IRLS 675 Unit1

This is my new blog page for IRLS 675 where I will be documenting my personal experience setting up a digital collection.

Since my area of expertise is not library science, I will instead focus my collection on my previous profession; textile design. My collection will consist of items related to the fashion and textile designs of a hypothetical up and coming clothing manufacturer. The items in my collection are both born digital files and digital surrogates for actual garments and textiles.

From my past experiences working for clothing manufacturers, I found it rare that there were systems in place for organizing digital sketches and other files created by designers, that could be easily accessed by the rest of the company. Now even though these files were created at the request of the sales department, they could not access the digital files without the assistance of a designer. If a sales person wanted to go back and see all the garment sketches that were created for a particular season there was no easy way of doing that.

The creation a well organized, search-able database would grant access to files that can be referenced and/or modified by other departments. For instance, if a garment is selected for sampling, the pattern-making department could append the pattern file or production specifications could be added by the production team, after a garment is picked up by a retailer, but I'm getting ahead of myself since I don't have any of these additional files.

To start, the main purpose the database will be to house, the current seasons inspiration boards, digital surrogates of fabric available for use and images of the garments from the first production season.  All the important information about a garment, a production season and the sample fabric inventory, will be stored and accessible from one centralized location.

Unit 6

To learn HTML I mostly used the w3schools HTML tutorials and I did some searches in Google for HTML cheat sheets, one that I liked was from webmonkey.com.  I also used portions of HTML from the first webpage I designed in IRLS 504. To create that page I used Microsoft Word to generate some of the HTML and some online HTML generators. Since I was pressed for time so I don’t think it is the cleanest HTML, but I was able to complete the assignment.  I ran into a problem figuring out how to display two images side by side and centered in the middle.  I used &nbsp to align text on the right side above my second picture, I know this is wrong I’m sure there is another way to achieve this with the correct formatting.  

The thing that I find the most intimidating about HTML is the amount of text in the source code, if you make a small mistake it is hard to figure out where the error is, but as I work with it more it is getting easier. 

Unit 5

It was interesting to read the articles on learning styles, I had not given it much thought.  I know that I prefer to watch the videos than do the readings but I'm not sure how much of the information I retain. I feel like reading the lectures, doing the assignments then doing the quizzes helps to reinforce the information that was covered. OK this is nerdy but I really like doing the quizzes then seeing what I got wrong and going back to find the information. It seems that as I reread the lecture a new aspect is always revealed, something I might not have understood the first time around. Frankly I wish I could go back and reread most of the material but time barely allots for one reading. I also like how how the assignments are arranged so that it is possible to go through them like a check list, there is a feeling of accomplishment even though the purpose of some tasks is not always clear. I'm still battling with the meanings of some of the terminology, I could probably memorize the meaning of  something but not be able to explain how it's actually works. Like with POTS, I still don't understand how the phone coverts your voice to data that is transmitted through wire and sent to the other side of the world. The science continues to elude me.

Unit 4

Installations of Webmin and creating users went quite well, no real problems to report. I'm still feeling a bit lost as to exactly what we are doing, I don't have problems following the step by step instructions but left to my own devices I'm pretty clueless. Learning the command language seems like a daunting task but every time we do an exercise I feel like I'm retaining a little bit more. I'm still uncomfortable with the fact that a typo in sudo mode could cause serious problems so I try to check and double check all the commands I enter, so I'm still cautiously moving along.

The only problem I can say I had was working on the remote desktop because it was so slow, but that was really more of an annoyance.

I was surprised when I took the quiz this week, I didn't expect to get 6 out of 8 correct on the first try, that was a moral boost but, I'm still stumped on Q1.

No tips or trick to contribute at this time, but hopefully I'll have something by the end of class.

Unit 3

A bit behind but, catching up. I got stuck in the vim tutor for a while and finally escaped by shutting the whole thing down, then a friend suggested :q instead of q!. Navigating in the tutor was alright and I like that you do not have to take your hands of the keyboard to move around. I am accustomed to using shortcuts in Photoshop, except there is a whole lot more commands to remember. I feel like the environment is becoming more familiar and I have a better understanding of directories and why Unix is set up differently than Windows. However I'm still scared when I do commands as super user but the snapshot feature is reassuring. Also the terminology is extensive, the words are familiar but the definitions not so much, for example one of the readings states that /proc is the directory that is used as a kernel information access hooks....so things like that are confusing.

unit 2

This week was interesting, I find that installing new programs is kind of exciting. I had no problems accessing the remote desktop or installing Ubuntu. I was extra careful to go through the steps and watch the tutorials closely while doing these just to make sure that nothing crazy happens to my system. It's been a bit nerve racking because you just do not know what could go wrong, but so far pretty smooth sailing. Now entering commands on the remote desktop was a bit of a different story. I watched all the VCT tutorials and took notes but found that when I went through the Learning the shells tutorial, that my notes made little sense. I was able to follow pretty well up until lesson 5, manipulating files it got very confusing from there, but the more I review the information the more it comes together in little pieces. I'm still feeling confused about what it is we are looking at and what super powers the CLI has. This weeks lesson leaves me with the impression that the CLI makes it easier to organize large amounts of information found on databases.

Assignment 6 Ubuntu Forum

I poked around the Ubuntu Forum today. I have done searches in the past that have lead me to discussion forums for answers but other than that I have very little experience using a forum. Since I am a "debbie" when it comes to these things,the first thing I had to do was look up what a sticky thread was. It is a thread that does not move to the bottom as new threads are entered because the information in the thread is of great value and should appear at the top of the page where it is easily located.

The first sticky thread I read was "suggestions on how to get your user questions answered", what I gathered from that was make sure you research your question first, an answer might already be out there and try to be thorough when explaining you system setup.

I looked at a thread called "malicious commands" and started to get scared but now I am forewarned not to run any command props I'm not sure of.

Then I moved on to something more pleasant, "switching from Windows". I followed a link to a list of software available. I was curious as to what type of accessibility software might be available for Ubuntu but I didn't find what I was looking for, so I have to check the forums for that.

I'm feeling excited and a bit scared about installing Ubuntu but change is good.

Hi

I have set up this blog for IRLS 672. This is my first ever blog. I hope that I will have something of interest to say and that I don't bore you to death.

I hope that Intro to Applied Technology will help me to expand my scope of technology knowledge and I am looking forward to testing my problem solving abilities.
Let the good times roll!