Tenth Comment

http://egriswoldlis2600.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-6-readings-computer-networks.html

Ninth Comment

http://denise-librarylove.blogspot.com/2008/09/week-6-readings-and-muddiest-point.html

Assignment 3: CiteULike Url

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

Reading Notes Six

Well the first wikipedia article on local area networks actually made decent sense to me for a change in comparison to some of our other readings. It made it a little easier to understand how computers comminucate with one another in small areas, and although it didnt specifically explain what a WAN was, I actually deduced on my own that it pertained to coverage over a huge area such as a city.
Then when I read the other wikipedia article on computer networks in general, I was pleased to find that I was right. I found all the different types of networks to be a little daunting simply because there are so many...LAN, CAN, WAN, GAN etc.. Then as the article progressed I began to get a little muddled on some things. Like what is Intranet really? Is it the internet but only shared among a few computers? If so what is the point of that? And even further into the article I got more confused, not really sure Im clear on how hubs, bridges, or switches work. But I think I got the general concept behind routers.
Last I watched the youtube video and was reassured that I had understood the majority of the info I read about the networks. One thing the guy said in the video that I forgot to mention when I made comments about the articles was what the heck is Ethernet? I know it was briefly covered, but I still dont get it!
I found the RFID article the most interesting by far. I think it's a great idea for libraries to look into. But I do think that privacy issues need to taken into consideration and also poses another finacial hurdle for libraries to have to get over. But that's the way the game is played, if libraries are going to stay competitive in the information profession, they have to bite the bullet and figure out how to keep up with technological advances.

Week Five Muddiest Thought

When we discussed digital video coding I was a little confused about interlaced scanning. I would like that explained in a little more depth. Is this how our TV and computer screens work?

Eighth Comment

http://blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1057727177405306622&postID=8280676101391856651&page=1

Seventh Comment

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7391116961538719622&postID=1194247951244263758&page=1

Reading Notes Five

Finally a topic that I knew something about and didnt have to struggle to read through! I have had a youtube account for a long time, so I found this article quite easy to read. Even enjoyable compared to some of the previous readings. I think the idea presented in the article about libraries capitalizing on youtube and reaching patrons through video technology is a good idea and worth being given more consideration by libraries and institutions of that kind.
The Imaging Pittsburgh Project was incredible! I thought this project was really cool and is wonderful to make these historic images available to the public. One note, it was a good thing we had just covered metadata, because I would'nt really have known what the heck that meant.
And then we get back to the rough stuff-data compression. For me this reading was the worst yet. I get the basic concept of what compression does and what it's for, but didnt understand the majority of what was in the article. Lossless versus lossy...perpetual coding...run length coding...I hope the lecture will shed some light on this stuff Tuesday.

Week Fours Muddiest Thought

When looking on the internet, where exactly would metadata be located? I think I understand what metadata is but just not where it's found.

Sixth Comment

http://ab2600.blogspot.com/2008/09/readings-for-week-4.html

Fifth Comment

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1057727177405306622&postID=7776109594083469311&page=1

Assignment 2: Flickr Account Url

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30186983@N07/sets/72157607098774994/

Reading Notes Four

As far as the Wikipedia Database article is concerned, I think i vaguely understood the material being discussed. It's not that it was difficultly worded, I just think for some of this infomation I need enplanation/examples from the Prof. In the small section titled Relational Operations, it actually exemplified how a query is used to retrieve articles from Wikipedia and that helped me make a little more sense of how the structure of databases are built. Other than that I dont really know what to say about this topic except that I hope Dr. He gives somes visual examples or something next week to perhaps make things a bit clearer for me. Metadata. I had heard the word a few times before and thought that was just a fancy word for description. And after I read that it generally means data about data, I still thought it meant description. But as the artivle progressed I began to understand that metadata mat involve descriptions, it also reflects alot more than that. I found the tables in the middle of the article was what provided the real clarity I needed to grasp the concept of metadata. My conclusion about this article is quite basic in that metadata is extremely important. But I do wonder in a library setting where is metadata actually stored? It would seem to me that metadata goes well beyond cataloging, so where would one find access to this type of info about info?

Week Threes Muddiest Thought

We discussed Mozilla being an open source program in class. I was wondering, since you can make changes to the browser, do those changes affect only your browser or do they apply to every person using that version of Mozilla?

