Group items tagged

This link gives information on the difference between a directory and a folder. The reason I found this link so useful was because it outlines the difference between the two for Mac and PC users.

Congratulations, Gordon, on being the very first to post! :) I will say I'm not very impressed with the link, though -- it's a bit fuzzy on whether there is or is not a difference between a directory and a folder, except in a technical sense on Windows Vista. (I'd argue that in general there isn't, though I grant you there are special cases.) And you can't tell who wrote that piece, and it comes from the support database of a particular software company rather than from a site that's dedicated to explanations / teaching / learning / education. At least Wikipedia is deliberately trying to educate people, and it's better on this issue, I'd say, and provides a clearer argument that a directory is something structural in an OS whereas a folder is a visual "metaphor" for a collection of files, which may or may not be an actual directory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_(computing)#Folder_metaphor

Here is a video explanation of the differences between the internet and the web. It includes a brief history of the internet and the foundation of the Web. This video highlights the information we learned in class and shows images to explain the differences between the two.

In addition to the content management systems we talked about today like wordpress, there are plenty of other great content management systems out there for people to use.

Although that article was written way back in 2009, I'd say it's still pretty accurate. All the CMSes I know of are in that list, plus some I hadn't heard of.

A YouTube video that gives you some basic information on what HTML is.

History, development, and uses for Zotero

Way to get a jump-start on next week's lessons, Max!

An article often cited as "inventing" the web, or at least the idea of it. Vannevar Bush worked in information intelligence during the Second World War, and his work in that field led him to conceive of a better way of finding and managing information. I don't know that the web has really solved that, though!

This animated video is British, and that affects some of its perspective (Internet history books will tell you more about the American side), but it's particularly good for showing the structure of the Internet.

This book, Digital History, exists in print form as well, but it is entirely available for free on the open web. It is written for historians who want to "go digital," so you as undergrads (and not necessarily History majors!) aren't exactly its audience, but the book is nevertheless excellent as an introduction to the underpinnings of the internet and the web.

Wikipedia page about the History of the Internet that I showed in class. Note that the first Internet connection (really, the first ARPANET connection) was made between UCLA and Stanford -- most early work on the Internet was done at universities and was funded by government grants. It was only after the launch of the Web in the early 90s that businesses began devoting resources to the Internet and the Web.

A timeline of the Internet (with portraits!) from the Computer History Museum. This timeline begins in 1962 and ends in 1992 with the invention of the World Wide Web -- or, rather (though I'd say it's the same thing), with the 1992 invention of the first web browser, Mosaic, at the University of Illinois.

 The World Wide Web Consortium's definition of the difference between the Web and the Internet is understandably technical. It annoys me that there's a typo in which "TCP/IP" is misspelled "TPC/IP". Way to confuse people. 

The New York Times website is down today (by some reports it's because Syrian hackers have attacked it), but here's a (probably illegal) copy of a helpful column on "Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User" by the New York Times's technology reviewer, David Pogue. This documents also contains all the comments. All 1149 of them. :) Many of those comments have helpful tips as well. Even though this was published in 2008, it's still helpful.

This gives a list (and short description) for 20 popular OSS platforms. This article includes examples given in class such as, WordPress (#1 on the list) and Mozilla Firefox (#3 on the list).

Since we were talking about the history of Google earlier today, I found this and I thought I'd share with you all. It gives a great detailed timeline (provided by Google themselves) on their history.

That is a good link, Paola, thanks.

Really interesting and quirky introductory video on what SQL is and what it does. Explains one of the exercises given to us in our notes.

"In a world where databases are present everywhere" -- so true! Very amusing, Erin, thanks. As I mentioned to Vincent, you guys won't need to learn SQL for this class, but that video is actually very useful on just the concept of databases and of what SQL is, so that's useful.

This Wikipedia page shows all the available online resources open to the public.

Interesting, Taylor. Notice that that page is part of a project called "The Resource Exchange" and/or "The Wikipedia Library." I was just talking to a frequent Wikipedia editor named Jake Orlowitz the other day who's volunteering with the Wikipedia Library; we're going to try to bring him to campus to give a talk. If we do, I'll let y'all know. Thanks for the link!

I found this helpful, tell me what yall think.

Yep, that's a pretty useful page. I probably should have taught y'all the term "DBMS" -- Database Management System." That's really what Oracle and MySQL and so on are.

Gives you detailed definitions for any IT term.

Not a bad site at all, Emily -- thanks for finding it. I notice too that under "Learning Tools" there are various "Cheat Sheets" of things like a list of all two-letter TLD country codes. Could be useful.

Hey, I never heard that RSS stood for "Rich Site Summary." Huh. Thanks, Milan.