John McCain’s MySpace “Enhancement” Makes Daily Show

The Daily Show recently spoke about John McCain’s MySpace "Enhancement" and other 2.0-related campaigning. The title of the segment "Indecision 2.008">

As if otters weren't cute enough already...

these two are holding hands.

Authors @ Google

Authors from Lawrence Lessig to Neil Gaiman have spoken to Google employees. Google has made the videos available on YouTube.

Look, a gopher!

Index of gopher://gopher.quux.org/

The funny part is that Blogger gave me a bit of trouble when I tried creating this post.

Brooklyn Public Library Says Not So Fast

According to Library Journal BPL isn't as close to partnering with NetFlix as a New York Post article proclaimed.

Doctor Who Serries 3 Trailer

Here's the new full trailer for series three which, BTW, starts Satudray so don't anyone bother calling me on Sunday.

Banking adventure, part 2

I received a response from US Bank today regarding access to my funds. Here it is:

Dear Michael P. Sauers,

When a deposit is made to an account 30 days old or younger, only $100.00 total is available the same business day. The remaining funds are held for five business days. While the hold is in place the funds are not available for paying outstanding transactions. Examples of deposits which are not subject to a hold are: cash deposits with a teller, direct deposit, and wire transfers We will also allow same-day processing for deposits which were issued from another U.S. Bank account, and are deposited with a teller before the cut-off time. Unfortunately, all deposits made at an ATM are subject to being held, if they exceed $100.00. f items presented exceed the available balance, including the first $100.00 of the deposit, the account is subject to charges.

Once the account is 31 days or older, the deposit held pending verification will last for one business night. Information regarding our Funds Availability Policy was provided to you in writing at account opening in the customer agreement titled, Your Deposit Account Agreement. You will find this information in the section titled "Funds Availability: Your Ability to Withdraw Funds-ll Accounts," beginning on page 35. If you are in need of this agreement again, please provide us with your mailing address so e may send this to you. You may also find this agreement online by completing the following:

- Visit www.usbank.com
- Click Checking Accounts from the home page
- Click Apply Now
- Click Account Disclosures, Terms and Conditions
- Select Deposit Account Agreement

I sincerely apologize for the confusion.

Please keep in mind, items on your account are paid based upon the available balance. The running balance online may reflect in blue. The blue balance is a link, and when clicked, will open up a box. In the box, you will be provided with your available balance and the amount of unavailable funds a that point in time. This means there were deposited funds being held or check card authorizations outstanding against the balance.

Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns. Personal Bankers are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,365 days a year. Have a great day.

*For your protection, please send your personal information through our secured email service only. Simply complete the following to reply with sensitive information:
- Point your browser to http://www.usbank.com
- Select "Contact Us" at the top of the page.
- Select the type of account you are referencing.
- Submit your information using the "Email Us" form provided.

Sincerely,

Angie Kreamier
Email Operations
U.S. Bank 24-Hour Banking & Financial Sales

If you need further assistance, please feel free to call 1-800-USBANKS (1-800-872-2657) or go to www.usbank.com and select 'Contact Us' link. If you are out of the country, you may call us collect at 1-503-401-9991.

This isn't really an answer as they've told me I'll have access to the balance of my funds after 5 days, which is what I was not told at the bank. ($4900 after five days, the rest after 10.) I'll try again to get some clarification.

Then, I get a very scary balance alert:

Luckily I have no outstanding transactions.

This is why I don't own a video game system...

A 22-month-old could kick by butt!

Rebus Generator

link

Word Puzzle Generator

link

Web 2.0 Logo Creatr

Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs

Contains mild adult language.

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

Update: Paying to speak

It turns out that Jane was not being asked to pay to speak. It was all a misunderstanding. However, I still agree with the underlying point of the story: don't charge your speakers to attend your conference.

Nobody looks happy, either way.

This one's for Sara although at just 13, I'm pretty sure she won't get it.

Ashtray Head at the library

Scott Adams has sent the new manger "Ashtray Head" to the library.

My first pipe

I finally got around to playing with Yahoo Pipes today and came up with a list of Lincoln, NE-related library Web sites, blog posts, and photographs. The output can be seen @ http://pipes.yahoo.com/. Here's an image of how the pipe's set up. (You can also see the back end by going to the output page and clicking on "view pipe".

