Related Links: NLC | Contact | Blogroll | Feed |

 

"You Two! We're at the end of the universe, eh. Right at the edge of knowledge itself. And you're busy... blogging!"
— The Doctor, Utopia


Wednesday, May 31, 2006

WCAG 2 (Yep, it sucks!)

The second version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidlines are in the "final draft" stage and Joe Clark has an opinion about them. Here's his central point:

"WCAG 2 backtracks on basics of responsible web development that are well accepted by standardistas. WCAG 2 is not enough of an improvement and was not worth the wait."

Considering that about a year ago I was actively persuing writing a book based on WCAG 2, I'm suddenly glad that the whole idea fell apart.
Thanks SuzyQ

Library Dominos

Yes, but did they reshelve the books or leave them on the carts so the "usage" could be counted in the statistics? via Stephen's Lighthouse

Labels: ,

Student Wiki Finds

I'm teaching my Wikis class again so it's time for another set of links found by my students...

Wikis Pro-Wiki Articles Anti- (or at least not Pro-) Wiki Articles

Labels: ,

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Starbucks: Burn no more

For those of you that recall my experience of burning my own custom CD at a Starbucks in Washington this past March, here's a follow-up: Starbucks pulls CD-burning stations out of most test stores

Labels:

Friday, May 26, 2006

Wisconsin Boy Gets Huge Library Fine

How'd you like to be this kid? "Fourteen-year-old Adrian Rice knew his book was overdue at the library in West Salem. But, what he didn't expect is that he owed the Hazel Brown Leicht Memorial Library nearly 23-thousand dollars in fines."

Blogging 101

This morning I'm teaching my blogging class. Right now I'm writing this post and my students are writing their first blog post ever. Isn't that amazing?

Thursday, May 25, 2006

L2 Friendly


L2 Friendly
Originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

Microsoft has made a Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor available for download. "The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a small beta application that you can run on your current Windows XP-based computer to find out if it's ready for an upgrade to Windows Vista." Sounds like a good idea if you're computer is more than a year old.

Labels: , ,

Textbook

According to my publisher, "Texas Women's Univ is using [XHTML & CSS Essentials for Library Web Design] as a text for a summer class." If anyone knows which class (Neal-Schuman, Inc. just received and order from the TWU bookstore) I'd love to hear it.

Labels:

LibraryThing Author 2


LibraryThing Author 2
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
As a follow-up to yesterday's post the folks at LibraryThing have implemented my idea and linked back to the author's page from the pages of the books we wrote.

Video Mashup:
Neo vs. Robocop

Labels: ,

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Smoking DOPA

Here we go again... H.R. 5319: Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 is meant to "amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms." Yep, Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick [R-PA] and others feel that schools and libraries shouldn't allow kids access to blogs, MySpace, Friendster, wikis, and e-mail. Good grief!

The above link is to GovTrack which will allow you to receive bill updates via RSS. (Way cool!) There's also a wiki dedicated to this bill.
via Travels with the State Librarian

Labels: ,

Version 100?


Version 100?
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
No, I don't actually purchase digital music from Wal-Mart via Windows Media Player, but when I'm told there's an update available for my computer I get it. (Call me a lemming, but I want my maching UP TO DATE!) Anyway, the updating software left a shortcut on my desktop to the "Downloaded Program Updates" folder so I decided to take a look. It seems that the lastest update to the Wal-Mart Music Downloads software is on version 100. 100!? What sort of numbering scheme are they using? Beyond that, why did I only get updates #9, 15, 24, 83, and 100?

Labels:

LibraryThing Author


LibraryThing Author
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
The creators of LibraryThing have added a new feature for members who are also authors. (Since I mentioned being an author in my profile, I got to be part of the initial group of 20.) This adds a new section to our profile page (shown here) and links to a page featuring the author's titles that have been catalog in LibraryThing. You can read more about how it works on the LibraryThing blog.


