*with apologies to
Nicole Engard and her excellent blogWhen I try to teach myself something new, it generally takes (a) much longer than I anticipated and (b)I end up learning a few more things than I intended. My experience today was another example of this.
I'm tying up final threads at my soon-to-be FPOW. One of the tasks on my to-do list is to wipe the hard drive on my laptop. Cool! I thinks to myself. It's a perfect opportunity to make use of some of my newly acquired
techbootcamp knowledge.
When we started going through basic *nix, our fearless instructor told us about
Knoppix. For those of you not in the know, Knoppix is a Linux distribution which can run live from CD/DVD/thumb drive. Knoppix has a utility called "shred" which does a good job with wiping. I figured I'd go with Knoppix/shred over something like
dban because I could continue using the laptop after the wipe by running the OS from the DVD drive. So I moseyed on over to the Knoppix download page and started my grand adventure.
I learned a thing or two. First, I figured out that bit Torrent is a faster download than a regular old mirror site. Well no duh! says you. But, like Dean Hendrix discovered during his recent analysis of librarian use of peer-2-peer networks**, I've been like most other librarians -- hopelessly slow with the uptake.
Then I realized that I needed to perform check sum verification on the things I download, especially with something as powerful as an operating system. So I had to download MD5summer (.md5 being a check sum file type)and actually do a check sum comparison between my downloaded files and the originals. I've known about check sums in a theoretical sense for ages, due to my interest in digital preservation and authenticity. I'd just never actually used them.
Finally, I had to poke around in the BIOS to get my laptop to prioritize the DVD drive when looking for an operating system from which to boot.
When all was said and done (about 4 hours later), I had learned Bit Torrent, MD5summer, revisited a computer BIOS for the first time since the age of DOS, installed a plug in so Windows Explorer could burn a .iso file as an image, and burned a verified copy of Knoppix to DVD.
It.still.didn't.work.
I suspect I screwed up something with the check sum verification and that my DVD is corrupted. Whatever. I've spent too much time on this little adventure. I'll use something simpler and just hand over the laptop after the wipe. It's not worth the effort to get a Knoppix DVD when I'm only using the equipment for another day.
It is frustrating to spend time doing something which should be incredibly simple if you know what the heck you're doing (download OS to DVD, boot laptop from DVD, wipe). I do consider learning the additional programs and reviewing BIOS to be time well spent. The thing is to actually remember that learning can be a slow-going and frustrating process without a guaranteed result. This is a good lesson to remember as we move forward with techbootcamp.
When the more technically inclined teach us newbies, they can toss off statements like, "oh, just download Knoppix and boot your laptop from there" without thinking about the prior knowledge required or the necessary computing environment. I'm reminded to consider these factors when I do any type of training. I'll also remember to schedule more time for these types of things.
**see Hendrix, Dean. "Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Knowledge, Use, and Attitudes of Academic Librarians." portal: Libraries and the Academy, 7(2) April 2007.
Muse subscribers can view the article here:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v007/7.2hendrix.html Labels: knoppix, techbootcamp, what i did today
Today was the third installment of
techbootcamp. We've now configured server hardware and gone through basic *nix commands. We can grep with the best of them now, but I still get a bit confused when piping commands. More practice will help.
Next steps? Take on a few projects and use them to train ourselves on particular open source applications. We have a few ideas in mind. My lib school student friends intend to digitize some out-of-copyright knitting patterns, get'em described, and make them available and searchable on the interbunny. They're considering using Greenstone.
For my part, I'm going to do something with ePrints. Not quite sure just what that will be yet, but I suspect it will involve images, batch importing, and metadata crosswalking. I'm totally open to suggestions if anybody has any.
Posts will be sporadic between now and 8/20. I'm leaving my current place of work on 5/30. I'm off on a few weeks vacation (
culinary school!) then ALA, then more vacation, before starting the new job in August. I will not have a laptop. I've avoided purchasing one because I've been using my soon-to-be-former-place-of-work's equipment. That, obviously, can't continue after I quit. I do intend to purchase my own equipment but I'm not sure yet when that will happen. Depends on how much I spend on vacation.
Labels: oss4lib, projects, techbootcamp
via
Digital Koans: The Digital Library Federation and OCLC have released their
Registry of Digital Masters Working Group’s Registry of Digital Masters Record Creation Guidelines.
This is cool. The registry means that (potentially) libraries and cultural heritage institutions can save time/effort/money in terms of managing digital objects for long term preservation. One thing everybody at DigCCurr agreed on: we need to figure out the economic models for sustaining digital preservation projects. Creating tools to avoid duplicating effort is a step in the right direction. No comments from the peanut gallery about OCLC and monopolies or the use of MARC format please.
Labels: digital preservation, economic models, registries
I'm a few days late reporting on
this opinion piece in the Washington Post by Fran Berman and Jim Barksdale (I was @ IUG all week, all apologies) .
