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1029usr078198
Forum Admin
USA
333 Posts |
 Posted - May 08 2009 : 10:09:08
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Listen now. or Download the archive.
Question: When I'm looking at a web site, is there someplace on that site I need to go before I put in a new address and visit another site?
Answer: This is a question that came up in the classes I'm teaching at the Jacksonville Public Library. We were about to move to another website, and the question was posed. The basic answer is no, there isn't a particular page you just need to be on when you type a new address into the address bar. See, your web browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Google Chrome, etc.) will contact a web server, download a web page, then disconnect; waiting on you to click a link on the page or something. The thing about the web is that the server doesn't keep track of where you've been, or how long you've been there. (Note: We didn't mention it on-air, but some web servers do track those things, because the lack of it has long been considered a weakness.) It just gets requests for pages, and then sends those pages. But what about sites where I have to log in? For these sites, you should log out if you're on a public computer. If you're at home, logging out is a good idea, but it's not necessary. So in general, you can go from site to site at will without worry. Just click the address bar, type a new address, and press enter.
Cool Site: Pandora.com: This site is an interesting form of Internet Radio Station. You create your own personalized Internet Radio station by entering your favorite artist, song, or composer. Then the site uses the genome of that entry to create a station that only plays songs of that type. This is more involved than simply choosing a genre of music because this chooses different artists, etc. where the "genome" of the music is similar to your favorite song or artist's work. I'm using this word "genome". That's because this ties into the results of the Music Genome Project®. For the past 9 years, the Project has listened to tens of thousands of songs, identifying various attributes of music. It continues to listen to new music so as to incorporate that information as well. This site lets you register and save the stations you create, share them with other Pandora users, you can find stations that others have shared, and so on. The site is free and supported by ads, but you can subscribe for $36/year to get rid of them. It doesn't support dial-up but most websites that play music do. Their one drawback? That the licensing doesn’t allow you to do many things you might otherwise want to do, like rewinding a song. In many ways, you've got the same restrictions as listening to music on regular radio.
Cool Gadget: Mr. Brightside USB Keyboard Light: If you aren't a touch-typist, you may find yourself needing a light for your laptop's keyboard. Enter the Mr. Brightside USB Keyboard Light. It plugs into a USB port. They come in Black, Red, Green, and Blue. The neck of this light is flexible, but very short, so if you don’t have USB ports on the side of your laptop just skip this one. The design is patented, and attempts to ensure that the light shines only on the keyboard. You can get a pack of three of these for just over $20.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Burn: Burn is a term used to describe the process of writing to a CD or DVD. What happens is that the laser in a CD-Writer changes a layer of metal in the disc and it creates pits on that surface. There's no actual heat involved, but we do tend to think about lasers burning things. We could just as well say that we're writing to the CD, just like every other kind of drive, but we don't. So that's what burn means: to write a CD or DVD.
Links
Jacksonville Public Library:
http://www.jacksonvillelibrary.com
Pandora:
http://www.pandora.com/
Mr. Brightside USB Keyboard Light on Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/30/mr-brightside-usb-keyboard-light-illuminates-your-keys-taste-i/
Keyboard Light on BiggerAndBrighter.com
http://www.biggerandbrighter.com/book-lights-magnifiers/items/GP035-3PK.html
Burn on TechTerms:
http://www.techterms.com/definition/burn
CD-R on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R
Web Site Traffic Analyzed on NetMechanic:
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol4/promo_no11.htm |
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5/8/2009-Web sites,Pandora,Brightside,"Burn"
