Information theory

• Can information be quantified?
  • Claude Shannon attempted to improve telephone line transmission
  • Stripped of emotional value, information can be described as yes/no questions
• Twenty questions
  • Game used to understand IT because it generally takes twenty yes/no questions to describe an object
  • Translation to numeric form: Y/N = 1/0
  • Answer to twenty questions may equal "10101001100010100010"

Bits and Bytes

• Binary digIT = Bit
• Bit = The "1" or "0" value that results from answering a conditional question
• Bytes = system to arrange bits (8 bits per byte)
• Single byte contains 256 values (0-255)
  • 00000000 = 0; 11111111 = 255
• Multiple bytes form kilo-, mega-, giga-, and terabytes
  • 1,024 bytes (2^10) = 1 kb
  • 1,048,576 bytes = 1 mb

Example 1: IP addresses

• Each series of numbers equals a byte
• 132.241.199.124
• 4.3 billion possible values (enough for world’s computers)

Example 2: Characters

• Every letter, character has a binary value
• ASCII character set specifies value
• A byte/word translation page to examine
• Each character displayed on a webpage equals a byte

Example 3: Colors

• Colors = three values for RGB
• Each value represented by a byte
• Blue-purple = 102r, 102g, 153b
• Hexadecimal value another method of translating bytes to another format
• Blue-purple = #666699

File sizes

In terms of bytes, these vary, but here are some general rules:

• HTML or CSS file < 10kb
• JPG or PNG files < 100kb
• MP3 = about 1mb per minute
• Video = 300kb per second

Finding file sizes

Right-click on the file and select "Get Info":

Examine the resulting menu and information: "8 KB" appears to the right of "assignments.html" that appears on a course website.

• Assistant Professor Matthew Blake
• Office: Tehama 339
• Office hours: M 10-11 & 4-5;
  T 4-5; Th 11-12.
  Virtual office hours: T & Th 5-6.
• (530) 898-3608
• mdblake@csuchico.edu

weekly schedule

1. Internet & Web / HTML
   Readings: Get books
2. Bits & bytes / HTML / Embedding / Code
   Readings: Briggs ch. 1
3. Images / Exercise 2
   Readings: Briggs ch. 2
4. Exam 1 / CSS Intro / Colors
   Readings: Briggs ch. 3
5. Divisions / Web typography / Photoshop text
   Readings: Briggs ch. 4
6. CSS ID / Project one guide
   Readings: Briggs ch. 5
7. Exam 2 / Uploading / Backgrounds
   Readings: Briggs ch. 6
8. Project one due / Evaluation guide
   Readings: Briggs ch. 7
9. Spring Break
10. Search / Project eval / Online advertising
    Readings: Briggs ch. 8
11. Standards / Audio / Backgrounds
    Readings: Briggs ch. 9
12. Exam 3
    Readings: Briggs ch. 10
13. CSS3 / Usability / Lightbox
    Readings: Briggs ch. 11
14. Project editing
    Readings: TBD
15. Material review / Exam 4
16. Final project
17. Final project due

 

Matthew Blake    Department of Journalism    CSU-Chico   
mdblake@csuchico.edu    (530) 898-3608