Link to my portfolio

Well we are winding down to the end of the semester, and our final assignment was a portfolio of all our class projects. Here's a link if you'd like to see how it looks. You may experience trouble with the link to WisePlus. I believe it's an issue with the site, and not with the link.

Hope you like my work.
http://www.pitt.edu/~mas274/SimonsMJ_LIS2600Portfolio.html

Creating a web site using Dreamweaver

This YouTube video discusses "Creating a Basic Web Site". It has some helpful hints about 4 types of websites, their purpose, and how to approach your design.

Portfolio

Image via Wikipedia

I've put together a portfolio of my work for this class using Dreamweaver, and I'm pleased with the results. I anticipated difficulty linking the assignments but I didn't have any trouble with the links. Of course, I may get a shock when I actually put it on to the server but for now I think it looks pretty good.

Oh, I see Zemanta has shown up again. It's been mia lately.

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CSS

Our most recent tech lesson has to do with CSS and style sheets. I found the (CSS) Zen Garden and I think it is a beautiful site with excellent style sheet examples available to its readers.

http://www.csszengarden.com/

Web page

I completed my web page using an external CSS style sheet without too much aggravation. I read through the very helpful tutorial reading assignments and I thought "I can do this". After a few false starts I did do it, and I thought it looked pretty good too.

Social media

I'm working on ideas using social media to attract customers to our children's book events. I ran across this quote to describe social media "it is simply about finding the best way to communicate with an audience. Social media consists of the same content already in use: text, audio, images, and video. The difference lies in its ability to open up new channels of communication." in an article from Digital Web magazine titled "Integrating Social Media into a Web Content Strategy" by Britt Parrott (http://www.digital-web.com/articles/
social_media_to_web_content_strategy/)

Reasons to Blog

I saw this on video on the LIS class blog, and I wanted to make sure I could find it in the future. It's from Teacher Tube and it's titled "Why Let Students Blog?".

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=79778e9f140b78621d7f&msg
=You%20must%20be%20logged%20in%20to%20use%20the%20Feature
%20Video%20request

New job

I'll be graduating in December so I've started to look for a new job. I have quite a bit of experience teaching a variety of age groups from infants through adults, in a variety of lessons, from acclimating babies to the water to conducting financial literacy workshops. Now I would like to work in a public library setting, preferably as a children's librarian.

I enjoy working in the private as well as the public sector, so when I saw a posting for a children's manager at a local bookstore I applied for it. Much to my surprise I was offered the position and I'll begin next week! I'm excited and I think it will be a good opportunity for me. I'm looking forward to my new challenge.

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Digital Repositories: Development, implementation, and uses of digital repositories

Development, implementation, and uses of digital repositories is an assignment I am working on at this time. I really want to see what Zemanta suggests. OK, I am perplexed. Some of the images would have been very appropriate when I wrote about Zemanta originally. In fact, the images are better than what was suggested for the initial blog, but now I'd like to see relevant images for digital depositories. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'd like to find a really good digital depository picture. ... Still nothing. Let me try a definition for a digital repository: "An online, searchable, web-accessible database containing works of research deposited by scholars. Purpose is both increased access to scholarship ..."
www.library.uiuc.edu/scholcomm/glossary.html

Still nada. Try: "An organisation that has responsibility for the long-term maintenance of digital resources, as well as for making them available to communities ..."
www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/redeflib/glossary/index.html

I don't think it's working well for this particular subject, so I'm not adding any of the images or links to articles.

Audacity

Image via WikipediaLet's try Zemanta with Audacity. Audacity is an audio editor. Dr. Tomer believes we will need to know how to produce videos. This time I think the image is ok and the articles are marginal, but I'm still intrigued.

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Zemanta for bloggers

Dr. Tomer always has something cool and new (to me at least) to share with the class. Today I learned about a plugin called Zemanta, which identifies additional images and articles that may be relevant to my post. Let's give it a try.

OK, the images don't appear to be relevant in this instance, but the articles seem to be. Still, pretty cool.

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Web design and 12 examples of Paragraph Typography

Plenty of good information here on paragraph styles for the web, and may be helpful for our 1st styling assignment for a web page:

The Paragraph in Web Typography & Design by Jon Tangerine

http://jontangerine.com/log/2008/06/the-paragraph-in-web-typography-and-design

..."The context, meaning and tone of web copy should always determine typographic style. Reading the text in full—or at least understanding what the text might be before styling it—is a pre-requisite. A common mistake is to allow the design to dominate the text: Design for design’s sake, or even worse, fashion’s sake."...

...."People experience the Web differently to print. The Web is not linear; in print people most often read sequentially, from front to back. They may flip, looking for something that catches their eye. After an initial look, they may skip back to interesting items using a table of contents or an index. On the Web this is reversed. Skipping to a certain page via the menu is habitual. This has been encouraged by bad design and web copy writing where inline links in the running text are sparse, if available at all."....

PDF's and Web design

Why PDFs Suck!
By Henny Swan.

