Allow me to say again: I love Google. Really, I do.
And I have no idea if the two things really are related or not, but I find it very interesting that Google patents this filter stuff by country-of-origin, but blocks another kind of filter in an ostensibly unrelated matter.
(Click the link in the title of my prior blog post. That's the article I'm referring to.)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Aww, Look at Google and Y! Being the Good Guys ... It's so cute!
(I originally accessed this article from Slashdot's posting of it.)
I love to read things about free speech being protected, especially when the "protectors" are companies like Google and Y!. Now, I'm not saying that I disagree with opposing Conroy's plan, but I do have to critique people's immediate willingness to jump on and declare Google and Y! heroes for helping the community. Sure, we don't want to be China--THEY'RE NOT CAPITALISTS! (Insert gasp here.)
Is there a bottom line here? Oh, I think so.
Yet again, I have to say, I'd have no doubt bowed to the social order offered by Emperor Palpatine, but I don't think I'd pretend it was anything more than, "This society is super organized, and that appeals to my sense of feng shui!" It's called capitalism, people. Savor it. Enjoy it. Benefit from it. But don't overlook the fact that these companies are enjoying a profit from lack of filters.
I sometimes gripe about capitalism--don't get me wrong, I recognize that I thrive in an easy country to live in, but I also would prefer not to have broccoli shoved down my throat while someone tells me it's fried oysters.
I love to read things about free speech being protected, especially when the "protectors" are companies like Google and Y!. Now, I'm not saying that I disagree with opposing Conroy's plan, but I do have to critique people's immediate willingness to jump on and declare Google and Y! heroes for helping the community. Sure, we don't want to be China--THEY'RE NOT CAPITALISTS! (Insert gasp here.)
Is there a bottom line here? Oh, I think so.
Yet again, I have to say, I'd have no doubt bowed to the social order offered by Emperor Palpatine, but I don't think I'd pretend it was anything more than, "This society is super organized, and that appeals to my sense of feng shui!" It's called capitalism, people. Savor it. Enjoy it. Benefit from it. But don't overlook the fact that these companies are enjoying a profit from lack of filters.
I sometimes gripe about capitalism--don't get me wrong, I recognize that I thrive in an easy country to live in, but I also would prefer not to have broccoli shoved down my throat while someone tells me it's fried oysters.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Five Professional Development Things I Learned This Week
I remember in grade school, one of the things I was always terrible at was coloring pictures with crayons. One day, I sat down to color for a fourth-grade competition, determined to color the prettiest picture I possibly could, mainly in order to completely over-shadow and outshine the competition. (As Hagar the Horrible once said: "Winning isn't everything. It's also important to humiliate your competition.")
This was back in the mid-eighties, when light-pastels were en vogue, and the lighter the colors used, the better the teacher believed the picture to be. I determined to make a picture with the hues and shades of a stained-glass window: Sharp, dark, rich. (Because another method I've always employed in competition is to think differently than the opponents.)
I turned my picture in, was the only kid who did the stained-glass window thing, and I was so happy. Of course the teacher (and my fellow classmates who were voting in the coloring competition), completely ignored what I had put a lot of heart into creating--it wasn't pastel; it wasn't light; it was definitely different.
Meh. You reach an age where you realize that the self-expression opportunity is more important than winning...and let's face it, I'm competitive enough to admit that the two things are equally important to me. It still irks me that those people had no proper taste in coloring.
Of course, it's probable that I didn't color within the lines, too.
This week, I had the opportunity to engage in extended conversation with a competing department's digitization head. The digitization program this person heads is leaps and bounds ahead of ours. And clearly this person has a better foundation for doing this, has had a lot more training--and a little more time--than I have to get my feet under me. (And, as this person continually said, "You have to start somewhere.")
