Tag Archives: History 390

The post is specifically for the class History 390: The Digital Past

Scratch – HW for April 29th and May 1

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I found today’s assignment really fun to explore, trying to solve the Blocky Maze seemed easy at first but it definitely became more difficult. I was able to get all the way to the last step (#10) but there I met my match and could not figure out the order the sequence of blacks should be in (see bottom of post for screen shot of how I kept getting stuck). This game shows how programing works and each step or command is inked together with all the other commands to create a change reaction (and in my opinion, this is a tedious process). It reminded me of coding and how if one little thing is off images, text, etc wont display or perform the desired function properly. This is exactly how programing works, fitting together small commands in carefully planned sequences so that if one statement is true or a action is taken then the proper resulting action will occur. This is best demonstrated by the if-else clocks in the Blocky Maze game.

When I read about scratch and watched the video about it for today’s class it made creating videos much simpler and I understood how many of the videos I have watched were made. Up until know I wondered how anyone could know so much about programing to create such videos (even ones where the graphics were not that great) if they were not professionals who had undergone lots of training about it; now I can see how this simple programing formula/site makes that possible for anyone to create small animation videos with out to much trouble.

blocky maze #10

Archive.org

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I used archive.org to explore the history of the Vatican’s website. It is interesting to notice how the old site layout is more linear in structure and the current one incorporates a circular design/laout in the center. The old site does not offer as many different links to click on and is not as colorful as the current one. The current site also has links now to social media sites/phone apps. The background has stayed the same however between the old site and new site.

Check them out below:

Holy See Website – October 1999

Holy See Website – April 2013

Digital Stability – HW for April 22-24

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The preservation of digital records (photos, websites, articles, posts, etc.) is important because we live in a digital age where almost everything created can be digitized or has a digital component. The majority of Newspaper companies and even Magazines today have a digital version as well as a print version. Digitalization has given historians an incredible resource to preserving the past yet it has also brought with it many new challenges.

Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era by Roy Rosenzweig highlights many of these issue and is a very informative piece on advantages and disadvantages of digital media and the preservation of digital records. It also brings up a very interesting point about how the abundance of records and widely available sources of information to historians and the general public can be overwhelming and might make historical analysis seem less necessary and lessen its value. The question “will abundance bring better or more thoughtful history?” is one which deserves some thought and careful consideration. Rosenzweig also highlights the challenges of digitizing records and notes how digitized sources are not t quite as safe or secure as they might seems. I thought is was interesting how he points out that hard copy sources such as books and papers can age slowly yet if a digital file is damages in any way or if any part of it becomes corrupt the whole source is entirely destroyed. The method of digital preservation needs to be constantly re-evaluated and I think it can be concluded that sources can never be fully preserved. Items should be continually put in new digital formats, update to be able to be read by different programs and software. Digital preservation is a war that historians and archivist will have to fight for the whole foreseeable future. 

Lastly when I was taking a quiz on the LOC website about digital preservation I thought it was cool that they preserve enough digital records to equal over 66 million books in print. (that’s a lot of information!). The Digital Hurricane Memory Bank which I looked at for class this week was also a neat site. The layout and design worked well with the content and it was pleasing to look at. It was easy to use and contained lots of valuable information.

Data and Text Mining – HW for April 15-17

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When trying to do the homework for this week’s class I was very excited about the prospect of trying out Wordle, particularly with my Hist 499 paper which was 20 pages of text without the bibliography, however to my great disappointment I could not get it to work on my computer 🙁   … I will try using a different computer later on this week and see if I can get it to work ( if so I will then post my findings!).

I explored Time Magazine Corpus and found it fairly interesting though a little confusing to figure out the way to compare data sets by years. I did some searches about how often the term “World War” was used and the result was huge. Then when I was playing around with creating searches to find out how often Time Magazine mentioned women in the workforce during the WWII time period the site stopped allowing me to generate requests and said I could not use it anymore until I registered for the site. This was frustrating because I did not want to have another site I had to 1.) register for an account. 2.) have to create a username and password for and 3.) then have a site that would send me random emails which I do not want, thus I did not sign up for it and could not finish investigating the frequency of Time Magazine mentioning, in some way or form, women in the workforce in years before WWI compared to those during and after it.