Banking adventure

Yesterday I deposited a rather large sum into my bank account. The sum was made up of two checks one for $5.99, the other for more than $35,000. I figured there would be a hold put on the funds so I went in to deal with a teller instead of using the ATM. When the teller saw the amount of check #2 she informed me that there would be a hold on the funds as I expected and then asked me if I would still like to make the deposit. Considering that the funds would do me no good in their current form, why would I not want to make the deposit?

The deposit was made and then she had to fill out some paperwork to officially inform me about the hold time on my money. Now that the money was deposited it was treated as a single amount, let's call that amount $35,005.99. I was told that $100 would be made available to me immediately. Wait, shouldn't that be $105.99? There's no hold on the first check as it's too small to have a hold put on it (holds start at $5,000) and I should get $100 out of the check with the hold. Well, since it was all deposited together I just get $100. (I'm not being stingy here but I would have had access to $105.99 if I'd done two separate deposits so why should I get access to less if I saved them some work by doing a single deposit?)

I understand the $100 immediately policy. It's a courtesy to me as the customer as they need to wait for the check to clear before giving me the majority of the funds. Fine, o.k., so as soon as the large check clears I get the rest of my money. Well, sort of...

It turns out that I'll be getting access to the funds in two stages. After five business days I'll have access to an additional $4,900. (Presumably that plus the first $100 equals the $5,000 amount that triggered the hold in the first place.) Then, after ten business days I'll get access to the outstanding balance of my deposit.

What? Either the check has cleared after five business days or it hasn't. If five days isn't enough (which these days should be more than enough) make it ten. Let's say the check isn't good and hasn't cleared after five days, what exactly is the point of giving me $4,900? Or, if the check has cleared within the five day window, why can't I have access to all of it?

Unfortunately I didn't think to ask at the time but I will be e-mailing my bank to see if I can get a logical answer.

Sunsets in my back yard

I still can't believe the sunsets that I get to watch out my back yard most nights...

University of Nebraska won't play along

I can't say that living in Lincoln is going to turn me into a Huskers fan but this news has started to turn me into a fan of someone on campus. Turns out that University of Nebraska will bill RIAA $11 for each threatening letter received from the RIAA. The RIAA has backed down!

28 Weeks Later

Trailer

How I Became A Music Pirate

Some wonder why people think it's o.k. to do things with music they've purchased that the RIAA doesn't want you to do. Well here's the story of how one man became a "music pirate".

"'Well' she responded, 'You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to.'"

The Official L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Fan Site

I've relaunched my L.E. Modesitt, Jr. site. Come check it out.

Paying to speak

Jane has posted about Why I May Not Be Giving My Preconference at TLA and I can't agree with her more. I once pulled out of LITA National as I was not going to pay to present and others have blogged about this issue before. Jane, you have my full support.

Hello, I'm Linux

Star Wars PSA

BitTorrent humor

Today's Real Life comic takes on "watching" UK TV via BitTorrent. I have this conversation with myself all the time. (Doctor Who Series three starts this Saturday! Guess what I'll be watching on Sunday.)

Amazon 1, Libraries 0

Seth Godin points out a new feature in Amazon that links citations but distinctly points out that you won't find this feature at your library.

Libraries and Netflix

Can't afford to replace all those DVDs that your patrons seem to chew on? Why not outsource your DVD collection to Netflix? Brooklyn PL is considering doing just that.

"In what would be a first in the United States, the Brooklyn Public Library hopes to team up with Netflix to deliver DVDs and videos to anyone in the borough with a library card, The Post has learned. The price would be unbeatable - free."

Doctor Who Series 3 clip

It's only eight seconds long and it's definitely for the ladies. Via YouTube. (Embedding not allowed by the BBC.)

Magazine help

My best friend needs help finding magazines for her daughter. Leave suggestions a comments.

I have been trying to find a magazine my 13 year-old daughter feels like reading. She gets the kids' version of National Geographic (for the animals, mostly), but hasn't been able to find anything with actual articles aimed at girls her age. Apparently, girls under the age of 10 are supposed to be encouraged to have brains and to read (and write) and think. Once they turn 10, they are not supposed to read anything else until they hit puberty, at which point they are to read only about boys, sex, hair, clothes, makeup, and pop stars and are not supposed to write or think about anything substantial again until they are well into their late twenties. At that point, intelligent thoughts are permitted to occur as long as they are kept under the guise of boys/men, sex, hair, clothes, makeup, (older) pop stars, children, etc.

