I have been reading (in some cases skimming) the selections for Unit 12 on project management. One that I found especially interesting was the USDA’s Project Management Handbook. I was taken by how structured and formalized it was. It seemed that quite a bit of the handbook was spent in lisitng all the other government mandates that define how projects should be handled. That is the supposed curse in working for the government—one can feel like their hands are tied in having to comply with all the many rules and regs. I also found it interesting that it went into more detail then other readings on the importance and place of security in the IT environment, and different stages of the project. I think the document did a good job at differentiating between program and project manager, and spelling out the responsibilities of each, along with roles and responsibilities of the project team and client.

I contrast this with the article I read for the dropbox assignment: Reich, Sauer, and Wee’s Innovative Practices for IT Projects. As the title indicates, it has suggestions for novel ways to deal with issues that arise during a project’s planning and implementation. One message from the article is that it is alright not to follow rules if they would lead to a failed project, and even to encourage dissent if something is in the works, but doesn’t make sense. Somehow I see the authors of the Project Management Handbook dying of apoplexy if they were asked to take that article seriously.

Of course there is necessity for both works. The Project Management Handbook is useful for providing a solid government reference, and many people are most comfortable with having detailed, structured assignments and boundaries. But unexpected variables happen, and flexibility to respond in more a unorthodox manner, if it leads to success, is what Innovative Practices for IT Projects affirms.

What A Ride This Has Been

I started out knowing nothing, and now I feel like I have a basic comprehension of a few of the issues that are important when creating a digital library. It happened in little dribs and drabs. I really didn’t put it all together until I read the wrap up in Assignment 11:

[B]ut at the center of all of them is some kind of operating system, some kind of web server to make them available, some kind of record management system (such as a database) that organizes and stores information about the collection, and some sort of application that scripts interactions with the database to display information according to what a user wishes to find and to store new information.

And that’s what I’ve been learning.

I think I appreciate systems (and the IT Help Desk) much more than I did, now that I have gotten my fingers “dirty” by actually trying to configure and create code. One of the biggest frustrations in working with LAMP has been the enormity and the complexity of it all. I like simple cause and effect relationships. When I do A, I should get the result B. At times during the past few weeks the system has seemed capricious, and refused to give me the results I expected, no matter how many times I proof read the code I’d typed, and made sure it matched the instructions. I lost so much time trying something over and over again, hoping for different results. (That is the definition of insanity, isn’t it?) But somewhere in my readings (I wish I could remember where) the author explained that the complexity of the system, and the possibility of one slight configuration that is different can cause unexpected results in unexpected ways later on. And somehow, that sounds rational to me.

And of course there were times when I misunderstood directions or mis-keyed a command. The sense of elation when I got the “It Works” message was in direct proportion to the sense of panic or frustration when things were not going right.

Unit 10 Blog

MySQL was not that difficult conceptually. If one can remember the syntax, it seems pretty straight-forward. Similar to following a recipe—do things in the proper order, and make sure your measurements are the same as the directions to ensure you get the right results. That being said, while I don’t think the concept is difficult, I certainly don’t have all the syntax rules memorized. While I can follow directions fairly well, it’s a different matter creating a new dish when you have multiple ingredients in front of you, but don’t know what any of them taste like, or how they will taste when combined together.
I think having 10 years of librarianship behind me working with Boolean operators helped with the section on logic. I do think that the explanation of the operator “NOT, as presented in the Mostafa’s video was difficult to understand because it was different than the concept of “NOT” I’m used to using..
As it was presented to me, and the way I’ve used it for years, is to think of a set, whereby NOT excludes a specific subset within that set.

However in Mostafa’s video, I understood NOT to be the reverse of the truth of falseness of a statement. In other words if 3+4=7 (true) than NOT 3+4=7 would be false. Conceptually this is hard for me to understand.

Database Creation

After a few false starts with the MySQL session, things seemed to go smoothly. (I initially understood part of the MySQL query to be placed in <>, which is what the small font on the video from UACBT-VTC looked like. After trying to execute my commands several times but receiving error messages, I switched to the tutorial provided by the MySQL community, and saw that the signs were not <> but ( ). After that it was easy to follow along with the tutorials, and I sat with my laptop, watched the videos and mirrored them on my host PC, and did the same with the tutorial from the MySQL community.