I think this is a wonderful idea especially since it can help "smaller" authors such as myself promote our work. I did suggest that they add a feature that on a book's page, when the author is a member, that a link be added back to the author's profile page. I'll let you know what sort of response I get back on that.

So, if you're an author and have a LibraryThing account let them know (through the blog post above) and get yourself added to the program. If you don't have an account, get one (it's free), catalog 50 books making sure you include yours, and then let them know.

Thanks to Steven M. Cohen for turning me on to LibraryThing in the first place!

Internet Librarian 2006

The official information about the conference is now available on the InfoToday site. Here's what I'm doing:

Sunday, October 22nd
Workshop 19 — Integrating RSS into Your Web Site
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
RSS feeds are an excellent way to receive information from the Internet today. What many people don’t know is that you can receive that information and easily repurpose and republish it on your Web site with little technical know-how. Imagine automatically posting up-to-date local or industry headlines on your library’s home page. This is what you can do in just a few simple steps. Our expert Internet trainer shows you how to do just this. This workshop also covers additional RSS tools and services, including one that will create feeds from content without its own feed and another that will turn your text-based content into a podcast automatically.

Monday, October 23rd
Session C105 — The Second Life Library 2.0: Going to Where the Users Are
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Lori Bell, Director of Innoation, Alliance Library System
Tom Peters, CEO, TAP Information Services
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
In April 2006, the Alliance Library System put out a call for librarians interested in participating in a project to set up a library presence in the virtualreality world of Second Life. By the end of the month, more than two dozen librarians from around the world were meeting at a brand-new virtual library to staff the reference desk and discuss collection development, online programming, and library services. Since then, the response has only grown, and Second Life citizens are taking advantage of all the library has to offer. Our speakers provide an overview of Second Life, the creation of the library, and the services that are now being offered in this completely virtual environment.

Tuesday, Octboer 24th
Session D203 — Flickr & Libraries
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Michael Porter, OCLC Western
Fiona Hooten, National Library of Australia
Lluisa Nunez, Universitat de Barcelona
Michael Sauers, BCR
Flickr is a treasure-trove for library professionals interested in community, connections, innovative software applications, and marketing. With a strong library-centric focus, this session starts with a brief look at libraries and librarians with Flickr accounts and then explores the largest and most active library/librarian photo group on the Internet, the Flickr “Libraries and Librarians” group with more than 550 members on six continents and 2,600 images. Entertaining recorded stories share observations and comments from speakers on other continents, including how participation turned into a partnership that created a mashup between Google maps and images in the Libraries and Librarians Flickr Group. A dynamic demonstration of third-party Flickr applications using Open API/Ajax, as well as tips and tricks, round out the program. This is the ultimate library professional’s Flickr guide.

Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Trillian Anywhere follow-up

I've installed it and it works as advertised. Heads up: You'll be editing .ini files (remember those) so get out your copy of notepad. Also, the program takes up aproximately 15-20mb assuming you have no extras (skins, plugins, etc.) installed so if you've got a smaller jumpdrive, this may not be the solution for you.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Trillian Anywhere

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.)

"wee blog" follow-up

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.

Labels:

New article

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.)

Labels:

Friday, May 19, 2006

A rant about pronunciation

Folks, it's pronounced "wee blog" not "web log". First, just think about it. If the word was pronounced "web log" then why would it ever be shortened to "blog". Second, and probably more importantly, ask the guy who came up with the concept.

"Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs on Cameron's list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it "wee-blog" and inevitably this was shortened to "blog" with the weblog editor referred to as a "blogger."
— "Weblogs: A History and Perspective" by Rebecca Blood, September 7, 2000 as published in we've got blog Perseus Publishing, 2002.

Even better, I found a blog entry from Mr. Merholz that backs this up!

As such, it's weird to experience how my love of words and wordplay has actually made an impact. Sometime in April or May of 1999 (I can't say for sure when I exactly did it), I posted, in the sidebar of my homepage:

"For What It's Worth I've decided to pronounce the word "weblog" as wee'- blog. Or "blog" for short."