This is an interesting article on PDF use on the web, and how design changes could have a positive impact on accessibility.

http://www.rnib.org.uk/wacblog/pdf/why-pdfs-suck/

New Computers

Hooking up a new computer is always so much fun-not! I have a Gateway laptop that has served me well (about 9 years old) but as you can image it doesn't have enough memory and it's just way too slow even to start it up let alone work with any current applications. So I purchased an HP with Vista (I have been very happy with XP). It's a slimline and very attractive. I opened the box hoping to find detailed installation instructions, and as long as someone is picture literate I guess everything works out just fine, but I really prefer words when it comes to installation. I finally hooked everything up. Now if I can just figure out how to integrate it wirelessly into my home network. I'm wired in right now but I'd like to be wireless. Do I need a wireless LAN antenna?

Web Design

Our next set of assignments pertains to web design, and one of the assignments is to create an HTML page which represents a portfolio of our assignments. The readings are from W3 Schools. After I've read and studied their tutorials, I should have a beginning foundation in web design. Once again I am utterly amazed at the quality of free resources available on the web. I'm looking forward to constructing my portfolio.

Jing video for del.icio.us add on for Firefox

Exciting time for educators and librarians.

There are so many exciting applications available on the web that educators can use to enhance the learning process. Instructors that encouraging their students to utilize applications as simple as a blog or a wiki; try a brainstorming session on bubbl.us, or a media application such as Jing or Voicethread, can move students beyond the tedium of a traditional classroom and may even create a sense of enthusiasm for a learning! These applications have the power to engage students, encourage collaboration, and in time build knowledge in a way that will tend to remain with them far longer than traditional teaching methods. These same applications can be used by libraries to build traffic on their website, instruct patrons to effectively use the library, build a spirit of community, and more.

Secure VPN tales of frustration

Of course I’m trying to beat the deadline on an assignment, and I only have a small piece of it to finish, so it was put off till the last minute because I thought it would only take a few minutes to complete. Well it took hours! For some reason I had a terrible time logging in to the VPN. It took multiple attempts. Then the database I was using moved sooo slowly, and then it would freeze up. Result: start over again. All the log ins must be repeated. The search has to be re-entered only to have the database move sooo slowly and then freeze again and again. Then it started to storm and I just knew I would lose power. Well I finally finished it, and I think everything was done correctly.

Jing

Too much fun! We have an upcoming assignment asking us to use “Jing”. It’s hard to believe such high quality and incredibly useful applications such as Jing are offered free to users. If you are unfamiliar with Jing, it’s an application that allows you to “grab an image or record a video”, then you can annotate and share your captured image or video. Pretty neat way to present instructional materials, or help a friend understand how to navigate an application. Here’s the url. Check it out for yourself. http://www.jingproject.com/

"Open Source Learning"

I love "TED" (Technology, Entertainment, Design.), so many interesting and inspiring talks. In class we recently identified material on open source computing for education and/or libraries. Here's a fabulous video from TED on open source learning. Richard Baraniuk is a university professor at Rice, and the founder of Connexions-an open source repository of educational materials. It's open to anyone to use for learning and/or contributing. Enjoy the video.

Scopus assignment

Wow. Talk about doing things the hard way. I probably shouldn’t even admit to making this mistake. The class assignment is to export our Scopus/Google Scholar references from RefWorks, into Word, using the APA format. I have all my references in a folder so I’m ready to export. I look over the exporting options offered by RefWorks and I don’t see how to use them, and use an APA format. I try a couple of the Exporting formats but nope, they definitely are not in APA style.

I open Word. I click on Write-N-Cite. So I start entering each reference individually using Write-N-Cite. I just had minor surgery on my hand so all this clicking is hurting me! I keep thinking there must be a better way. So I re-read export options in the Refworks help. I skim the tutorials RefWorks offers. Nope. I continue clicking, and I just know I can’t be doing this correctly. I’m so used to using Write-N-Cite I failed to notice the Bibliography options available in the full version of RefWorks until after I do a Google search and find a helpful illustration from Harvard. Thank you Google and Harvard.

SQL for Web Nerds

I finished reading SQL for Web Nerds, well I read it kind of fast! Imagine my surprise seeing in the afterword “Congratulations: You've learned SQL. You can tap into the power of the relational database management system for concurrency control and transaction management.” Wow. Never thought that could happen. Well it didn’t really, but I understood enough that I could go back and read it a little more thoroughly and then maybe I would be entitled to the author’s congratulations. Unfortunately I am still a little more interested in his dog pictures and found a link to the photographer’s site where she talks about photographing dogs. This is where I’m going to look around a little more. I don’t think Dr. Tomer expects us to become programmers but I do think we are expected to have some understanding of what is behind the tools we are using in our profession.

The author, Philip Greenspun, also suggests looking into “Web services for collaboration” and provides a link to his writings on this subject http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/. I will read this too when I have some free time. I like the way he writes and presents his information.

