Comment 1
Comment 2
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Muddiest Point 11/11/2008
I was wondering about Google's Page Rank Algorithm. Has anyone else tried to come up with a similar 'page ranking'? It seems like if it worked so well for Google, that others would try to put together one as well.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Week 11 Readings
Mischo, W. (July/August 2005). Digital Libraries: challenges and influential work. D-Lib Magazine. 11(7/8).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/mischo/07mischo.html
One point I really liked: there is a huge difference between providing access to discrete sets of digital collections and providing digital library services. This article addresses such issues.
The six University-led projects are great:
*The University of Michigan for research on agent technology and mechanisms for improving secondary education;
*Stanford University for the investigation of interoperability among heterogeneous digital libraries and the exploration of distributed object technology;
*The University of California-Berkeley for imaging technologies, government environmental information resources, and database technologies;
*The University of California-Santa Barbara for the Alexandria Project to develop GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and earth modeling distributed libraries;
*Carnegie Mellon University for the study of integrated speech, image, video, and language understanding software under its Informedia system; and
*The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the development of document representation, processing, indexing, search and discovery, and delivery and rendering protocols for full-text physics, computer science, and engineering journals.
Paepcke, A. et al. (July/August 2005). Dewey meets Turing: librarians, computer scientists and the digital libraries initiative. D-Lib Magazine. 11(7/8). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/paepcke/07paepcke.html
Since the Digital Libraries Initiative was launched, many issues have arisen. This article discusses concerns from viewpoints of librarians, computer scientists, and publishers. It was interesting to read discussions of how these three groups are affected, how they are connected, and how the initiative can fulfill their expectations.
One interesting term I had never heard of before, in this context anyway: The notion of collections is spontaneously re-emerging in the form of what computer scientists have named information 'hubs.' These new incarnations of collections are Web sites whose primary goal is to direct visitors to other Web sites that all specialize on the hub's topic focus. (The hubs' topic-specific target sites are called 'authorities' in the literature). Quality hubs require curation. This type of curation differs from its traditional cousin in that it must cope with sometimes ephemeral material, and in that it requires a different underlying skill set. The spirit of this function, however, remains.
Lynch, Clifford A. "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age" ARL, no. 226 (February 2003): 1-7. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html or, rather:
http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br226/
We've had many changes in recent years: online storage costs dropped (so repositories are affordable), new standards are in place (such as the open archives metadata harvesting protocols), the need for digital preservation is now recognized and clear, and an increase in free and publicly accessible journal articles in research areas (among others). These have all helped lead to having university-based institutional repositories, which in turn offers the community (and institution) access to their digital materials. These could house the intellectual works of students and scholars within their institution. This is a great thing to accomplish--not only would these works be preserved, but access to them would be greatly increased.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/mischo/07mischo.html
One point I really liked: there is a huge difference between providing access to discrete sets of digital collections and providing digital library services. This article addresses such issues.
The six University-led projects are great:
*The University of Michigan for research on agent technology and mechanisms for improving secondary education;
*Stanford University for the investigation of interoperability among heterogeneous digital libraries and the exploration of distributed object technology;
*The University of California-Berkeley for imaging technologies, government environmental information resources, and database technologies;
*The University of California-Santa Barbara for the Alexandria Project to develop GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and earth modeling distributed libraries;
*Carnegie Mellon University for the study of integrated speech, image, video, and language understanding software under its Informedia system; and
*The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the development of document representation, processing, indexing, search and discovery, and delivery and rendering protocols for full-text physics, computer science, and engineering journals.
Paepcke, A. et al. (July/August 2005). Dewey meets Turing: librarians, computer scientists and the digital libraries initiative. D-Lib Magazine. 11(7/8). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/paepcke/07paepcke.html
Since the Digital Libraries Initiative was launched, many issues have arisen. This article discusses concerns from viewpoints of librarians, computer scientists, and publishers. It was interesting to read discussions of how these three groups are affected, how they are connected, and how the initiative can fulfill their expectations.