I didn't think much of it. I was just being silly, shifting the syllabic break one letter to the left. I started using the word in my posts, and some folks, when emailing me, would use it, too. I enjoyed it's crudeness, it's dissonance...

I realize that I might be fighting a loosing battle here but it's just like Greg Schwartz ranting about when people use the term podcast to describe plain ol' downloadable audio content. (In fact, hearing "web log" over and over in the ALA Library 2.0 podcast that Greg was complaining that led me to write this post.)

Additionally, and least importantly, pronouncing it correctly is what makes the title of my blogging workshop funny. ("I blog, you blog, weblog!") Usually one person in the room gets it without explanation. Everyone else gets it about 10 minutes into the class, once I've explained it.

Labels:

Planning for Vista

Microsoft has put up the "minimal requirements" for Windows Vista on the Get Ready Web site. Here's what they say:

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:

  • A modern processor (at least 800MHz1).
  • 512 MB of system memory.
  • A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

  • 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
  • 1 GB of system memory.
  • A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero2.
  • 128 MB of graphics memory.
  • 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
  • DVD-ROM Drive3.
  • Audio output capability.
  • Internet access capability.

The bottom line, even if you're thinking that you'll get the basic version of Windows Vista, get as close as you can to the higher-level specs if not more than that if you can.

Labels: , ,

Creative wiki example


Funny Wiki
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
The final assignment of my online wikis class is to use one of the demonstrated wiki software pachages/services to create your own wiki on the topic of your choice. As you can guess, when teaching librarians, most of the results will be library related. Then there's the example shown here. This has got to be the most amusing and most creative examples of a wiki I've even seen. The author says she wasy "just being silly" but hopes to get the rest of her family involved. (I did get permission to post this and have blanked out the indetifying information. Also, the wiki is password protected so posting the URL wouldn't do any good.)

Labels:

Gateway gets it right this time

Back at Computers in Libraries, the latch on my Gateway Tablet decided to start disconnecting from the case. The latch still held the tablet closed so I wasn't in a rush to get it fixed. This past Sunday, the latch decided to detach itself completely. Off to the Gateway customer support chat site I went.

The last time I sent in my tablet for a crack in the case (here's the post from the end of the 36 day marathon), they reformatted my hard drive. This time I wanted to be sure this didn't happen. I made it completely clear that they were authorized to fix the latch but to not reformat my hard drive for any reason. I was assured that there was no need to even turn the computer on so that should not be necessary.

On Tuesday I received the box from Gateway and promptly shipped the tablet back that afternoon. On Wednesday I received confirmation that Gateway had the tablet. Thursday I got an e-mail saying it had been fixed and shipped back. 20 minutes ago (Friday) I got my tablet back, latch fixed, hard drive untouched.

Thank you Gatway. This is how it's supposed to work.

Labels:

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Viral Video of the week:
The Evolution of Dance

Thanks L

Labels: ,

The Pi-Search Page

For all one of my math-geek friends:
"The Pi Searcher lets you search for any string of digits (up to 120 of them) in the first 200 million digits of Pi. You can also show any substring of Pi."

What I love most about this page is that the actual functionality is stupid simple, the page was created ten years ago, and there's been only seven official "updates" to the site in the past seven years. (2001 was a banner year with a grand total of three updates worthy of mentioning ont the page.) The page is done in XHTML strict & CSS so you've got to love the standardness of the design too.
Thanks bro

Labels:

New article available on WebJunction

Managing Firefox Search Plugins
Description: One of the great features of the Firefox browser is the ability to add search plugins that allow you to search using a particular search engine or site right from the search bar. Here are some tips and tools for managing them.

The article is in PDF format but not as visually appealing as I'd like. (Totally my fault.) A revised PDF should be posted tomorrow at the same URL.

