Favorite Links
(This was done several years ago. The early stuff is somewhat
tangential to the way I now teach 473. And I sure wouldn't do this page this way
today. It's got a table for formatting, for one thing. Ugh. Ouch.)
These are a few of my favorite things.
(10.1.2000) Here is some information from the ACM Special Interest Group on
Human-Computer Interaction. Interface design is one aspect of HCI. I went to
their site and did a search on "color." I got 200 pages of listings.
The HCI Bibliography is a free-access bibliography on Human-Computer Interaction. It now has over 20,000 entries, most with abstracts,
and over 6600 links to online information (websites and full text).
http://www.hcibib.org/
“What is Light” is a solid tutorial about light from a physics
standpoint. Starts with the electromagnetic spectrum, then works through power,
reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference, manipulating light, and a lot
more. Superb presentation, assuming you've had physics and trigonometry. intl-light.com/handbook/index.html
There are a lot of books out there.
Barnes & Noble finds 2591 titles containing
“Java,” 526 containing “Javascript,” 513 containing “Frontpage,” and 687
containing "XML." (As of August 28, 2004.) There are a lot of publishers out there too, obviously, big and little. Without
wishing to denigrate any of the other publishers, established or otherwise, I
would like to recommend Peachpit Press. Most of their books appear to be
computer-related, but more from the graphic design and web viewpoint than from
the academic computer science viewpoint. I have bought about half a dozen of
their books. Several of those are absolutely outstanding; see the bibliography for citations. Peachpit appears to have an extremely high
standards,
both on what they select to publish, and on the publishing values: good
production, absence of typos, etc. Peachpit.com.
http://www.hp.com/photosmart/tech_center/compression.html
is a nice tutorial on JPEG and GIF, the differences, when each is
appropriate, and some down-to-earth hints about compression.
csab.org is
the site for the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board, which accredits
programs in computer science. CSAB is now a part of ABET, the Accreditation
Board of Engineering Technologies, which accredits program in the conventional
engineering disciplines. You might be interested in seeing what the criteria for
accreditation are, in terms of curriculum, faculty, facilities, etc. You will
also see what is involved in an accreditation visit and the extensive
preparations for a visit.
http://retrofuture.web.aol.com/bug.html
is a website about the late Admiral Grace Murray
Hopper, Ph.D. She is best known as the “grandmother of COBOL.” But she is
also known for having given the term “bug” its meaning in computing. The
website is a labor of love; a lot of people liked and admired her, especially
for her support of young people. ACM's award for outstanding technical work done
by people before the age of 30 is named for her. I dedicated a book to her. This
site has lots of links.
acm.org is the
home site for the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM. General information,
membership info, interesting links.
http://www.computer.org/
is the home site for the IEEE Computer Society, the other major technical
society for computer professionals. ACM was founded about ten years earlier than
the IEEE/CS. The two organizations are about the same size and have a similar range of
publications and special
interest groups. At one time ACM was a little more software-oriented and the
Computer Society a little more hardware oriented, but as the two parts of the
field have converged, so have the two societies.
I belong to both organizations. My primary
loyalty is to ACM, since I joined it in 1954 and was its president 1978-80.
ACM does have, in my possibly biased view, a stronger presence in computer
science education, through its Special Interest Group on Computer Science
Education (SIGCSE) http://www.acm.org/sigcse.
This is the fraternity for computer scientists who are
interested in curriculum, teaching methods, teaching technology, curriculum
funding, accreditation, etc. This year (2004) was my seventh year in
succession on the program at the annual SIGCSE symposium. Some years ago I
chaired a panel session on changes in CS2 (CSc 212 at City College); in 1999 year I
presented a paper on the way I teach our CSc 221 (Software Design Laboratory),
and in 2000 I chaired a panel on starting a program in computer
engineering. In 2003 I chaired a panel "Teaching HCI: Reports from the
Trenches." In 2004 I had a workshop "HCI in the Classroom." 2005 was the first
year in about ten, I think, when I had no part in the program.
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/ gets
you to the home page for the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human
Interaction (HCI). My Web site development course should be seen as a branch of
HCI, in that what is learned in the course has much broader applicability than just Web
site development. All CS majors need a better appreciation for the needs of the
user than most CS departments provide. (Note that the name is SIGCHI, which goes
back about 20 years to when the field was called Computer-Human Interaction.
Very early in the SIGCHI homepage you see a description of what the SIG is
about: Human-Computer Interaction. The words are in that order.)
There will be quite a few more links, not all annotated at this length.
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