Category Archives: Computers

Safety in a box

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

I have a decent physical backup plan for my existing desktop and files, although primarily I’m interested in the safety of our family photos in digital format, the best of which are also shared to my website in full original size. So I haven’t felt the need for a separate cloud-storage option for those. Other files are either backed up through email or on other backup drives.

But one downside to backup drives is where do you keep them. Some people take them to their office. Some people have “backup buddies” the same way they exchange house keys with neighbours. Or they store them with family. And still there are those few souls who follow some good online advice and keep them with their important documents and jewelry in a safe-deposit box.

There are some unfortunate souls who say, “No problem, I keep my backup drives in a fire-proof safe” and think that actually keeps them safe.  » Read the rest

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Revisiting my digital photo gallery

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

As part of my #50by50 posts, I repatriated all my videos and pictures from SmugMug, threw them into Piwigo, and (mostly) completed a good layout and design for my online photo gallery. I had tried integrating directly into WordPress, but the biggest and best (relatively speaking) gallery called Next Gen Gallery just didn’t play well with some of my other plugins, and I couldn’t get it to work right. I tried various other WP tools, but nothing was jiving for me. Piwigo worked, I found some themes I liked, I tweaked some stuff, called it a day. Then proceeded to put a LOT of time and effort into uploading 12755 photos and videos of various types and sizes.

I made it as good as I could, but it was far from “perfect”, if there is any such thing. For example, Piwigo likes to play with different size images. So it would take the original ~13K photos and make a thumbnail for each one.  » Read the rest

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Metaliteracy – Week 5 – Understanding How Information is Packaged and Shared

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

Week 5 of Coursera’s Metaliteracy course is entitled “Understanding How Information is Packaged and Shared”. I was initially skeptical of the week, as format is rarely something I have thought much about outside of the mainstream. For example, a blog post vs. a news article, and the likely credibility of the two by default. Kind of like peer-reviewed vs. non-peer-reviewed articles. But as I worked through the readings, and the assignments, I actually found that I liked the content more than I expected.

For example, it talks about it from a creation stand-point. An academic wanting to advance learning in a specific area is likely to follow a traditional route and publish in a peer-reviewed journal using technical language appropriate to the field. By contrast, the same academic might want to make a presentation to students that would make the same information available but tied to more fundamental principles. And equally, the same academic might try to reach out through blogs or popular press articles with infographics to encapsulate similar information.  » Read the rest

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Metaliteracy – Week 4 – Ethical Use of Information

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

Week 4 of Coursera’s Metaliteracy course is entitled “Ethical Use of Information”. The main materials for the week are a great series of videos called “Everything is a Remix”. It shows, in a multitude of examples, how ideas and even content are remixed and re-used, built upon, edited, etc., all as part of new creations. And for me, it leads to a kind of intellectual conundrum. If, in many spheres of life like science, the goal is to build off of the efforts of others and to advance learning, how do you do that while respecting the intellectual rights of others in an ethical way?

The remix videos are great, and worth watching even if you aren’t taking the course. The remastered version is below:

The other readings and the assignment for the week are a bit more mechanical, and not very well done. For example, the first assignment question is about whether or not you can scan or take a pic of a calendar you have on your wall that has a cool astronomy photo on it, and then share it online.  » Read the rest

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Fun with photos for blog posts

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

No, I’m not starting a Sheldon Cooper “Fun with flags” videocast rip-off. 🙂 I’m taking a Metaliteracy class, and of course it has a strong sub-element on being a good digital citizen, particularly when it comes to online content. Namely, not stealing it willy-nilly but instead respecting licensing.

One thing I don’t do a whole lot of in my blog is include photos. Every advice site on the ‘net will tell you that pix are where it’s at, and if you want your text to soar, add pictures. So, sure, if I’m writing about something that I have pictures of that I took, I usually include them. But if I’m just writing in general, maybe about publishing or reading, I don’t see why a picture of a book or a typewriter is going to help that prose. One of my favorite blogs, The Passive Voice, also doesn’t use much in the way of graphics, yet frequently shares links to sites that allow you to do simple photos for blogs etc.  » Read the rest

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