Starter 9/22

I’ll be presenting about the federal government’s new Web site Apps.gov, where federal agencies will able to buy cloud computing applications and services. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra unveiled it just this week. Cloud computing is a model in which software is delivered over the Web rather than installed on individual PCs or local servers. The goal is to trim the government’s $75 billion annual IT budget.

As part of the program, Google announced that it is going to dedicate a part of its computing infrastructure to serve the federal government exclusively.

Please read the New York Times article that gives a good overview of the initiative:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/now-even-the-government-has-an-app-store/?ref=technology

Additional reading, if you’d like:
The official announcement from the CIO:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-100-In-the-Cloud/

All about the Google deal:
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-apps-and-government.html

And the Apps.Gov site itself:
https://apps.gov/cloud/advantage/main/start_page.do

Starter for September 24th: LibGuides

What is Web 2.0?
The definition of Web 2.0 is somewhat nebulous, but what we'll keep in mind for the purpose of this class starter is that the key feature of Web 2.0 is the emphasis on ease of content creation rather than content consumption (Boulos & Wheeler, 2007) . In layman's terms, the point of Web 2.0 is to make it easy for people to share content on the web.

How does this relate to libraries?
There are many ways libaries utilize web 2.0 tools, but some web 2.0 applications in particular are well suited to creating library webpages. These applications include LibGuides, wiki platforms, and various open source research guide tools such as NSCU’s LibraryTools, Wake Forest University’s Tutorial Toolkit, Ithaca College Library’s SubjectsPlus (an expansion of the ECU Joyner Library’s Pirate Source), and Oregon State University’s Library à la Carte.

LibGuides, though it’s a commercial product (or perhaps because it’s a commercial product..we’ll talk about that), is one of the most popular tools out of the ones listed.

What do I need to do?
Take a look at Springshare’s LibGuides website to get an idea of what the product does. In class, we’ll take a closer look at LibGuides and discuss its pros and cons. Cheers! -- Lisa

Reference:
Boulos, M. N. K., & Wheeler, S. (2007). The emerging web 2.0 social software: An enabling suite of sociable technologies in health and health care education. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 24(1), 2-23. Find @ UNC

Starter Sept. 17: Google Street View and Privacy

The topic of privacy on Google is surrounded by controversy and debate. As Google adds more features, concerns get more heated. Street View is not a new feature in the U.S. , but as Google attempts to capture more streets internationally, the idea is not universally welcomed.

Overview on Street View:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

Google's statement on Street View and Privacy:
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=70195

There have been objections to street view all around the globe:
U.S.

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2008/06/01/minnesota-town-bans-google-maps-street-view-north-oaks-wants-privacy/

Switzerland

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219401229

Japan

http://www.examiner.com/x-16352-Japan-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m9d4-Google-Japan-fights-concerns-about-Street-View

England

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-google-europe13-2009sep13,0,3481635.story

Class Starter: Captcha

I will be presenting on Tuesday about Captcha, a program designed to protect websites from bots through the use of "reverse Turing test." Captcha programs are interesting because they relate to many different information science subjects (e.g. artificial intelligence, web security, crowdsourcing, digitizing non-digital media, etc.)

Here's the link to the Captcha wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

And here's a link to an informational site about Captcha:

http://www.captcha.net/

In case you've never logged into a website using a Captcha (I'm pretty sure everyone has...), this webpage offers a chance to try them out. It also has a link to a really cool (and really distracting) game site related to Captcha (www.gwap.com).

See everyone in class on Tuesday!

-Chris

Worksheet I, II and III

We will continue to learn the UNIX commands next Tuesday, and I have an ungraded assignment for you.

On worksheet I and II, I left spaces for you to fill beside the commands, explaining what the commands mean. Read the notes, practice the commands at home, and write down what the commands mean on the worksheets. Since we didn't cover all of the commands in the worksheet, there are things that you don't quite understand. Just play with them and guess what those commands mean. We will discuss more in class.

Here are two readings about the UNIX commands. The first one is the one that you already read. The second one is a new one that I noted on the worksheet. It has a bit of information what we will cover on Tuesday.

UNIX/Linux: Getting Started (http://help.unc.edu/5288)
UNIX/Linux: Intermediate (http://help.unc.edu/5333)

Tasks 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 deadlines are rescheduled.

We will continue to learn UNIX commands next Tuesday. There are three assignments (1.3, 1.4, and 1.5) related to UNIX, so I rescheduled the due dates of the tasks.


Here are new dates for the tasks.

- Sep 22 (Thu): Tasks 1.3 and 1.4
- Sep 24 (Tue): Tasks 1.5

I will update the schedule on the course Website soon.

Interesting browser errors

I guess some of you have a problem to access the grading sheets. It is weird because they were all accessible with the IDs and PWs that you gave to me yesterday, but it is not working today. An interesting thing is that those grade sheets are now accessible through MS Explore.

So, you can try to open the grade sheets with MS Explore. I know that you need to use Firefox for the lecture notes access. I guess there is a kind of conflict between browsers to set up the password-protected accounts.

I sent a request to the IT service at SILS to check the problem and to inform me the solution. I will let you know the result as soon as I receive a reply from the IT service.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience!

Sanghee