Cynthia Ng

Access 2012 Day 1: Notes on Locked in the Cloud

Locked in the Cloud: What lies beyond the peak of inflated expectations

by John Durno & Corey Davis

Right now, the ‘cloud is quite the hype:

Getting Locked into the ‘Cloud’

Using cloud-based system might still be closed and locked down that is vendor-managed and based on a subscription model. Supposedly a ‘one stop’ solution. While many of the features sound positive, can have many drawbacks.

Numerous ways to be locked in

data
software
API
institutional insertia/incumbent bias

Innovation can be stifled, because stuck with what the vendor provides. Switching is considered too costly and frequently entrenched in work culture.

One of the selling points is that you will save a lot of money with cloud computing. Many administrators seem convinced that it’s about managing information, not technology, but you cannot manage information without managing technology.

Why is our backroom workflow so tightly tied to a public service point?

The problem is that even if something better comes along, you might not go with it, because it would be too cumbersome to migrate.

Have an Exit Strategy

While we need a standard to switch, this is still being worked on. Need to know the cost of moving away from the current/new system.

APIs

limited functionality
limited access to data
can be changed or deprecated

Still not the solution. Need unmediated access to data

Caveat Emptor

high switching costs
escalating subscription costs
interoperability issues
dwindling innovation
limited choice

There are in fact alternatives and something to look forward to. The ‘fabled’ innovative system.

See also: Hacking 360 Link: A Hybrid Approach by John Durno on substituting vendor link resolver.

More notes on the Access 2012 live blog.

Access 2012: Opening Keynote – We Were Otaku: before it was cool

Aaron Cope

Archives (and libraries), where things are frequently obsessively collecting, are just like what happens with otakus.

Curating: the act of choosing, e.g. flickr galleries

The Economics

Time is money. Stand-in that something that takes time has the greatest value, but the counter is no longer true. Can no longer say that something quickly and cheaply made has little value. e.g. maps

Collapsing Distinctions

Distinction between museums and archives (and libraries) are collapsing. Assumption that archives are the basement of museums. What’s happening is a kind of mushing. Blur in whether looking at archives or showcase, especially in digital realm.

Expectations

Efficiency of storage and retrieval at Amazon (robotic system). Allows you to get something delivered the next day. Makes possible a kind of expectation that the web has. If we can make it happen for trivial things, we’re going to want to make it happen for important things.

It’s About the Users

If people can’t get to it or see it, why are we keeping it? Why is it important? It is no doubt difficult to provide access to physical objects, but doesn’t mean we cannot. We can simply talk about our collection and why we have them. It’s about keeping open a narrative space. We are the timekeepers.

Trust. Users. Delivery. -gov.uk

There is no (final) design, there is only reckoning.

It is everyone else that is letting us do this. We are held to a higher standard. We have to trust our users even if it’s not on our terms. No uniform motive. e.g. Add a random button Cannot assume either the same level of expertise. e.g. Making objects, first class objects that are URLs.

The proxies are important to get people in the door, to see the physical objects. The proxies also provide a broader surface for discussion and conceptualization. Not everyone also has the luxury of travel.

It’s about being present on the network, and allowing things to happen.

The unit of measure of what is important has changed. e.g. foursquare as building registry.

It’s Messy

Ultimately, we need to think about how we share things with people, and allowing people to interact with them. Keeping something safe vs. canonizing.

More notes on the Access 2012 live blog.

Access 2012 Pre-Conference: Learning Python

Today’s preconference session was a great way to force me to learn a bit of Python. The very basics were somewhat of a review since I read the first couple of chapters of the recommended book and I actually already knew much of it, but for those interested in knowing, here’s what we learned.

The Book

Much of the material can be found in Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Allen B. Downey.

Another resource: Cheatsheet of common syntax and data structures

The Basics

We covered the basics including:

types (string, int, float)
arithmetic
concatenation
values, variables, expressions
arguments and basic functions
for loop

Read chapters 1-3 (and do the exercises) and you’ll cover it all.