But either way, what I've learned, in swallowing my very fierce competitiveness--and as a third sibling of three, this is difficult--is threefold:
1) Communication, however you can establish it, is important, helpful, significant, and you never know how it might become productive down the road. Now, since I had already developed an opinion that this person was fairly patient and generous with knowledge, I figured I should establish communication for the sake of information exchange.
1B) Training is expensive, and it is generally more expensive than my own institution (for example) can afford.
Therefore: If you can communicate in even small ways, it's important try to learn, to sponge as much information from others in the field as possible. (Naturally, you don't want to become known as a mooch, so you should certainly proffer good humor and witty conversation in exchange for a contact's patience.)
2) Don't compare yourself. Don't compete. AND, something I constantly strive to remind myself: Don't be so arrogant that you think you're coloring the perfect picture because you've chosen a different tactic; you could simply be very bad at color. Listen to what other professionals in the field have to say, and try to glean from both spoken and unspoken critiques what you can learn to strengthen what you're doing--or to entirely scrap weaknesses in your methods. Do you rely too heavily on one theory of digitization, for instance that everything must be accessed, to the exclusion of digital preservation? (Thank you, anonymous person, for this nudge.)
3) Think things over. At this point, I am honestly disheartened by the level of my own work, and I am going to strive to raise the bar, even if it's to the point of handing off other job duties (like raw web design), toward the goal of enacting a small handful of what I consider more important things.
But I also am a pragmatist: What I am working on (DSpace) is, and always was, a deliberate choice, after testing. For my institution, it is viable, preservable, and scalable. It is a pretty good archival software; and though it meets the demands of what an institution requires, it does have its flaws. (In proofreading this, I have to say: Can we ask this question of ourselves as employees, too? And perhaps even as human beings?) And as I was reminded also, you must start somewhere; but in digitization, somewhere needs to at minimum be sustainable.
4) Be patient with yourself, with your own work, and focus on it being -your own work-. My own feeling of disappointment in myself springs from my constant desire to be at the top of class, to always produce the best essay, to always ask the smartest questions, to never, ever look intellectually silly. (And yeah, this is deep-rooted.) But I am recognizing this week, that it's also significant that I appreciate that, of course, I'm not going to be the best or the brightest, rather that I have to develop a proper tool for a proper job. And I have to spend time learning that tool and to appreciate that there indeed are reasons for choosing it.
5) Most important, always evaluate your current state, try to figure out what needs to be improved upon, but also figure out what you're doing well. (And this isn't just in technology or digitization. It's in life in general.) Then, after understanding what is well, building a foundation upon that will provide an excellent foundation for development.
It's been a humbling, educational week; I have learned a lot, and I hope to enact some of what I have learned. I hope that anyone who loves his/her job can understand that I am humbled, not because I had originally thought that what I was doing was perfect, but because I genuinely love my work, and I feel like I've been a bit of a neglectful or spread-too-thin parent toward what I love. I'm going to retrench some things and work toward enacting and incorporating other things.
This was back in the mid-eighties, when light-pastels were en vogue, and the lighter the colors used, the better the teacher believed the picture to be. I determined to make a picture with the hues and shades of a stained-glass window: Sharp, dark, rich. (Because another method I've always employed in competition is to think differently than the opponents.)
I turned my picture in, was the only kid who did the stained-glass window thing, and I was so happy. Of course the teacher (and my fellow classmates who were voting in the coloring competition), completely ignored what I had put a lot of heart into creating--it wasn't pastel; it wasn't light; it was definitely different.
Meh. You reach an age where you realize that the self-expression opportunity is more important than winning...and let's face it, I'm competitive enough to admit that the two things are equally important to me. It still irks me that those people had no proper taste in coloring.
Of course, it's probable that I didn't color within the lines, too.
This week, I had the opportunity to engage in extended conversation with a competing department's digitization head. The digitization program this person heads is leaps and bounds ahead of ours. And clearly this person has a better foundation for doing this, has had a lot more training--and a little more time--than I have to get my feet under me. (And, as this person continually said, "You have to start somewhere.")