One interesting term I had never heard of before, in this context anyway: The notion of collections is spontaneously re-emerging in the form of what computer scientists have named information 'hubs.' These new incarnations of collections are Web sites whose primary goal is to direct visitors to other Web sites that all specialize on the hub's topic focus. (The hubs' topic-specific target sites are called 'authorities' in the literature). Quality hubs require curation. This type of curation differs from its traditional cousin in that it must cope with sometimes ephemeral material, and in that it requires a different underlying skill set. The spirit of this function, however, remains.
Lynch, Clifford A. "Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age" ARL, no. 226 (February 2003): 1-7. http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html or, rather:
http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br226/
We've had many changes in recent years: online storage costs dropped (so repositories are affordable), new standards are in place (such as the open archives metadata harvesting protocols), the need for digital preservation is now recognized and clear, and an increase in free and publicly accessible journal articles in research areas (among others). These have all helped lead to having university-based institutional repositories, which in turn offers the community (and institution) access to their digital materials. These could house the intellectual works of students and scholars within their institution. This is a great thing to accomplish--not only would these works be preserved, but access to them would be greatly increased.
Week 10 Readings
David Hawking , Web Search Engines: Part 1 and Part 2 IEEE Computer, June 2006. http://www.computer.org/portal/site/computer/menuitem.5d61c1d591162e4b0ef1bd108bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pName=computer_level1_article&TheCat=1055&path=computer/homepage/0606&file=thingswork.xml&xsl=article.xsl&;jsessionid=G3nJ1tNBGT7hHN4hLhySlzJ4JnrH42kkmWrNhdrllpkGnMp2nC8N!-1182277384 and http://www.computer.org/portal/site/computer/menuitem.5d61c1d591162e4b0ef1bd108bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pName=computer_level1_article&TheCat=1055&path=computer/homepage/0806&file=howthings.xml&xsl=article.xsl&
I liked this reading. It is interesting how much more data search engines are indexing now than when they first started (1000 times as much). Many issues I had never given a great deal of thought to before, such as regarding crawlers: speed, "politeness," excluded content, duplicate content, continuous crawling, and spam rejection.
Among their 'Final Crawling Thoughts': Crawlers are highly complex parallel systems, communicating with millions of different Web servers, among which can be found every conceivable failure mode, all manner of deliberate and accidental crawler traps, and every variety of noncompliance with published standards... It is not uncommon to find that a crawler has locked up, ground to a halt, crashed, burned up an entire network traffic budget, or unintentionally inflicted a denial-of-service attack on a Web server whose operator is now very irate.
Part II. This section reviewed the algorithms and data structures needed for indexing huge amounts of web page text and delivering high-quality results millions of times a day. Although interesting, this part was more difficult for me to follow (definitely couldn't read it as quickly). I particularly liked their 'term lookup' capabilities. For speeding things up: skipping, early termination, clever assignment of document numbers, and caching.
Shreeves, S. L., Habing, T. O., Hagedorn, K., & Young, J. A. (2005). Current developments and future trends for the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting. Library Trends, 53(4), 576-589.
I think that the Open Archives Initiative is great. I agree with what they are doing and what their intentions are. Increasing the access to information is always a good thing.
MICHAEL K. BERGMAN, “The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value” http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-01/bergman.html
Wow, this article is quite content-rich (not a quick read). I like his analogy to the ocean at the beginning: Searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean. While a great deal may be caught in the net, there is still a wealth of information that is deep, and therefore, missed. The reason is simple: Most of the Web's information is buried far down on dynamically generated sites, and standard search engines never find it. A lot of interesting facts are brought up and discussed. (One example: Deep Web documents (13.7 KB mean size; 19.7 KB median size) are on average 27% smaller than surface Web documents.) Overall, this is a great article.
I liked this reading. It is interesting how much more data search engines are indexing now than when they first started (1000 times as much). Many issues I had never given a great deal of thought to before, such as regarding crawlers: speed, "politeness," excluded content, duplicate content, continuous crawling, and spam rejection.