Labels:

MPOW Hires New Executive Director

On behalf of the BCR Board of Trustees, I am very pleased to announce Brenda Bailey-Hainer as the new Executive Director of BCR effective July 17, 2006. The Board of Trustees had to choose among several highly qualified candidates for the position. Brenda will bring to her new position an impressive track record of accomplishments working with library networks, nonprofit organizations, state government and library consortia. Brenda has an excellent understanding of the current operating environment for library networks and an appreciation of emerging information technologies. She has successfully secured grant funding for several statewide projects and has marketing, public relations and sales experience. As a current member of the Board of Trustees, Brenda has a good understanding of BCR, its mission and strategic goals.

The Board of Trustees looks forward to working with Brenda Bailey-Hainer and the staff of BCR in building upon BCR's success as a library network.

Steve Rollins
President, BCR Board of Trustees

Labels: ,

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Found Wikis

I'm teaching my Wikis workshop online this week and the first assignment is to find one wiki, one pro-wiki article, and one anti-wiki article. Here's the results from my students. Wikis Pro-wiki articles Anti-wiki & mixed-opinoin articles

Labels: ,

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Surprise me!


Surprise me!
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
It looks like Amazon.com has added new functionality to it's Search Inside the Book feature. On this title I was able to click on the "Suprise me!" link and get a random page from the book. I'm not sure it has any real use, but it could be fun to play with if they've added it to all the books with full-text available.

Monday, May 15, 2006

First review

My Web design book has been reviewed in American Librares!

"For nonweb designers, the title of Michael P. Sauers' new book, XHTML and CSS Essentials for Library Web Design, may seem incomprehehsible, but with his help, you'll be fluent in these web standards in no time."
— Cathleen Bourdon, American Libraries, May 2006

Labels:

Friday, May 12, 2006

Miles

I'm back home.

  • Total miles driven in Iowa this past week: 1138.9
  • Number of wrong turns: 3 (but they were all Google's fault)
  • Number of times I almost ran out of gas on a interstate: 1 (who knew there wouldn't be any more gas stations for 35 miles?)

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

No USB allowed


No USB allowed
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
Just a week after I blogged about this exact issue, I find this in Iowa. If anyone from the Pella Public Librar attends my workshop tomorrow I do plan on asking them about it. Failing that, I might send an e-mail their direction to find out the story.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Pre-flight safety announcement

Heard on my flight from DEN to DSM:
"In the unlikely event that your flight should turn into a cruise..."

Sunday, May 07, 2006

GotVoice: Response

A few times in the past month I've received responses from people at the companies/services that I've blogged about. It's good to see that this new wave of Web companies are paying attention to the blogosphere. In this case the response if from GotVoice regarding my complaint about the site's usability. I did e-mail them back asking permission to repost the e-mail but have received no response. I've decided to post it anyway (sans names) and if they ask me to remove this I will.

Hey,
[...] at GotVoice here. The reason why we list "Home answering Machine" is that we've found that many users might otherwise not distinguish the difference between this option and "Home Phone voicemail". If users select the latter but in reality have an answering machine, well then our service won't work for them. Even though you might get disappointed that we don't work with answering machines, if you select that option, we think it's better than going through the entire sign-up process via the "home voicemail" option only to discover afterwards that it won't work. We'd rather try to control expectations upfront, that's all. It's not perfect, but we figured it was better this way.
Best regards,
[...]

I do understand the logic they applied to the decision making process but I'm not sure I agree with it. Granted, it does address the potential users who don't understand the difference between voicemail and an answering machine, but I'm also generally of the opinion that you can only dumb something down (for lack of a better term) before you start insulting the users who do know what they're doing. At this point, I stick by my original opinion.

Labels:

Ever need to print (or copy) a Windows directory listing?

I found myself with a downloaded directory of video files this past week that I wanted to burn on to DVD. The total collection was going to take five discs by the time it was all done. So, with so many files to burn on to so many discs, there was no way I was going to be able to write all the filenames to the DVDs themselves. In these situtations, I just print a paper insert with all the filenames. Trouble was, that was 50+ filenames I was going to have to re-type into Word onto my insert templates. There had to be a way to cpoy & paste all those filenames. Off to Google I went.