But either way, what I've learned, in swallowing my very fierce competitiveness--and as a third sibling of three, this is difficult--is threefold:
1) Communication, however you can establish it, is important, helpful, significant, and you never know how it might become productive down the road. Now, since I had already developed an opinion that this person was fairly patient and generous with knowledge, I figured I should establish communication for the sake of information exchange.
1B) Training is expensive, and it is generally more expensive than my own institution (for example) can afford.
Therefore: If you can communicate in even small ways, it's important try to learn, to sponge as much information from others in the field as possible. (Naturally, you don't want to become known as a mooch, so you should certainly proffer good humor and witty conversation in exchange for a contact's patience.)
2) Don't compare yourself. Don't compete. AND, something I constantly strive to remind myself: Don't be so arrogant that you think you're coloring the perfect picture because you've chosen a different tactic; you could simply be very bad at color. Listen to what other professionals in the field have to say, and try to glean from both spoken and unspoken critiques what you can learn to strengthen what you're doing--or to entirely scrap weaknesses in your methods. Do you rely too heavily on one theory of digitization, for instance that everything must be accessed, to the exclusion of digital preservation? (Thank you, anonymous person, for this nudge.)
3) Think things over. At this point, I am honestly disheartened by the level of my own work, and I am going to strive to raise the bar, even if it's to the point of handing off other job duties (like raw web design), toward the goal of enacting a small handful of what I consider more important things.
But I also am a pragmatist: What I am working on (DSpace) is, and always was, a deliberate choice, after testing. For my institution, it is viable, preservable, and scalable. It is a pretty good archival software; and though it meets the demands of what an institution requires, it does have its flaws. (In proofreading this, I have to say: Can we ask this question of ourselves as employees, too? And perhaps even as human beings?) And as I was reminded also, you must start somewhere; but in digitization, somewhere needs to at minimum be sustainable.
4) Be patient with yourself, with your own work, and focus on it being -your own work-. My own feeling of disappointment in myself springs from my constant desire to be at the top of class, to always produce the best essay, to always ask the smartest questions, to never, ever look intellectually silly. (And yeah, this is deep-rooted.) But I am recognizing this week, that it's also significant that I appreciate that, of course, I'm not going to be the best or the brightest, rather that I have to develop a proper tool for a proper job. And I have to spend time learning that tool and to appreciate that there indeed are reasons for choosing it.
5) Most important, always evaluate your current state, try to figure out what needs to be improved upon, but also figure out what you're doing well. (And this isn't just in technology or digitization. It's in life in general.) Then, after understanding what is well, building a foundation upon that will provide an excellent foundation for development.
It's been a humbling, educational week; I have learned a lot, and I hope to enact some of what I have learned. I hope that anyone who loves his/her job can understand that I am humbled, not because I had originally thought that what I was doing was perfect, but because I genuinely love my work, and I feel like I've been a bit of a neglectful or spread-too-thin parent toward what I love. I'm going to retrench some things and work toward enacting and incorporating other things.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
It's hard not to love governmental control prior to attacks
Link from Slashdot; you can read the Slashdot. This reminds me a little of the Georgia-Russian War, in which Russia cut off network access in Georgia just prior to the invasion.
It's funny; I base my career of Internet access, and I always wonder what would happen if I wind up no longer having access to the Internet. Since I'm also a good editor and subscriber to pragmatism, I'd no doubt earn money somehow, but then I wonder what people do who have no trainable or mercenary skills that have no relevance to Internet work.
It's funny; I base my career of Internet access, and I always wonder what would happen if I wind up no longer having access to the Internet. Since I'm also a good editor and subscriber to pragmatism, I'd no doubt earn money somehow, but then I wonder what people do who have no trainable or mercenary skills that have no relevance to Internet work.
Monday, October 12, 2009
What course will digitization take?
