Muddy points, 10/22

No muddy points this week.

Reading Thoughts for 10/29

* CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheets" and is a way to express programming language for HTML, XHTML, and XML.
* HTML was not originally designed to show stylistic choices. Although those kinds of things were added to HTML, it's clunky. CSS solves this problem.
* CSS rules have two parts: the selector (the element you want to style, like fonts or tables) and the declaration(s) (colors, sizes, etc.).
* You can add comments into your CSS code by delimiting them with /*COMMENT*/ - these are only visible in the code and won't show up on the published webpage.
* There are three different ways to insert CSS: external style sheet, internal style sheet, and inline style.
* You can also have background properties in CSS - images, colors, etc. You can format your links, and you can change the font styles and colors as well.
* CSS is particularly awesome for tables - they have a much more polished appearance than regular HTML tables.
* "The CSS box model is essentially a box that wraps around HTML elements, and it consists of: margins, borders, padding, and the actual content."
* You can group or nest selectors.
* Writing CSS code seems pretty simple if you already know how to code HTML.
* You can write code by hand using a text editor, or you can use a web design tool (like DreamWeaver) to write the code for you.
* Styles can be carried from page to page, or you can attach parts of that style to different pages in your site.

Muddy points, 10/15

No muddy points this week!

Muddy ideas, 10/9

No muddy ideas this week!

Reading thoughts, 10/9

*LANs: local area networks
*computer network that connects computers in a limited area (school, home, office, etc.)
*fast data transfer rate
*ethernet and wi-fi are the most common ways to build LANs
*proliferation of personal computers in the late 70s/early 80s required linking computers together in the workplace
*Novell Netware, big name in the business, 1983-mid 90s

Computer Networks:
*collection of computers and other hardware components interconnected by communications channels that allow sharing of resources and information
*classified by several different characteristics : transport medium, communications protocols, scale, etc.
*early networks: military radar system (SAGE), airline reservations systems (SABRE), Dartmouth, MIT, General Electric, Bell Labs
*modern communications would not be possible with computer networking
*you can communicate with others, share data, etc. Possibly insecure (can be hacked fairly easily), tricky to set up
*wired technologies: twisted pair wire (slow), coaxial cable (medium), optical fibers (fast)
*wireless technologies: microwaves, satellites, cellular systems, spread spectrum, infrared, global area network
*internet protocol suite (TCP/IP), the foundation of all modern networking
*network topology types: bus network, star network, ring network, mesh network, fully connected network
*resilience : the ability to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation

RFID:
*stands for "radio frequency identification"
*like a barcode in that it can identify an item uniquely, but is read by an electromagnetic field
*can be read through multiple layers of stuff (like book covers)
*hundreds of different kinds on the market, customizable for many needs
*libraries are good users of RFID because they get multiple uses of a tag, unlike merchants who use them only once
*RFID could have a positive impact on a libraries return on investment, do they make patrons happier?
*tags need to be durable for use in libraries, they get used repeatedly

Muddiest points, 10/1

No muddy ideas this week. I'm finally understanding metadata! So, thanks. :-)