Among their 'Final Crawling Thoughts': Crawlers are highly complex parallel systems, communicating with millions of different Web servers, among which can be found every conceivable failure mode, all manner of deliberate and accidental crawler traps, and every variety of noncompliance with published standards... It is not uncommon to find that a crawler has locked up, ground to a halt, crashed, burned up an entire network traffic budget, or unintentionally inflicted a denial-of-service attack on a Web server whose operator is now very irate.
Part II. This section reviewed the algorithms and data structures needed for indexing huge amounts of web page text and delivering high-quality results millions of times a day. Although interesting, this part was more difficult for me to follow (definitely couldn't read it as quickly). I particularly liked their 'term lookup' capabilities. For speeding things up: skipping, early termination, clever assignment of document numbers, and caching.
Shreeves, S. L., Habing, T. O., Hagedorn, K., & Young, J. A. (2005). Current developments and future trends for the OAI protocol for metadata harvesting. Library Trends, 53(4), 576-589.
I think that the Open Archives Initiative is great. I agree with what they are doing and what their intentions are. Increasing the access to information is always a good thing.
MICHAEL K. BERGMAN, “The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value” http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-01/bergman.html
Wow, this article is quite content-rich (not a quick read). I like his analogy to the ocean at the beginning: Searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean. While a great deal may be caught in the net, there is still a wealth of information that is deep, and therefore, missed. The reason is simple: Most of the Web's information is buried far down on dynamically generated sites, and standard search engines never find it. A lot of interesting facts are brought up and discussed. (One example: Deep Web documents (13.7 KB mean size; 19.7 KB median size) are on average 27% smaller than surface Web documents.) Overall, this is a great article.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Muddiest Point 11/04/2008
My muddiest point this week is regarding webpages. When I work with my webpage in Nvu, the heading is centered (using the 'center' button), but when I view my webpages, some of them don't appear centered above the other items on the page, and I can't figure out why. Also, on my Links page, one of the addresses also appears down below (a second time, but not as a link); this has me perplexed, because in Nvu that address is not there a second time! Any thoughts?
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Muddiest Point 10/21/2008
It was difficult for me to come up with a muddiest point this week. However, I guess I will pose a question: We talked about website editors in class (frontpage, dreamweaver, nvu, kompozer); which would you recommend? Is one easier to use than others? Is one more for someone with extensive experience, and another better for a beginner?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Week 9 Readings
Martin Bryan. Introducing the Extensible Markup Language (XML) http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/internet/web/xmlintro.htm
This was similar to the cheatsheets we read before, except it is about XML. It also explains more deeply than a cheatcheet. Overall, it gave a good introduction to XML, and wasn't difficult to follow.
Uche Ogbuji. A survey of XML standards: Part 1. January 2004.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-stand1.html
This was a good article about XML, discussing the core XML technologies. One thing I particularly liked about this article was all their links: links to various tutorials, references, and other resources as well. You would need to devote much time, though, if every link were to be followed, as each paragraph had several hyperlinks.
Extending your Markup: a XML tutorial by Andre Bergholz http://www.computer.org/internet/xml/xml.tutorial.pdf
(It says I would have to buy the article for $19; it is from IEEE Internet Computing, July 2000, pp.74-79... I will try to read this another way....) About this article, it says: XML introduces a family of languages to provide a more semantic management of information than HTML. (Later...) I finally accessed this article through: http://xml.coverpages.org/BergholzTutorial.pdf (am I the only one who had difficulty with this?). I must say, I liked the other things we've read better (links to tutorials or cheatsheets).
XML Schema Tutorial http://www.w3schools.com/Schema/default.asp
This tutorial teaches how to read and create XML Schemas and how to use the language. It offers many links and is very easy to find certain topics. Overall, I thought this was a great website.
This was similar to the cheatsheets we read before, except it is about XML. It also explains more deeply than a cheatcheet. Overall, it gave a good introduction to XML, and wasn't difficult to follow.
Uche Ogbuji. A survey of XML standards: Part 1. January 2004.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-stand1.html
This was a good article about XML, discussing the core XML technologies. One thing I particularly liked about this article was all their links: links to various tutorials, references, and other resources as well. You would need to devote much time, though, if every link were to be followed, as each paragraph had several hyperlinks.