I received this over the Digital Medievalist listserv:
----------------------------------------------------------
WORKSHOP: Host your texts on Google in one day
The Center For Hellenic Studies will conduct a one-day workshop at the Center’s Washington, D.C., campus, on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010, with the subject: “Host your texts on Google in one day”. Bring one or more XML texts to the workshop in the morning, and leave in the afternoon with a running Google installation of Canonical Text Services serving your texts to the internet (http://chs75.chs.harvard.edu/projects/diginc/techpub/cts).
For more information, including how to apply, please see http://chs75.harvard.edu/CTSWorkshop.html.
Feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested.
Posted by: Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (rosselli at ling dot unipi dot it)
URL: http://digitalmedievalist.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/workshop-host-your-texts-on-google-in-one-day/
------------------------------------------
I'm afraid, good or bad, that this is the path that digitization is going to take over the next ten years. Here's the problem:
1) Archives and Libraries have something that Google needs: artifacts, whether those are books, photographs, etc.
2) Google has what Archives and Libraries don't have: Money. Lots and lots of money.
Google wants the materials to digitize them; Libraries and Archives need the technological foundation (money, hardware, human labor) to digitize their materials. It's a very simple solution for Google to dangle a pile of money and resources in the faces of Archives or Libraries to say, "Look, we've got what you can't possibly get in these hard times."
And researchers simply want to be able to access materials. In reality they could care less who has digitized them, who has made them available online. All that matters to researchers is that the materials exist in the digital environment, and that they are easy to access.
While I'm charge of digitization in an archive, I have to admit, Google has a lot going for it in this capitalist economy where archives and libraries don't generate a lot of revenue.
----------------------------------------------------------
WORKSHOP: Host your texts on Google in one day
The Center For Hellenic Studies will conduct a one-day workshop at the Center’s Washington, D.C., campus, on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010, with the subject: “Host your texts on Google in one day”. Bring one or more XML texts to the workshop in the morning, and leave in the afternoon with a running Google installation of Canonical Text Services serving your texts to the internet (http://chs75.chs.harvard.edu/projects/diginc/techpub/cts).
For more information, including how to apply, please see http://chs75.harvard.edu/CTSWorkshop.html.
Feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested.
Posted by: Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (rosselli at ling dot unipi dot it)
URL: http://digitalmedievalist.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/workshop-host-your-texts-on-google-in-one-day/
------------------------------------------
I'm afraid, good or bad, that this is the path that digitization is going to take over the next ten years. Here's the problem:
1) Archives and Libraries have something that Google needs: artifacts, whether those are books, photographs, etc.
2) Google has what Archives and Libraries don't have: Money. Lots and lots of money.
Google wants the materials to digitize them; Libraries and Archives need the technological foundation (money, hardware, human labor) to digitize their materials. It's a very simple solution for Google to dangle a pile of money and resources in the faces of Archives or Libraries to say, "Look, we've got what you can't possibly get in these hard times."
And researchers simply want to be able to access materials. In reality they could care less who has digitized them, who has made them available online. All that matters to researchers is that the materials exist in the digital environment, and that they are easy to access.
While I'm charge of digitization in an archive, I have to admit, Google has a lot going for it in this capitalist economy where archives and libraries don't generate a lot of revenue.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Wanted: Someone who knows how to build, program, and maintain a server; all other things unspecified
I recently had a conversation with a friend who was discussing a vacancy in her office. She made reference to the fact that everyone and his/her dog has applied to this vacancy, and even highlighted one person who had applied with no relevant degrees, experience, or--most important--any pertinent skills, to do the job. (He'd listed on his application something along the lines of the work he does in his own field is so good that he'd be great in this vacant position, too.)
Later on that same day, my dad and I were talking about what a hard time my unemployed lawyer-sibling is having finding a job out in Dallas. My dad jokingly said to me, "I worry about the day you say you'll have to move back in with us because you've been laid off and couldn't find another job." My comforting response to him was that I'm in a field that is similar to that of the undertaker's field--there's always going to need to be someone available to plug that computer in, at minimum.