This is an official APB. If anyone is aware of an intelligent magazine suitably aimed at girls 12-16-ish, please let me know where the heck I can find it.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Trailer!

del.icio.us RSS

It turns out that more than 50% of requests for data from the del.icio.us site are from RSS, not humans. Because of this the folks at del.icio.us are working to improve what gets delivered via their RSS feeds such as "offering the ability to save bookmarks straight from your feed reader" and "displaying an up-to-date count of saves, without making items appear new again in feed readers". More details on the del.icio.us blog.

Spammers, and proud of it

Seth Godin takes on Reed Elsevier's recent "marketing". It's worth blogging as I wonder if an LIS blogs out there have experienced this?

"Over the last few weeks, I've received several meails [sic], all the same, all from real people at Reed. They baldly (and boldly) ask me to swap links with them as part of a scheme to move up the Google rankings. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I don't do that, nor does any reputable blog I know of."

Shutdown Day is tomorrow

There's just a little less than 13 hours left until Shutdown Day. Have you made the committment? Can you follow through?

Referenceing Twitter

The Nebrask Library Commission's reference staff are Twittering! Check them out at http://twitter.com/NLC_Reference.

Herding Avatars is like herding cats

NLC Group Photo Outtake
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

The NLC Network Services staff got together this afternoon to take a group photo in front of our new building in Second Life. Getting everyone in the right clothes, in the right place, not tripping over each other, and finally into the right pose is no easy task. Oh, then there's the lighting issues... Look for the final result shortly on the NLC blog.

Apple 1984 commercial remix

I'm not getting into politics here. I'm not supporting a particular candidate at the moment. However, I have to share this video supporting Obama (though the Obama campaign denies they had anything to do with it,) just due to its creativity for those that remember the classic Apple commercial.

Twin Lakes, CO

After several attempts, one of my photos of Twin Lakes, CO was finally deemed worth of acceptance into the Wallpaper Web site InterfaceLIFT. Check it out. There are 13 different resolutions available ranging from 2560x1600 to one small enough for your iPod.

This cartoon made me think of Twitter

via gapingvoid

Twittered out?

Just use AutoTwit. Write your posts, set a schedule, and forget it.

Bite me alien boy!

Vista: Problem Reports and Solutions

Vista: Problem Reports and Solutions
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

When a program crashes in Vista, the OS attempts to "find a solution" to the problem. For the first time yesterday a "solution" was found to a Firefox crash. The "solution" presented was to upgrade to the newer version of Firefox. A handy link to to the Mozilla site was even given to me. Here's the rub, I'm running the latest version of Firefox; no upgrade is available. Does Vista know something I don't? Don't get me wrong, this is all a great idea but it needs to work in order to be helpful. I was sure to click on the "Provide Feedback" link and let Microsoft know just what I thought of their "solution".

iTunes & Vista

iTunes & Vista
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

Well, I updated to version 7.1.1 today which said addressed "minor compatibility problems". Despite the fact that I don't view any of the problems I've been having "minor" updates rarely do damage so I had hope. The result: no noticeable change. The display problems have not gone away.

iTunes & Vista

Just when you think the display "problems" can't get any worse, exhibit A:

RIP Pandora

Pandora is dead due the the recently new (retroactive no less) Internet radio royalty rates. As Doc Searls put it:

"In a move that recalls the Vogons' decision to destroy Earth to clear the way for a highway bypass through space (a thankfully fictional premise of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), the judges comprising the Copyright Royalty Board have decided to destroy the Internet radio industry so the Recording Industry won't be inconvenienced by something it doesn't know, like or understand."

Slow Performance From Outlook 2007?

I'm not experiencing slowdowns but it does make me wonder about usuing Outlook 2007 as a feed agregator.

"Adding RSS feeds can quickly swell the in-boxes of many users to more than 2GB of data, according to O'Kelly. He said that causes Outlook 2007, especially when it's running on PCs that don't have large amounts of memory, to write to the hard drive much more often than it typically does -- resulting in performance slowdowns. Hopefully, Microsoft will be able to better tune that part of the software before the next major release, O'Kelly said."