I was able to fine a Microsoft Knowledge Base document that exmplained how to add the Print Directory feature for folders in Windows XP. The simple directions has you create a five-line batch file (remember those) and then add a right-click option to folders. When finished, all I had to do was right click on a file, select "Print Directory", wait for my printer to spit out the results. As useful as this was, it's not exactly what I wanted. What I wanted was a file containing the information that I could copy from and paste into another program.

What the batch file does is to perform a detailed directory listing, dump the results to a temporary file, open the temp file into notepad, issue a print command, close notepad, adn delete the temporary file. What I determined I needed to do was to interrupt this process before it issued the print command. I took the original batch file, removed the print and delete commands resulting in:

@echo off
dir %1 /-p /o:gn > "%temp%\Listing"
start /w notepad "%temp%\Listing"
exit

I saved this file as %windir%\notepaddir.bat and continued with the directions naming my new command "Directory to Notepad" and using the new filename as the command. The results allowed me to receive a full director listing in notepad which I could then save and/or copy from as I needed.

command
notepad

Then, the unthinkable happened: every time I clicked on a directory to open it my notpad commenad was issued, instead of showing me the contents of the folder as expected. I quickly went back into the folder options to change the default command but foudn the "Set as default" button greyed out. This was a problem!

Well, scream a big RTFM to me. Looking further down the Microsoft page, it seems they're aware of this little problem and give instructions for a simple registry edit to solve the problem. Phew.

(As with anything that involves the registry be sue your stsyem restore is turned on and don't blame me if it screws up your system.)

Labels: , ,

USA National Gas Temperature Map

See how the price of gas in your location compares to the rest of the country with the USA National Gas Temperature Map. According to the map the Denver area is actually near the bottom of the price range but I'm still driving only as much as I have to.
thanks dad

Labels:

ASCII Maps

I case you haven't I'm trying to write longer, more informative, posts but some times that's just not necessary. Take this one for example. Here is a complete, functional implemation of Google Maps, yet, instead of images for the maps, only ASCII characters are used.
via information aesthetics

Friday, May 05, 2006

RSS @ DPL

Speaking of the Denver Public Library, they're offfering several RSS feeds. Topics included are Current Job Openings, Latest DPL News, DPL Newsletters, Staff Recommendations, and New and Updated Web Content.

Labels:

Unresponsive Script?

I've been receiving the following error from Firefox more and more often over the past month:
Warning: Unresponsive Script

As pictured, it usually happens when uploading photos to flickr, but it has happened with other sites. I'll be uploading, eventually this error comes up, I click on the "Stop Script" button, the error disappears, and everything continues as if nothing happened. Supposedly, this is a "helpful" message that results from pages that take "too long" to load.

After some poking around, I found the following solution on lifehacker.

  1. Type about:config in Firefox'’s address bar.
  2. Filter down to the value for dom.max_script_run_time.
  3. Change the value to something higher than the default (which is 5.) I set mine to 20.
  4. Bask in interruptionless browsing!

Labels:

Denver Public Library Announces New City Librarian

Here's the full-text of the announcement from DPL:

Denver Public Library Commission Announces New City Librarian - Shirley Amore to Direct Colorado's Largest Library System -

The Denver Public Library (DPL) Commission announced today that Shirley C. Amore has accepted its offer to serve as Denver's new City Librarian. The DPL Commission is the Library's eight-member governing board.

Amore, who currently is the executive director of community services for Sarasota County, Fla., becomes Denver's first female city librarian. She assumes the post vacated by Rick J. Ashton in February, ending his 20-year career at the Library's helm.

Working in collaboration with Dubberly Garcia Associates, Inc., a library consulting and research firm, the Denver Public Library Commission conducted a nation-wide search to identify its new leader. Amore is only the ninth person to hold the position since the Library opened in 1889.