Barksdale, as you may recall, used to be CEO of Netscape. Berman is the director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (full disclosure: one of my FPOW). Both are heavily involved in NDIIPP. Barksdale is on the advisory board. SDSC is a major player in digital preservation.
They write eloquently about the need for funding digital preservation projects. They use the familiar stories about heroic recovery of Census and NASA data. The article is notable because it's being published in the regular news. I say bravo. In the long term, increasing awareness of the problem will assist in generating necessary funds.
I don't harbor any illusions that Congress is going to return the millions they recinded from the NDIIPP. I do think that having the issues in the general press will help us in the academic repository realm in our communicating with research faculty. In my experience, many faculty members don't think much about the long term preservation of their data and scholarship. The Washington Post is another avenue for faculty to get the message.
In marketing they say that a person needs to see a message seven or more times in several different ways before it sinks into consciousness. So, yay. It's great that the issue made it into mainstream media in
the United States. Britain has already had some success in that area.
See also:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,661093,00.htmlhttp://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,916073,00.htmlLabels: funding, media, NDIIPP
Friends of mine run the annual
"Grilled Cheese Invitational". I didn't get a chance to compete last year because I went to Canada so I could get legally married. It seems like its getting bigger and more notorious as the years go by. I think there have been five or six so far. I can't recommend it highly enough. These folks take their grilled "sammiches" incredibly seriously. We're talking presentations that include costumes and cheerleaders. It is a heck of a lot of fun.
Grilled Cheese Invitational from
Hot Knivez on
VimeoLabels: life1.0
The
techbootcamp crew got together again yesterday. It's been difficult coordinating schedules but we finally managed. I think it should be a bit easier from now on, since the library school students are finishing up their quarter.
My camera is acting a bit funny, so I don't have pictures this time. This week we discussed the basics of Linux -- files, directories, command structure (command+arguments+flags), common commands for moving files around, shell navigation tips. T. brought her chihuahua puppy Oberon which lightened the mood. T & I both got accounts so they can practice logging into a shell and playing around with the commands.
Slowly, but surely, we're working towards the day when techbootcamp can become a working lab where we can get hands-on experience with the major Open Source applications in digital archiving. Yay.
Next meeting will be 5/27 3pm at the
Boneless Ranch. I should have my camera fixed by then.
Labels: techbootcamp
Karen Coyle interviews Diane Hillman about the outcomes of a recent meeting between the editor of RDA, some members of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of RDA,* and other stakeholders.
Diane Hillman has been a tireless champion encouraging the JSC to work with other metadata communities to develop RDA.
The RDA/DCMI collaboration will include an RDA application profile for DC and a formal element vocabulary. An controlled yet extensible element vocabulary is necessary for describing carriers as per the revised chapter Ch.3 of RDA. No, I haven't forgotten to write up my notes on that, btw. With any luck, I should get to that today!
*note the new name! for those of you not in the know, the JSC used to be for the revision of AACR
Labels: DCMI, interoperability, metadata, RDA, standards
Administrivia first - It seems as if blogger ate my comments settings so I didn't receive the auto-notify that I had comments awaiting moderation. Many apologies to those of you who commented. I've got everything reset now.
So. I've discovered the downside of migrating. It's reading the old documents you wrote and cringing in embarrassment. Way back in the day I used to write a column for San Diego Sidewalk. Remember the Sidewalk sites? They were Microsoft's answer to Yahoo local. They
ended up getting bought by CitySearch. The column was called "Styletramps" and it appeared in the GLBT section of the site. I was the queer Vanna White of online shopping. The idea was to find fun, interesting things (fashion, music, whatever), and write about them. It was a fun gig -- they paid me $100 per column and the columns were small at 250 words.
I just pulled out the disk which had my columns and writing. Ach. The horror. The horror. Here's the bio I wrote for them:
I'm Laura Smart. Yes, that is my real name. No relation to Maxwell, but I was jealous when he married Agent 99. Barbara Feldman was not only a babe but a snappy dresser to boot! Like almost everyone else in this state I came from somewhere else -- London, Ontario to be precise. When I'm not style-tramping I'm a librarian (a.k.a. "Information Diva"). My multifarious dabbling includes playing keyboards, writing bad poetry, drawing, constantly redecorating my various spaces, matchmaking (always a bridesmaid, sigh!), and fashion on a shoe-string. Susie Bright is my hero. I'm dying to become Slater-Kinney's lead groupie and the first commercially successful female drag-queen. Maybe it's really a secret yearning to become Pamela DesBarres? While I convince Malcolm MacLaren to manage me, I'll continue my quest for San Diego's kookiest accoutrements.
I guess there really is a big difference between age 25 and 35. I am sooooooooo not that person anymore. Now days I spend my time training for long-range cycling trips with my wife and daughter, renovating my house, meditating at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, and making luscious raw vegan cuisine (fyi, i eat 80% raw ... but no, I'm not a vegetarian. I just play one on t.v.)
Labels: digital preservation, electronic files, life1.0, migration, refreshing, styletramp