Computers in Libraries will be all a Twitter

I've set up a twitter account for CIL. If you are attending and wish to have you're updates passed on to the conference account, send me your Twitter username (a comment left here will do but you can also e-mail it to me,) and I'll add you. If you're not attending and wish to follow the conference via Twitter, watch http://www.twitter.com/cil2007 14-19 April 2007.

Done the Impossible

This will make so of you finally learn how to use a BitTorrent client.

Batgirl was a librarian

Keep that in mind when you watch this.

Interesting Second Life advertising

Yes folks, someone has built something in Second Life that's large enough to be read as an advertisement on the map.

Bye Bye Stardust

Some of you may not know this but I lived in Las Vegas from 1995 to 1997. While I was there I got to watch the demolition of the Sands on New Years Eve (1995-6 I believe). I recall that the adds for the event said something like "In New York they drop a ball. In Las Vegas we drop a building!" Anyway, I share this because I just stumbled over a video of the demolition of the Stardust. It's not your typical demolition. Only in Vegas...

Which Serenity character are you?

My results:
I am Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 70% Wash (Ship Pilot) 60% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 60% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 50% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 50% Inara Serra (Companion) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 40% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 30% River (Stowaway) 30% A Reaver (Cannibal) 10% Alliance 5%

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

Safe!

If you get this joke, you're a total geek... (In a good way.)

One-sided Twitter conversations

I'm being sucked in by Twitter. So much so that I complained to one friend that she never posts and she retorted with the fact that I'd not yet moved my Twitter widget to my sidebar. But that doesn't exactly address the title of this post...

Lat night I got to watch one side of several conversations. What was happening is one of my Twitter friends, person A, was obviously posting back and forth with one of their Twitter friends, person B. However person B isn't a friend of mine so I was unable to "hear" their side of the conversation. In this particular instance I was thinking that the conversation was more interesting this way but not knowing what the actual topic was, it just got me thinking.

Work @ Your Library

Shutdown Day

Saturday, March 24th has been named Shutdown Day. Can you turn off all your computers for 24 hours? Not only will it save a lot of energy it'll give you a chance to read that book you've been meaning to get to. I'm going to do it. Can you?

Denver Public Library Video Contest Winners

I'm not sure I blogged about this before but I did post a screenshot of the contest on flickr. DPL was holding a video contest for teens and have posted the winning videos.

A Basic Twitter Search Engine

Steve Rubel at the Micro Persuasion blog has used Google to create a basic Twitter search engine. Here's the results for searching library.

300

Now this is a movie review! (Courtesy of horror author Brian Keene.)

Viacom sues Google/YouTube for (insert Dr. Evil joke here)

Here's the basic story and the Google Copyright Blog has the full text of the complaint as a PDF.

"YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."

Dean Koontz in Second Life

From the BDD Web site:
"Not only has Dean Koontz completed THE GOOD GUY (coming in hardcover 5/29) but he’s also ready to read some of it to you. Dean will be appearing—rather, his avatar will be appearing—in SECOND LIFE on Thursday, 3/15, at 6pm (PST), as the first-ever “Bantam Dell Authors-in-Second-Life” event. Already a member of Second Life? Visit The Bantam Dell Book Shop in Second Life for more details."

Save as PDF or XPS directly from Office 2007

I'm assuming this is a result of the PDF format going open source but you can now install an add-on for Office 2007 to give you the ability to directly save your documents in the PDF or XPS file formats.

Microsoft Photo Info

Here's one for the metadata librarians: The Microsoft Photo Info download allows you to "Easily view and change 'metadata' properties in digital photographs from within Windows Explorer."

Vista doesn't "help"

It turns out that Vista Windows Help files (.hlp) any more as they're too old. (They've been around since Windows 3.1. Those needing the ability to read such files need to download the Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows Vista from Microsoft.

Weather explorer umbrella

Let me get this straight, this is an umbrella that tells you what the weather's like? Uh, wouldn't the need to use the umbrella for it's main purpose be a big clue? Or, does it allow you to "experience" the weather from somewhere else other than where you are? I'm confused.