Turtle World

Had some fun drawing with ‘Bob’ the turtle.

This is covered in chapter 4 of the book.

Conditionals and Recursion

We then covered the slightly less than basic of:

modulus
Boolean expressions
conditionals
recursions

See chapter 5 of the book.

At the End of the Day

Honestly, the session wasn’t exactly bad, but I think I would’ve learned more by being sat down and simply being told to follow the book. We didn’t have a bad instructor, but I would want to get more than just what the book tells you.

A simple example would be how to get the full list of functions in TurtleWorld for us to play around rather than just telling us the couple functions that are expected in the one or two exercises.

Overall, a good session if you’re a real beginning with absolutely no programming background, but I think that 90+% of the group would have benefited from a much faster pace session. Other than recursion, I noticed that almost all the other times, people around me were doing other things. So, good instructor and session, just too easy for many.

Going Google at Ryerson University: Sync’ing Work Back to Usual

I have found some things on the Going Google site a little incomplete, so I thought I’d supplement it with a blog post.

Set up your Google Token

This is really easy. Just sign into the Apps tab, click on Activate Google Token, and hit Activate. One important note,

you will not be able to see your Google Token again after activating it the first time (and you close the window).

So, write it down in a secure place in case you ever want to sync your accounts with anything else.

Sync Apple Devices

So which method you choose depends on what you want to sync. Both will sync mail and calendar, but for:

Notes use Gmail option
Contacts use Exchange option (follow the instructions on the Going Google site)

I personally only read and reply to emails on mobile devices, so I chose the Gmail option so that I could sync Notes. Google provides instructions on using this method (it’s essentially the same process), and here are the details you need:

Name: your name
Address: full email address
Password: Google Token
Description: account display name on your device

Multiple Calendars

To sync multiple calendars, you can still do that using the Gmail option, but to change which calendars you want sync’ed:

sign into your Gmail account using a browser
then visit Google Sync for Apple to choose which calendars you want sync’ed

Getting Calendar in Thunderbird

UPDATE: If you’re having issues, it provides less integration into Thunderbird, but try ‘Google Calendar Tab’ which opens GCal like it would in a browser minus Settings/Labs.

I warn you now. Google Calendar in Thunderbird still has a number of issues. If you’re on a MAC, I suggest using Google Calendar in iCal instead. I prefer having everything in one client, so I’m willing to live with and report bugs when necessary, but who knows, I may change my mind.

Step 1: Install Lightning

The Lightning add-on page actually gives the newest stable version of the add-on (for Thunderbird 16), but the newest official release of Thunderbird is 15, so head over to the Versions list and find Lightning 1.7. Install it according to the instructions (using the Install Add-on from File option in the Add-ons settings).

Step 2: Install Provider for Google Calendar Add-on

This step is actually optional depending on what method you want to use. Google Calendar now supports using CalDAV in Thunderbird, but it’s marked as experimental.

Just search for Google Calendar in the Add-ons tab and install from there.

Step 3: Add your Calendar

If you chose to install the Provider for GCal add-on:

Open your Google Calendar
Click on the Settings link located in the box at the right of the page.
Click on the calendar you want to use with Thunderbird Lightning or Sunbird.
Copy the link from either of the two XML buttons shown at the bottom.
In Thunderbird: File > New > Calendar > On the Network > Google Calendar
For Location, paste the link, but change http:// to https://

For more information, visit the Provider wiki page.

If you chose not to install the add-on, follow the instructions from Google.

Testing Needed

So, I’m going to be using Thunderbird, and hopefully it’ll work out, but there are one or two things I wish it had already (like popup reminders for events others created). It is supposed to work better than through CalDAV. I’ve heard iCal has pretty good integration though so I might still switch to that if I’m unhappy with GCal in Thunderbird.