SQL for Web Nerds by Philip Greenspun

Normally an article on relational database management systems would have my eyes rolling to the back of my head by the third paragraph. However, I can honestly say this author has captured my interest (of course by posting his dog pictures, he got my attention right away.) I’ve only read the first few chapters tonight, and it’s a beautiful evening for a bike ride so I’m going to play hooky from my studies tonight. More tomorrow.

YouTube content- bookmarking with del.icio.us

I added a YouTube video successfully in my last post so let's try it again. This is a good video on using a number of the bookmarking features available in del.icio.us.

YouTube content- RSS and Google Reader

Thanks to a great idea from Ruth in the 2600 class, I am going to try to add a YouTube video on RSS and Google Reader. Let's see if I can make this happen.

Time

This semester I have time to complete my assignments before they are due. The past 2 semesters I've taken four classes and I was constantly up against a deadline of some kind. This semester I'm taking two, and I've completed one of them already. I've enjoyed the readings and completing the assignments this semester, and it's easier retain what I'm learning! Our text-Discovering Computers 2009, Complete is, I think, very good. At first I thought it would be a typical general information text but I've found it covers a great deal of information and clearly explains subjects I was a little foggy on.

Importing to Refworks

I spent a good bit of time today reviewing the Zotero screencasts and forums. The more I learned about it the more I liked it. I imported the Zotero files I tagged as "Digital Libraries" into Refworks using RIS. No trouble. The importing went pretty smoothly. Since it didn't take too long I decided to revist my del.icio.us imports. I was unhappy with the RSS import I did the other day so I looked over the site again but was not enlightened any more than before. Then I looked at the tutorial Dr. Tomer did on "RefGrab-It" and decided to try it with the delicious bookmarks. I liked using RefGrab-It, although it doesn't seem to pick up author information except from Wikipedia!
Anyway I imported all the bookmarks again using RefGrab-It" and was satisfied except for the author omission. Using RSS, it showed my login name as the author for each item and I found that unacceptable.

Apple vs PC

I have been a long time PC user and often wondered why someone would choose a MAC over a PC. After all, PC's dominate corporate America, so what would be the benefit of using a MAC? Last semester, while researching my paper on personal digital libraries, I came across some software made only for a MAC, and I really wanted to try it but couldn't. So for the first time I began to consider buying a MAC, but since I am rather frugal I needed to find some additional virtues for the MAC. After listening to Dr. Tomer's recent podcast, which included a brief overview of Apple's operating virtues, I added another check mark to the pro side of my checklist for Apple. I have been reluctant to upgrade to Vista because I am happy with the stability of XP, but now I know that Apple's operating system is also stable. I have been looking at the Apple website but I just noticed they offer some free 1 hour workshops to introduce users to Apple's system. I believe I'll book a session with them.

del.icio.us and Refworks

Yesterday I exported my del.icio.us list to Refworks using an RSS feed. A process I felt should have taken minutes took hours. At first the feed would only import 24 items, and only the most recent 24! Then I used another feed, don't ask me what I'm talking about because I don't know. I had 2 different feeds from the same source which just added to my confusion and frustration. The second feed address picked up more items (35) but still only the most recent ones, so I ended up deleting and then re-tagging sites I wanted to include in RefWorks. I looked around the del.icio.us site including "properties" but I couldn't find a way to increase the number of items carried by the feed.
I like the ability to "bundle" tags on del.icio.us but I think there should be more advantages to bundling than I currently am aware of.

2004 OCLC report

A new role for libraries? Points to reflect on:

• “Libraries must also manage content that is unbound from any sort of identifiable container.”
• “Research suggests that end users see the most important role for their libraries as making content available in the user’s digital workspace, regardless of what devices are in that space.”
• “This new world is abundant and unstructured, but contextual mechanisms for navigating and synthesizing the information commons are scarce, even in—perhaps especially in—libraries. “We are drowning in information but are starving for knowledge. Information is only useful when it can be located and synthesized into knowledge.”53
• “What is needed is context. We no longer lack content but we do lack context. There are plenty of efforts being made to address this gap by companies that see the need and, quite rightly, we predict, see the context challenge as the next ‘big thing.’ A contextual search tool might work like an invisible librarian, searching the Web and bringing back, in real time, news, book and article links, relevant Web sites, and any documents and e-mails related to the topic on the searcher’s computing devices.”

OCLC. Information Format Trends: Content, Not Containers. (2004)

del.icio.us and blogging

del.icio.us has an experimental feature that automatically posts daily entries to your blog. I said to myself “that’s the ticket” to making sure I meet my LIS 2600 blog entry requirements. Unfortunately, I’ve run into a technical glitch. I need the “full URL of the XML-RPC interface”. Huh? Looking in the help section of del.icio.us was no help at all. It seems other bloggers have asked for clarification regarding this feature, and this URL requirement, but there have been no answers.

New to Blogging

This is my first blog, and my first post so I am feeling a little intimidated. I viewed the Blogger.com tour, and then began the process to set up my blog. I was only slightly puzzled by the steps to take. I forgot I had a google account so I had to find my google password, and then when it asked for my address I wasn’t sure if I was to make up my own address (I did). It opened this page for me to post, so I guess I am doing ok.