muddiest point week 6

My muddiest point for this week is network topology. The definition includes some word called nodes that I think might have been used in class before, but I am unsure as to exactly what it means.

week7 readings

How Internet Infastructure Works

The article starts out by mentioning that the internet is a global collection of both networks big and small. When you connect to your isp you become part of their network and that isp may collect to part of a large network so the internet is a network or networks. They mention something called POP that I have never heard of. "The POP is a place for local users to access the company's network, often through a local phone number or dedicated line" (Tyson). "...there are several high-level networks connecting to each other through Network Access Points or NAPs (Tyson ). The router has two jobs. 1. it ensures that information doesn't go where it's not needed. This is crucial for keeping large volumes of data from clogging the connections of "innocent bystanders." and 2. It makes sure that information does make it to the intended destination. Next it describes network backbone as "fiber optic trunk lines " (Tyson). Another term in the article is IP address which stands for internet protocol and is a unique number indentifying every machine on the internet. In 1983 the Domain name system was created because of the over abundance of IP addresses. When ever you use the web or send an e-mail you are using a domain name. URL which is a uniform resource locator contains a domain name. Another important part of the internet is the server and client. Internet servers make the internet possible. The artilce defines both servers and clients "The machines that provide services to other machines are servers. And the machines that are used to connect to those services are clients" (Tyson). Lastly the article mentions ports and HTTP. "Any server machine makes its services available using numbered ports -- one for each service that is available on the server" (Tyson). " Every Web server on the Internet conforms to the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) (Tyson).

Inside the Google Machine

This video took the viewer inside the Google machine. In the beginning it showed a globe of the world and shows dots on it. The dots represent people and their search query. It showed how people in Africa did not use the computers as much. It then showed a second of searches and it seemed so crazy as there was so many people searching at one time. They also metioned Google grants that serves charities throughout the world and how they were setting up the Ggoogle foundation. They also mentioned there socially networking site that one of the Google employees created called orkut. Google said they have a policy that 20% of your time working at Google should be spent doing things you want to do. Google answers is a service they have where you pay to ask a question and someone goes off to find answer for you. Froogle is there way to search for shopping. I was interested to find out that blogger was a Google thing. Lastly they talk about Ad sense where they put ad's on site that are relevant to what you are looking for. One ending thought they leave us with as that Google is free for people all over the world and does not charge for their search results.

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems
The article starts out by telling us that no one intended to dismantle the ILS. "

For 25 years, the ILS proved a trusty tool for solving everyday library problems. First loosely integrated, then more fully so, it finally arrived at a plateau of innovation, until the early 1990s, when librarians cautiously embraced the web as their new gateway to information. Inevitably, the old technology of the ILS clashed with new web technologies." The article then mentions how hard it is to choose a new integrated library system from a vendor.

To maintain a competitive advantage so people will choose your IlS takes work.

"Endeavor Information Systems took the research library world by storm in the mid-1990s with its Voyager system that worked with the Oracle RDBMS. Before long, Oracle was in almost every academic RFP."

"Jerry Kline, president and CEO of Innovative Interfaces, argues that achieving the "same intellectual logic" that went into older systems is the key." However ILS cannot always do everything. As the article mentions ". When libraries try to meet new needs with technology, such as federated searching, their ILS can rarely answer the call. Libraries are forced to look at new technology and create a solution themselves or purchase a standalone product." The article then mentions how new systems now dominate the library world. "Portals, metasearch tools, reference linking software, radio frequency identification tags (RFIDs), and digital asset management systems now dominate the world of library automation."

Some of these products will be able to be sold to non traditional customers such as the government and museums. The problem for libraries though is that better costs more. "Several well-intentioned research libraries attempted over the past decade to build web-based solutions to the problems ILS didn't satisfy." "

However impractical as a complete solution, the open source movement has demonstrated the value of open standards and protocols. Through XML, web services, OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative--Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), librarians believe they can create interoperability among systems, whether vendors' or their own.

" "Before interoperability can rescue libraries, however, the vendors need to redirect their efforts. Not only has ILS technology reached its plateau, but the market itself is almost completely saturated:" We are left at the end with a final thought. "

Library vendors have two choices. They can continue to maintain large systems that use proprietary methods of interoperability and promise tight integration of services for their customers. Or, they can choose to dismantle their modules in such a way that librarians can reintegrate their systems through web services and standards, combining new with the old modules as well as the new with each other."

cite u like url

here is my url to the zotero/cite u like assignment:

http://www.citeulike.org/user/susan611

week 6 blog comments

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7114620464717775258&postID=716045577733949806https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8616439771751223038&postID=186564182073948827&page=1

week 6 readings

Youtube video

This viedo was very straightforward and mentioned all the different types of connections and then explained them. The different types mentioned where PAN which is for a pc, LAN which would be for a building like your house, CAN is a college area network, WAN is a wide area network, and MAN is a metropolitan area network.