It got me thinking about my own office and my own job. I run a group of servers for a living; in addition I design digital projects for presentation on the web. What I find hilarious about these exchanges is, most people only half understand what the IT person does. Even more so than the desktop support IT person, the server IT person receives a lot of mixed emotions--some people think that the server manager is being lazy because s/he is not the one to drop off a new keyboard; they often don't realize that the server person is sitting in his/her office with the door closed because s/he's trying to finish bringing something online from the server, or trying to change something that is currently online.
I think it helps my position that I'm also working on a degree in Technical Communication and Rhetoric; I'm a fairly good communicator anyway, and I regularly try to represent what I'm working on to different skill levels. I am also aware that one of the risks of maintaining a company's servers is always going to be criticism for "being lazy," ie. criticism for not regularly talking to people about what I'm doing.
But I don't think anyone can easily look at what I do in my job and say, "I could easily do that because the work I do in my profession is so good." Because, though it makes me a little sad to say this, not very many people even remotely understand what a person who maintains servers actually does.
Later on that same day, my dad and I were talking about what a hard time my unemployed lawyer-sibling is having finding a job out in Dallas. My dad jokingly said to me, "I worry about the day you say you'll have to move back in with us because you've been laid off and couldn't find another job." My comforting response to him was that I'm in a field that is similar to that of the undertaker's field--there's always going to need to be someone available to plug that computer in, at minimum.
It got me thinking about my own office and my own job. I run a group of servers for a living; in addition I design digital projects for presentation on the web. What I find hilarious about these exchanges is, most people only half understand what the IT person does. Even more so than the desktop support IT person, the server IT person receives a lot of mixed emotions--some people think that the server manager is being lazy because s/he is not the one to drop off a new keyboard; they often don't realize that the server person is sitting in his/her office with the door closed because s/he's trying to finish bringing something online from the server, or trying to change something that is currently online.
I think it helps my position that I'm also working on a degree in Technical Communication and Rhetoric; I'm a fairly good communicator anyway, and I regularly try to represent what I'm working on to different skill levels. I am also aware that one of the risks of maintaining a company's servers is always going to be criticism for "being lazy," ie. criticism for not regularly talking to people about what I'm doing.
But I don't think anyone can easily look at what I do in my job and say, "I could easily do that because the work I do in my profession is so good." Because, though it makes me a little sad to say this, not very many people even remotely understand what a person who maintains servers actually does.
Monday, October 5, 2009
DSpace, Tomcat5 and Postgresql8
Okay, DSpace is up and running publicly for the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library.
Things that I have learned in this process:
1) DSpace uses a Storage Resource Broker, hosted by SDSC, called the DICE SRB. I was unable to get it working with our network's security settings, but I think this is a most elegant solution available for heterogeneous file storage. I would recommend it to users who have different domain settings from what we are running.
2) If you are setting up DSpace for the first time, a few things that you absolutely MUST remember:
A) The Tomcat owner (whether it's Tomcat5 or Tomcat-6 doesn't matter) MUST also be set as the DSpace home directory owner. I've read this in one or two forums or blogs, but I'm restating it here for the hapless DSpace installer who is unaware of this fact. I had the most help with the Gentoo installation instructions by the nice man from University of Texas, but I have found that a lot of what he discusses as being undocumented in the DSpace documentation is not only accurate for Gentoo, but also dead on for other OSes, including Red Hat Enterprise. (If you don't have the Tomcat owner set to own DSpace, you will not be able to upload to the assetstore on DSpace.)
B) These instructions were useful: http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/SymlinkDSpace But follow them precisely, without forgetting any slashes or characters, or your installation won't work at all. (And it will be very frustrating and irritating to you...and you'll nearly start to pull your hair out...until you realize how stupid you were to forget an ending slash on one of the AJPs.) Or maybe that's just me.