It took me hours to analyze and decide how I wanted to present my database proposal. The deeper I looked at what I wanted to work with, the more confused I became. I decided to propose a database based on the Math-Science Institute papers that I am adding to ContentDM. Certain choices were easy—there were items and creators, each with obvious attributes. But the third entity presented a challenge. I knew it had to be related to the other entities, and needed attributes of its own. Although related, I felt it also had to be something which stood independently of the other two. I initially chose the Science Track the students were enrolled in, but as I worked with using the specific track as the primary key it soon became obvious that it wouldn’t work. Since there were only three tracks, yet multiple courses the students take in each track, the primary key would not be unique in each case. I found myself working on this problem in those occasions of light sleep during the night. Finally after much deliberation today, I’ve selected the courses for which the research was done to be the third entity, and the individual course to be the primary key. I may be overanalyzing all this and I hope that what I present is logical.
I’ve done a cursory reading of all the assigned readings for this unit. I know I nee to go back and re-read them more in depth. I’ve also looked out on the web for different examples and explanations caouse it never hurts to see thngs from a different point of view.

Technology Plans

One document that stood out this week was the ALA’s Technology Plan. I think it was well organized and clearly presented its goals, strategies and criteria for successes. However I found all the talk about getting member’s information so they could be treated on an individual level as somewhat disconcerting. Even though there were safeguards for securing the information, I never realized what a high priority ALA placed on marketing products and services to its members.

Several years ago I had the pleasure of hearing Cathy De Rosa (The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan:Pattern Recognition) speak at a Florida Technology in Education Conference. I was impressed then by the research and insights the publication brought to light. I retained a copy of the booklet after the conference, and found it again when this reading assignment came up. After reviewing it once again, I marvel at how accurate many of the scans are seven years later.

I will file the article on applying for grants by Stephanie Gerding and Pam MacKellar in a place where I can easily find it again. I think it will prove very useful later if I have an opportunity to apply for a grant.

And of course, Florida’s State Plan for LSTA funding should be a “must-read” for all public librarians in the state. Many times the bigger picture does not trickle down to the librarian on the front lines. This document provides the visions and explanations of why things happen as they do. For any semi-ambitious librarian it is important to have knowledge of the direction that libraries hope and plan to move so they can make informed decisions to align their career goals to the goals of their institution.

As one article pointed out, IT people view the technology arena with different perspectives than end-users. It was frustrating, as I mentioned when discussing the fiasco of implementing thin-clients in my library, how IT departments make decisions without investigating end-users' needs and abilities. Having the chance to get my fingers “dirty” in an IT sort of way in this class, I have much more respect for the complexity of networked systems. I doubt in the hierarchical environment in which I work that I will ever be asked to contribute to technology planning. But I do hope that I may someday serve as a knowledgeable middle man between IT implementation plans and students’ needs.

Learning XML

Unit 7 was the first time I was formally introduced to XML. I realize that I have seen XML coding before, when looking at many web document sources, but I never distinguished it as a different code from HTML.

I followed along both tutorials recommended by Professor Fulton– the one from w3school and Mark Longs’ tutorials in UA CBT. The tutorials were clear and writing the basic code looked easy. Ha! When I tried to write an XML document I kept getting an error message. Apparently I didn’t pay strict attention to writing attributes.

So knowing that different sources can say the same thing, but resonate a different way, I Googled “XML” to get some explanations on my errors from alternative sources. I came across the w3.org site, which was useful; and xml.com which states that their overview was outdated before it was even published on the web.

I had enclosed my attribute within greater than and lesser than symbols, made sure the attribute was in quotation marks, and that the tag was closed:

This is an error, and Internet Explorer would not display the document.

I finally figured out that the attribute is part of the element and that the closure tag closes the element and attribute: April 20, 2010

I am not at an advanced stage. I have much to learn.