Wikipedia on Computer Networks

This article was similar to the youtbue video in that it explained the same networks as the vide did. It did however mention one other one that the video negelcted to talk about. This is the global area netwrok which is a "model for supporting mobile communications across an arbitrary number of wireless lans, satellite, coverage areas etc" (wiki pg 4). The wiki also mentioned major categories used to classify networks such as scale, connection method, functional relationship and network topology. The one part of the article that I found interesting is the definition of the varients of interwork as I never knew quite what each one meant. Lastly the article mentions basic harware components such as a router that is used to "forward data packets between networks using header and forwarding tables to determine the best path to forward packets.

Wikipedia on Local Area Networks

Compared the wiki on computer networks this one was a lot shorter. It starts out by mentioning the history of it. I was amazed to see how long it had been around. It then focues on the LAN for the pc and mentioned a few technical aspects. From 1983 onward the coming year would regulary be declared the year of the LAN.

Management of RFID in Libraries

Before reading this article i had no idea what RFID even was. The RF stands for radio frequency and the ID means identifier. The article described that the "tag consists of a computer chip and an antenna, often printed on paper or some other flexible medium" (RFID pg 1). The RFID chip has the potential to carry lots of information. There are hundreds of RFID products on the market as the article mentioned. I find it interesting that some librarians question whether they should consider using RFID because of privacy issues. It seems like ut could be of help to them so why not use it. It seems quite uself that libraries can use RFID as a security mechanism and makes me wonder why most libraries haven't done this already. The fact that the RFID tags can be shielded by the thing mentioned in the ad makes me worry though. I guess this is the reason that libraries are so hesitant to adopt this technology. There do seems to be a lot of good uses for RFID in libraries though such as the tags being able to to be read while the book is on the shelf.

muddiest point

My muddiest point for the week is this:

In the slides it says that raster images = bitmpas. This does not make sense because I do not know what a bitmap is.

week 5 comments

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1129785935180596689&postID=3512837352940137481&page=1

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3799366651359702810&postID=3384647508895216250&page=1

week 5 readings

Wikipedia
The wikipedia provided a good overview on data compression for me because I did not know anything about it. The article says that compression is useful because "it helps reduce the consumption of expensive records, such as hard disk space or transmission bandwith" (pg 1). This article mentions lossless vs lossy compression. Lossless compression is when the senders data be compressed without loss of data. With lossy compression however the data once it has been compressed is not the same as the original data. The wiki also give examples of those kinds of compression. One example of lossless data compression is called run-length encoding. This is where "large runs of consecutive identical data values are replaced by a simple code with the data value and the length of the run" pg 2). I also did not know that lossy digital compression was used in digital cameras and found that interesting.

Youtbe and Libraries
I found this article to be very interesting. I have been using youtube for a while to watch videos and never saw the potential that it had in libraries. This article made some good points on how it an be used to benefit the library. If the library where to post instructional videos for patrons to watch it could prove useful. Patrons would be able to find out what they needed to know without bothering a librarian and the librarian would have the time to do other important tasks.
Imaging Pittsburgh
This article was a nice break from all the ones we read that are full of big technical terms I do not understand. I found this one quite easy to read and it was enjoyable to read. The project seemed like it was a big undertaking though because the article mentioned a minimum of 7,000 pictures and by the time it was done over 10,000.

The last article on data compression basics was long and confusing to read at parts. The author said we did not have to read the notes in the box if we did not want to and I figured I would because it could only help. reading those notes in the box though made it even more confusing. The article covered a lot of the basics that the wiki did such as the difference between lossless and lossy data compression, however, it went into a lot more detail on the topic. The article was very hard to keep up with because I know so little about computers and it was very technical. The article talked about run length encoding which replaces runs with a single character followed by the length of the run. Part two had a section on color space that was confusing. he mad a statement in the beginning stating that most of us should have seen certain terms and I have never seen them before making it harder for me.

muddiest point

My muddiest point is about the databases. We mentioned database software for windows, but i was wondering if there was any out there for Mac's?

week 4 comments

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4181925387762663697&postID=4607901818617335487&page=1

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4736393327020365268&postID=2541635144849515509&page=1

week 4 readings

Database Wikipedia
I so not know much about computers so I did not know anything before I read the database article. The article was very informative as I did not know there was more than one database management system. Three different types of database management systems are hierarchical model, network model, and relational model. In the hierarchical model date is organized in a tree like structure. (wiki pg 2) In the network model records can participate in any number of relationship (wiki pg 3) In the relational model is a model of tables and row where the date is about a particular entity is represented in rows and columns.


Introduction to Metadata
I had no idea what metadata was before I read this article so it was informative to me. It was a bit confusing though because it seemed like metadata could be a lot of different things and mean a lot of different thing and I did not understand how. It says in the first line that metadata is data about data which I took to understand that metadata is something that gives us more information about that thing. I was surprised to see how many different types of metadata there is. The end caught my attention because I think it is interesting how metadata may be able to be used in an almost finite number of ways to meet the needs of non-traditional users (pg 7).