Another way to post to Twitter

Don't want to leave Firefox nor actually go to the Twitter site in order to post? Try the Twitter Firefox Search Plugin which allows you to "post updates to Twitter right from your Firefox Search Bar". I've tested it and it works. The only catch is that as a result you end up going to your Twitter page. I'd rather it didn't send me anywhere but it does save a few clicks in the posting process.

flickrCC

I've posted about hoe how to search flickr for CC licensed photos before but here's another site that does it with a much slicker (slickr?) interface: flickrCC.

Sushi

I've not had sushi since I moved to Lincoln. It's available, I've just not had the opportunity. These images reminded me of this.

Adventure

Now this is old school gaming. You can play Atari's Adventure on the web.

Why Mommy is a Democrat

I worry when the principles of any political party can be reduced to the level of a 4 year-old.

Here's a great question for your reference staff:

"What does the rest of the library staff know?"

Since arriving at NLC I've been meeting with different department heads, partially to get to know them personally, partially to get to know what they and their department do here, and partially for them to get to know what my skills are. Yesterday, I met with Lisa the head of Reference & ILL. At the end of our conversation she had one more question for me: "What else are you interested in or know a lot about?" At first this was an odd question but she quickly explained. The reference staff here likes to keep track of what other people in the building know in order to help with reference questions. For example, if there's a baseball question it goes to the major ball fan in the building. Should they ever get a Dean Koontz question, or a question about a SF or horror author, they'll probably head my way in the future.

The ultimate point is to know your available resources. (Hey, I think I wrote that back in 2000?) In some cases, your resources may be sitting right next to you or just down the hall.

Speaking URLs

Ok folks, this needs to end! The URL is (for example) "www dot themagazine dot com" not www dot the magazine, all one word dot com. There are no spaces in URLs, everyone knows this, stop it.

Tooling around in Second Life

This afternoon I've been having some fun in-world. First, I went go-kart racing with myself. (I'm envisioning taking a classroom of librarians here to have some fun.)

Next I went diving over zombies. Yes folks, there's an island on which you can rent a car, hop in, and start running over zombies for points. Sorry, I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures.

Lastly, I went shopping for some equipment and now have a katana on my back. I've figured out how to draw and sheath it but it's remaining transparent while drawn. In the mean time, it looks really cool on my avatar's back.

Be a librarian, get paid in L$

If you don't know what I mean by "L$" this position isn't for you but if you're very into Second Life, you can be the librarian for Rockcliffe University in-world. Now this is a Library 2.0 position!

Rockcliffe University SecondLife Campus (RUSLC) is associated with the Rockcliffe School of Business due to launch in the fall of 2008. The school's purpose is to provide online education in the fields of Organizational Design and Management. RUSLC is a proof of concept school within Secondlife to test various elements of education design and delivery compared to other online techniques.

On December 5th, 2006, RUSLC opened its doors to SL residents through the offering of programs specifically tailored to the SL environment. These classes are free of charge to all SecondLife residents and are sponsored by the Rockcliffe School of Business and Knomaze Corporation. These courses will be the forerunner to additional courses aimed at a college level of education in the fall of 2008 (including tax receipts, college credit hours, certifications and all that good stuff).

Open Position: Librarian

Rockcliffe is looking for a Librarian to assist us in establishing the underlying library infrastructure services necessary to provide support to our business objects. That is, in order to develop a world class set of business courses, we require someone that understands the ins and outs of how to access peer-reveiwed publications and is interested in experimenting with how those services can be delivered through various communication mechanisms, including the Second Life platform.

The inital starting conditions of this venture however will not be that grandious at the get go. We are building this school up from game play to real-world business only as quickly as venture capital and revenues allow. To start we are looking for someone to help guide us in the possibilities of what library services may offer beyond the obvious sorting and cataloguing of resources, objects, scripts, etc within Second Life.

The position will be mostly volunteer to start. Compensation will consist of a weekly stippend in line with what others currently working on this project are receiving. Depending on the effort required we are looking at a range of between $500 and $1000L/wk.

If interested please forward a brief resume to Phelan Corrimal including some idea of both SL and RL history in Library Services.

Merging new and old

Here's a product that I find pretty much a solution in search of a problem. The Amazon.com: Sony Floppy Disc Interface for Memory Stick allows you to use a memory stick in a floppy drive all for about $40. Folks, get a card reader/writer (which will allow you to use multiple types of cards) instead and plug it into a USB outlet. If you don't have a USB outlet, you've got larger problems than this product will solve.