HTML and Me

Years ago, when I was working at Florida Atlantic University, there was an exceptionally good instructor in the IT department who trained faculty and staff on applications ranging from MS Word, to PowerPoint, to Photoshop, to HTML. I sat in her basic classes, and tried to practice whatever I learned. It wasn’t until a few years went by that I was given the “privilege’ of being able to create websites for my department and load them to the site. At that point we used FrontPage, to both create and upload the pages to our server. My method of creating a page was to find one on the web whose style I really liked, copy that part of the code, and paste it into FrontPage. I would then manipulate it using the little bit of HTML I knew, along with the FrontPage editor.

I’ve found it very valuable to know a smattering of code because it has enabled me to review the code and often clean out the garbage that has been added. It was not unusual at that time for FrontPage to add lines and lines of ;nbsp.

At my current job, I am responsible for our campus’ library’s homepage, contacts, information about the library, etc. We must use Ingenuix, a content management system, to create and upload pages. Just recently the college purchased DreamWeaver licenses for faculty and staff, and I’m looking forward to learning it. In theory we may be able to create something interesting, but because so much is locked down within the style options of Ingenuix (fonts, colors, sizes, no flash, etc.), in reality all we have is a little white space and a GUI web editor that makes for some boring web pages.

Does the Internet Make You Dumber?

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 5, 2010) titled “Does the Internet Make You Dumber? According to research, there have been significant neurological changes in the ways the brain processes information after using the Internet. It was hypothesized that the hyperlinked environment keeps one in a constant state of mental stimulation, and does not allow for focus or deep attention, which in turn encourages shallow thinking.

I was fascinated by the article because I’ve noticed that my retention of the material I’ve read on the web, like Wikipedia articles where I follow internal links, is practically nil. Of course there could be many other reasons for this, including a lack of a knowledge base which does not allow for new material to relate.

On many web pages, information, in an severe act of reductionism, is stripped of its details and left with only the highlights presented. Is this leading to a bullet-point mentality? I'm not sure--I've been working on a command line interface for so long the past three days its hard to tell.

Unit 4

I am trying to build a better understanding of what I am doing, but I still don’t have a solid foundation that I can relate these command line interactions to. Friday things were going very well with Assignment 1 when I decided it was time to take a snapshot. In one stupid instance I hit Ctrl. Alt, Delete rather than Ctrl and Alt, and was sent to Windows task manager. When I navigated back to Ubuntu, I got a message which I thought was telling me I had made a fatal error. Visions of hours of reinstalling and configuring all the work I had previously done swam before my eyes. Luckily Bruce was monitoring the discussion list, and told me how to get back to where I started. I had taken an earlier snapshot, but had not yet used the process of restoring Ubuntu using one. That part was easier than I thought.

I try to be so precise when entering commands, and often get results I expect, but other times not. One frustrating part for me is not knowing how to recover from an error if going back through all the steps don’t help. One tip I learned the hard way is to focus on one task at a time and do not allow interruptions. Yesterday during the Webmin addition, I went through an entire series of steps without hitting the final “Create” button. Repetition, repetition and repetition is going to be the only way for me to learn these skills.

Experiences with the Line Command

The pantheon of techno gods must have felt merciful this week, and allowed to me practice my VIM tutorial and line commands without too many problems. I worked my way through the VIM tutorial and it was actually fun, seeing the correct result if the instructions were followed to the letter. It has taken me twice as long to get anything done because I type, carefully compare what I have typed to the instructions, and then hit the enter key. Bruce said the tutorial should take about a half-an-hour, but it took me three hours.

This week I have not been experimental with any of the configuration on Ubuntu, other than exactly what was required for the assignments. It isn’t because I am trying to do the minimum, but instead don’t want to mess up an otherwise successful lesson.

Configuring the Linux files is different, not only by using a line command rather than a GUI, but in what I have configured. My previous experiences with configuring anything on my PC have all been related to "Appearance." I’ve played with the screen resolution to see if I could make the windows easier to read, but went back to the default when the black/white screens left out so much vitality. I’ve substituted different icons for the default icons to easily distinguish between folders, and I frequently change the desktop background. It never occurred to me to go deeper into the configurations and change any of the ways a process works. First and foremost, I didn’t know it could be done. Why would I change something an expert had determined was best for all. Second, I feel so unknowledgeable as to the options, I can’t even guess what I would prefer.

