Post #5: My Last Class Assignment as a Dominican Student

            The final assignment for this class is to create a series of three web pages in HTML for a library. I decided to use the contents of a webpage from the library where I work, and add 2 pages of my own. With a few exceptions, I succeeded in accomplishing what I set out to do.

            I missed day one of the last weekend class session, which proved to be a bit of an impediment. While I understood the concept of HTML pretty well, I didn’t fully understand the application of tables. Since I wanted my main webpage to have one main column with a background color, and one smaller side column without borders, I made two separate tables. Problem was I only wanted to span 70% of the screen, so the columns didn’t meet up in the middle 70% of the screen. I’m willing to bet there was a simple solution, but I spent the next 2 freakin’ days working on the thing, so I’m pretty sure I missed it. It didn’t help that I had made separate rows for each line of data in the tables. When I finally realized that all I needed was a 2 cell, 1 row table, I was torn between feeling stupid and just not caring anymore.

            I rallied though, and the concept of table application crept in. Along with various web sites, I was getting most of my information from HTML, XHTML & CSS, by Elizabeth Castro, who advocates the use of CSS style sheets for controlling the appearance of the page. I managed to stay away from HTML formatting not widely supported, and was able to create a very brief external style sheet. Still, I don’t fully understand how to define my selectors (although I sound kind of smart using techie terms like that). I applied styles locally when it made sense, but I look forward to learning about constructing selectors in our last class session.

            I really enjoyed designing my web pages, and I can’t wait to slip something into a conversation about “writing code.”

Post #4: Save the Internet

Net neutrality is the principal of free and open internet access without discrimination or interference from providers, and is the reason why my classmates and I can blog on the internet as easily as top-ranked bloggers on Boing Boing or The Huffington Post. Even though there are currently 199,105 links to Boing Boing, and only 2 links to Some Librarian, we’re equally accessible on the internet. We’re equal . . . except for popularity, influence, and – I’m being honest here – highly engaging content. And sure, Boing Boing has full-time hard-working professionals with a lot of technological know-how, and I’m blogging at my kitchen table, but you get the idea. Theoretically, everyone on the internet has a chance at the American Dream. Just look at Digby, an anonymous and highly respected political blogger since 2002, who just revealed herself (but not her name) after accepting, on behalf of progressive bloggers, the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award. Turns out, she’s basically just a very smart person who can really, really, write. This, for instance, is exactly what I wanted to say to Kathleen Parker when I read one of her recent columns, but I didn’t because I’m not a genius like Digby. You go, girl . . . and forgive me for assuming you were a man.

Net neutrality was the original intention of the creators of the internet, but a 2005 ruling by the FCC put net neutrality in jeopardy. Phone and cable companies saw an opening and unleashed swarms of lobbyists into Washington. Congress plans an overhaul of the Telecommunications Act called the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006,” or COPE Act, but the question is whether the new legislation will include protections to net neutrality.

A bill that did not provide protections — and was heavily lobbied by phone and cable companies — failed to pass in 2006. Part of the reason was the overwhelming number of American citizens in support of net neutrality who found a voice with the help of internet-based coalitions like Free Press and SavetheInternet.com.

The Bush administration is not on the same page as the American public. Although one of the five FCC Commissioners has come out in support of net neutrality, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is a supporter of the large media companies, and at least one Bush official is really pissed that he’s even having to discuss the issue. Republican Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, manages to provide a sort of tragic comic relief to the issue. Here is his explanation of the internet:

(Via Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake)

There’s one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn’t going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially….

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

Stevens is the guy, as Christy notes, “in charge of the bills that, among other things, control the internet.” This kind of stuff is bread and butter for The Daily Show. (via John Amato from Crooks and Liars)

It’s going to be a hard fight, but what is clear so far is that progressive, grassroots internet activism groups have had a big impact on congressional attention to net neutrality.