Steampunk Star Wars

From the blog Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea, what if Star Wars had been done in the Steampunk SF Sub-genre? The descriptions are wonderfully written, but the artwork are totally spectacular.

Dogbert's Speakers Bureau

Part two is today.

iTunes & Vista - Part 2

Over the weekend I finally upgraded iTunes to version 7.1, the one that supposedly solves most of the problems in Vista. (Notice the important "supposedly" in that previous sentence. Well, here's my results:

I downloaded the update and ran the installation program. (Side note, why can't iTunes update itself from within the program like most other software today. Why oh why do I have to re-download the program every time there's an update?) The first oddity was the fact that I was required to shutdown Microsoft Outlook in order for the install program to continue. I was also running the Outlook widget in the Vista sidebar and I was required to shut that down too. (Oh wait, I just realized that I had set iTunes to sync my Outlook contacts and calendar so maybe that's why...) Other than that the install worked but seemed to take twice as long as it usually did. (More on speed later.)

Once the install was completed I was given the option to run iTunes automatically. I chose that option and waited a good ten minutes, disk thrashing the whole time, before finally giving up and running iTunes via the desktop icon.

I was asked to accept the license (typical of the first run of iTunes after any update) and was then informed that it was "updating iTunes library..." Twenty minutes later, this was complete. (I don't have the largest iTunes library in the world, just 3712 totaling 16.47GB so this seemed to take much longer than it should have.)

Once I was actually able to use iTunes I started to update my podcasts. Every few minutes I would receive an error that said it couldn't update my library due to not having the correct permissions. I continued to click through the errors and once the podcasts were done downloading I closed and restarted iTunes and this error has not come back since.

As for the display problems, some of them seem to have been solved. For example, the add artwork bug has been fixed. However, all of the other display problems do still occur but after a longer period of time than before. According to Apple, "iTunes may display text or graphics incorrectly on your screen. Resizing the iTunes window should correct this issue." However, I've noticed that once the display problems start, the only solution is to close the program (which does then crash) and restart. Any attempt to resize or minimize locks the program forcing me to go to the Task Manager to kill the process. My theory is that iTunes is incompatible with the Aero interface that I'm running. However, running iTunes in XP Compatibility mode doesn't solve these problems and since compatibility mode turns Aero off, this may not be a logical conclusion.

I eventually noticed that since I chose to make iTunes my default player during the installation process, the default player error has not returned.

Finally, having made sure I followed all of the warnings on the Apple site, I decided to actually connect my iPod to the laptop. The short answer is that it synced as it should. The longer answer is that it seemed to take forever to start the syncing process. Seriously, I plugged it in, Vista made it's horrid "bonk" indicating the presence of a USB device, and my iPod appeared in iTunes within seconds as it should. But, it all just sat there for the better part of ten minutes before any syncing actually started to happen. (I've since synced my iPod a few more times with the same wait each time.) My iPod is in working condition and I lost no data that I've noticed.

So, my conclusions: It's better but serious problems still exist. The known display problems are something that need to be fixed immediately. (I'm assuming that fixing the display problems will solve the crashing issues since it only seems to crash after the display goes wonky.) The other item that must be fixed is performance. I now feel like I'm working under water while in iTunes. Importing works at normal speed but everything else either is or just feels slow, especially the sync function.

Caramel Jazz

DSC05482
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

I've never been much of a diet soda drinker. Admit it, it just doesn't taste like the real thing. Lately though I've been enjoying the Pepsi Jazz flavors Black Cherry Vanilla and Strawberries and Cream. But then, while grocery shopping this weekend I discovered a new flavor, Caramel Cream. I'm hooked. It's not too sweet (for me) and it definitely tastes (and smells) like caramel. Give it a try.

Vista Librarians

As an experiment I've set up a Ning social netowrk for the impatient librarians who are implementing, or attempting to implement, Windows Vista. Join Vista Librarians today.

Dogbet's Speakers Bureau

Are you a speaker? If so, did you catch yesterday's Dilbert?

Twitter

I'll eventually add this to the sidebar but in the mean time...

follow msauers at http://twitter.com

iTunes & Vista - Update from Apple

As of yesterday, Apple has released iTunes 7.1 which supposedly addresses a number of compatibility issues with Windows Vista. I'll test it out tonight and report back.

Nebraska Library Map - Attempt #1

Here's my first attempt. A bunch didn't make it through the Geocoding process, I'm not sure I like the paged interface with this system and I didn't realize the import process would put everything in reverse alphabetical order but, it did work more or less.

BCR's new trainer

I've heard that BCR has hired Michelle Drumm as their new Emerging Technology Trainer.

Book signing @ CIL2007

For those of you that still don't own a copy of Blogging and RSS: A Librarian's Guide and will be attending Computers in Libraries in April, I will be doing a book signing at the Information Today booth. It will be during the afternoon coffee break on Tuesday from 2:30-3:15pm. See you there!

iTunes & Vista

Some of you have been waiting for this post and I've finally got around to writing. So, how's iTunes working with Vista in my case? No so well. Here's the details based on what I've been experiencing.

First, when I run the program I'm told that it's running in compatibility mode. Trouble is, I've not set that option so I have no idea why I'm being told this.

Next, I'm informed that iTunes is no longer my default audio player and offered an option to go to the screen that will change these settings.

However, once I get there I see no way to make iTunes my default.

There may be a way to fix this but I'm not seeing it. Why can't I just tell iTunes to set itself as the default like I can with other programs?

Once iTunes is running it usually works for several minutes. Then, the display problems start. They're inconsistent but these are some of the problems I usually see.

Here I've inserted a CD and the window that you can see through is the one that's asking me if I wish to import the CD:

Here the vertical lines separating the tracks have disappeared and the vertical lines have gone bold.

In this example I've selected a single track. Instead of highlighting the track, the track's information disappears.

Here we have all tracks but one selected. Only the unselected track shows information.

When I try to import album artwork, it doesn't show up in the right place, it appears in the upper-left corner of the window instead.

Sometimes when I try to update track information (this is the result off adding the previously illustrated album artwork) I'm told that the data can't be saved. The data does appear to be saved regardless of this message.

Lastly, on close, the program crashes.

I've not tried to actually sync my iPod yet. I'm using this as an opportunity to get caught up on my podcast backlog. Here's hoping apple releases an upgrade soon.

Find the nearest Starbucks via SMS

Just send a text message of your zipcode to MYSBUX (697289) and you'll get back the phone numbers and addresses of the local Starbucks. Caffeine here I come!

Un-sync-able

I've yet to get my Treo to sync to my office computer. This means I'm running two calendars, two task lists, and two contacts lists. I'm going nuts! I hope to have this resolved in the next few days.

UPDATE 2:50pm: Permissions reset, software reinstalled and I'm syncing again. (Let the puns continue.)

Snow in Lincoln

I noticed this before but now that I actually live here it's totally blogable. People in this town are obsessive about snow removal. Yes, this is generally a good thing when it comes to the city streets. In fact, I'm totally impressed when it comes to the city removing snow from the public roads. The obsession comes into play when it comes to folks removing snow from their driveways and sidewalks. I grew up along Lake Ontario in New York, and lived in Denver for the past ten years. I know snow. It snows, people dig out. If you can drive on it, it's not worth the trouble. Here in Lincoln, by 7am the snowblowers, shovels, and brooms (yes, brooms) are out and my 9am, I'm the only house on the street without a clean driveway and sidewalk. Talk about trying to keep up with the Jones'. However, when I cam home from my first day at the office on Thursday, planning on shoveling out my driveway before making dinner, I found that one of my neighbors has taken their snowblower to my driveway. Now that's being neighborly!

The feds want ISPs to keep data

The feds are at it again. Data retention seems to be their latest thing. This time they want image-sharing sites to keep data "in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate." Normall this would be something I'd comment on just on principle. However, this quote just makes it way to funny:

"Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. 'There's a PR concern with including the libraries, so we're not going to include them,' the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. 'We know we're going to get a pushback, so we're not going to do that.'"

Help us welcome our new staff member...

I guess I'm official. I've been blogged by the NLC.

More on porn in Rochester libraries

The Democrat & Chronicle is reporting that the library board as appointed a joint commission to reconsider the policy. Video from the borad meeting is available through the link.

Gamer busted for "borrowing" library WiFi after hours - Engadget

Engadget is reporting the story of someone being hassled by the police for using open WiFi from the library in Palmer, Alaska after the library was closed for the day. No link to an article from a local source is present in the Engadget report. Can anyone confirm or deny this story?