LANs? Confused=me.

RFIDs
Is it just me, or is anybody else reminded of those chips they implant in dogs to identify them if they run away when the author describes the radio frequency, electromagnetic field, having so much information, and not having to be seen to be read of RFIDs? I really like the author’s points that RFIDs are multitasking (doing both security and circulation) and money-saving in comparison to their use by the retail sector.

Assignment 3

Here's the link to my Assignement 3: http://www.citeulike.org/user/quiimp

Whew was this a toughie! Honestly, playing to-the-death chess may be easier than researching articles on chess!

If anybody else gets to the point where they're going to pull out their (in my case Hermione-textured) hair out, may I recommend installing Firefox version 2.0? For me, Firefox 3.0 (the lastest), demanded Chrome compatability, which Zotero doesn't seem to have, so I was getting a whole lot of nowhere for hours.

Week 5 Comments

This week's comments are brought to you by the Macho Man Randy Savage, who wants to take a moment to inquire: "Would you care for a refreshing Slim Jim? They are snap-into-able!" Such a polite young man. And look at that QVC-ready face!

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Week 5 Muddiest Point

She’s so plastered.

Maybe I just missed it in the reading, but does the collaborative Pittsburgh digital image collection only include “old” photographs—i.e. stuff from before 1960? In twenty years will it be our task as librarians to digitize photographs from 1960-2000? How many of these images will already be digitized? How many photographs may be lost to us by a Flickr account going inactive or an inadvertent Delete? In short, how will already digitized images be put in digital libraries in similar, future collaborative efforts?

Week 5 Readings

Wikipedia: Data Compression
Is data compression what is being used or what is being reversed in the creation of high-definition DVDs like BluRay?
Possibly the best-written WikiTech article I’ve read yet for this class. Let’s keep it up!
Does anybody use Zip drives anymore? Is a zip drive the same thing as an external hard drive? I so totally remember wanting a zip drive badly in my tween years cause they had these sweet ads, but I can’t say I actually know anybody who got one, other than Carrie Bradshaw. Thanks Aidan!!!

ACRL
With YouTube and Blogger both owned by Google, it should now be easier than ever to get tech-savvy at your library. I can especially imagine teen services hopping on this.
Do you think in another 5 years that watching a series of YouTube videos will be a part of the summer reading program at your local library? I’m thinking back to the 2007 summer reading program especially, which involved kids playing detective (y'all remember—007 right?).

Data Compression
The DVD link I guessed at is here! Makes me wonder about laser disks. Do you remember them? They were vinyl-sized but made out of DVD material and played on what resembled a superhuge DVD player. We had them in art class when I was in 6th grade to replace slides. The art teacher (hugz for Mr. Riskofski!) loved them, but was back to slides the next year for our lessons in art appreciation for some reason. *Ponder*

Digital Library
This is a fantastic example of (and a well- and clearly-written explanation of) a fabulous cross-city collaboration. The reality of the difficulty of such a collaboration, though, came to life in the “Communication Challenges” section when the author said “A simple example is a cataloging discussion we once had regarding subject terms. Our museum friends tend to view their image collections as works of art with intrinsic value as a photograph. The academic archives tend to view their image collections for utilitarian purposes with minimal description, while the historical society’s practice has been to provide contextual information that not only describes the image, but informs the reader about the history and impact of an area or person depicted by the image.” I went and spent a few minutes on the site (a link to which was buried all the way down in the article’s references) and found it spiffy. Please to enjoy yourselves: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh/.

Week 4 Comments

This week’s comments are brought to you by Inigo Montoya: the only persona clutch enough to undo the retina-scarring presence of (don’t scroll down!) Rainbow Brite. BTDubs, you haven’t seen the six-fingered man’s blog have you? K thnx bi!

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Week 4 Muddiest Point

This week’s Muddiest Point is brought to you by a very special and not-so-muddy guest: Rainbow Brite!

A shout out to my homie Chris for allowing me to ride your mustang. And yes, I mean that in the most double entendre-y way possible, just to make you blush brighter than Rainbow Brite’s 80s-tastic scrunchie here. It is by Chris’s request that Rainbow Brite is with us today. Fantabulous sparkles and rainbows y’all!

Annnnnnyway…the muddiest point this week relates to the different types of databases as outlined in Wikipedia.
I pondered and pondered and pondered my little heart out, but I couldn’t think of good examples for a hierarchical model, a network model, and a relational model in tangible terms like grandma’s kitchen (could one be like her recipes, another her spice rack, a third her cooking methodology on Thanksgiving?). Can any reader out there think of a good, tangible, preferably related set analogous to the different database models?

