Blocking websites?

Our IT department is really bugging me today and not for the usual reasons. At college, we use something call websense to block unsuitable websites and presumably monitor internet usage (worrying thought… can they see my bank account when I login to my online banking?!)

The practice of blocking social networking and personal content is probably not that unusual in an FE library. Afterall, our computers are for college work and not for students to sit on twitter and facebook all day. However, if we are expected to promote new technologies and new ways of learning and communication, then surely this blanket policy of blocking all of these sites needs to be looked at again?

Session 05 – XML

As someone put it in our Monday morning lecture, XML is simply a richer version of HTML combined to make XHTML; not a language in itself, but a very flexible way of describing information that can be created how the developer wants.

A Library application for XML

The library delivers inhouse information literacy sessions for students, however, teachers also want the flexibility to deliver the sessions themselves during tutorial classes. So the sessions need to be available on the college VLE.

To solve this problem using XML, I need a relevant DTD doctype to define the structure, elements and attributes for each lesson. Below is the basic DTD and a basic XML document that I have written to incorporate what is needed:

This shows the doctype as ‘lesson’ and then each of the five elements which make up one lesson; aims, notes, slides, activity & extension. There are currently five information literacy sessions available.

I have checked my code against the XML validator on the w3 schools website and it tells me that I have made no errors, success!

Session 04 – Graphical Information

Raster graphics and vector graphics are the two fundamental structures for digital images

Raster images (also called bitmaps) are made up of pixels, stored and displayed in a rectangular grid. Each pixel can be a different colour. All images acquired by digital cameras and camcorders, scanners and screen capture programs are bitmapped images. Programmes such as Photoshop and MS Paint create and edit raster images.

Vector graphics are made up of “paths”. They use mathematical relationships between points on a page and the points that connect them. They can be scaled/resized without any loss of quality. They are used for line art, illustration, logo design before being converted to a web graphic format. Programmes such as CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator are used to create and edit them.

File Formats

Some of the most common picture file formats are GIF, JPEG and PNG, (which are all raster graphic formats).
GIF – 256 colours, supports transparency and animation and has a lossless compression. Used for diagrams
JPEG – 16 million colours, suited to photos and graphics. Uses a lossy compression so line drawings/type looks distorted. Good for compression
PNG – developed to supersede GIF and a vast improvement.

Embedding graphics on my webpage

My graphics are embedded onto this page about my holiday. The first is an example of a remote file, hosted on the tripadvisor website and the other two are relative files, hosted on my local file space. The disadvantage of using the remote image is that the picture won’t display if it is moved or removed from the tripadvisor website. The relative link to my files is also dependent on me not deleting/moving them, but this is within my control.

A practical use in the library environment

When you search the online OPAC using our Library Management System (Heritage), the results include a picture of the book jacket alongside the record. These pictures are remote links to the .jpg image on the Amazon website using the ISBN data.

This makes it easier for our students to find books in the catalogue, as they are often unsure of the title, but will recognise the cover. It is also good for Amazon, because if a student wants a book and finds its not in the library, they can buy it from Amazon instead.

This is a specific record showing the record and the cover image:

Obviously this doesn’t work if our record doesn’t have an ISBN number or if the book is unavailable on Amazon, but it is a good example of the application of graphics in our library IT systems.

Session 03 – The internet and the world wide web

Although, the words internet and world wide web are used interchangeble by the majority of computer users, they are actually not the same thing. The World Wide Web is an application that was built to make use of the Internet structure. Internet use has now become so integral and fundamental to our modern lives, that is has been said by the UN that access to the internet is a human right .

The internet is a vast global system with millions of connected computer networks, connected by wires, cables and wireless connections. The Internet carries a vast amount of information resources and services, including the World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail. It also supports services such VOIP, television on demand services, video conferencing and file sharing.

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. It has enabled the spread of information over the Internet through an easy-to-use and flexible format

Learning a new language

Websites are written in HTML, available when you view the source of a website in a web browser (alongside the CSS information). This blog has been written in the HTML view of wordpress, making use of paragraph tags, header tags, anchor tags for the hyperlinks and images and other formatting tags to control how my blog looks.