Fourth Comment

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8349965223663731455&postID=7608266115358795938

Third Comment

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5671000685629389967&postID=8332499125171616929&page=1

Second Comment

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1128670142701200699&postID=1115614067049066208&page=1

Reading Notes Three

I have been a pc/windows user all of my life and after reading all of the readings for week 3 i was not only reassured that i have been making the right choice all along, but very glad to have been doing so. The information about Linux was dry but enlightening as to the nature of this type of software. I would never have been successful at using this particular type of software as i believe that programming must be a gift for some people. My brother is a very talented programmer and quite adept with anything technical concerning computers. So thinking i could surely accomplish the same thing, when i first started community college i tryed my hand at a computer related degree and very quickly changed my major after taking a class called Visual Basic. So if Linux is based on actually writing and manipulating computer code i would have been a sunken ship all along. As far as Mac goes...well lets just put it mildly and say that i hate it. (especially those condescending mac vs pc commercials) I had had limited exposure to macintosh products in middle school and high school, but after being exposed to Windows i immediatly made the switch and never looked back, except once. Well years went by and Microsoft dominated the field and then all of a sudden a bombardment from Apple. When i was doing my undergrad work the media dept at my university had equipped itself with Macs, most of which were switchable to Windows platforms. I gave mac its last chance and it took a minute amount of time to realize that everytime i logged onto those computers i needed to just switch to the Windows side. Lastly concerning the blog article about vista and xp...when i got my laptop i was offered the option to choose either vista or xp. I opted to go with xp since i felt that vista was entirely too new to be bug free enough to use without having a constant headache from it. So i was most pleased to see that service packs and all kinds of help will be available for xp until 2014. And while vista may be running much better now than ever, i'm quite content to keep on running on my ole trusty XP.

Week Twos Muddiest Thought

i understand the concept of the purpose of the cache, but was wondering, when you defrag your pc and it asks if you wish to empty the cache does this slow down the computer and if it does why would you do this in the first place?

Reading Notes Two

I found the wikipedia article on computer hardware very simple and easy to read. I found that i already knew and understaood about 65% of what was discussed in the article just based on my own personal computer usage over the past few years. The other article which talked about Moores Law was essentially gibberish to me. It wasnt until i watched the video about Moores law that i got a grasp on the concept really at all. Not that im trying to be dense but i certainly am no computer genius, hence the reason i need this class. Last i looked through the computer history museum site and thought it was pretty cool. I like the concept that the website is structured like a museum, although it was crammed packed with a ton of information. I thought the computer timeline was nice in that it went year through year offering short paragraphs for each year that actually contained interesting information instead of dull, droning lingo that only true computer geeks would comprehend. I also remember being taught in high school that the internet was invented and developed by the army and this website painted a very different picture of the origin of the internet.

First Comment

This is the first comment i've left
http://egriswoldlis2600.blogspot.com/2008/09/assignment-1-week-1-readings.html?showComment=1220302080000#c6092789087002803739

Week ones muddiest thought

For week one i was quite confused on how many assignments were due and at what points they were due. Also i was a little put out that for an information technology class in an infomation science building we have no internet access. One last thing, it was a slight challenge finding the articles...the links dont work off campus...yet we have no internet access in the IS building...

Reading Notes One

First of all the term format agnostic was a new term for me, but based on the context it was used in seemed appropriate. The OCLC report was very good, yet disheartening at best. It gave us concrete statistics that show that print publishing is fastly declining and that networks and communication devices are taking the place of mediums such as books and magazines. Since i wish to work in the field that focuses on the preservation of paper based media I suppose this is both good and bad. It seems wrong to me that libraries are becoming more and more dependent on finding ways to to deliver content via mobile devices. I had hoped in the past that perhaps there could be some type of marriage between technology and print media, but with each passing day it becomes increasingly evident to me that we are going to eventually phase out all paper based media. I found the second article on Information literacy rather boring and redundant but having a pertinent point in that because of rapidly changing technology we are all going to have to accept it as well as beome well versed on how to use it. The 3rd article about the Lied library, while it spoke about the technologically advanced library for the students, also served as a reminder that we are involved in a rapidly changing technological revolution since alot of the technology it talked about is already outdated. Although still young, I'm old fashioned, and these articles along with the class we're in are a painful reminder that people have lost their love of books and replaced them with iphones.