Becoming Digital

I thought that this week’s readings had a lot of good points. I think of myself as a traditionalist, and I used to do some research and writing for a computer security company, so both these things make me very wary of the transition from physical libraries into digitized ones. I certainly understand and appreciate the benefits of being able to share a nearly infinite amount of information with a nearly infinite number of people, but it certainly comes with a lot of costs. I believe that there should be some sort of middle ground.

I think that an effort should be made to produce text-scannable image files of all historical works, also I know this would take a long time and be very expensive. I would do so by scanning images of all the pages of the original work, then typing up all of the text, and then having the computer automatically align the typed text with the written text in the image file, and then make the typed text invisible to the reader. This way the reader could still ask the computer to search for certain words or phrases, but at the same time they could see the original handwriting and other sublte information about the document that is lost if the digital copy is text only. I understand that the monetary cost, the time needed to convert documents into such a format, and the load time are currently very great, but I think it would be worth it. The monetary cost could be offset with sponsors, and quite frankly when you want something badly enough you can usually find a way to make it happen (eg. our multi-trillion dollar war that we also can’t afford). As far as how long the project would take, I think taking a long time to do it right is better than taking a short time to do it wrong. Plus, it would go faster if more people were working on it, and goodness knows people in this country need more jobs. As far as load time, in five years I guarentee you that technology will have advanced enough that that’s no longer a problem.

My First Shot at HTML

Things I Learned

Stuff:

  • I learned how to make paragraph breaks using codes
  • I also learned how to make things bold and italic .

I can also make numbered lists

  1. Like this one right here
  2. See how cool it is?

Here’s a link to google that is also an image:

Week 2 Post

Reading “Getting Started: The Basic Technologies Behind the Web” was a good way to get myself into the mode of thinking about technology.  What I found to be most interesting was when Cohen and Rosenzweig said that when working with and studying the internet, people tend to focus too much on the technology and not enough on the broader picture and what the technology is used for.  They say that focussing too much on the technology is both “daunting and distracting.”  This surprized me because most of what I read these days about the internet focuses entirely on the newest technologies and what’s becoming outdated.

I really liked Cohen’s and Rosenweig’s point.  I get a headache even beginning to try to keep up with the updated version of this or that and what new i-thing or social networking site just came out.  I agree with them that in the long run, this second’s piece of technology probably doesn’t play a very crucial role in the big picture.  I really like their analogy about the house, saying that hyper-focusing on the internet’s technology when your studying the internet is just like hyperfocussing on what kind of wrench you’ll use on the plumbing when you’re building a house– it’s important to think about a little bit but then you really need to move on to the big picture.