In my third attempt at conducting research with the websites/tools listed to explore and use for this week’s assignment, I finally had more success. I used the Google books Ngram Viewer and compared the number of times the words “etiquette”, “manners”, “politeness”, and “women” were found in books from the 1750 -1950 (time period ranging from a little before the American Revolution to a little after the end of WWII). This search interested me as women’s etiquette, etiquette manuals, and guides to manners is a topic I have heavily researched for my History 300 and History 499 papers. I found it interesting to see how the term “manners” was used much more in the published works than the term “etiquette”. The Ngram showed the topic of etiquette and manners was more popular right before the American Revolution during which it hit a serious decline. Near the end of the war there was a small increase in the topic’s popularity but it never reached the same level as before the war. This suggests that manners and etiquette were not a concern for the American colonists from 1775-1880’s and that books/manuals on these topics were not published and subsequently not read very much during this time period. Thus, an argument can be made using this data that the American people were otherwise preoccupied during the war and did not have time to spend reading or writing about manners, etc. or did not have the resources or desire to do so. The American colonists were using their time in other ways, most likely in supporting the troops fighting in the war, instead of writing an reading about the rules of politeness. A similar patter could be seen in the Ngram, on a much smaller scale however, when looking at the time period from WWI to the end of WWII. The results of my search of these words (a.k.a. the Ngram I conducted and am referencing this post) can be found at: Etiquette/Manners/Politeness/Women – Google Ngram Viewer Results. Over all I thought the Ngram Viewer was cool yet I wish one could see a breakdown of the information in text form and not just visually in the form a line graph.

Presentations – HW for Week of April 8-10

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I made my presentation for homework this week using the presentations function in Google Drive. I did it on a very recent moment in history, the 2013 Papal Election of Pope Francis.

Also I thought the readings for this week’s class from Tufte on the negative aspects and uses of PowerPoint and Norvig’s illustration of many of these same points in his Gettysburge Powerpoint Presentation and subsequent comments about its creation were very interesting. I definitely agree that most people over use powerpoint and often presentations are just as good without them. It is also very true that most powerpoint users do not use it well for they do not think about design elements, readability, and color schemes and thus often end up with a very unsuccessful and hard to look at presentation. When one goes to use powerpoint for a presentation one should always begin by asking oneself the question “Do I really need it for my presentation?” Very often the answer will be “no” but if the answer is “yes” however one should be very carful to when creating it so that it functions as it should, as an aid to one’s presentation, and does not become one’s entire presentation.

Many Eyes was also an cool sight to explore and I like how it can present data in so many different ways. I like how the visualizations can take on classic forms of data representation such as bar graphs and charts as well as other more artistic and design centered forms such as word trees, tag clouds, and phrase nets. My one critique of the site however was that it is a little hard to figure out how to view visualizations that others have created and upload previously.

Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Zotero – HW7

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Google Drive (encompassing Sheets, Docs, etc.), Google Maps, and Google Earth, as well as Zotero, are all programs which I have used in the past. I had not used Google Charts however up until I was doing the homework for this week’s class. I know it is supposed to be simple to use but I actually found it kind of confusing. I didn’t like the interface and how there were no directions on the main page. The Google Docs and Sheets instructions were ok yet I thought there were too many links to go through before one could get to the actual instructions which explained how to use the different tools. I was also disappointed to find that the software on my computer is not up to date enough to run the Google Drive app on my computer thus I can only access it through my online google account. I am able use the Google Drive app on my phone which is great but it would be nice to have been able o have it on my computer. A function that I like a lot about Google Drive is that I can make docs and sheets available offline. I have found this function really helpful in the past as I am able to have quick and easy access to certain schedules I need to refer to often and which do not usually change. I have also found that it is a really good way to work on group projects and papers for a class, especially if you can not meet up as a group in person very often.

Google Maps is also a cool program, one I actually learned how to use last spring when I was preparing for my study abroad trip to London. I used to to create a map of places I knew I would be going to often/every day (such as where I would be living, where class would be held, and where my work was located) as well as potential sites I wanted to visit while in London (such as museums, other tourist sites, and tea shops). I did not know however that I could have put the whole map into google earth and viewed it that way so I found it really neat to be able to go back and do this today while I was doing the homework for class. If you want to view that map I had created for my trip you can find it here: Summer in London .

Zotero is a really great program and is my favorite of all the programs we were supposed to look at as part of this week’s assignment. I know that another student mentioned in her  blog post for this week’s homework hat she thought it was the least intuitive of all the programs and I totally understand where she is coming from with this for the first time I used this program I thought it was a bit confusing. However ever since when my History 300 professor had the whole class spend spend a lot of time in the JC library computer lab with one of the librarians who taught us how to use it, I have been a proponent of it and use it all the time for almost every class I have to do research for (I have even showed multiple friends how to use it as well). It has helped me tremendously as an aspiring historian who spends long hours researching and compiling sources for papers. It is great because it makes it not only much easier for me to create bibliographies in multiple formats but also to relocate and access sources multiple times. I also like how I can link PDF files/ images on my computer to the saved sources in my Zotero library and then later pull them up really quickly without have to search my whole computer for them. The fact that your library can be saved and sync to your online account is another awesome feature because it means you can access it from other computers. Since my computer has had a lot of problems in the past year this program has lessened my fear of one day loosing all my research I have done for all my classes, particularly projects and papers I am working on this semester, for I know I have it stored in my online library account. I find that this program which lives in the FireFox browser is more beneficial when doing research than using the bookmark function on my computer.