Week 4 Readings

Wikipedia: Database
“The first successful database product for microcomputers was dBASE for the CP/M and PC-DOS/MS-DOS operating systems.”
What a revolution it must have felt to have a database function on your DOS! I can still remember the day when our town’s video store (Video Snax, catty corner to the Outlaw Pizza/TCBY in case you’re a Uniontown native too) and home of the town’s most tech-forward family showed me their newly-installed DOS computer. It had a black screen with orange writing and had a blinking cursor, no images (only capital text), but the lady behind the counter (the business owner’s wife and office manager) was ga-ga telling my techie dad all about the wonders of spreadsheets (they’d save her so much time and ink!) and they both salivated over the Dot Matrix printer—on which later that year a spiffy banner would be printed for my birthday party. Anyway, I digress…I can only imagine the joy overload the woman would have experienced if she could have also had a database with all the movies catalogued for shelf placement, related titles, subject, actors, etc. in addition to that Dot Matrix hotness.
“In the United Kingdom, legislation protecting the public from unauthorized disclosure of personal information held on databases falls under the Office of the Information Commissioner. United Kingdom based organizations holding personal data in electronic format (databases for example) are required to register with the Data Commissioner.”
It’s more than a little obvious that the British are a sometimes odd bunch, eh? But this seems a wee bit ridiculous, even for them. Would SCALA (the Student Chapter of the American Library Association, the self-proclaimed greatest club or organization in the Pitt Universe) be required to sit down for afternoon tea with the Data Commissioner simply because they keep a list of their members’ names and emails? Shizzle what a mess! I would presume to call SCALA’s membership list a proper database, but it’s not too terribly loose an interpretation of a relational database I don’t think considering that the roster is searchable and can know as much as graduation date, email address(es), name, specialization, best meeting times, and interests.

Introduction to Metadata
The third paragraph got me thinking: is metadata perhaps THE most important library tool? Before computers, can it be said that librarians worked with their mentally-stored and card-catalog-stored metadata to find materials for patrons? Without metadata on the items in a library, we really just have a mass of materials, not anything—information or knowledge or data or otherwise—that we can provide to inquiring minds. Hence, metadata may be even more important than circulation systems or internet access or other library tools and services. Wow, finally a paragraph too serious for a picture… oh wait, nevermind.
PS- Dance, Data, dance! Show the space lady a good time you robotic sexpot you!

Working with Endnote
I can see a hardcore genealogist—or maybe those people at Classmates.com, (BTW did you know that the nerd girl hooked up with the jock guy and they have 5 kids!?! ROFL!!1!)—getting their own copy of Endnote to suit their research needs as they search across a far-flung variety of databases and sources and such, and as they want to go three and four cross references deep into their research.
How much does Endnote cost? I can see it being a good investment for a PhD student who will be doing years of reading and research culminating in a dissertation, but is it cost effective for the average individual user. How do non-research libraries justify buying it when they may as well use free online tools or good old fashioned elbow grease for patrons doing references on library computers?

Dublin Core
Sadly, this won’t come up on my computer. The error message that comes up says that a firewall has timed out. Is anybody else getting this message? I tried at three different times and on two different computers, but still nada. I read Working with Endnote in its stead—I hope that makes up for it. Sorry but this post had to go on!

Assignment 2: Flickr

I have totally conquered this Assignment. Conan the Barbarian would be proud...I think I'm going to re-christen myself She-ra, or something else equally kick-rump so long as that isn't like already copyrighted or anything.

Here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30372805@N05/ Check it out if you'd like a good laugh revolving around a 16 year old girl in a filler high school class called Planning the Wedding.

PS-To understand WTF is going on, I recommend reading the description in one of the sets before heading into each picture individually.

Week 3 Comments

Jareth the Goblin King does not approve of having no power over me...or my Week 3 Comments.

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Week 3 Muddiest Point

This week's Muddiest Point is brought to you by Muddy Waters. Chill, cats, chill.

I am struck this week by the eternal dilemma of good writing and technical expertise. It is such a great rairty to discover a writer who can both write compellingly and clearly while also writing with authority and great depth of subject. I felt this especially strongly in the Linux readings. I want to increase my technical knowledge through this class this semester, but I don't see that happening when I have to struggle to read the articles like I'm a preschooler trying to take on the Iliad!

