Working from home is a double-edged sword. I love the unlimited access to tea, hygienic toilet facilities and the fridge, coupled with the most relaxed dress-code I've experienced in about 5 years (dressing gown and slippers look and feel great at 2pm!).
On the other hand, my home is crammed full of DISTRACTIONS which are making me feel completely counterproductive, and are therefore categorically EVIL. Unlimited access to the internet and Facebook is not good. Family don't understand that you're not on holiday and should be studying and so engage with you as if its a lazy Sunday afternoon.
In short: I need to stop using this blog as a distraction and get back to the reading list!!!!
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Tuesday 27 September 2011
DITA - Understanding Blog No. 1: Introduction to Computing
This is my first "understanding" blog, which I've been advised to post after each DITA session to consolidate my learning and knowledge on each particular topic.
DITA is the acronym for my first module, Digital Information Technologies and Architectures.
Today we were given an overview of the nature and potential of digital information, by looking at the different levels in which data can be represented. Part of my job as a Library Scientist (yes! I have a cool unofficial student occupation :-) ) is concerned with how we use, manage and manipulate this data in order to make it accessible to a wide and variable audience, be it work colleagues, friends or family, or the online world etc. Another important "user" I need to consider is the computer software program that will very kindly interpret the binary information (the building blocks of all digital information) and display in a format that can be easily interpreted by the end user (i.e. the person reading this blog ... YOU!). If we were presented with a long screen of binary code, we'd possibly consider it nonsensical and alien. That would not be the case for a computer program such as say word-pad or paint, which take the code and manifest this into words or colours instantly. Every code is an instruction to be followed. Getting the code right and then ensuring that code can be interpreted is paramount if we are to represent and interpret the data in the intended manner.
The basic level at which data is represented is a bit, which has a base of 2 (represented in 1 or 0 at its purest form). Different combinations of bits can be assigned characters and hence we can represent words using the binary code. More popularly known as ASCII. Yay!
Everything else builds upwards. Bytes are sequences of 8 bits. Kilobytes consist of 1024 bytes. Megabytes consist of 1024 kilobytes and so on.
My visual aid-memoir is to look at data as the building blocks of everything you see and read in digital form, using a tool (or toy) we've all encountered from our childhoods. If you were to visit Legoland, you may be dazzled by the monumental replicas of famous global landmarks, but when you look closely, every object there is made from the smallest blocks of Lego, all starting from a single block at the bottom ... with another equal sized block placed on top or around it. The accumulation and combination of these Lego blocks form one entity and we can arrange or format them to create and convey a specific containable idea, message or expression (a file). The means of presenting this data to the end user, i.e. the point at which we view and analyse the representation of the data itself, is the document. So 1000 individual blocks together can represent something bigger and intrinsically different than the sum of its parts, simply by careful arrangement of the variable building blocks in a manner that we will interpret them to mean or say something to us when we view them in a certain order.
One thing I have learned from this session is that any form of digital information is stored in one centralised location, from where it can be accessed by any number of programs or persons potentially. We don't simply reproduce it each the same piece of data over and over whenever we want to access it. Instead we can link to the primary source, and as an offshoot, this can be embedded or formatted into a different document-view to add value and depth to the information as it is subsequently accessed by the user (e.g. an example of a different document-view for a text document would be where that text and a YouTube video can both be made available on a html page accessed through the internet). Data takes up a lot of space. We live in a data-intense society in which we are lives depend on instant access to information at every waking moment of the day in order to operate. We need to be economical with storage and act responsibly in the methods by which data is provided and managed.
DITA is the acronym for my first module, Digital Information Technologies and Architectures.
Today we were given an overview of the nature and potential of digital information, by looking at the different levels in which data can be represented. Part of my job as a Library Scientist (yes! I have a cool unofficial student occupation :-) ) is concerned with how we use, manage and manipulate this data in order to make it accessible to a wide and variable audience, be it work colleagues, friends or family, or the online world etc. Another important "user" I need to consider is the computer software program that will very kindly interpret the binary information (the building blocks of all digital information) and display in a format that can be easily interpreted by the end user (i.e. the person reading this blog ... YOU!). If we were presented with a long screen of binary code, we'd possibly consider it nonsensical and alien. That would not be the case for a computer program such as say word-pad or paint, which take the code and manifest this into words or colours instantly. Every code is an instruction to be followed. Getting the code right and then ensuring that code can be interpreted is paramount if we are to represent and interpret the data in the intended manner.
The basic level at which data is represented is a bit, which has a base of 2 (represented in 1 or 0 at its purest form). Different combinations of bits can be assigned characters and hence we can represent words using the binary code. More popularly known as ASCII. Yay!
Everything else builds upwards. Bytes are sequences of 8 bits. Kilobytes consist of 1024 bytes. Megabytes consist of 1024 kilobytes and so on.
My visual aid-memoir is to look at data as the building blocks of everything you see and read in digital form, using a tool (or toy) we've all encountered from our childhoods. If you were to visit Legoland, you may be dazzled by the monumental replicas of famous global landmarks, but when you look closely, every object there is made from the smallest blocks of Lego, all starting from a single block at the bottom ... with another equal sized block placed on top or around it. The accumulation and combination of these Lego blocks form one entity and we can arrange or format them to create and convey a specific containable idea, message or expression (a file). The means of presenting this data to the end user, i.e. the point at which we view and analyse the representation of the data itself, is the document. So 1000 individual blocks together can represent something bigger and intrinsically different than the sum of its parts, simply by careful arrangement of the variable building blocks in a manner that we will interpret them to mean or say something to us when we view them in a certain order.
One thing I have learned from this session is that any form of digital information is stored in one centralised location, from where it can be accessed by any number of programs or persons potentially. We don't simply reproduce it each the same piece of data over and over whenever we want to access it. Instead we can link to the primary source, and as an offshoot, this can be embedded or formatted into a different document-view to add value and depth to the information as it is subsequently accessed by the user (e.g. an example of a different document-view for a text document would be where that text and a YouTube video can both be made available on a html page accessed through the internet). Data takes up a lot of space. We live in a data-intense society in which we are lives depend on instant access to information at every waking moment of the day in order to operate. We need to be economical with storage and act responsibly in the methods by which data is provided and managed.
Monday 26 September 2011
Sitting on a blog ...
Hello blogging-sphere!
I've just set up my new blog to aid me with my studies into Library Science at City University over the coming year, so I'm likely to get all techie and library-ee on your a**!
As an awesome and valued member of the Fairlands Valley Spartans running club in my hometown of Stevenage, I might be tempted to talk about life as their current PB Machine!!!
Keep it here kids :-)
I've just set up my new blog to aid me with my studies into Library Science at City University over the coming year, so I'm likely to get all techie and library-ee on your a**!
As an awesome and valued member of the Fairlands Valley Spartans running club in my hometown of Stevenage, I might be tempted to talk about life as their current PB Machine!!!
Keep it here kids :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)