Security in the Digital Life? – HW6

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When I was doing readings for this week’s class, particularly the article about password security, I’ll admit I identified with the “average Web user” and began to question my stance about using “weak” passwords because they are easier to remember and began to reconsider whether or not the “pros” of reusing passwords really actually outweighed the “cons.” I have never though that much about the possibility of being hacked and was a bit shocked to see how quickly someone can destroy your whole digital life if they get only the slightest bit of your personal information or gain access to one of your many online accounts. When Matt Honan was describing how it was flaws in Apple’s and Amazon’s security system coupled with his main password he used for most everything that lead to him hacked it hit me that if huge companies such these which are used by thousands of people use are not safe the digital life of so may people is in danger. I used to think it was great that Amazon could keep my credit card information stored in their system so that it made it really fast and easy for me to purchase items but now I am tempted to go and take my information of their site. I think I finally understand why my dad is always sending me  examples of false emails that are viruses, cautioning me about not writing my passwords down anywhere, and the importance of signing out of online accounts. Thankfully I have never saved, at least not to my knowledge, any password keychains on my computer and usually always request that security questions be asked when trying to get into certain online accounts of mine as a precaution.

Ethics and Legality

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The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is a website which gives one online access to portions of primary source documents as well as other useful material for teachers. It claims to be abiding by the Fair Use policy and that the documents that can be found on this site are copy-permitted.  In analyzing this website according to the 4 factors of fair use – Purpose, Nature, Use, and Effect (simplified description according to Copy Right Tutorial by Rosemary Chase GMU’s Copyright Officer) – I would say that it does abide by the legal terms  fairly well however it could offer more restriction on who can access the site. Many of the documents on this website are old enough in which the copyright laws do not apply as strictly (though this does not mean they do not still apply at all) however the Modern section links to sites and material in which those right can be applied more strictly. Because this site is open to anyone I think it comes close to violating the distribution to the public domain/purpose factor for although it seems fair in the sense that anyone can access it this also means that even though the site was designed for educational purposes, specifically for classroom use, it cannot be assured that only educators will use this site and the material. Non educators could use this site and forgo these principles. Thus, for the most part this site in my opinion is legally and ethically ok however some parts could be debated.

Digital Sources – Reliable or Not?- HW4

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A.] Here is my Whois.com Query Results for shorpy.com:

Registrant:
Domain Privacy Group
10 Corporate Drive
Suite 300
Burlington, MA 01803
US

Domain name: SHORPY.COM

Administrative Contact:
Privacy Group, Domain shorpy.com@domainprivacygroup.com
10 Corporate Drive
Suite 300
Burlington, MA 01803
US
+1.6027165339
Technical Contact:
Privacy Group, Domain shorpy.com@domainprivacygroup.com
10 Corporate Drive
Suite 300
Burlington, MA 01803
US
+1.6027165339

Registration Service Provider:
MyDomain, support@mydomain-inc.com
+1.8004057875
This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords,
DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions.

Registrar of Record: Domain.com
Record last updated on 30-Jan-2013.
Record expires on 14-Feb-2014.
Record created on 14-Feb-2007.

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.SHORPY.COM 63.247.140.18
NS2.SHORPY.COM 63.247.140.19

Domain status: clientDeleteProhibited
clientTransferProhibited
clientUpdateProhibited

B.] For my critique of a Wikipedia page on a historical topic I looked up Calling Cards (a.k.a. Visiting Cards).

Since I was familiar with the subject of calling cards, or visiting cards as they often are referred to and which is the name I found them listed under on Wikipedia, from having written my History 300 paper on them, I thought it would be interesting to see what other people knew about them and what information Wikipedia offered on the subject.

My paper had focused on calling cards and how they pertained to women’s etiquette in America during the Gilded Age and even though that greatly narrows a topic which could be expanded upon much father it seems that it is one which has not been of interest to a great many people and thus the Wikipedia entry for it was quite short. The information listed in the history section was to my limited knowledge fairly accurate although I was reminded on how little this subject had been studied as I noticed how there was not any real mention of the contrast in format and color between the cards printed in the U.S. and in Britain in the 19th/20th c. There were hardly any inline citations which calls into question where in the information explicitly came from yet this makes sense when one remembers this is a cite edited by many people who have varying degrees of knowledge and understanding of the subject. This page was created in 2003 and developed from a few sentences to now containing an “intro/definition”, “history”, and “see also” section. The last update for this page was in January 2013. Images have also been added since the page was first created giving the reader an clearer idea of what a calling card actually looked like. The cites listed as links to where more information could be found were informative however it was unclear as to how accurate they even were. I did find it interesting however that one of the sources listed (a book by Emily Post) in the “References” section was one which I had actually found in my previous research.

 C.] Student Blog

This was an interesting blog, especially since it was not created by any one real person. The point to take from it are that one should never believe everything that can be founded online. Just because a video looks real or an article or blog post sounds like someone’s honest writing one can never be sure until you do some solid research into the author and history of the online source.