"Shirley is a proven professional who possesses great vision and passion for our work and will capably direct the Denver Public Library as we enter our next era," said K.C. Veio, president, Denver Public Library Commission.

The Library Commission hosted Amore and three other candidates in a three-day comprehensive interview process, in late April. In addition to extensive interviews, each finalist participated in tours of the Denver Central Library and some of the system's branch libraries; a reception to which Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, City Council members, Library Commissioners, Denver Public Library Friends Foundation Board members and key benefactors were invited; and a day-long forum for DPL Staff members to meet and ask questions of each candidate.

"The Denver Public Library is a much-revered public library system," Amore said. "I have learned much about the Library's challenges and opportunities in recent weeks and am ecstatic to be joining this unique team."

Amore begins her tenure at the Denver Public Library this summer.

Denver City Librarian Candidates included:

Gerry Garzon, deputy director / administrative librarian, Oakland Public Library, Oakland, Calif.

Toni Lambert, deputy director, library operations, Houston Public Library, Houston, Tex.

Susan Odencrantz, director, Tacoma Public Library, Tacoma, Wash.

Letty Icolari now serves as interim city librarian. For more information about the Library Commission selection process, please contact her at 720-865-2070.

Just to be the man that walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door

Next week I'll be in Iowa presenting my "Tech Support on the Fly" workshop in four different locations in four days. (Orange City, Clarinda, Knoxville, and Charles City, with sleepovers in Souix Center, Pella, and Mason City, flying in and out of Des Moines.) I just finished getting the nine sets of directions I needed for this trip for Google Maps. Total driving distance, assuming I make no wrong turns or deviate from the proscribed routes: 1017.5 miles. Luckily, the state library is paying for a rental car.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

This is how we do cocaine

No, I'm not offering an instructional post, I'm offering a mashup of "Eric Clapton's classic track Cocaine mashed up with 50 Cent & The Game's best release This Is How We Do" by DJ Spenny. (Additional tracks can be found on DJ Spenny's download page.
via YesButNotYes

Wal-Mart Crime Report

I don't shop at Wal-Mart but I don't feel like turning this into a political post so I won't go into the reasons. (If you really want to know, go find a copy of the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.) However, one thing about Wal-Mart many people don't know is the number of incidents reported to the police every year that happen in Wal-Mart parking lots. Yes, the parking lots. If you'd like to know how the parking lot of your local Wal-Mart rates, check out the Wal-Mart Crime Report site which allows you to search by your zip code and receive back the number of police calls for 2002-2005 along with detailed information about each call in .pdf format.

Wi-Fi at the library, for a price

The Cincinnati Business Courier reported today that all 41 branches of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County now have wi-fi for the public. Normally, that would cause me to blog a big hooray. Alas, this is not to be one of those posts. The article isn't very long but here's the relevant bit:

"Subscribers to Cincinnati Bell's Fuse dial-up service or ZoomTown high-speed Internet service can access wi-fi service for free in any library branch. For non-subscribers, the service is available on a pay-per-use basis of $4.95 an hour, or $9.95 for 24 hours, and can be billed to a credit card."

In other words, this is the first I've heard of a library offering wi-fi access for a fee. It sounds like they basically allowed the local ISP (phone company) to install the equipment and sell the service in the library a la Starbucks and Borders. This news does not make me happy. From my experience, libraries have loved offering free wi-fi for the reduction of wear and tear on the library's equipment, among many other reasons.

According to Kimber Fender, library executive director. "For those without computers and wireless access, the library provides free Internet access at all locations."

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me at all. Please, use our equipment for free but if you want to you your own equipment please pony up some cash to the local baby bell. That's one hell of public service policy.

I pretty much refuse to pay for wi-fi access but have been known to on occasion when very desperate. I've mostly been able to get away with this as more and more public libraries offer wi-fi access. That doesn't seem to be the case in Cincinnati.
via Wi-Fi Net News

Labels: ,

I'm on Topix!


