The summary for the week ( 26th, 28th . March)

What do you usually first do whenever you put a web address on the address window? Lots of people who use internet type ‘http://www’ first. We put them habitually but we do not know what are the http and the www. I studied the World Wide Web, URIs, HTML, HTTP and the relation between people and media. So it was also the important time when we know the basic of Information Technology.

People make media and then media make people. I could understand the first part of the sentence but I did not know the meaning of latter. Actually, people always make media and then we always use them. Besides we always try our lives to adapt the new media things. For example, people always wrote a letter or a book by own hands about 70 years ago. However, now numerous people use computer to write a letter or a book. It means that as the media is developed, people also want to follow up the technology. People can know the trend, the situation of the world, politics etc through the media. I think that the media is always existed since human was born but the kinds of the media are becoming diversity. At 1960’s, no one was interested in the visual art. The representative artist was Nam June, Paik who remained many works which made of televisions and something like the mass media. So I think that representing the new ideas is really awful and some of those things help developing the present.

What is the meaning of WWW? The World Wide Web is abbreviated WWW. The World Wide Web is created by Tim Berners-Lee who was born in 1955, London England. At that time when Tim Berners-Lee worked at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research), there is only text pages. He wanted to share and to show the graphical things on the web. So the motivation of the research is that the WWW was developed to be a pool of human knowledge, which would allow collaborators in remote sites to share their ideas and all aspects of a common project. And now, the World Wide Web is really huge and includes the different things. Even though the theme is same, the contents are always different. So we can choose the contents whatever we want.

There are some points; URI, HTML and HTTP. URI is a simple form of universal resource identifier. URI is the only address which shows the sources of the data. URI is composed protocol (http, mailto or ftp),:, // , host name and the specific address. What is the HTML? HTML means that hypertext markup language. I used the HTML when I made a private web blog but actually I do not need the HTML when I make blog now. Because most of the websites which offer the basic form and we just put in the contents. Even if the HTML is not used frequently, it is useful to me when I want to know the address of the resource like music and pictures. It is hard to download a mp3 file for free on the web, so I usually get the address from the HTML source and then I downloaded it. Hypertext Transfer Protocol is called HTTP. It is communications protocol for the transfer of information on intranets and the World Wide Web. Its original purpose was to provide a way to publish and retrieve hypertext pages over the Internet. Whenever I put a web address, I always type the http first.

Even though I heard the whole things what I learned this week, I thought that typing http://www is the matter of course. However, I understand that those things afford every facility. I think all the contents of learning on the week are about the web.

The summary for the week ( 21st. March)

What do you think of “digital media”? We are living in an information-oriented society now. But many of us think that it is hard to judge what digital media is, also we cannot figure out the exact meaning of digital media because digital media comes to us so quickly and so silently. I learned the meaning of digital media, some details of digital media, hypertext and Douglas Engelbart on this week. Besides we mentioned the key points of last week again.

There are two key points of digital media. One is when a medium is new, it is often used to simulate old media. There is an example to understand. We use some folders to collect and to arrange materials. The folder made of papers or plastics in reality. When we make a folder on a computer (we usually use windows), the folder in computer looks like the real folder. So it helps us to know which folder has the information what I need. The other is new media do not replace old media, they displace them. For example, there are two kinds of books. One is a book which made of papers, and the other is e-book which just can find on internet. Even though the contents of the books are same, the e-book cannot replace the book which made of papers because the e-book can buy the contents what you need, and do not need buy whole contents. And the shape is also different from the paper book. As the internet is developed so fast, we can download the music for free. However, it is too unfair to singers and producers. So they start to make digital albums. Even if digital media is quick and convenient, there are too many faults because people do not pay the money and they abuse the information. I think that sometimes digital media makes the product to fall in value.

Here is the most important point of the class. It is hypertext that is a way of connecting pieces of text so that we can go quickly and directly from one to another. Hypertext is invented by Ted Nelson. By using hypertext, we do not need to watch the unnecessary contents. So hypertext is really convenient thing to us. If hypertext did not exist, I had to drag the whole pages till I find the information what I need. The way of dragging the whole pages makes me annoying and wastes my time.

What is “cut-ups”? I thought it is the way of copy contents because whenever I copy texts on the web, I always use cut and paste functions. Cut-up is performed by taking a finished and fully linear text (printed on paper) and cutting it in pieces with a few or single words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged into a new text. The rearranging of work often results in surprisingly innovative new phrases. Many people thought cut-up gives bad result but it was not. Tristan Tzara who advocated Dadaism made a Dadaist poem. He cut single words, mixed them, chose some words and rearranged them. William Burroughs who made Origin & Theory of the Tape Cutups and David Bowie also used cut ups function. Cut-ups are used at advertising, music video, like a multi media. And I think that we can make a work of art by using cut-ups. It is an attractive thing to me.

There is an important person who invented mouse, windows, e-mail and word processor; Douglas Engelbart. He remained lots of achievements and the achievements are still valuable to us. The most important achievement is demo.It is the strongest rhetoric in new media Thanks to Douglas Engelbart, all people can use a computer conveniently.

Digital media, hypertext of Ted Nelson, cut-ups and Douglas Engelbart were the key points on this week. However, As I studied the history of information technology, I surprized and realized that a little idea is able to become a part of history even the idea was not welcomed at that time.

The summary for the week ( 12nd, 14th . March)

I studied about the conception of the media on this week. There are two important key points of this week. One is the digital media techonologies connect or separate people and the other is that technologies embody everything what related with us. Also I studied the reading "As We May Think".

Techonologies include all of things what related with us. For example, the ex baseball player in Korea killed three women and then he killed himself. The news can be the political news also can be the part of sports because he was a baseball player. Thus I think that technology is also able to be every part of everything. I saw the creation yesterday which made by a graduate stuendent in global media of soong sil university. There are many guys who play on the traditional musical instruments of the creation and I can hear the sound of the instrument when I touch a musical instrument of the screen. So I think it can be the part of technology and be useful to culture industry.

Connecting or separtating people from the digital media is able to be media. For instance, when a person is in a car, the car separate the person from the outside. Media is started from the crative thinking. So the media is the combination of between reality and imagination. Many of the scientists created lots of inventions that who had not ever thought about.
There are two building blocks of computers. One is switches which is a steering element that can combine multiple signals into a single signal . The other is connectors which is the connecting element must have the ability to branch, so that a single output can feed many inputs.
Vannevar Bush made differential analyzer in 1931 and then the Memex was based on Bush's work during from 1938 to 1940.

How does a man can find the data what he really wants when a man writes numerous things on the papers ? Bush's satated motivation is the method. Bush made the Memex because the way of collecting and of summarizing data is too hard when people have lots of piece of papers for study besides he wants to find the data faster and easier what he exactly need. And Bush was trying to solve the problem which suppose the idea were not enough. And the Memex is helpful to scientist when they keep their own data. Also it helps men,girls,secretaries and calculators. To our surprise, the index which is able to move to move whenever we want is same as the world wide web (www).

I really surprise the intuitive judgement. For example , there is Bell's telephone (actually it was mentioned by Dr.Yoon). No one in England wanted to use the telephone because bellboys were the best communication item at that time but now telephone is the one of the best communication item between me and others. Anyway, the Memex is the beginning of arranging the data and developing the information techonology.

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Hm.. anyway , this blog is for my assignments