Camryn's Blog

Files in the Wild

Files and Folders

With the extensive explanation of files, folders, and plain text garnered from this week’s reading, I was able to better understand how my own computer stores the data I give it and how the same process works for online data shared through programs like Google Drive. As a senior English major and communication minor, I’ve had plenty of time to build an expansive web of folders and files on my Texas A&M gmail account. However, as the managing editor at the university’s student newspaper, The Battalion, I’ve joined an even larger system of data. For over ten years, every member of The Battalion staff has utilized a G Suite that allows us to compile every article, Power Point, spreadsheet, and meeting note pages that have been created. I utilize this network of folders and files every day for work. At any given time, up to fifty people could be on the G Suite to create files and top edit, so learning about the network of computer configurations behind the online system, made me really appreciate the innovation of programming.

My most common use of the G Suite is working with articles for the newspaper’s daily web production. To find the article that were published September 11, the file path looks like this: My Drive / SLOT / *Fall2020 / 09/11 / Good to post /. Only when you reach the find folder “Good to post” are you able to access the seven articles that are transformed into The Battalion’s September 11 content.

I will note that the URL doesn’t exactly match the file path the (SLOT, which is a term newspapers used to use when reporters would physically place written stories into a “slot,” looks like this: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/0Bxh09SWHFLIjV29rVEZlVkVYb2s). While GitHub’s URL’s a more easily understandable by the users, the Google Suite uses an identification folder and I can assume this if for the benefit of the computer rather than the individual user. However, Google compensates for this issue by displaying its own file path above the organized folders and files.

This helps the users keep track of their own location with the web of files and remember where their documents are located. The use of the idea number also allows the user to easily move documents from folder to folder because they are not tied to a particular file path.

Using Google Docs is especially beneficial because it allows the users to download the document as a Microsoft word document, PDF, Plain text, web page (.html) and much more. This allows individuals to select this best format for their computer to easily read. However, it is beneficial to know that we could utilize Comma Separated Values to create a spreadsheet.

In learning about the differnt formats of data, I’m very appreciative that The Battalion doens’t utilize the Microsoft program, because it would clearly requires much more work to share data between multiple people and a timely manner.

Posted In: Reflections