Extending your Markup: a XML tutorial by Andre Bergholz http://www.computer.org/internet/xml/xml.tutorial.pdf
(It says I would have to buy the article for $19; it is from IEEE Internet Computing, July 2000, pp.74-79... I will try to read this another way....) About this article, it says: XML introduces a family of languages to provide a more semantic management of information than HTML. (Later...) I finally accessed this article through: http://xml.coverpages.org/BergholzTutorial.pdf (am I the only one who had difficulty with this?). I must say, I liked the other things we've read better (links to tutorials or cheatsheets).
XML Schema Tutorial http://www.w3schools.com/Schema/default.asp
This tutorial teaches how to read and create XML Schemas and how to use the language. It offers many links and is very easy to find certain topics. Overall, I thought this was a great website.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Muddiest Point 10/07/2008
I understand Wi-Fi, what is it, what it does, etc. I was wondering, though, where the "Fi" part of the name comes from? Is it just because it rhymes, or does it stand for something?
Week 8 Readings
***W3schools HTML Tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/
Okay, I am VERY excited about this site! I had just been wishing over the past few weeks that I could have this taught to me...and here I am learning it! This site did a great job of explaining how to write HTML, so that any beginner should be able to follow it. I have added this to my 'favorites!'
HTML Cheatsheet http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/
(or rather: http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/HTML_Cheatsheet/)
I thought this would be just the same as the first site, but was pleasantly surprised. This site laid it all out so the basics were all on one page--very nice! It does just what it says: gives you a cheatsheet for HTML. Again, just what I wanted! This is definitely for a beginner. It also has links to other related articles.
W3 School Cascading Style Sheet Tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/css/
One thing I liked about this site is that they offer a 'diploma' for developers who want to document their knowledge of HTML, XHTML, and CSS. (Not for me, yet, but could be great for someone who is ready for that!) They also have many links for web hosting or web building, which is very helpful if that is what you need. I will definitely be spending more time with all three of these sites!
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.
This article got me thinking about some of the issues I may face when I begin working in an Academic Library. As GSU experienced, before they had a web developer everyone did their handouts whichever way they knew how--i.e.: no consistency, and problems such as some being detailed and some being vague. Once they had a web developer, they became more organized, using such things as templates to offer better service and more consistency. With the technological advancements we are seeing, any large library nowadays really needs to have someone filling a 'web development librarian' position. Even with this position filled, technological issues may arise, requiring additional procedures or policies to be put in place.
Okay, I am VERY excited about this site! I had just been wishing over the past few weeks that I could have this taught to me...and here I am learning it! This site did a great job of explaining how to write HTML, so that any beginner should be able to follow it. I have added this to my 'favorites!'
HTML Cheatsheet http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/
(or rather: http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/HTML_Cheatsheet/)
I thought this would be just the same as the first site, but was pleasantly surprised. This site laid it all out so the basics were all on one page--very nice! It does just what it says: gives you a cheatsheet for HTML. Again, just what I wanted! This is definitely for a beginner. It also has links to other related articles.
W3 School Cascading Style Sheet Tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/css/
One thing I liked about this site is that they offer a 'diploma' for developers who want to document their knowledge of HTML, XHTML, and CSS. (Not for me, yet, but could be great for someone who is ready for that!) They also have many links for web hosting or web building, which is very helpful if that is what you need. I will definitely be spending more time with all three of these sites!
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.