Week Two—The Remote Desktop and the Tutorials

This week has been a mixture of exhilaration and frustration. At this early point in trying to manipulate the computer, nothing lives in middle ground. I feel such a sense of accomplishment if something goes right—even something as simple (to more experienced users) as downloading and installing a large file.

Accessing the remote desktop actually went smoothly. I was stumped at first because I wasn’t sure how to find the VPN again on my computer, and then access it. That part was a breeze thanks to Andrew, who gave wonderfully simple directions in a discussion post. I then followed the directions from Bruce’s video and before long I was staring at the terminal. I didn’t do much with it then, just very carefully reread how to shut it down. I am still anxious about incorrectly using these software applications and fear that I will do something wrong, and be unable to recover.

I also was successful in installing the Ubuntu server in the VMWare. I reviewed the videos several times and then hesitatingly brought up VMWare in another window and followed the directions step by step. I was concerned when I downloaded Ubuntu earlier, because my file size was only 667 Mbs. In a discussion post Bruce said that seemed small, so when the option came during installation to check the file, I did. I was very pleased when the report came back saying the file had integrity.

Working my way through the tutorials was another matter. I feel I have mastered the cd and ls commands, but my experiences with the less and file commands were not good. This is where my lack of experience really shows-- I’m not sure what is a good file or directory to practice with. I was able to copy the files from /usr/share/example-content/* and put them in my home directory, but unable to open or view any of them. I tried the “less” command with several file names, but without any success. At this point, after several hours of trying, I am still unable to open any of those files—even ones that seem like good text candidates (like Aesop’s Fables and Maxwell’s Quotations). At a few command line attempts I got the greater than sign, >, which I learned in a later lessen is a signal for redirection. But being unsure what to do with it at that point, I just closed the window and started a new session. I haven’t completely given up—just paused, hoping some miracle will happen on the programming end that will allow those commands to work for me. Manipulating files is very frustrating.

I have a basic understanding of file permissions, since I worked with those many years ago. I need to review the section on I/O redirection and performing tasks with pipes. Hopefully practice will make perfect.

Reflections on the Ubuntu Forum

I think there should be another section for the forum—Absolutely Absolute Beginners Talk. When I first registered yesterday, the top Sticky Thread was about how to effectively report bugs. I read it, (it included code examples) and it was so far over my head that I felt intimidated. And it was directed to absolute beginners!

I looked around, and came across a link to a list of reading material for us newbies. At the top of the list was Free Ubuntu Pocket Guide by Keir Thomas. I gratefully downloaded a copy and saved it in my IRLS672 folder.

I wanted to spend some more time today getting acclimated to the forum, and learn how to effectively navigate it. It was a good thing I saved the Pocket Guide because I couldn’t find it on the site today. It took me several minutes and false starts to get to where I left off yesterday. (I guess it wasn’t obvious enough by the title of the thread: “New to Ubuntu? Start here...”) One of our classmates mentioned that he had determined how valuable a thread was by looking at the number of views it had. That certainly helped me find the thread again today. What a good tip—I hope to remember that one.

Since we haven’t run Ubuntu yet, most of the other threads, dealing with specific problems, were of no interest to me. I have started reading the Pocket Guide, and find it understandable. I will continue reading it to give myself a headstart with our work on Ubuntu.

I noticed that the forum has a large and active community. At one point there were over 12,000 people online; the majority guests. A lot of Ubuntu users must be searching for answers to their problems. One of the threads I got caught up in advised users how to effectively search for answers in the forum. ZabiGG explained that because the forum is so heavily used, a question that was asked only 30 minutes before may already have moved to the third or fourth page. (ZabiGG advises putting a term in quotes when desiring a phrase or adjacent proximity search.)

I was saddened to see a prominent thread warning users about offerings of malicious codes. It made me feel vulnerable, in my current state of not knowing anything, to think that some malevolent might enjoy destroying another’s computer, files, and possibly source of revenue.

The New Blog

This is my first attempt to create a blog. Not very difficult, but also not a very pleasing end product--It's very plain. Maybe a picture of my library will help.

Oh well, as I learn more, and have some free time, things may improve.