This is my first three page website hosted on my City University student webpage, made accessible using an FTP. This is the first time I have ever written any HTML code and published on the web – so its a big step for me! The home page is my index.html page and all three link to each other with anchor tags. As the DITA course progresses I hope to learn how to add an additional CSS page to control the look of my pages.

Session 02 – Digital Representation and Organisation, Meta-Data/Markup

The data format (or file format) is structure of a file. There are hundreds of different formats for data (databases, word processing, spreadsheets, images, video, etc.).

To a computer, information is simply a stored sequence of meaningless bits in a stream of 0s and 1s. Meaning is interpreted when they are converted into an agreed file format, turning the 0s and 1s into useful information. Each file format defines how the sequence of bits and bytes are laid out, with the ASCII text file being the simplest.

Different types of file

The file format specifies; first whether the file is a binary or ASCII file, and second; how the information is organized. Each different type of file has a different file format.

There are lots of different types of data formats, all fulfilling different user needs and specific to particular programme. There are websites that claim to list every file format available, but the list is always growing.

Some file formats were created to store very specific kinds of data – the JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) format stores only static photographic images, other file formats store several different kinds of data. The GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) format supports both still images and basic animation.

Compatibility

With so many file formats in existence, compatibility is always going to be an issue. On our computers at college, we have just using MS Office 2007, an open source XML-based file format, which is incompatible with the the earlier versions of MS Office. The new formats are indicated by an “x” in the file extension. For example:

• Word documents: .docx
• Excel workbooks: .xlsx
• PowerPoint presentations: .pptx

Compatibility issues follow users around wherever they go on the internet, including video, picture and music formats. The Apple iTunes music format is an example of proprietary software, with a file format that only apple devices will understand.

Session 01 – Welcome to DITA

What is a blog?

In simple terms a blog is an online diary – a series of posts written by the author, normally organised by month and year.

A blog  is a web page that contains brief, discrete chunks of  information called posts. These posts are arranged  in  reverse-chronological order  (the most recent posts come first). Each post is uniquely identified by an anchor tag, and it is marked with a permanent link that can be referred to by others who wish to link to it.

(Doctorow et al., 2002, p.ix)

They are part of what is regarded as web 2.0 technology, the social evolution of the internet, from static read only websites to dynamic interactive pages, where users can change and add to the content of the world wide web. Examples of web 2.0 technology in addition to blogs, includes twitter, facebook, wikis, youtube and flickr.

People and organisations blog for many different purposes and for a wide variety of audiences. They can be used to keep in touch with family and friends or to communicate with whole web community. Sites like Technorati  offer a real-time search for user-generated media (including blogs) by tag or keyword.

Blogging services

There are lots of blogging services on the internet available for people to use. The easiest type to use are the free hosted services. Examples would include; blogger, wordpress, livejournal and diaryland. Originally this blog was started using blogger, however by week 5, I was totally frustrated by the user interface, especially the inability to easily copy and paste text, upload pictures, and control the layout of my text and pictures. So I decided to give wordpress a try, which I have found much more user friendly. The only thing I really miss about blogger is my pretty template!

Creating a new post

This blog is structured by months and then date order, like most blogs I have looked at. However, the bigger a blog gets, the more it needs to be organised in categories and tags. All my DITA blogs have the tag ‘DITA Coursework’. As I continue my studies I intend to extend the use of this blog, so I will increase the number of tags and categories accordingly.

Choosing a template

How a blog looks is very important and most users (myself included) would like something fresh, appealing and unique to them. Blogging websites come with a limited choice of templates for the user to choose from, however, there are literally thousands of free online templates to choose from. The drawback with the free hosted version of wordpress, is that I am limited to the 77 templates, however I have been able to customise my header. For something truly unique, it is also possible to create your own template using HTML & CSS.

My ultimate goal for this blog? Well, everyone has start to somewhere…!

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

New challenges

Its the 28th September 2009 and I am about to embark on a new challenge.

Today, I start my MA Library Science at City University London. I am doing the course part time and working full time, which means I need to juggle the demands of my course and my job for the next two years. But its exciting. I am determined to enjoy the course, not complain about it and get everything I can from it – afterall being a student before were the best years of my life!

Oh and the fact I get my NUS card back is just an added bonus