This article got me thinking about some of the issues I may face when I begin working in an Academic Library. As GSU experienced, before they had a web developer everyone did their handouts whichever way they knew how--i.e.: no consistency, and problems such as some being detailed and some being vague. Once they had a web developer, they became more organized, using such things as templates to offer better service and more consistency. With the technological advancements we are seeing, any large library nowadays really needs to have someone filling a 'web development librarian' position. Even with this position filled, technological issues may arise, requiring additional procedures or policies to be put in place.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Assignment 4 - Working with Jing
My video in screencast.com:
http://www.screencast.com/users/jes140/folders/Jing/media/75b1a465-6bd8-4640-8743-6a32d2d76c5f
My images in flickr.com:
#1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2905357807/in/set-72157607651971161/
#2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2905396411/
#3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2906261790/
#4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2906277514/
#5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2906292886/
http://www.screencast.com/users/jes140/folders/Jing/media/75b1a465-6bd8-4640-8743-6a32d2d76c5f
My images in flickr.com:
#1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2905357807/in/set-72157607651971161/
#2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2905396411/
#3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2906261790/
#4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2906277514/
#5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30276059@N03/2906292886/
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Week 7 Readings
Tyson, Jeff. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm/printable
I didn't realize that there is a group (The Internet Society) that oversees how the internet is used.--- Another thought, isn't it amazing how a message can travel from one computer half-way across the world to another computer (through a network) in just a fraction of a second? --- I also was impressed with the step-by-step details of how your browser searches for URL or IP addresses when you type them in. What a great website!
Andrew K. Pace. „Dismantling Integrated Library Systems“ Library Journal, vol 129 Issue 2, p34-36. 2/1/2004 http://rt4rf9qn2y.scholar.serialssolutions.com/?sid=google&auinit=AK&aulast=Pace&atitle=Dismantling+integrated+library+system.(Infotech+Feature)(Industry+Overview).&title=Library+journal+(1976)&volume=129&issue=2&date=2004&spage=3&issn=0363-0277
This article was eye-opening for me; I didn't realize that libraries are starting to have frustrations with ILSs. I didn't know that inter-operability meant a more difficult world for librarians... I would have thought it to be the other way around. It was interesting to read about how librarians are trying to find solutions by creating web-based programs or functions, and seeing how these work with their current systems.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sergey_brin_and_larry_page_on_google.html
It was interesting to learn more about google and how (and why) it works. Besides being impressed over-all with everything that went into Google, I am also always impressed with companies that are dedicated to implementing procedures that keep their employees happy. If more companies would put a little bit of time and effort into that, perhaps they wouldn't suffer from high employee turn-over. What an amazing 'project' google was... it's incredible how much we each rely on google, and they always seem to have the answer we are looking for.
I didn't realize that there is a group (The Internet Society) that oversees how the internet is used.--- Another thought, isn't it amazing how a message can travel from one computer half-way across the world to another computer (through a network) in just a fraction of a second? --- I also was impressed with the step-by-step details of how your browser searches for URL or IP addresses when you type them in. What a great website!
Andrew K. Pace. „Dismantling Integrated Library Systems“ Library Journal, vol 129 Issue 2, p34-36. 2/1/2004 http://rt4rf9qn2y.scholar.serialssolutions.com/?sid=google&auinit=AK&aulast=Pace&atitle=Dismantling+integrated+library+system.(Infotech+Feature)(Industry+Overview).&title=Library+journal+(1976)&volume=129&issue=2&date=2004&spage=3&issn=0363-0277
This article was eye-opening for me; I didn't realize that libraries are starting to have frustrations with ILSs. I didn't know that inter-operability meant a more difficult world for librarians... I would have thought it to be the other way around. It was interesting to read about how librarians are trying to find solutions by creating web-based programs or functions, and seeing how these work with their current systems.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sergey_brin_and_larry_page_on_google.html
It was interesting to learn more about google and how (and why) it works. Besides being impressed over-all with everything that went into Google, I am also always impressed with companies that are dedicated to implementing procedures that keep their employees happy. If more companies would put a little bit of time and effort into that, perhaps they wouldn't suffer from high employee turn-over. What an amazing 'project' google was... it's incredible how much we each rely on google, and they always seem to have the answer we are looking for.
Muddiest Point 9/30/2008
My question is regarding the phone system, "circuit-switched" network. We were told it assumes that less than 10% of lines are in use at once. That seems like a very low percentage. Why does it have to be that low? And do we have to reach 100% usage before getting the "circuits busy" message? Or do we hear that message when we get to a certain percentage?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
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