Unit 11, php

Finally, I am getting things done early.....

I have come a ways since the beginning of this class, especially in the last few weeks. I learned a lot about relational databases, having never had experienced them before. I learned the different ways to access them and how powerful they can be. I also learned this week about php, which looks a lot like perl to me. At least in some of the syntax. It looks to be very useful in web programming with databases. I wonder if this puts me a leg up on my former java programmer co-workers. It's always nice to learn something new in technology that you can put on your resume. I don't think it has changed my perspective too much on digital information. It is the present and the future and is going to be a part of most librarians' jobs.

more on unit 10, working on databases

I left assignment 14 for last. Boy, I had to go back though the uacbt stuff on mysql. It is one thing to say, "okay, i understand what you are doing in the lessons", but quite another to do the same thing with a different database and make it work. Fortunately, once you get going, you can use your last example as a stepping stone for the next db query. My Mac crashed in the middle so I had to do some things over. I wish they would have replaced the hard drive when they fixed it after I dropped it.

unit 10, working on databases

This was the most challenging and the most work for me so far. I knew it probably was going to be seeing that the only database experience I've had is from Microsoft access in irls 571.

Some of the query concepts were kind of familiar from stuff I did at my last job. We had a defect/fix tracking tool that had a database underneath it. To generate reports you would do queries much like what we have done in class here. However, most people had scripts or they would use a GUI to do the queries that they wanted. The GUI would output the query command it was doing so that was helpful if you wanted to do something similar.

It was good to see the different ways of doing things with command line and the two GUIs. The way it was presented helped me understand it pretty fast. The tutorials were good too.

I had some additional work cut out for me as I had to replace my friend's router this week after the old one died. This one has an address of 192.168.2.1 for whatever reason. So I had to change some things in my ubuntu VM. I don't want to spend time changing the router, although sometime maybe I'll experiment. The default is encryption enabled on the wireless. He has it in a covered area between the guest house where I stay and the main house so that both can get wireless reception. However, both of us have wired connections as it is still faster even though in theory the wireless should be as fast. Having it outside exposed to heat and dust probably means it probably won't last long either. Someday he plans on enclosing the area. That is the only solution that will keep the electronics working longer.

The last project I worked on where I was working had a database inside the product to track various things. However, some of the stuff had to be taken out of there and stored in shared machine memory. The database was just too slow and was affecting performance to a very unacceptable degree.

Unit 9 - database

Data modeling and ERD is similar to designing for Object-oriented programing so those concepts are familiar to me. Databases are not. However, irls 571 gave me an introduction to databases and the normalization process via Microsoft Access(what kind of a name for a database program is that?). I can't say I'm an expert on that so that will be challenging and fun in the coming weeks. Especially using MySQL, which is new to me.

Unit 8 assignment

I think it was the first one I read, but I was really impressed out by the ALA plan. The thoroughness and directions on how to get to reach their goals really knocked me out. This looked like a plan, if followed, would have a high chance of success.

The Department of Education seemed like more of a political piece of BS geared to show what a great job they are doing and why they deserve more money from congress. I used to see these kind of presentations at my previous job and those were usually the products/projects that would fail. They would also put people to sleep if it was presented in a meeting. I remember being unimpressed with Rod Page. This document is a reminder of why.

The Dugan "Information Technology plans" seemed to be another document filled with good information on how to plan and execute.

I think my course of study, especially the Digital information certificate courses, plus my background in computers, should help a lot with me helping out in future technology planning. If I had been in the part of IBM that deals with that directly, IGS, I would even have more knowledge. My knowledge of how to administrate computers, modems and routers has got to help also. A lot of it was from trial and error, due to lack of good support (talking to someone in India was rarely helpful), so that experience should help a lot.

Unit 7 quiz

I feel like an idiot after the METS question. My stubbornness in solving problems gets the best of me sometimes. I don't know if I should feel bad that I spent so much time on it. Maybe I should have settled for a 9/10. I finally figured out the answer to questions 2. I had just been very lazy in my reading.

Unit 7 assignment

One of my last jobs was maintaining and adding to machine status in the form of an xml file. That made me pretty familiar with the assignment of creating xml. I picked some pictures from my iPhoto collection to use as the objects for my examples. So if we ever do anything with the xml file, I will have real photos behind it.

The code that I had to maintain was kind of sloppy as far as how it would look at the xml. A C++ xml parser (Xerces?) was used to parse the xml and then C code was written to read and manipulate the linked objects created by the parser. Then a final call to the parser was made to write it back out. There was also an xsd file to describe the structure of what the elements of the xml would be and also their attributes. I ended up re-writing a major part of the C code to be recursive because the values of status were hierarchical for the tape server. Bad status would cascade up the hierarchical structure and change the status of the object at the next level. Where there was more than a single point of failure, the status going up would be just degraded. Where there were single points of failure, like if the operating system crashed(think O-rings and tiles on the space shuttle), the state of the machine would go to 'failed', which shouldn't happen very often.

By the way, there were 70 single points of failure on the space shuttle and there was a statistical certainty (I have an article from 1990 somewhere) that we would loose another one before the space station was done. Why did we do it anyway? And why wasn't anyone ever held accountable for either shuttle disaster?

The quiz this week is what has really got me. I must have fell asleep while I was reading the parts I am struggling with. Good thing I have more opportunities. Or maybe its the METS baseball team that is trowing me off :)