Here’s instructions on how to make Trillian a portable app. Now you can use Trillian from your frash drive and ditch Meebo. (Assuming your location hasn’t disabled the USB ports.) I’m off to try this right now!
Five minutes later… O.k. I’ll be trying this out tomorrow as my Trillian profile is not on a computer I can get to right now. Also, it seems like you can skip the “download and install the patch ‘E’” step as the file is no longer available. (My guess is that the patch was available when the instructions were written but has since been integrated into the current download of the full program.)
I was planning on writing a clarifying follow-up post anyway, but this recent comment pushed me to make it now instead of later this week.
“Might I suggest you get on the Pronunciation 2.0 bandwagon with the rest of us 21st century libraians?[sic]“
Considering this comment was made anonymously I’m not sure how seriously to take it. The “pronunciation 2.0″ part makes me laugh (I’m assuming a certain level of sarcasam in such a label,) but the anonymous nature of the comment and the rest of the comment’s content makes me think this individual is seriously suggesting that I give up caring. Well, that leads me to what I was going to clarify anyway…
I will admit that I’m fighting a loosing battle, nor any battle at all really, since I’m not necessarily trying to correct anyone (i.e. telling them to stop mispronouncing the word) but do not mispronounce it myself thereby encouraging the practice. The big issue for me is that I’m a trainer & teacher and I believe that one of the core roles of a teacher is to provide accurate information. If someone wants to take the accurate information and do something else with it, that’s out of my hands once they leave the room. So, in my blogging workshops, I tell my students that it’s correctly pronounced “we blog” and then continue informing them that most people pronounce it “web log” anyway. (Mostly since, as the commenter pointed out, many have “have never in my life heard ‘wee blog’ and honestly it just sounds silly.”) I then continue to use the word “blog” and its derivatives and say neither “we blog” or “web log” the rest of the class. Nor do I ever correct anyone during class. (Maybe I should but then I’d be fighting that battle I’ll never win.)
What caused my rant was my listening to the first group of ALA Library 2.0 program podcasts in which the instructors kept saying “web log” over and over again. (I’m only listening to the podcasts so I have no additional comments regarding the other complaints that have been made about the program as a whole.)
I’ve always said that I do what I do because I want to know “how” and “why” things work, which has led me to the firm belief that understanding the “hows” and “whys” of something along with the story of where something came from makes everyone better able to understand how to use that something to its fullest potential. As part of that, I believe that I must as an instructor, provide accurate information, even if “everyone else” is doing it another way.
If that puts me in the minority, so be it. (I’m used to it.) But being in the minority is rarely a good reason to change when the facts back you up.
My article “Firefox Search Plugins: Sending the Library to the Patron” has been released in the April 2006 issue of MLA News, the newsletter of the Medical Library Association. (I’m sure it’s been out for a while now but I just got my copies.)
