Readings for 12/15

The Future of Libraries:
“However, others who read for pleasure as example, still regularly patronize their local library.” Glad someone else is noticing that.
It is interesting to see the evolution of communication systems. From the telegraph to podcasting.
While reading this article I thought it was important to remember that there will always be a generation gap. I still do not understand computers as well as most eight year olds do now. Especially since the technology is rapidly advancing, many people will be left behind and there is really no way to make it equal.
Also I would love to see how the next search technology involves taste and smell, since most people have different ideas or feelings towards these two senses.
Explaining Cloud Computing: I had no idea what cloud computing was and this video actually helped give an idea to what it is. I ended up looking through the other videos this user offered to see if there was more I could learn.
What Cloud Computing Really Means: It adds a convenience not only to the users, but the workers of a particular site as well.

Comment

Jenn Chaney's blog:
http://jennchaney.blogspot.com/2009/11/assignment-6-website.html?showComment=1259784338287_AIe9_BG8GUdmJczCX__TRajOVFzMiO3FVWhLu3euVYm7vz5BWmAisl7M1i33J5d5LAsfbhG4GDPi4bcXBMsOxu1lO6i3ppIlY66K0S005LeEtUy1J7_IMRcIQGsj9HCvG84N0Pkt4Wgm2MUaQRz95yauv6tsmiQP4XBi4S1Xs60fYvk7nfbDpA6_-Z_lIAX_bAoCT3QaF7tiG6VK5Eq3rhzLtqgln6Awv1t09ZUgMjlMnJdx3XaV3ZY#c1234557979237901964

Assignment 6

Here is the link to my webpage for assignment 6:
http://www.pitt.edu/~rec41/

Muddiest Point

I do not have a muddiest point for this week.

Readings for 11/24

Weblogs: Don't see the appeal of weblogs. I barely have time to read a novel let alone read what Josie is making for breakfast.

Wiki: Making a "wiki" library sounds kind of neat. This article really makes it look like in the future the library and wikipedia can co-exist. But you will have to be careful and have people constantly monitoring posts to make sure the system isn't being abused. It also seems like a good way to reach out to teens.

Creating: Again time taken out for monitoring posts. It really makes people feel like they are a apart of the library which has been a problem. With the internet you have a cyber community with every click you make.

Muddiest Point

I do not have a muddiest point for this week.

Comments for 11/17 week

Tim’s Blog: http://preservingtim.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-10-reading-notes.html?showComment=1257965809503#c2203444033694297350

Response to Jenn's comment http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/11/readings-for-1117.html?showComment=1258395524604_AIe9_BHNMOUMPpMtLIErB6-pZWDJoElCOFqtqN3O2-OAZgVolZZX7t9kJnBH1gBBq1M_fQBLauiL8nPUzJXaFxyKg8nyVD6fbXsAjb6ETk65Gx1RcAiYcXQTt3Jt8QIMWlOM8ES8yepiZhv6lTp6IBMM_QynX2vXTygyVzmwFDouQyMxTrjKleDuJLLjPm7UItbW45Qtz2X-q8STOSWOa66Vat0_yhzdBHTklyZfqUCk7cei22Q-UlA#c1748437447687770280

Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point for this week.

Comments for this week

Jenn's Blog:
http://jennchaney.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-9-readings-xml.html?showComment=1257648094050#c5717073013299902185

Tim's Blog:
http://preservingtim.blogspot.com/2009/11/reading-notes-for-week-9.html?showComment=1257648201466#c4226096675694460337

Muddiest Point

I do not have a muddiest point for this week.

Readings for 11/17

Web Search Part 1
• I constantly use search engines, preferably Yahoo!, but will use Google if Yahoo!’s responses are lacking.
• Never thought of how search engines don’t show restricted data
• On the Go
• You learn to use engines of how to search
- the best way or words to use to find a specific subject

Web Search Part 2
• Ever look at Yahoo!’s top searches for that day?
• DSL makes you forget how much is going on to obtain your search results and then the page itself
• Term look up- God Bless spell check or Google’s suggestions
• “average query length is around 2.3 words”
• The amount of info that goes into the search like how an engine presents its findings

The Deep Web
• I normally give up after looking through 6 pages of search results
• Search engines- Google, Directory- Yahoo!
• The illustrations explained more than some of the text

Readings for 11/10

An Intro to XML
• Sounds like a good idea and system
• Love the language trivia knowledge ex: Entity  entite  thing  object
• Looks easy with simple tabgels i.e.:
• Then looks more difficult when you move into XML DTD

Extending your Markup
• Agree with the beginning of article. You can even see from my comment for Martin Bryan’s article that I thought it was easy at first and then saw DTD and commented on its difficulty
• Namespace- your names or all the joined name spaces have to be unique?
• Proves that there is a lot more that XML needs than just knowing simple structures

A survey of XML standards
• Gives the perfect word to describe XML “intimidating”
• No surprise there are revisions i.e. XML 1.1
- shows how computers and their technology will continue to change and be updated and of course not everyone is going to be happy with the change

Assignment Five

http://upitt04-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=22

Muddiest Point for 10/27

No muddiest point this time. Though I'm still wondering about the difference between Google and Yahoo.

Readings for 10/27

HTML- I alright knew some bits of HTML like < b > makes a break in the paragraph and makes text italic. Once you get the hang of it HTML isn’t that difficult and is kinda fun to use.

CSS- Rather confusing especially without having a grasp on HTML. If you mess up one thing then the text doesn’t work. Also there are so many factors you have to know to get it to display what you want. It’s annoying, but something that can be worked on.

HTML Cheatsheet- Really helpful to have. I actually printed out a copy to keep on hand.