I'm not sure how, and I'm also not sure why, but it my post of last night on the latest version of Portable Firefox made it to the Top Stories in the Blogoshpere page on Topix. Due to the constantly changing nature of the page, to the right is a screenshot of the page and below is a screenshot of the "full coverage" page on the topic.
Thanks Steven!


Labels:

More IL2006 News

I just received the following e-mail from the conference's program chair:

Hurray! I was able to include your Integrating RSS workshop into the schedule on Sun afternoon, Oct 22nd.

This is spectacular news. I'm now on the program for a half-session on Flickr, a full session on the Second Life Library, and a three-hour pre-conference on RSS. (This is a repeat of my RSS post-conference at CIL back in March. Updated to the latest tools & resources of course.) As soon as the preliminary program is released I'll be sure to post all of the official information.

Labels: ,

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Bush on Global Warming

Here's a great video of Will Ferrell as George W. Bush filming a specail announcement on global warming.

Labels:

Portable Firefox Upgrade


Portable Firefox logo
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
With my previous post on the disabling of USB drives discussion currently happening on Web4Lib, (more of which I'll probably be blogging about by the end of the week,) I was happy to see the release of the latest version of Portable Firefox just one day after Firefox released its latest update.


For those of you upgrading from a previous version, be sure to read the instructions. Upgrading this time is a bit different from previous incarnations due to some directories being relocated "for easy backups".

Labels:

A polo of another color

As I've traveled around the past nine years I've found myself in Target wearing a red polo, in Hastings wearing a green polo, and in Best Buy wearing a blue polo. If you're not sure the significance of this I'll tell you that in each instance, wearing just such colors in just such stores will get you mistaken for a store employee, at least once, usually more, every time it happens. So, the question becomes, what if 80 people were to get together and do this on purpose? Well, it happened in New York City recently, set up by the group Improv Everywhere. You can read all about thier "mission" including photographs and video of the "event". Here's my favorite quote from the mission report:

"Agent EMartin's Xbox video camera rig was discovered when an employee approached him to offer advice on how to return his Xbox. He was asked to leave, and then detained by security at the front door. There a manager claimed it was 'illegal' to film in Best Buy and instructed someone to call 911. She informed him that he had violated her 'civil rights' by filming in her store. Agent Nicholson, who had been taking photos at the hip to avoid detection was caught as well, but he was able to leave the store freely."

Labels:

Found RSS Feeds

I started another series of online RSS workshops today and the first homework assignment is to find five feeds that the student is interested in. Here are the results. (All of the students are in Wyoming so the information might be a bit Wyoming-centric.) I'll post more as the come in.

  1. University of Wyoming Headline News
  2. NOAA's NWS RSS Library
  3. News from www.casperstartribune.net
  4. Wyoming State Library
  5. President George W. Bush's featured speeches and remarks (Podcast)
  6. nHumanities
  7. USA Today.com--Top Headlines
  8. Library Journal: Features
  9. Billings Gazette-Wyoming headlines
  10. Librarians Internet Index - New This Week
  11. E! Online Latest News
  12. NPR Topics: News
  13. Wayne Besen - Daily Commentary
  14. MSNBC.com: U.S. News
  15. Public Relations and Publicity Blog
  16. TheDevnerChannel.com - Irresistible Headlines
  17. The Weather Channel - Your Local Weather - Laramie, WY
  18. Pollstar news
  19. American Idol Recaps Feed
  20. Library Marketing - Thinking Outside the Book
  21. Library Link of the Day
  22. Lisjobs.com
  23. New York Times Book Review
  24. PBS Now
  25. ACLU.org Free Speech Action alerts
  26. Quote of the Day
  27. PC World Latest News
  28. NPR Talk of the Nation
  29. NPR Books
  30. Beyond Best sellers (Madison Public Library)
  31. Google Scholar
  32. Universe Today
  33. Discovery
  34. New York Times
  35. The Write News
  36. Military RSS Feeds (directory)
  37. BCR: The Third Indicator
  38. BCR: Continuing Education
  39. Wyoming State Library News
  40. SI.com - NFL
  41. SmartMoney Trends in Investing, Saving and Personal Finance
  42. Word of Mouth Marketing
  43. NYT: Thomas L. Friedman's Column
  44. Library Marketing-Thinking Outside the Book
  45. Stephen's Lighthouse
  46. Salon
  47. Texas RV Travel : USAer Blog
  48. Tribe.net: Camping
  49. Alum Creek
  50. Carla Nayland Historical Fiction
  51. Yahoo! News: Top Stories
  52. NYT > Art and Design
  53. News from www.codyenterprise.com
  54. washingtonpost.com - Military News
  55. RSS Feeds at the Minneapolis Public Library (directory)
  56. Buzz Design
  57. World Cafe from WXPN
  58. Casper Star Tribune: Latest news
  59. Science@NASA
  60. Cosmetic Surgery
  61. New York Review of Books
  62. Reader2 - new books
  63. Girl Genius Online
  64. PCWorld.com - Latest News Stories
  65. PC World's Techlog
  66. GameSpy PC