C) Storage: I would recommend at least 1TB of storage for DSpace users, even with the most minimal projects; while this might seem like a lot, in this day and age of cheapening storage, 1TB is a teaspoon in an ocean. No matter how small your digitization project might be, you're going to wind up utilizing this space over time.
3) Other questions now being asked at my institution include:
A) Should we watermark? In my opinion we can provide a low res version of an image that we're worried about, to prevent download and printing. I think watermarking is an old technology that is easily circumvented by programs like Photoshop. There really isn't a point to watermarking, but if you are worried about an image being downloaded or printed, then you could set the image resolution low enough so that it looks fine online, can be zoomed in on, but looks terrible when printed or resized.
B) Who should do metadata? At the Southwest Collection, we're discussing the possibility of clearing all metadata with the cataloging department prior to allowing items to be made publicly available. This will provide controlled vocabulary and institutional prioritization of access points and terms.
C) What should be OCRed? We have a lot of older materials (pre-1800) that use special characters and fonts. OCR will be very difficult, so the question arises of how to make these collections accessible to people with low vision, who either use screen readers or have to zoom very closely. Do we make transcripts of these items--and if so, how long will that take? Or do we let the items appear OCRed as much as possible, and then have student assistants clean up and OCR problems?
That's all for now.
Things that I have learned in this process:
1) DSpace uses a Storage Resource Broker, hosted by SDSC, called the DICE SRB. I was unable to get it working with our network's security settings, but I think this is a most elegant solution available for heterogeneous file storage. I would recommend it to users who have different domain settings from what we are running.
2) If you are setting up DSpace for the first time, a few things that you absolutely MUST remember:
A) The Tomcat owner (whether it's Tomcat5 or Tomcat-6 doesn't matter) MUST also be set as the DSpace home directory owner. I've read this in one or two forums or blogs, but I'm restating it here for the hapless DSpace installer who is unaware of this fact. I had the most help with the Gentoo installation instructions by the nice man from University of Texas, but I have found that a lot of what he discusses as being undocumented in the DSpace documentation is not only accurate for Gentoo, but also dead on for other OSes, including Red Hat Enterprise. (If you don't have the Tomcat owner set to own DSpace, you will not be able to upload to the assetstore on DSpace.)
B) These instructions were useful: http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/SymlinkDSpace But follow them precisely, without forgetting any slashes or characters, or your installation won't work at all. (And it will be very frustrating and irritating to you...and you'll nearly start to pull your hair out...until you realize how stupid you were to forget an ending slash on one of the AJPs.) Or maybe that's just me.
C) Storage: I would recommend at least 1TB of storage for DSpace users, even with the most minimal projects; while this might seem like a lot, in this day and age of cheapening storage, 1TB is a teaspoon in an ocean. No matter how small your digitization project might be, you're going to wind up utilizing this space over time.
3) Other questions now being asked at my institution include:
A) Should we watermark? In my opinion we can provide a low res version of an image that we're worried about, to prevent download and printing. I think watermarking is an old technology that is easily circumvented by programs like Photoshop. There really isn't a point to watermarking, but if you are worried about an image being downloaded or printed, then you could set the image resolution low enough so that it looks fine online, can be zoomed in on, but looks terrible when printed or resized.
B) Who should do metadata? At the Southwest Collection, we're discussing the possibility of clearing all metadata with the cataloging department prior to allowing items to be made publicly available. This will provide controlled vocabulary and institutional prioritization of access points and terms.
C) What should be OCRed? We have a lot of older materials (pre-1800) that use special characters and fonts. OCR will be very difficult, so the question arises of how to make these collections accessible to people with low vision, who either use screen readers or have to zoom very closely. Do we make transcripts of these items--and if so, how long will that take? Or do we let the items appear OCRed as much as possible, and then have student assistants clean up and OCR problems?
That's all for now.
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