So, just to reiterate, I need someone to explain well the what exactly a kernel is. Cuz these are the only two kernels I knowes:

Week 3 Readings

Linux
They lost me when they started talking about kernels, a repeating code, and a simple and elegant code—can anyone better explain these? They are in the 5th-7th paragraphs of 1.1.1.
What’s POSIX? How did they move code from Windows and other devices (what kind of other devices, are we talking like Tetris and shizzle?) to Linux? Was that even legal? WTF, this explanation is not well written.
1.2.2 speaks of how Linux is becoming more user friendly by offering graphic interfaces identical to the ones offered by Mac and Windows. This sounds to me like the bordering-on-pirating spin offs and spoofs of movies that you hear about occurring in black markets in Asia—or that you see more funnily riffed in movies like Jack Black’s magnum opus Be Kind Rewind .
The last few lines of 1.4 assert that because there are more hands in on Linux that it will become a perfect OS. I say that too many cooks spoil the broth.

What Is Mac OS X?
“In many cases I have made no attempt to provide background details of the concepts referred to in the discussion.” It’s lines like these that preserve and widen the digital divide between those who are able to program and use OSes at acrobatic levels and those of us stuck at “I push the blinking button and it goes on.” It’s lines like those that make me want to rededicate myself to being a better bridge as a professional librarian when teaching both information literacy and written communication skills.
Why would you want to hack your OS? What is the motivation behind doing so? Are there non-malicious hackers? If there are, what have they done for me lately? WWBAD (What Would Boten Anna Do)?

Mac OS X
This article deserves a revision of both of my reactions to the former readings. Unlike my concern with the Linux article, here, having so many users (cooks) authoring one article (broth) has definitely improved the clarity of the Mac OS X writing. It’s much friendly to non-computer-expert types like me, who are indeed kept brain-alive by such tidbits as the X in Mac OS X being pronounced as 10, and the naming of each version after a wildcat. BTW, I'm totally nominating Fluffy here for the next Mac OS X. Look at him! He's a ferocious wee beastie!

Windows Roadmap
So nice of Windows to provide a downgrade option—buy the full price new version, still get the cruddy old stuff. Sheesh. I guess this works for somebody, but it just doesn’t align right in my Podunk little head. When presented the old for the price of the new, all I can think is "where's the beef?"
I can hardly believe that the comments section is as long as the full text email reproduction. That was a long-behind email!
I’m glad we won’t be re-experiencing compatibility issues when Windows 7 comes out (BTDubs, Windows, buddy, pal, son, you’re in need of a cool-naming shot, please talk to ur BFFs at Mac, thx). The compatibility issues between Office 2007 and the older stuff is a pain even a year out.

Week 2 Comments

This week's comments are brought to you by the Goonies, who are (sing along!) good enough for me yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.


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Week 2 Muddiest Point

Wait--are the weekly chats required? I had thought you just used them if you needed help, but looking at the slides for this week it looks as though they're required. I am all confusion! What about the discussion boards? We didn't much mention them last week, but now they look like a requirement for this week. Arg!

Week 2 Readings

Computer Hardware
reminds me of first learning about computers in late elementary school, back when we had truly floopy floppy disks; we learned terms like CPU and RAM and how input and output worked; fun times!
could this page be used appropriately as an introduction for elementary students today to the world of computers?
is a wiki the most appropriate place to keep information on computer hardware, given its frequently changing nature--or are wikis too unstable?
has anyone else seen the MSN gallery of pimped out computer hardware, like the fishbowl and the bedazzled stuff? sweetness


Moore's Law
it's mind boggling that we have that much information, let alone that much space for information on such a tiny physical object; my confusion reminds me a scene in How Green Was My Valley (good movie, better book) where the salt-of-the-earth mother expresses her confusion with the algebra quiz the father and priest are giving the tweenage boy having to do with water flowing into and out of a bathtub with two spouts and many holes "Silly men, filling bathtubs with holes. Fix the holes that's what!" Hope that's not too obscure a reference, but that pretty well sums up my feeling when I try to wrap my head around so much being fit onto so little.


Computer History Museum
And I thought I was nerdy for liking the Smithsonian so much, lol! I really shouldn't be surprised that such a museum exists, and it does seem interesting for at good hour's visit or so. More likely it will be highly engaging in another generation when kids will have to try to imagine a world before computers--just like we love imagining a world before humans when we explore dinosaur museums.
I am very fond of how well organized and aesthetically pleasing the website is--it is everything you'd like to see from a collaboration of museum people, library people, and computer people.