Data Compression Wiki- I like the way that this article described the difference between lossless versus lossy compression. The examples such as the string of 8’s were very clear which enabled me to understand more clearly how they work.
Data Compression basics-While I appreciate the author’s attempt to simplify these types of compression into plain language, I still found myself very confused. I was able to follow pretty well until the idea of picture compression. I’m not quite sure how a lot of those methods work, I think I get the main idea, but beyond a basic “sort of” grasp, I didn’t really understand it. Also a lot of these methods seem to only shorten data by a little bit which seems useless to me. I suppose in vast quantities it might help, but the examples they gave made it not seem worthwhile. This was especially true in the discussion of the entropy method specifically the arithmetic coding section.
“Imaging Pittsburgh”- This is a very interesting idea. I like that they are collaborating to provide a more comprehensive website for photographs of the region. It would be much easier to search one site if you are looking for photographs from a specific time period or of a specific neighborhood, instead of trying to figure out which institutions have the photographs you are looking for. The metadata challenge section was interesting as well. The problem they experienced with differing ideas of vocabulary seems to be a common one when collections from different institutions are brought together. Overall, this article brings to light interesting issues dealing with composite online collections. Information like this will undoubtedly become more useful as more websites like these are an inevitable part of the demand for easily accessible material on the web.
YouTube and Libraries- I really like this idea. Especially the suggestion about posting videos about how to use some of the library services such as the website and online journals and databases. This would provide useful information, especially in an academic setting. As an undergrad I often didn’t was to bother library staff with simple questions like this, even though I often had them. With a system like this those who felt the same way I did would have access to a simple solution.
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On the Youtube article, I agree with you about the usefulness of the service. I too had a problem with asking librarians questions when I felt it would be wasting their time to do so. There were also times when I would be accessing the library’s website after hours and there was no one to help with my questions – I had to look to my friends and roommates for those answers. This way the answer would always be there for people to access.
ReplyDeleteOn the imaging of Pittsburgh, I agree with your statement that people are demanding things to be accesable online. Everyone wants to be able to find what they need when they want it. We are a generation of instant gratification.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated the examples, though I got lost after a while probably because my brain was going through information overload. There is only so much processing space for numeric examples on a given day I think.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of YouTube library vids was a great idea too. My problem as an undergrad wasn't that I didn't want to bother the librarians, but that I could never find one! For understaffed libraries this could really help as a temporary solution until the economy turns up or until people start realizing libraries are still important.
Those were basically my thoughts on data compression... It seems like a lot of work to save not a lot of space! I imagine that it does work well with black/white images because it's a lot of repeating the same code over and over, but I'm not sure when it's really that useful otherwise. Maybe it's just that I don't know much about the specific sizes of files when they're saved- maybe even shaving off a little bit makes a big difference?
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