Comments for 10/20

http://jennchaney.blogspot.com/2009/10/assignment-4-jingflicker.html#comments

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/10/assignment-4-jing.html#comments

http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/10/1020-readings.html#comments

Assignment 4 Jing

My video is for the game Left 4 Dead. It is a zombie apocalypse game where you and three other survivors have to face hordes of zombies to get to safety. After multiple attempts to get screen videos of gameplay I had to rely on the trailer. This trailer shows all the main characters and the "specials" or special types of zombies- i.e. a witch, smoker, hunter, and tank.

http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/d6de57a6-e79a-4ef4-856a-abe819559011


The game title shot:
http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/98706632-43a5-40d7-9b99-6d95a743095a
"Special" Zombies
Smoker:
http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/d1efa0fa-2abd-4902-b4c5-66cde61d018e
Boomer:
http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/482bc5c4-1e95-4e26-86d8-375d9f43f0ae
Tank:
http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/88ba5b92-641d-405a-bac9-404a6fc35ba9
Witch:
http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/d10cceab-f51c-41c6-9cb1-97b86e230c75
Hunter:
http://www.screencast.com/users/rcannon/folders/Jing/media/fef7f38d-2368-4969-b5c7-993193814176

Previous Comments

Unit 5:
http://knivesnmatches.blogspot.com/2009/10/readings-for-oct.html?showComment=1255285439331#c6416821441788602337

Assignment 2:
http://jennchaney.blogspot.com/2009/09/assignment-2-digitalization.html#comments

Muddiest Point

What is the difference between Yahoo! and Google? Is one better than the other one?

Comments for Unit 6

http://jennchaney.blogspot.com/2009/10/week-7-reading-notes.html?showComment=1255285027221#c7923214548701641666

http://ken-tsukuda.blogspot.com/2009/10/unit-6-comuter-networks-wireless.html?showComment=1255285156132#c8295865212606196428

10/20 Readings

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems: People today are spoiled with their instant responses of information. Because of this, people are impatient and become frustrated when it takes more time then they expected to receive this information. It is also hard to fit to one system of classification, it either takes too much time, too much money, or the librarians are so set in their ways that they don’t want to change.

How Internet Infrastructure Works: Jeff Tyson says that, “One of the greatest things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it.” While that may be true, people do own their own spots, especially if money is involved. Most people own the information they put up, like personal artwork and so it is copyrighted. I also find binary to be fascinating! Two numbers can make up complete sentences! DNS servers sound just like the firing of neurons in the brain.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: I actually only recently became a fan of google. Before that I really relied on Yahoo! Because it was what I was used to. I still use both of them, especially if one doesn’t give me the results I want, then the other one does. I also enjoy google’s sense of humor. For example, type into google: ‘worst band in the world’ and it will give you like three pages then supply the results for the band Creed.

Assignment Three

Had a lot of trouble with this assignment. It slowed my computer down a lot.

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

Readings for Oct 6

Computer Networking: I never really thought about it, but the libraries of Allegheny County are part of a network called eiNetwork. It allows all the Allegheny libraries (81 libraries excluding Monroeville) to access each other's collection and order from it.
Local Area Network:
Also I've done LAN parties a couple of times with my brother, but never really had any idea what they are. This article helped explain that. It's rather neat to see how like twenty computers can interact together in game form with LAN parties. It actually seems really simple to do.

Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point this week.

Readings for 9/22

Database: I did not realize that databases were so complicated. I had really expected something a little simpler, silly me. Also the amount variety of databases is astounding. Each different type is interesting in its own way, especially the In-memory database which is used for 911.

Metadata: What an intriguing name! Metadata! Sounds like a metal band. This article actually confused me greatly so I’m going to take a stab at what I think metadata is. So what I gathered about metadata is that it is all the information on a given subject creating a completely knowledge of said subject. It involves three aspects: one content which would be what the information on the subject is, context which would be in what format the information is, and structure which is relating information to the subject. (if I’m wrong, please please someone correct me.) Because of the intensity of metadata, its importance to the development of databases is exceedingly high.

Dublin: I am not the best at reading technical documents (I’m an English major for cryin’ out loud!) so please forgive me on the confusion with this article. What I understand is that Dublin is a type of database that collects cross reference materials so that the metadata on individual subjects is complete. The amount of work put into this project is astounding and lengthy. It is rather cool that this will be a continuing process as more information is gathered and created.

Muddiest Point

Why, when I try to post a url in my blog do I get this message:
ERROR
Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed:
Stop showing HTML errors for the body of this post
I'm not the best with computers at all, but posting a link worked before. What am I doing wrong?

Assignment Two

Hopefully these will take you to the site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42228697@N04/sets/72157622249815121/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42228697@N04/sets/72157622249815121/detail/
Any problems, please tell me.

Assignment One

I agree with Clifford Lynch when he says that “Both forms of literacy are essential for individuals to function and succeed in today’s society; they are distinct but inter-related.” I’ve worked in a public library for five years and have worked with older generations who do not know how to use computers. (Try explaining what email and the internet to a ninty year old man was one of these highlights.) You need to be able to know how to search for items online, since even my little library keeps their card cataloge away from patrons. From what I’ve seen most libraries are encourging people to learn how to use electronic means of finding items.

In Jason Vaughan’s Lied Library he speaks of many things (like laptop checks out colleges) that are familiar to me now and probably most other college students. These things seem to be taken for granted now. Even the Carngie went through a compter replacement for all its libraries.

Information Format Trend merely showed a development that has been happening for years. Slowly at first then explanding rapidly. I remember when my library had one computer (dial up too no less), now we have 10 in the adult library and 8 in the childrens with DSL hook up.