Could I be getting the hang of things?

Still plugging away at getting Dspace installed and configured.
I guess I am getting the hang of installing virtual machines, so I've got that going for me. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where things transferred from what is covered in the ever useful Standard Installation Guide to the part where we begin configuring for Tomcat instead of Apache and Postgresql (I got used to typing that). Again the instructions kind of gave me a feel for what we were trying to do here but I still don't have Dspace installed and configured. The content I saw from METEA was really inspiring, so I am motivated to get this done.
Oh yeah, this week I learned that if you hit the down arrow key you can bring up previous commands so you don't have to retype stuff. Is this a laptop or PC/Windows thing? How much of my life did I waste retyping commands before I learned that?
But yeah typo traps there have been...

Unit 5 Update!

After Prof. Fulton posted a revised set of instructions, I had no problem downloading and installing tinyMCE and the WYSIWYG feature. I have added the capability of readers' comments and an ability to readers to post images. The date module was a lot harder, though. I still haven't figured out how to activate the "Date API" but I have had to move on to get started with the DSPace project. Overall, I think I am finally starting to comprehend the spoon fed Linux we have been using. I am now beginning to get the vocabulary but not so much the syntax of Linux, i.e. I am starting to understand the commands we give but if I were required to write my own commands, I would need to heavily rely on commands we have given in the past and I'd need to use trial and error to see if my modifications would work. So, gee, I think I only need to work on LAMP tech for another year and a half to six or seven years straight before this stuff sinks in.

Unit 5:

404'd to the Floor
Although I have seen there's been a fix regarding the URL to get the Drupal modules, I will give those a shot later today. Of the modules we are assigned to add to our Drupal site the date module seems the most common and Views seems to be a fundamental module to keeping one's site organized. Drupal is a really powerful solution for creating automated and templated web pages, but I've got to successfully download all the modules in order to make them work.  Considering the limited scope of this exercise Drupal might even be overkill, but if I can get all my features in my collection up and running as a proof of concept, then this project might actually be useful to me once this class is wrapped up. However I needed to post something here on my blog despite having not completed the work.

I'm going to finish up the discussion on the Europeana project (which I started in my downtime at AHSL yesterday) and swing back to try to nail down the Drupal stuff. I like to consider the Tech assignments as practice and the management portions as theory, but I like to get them done discretely, however I can't just open up my laptop and start plugging away at the information desk, not as cleverly as reading stuff on their computer screen.

Unit 4 On the suitability of Drupal

So far Drupal really only seems to be working for me when I'm here in the UITS lab on Saturday night, in fact here on Valentine's Night when I should be cozying up to my spouse. So, when I initially got working on Drupal I was relieved with its completely GUI environment, thank you Hey-Zeus! I just need to be able to replicate my awesome skillz while I am anywhere else. Last night I was able to do a lot of work while at AHSL (same UA Wifi I assume?) But once my computer forcibly shut down to install some crappy updates, I was unable to access my Drupal work leading to me being completely infuriated. Like 672 last semester, I have a feeling this class will profoundly influence my mental and emotional wellbeing on any given week. Okay, I looooove using Drupal and have dealt with folks who were huge Drupal fans 5-6 years ago when I as helping to develop content for the Stealth Health Project. Drupal is great when i can actually work on it, I friggin' have nothing but utter hatred for it when I cannot access the work I did just last night. But I like the options given by Drupal and reading that PowerPoint that was done by those OCLC guys it seems like a great CMS especially given the price point.

Unit 3 On the pacing of the Tech Assignments

I am okay with the current pace of the tech assignments. Last semester I had a tough time with a few of them and got the feeling that a lot of information was stuffed into too few weeks, especially once we came to the PHP section.
Hoo boy last semester...
I think that the combination of the management assignments with the more practical tech assignments are a powerful 1-2 punch of tech learning uh of course a 1-2 punch is a very different thing when you're on the receiving end of it, which following this analogy through, I guess I am. I also have to say there's something a little bit reassuring in the way that Prof. Fulton's voice comes across in the written instructions, I mean Prof. Fulton is not the warmest and fuzziest of guys (he does play a mean blues guitar, howevs although what kind of ax that was he was playing on that Youtube video is beyond me), but he is still human and incredibly knowledgeable on this topic. Plus who would want a warm fuzzy instructor in a graduate level technology-heavy course?