An Overview of the Dublin Core Model
I did not quit understand this article. It said that the DCMI is an international effort designed to foster consensus across disciplines for discovery-oriented description of diverse resources. (pg1) I did not quite get what that meant. I also did not understand the text they had in the article that was different than the normal text because it seemed like some computer code or computer language.

muddiest point #3

My muddiest point is from the power point slide entitled what do OS do. It says that utility management manages the I/O devices, but I am confused because I do not know what the I/O devices are.

flickr url

Here is my flickr url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30232031@N05/

all the photos for the assignment are up

blog comments

Here is a link to my blog comments:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=997037450799707033&postID=4756828819278602490&page=1


https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4527425204800506090&postID=8427445099349409461&page=1

muddiest point #2

The muddiest point for me is the assignment due Tuesday. I know we have to post the pictures to a flickr account and that they have to be three different sizes. The part that confuses me is how to change the size of the picture.

week 3 readings

An update on the windows road map
This first article was rather short and very straightforward. It was an e-mail written by Bill Veghte the Senior VP of Microsoft. The e-mail talked about the new Windows Vista and touched on how it effected Windows XP and its users. I have always been a Windows user, but have not yet switched to Vista do to hearing some negative things about it from people. I also have a lot of software on my PC that I use for school and other everyday things. I am worried if some of these things including any games I would want to play would be compatible with Vista. When April 2014 roles around and they no longer offer updates and such for us XP users I like many others may finally have to bit the bullet and switch to Vista if we want to make sure we are secure and can receive technical support when needed.

What is Mac OS X
I did not think this would be a hard article to read. I expected it to talk about a bit about the history of the Apple company and how Mac came to be invented. It did do just that in the beginning. I also expected it to go into the differences between Mac and Windows and the different kind of software available for a Mac such as imovie and Opera. When I saw the article I expected a general overview of the Mac operating system, however, what I got was a complex reading with many terms I did not understand. It was not general at all and instead was more in depth and complex. I find this article interesting for one reason. The author states in the beginning that he wrote this document as a supplement to a speech he gave to people who knew nothing about Mac's to begin with. Yet in my opinion the article is far too technical for a first time Mac user. My guess is that these people have some experience with computers because the authors states that "...the implicit assumption is that you are familiar with fundamental concepts of one or more of BSD, Mach, UNIX, or operating systems in general." I do not know if this just me or not, but I feel that since I am taking this class it means I am not as educated about PC's as others and would not know the things this author is assuming I am familiar with, therefore, the article goes right over my head. Even basic things like when he used the word kernel I immediately thought corn kernel and had to look it up to see how it related to computers. Knowing nothing about Macs and only the basics of computers I had a thought time following along especially the section on the open firmware and others that showed boxes with computer text in them because I had know clue what the text meant or what was being accomplished there. After muddling my way through this article I can see how complex a Mac really can be.

Mac OS X- Wikipedia
I enjoyed this article a lot more than the other one on the Mac. This article was a lot easier for me to comprehend. This article mentions a software development tool called Xcode which was not talked about in the other article. I did not quite understand what that software did. I saw in the article that "The API's that Mac OS X inherited from OpenStep are not backward compatible with the earlier versions of Mac OS"which sounds as if it could be a pain to people. The Carbon API sounds like it is a great idea because applications written with it can be used in both old Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X thus making the transition smooth like the article stated. One interesting thing I learned from this article and the other is that the X in Mac OS X is the roman number ten and not the letter "X" like I thought it was. I knew nothing about Mac before reading these article so that is the reason I did not know this. I also found another interesting point in the article. It said that Mac OS X versions after named after big cats. What will happen when they run out of big cat names? Will they reuse names they already did or will a Mac OS 11 be out by then?

Linux
The Linux book was interesting to read seeing as I had no previous experience with Linux at all. I have seen the red hat computers in the computer lab that run Linux. I tried to use one once, but I could not understand it. Reading this book cleared things up for me a bit, but it still seems harder to me to learn. I like how easy Windows is to navigate. I found it interesting how Linus Torvald who was only a college student was able to do so much for Linux. Linux does seem like a good operating system that could be comparable to Windows or Mac OS X. While reading the article I did notice that it had a lot of pros for using Linux. The fact that it is free is a pretty cool thing that should have people flocking to it because of how over priced an instillation cd for Mac or Windows can be, but it does seem difficult to navigate and does not look quite like Mac or Windows which makes people shy away from it. I feel a lot of people do not give Linux a fair shot and neither have I. If I really took the time to learn it though I might actually end up liking it. What seemed confusing to me though is all the different distributions of it and having to decide which one to choose. I also liked the idea of the open source were people can modify it and when there is a problem it can be fixed as soon as possible rather than waiting for a company to do it. The only problem is that people shy away from Linux because not all program support it and people do want to be able to play there ganes and other acitivies such as listen to music on their pc's. I noticed that 11.2.2 says "Some distributions don't allow you to play MP3's without modifying your configuration, this is due to license restrictions on the MP3 tools. You might need to install extra software to be able to play your music." I nor anyone else do not want to have to do extra work just to do simple basic taks on our computer. Linix overall seems interesting, but I'll take my Windows OS anyday over Linux.

comment links

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5629900467800061574&postID=7803994879703954736

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5720842264846496247&postID=3503654554221870264