There are reasons why you have to do things in this class

This chart was in the Daily Tarheel today.

Do you notice anything amiss?

If the endowment in 2009 is really $1.78 billion, why is the bar depicting something like $2.2 billion?

Things like this really reflect poorly on the organization. But is it the Daily Tarheel, or is it the UNC Management Company?

A: It is both. The management company shouldn't have released this erroneous chart and the Daily Tarheel should have checked it before publishing.

An alternate presentation tool: Prezi

For those looking for a unique way of presenting information, I have a neat suggestion: Prezi.com. This website offers a 'free' presentation tool which uses a map layout and zooming to show contextual relationships. By doing this, it addresses some of the shortcomings of PowerPoint, and works great if you want to give an 'artsy' feel to your presentation. I recently used it for my New Product Development class to present not only our idea but also our marketing strategy interwoven with it. It is fairly easy to use and create a presentation, and is web-based which allows for easy access (no flash drive necessary). Note: By using the free software, you are allowing anyone to see the presentation (you do not have control of this). A premium version is available at a cost, which supposedly gives more freedom in customization and also gives you full control of the access.

task 04 grades ...

... have all been posted.

For those of you all who created a Pathfinder ...

If you would like to use your Pathfinder design skills to assist a student in INLS501 to convert her Pathfinder into a web site and are available to help at these times

Monday: any time after 10:30 a.m.
Wednesday: any time after 2:00 p.m.
Thursday: any time after 4:00 p.m.
Friday: any time.

Please send me a note and I will make the introductions.

Starters for RBMS lab

• Googled - Access 2007 training courses. You might want to look at the one on creating reports
• radio - More ways to learn languages using your computer and locally produced media: Beeline TV, free online television channels from around the world and Jump TV, 250+ TV channels from 70+ countries
• newsletters - P4P Remodels File Sharing Peer-to-peer routing technology being tested by Internet service providers could change networking. By Erika Jonietz Tuesday, November 17, 2009
• interesting - The Most Unusual Books of the World
• Economist - On the web at warp speed Sep 11th 2009 From Economist.com Google goes in search of an instant operating system. If Google, with its powerful brand name and marketing clout, makes anything half as good as gOS Cloud, it will spell big trouble for Microsoft and its Windows franchise.
• issues to ponder - Software Recreates An Entire City from Tourist Photographs A group of researchers with University of Washington's graphics and imaging laboratory (GRAIL) wanted to see if they could build a piece of software that would search the web for images of a particular place and recreate that place in 3D in under a day. They succeeded. What might this mean for the enhancement of human understanding through the use of freely contributed items of information combined into a more meaningful whole?

staying well

Here is a link for the Live Well America blog--a useful collection of tips and observations about living well. Take special note of the flu prevention post, especially during this hectic time in the semester when stress and little sleep can suppress our immune systems. Again, the post contains nothing groundbreaking, but it is a helpful compilation of simple and effective measures you can take to ward off sickness nonetheless.

Take care,
Valerie

Starters for queries session

• Googled - SQL.org. As it says on their site, their goal is to build a resource that will help those using or wanting to make use of an SQL database find the resources and reference materials they are looking for: an sql tutorial, manual, introduction, SQL hosting provider, or someone to help them out
• radio - and then there are German sites that will help you learn Spanish online
• newsletters - Motion Chart Official Google Gadget. Motion Chart: A dynamic flash based chart to explore several indicators over time. This is a Google variant on Hans Rosling's Gapminder free software
• interesting - bubbl.us, a tool to help make mind maps
• Economist - America insists on net neutrality: The rights of bits, Sep 24th 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO From The Economist print edition A controversial plan for keeping digital arteries open to all. You might also want to read some of the comments.
• issues to ponder - More on the same topic: Can the Wireless Internet Be Neutral? The FCC's coming struggle: regulating "fairness" on the airwaves. By David Talbot. Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Starters for relationships session

• Googled -Databases: Access Terminology and Relational Database Concepts
• radio - Deutsche Welle also offers online, self-paced German lessons for speakers of languages from Albanian and Amharic to Turkish and Ukrainian. Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten - as does RFI, Deutsche Welle offers the news spoken slowly in German and, several times a week, it offers offers the Top Story with Vocabulary - "an article in simplified German. The more difficult words are explained in the accompanying glossary. A slowly spoken recording of the article is also available to download."
• newsletters - Getting political on social network sites: Exploring online political discourse on Facebook by Matthew J. Kushin and Kelin Kitchener. First Monday, Volume 14, Number 11 - 2 November 2009 This study explores use of the social network site Facebook for online political discussion. Online political discussion has been criticized for isolating disagreeing persons from engaging in discussion and for having an atmosphere of uncivil behavior. Analysis reveals the participation of disagreeing parties within a discussion, with the large majority of posters (73 percent) expressing support for the stated position of the Facebook group, and a minority of posters (17 percent) expressing opposition to the position of the group. Despite the presence of uncivil discussion posting within the Facebook group, the large majority of discussion participation (75 percent) is devoid of flaming. Results of this study provide important groundwork and raise new questions for study of online political discussion as it occurs in the emergent Internet technologies of social network sites.
• interesting -The breathtaking pictures that show there's more to sport than meets the eye, an article from the 02 May 2007 Daily Mail. You can see more of the photographer Hugh Turvey's work in strobe and x-ray photography at his website
• Economist -Regulating the internet ICANN be independent Sep 24th 2009 From The Economist print edition America is poised to loosen its control over cyberspace [you can also read this via UNC Libraries' e-journals]
• issues to ponder - Technology Review: Videos By David Talbot - November/December 2009 With Congress locked in a debate over how to reform the United States’ $2.3 trillion health-care industry, Harvard economist and health-care policy expert David Cutler explains how information technology affects the quality and economics of health care.

adding new fields to tables

Question

While I was trying to attempt subtask 5.1 it seemed like all of the fields that the import data was suppose to have weren't there, for example the zipcodes and phone numbers in the tblPublisher.

Response
That is correct. You had data to import into your tables, but once you had the tables in Access, you needed to go into the design view and modify them, in this case to add new fields. The imported data had nothing for these fields, but the imported worksheets may have been created for another purpose. The purpose for your database tables includes a need to add these new fields and you may well add data into them as you add new records to the database.

Life goes on

But it doesn't always go on happily. This note is just to let you all know that I haven't been as attentive to things as I should have been recently. On Wednesday afternoon, I felt like I had a sore throat. I had an appointment for another medical issue on Thursday, but by Thursday morning, I was convinced I also had the swine flu. I figured that you all probably didn't want to watch me stagger around while trying to discuss database relationships anyway.

As it turned out, I didn't have the swine flu (I am probably in that cohort that has some immunity from it by having caught in in 1957), or the flu at all. But I still do have the mother of all colds and have not felt much like doing anything since Thursday.

But I seem to be gradually improving, at least enough that I can manage to type a full note. I'll get back up to speed this week. I think we'll be able to merge the lecture on relationships with the one on forms tomorrow and then spend Thursday doing queries. We should be back on schedule by next Tuesday.

I hope you all are weathering the flu and cold season better than yours truly.