w15 readings

I noticed the term "Clouding Computing" changes according to various experts. It is interesting to see how the meaning changes from business perspective to everyday use. I've heard of this term being touted as next big thing for the technology. A bank in Spain decided to try Clouding Computing with their computers... probably only reason I am aware due to the media coverage. The goal is to create more storage for the data... through the servers. This doesn't create warm feelings because of the potentialities of destructive force such as virus. Imagine, a virus attacks server then it affects whole group of people instead of one person. The article from Futurist Speaker was... interesting, especially the comments. There were some people who seems to be determined that the libraries are useless as cassette tapes- this struck me odd... like they do not realize that not everybody has latest technological device. Does they really want the libraries to become elite information center for selected economic class? It just defeats whole purpose for the libraries as the accessible place for all. This is to not say I am against the development of kindles and nook. It just means libraries should remain accessible even with the advances in technological devices. I believe as the generation grows up with technology, they will be more savvier with the use.

Good Luck, everyone with end of the semester! :)   

nothing to do with the courses

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17682294

The article made me think how the data overload affects our patrons and librarians... just drop your thoughts in comments if you have time :)

w14 readings

Each article sheds a light on the bulging data servers. "Man's trash is a treasure to other man" perfectly describes the information that is being stored on the programs and servers with personal data on the individuals. Individuals only can hope that their data is secure by placing trust in the companies. Lately I've noticed the increased reports of hackers accessing the servers that has personal data on the individuals. The worrisome problem is what is the hacker doing with the personal data? Some hackers might claim they are standing up for the underdogs; however this does not mean stealing the identity or bank accounts from the server. It seems to me that it is increasingly difficult to protect my identity online and offline. No-Fly List have garnered lot of attention since 9/11. There is another anecdote of a little boy scout, like eight years old landed on this list. It made his family's journey on flight quite unpleasant. It was interesting to see that head honchos in the situation of Johnnie Lockett Thomas claiming they could not take her off the list. Even in authority position, they still cannot do this. This is the part which I am puzzled about, is there a policy that locks the list down? Why are there no chain of command where person can get their name off with proof? Heavens forbid, they might put me on no-fly list because I used her name in this post. Supposing I typed these words such as Allah. Al Qaeda. Taliban. Al Shabab. Every words are being recorded and flagged as possible danger. There are programs that seek and flag certain words in the database. "Do not trust the government"; no place to hide forgot corporates. Corporates also have the data on the people as well. The people also forgot the government serves as the mirror to their demands. EPIC website serves good timeline as to demonstrate how fast people jumped on and off the bandwagon in the name of safety.  It is quite heartening to see people standing up and say, this is not right, it is invasive. I applaud the librarian who stood her ground, not giving in the tactics employed by Vermont State police.  

13th Lab

http://liswiki.org/wiki/User:Mlv24

W13 Readings

Blossom Link was quite interesting- it expands on how the social media works. The primary goal is the audience. People write and share with their followers. Just imagine, a web of connectives all over the world.  The content are renewable, re-used like never before.  The example of this is the wiki instruction by Eastern Tennessee State University. The knowledge and experience is passed down via the wiki. However the downside of re-used is repeating the information to the point it become hard to trace toward back the original source. The information about  Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia were new to me. I didn't realize wikipedia is based on free software. There was a part in the dialogue which he mentioned how the voting process on the article works in the wikipedia- the volunteers enforce the rules of neutrality. I'm not sure if the neutrality can be fully used in the websites. I also wonder about the possibility of the users to become closed-minded due to the information source they choose to use. This reminded me of an article in Washington Post online newspaper- this omsbudman talked about comments section, free speech versus the user policy. There was a online commentator mentioning that this troll who was spouting racist lines like "The president should be white person." Now, this line falls in free speech- however this comment was removed due to language use. The commentator said his comment was more offensive because it included "scum"; however it was not removed. If you want to read further about this, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-post-should-moderate-its-comments-gently/2012/03/30/gIQA7tW4lS_story.html

Lab 11

First Image is Google Scholar while the second image is web of knowledge. Google Scholar had more results with words such as library. However I find it interesting to see the contrasting search results in web of knowledge. You can see in third image, by merely adding a quotation marks, it reduced the search results to one.

W12 Readings

Web Crawling, Page Ranks, Deep Web and metadata harvesting were interesting read for me. I imagined the databases as the oil pumps with the ocean of the data around it. The graphic information were helpful, it allowed me to understand how deep the web is. Millions of the data floating in the cyberspace, to access them all is a challenge. Page ranks certainly makes sure the information and the websites are still there, this also might mean the website have not updated and it shows the limitation- if the word were popular association during certain years. It also depends on the importance of the data to the user. If the user is not satisfied, more time devoted to digging through the search engine.