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Firefox 1.5.0.3


Firefox 1.5.0.3
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
For those of you without automatic updating turned on, Firefox 1.5.0.3 is now available.

Labels:

Conference on the brain

Despite having to give two online sessions today I've had the upcoming Internet Librarian conference on my mind as I'm now giving two presentations and need to get working on the PowerPoint slides. (Or, at least outlining them...) Anyway, I found it quite the coincidence that this week the Ninja answers a question about ninja conventions. If you think ALA or CIL is rough, try attending KillaCon.

Labels:

Second Life at Internet Librarian

In a last-minute squeak-through I, Lori Bell, and Tom Peters will be presenting on the Second Life Library 2.0 project at Internet Librarian 2006. Probably in the last session of the "Digital Strategies" track on Tuesday. Here is the draft session description. (As soon as a final one is release I'll be sure to post it.)

The Second Life Library 2.0: Going to where the users are
Lori Bell, Director of Innovation, Alliance Library System
Tom Peters, CEO, TAP Information Services
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
In April 2006, the Alliance Library System put out a call for librarians interested in participating in a project to set up a library presence in the virtual reality world of Second Life. By the end of the month more than two dozen librarians from around the world were meeting at a brand new virtual library to staff the reference desk, and discussing collection development, online programming, and library services. Since then the response has only grown and Second Life citizens are taking advantage of all the library has to offer. This session will present an overview of Second Life itself, the creation of the Second Life Library, and the services that it is now offering in this completely virtual environment.

Labels: ,

"red names"


red names
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.
How many of these 2.0 names/companies/technologies are familiar to you? Your homework is to familiarize yourself with those that aren't. (Yes, I'm serious. Especially if you're a librarian.)

Monday, May 01, 2006

The next article

Well, the eFlicks article ended up being written for Public Libraries magazine but I've been in contact with the folks at WebJunction and I will be sending them an article on managing your Firefox search plugins. (Every try to delete one of those puppies, or, better yet, try to alphabetize them. This article will show you how.) It should be written shortly and edited about a week after that. Since WJ is all online, figure that the article itself should be up by the end of the month. Of course, I'll link to it here once it's available.

Labels:

Saving YouTube and Google Video files locally

Have you ever wanted to save your own copy of a video you've seen on YouTube, Google Video, or other online video sharing service. Well, the new Firefox extension VideoDownloader allows you to do just that. One installed a new icon appears in your status bar.
VideoDownloader 02
When you reach a page with one of those embedded videos just click on the icon and a new window will appear giving you links the all the videos on the page.
VideoDownloader
To save any of them, just right-click and use the save as function of your browser. As the window will remind you, to view the video you will need to change the file's extension post downloading and have the FLV Player installed.

At the time of this posting there were four videos on this page. Feel free to try it out here.

Labels: , ,

V C is for Vendetta Cookie

Labels: