Embedding YouTube Videos into PowerPoint 2007

These instructions were originally posted on Clay’s Blog. I’ve modified them a little and added screenshots.

1. First turn on the Developer Tab on the Ribbon by clicking on the Microsoft logo at the top left of the window and selecting PowerPoint Options all the way at the bottom of the menu. Next put a check next to the unchecked item to show the Developer Tab
    
   
2. Go to YouTube and select a video to embed
3. Copy the URL
   
   
4. Open Notepad and paste the URL
   
   
5. In the URL delete "watch?" and change the = sign to a ⁄
6. Copy the new URL
   
   
7. Back in PowerPoint, on the Developer menu choose "More Controls"
   
   
8. Select Shockwave Flash Object
   
   
9. Click and drag on the PowerPoint slide to draw a box in which the video will appear
   
   
10. Right Click the box and select properties
    
    
11. Paste the URL into the Movie Property field
    
    
12. Adjust the options for Looping or AutoPlay if desired
13. Close the Properties window
14. You can now adjust the size of the video by dragging the corners as needed

Your YouTube video will now play directly in your presentation provided you are connected to the Internet.

SlideShare Ribbon for PowerPoint 2007

Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a SlideShare user. Well, as of this morning, SlideShare just got 100x better as it is now fully integrateable with PowerPoint 2007. Just install the SlideShare Ribbon for PowerPoint (don't forget to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 first as instructed) and then you'll have a new SlideShare ribbon right in PowerPoint.

As you can see from the buttons much of what they do is self-explanatory. Simply put you can upload to, search, and download from SlideShare directly in PowerPoint. Here's a screenshot of what the search/preview/download interface looks like.

What I also found surprisingly impressive is the program's ability to give you detailed statistics about your account with just a click of the Presentation Stats button.

There's more I could say but instead I'll leave you with the intro video that the folks at SlideShare put together.

SlideShare Ribbon Demo from slideshare on Vimeo.

Cloning Windows Vista using the Sysprep tool

So I've previously cloned the thirteen Vista computers in out lab without any significant problems. Well, problems that I can point to the cloning process as the cause of the problem anyway. What have I been using to do the cloning? That would be the free linux-based Clonezilla. Just boot from the CD and follow the prompts. But, there's been this issue nagging at the backs of the minds of our computer team that we'd been ignoring since they're our computers in our control so until there was a problem, we could ignore it.

Then came ten new computers as part of a Gates grant that are going out to small rural libraries here in Nebraska. Hey, I'll just set one up and clone the other nine. But, in this case, once we've set the machines up, they'll be sent out across the state and out of our hands. Ah, that nagging problem starts shouting at us again. That problem is the issue of Security Identifiers (SIDs). What are those? Let's ask Microsoft:

"Security identifiers (SIDs) are numeric values that identify a user or group. For each access control entry (ACE), there is a SID that identifies the user or group for whom access is allowed, denied, or audited."

Yeah, that's a lot of help...

The gist of this is that for certain security features of Windows Vista this unique SID is used. The SID is generated as part of the initial setup of Windows. i.e. When you first boot the computer after you take it out of the box. If you have more than one computer with the same SID, this could cause problems. The trouble is, cloning a hard drive also clones the SID. Bingo! I've now got ten computers all with the same SID. In fact, Microsoft has a Web page that specifically tells you not to do what I did. It's title: Do not disk duplicate installed versions of Windows. Here's what it says:

"Computers that are running the Windows operating system use a Security ID (SID) to uniquely identify themselves. When you use disk-duplicating software, it is important to take steps to ensure the uniqueness of these Security IDs."

Yep, the computer team's fears were based in fact. I even double-checked by downloading a small program named PSGetSid to verify the duplication of the SID in question.

"Have you performed a rollout, only to discover that your network might suffer from the SID duplication problem? In order to know which systems have to be assigned a new SID (using a SID updater like our own NewSID), you have to know what a computer's machine SID is. Up until now, there's been no way to tell the machine SID without knowing Regedit tricks and exactly where to look in the Registry. PsGetSid makes reading a computer's SID easy, and works across the network so that you can query SIDs remotely. PsGetSid also lets you see the SIDs of user accounts and translate a SID into the name that represents it."

So, now the ultimate question: How to clone a computer and yet still have unique SIDs on each of the clones. After way to much searching and reading I found a handy little program from Microsoft that supposedly solves this problem. That program is Sysprep.

"The System Preparation (Sysprep) tool prepares an installation of Windows for duplication, auditing, and customer delivery. Duplication, also called imaging, enables you to capture a customized Windows image that you can reuse throughout an organization."

Turns out that Sysprep comes with Vista. You can find it at C:\Windows\system32\sysprep. (Don't run this on your computer! ONLY run this on a master that you plan on cloning. If you run it on a computer you actually want to continue to use, you might just mess it up a smidge.)

So more reading and more reading and I finally found the following from Microsoft:

Creating a Build-to-Plan (BTP) Windows Image

In the build-to-plan (BTP) scenario, you create a single Windows reference image to install computers that use the same hardware configuration. You customize the single Windows reference installation by installing Windows and then adding additional drivers and applications. You then capture the Windows image and use it to install your computers. No additional modifications are made to this image.

This scenario comprises the following stages:

1. You install Windows on a reference computer.
2. After the installation is complete, you boot the computer and install any additional device drivers or applications.
3. After you update the Windows installation, you run the sysprep /oobe /generalize command. The /generalize option instructs Sysprep to remove system-specific data from the Windows installation. System-specific information includes event logs, unique security IDs (SIDs), and other unique information. After the unique system information is removed, the computer shuts down. The /oobe option instructs the Windows installation to run Windows Welcome the next time the computer boots.
4. After the computer shuts down, you can boot to Windows PE or another operating system on the computer.
5. You then capture the Windows installation with ImageX, [I'm using Clonezilla instead, M] by creating a reference image with which to install computers with the same hardware configuration.

Well, that sounds like what I want to do so I gave it a shot. I set up one computer just how I wanted it (a full set up updates, installed Firefox, AV software, Steady State, and created the accounts I needed,) then ran Sysprep on that computer. Here's what the program looked like:

What you see here are the setting that I used. I chose the OOBE option to get the cloned computers to act like it just came out of the box when first booted, and checked Generalize to reset certain settings, most importantly the SID which was central to why I was going through all of this.

I clicked OK and the computer did a few things and then shutdown. Next, I hooked up my drive to clone to and ran Clonezilla. When that was done I removed the cloned drive from the master computer, popped it back into it's original case and booted up the cloned computer.

I was told the the computer was setting itself up and it rebooted itself once during this process. I was then Welcomed to Windows, asked to accept the licenses, set the time, and create a new account. The account creation bit worried me a bit since I'd already created the accounts I needed but I had to follow through. So, I created an account named "m" with a password of "m" just to make things simple.

Once setup completed I was presented with the Windows logon screen which contained the two previously created accounts and the new "m" account. I logged into the admin account and found that all of my updates, settings, and software were exactly as they should have been. I just deleted the "m" account and I was pretty much all set. There were just two other things:

First, I ran PsGetSid on the cloned computer to make sure this one had a different SID from the original. Yes, it did.

Second, I did have to delete and re-create the second account that was on the cloned computer that I'd originally created on the master. I'm not exactly sure why but I have two theories.

• Theory one: It had something to do with cloning a computer that had Windows Steady State installed and locking that account. If this was the problem the solution would be to not clone a locked account, but to lock the account on the cloned computers.
• Theory two: The Sysprep tool doesn't like computers with multiple accounts. This theory is based on the idea the OEMs like Dell and Gateway don't ship computers with multiple accounts (if any) pre-installed on a computer. If this was the problem the solution would be to have just one account created on the master and then create additional needed accounts on the clones.

UPDATE 03 Nov 08: Turns out theory one seems to be the correct one. I've since cloned other computers where the public account wasn't locked by SteadyState and the account came through the cloning process in tact.

Despite this final "problem" it was more just an annoyance. This whole process was still much shorter than if I'd had to boot all ten computers and install all the software and updates individually. Also, each time I did it, the process took a little less time as a result of the repetition of the process. I've got another 30-40 computers I'll be doing this to in September and plan on following this process. If I find any additional details then, I'll be sure to post them.

My work gets Meshy

I've been using Windows Live Mesh for a week now and color me impressed. Honestly, I never want to not work without this ever again. I previously gave you an overview of the features but this time I'd like to take you through a simple scenario that I've already found myself in do demonstrate just how folder synching makes my work so much easier.

First, a correction: In my previous post I said that copy & paste wasn't available in the standard Widows Remote Desktop. This is incorrect. You can copy & paste across computers using Remote Desktop, I'd just not realized that. (There's a longer story here but I'm going to leave that out.)

So, what's my scenario? The fact that I'm constantly creating documents on one computer not on the office network and needing the files on another computer which is on the office network. In the past, I'd need to use FTP or a flash drive to get the files from one computer to the other. No more!

Yesterday I found myself needing screenshots from one computer since that had the software I was writing about, but the Web page I was inserting them into was on the other.  Using what I'll show you here, I just saved the screenshots to a particular folder and by the time I was done, they automatically appeared on the other. Here's the steps involved in setting this up:

Here's my My Documents folder on my office laptop. As you can see, I already have two folders synched up with Live Mesh: Searching 2.0 and Speaking. I could save the screenshots into one of those folders but organizationally that's not appropriate since these files have nothing to do with a speaking engagement or my latest book. What I really want is some sort of temp folder into which I can stick files that I'm working on right now.

So, I created a new folder within My Documents named !Transfers. (Starting a folder- or file-name with a "!" will move it to the top of the list when you alphabetize.)

 

With Live Mesh already installed, I right-click on the folder and select Add folder to your Live Mesh...

The Add Live Mesh folder to your devices dialog box appears and I'm given the opportunity to rename the folder at this point. (There is also Show synchronization options here in which you can changes settings for other devices in your Mesh but I prefer to handle these on a computer-by-computer basis, as I'm showing in this post, for for a finer level of control.) Choosing not to rename the folder I just click OK.

My !Transfers folder is nor blue indicating that it is part of my Mesh.

Opening that folder I now see the attached Live Mesh panel. I've put some files into the folder and the panel is telling me that the files are currently being uploaded to my Live Mesh Desktop.

Logging into my Live Mesh Desktop I can see a new !Transfers folder containing the files in the folder. The files with the green and white arrow icons are the files that have not yet been uploaded from the computer to the Mesh Desktop version of the folder.

Now it's time to look at my office desktop. A new shortcut icon to a blue Live Mesh folder named !Transfers has appeared. (Second column from the left. Fifth icon down.)

At the moment, this does nothing. But, when I right-click on it I see an option named Sync with this device... (Since this is in bold, it's what would happen if I was to double-click on the icon.)

 

Choosing that option opens the Synchronize folder dialog box which should look familiar. In this instance however, I don't get to choose the name of the folder but I do get to choose where the folder will live on this computer. So, I'll click Browse...

 

...and decide to put this folder under My Documents. Please note that the location of this folder on this computer does not need to match the location of the folder on any other computer. I could have left it on the desktop, or stuck it on a completely different drive for that matter.

Once I've chosen the appropriate location I click OK.

 

Then I click OK again.

 

The !Transfers shortcut no longer appears on my desktop.

 

But, if I open My Documents I will see the blue Live Mesh !Transfers folder right where I told it to be.

 

Opening up the !Transfers folder I see that my files are being copied down from the Live Mesh Desktop into this folder. (Some of them are MP3 files so they're going to take a little longer to synch between computers than some JPGs will.)

 

Now, whenever I put a file into my !Transfers folder on either computer it will be automatically synched to the other. (If the other computer isn't turned on or logged in, the synch will occur the next time the computer is on and logged in.)

Once I've moved the files out of my !Transfers folder into their appropriate storage location (or into the recycle bin) they'll automatically be removed from the other computers. In other words, Live Mesh cleans up after itself.

When I get home this evening I'll also see a blue !Transfers folder on my home desktop. There I can either choose to not synch the file to my home computer or set up the synch. In this case I probably will set it to synch since I do find myself often downloading files at home that I want to use at the office. All I'll need to do is dump them in my !Transfers folder and when I log into my office computers in the morning, my files will auto-magically appear.

Seriously, if you use multiple computers you've got to try this software. The word on the street is that the "synching with Windows Mobile devices" feature is coming soon (I have accessed my files via http://m.mesh.com on my phone but that's just remote access to the files, not synching) with a soon-to-follow Mac version. Give me a shout if you try it out as I'm looking for someone to test the sharing features with.

Mesh the cloud and your desk

I don't suspect that I'm a "typical" computer user with my daily working with four different computers and constant travel but most of my readers I'm sure have at least a home and office computer. I'm also pretty sure that at some point you've "left that important file on the other computer" and have no easy way of getting it short of calling someone to get them to e-mail it to you. Great if your office is open and the file is small, but getting a file at 7am when you're presenting at 8, and it's a 10MB PPT file and you're basically screwed.

I've played with many different services to synchronize devices in the past my most of them are cumbersome at best, hardly functional at worst. However, yesterday I was given access to the "tech preview" of Windows Live Mesh and all I can saw is "where have you been all my life." (Supposedly this is open to everyone in the US but I've heard reports that so many people tried to access it yesterday that they've since closed it to new users again. So, your ability to register may vary.)

So, let me take you on a tour of Live Mesh and explain to you what it does and (basically) how it works.

First you head over to http://www.mesh.com/ and select the Sign in button. (I recommend you do this in IE as opposed to Firefox. I'll explain why later.)

All you need to log in is a Windows Live ID. (This is what was originally Windows Passport.) If you already have one, just use it to log in. If not, follow the instructions for getting one.

Once signed in you'll be presented with the Devices screen. At first you'll only see choices for "Live Desktop" and "Add Device". Here you'll see that I've already added three devices and currently two of them are running and connected to Live Mesh. (NLC Desktop is not. Why, later.)

To add a device to your Mesh select the Add Device icon, choose from the list of available device types (right now just 32-bit XP/Vista and 64-bit Vista PCs) and click the Install button.

I don't have screenshots of the install process since most of it happens behind the scenes. You'll be asked to Run a downloaded install.exe and once run a status balloon will appear in above your system tray telling you that Live Mesh is being installed. You'll eventually be told that Live Mesh is starting and ultimately be asked to log in with your LiveID. At this point you'll also be asked to name your computer to be able to tell it from the others in your Mesh.

Once this process has been successfully completed your device will be listed on your Live Mesh devices screen.

In the case of my "NLC Desktop" the installation program did run but I was asked for the admin username and password for the computer. Since I didn't have that information I clicked cancel thinking that was that. Well, it still lists my device and I still have access to the synching functions of Live Mesh. However, I do not have the remote desktop feature. Go figure..

This next screenshot shows the listing for my "Home Desktop" which did install completely and correctly. For this device I have both synching and remote access.

Even if you don't add any devices, Live Mesh will give you access to a "Desktop" which I've shown below. Here you can store files and create folders just as you would with other online storage services such as Windows Live Sky Drive. This feature alone is worth taking a look at.

In my case I've created a folder for upcoming speaking engagements and can upload files into it. When I'm later at a different location and don't have one of my computers with me I can simply log into my account, and download the file to that new local computer without installing any of the Live Mesh software.

For example, I'm at a library to give a presentation and they do not have the ability to hook my laptop up to their projector. All I need to do is get on their computer, launch the browser, log into my Live Mesh account, got to the desktop, find my PPT file, and open it. This will download the file to the local computer and open it accordingly. A great way to backup files you might need later. Total amount of online storage allowed at this time: 5GB.

What you'll also see attached to the folder off to the right is a secondary window displaying information about your account and the files contained within the folder you're currently viewing. The next screenshot shows the "News" about that folder. I'll get back to this in more detail when I talk about folder synching.

Next you can see the Members information for this folder. Live Mesh has the ability to share files and folders between account holders. As I do not yet know anyone else using Live Mesh I've not yet had the opportunity to play with this feature.

The third bit of information is about which Devices this folder is synched with. Again, more about this shortly.

To create a new folder select "Create new folder" on the desktop and give the new folder a name.

Additionally, when you create a new folder you can set the synchronization options for that folder, essentially choosing which of your devices you wish to have copies of the content of that folder.

The "News" link at the top of the window will show you the recent activity (mostly relating to synching of data) for your account. I'm assuming that this information is more useful when you have multiple people sharing folders and documents so you can see who's done what with which files.

Once you have created a folder on your Live Mesh desktop you can then choose to sync the content of that folder with a folder on one or more of your devices. I've done that with my Speaking folder. Below shows what that folder now looks like on my NLC laptop. The shiny blue folder indicates that this folder is being synched via Live Mesh. (The folders do not need to have the same name but I've done so just to keep things clear.)

Once I open that folder I'll get the additional information window attached to its right side. This info window contains the same content as the one on the Live Mesh desktop: News, Members, and Synchronized Devices. (Shown in the next three screenshots.)

This information window can also be collapsed by clicking on the "<<", reducing it to a smaller bar of icons. Click the ">>" or any of the icons to open the information window.

That's what it looks like, but what exactly does it do? Well, synched files will mirror exactly what's been done in all the versions of that folder across your Live Mesh desktop and any synched devices. Here's what I've done:

I've got a "Speaking" folder on all four of my computers. This folder should contain copies of all the files relevant to my upcoming speaking engagements. The trouble has always been keeping track of which computer held the most recent version. This is no longer a problem. Once I set up the sync across all my computers, Live Mesh took over and made sure that the content of my Speaking folder on all the computers had the exact same content.

Now, whenever I change a file by renaming it, moving it, copying it, deleting it, or editing it's content, at the soonest available time, Live Mesh will cause those changes to be reflected on all the other computers. For example, if I'm at home and decide to work on a PowerPoint presentation, I just open it on my home laptop, make the changes, and click save. When I get into the office the next morning and turn on that computer, Live Mesh will notice the changes and replace the now old version on the office computer with the new version from my home computer.

At all times, the versions sitting on my Live Mesh desktop will always be the current version.

If I upload a new file to the Live Mesh desktop version of the folder, copies will be sent down to all my devices automatically.

In other words, I no longer have to worry about making sure that the correct version of the files I need are on any of my computers. No matter where I work on them, they'll all have the correct version. What could be better?

There are different options for controlling how files are Synched. These options can be found by right-clicking on the folder on the Live Mesh desktop and selecting Change sync settings.

You'll then see the Change synchronization setting for this folder window.

You can now choose to change the method of synching, including turning synching off, on a device by device basis.

The other major feature of Live Mesh is the ability to create a remote desktop session. To do this go back to your Devices list, select the appropriate (connected) device, and click the Connect button.

Here's the IE vs. Firefox bit. The remote desktop feature will not work in Firefox as it relies on ActiveX controls. Everything else, will work in Firefox just fine. (I've just used the "Open in IE" Firefox extension to automatically launch IE whenever I go to the Live Mesh site so I don't every have to be frustrated when I try to open a remote session.)

The first time you connect to a new device some ActiveX controls will need to be installed. This is only a problem for some as you need admin privileges for these to install successfully. (This is why in earlier screenshots you see that "NLC Desktop" is not connected. I don't have admin-level access to that computer.)

Once the ActiveX controls are installed you'll see a screen telling you that it is attempting to connect. In my experience this can take up to 30 seconds to work.

Once connected it works just like the traditional, but hard to set up, Windows Remote Desktop.

Tips are displayed off to the right including links to send a CTRL-ALT-DEL to the remote computer, blank the screen on the remote computer so no one can watch what you're doing at the remote location, and to show the remote desktop at 100% instead of the default "fit to window" as I've show above.

Additionally, there's an arrow in the bar across the top which when clicked switches you into a full-screen mode, essentially turning your computer into the remote computer.

But, you may ask, why is this any better than the traditional Windows Remote Desktop? That's easy, with Live Mesh you can copy and paste across computers! This is something you couldn't previously do. You still can't drag and drop between the local and remote computers but you can easily find the needed file on the remote computer, copy it, switch to the local computer and paste. It's a little slow (a 250MB video file insisted that it was going to take four hours to copy so I didn't bother) but if you forgot a 5MB PPT file, this is a great solution.

AS you may expect, not all is roses. Live Mesh is definitely impressive and solves a lot of the issues that I've been having keeping four different computers in sync, and for retrieving remote files while I'm on the road. However, there's definite room for improvement.

• The support for mobile devices, and maybe more importantly, Mac clients will be essential for large scale implementation.
  
• I have yet to get Live Mesh started on my home Vista laptop. It seems to have installed just fine but keeps telling me "Failed to start Live Mesh". I've searched all the forums and I do know that I'm not the only person with this problem. Considering that it did install and run earlier in the day I suspect that this may be due to the alleged closing of the tech preview.
  
• Remote desktop is a bit slow. In the past I've been using a combination of Hamachi & RealVNC for my remote desktop sessions and that is faster. This is due to RealVNC reducing the umber of the colors displayed in the remote session thus allowing the screen to redraw faster. Live Mesh keeps full colors and only removes the wallpaper. I'd like to see an option to change the number of displayed colors based on connection speed.
  
• This last one is a bit odd. It turns out that Live Mesh requires User Account Control (UAC) to be enabled in Vista before it will install. On my home laptop I'd completely disabled UAC. (This isn't something I actually recommend.) However, when I first tried to install Live Mesh on that laptop I got the following error message. (It looks like Microsoft isn't kidding about this UAC thing.)

So there you have it, my initial impressions of Windows Live Mesh. I'm sure there's features I've missed and I'm looking forward to using it to share documents with others. (Is you're willing to play, get an account and let me know. I've got five sharing invites to give out.) The bottom line: this is a great product and could only get better.

The end of an era for Windows

No, not XP. Yep, here's proof for everyone that's so totally worried that they won't be able to buy XP any more. (BTW: Get over it!) Come November 1, 2008 OEM's will no longer be able to sell Windows for Workgroups 3.11. (The OS I used in grad school in 1994-95.)

Microsoft on Copyright

I use Windows Live Writer to write most of my blog posts. (BTW, I love this program!) When I used the Insert Video function while writing my previous post on Obama I noticed a little link down at the bottom of the window labeled "Please respect copyright".

Here's what you get when you click on that link:

COPYRIGHT NOTICE & FAQ.

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The following is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact a lawyer.

What is copyright?

Copyright law protects original works, such as websites, books, music, paintings, photos and video. A work is “original” if it contains some elements you created and did not borrow from others. Typically, when you create an original work, you own the copyright. As the copyright owner, you can control how others use your work. For example, if you write a movie script, you have the right to, and can prevent others from, copying your script, sharing it with others (“distributing it”), making a movie or book from your script (a “derivative work”), or publicly performing your script as a play or movie. You also have the ability to sell or give away these rights. In other words, you could sell the right to make a movie based on your script to a movie studio.

If you use someone else’s copyrighted materials without permission, that use generally violates the copyright owner's exclusive rights, and is copyright infringement. So if you create a new work and include parts of other people’s works in it (such as an existing photo, lengthy quotes from a book or a loop from a song), you must own or have permission to use the elements you borrow. For example, if your script is based on an existing popular series, you should obtain permission to use the elements you borrow from the series.

Copyright law is different from the law of personal property. If you buy a physical object, such as a movie on DVD, you own the physical object. You do not, however, obtain ownership of the “copyrights” (the rights to make copies, distribute, make derivatives and publicly perform or display) in the content of the movie. The fact that you have obtained physical possession of a DVD does not automatically grant you the right to copy or share it.

If you make your own movie, it may include many copyrighted works in it. So, if you decide to make a movie based on your script, you must either create all elements of it on your own, or have permission to use the elements you borrow. Especially keep in mind that photos or artwork hanging on the walls of your sets and music on the soundtrack (even if you own the CD or MP3) may be copyrighted. You should not include copyrighted works such as these in your movie without authorization.

A few other things to keep in mind are:

1.

Just because a work does not include a copyright notice (e.g., © 2006 Microsoft Corporation) does not mean the work is in the public domain. Copyright notices are generally not required for works to be protected by copyright.

2.

Just because a work is easily available on the internet or elsewhere does not mean you may use the work freely. Look for terms of use, such as Creative Commons, that explain how works you find on the Internet may be used.

Isn't it in the public domain?

Just because a work is freely available, does not mean it is in the “public domain.” Copyright is for a limited term; it does not last forever. In the copyright context, “public domain” means the copyright term has expired. Once a work is in the public domain, it may be freely used without permission from the copyright owner.

Determining the term of copyright can be complex, particularly because copyright laws vary from country to country. Also, even if the copyright on a work has expired, you should be careful about how you use a public domain work. For example, a book may be in the public domain, but it might not be ok to scan the book cover to cover and post it on the internet. This is because the particular version of the book may contain new copyrightable material that is not in the public domain, such as cover art or footnotes.

What about fair use?

In limited situations, you can use copyrighted works without permission from the copyright holder. It can be difficult to figure out whether use of copyrighted works without permission is legal, though, because the laws in this area are often vague and vary from country to country.

The copyright law in the United States has a doctrine called “fair use”. Fair use provides a defense to copyright infringement in some circumstances. For example, fair use allows documentary filmmakers to use very short clips of copyrighted movies, music and news footage without permission from the copyright owner. Fair use is a difficult concept because determining whether something is a fair use involves weighing four factors. Unfortunately, weighing the fair use factors rarely results in a clear-cut answer.

Rather than applying a fair use test, many other countries have specific exceptions to copyright infringement. The number and type of exceptions vary by country, but they frequently allow copyrighted materials to be used without permission from the copyright holder for activities such as nonprofit research, teaching, news reporting, or private study.

If you incorrectly decide that something is a fair use or falls into an exception to copyright infringement, you could be held criminally and civilly liable and have to pay damages. We suggest you talk to a lawyer if you have questions regarding fair uses of copyrighted works.

What happens if you upload copyrighted materials to one of our websites without permission?

By law, we are required to take down videos, music, photographs or other content you upload onto a website hosted by Microsoft if we learn that it infringes someone else’s copyright. If you believe that we have mistakenly taken down content you uploaded that you own or have permission to upload, you can also let us know that. Finally, if you upload infringing content repeatedly, we will terminate your account and you could face criminal and civil penalties. So please, respect other people’s copyrights.

What if my stuff is on a Microsoft website without my permission?

If you believe that anything on a website hosted by Microsoft infringes your copyright, let us know. Just provide us with the information requested here and we will see that your copyrighted works are taken down.

I want to share my content, but...

Many of our websites and services allow you to share content you create, such as video, music and photographs. Though there is no way for us to ensure that your content will not be misused when you share it online, you may consider making it available under a Creative Commons License.

Creative Commons licenses are a simple way for you to let people know what uses they can make of your creative works and under what conditions. Creative Commons licenses are customizable based on your preferences and are automatically generated through the use of an online form. The form includes questions such as whether your work may be used only for non-commercial purposes and whether the work may be modified. As such, a variety of licenses are possible. For example, an “attribution only” license allows others to make any use of your work as long as they indicate that you are the copyright holder.

Creative Commons is continually developing new licenses tailored to needs identified by creative people like you. To learn more about Creative Commons, or to prepare a Creative Commons license, visit their website (http://creativecommons.org/).

What if I don't want my website crawled?

Microsoft search services (MSN Search and Windows Live Search) follow the Robots Exclusion Standards. This means that you can control which pages Microsoft search engines index and how often Microsoft bots access your website. To learn how to do so, or for more information regarding Microsoft’s webcrawling and site indexing practices, please visit http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx.

Over all I'd say that this is a reasonable document. Nothing here particularly made me cringe and that surprised me when reading a document from such a company as Microsoft. I will say though that I'm not exactly a fan of this advice: "We suggest you talk to a lawyer if you have questions regarding fair uses of copyrighted works." Why not at least attempt to explain how Fair Use works instead of pointing in the direction of a lawyer. (Yep,  Microsoft's afraid of liability issues I'm sure.) 

Your OS is no longer valid

One of the things I learned at IL2007 (I'll get to that post eventually) was that "all OSes suck" and yesterday morning this was only reinforced. Here's what I saw on my laptop's screen when I woke up Sunday morning and went to watch the latest episode of Bionic Woman:

How's that for a scary error message. Basically, something happened overnight that caused my Vista installation to believe it was no longer a valid installation. So, I went to learn more...

Microsoft's first suggestion was to run the online Genuine something-or-other tool that validates your OS installation. Yep, it failed. I "officially" have an "invalid" (read "illegal") version of Vista on my laptop.

Then they presented me with a list of incompatible software that I should uninstall. I didn't have any of those programs on my laptop so scratch that.

Next it suggested I run CHKDSK to see if there's any problems with the hard drive. (The theory being that if the right OS files get corrupted Vista could invalidate.) Run CHKDSK, no errors. Next.

I found lots of others who have reported this problem but most of those were people who had been playing with beta versions last year. I did however find a link to a Microsoft page in which I could report my error and get a response within 24 hours. I filled out their form, downloaded the diagnostic tool, ran that to collect the relevant data, and sent my report off to Microsoft. (I'm still waiting BTW.)

Not willing to give up I kept searching and found another Microsoft page that suggested it might be my anti virus program and I should uninstall that. (I've been using Avast! on the laptop since I upgraded and I've not liked it, too slow, so that sounded like a good plan regardless.) The trouble was, when you're running an "invalid" copy of Vista it locks you out of certain OS features, most importantly in this instance, the control panel. So, how to uninstall a program without the control panel. (No, there wasn't a standalone uninstaller to be found.)

Ah ha! I remembered MSCONFIG. Launch that and instruct Avast! not to load at startup. Apply the changes, reboot, and my OS is valid again! I quickly uninstalled Avast! and downloaded/installed the latest (now Vista compatible) version of AVG. System running smoothly again.

Granted, it was Vista that was yelling at me and it's Microsoft's "fault" that their DRM is touchy but right now I'm placing the blame at the feet of the makers of Avast! I suspect that it updated itself overnight as it should but that something in the update was incompatible with Vista enough to cause it to invalidate. Well, I won't be recommending that product in class any more.

Testing the Insert Amazon Link plugin

I poked around the Windows Live Write plugins and found a few more interesting ones. This one does an ISBN search in Amazon.com and inserts the book information, cover, and link (including your associates ID). Here's the plugin interface:

Here's the result:

Amazon.com: The First Quarter : A 25-year History of Video Games: Books: Steven L. Kent ISBN: 0970475500 ISBN-13: 9780970475503

The code is a tad messy as it includes some specialized MS code, and is a non-CSS table but it sure does make for easy insertion of this content. (From a validation standpoint, it is close. The only errors are no alt attribute on the cover image, an 'unselectable' atribute which MS seems to have made up, and the code itself is HTML, not XHTML (i.e. mostly missing the trailing slash on empty elements). This last one is only a problem since my blog is XHTML. I'll probably write to the author of the plugin asking for fixes in the next update.)

First test of Windows Live Writer

Not much to say yet, but the software did seem to successfully detect all of my Blogger account settings despite the fact that I publish to my own server, not blogspot. (One kudo point so far.)

Also, the interface seems nice and easy to use. There is an edit code view and a live preview of what this post will look like on my blog once it's published. (12 kudo points for that feature!)

Images can be inserted by browsing local/network drives and through a URL. It doesn't seem to be able to pull images from flickr directly, but I can just do the usual copy/paste of the flickr code so that's not too troubling.

There's more features. I'll post more if/when I find things worth mentioning. My initial opinion: a pretty sweet app.

Huh?

I'm about to download and play with the latest beta of Microsoft's blog authoring software Windows Live Writer and I've noticed one of its "features": the ability to "Publish XHTML-Style markup" [emphasis added]. I'm sorry, but the code is either XHTML or it isn't. There's no such thing as XHTML-style or XHTML-like as far as I'm concerned. I'm still going to play with it but sometimes Microsoft, you make me wonder.

One day your computer will be a big-ass table...

One Bill, One Steve, One Stage

Here'e the first of a seven-part video. The rest can be found on the D|All Things Digital site.

Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool

Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool: "The Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool checks your Internet router to see if it supports certain technologies. You can use this tool on a PC running either the Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system. If you're planning to run Windows Vista, this tool can verify whether your existing Internet router supports advanced features, such as improved download speeds and face-to-face collaboration using Windows Meeting Space."

Outlook 2007 Performance Update

Some have noticed that Outlook 2007 runs a little slower than the 2003 version did. Those of us that have massive amounts of e-mail and calendar data just chalked it up to the amount of data we're making it crunch. However, it seems that 2007 is actually running slower than 2003 as stated by a recent, yet unpromoted, Outlook 2007 update released this past April 13th.

"This update fixes a problem in which a calendar item that is marked as private is opened if it is found by using the Search Desktop feature. The update also fixes performance issues that occur when you work with items in a large .pst file or .ost file."

Believe it or not, the difference post update is noticeable.

CIL2007: Trends in Mobile Tools & Applications for Libraries

Megan Fox, Simmons College, (fox@simmons.edu) web.simmons.edu/~fox/mobile

• Patrons want and demand mobile on-demand services
• Mobile Market
• [I lost the stats I typed in...]
  
  
• Latest Devices
• iPods
• tablets
• PSP
• Blackberry
• m300 smart watch
  
  
• Treo
• Samsung B470
• Nokia N93
• HTC S710
• iPhone
• MyOrigo
• HTC Advantage and Shift
• Ultra Mobile PC - Q1 Ultra
• Mobile Web / Transcoded Web
• .mobi
• mobilelearn
• winksite
• volantis
• roundpoint
• mobiSiteGalore
• Freemont PL has a .mobi version
• zinadoo
• NYT
• National Weather Services
• Digg
• PubMed
• Hoovers
• Ball State University (Looks like Gopher)
• Mobile Optimized OPACs
• III AirPac
• LibraryThing
• Ready Reference On the Go
• Tucors
• handango
• dictionaries
• almanac
• Mobile Answers
• eBooks & eAudio
• Transcoding
• Optimizing for the mobile environment on the fly
• May remove content so somewhat controversial
• Blogger on the Go
• mobilicio.us
• Databases on the Run
• Factiva
• LexisNexis
• Mobilize your content
• via RSS then to SMS
• MobiFeeds
• xFruits
• feedbeep
• hubdog
• GoogleReader
• Text onto the iPod
  
  
• Mobile Search
• Google
• 4info
• Yahoo!
• AOLMobile
• Ask
• [Presented on this earlier in the conference]
  
  
• SMS for content
• GoogleSMS
• Yahoo
• AskMeNow
• Biblioteche di Roma (answer w/in 48 hours, ugh!)
  
  
• 411
• Meriam Webster
• Life's a Pitch - 1st chap via SMS
• Harper Teen
• Citysearch
  
  
• SMS for communication
• Simmons College Reference Services
• Altrama (SMS Virtual Reference)
• teleflip
• gizmoSMS
• MagicMessage
• MobileU
• AIRBaruch
• Class in Hand
  
  
• Text Feedback Link
• Feedback Meter Link
• Mobile audio & multimedia
• downloadable audio
• mobile tours - guide by cell
  
  
• instruction
• story hours
• video tours
• mobile tv
• mobile YouTube
• mobile Second Life
• Ball State University training videos & promotional videos
• Video downlaods
  
  
• Applications for staff
• Stats - bar code readers
• Sirsi PocketCirc
• Wireless Workstation
  
  
• What's Next?
• txt & video ads (you must approve & get a discount on your bill for viewing)
• MasterCard & Visa via your phone
• Hardware displays
• glasses
• eink/epaper
• project to wall
• ZenZui
• Microsoft Live Labs Deepfish
• Photo2Search
• Thrrum
• mobile visual interactions - qipit
• spoken interactions - GotVoice
• GPS Location Interaction
• [showing pics from my Library Signage flickr pool!]
  
  

Installing fonts in Vista

Well, here's something that hasn't changed in Vista. Get yourself to the "Add Fonts" dialog box and you'll see the exact some screen we've been looking at since Windows 3.1 (or maybe even earlier). The insanity of this is easily discovered when you attempt to browse for the file you dumped on your desktop. You do know the DOS path to your desktop, don't you? Come on Microsoft, why couldn't you bother to update this to use the same browsing interface the rest of the OS uses?

Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs

Contains mild adult language.

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

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".

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."

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.

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.

To Vista or not to Vista?

Ok, so, what's my official advice on upgrading to Vista? I did it, so should you? Well, let's keep in mind a few important items:

• Some would consider me a bit of a geek and willing to futz around with my computer and change all sorts of settings just for fun.
• I specifically bought this laptop with the specifications needed to run Vista Ultimate edition and planned on upgrading it once Vista was released.
• I get paid to do this first and warn everyone else about the potential pitfalls.

So, with those things in mind, my official advice and this time is the following:

1. If you're going to be buying a new computer, get Vista. (Really, you won't have a choice but if you did I'd still say go with Vista.)
2. If you have a recently-purchased machine with one of those free upgrade coupons, go for it. I'm assuming you haven't had the computer long enough to customize it too much and you're probably not running any highly-specialized programs. (Check with vendors if you are. Hell, OCLC software had some problems with IE7. Who knows how they're reacting to Vista.)
3. You've got an older computer and the Windows Upgrade Advisor says the hardware can handle it, don't unless you're a masochist like me.
4. The Upgrade Advisor says you can't run at least Home Premium, don't even consider it. If you can at least run Home Premium, see #3.

To be honest, I love it despite the problems I'm having. (Second Life won't run, iTunes is fracked, I'm having some issues sharing files between the Vista computer and my XP computer, (let's not even consider the NT4.0 box,) and there's still an outstanding issue with upgrading my BIOS.) The bottom line, is that if everything's running fine on XP and you're considering upgrading everything in the library to Vista "because I can" or "because it looks cool" don't bother. Wait for the next round of computer purchasing and bring it into your system then. You'll be much better off in the long run.

Great new features in Outlook 2007

iTunes and Windows Vista

According to Apple, Inc. the current version of iTunes is bascially incompatible with Windows Vista. The document describing the problems offers several "solutions" for those that insist on upgrading to Vista before an updated "Vista compatible" version of iTunes is released. Worst case scenario: "Ejecting an iPod from the Windows System Tray using the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature may corrupt your iPod. To always safely eject an iPod, choose Eject iPod from the Controls menu within iTunes." Apple is also offering an iTunes Repair Tool for Vista 1.0 that will also supposedly solve some problems.

IMHO this is totally unacceptable. Vista has been gold since something like early December yet Apple has yet to solve the problem. I'm glad I ran across this before upgrading as I run my iPod off the same laptop I'll be upgrading. Hopefully, Apple will release the updated version in the next two weeks before I get the time to install Vista.

Upgrading to Office 2007

Office 2007 0018 Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

I've upgraded my laptop to Office 2007 Professional. I've not yet had a chance to play with it much but I did document the upgrade. Click on the image to the right for the complete slideshow.

Vista? Mac?

Vista? Mac?
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

It looks like Apple is jumping on the Vista bandwagon, just not in the way Microsoft would hope for.

Vista & Office 2007

They've arrived! I'll be upgrading my TabletPC but I may end up waiting a little while as my laptop is my only computer for the next two weeks. In the mean time, I could download and read the Vista release notes...

An open letter to the members and customers of the Friends of the Aurora Public Library

IE6 users, if you can't see the whole post try reading it at the alternative location or use this as a great opportunity to update to IE7.

In January 2006 I was asked by the then FAPL board president to take over as the manager of the FAPL Book Outlet. I accepted the position and in the past year many changes have been made. Many of you have liked the changes, a good number have come to accept the changes, and a few of you still do not like most or any of them. Then came the recent sale at the central library and additional complaints have been received. This letter is both an explanation and a response to the criticisms I’ve received over the past thirteen months.

First, just a little about my background to help you in understanding where I’m coming from. I currently hold a masters degree in library science and teach computers and the Internet to librarians across an eleven-state region. I have also been a member of the board of trustees of the Aurora Public Library for the past four years. Prior to my present career, I was a bookseller (from clerk to management) for more than ten years (in both independent and chain bookstores), and have been a book collector for more than 25 years. I am by no means an expert in books but I feel that my knowledge of the trade is well above that of the typical book buyer.

When I was brought in as the new manager the store had recently moved to its current location at nearly triple the space of the previous location and at more than double the rent. (Even this amount is at a significant discount as we’re sub-leasing from the city and they’re giving us a great deal.) Our books were shelved by price, not by category, placing books of the same genre/ topic in as many as five different locations in the store. Some of the books were priced using stickers while others were priced by drawing stripes or other symbols on the bottom of the books with permanent markers. (Both of these methods reduced the book’s value significantly.) Ultimately, sales at the store had stagnated.

Before deciding how to address these issues I had to clarify the mission of the Friends. That mission is to, at its essence, make money to support the Aurora Public Library. With sales at a stand still, increased costs, and the difficulties customers (and staff) were having finding what they wanted, I set about making some significant changes in how the store was run and organized.

The two areas that customers noticed the most were the reorganizing of the books out on the floor and the way books were priced. In the first case, over a two-day period several volunteers moved nearly every single book in the store so that books of the same genre/topic were shelved together. Paperbacks and hard covers were still shelved separately, but no longer were there paperback romances in four locations in the store. The result was not perfect on the first try and as recently as four months ago we were still moving some sections around to shelve in a way that works best for both the customers and the staff.

The second change, pricing, was more difficult for many, staff included, to accept. About a dozen volunteers spent three days, writing a price, category, and date into every book in the store. The category and date make both shelving new and removing old stock easier on the staff. Having the price in virtually the same location in every book makes things much easier for the customers than the old system of different locations and/or markings on the books. This is a standard practice in the used book trade as it does not reduce the value of the book.

The actual prices of the book is where the largest number of complaints have come from and in many cases those that have not liked the new pricing fall into one of three camps: those that don’t like increases in prices in general, those that want the store to be something it no longer is, and used book dealers. Let me respond to each one of these in turn.

Even I fall into the first category: those that don’t like price increases in general. When people started noticing that we increased our prices they commented on it to me and the staff. Once we explained that our rent had more than doubled most people understood and didn’t comment further.

Those that want the store to be what it no longer is, is a harder category. There are generally three types of used book stores: exchanges, used, and rare/antiquarian. Stores run by Friends groups tend to be in the first category; the store has stock that it’s trying to sell of cheap and fast, usually having some sort of flat-rate pricing scheme. That is what the Book Outlet was but I felt we could be more than that. Used book stores have cheap books, mid-priced books, and expensive books with more varied pricing. Rare/antiquarian book stores specialize in the obscure and the expensive. What I’ve attempted to do is to move the Book Outlet away from the exchange model to the used model. Folks in this category loved the cheap prices of the old model and don’t appreciate the slightly higher prices of the current model.

The reason for moving to the used model takes me back to the mission of the Friends: to make money to support the Aurora Public Library. With this new model both sales and income have increased despite the additional costs of the new location, and because of this we were able to totally fund the 2006 summer reading program to the tune of $27,000 in addition to funding other programs and library remodeling efforts. I understand the folks who liked the old exchange model, but continuing to use that model would just not allow us to support the library as much as we would like.

As for dealers; for years we have been selling books to area dealers and have enjoyed doing so. We also look forward to continuing to do so in the future. However, in the past we were not exactly smart about doing so. Frequently we would hear stories of dealers buying books from us for less than a dollar and reselling it in their store for $20, $50, or sometimes more than $100. (Once or twice a dealer would come back to the store and give us additional money from part of the profit he’d made off the resale of one of our books.) To make myself clear, we don’t mind dealers buying from us and reselling in their stores. However, selling to them a book for $2.00 and having them make a $98 profit, does a serious disservice to our mission when instead we could sell it for $25 and have them make a $75 profit. This way, we’re a little happier and the dealers are only a little less happy.

This leads me to the next issue: our use of the Internet to price some of our stock. Yes, I will admit that when we find a book that we feel might be worth more than a few dollars we use the site bookfinder.com to guide us to an appropriate sale price. Whenever we do this we take into consideration many things including, but not limited to: the condition of our copy, the condition of copies for sale online, the number of copies for sale online, and the asking prices of the online copies. In most cases we end up pricing the book using our normal pricing guidelines. If we do end up marking up the price based on what we found online, we ultimately keep this fact in mind: all of our books are donations and therefore whatever we get for the book we can consider “profit”. In other words, unlike other book dealers we don’t have to make back what we paid for the book in the first place since we didn’t pay anything for it. So, with that in mind, we generally price the book lower than what is being asked for online.

Even then, the vast majority of our books in the store are not priced this way. Those in the locked cabinet and some of the books on the bookshelves at the front of the store are the result of Internet-based pricing, but that is a small minority compared to the rest of the books in the store.

***

Now, as for this past weekend’s sale at the central library, there were two complaints that were heard by both me and the other volunteers: the sale “wasn’t what I expected” and the books were “overpriced”. Again, please allow me to respond.

I believe that both of these complaints are connected as the second is a result of the first. What most people expect when they see that a friends group is holding a book sale is the traditional annual book sale with lots of cheap books that the friends are trying to sell off quickly. (We have the Book Outlet so we don’t do that sort of sale.) However, what we advertised was a sale of “rare, collectible, and used” books also stating a price range of “40 cents to several hundred dollars.” We did our best to make sure that this was stated in all the advertising we did. Unfortunately, despite these statements, some still expected the more traditional friends book sale with a majority of cheap books.

More than 75% of the books at the sale were from a single donated collection of mostly history and cookbooks. Some of these books were not worth as much as others but many were worth more than the usual $1-4 prices we charge in the store. A group of about a dozen volunteers spent more than six months valuing and pricing the books using the previously mentioned Internet-based method. We all did our best to keep the prices reasonable based on the research we performed. Remember, our mission is to make money to support the library, not sell off a valuable collection of books for pennies on the dollar.

In one case a customer came up to one of the volunteers and asked if the $2 price we had on the book was correct since the book was worth $500. In another, a dealer, toward the end of the sale pulled out a single book from his $375 purchase and pointed out that the $100 we were asking for the book was what he could get for it in his store and could he have it for a little less. We talked and I lowered the price of the book for him. In the first case a customer got a great deal, in the second a professional dealer validated the price we had set on the book. These two situations show me that we priced most of our books correctly, just not at the level that people expected.

Additionally some read the e-mail about extending the hours of the sale through Monday morning and offering most of the books at 50% discount as a sign that this was more of a traditional sale at which we were trying to “dump what was left”. This is incorrect. The extension of the sale and the discount was not planned. It was a decision I made on the spot based on a number of factors including the fact that we could have the library’s room an extra day and the poor weather on Sunday. Had either of those not have happened the Monday extension and discount may not have occurred.

In the end the sale made just short of $6000 which will all go to benefit the library. The books that are left over from the sale will not be disposed of, they will be dealt with as any other book we have in one of several ways. Many will end up being offered for sale in the store, some of the prices will be reduced, while others will be offered for sale online. Others, the lower priced ones, will be sold off to designers for use in show homes.

Overall, everyone involved in the planning, organization, and implementation of the sale believes it was a success.

***

The February FAPL board meeting will be my last. At that meeting I will be ending my tenure as the Book Outlet manager as I am moving to Lincoln, NE for a new job. I have enjoyed this position and I’m honored to have been able to support my library in this way. The reigns will be handed over to someone else who I hope will continue taking the store into the future and continue to fulfill the store’s mission. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to indulge me and if you wish to leave any comments please feel free to do so via the comments link at the end of this post.

Ultimate List of Free Windows Software from Microsoft

Microsoft offers a lot of free Windows software, some of which is rather useful. The trouble is that finding it on the Microsoft site can be daunting unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Well, here's a page from The Road to Know Where blog listing all of them with appropriate links.

Office 2007

Here's an interesting bit from the 2007 Microsoft Office release system requirements:

Grammar and contextual spelling in Word is not turned on unless the machine has 1 GB memory.

Vista has been released to manufactures

What does this mean. Well, it means that shortly you will be able to purchase computers with Vista pre-installed. Those wishing to purchase Vista to upgrade existing hardware will need to wait until 30 January 2007. Here's Microsoft's official Q&A regarding the release and Paul Thurrott's full review from his Windows Super Site.

Free online file conversion

This morning David Lee King pointed me to Zamzar.com by saying "Zamzar is cool". With a recommendation like that how could I not take a look?

Step one is to go to Zamzar.com. You may want to look at their list of convertible file types before you get to far.

Once you've decided what file you're going to convert, just click the Browse button and select your file. (There is an upload limit of 100MB per file.)

The file you've chosen to convert will appear at the bottom of the page. You can remove that file if you choose the wrong one, or add other files to be converted as a batch. (Be sure to only choose files of the same general type, such as video files, as you'll only be able to have one output file type.)

Step two is to choose which format you want the file converted to from the dropdown list. (This list will populate with only valid conversion formats.)

Step three: enter your e-mail address, (a link to the converted files will be sent to this e-mail address,) then click the Convert button.

You'll then be asked to confirm your choices by clicking OK...

...and your file(s) will be uploaded to the server for conversion. A status bar will keep you up-to-date with the progress and estimated time remaining of the upload process.

Once the upload is complete you will be told as such and reminded that the link to the converted file will be e-mailed to you.

A few minutes later (in my experiences) you will receive and e-mail with a link to the converted file.

However, this is not a link to the file itself, but to a Web page with the file link. So, do not right-click and select Save as on this link. Just click the link and open the Zamzar.com page for your converted file.

On this page, click the Download Now button to initiate your download and then confirm to your browser that you wish to save this file.

In this example I converted a Flash Video file (.flv) from YouTube (yes, there are ways to download YouTube videos) into a Windows .avi file. Here are the properties of both the original and converted files.

Yes, in this case I converted a smaller file into a larger file. However, with an .avi file I can burn it to DVD video and/or play it in Windows Media Player which allows me to view it in full-screen mode. (Neither of which I can do with a .flv file.)

As you can see below, the quality of the converted file is not noticeably different from the original.

Original

Converted

With this one experiment I can say that Zamzar does live up it its promises and should be bookmarked by anyone who might ever need to convert files from one format to another. The only two downsides I can fine is the 100MB limit, which should only be an issue for those looking to convert video files, and its current inability to deal with files from Microsoft Works (something that would be very useful to public libraries.)

IL2006: Tuesday Keynote

Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition of Networked Information
Challenges of Cyberinfrastructure & Choices for Libraries
9:00-9:45am

• Will not be doing a musical performance this morning
• Observations about scholarship/teaching/learning are changing & implications of policy changes
• What do these changes open up for librarians?
• Cyberinfrastructure
• most of rest of the world you can talk to people about e-science
• practice of science has been transformed by
• high performance computation
• high performance networking
• large scalle management/org/reuse of data
• 2002 report, Atkins commission, how is science & engineering in the US changing
• what changes need to be made?
• "cyberinfrastructure"
• data management
• data visualization
• people!
• National Virtual Observatories
• People not interested in IP issues w/ astronomy
• metadata is free/bulit-in to observational equipment
• enormous sky sruveys patch together from many different sources
• no longer about getting observational time
• algorhythms are being written to analyze data instead of needing more observational data
• opens up astronomy to school kids
• [I read about the democratization of astronomy in The Long Tail last night...]
• how do we get data resued and preserved?
• how do we assist the scientists to mark this data consistently?
• first focused on engineering
• all of this technology can also be applied to the humanities and the social sciences
• american council of learned societies report coming out soon on this issue
• these approaches need to be used in not just the hard sciences
• there are controversies about whether these technologies are changing the way humanites are studied
• "phisics changes one funeral at a time"
• questions
• human subjects
• privacy
• intellectual property
• access to evidence
• Could we digitize all the literature of all the cultures that have ever existed? Images?
• Mass digitization projects
• Microsoft
• Google
• European Digital Library
• What about the "non-published" stuff? (Museums)
• what are the roles and responsibilites of museums of publically stored materials?
• Most stuff is pre-1923 / out of copyright
• they're monitizing those items
• seems inappropriate to some
• "public trust"
• digitize materials to make them available to the society at large
• Special collections
• papers of persons and institutions
• important to researchers
• collections are changing in character / going digital
• Salman Rushdie's papers & e-mail
• items are being created in digital form
• Problem of scale
• study of older times, there's a paucity of evidence
• modern times, too much information
• What's coming out of this
• needs are shifting from getting the tech to work to informatics
• organize data
• backup data
• confidentiality
• tend to focus on big projects
• large projects
• large teams
• highly organized
• big $
• what about the projects with small groups working on small issues
• small staff
• small $
• how we support these people
• deal with on a diciplinary basis or institutional basis?
• Will end up with a patchwork of solutions to this problem
• will be dynamic not static
• fashions, interests and budgets wax & wane
• Roles of libraries in all this
• big research universities & info tech workforce 15yrs ago vs now
• then: worked for central IT
• now: more than half now in departments, schools, labs, etc. / closer to researchers & teachers
• facing demands for data curration
• more want to share & reuse data
• shifting norms re: information sxchange
• retiring faculty / what to do with all this data i've accumulated?
• institutions finding that there's "value" to the data
• data mgt & sharing plan in grant proposals
• how will it be preserved
• how will it be shared
• institutions making sure that these rules are adhered to
• data lost in gulf disasters of last year
• was there backups?
• ACRL report on all this due out soon
• who's supposed to be doing the work?
• new professional
• mythological
• "data scientist"
• what do these people need to know
• general?
• diciplinary?
• can we do this for each dicipline or more generalists or hybrid
• major workforce issues
• sale of problem is large
• we're going to need a lot of people to work on this
• are these people librarians?
• libraries as institutions
• big research libraries
• most profoundly changed already
• strugging to keep up w/ amount of data via budgets
• access issues
• main role has been to apy for journals
• journals now electronic
• access has shifted out of the library
• some people therefore believe access to these sources is free
• policy choices?
• already overstressed, can't deal with it
• humanities strategy, hard sciences are on their own
• need to move resource away from published lit & into more active engagement with the scholarly process
• three very different pathways
• different institutions will take different paths
• movement into more inter-institutional collaboration
• rapid rise of virtual organizations
• cross multiple boundaries
• other libraries
• huge demand for access
• will see in many different areas
• undergrads
• k-12
• will effect many libraries
• Nature of personal history is changing
• issue for any cultural memory orgainzation, not just libraries
• scope of those interests are getting broader
• rise of amature observational science
• bottany
• astronomy
• biology
• geology
• libraries of all types need to be mindful of all the changes this type of research is bringing
• will force strategic change

Internet Explorer 7 released

For those that don't want to wait for IE7 to show up via Windows Update, you can now download it directly from the Microsoft site. (You've been warned in the past but now it's cofirmed: It won't work on anything less than XPsp2.)

Get ready for Internet Explorer 7

I just got this from Microsoft in my e-mail. I'm reproducing it for the benefit of others. (Hopefully Microsoft won't sure me for it.) Important note from Microsoft. Please review the action items and contents of this bulletin. Overview Microsoft will release the final version of Internet Explorer 7 (English) in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 (IE7 ) provides significant enhancements in security, platform management, and usability. Microsoft recommends that all genuine Windows customers install this upgrade. Shortly after it is released, Microsoft will distribute IE7 as a high-priority update through Automatic Updates to help consumers become more secure and up-to-date. However, to ensure that customers are prepared to upgrade, IE7 will not install without user consent. Microsoft recognizes that, as part of a managed deployment plan, some organizations may wish to block users from receiving IE7 through Automatic Updates and is providing an IE7 Blocker Toolkit. IE7 runs on Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003. This announcement provides an overview of Microsoft resources and recommended actions that IT administrators should take to ensure their company's Web sites are ready for IE7 and that their browser-based applications will continue to work seamlessly with IE7. This announcement updates previous information about Automatic Updates delivery released on July 26, 2006. For more information about IE7, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet/updatemanagement/ windowsupdate/ie7announcement.mspx, or contact your Microsoft sales or support account representative. Key Delivery Details • October 2006 - target date for IE7 (English) • November 1, 2006 - date by which customers wishing to block Automatic Updates delivery of IE7 should have blocking measures in place Note: Product quality will determine the final release date. Call-to-Action for IT Administrators To prepare for the release of IE7 in October and subsequent distribution through Automatic Updates, customers should: 1. Use the IE7 Readiness Toolkit to prepare for the release of IE7 2. Test and resolve any issues with their Web sites and applications using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (ACT 5.0). 3. Determine if their organization is ready for IE7 or needs to delay deployment. Find information on deploying the nonexpiring IE7 Blocker Toolkit on our Web site. About the Automatic Updates Delivery Process To help minimize disruption, automatic delivery of IE7 includes the following provisions: 1. Automatic Updates will notify users that an upgrade to Internet Explorer is available prior to starting installation. 2. IE7 will not install until a user who is a local administrator accepts the update. (Users may also choose to decline installation or ask to be reminded to install later.) 3. Microsoft has made available the IE7 Blocker Toolkit, which allows IT administrators to prevent users from receiving IE7 as a high-priority update from Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites. 4. Users will be able to roll back to Internet Explorer 6 by removing IE7 through the Windows Control Panel Add/Remove Programs utility. Find additional details and screenshots of the notification process on our Web site. Options for Blocking Automatic Delivery Microsoft recognizes that organizations may wish to postpone deployment of IE7 (for example, to allow time for user training or additional testing of browser-based internal applications and Web sites). Organizations using Automatic Updates to keep their unmanaged computers current can take one or more of the following steps to prevent users from automatically receiving IE7: 1. Download and deploy the IE7 Blocker Toolkit. The nonexpiring Blocker Toolkit includes both a Group Policy template and a script that sets a registry key to prevent Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites from offering IE7 as a high-priority update. The Blocker Toolkit and FAQ were released on July 26. 2. Deploy an update management solution that provides full control over the updates you deploy to computers in your network. Microsoft offers the free Windows Server Update Services and the more advanced Systems Management Server 2003 update management products. 3. Prevent users from running as local administrators on their computers. Users who are not local administrators will not be offered the update and can be restricted from manually installing IE7 4. Instruct users to decline IE7 when Automatic Updates notifies them that the update is available for installation. All users will have the ability to decline installation. Find additional details and screenshots of the notification process on our Web site. About These Resources from Microsoft The IE7 Readiness Toolkit provides the following: • Pointer to the latest publicly available build of IE7 • Developer checklist, including new features and changes of interest to application and Web developers • Testing guidance and tips for isolating and identifying a particular compatibility problem • Tools for development and testing • Links to resources, technical articles and helpful blog posts • Various methods to provide feedback to Microsoft • The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (ACT 5.0) enables you to test your browser-based applications and ensure that they will work seamlessly with IE7.

This message from Microsoft is an important part of a program, service or product which you or your company purchased or participate in. Legal Information. To sign up for Microsoft newsletters, receive information about our products or services, or review information you've given us, visit the Microsoft.com Web site. This communication was sent by the Microsoft Corporation 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, Washington, USA 98052

Windows XP SP1 support comes to an end

If you've not upgraded to SP2 as of yesterday, you're out of luck.

FrontPage's Replacement: Expression

Microsoft has released beta 1 of the Microsoft Expression Web Designer, the follow-up to FrontPage. I've installed and played with it a little bit and here's my initial reactions:

The interface is nice and easily understood after about five minutes of poking around. I especially like the ability to split the screen between code and WYSIWYG editing.

With Microsoft's "we write good clean code now" push, a validator is included in Expression. The validator does allow you to choose which level of "compatibility" you would like to test against.

The list of validation errors appears below. In this example, since I was validating against XHTML 1.0 Transitional, it did tell me that the legacy FrontPage Webbot in my code may cause problems. Bravo!

The menu-based CSS editing will take me a bit of getting used to since I'm comfortable writing CSS by hand. I can see this being very useful to someone new to CSS.

The new "Optimize HTML" feature seems useful but I've not played with it yet.

Expression's "Preview in Browser" feature is flexible. It auto-detects which browsers are on your computer and you can set up different preview types including multiple browsers in a specific resolution.

Expression still works with servers that have the FrontPage extensions installed but it doesn't seem to have a built in FTP and/or SFTP client allowing me to easily access sites on non-FrontPage servers. (I've got just one site I work on that is still on a FrontPage server.) I'm not planning on moving from HTML-Kit to Expression until I see what the actual cost will be (or maybe if I get it for free as part of some Office upgrade). Overall though, it does seem to be leaps and bounds ahead FrontPage and Microsoft deserves kudos for this product.

Windows Vista delay?

Yesterday morning I got to share a table with an employee of the Microsoft marketing department. Eventually, I had to ask the obvious question: "Do you think Vista will be delayed yet again." Their response: "Probably."

Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth

Microsoft describes Photosynth as software that "takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-dimensional space." Their ultimate goal is to allow this software to work with all photographs on the Web. Think flickr groups based around a location on the planet (a city or landmark), in 3D, where the computer automatically figures out the physical relationship between the content of one photo and the content of another. There are two videos available for download demonstrating the product. (There are six download links but there are only two different videos. Just download one of each in the resolution you'd like.)