Bibliodox: my paradox of personal interests.: 3/5/06

3.11.2006

Do you have an elephant as an enemy?

Question:
Do you have an elephant as an enemy? Remember, they've got great memories -or is it memorys?

Source:
"Experts from Africa, Europe, and cities across the United States—a panel consisting of a veritable "who's who" of elephant experts—traveled to Chicago to present irrefutable evidence in support of the city's pending elephant-protection ordinance. On February 23, the experts testified before the Chicago City Council's Committee on Rules and Ethics while local "ele-friends"—donning their bright green T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "This Proud Chicagoan Supports Kindness to Elephants"—packed the gallery. The room was filled with nearly 100 compassionate pro-ordinance, pro-elephant." [1]

What is a BugAThon?

The Gecko BugAThon: "What is the BugAThon? (A call for volunteers)

Without help, the number of bugs submitted in the core areas of Gecko (Mozilla's Web display engine), such as the DOM, CSS, Layout etc. would overwhelm the developers.

Do you care about Web standards? Do you hate working around browser bugs? Don't just stand there--with engineers bleeding by the side of the road, are you going to be the Pharisee or the Good Samaritan?

You can help, and you don't need to be a C++ programmer! Simplifying bug reports to the simplest possible test case doesn't take too long per bug, but when you've got this many bugs, it really adds up. And every hour Gecko engineers spend decomposing bug reports is an hour they can't spend on FIXING bugs. The more bugs that are simplified, the faster Gecko engineers can fix them, and the fewer bugs there'll be!

Writing a testcase is the best and most productive way to vote for a bug. Overworked engineers tend to focus on bug's with testcases. If a bug bothers you, why it does still not have a testcase?"

Does a platypus get perplexed?

Source:
"In 2001, I published a paper about something I called 'Active Browsing':

...In active browsing, the client browser actively modifies content before display. Instead of accepting web pages 'as is', active browsers transparently modify, delete and edit web pages according to specific user needs.

but it wasn't until I saw extensions like Greasemonkey, Aardvark, and Web Developer that I saw how Firefox and Mozilla's technologies supported user mediation in a transparent and useful way.

Platypus is a Firefox extension which lets you modify a Web page from your browser -- 'What You See Is What You Get' -- and then save those changes as a Greasemonkey script so that they'll be repeated the next time you visit the page. Editing pages to suit your needs is dandy -- but making those changes 'permanent' is the real payoff.

Some of the things you can do with Platypus include:

* Remove parts of the page you don't wish to see.
* Move a part of the page to a different location.
* Change the style and format of page elements.
* Modify all the links on the page using a regular expression.
* Insert your own HTML code.

Of course, web pages change all the time, so Platypus doesn't work well on some pages, and your Platypus script might break if a web site changes its format. And some times your changes will break a web page in unexpected ways. But you can always undo your changes by reloading the web page, and if a script breaks, just delete it and create a new one. So play around and enjoy yourself!" [1]

3.10.2006

What is the philosophy for what you do and how consistent are your actions?

Question:
What is the philosophy for what you do and how consistent are your actions?

Source it g!:
Moodle Documentation [1]

How do I make things compatible?

Question:
How do I make things compatible?

Source:
LibX Firefox Extension for Libraries [1]

Who are you dealing with?

Question:
Who are you dealing with?

Source:
"Social networks play a large role with this group. Family communication takes place in-person, though friendships within a teen's network spreads out over the Web and other enabled devices. ..." [1]

What can we do to accelerate the adoption, development, and/or innovation towards open source software?

Question:
What can we do to accelerate the adoption, development, and/or innovation towards open source software?

Summary:
*Create: a "Most Bold Adoption of Open Source Software" awards program
*Create: an Open Source Conference for Libraries! Funded by grants from the leading open source advocates or sources/ should eschew and shut out any closed software corporate sponsors for the first five years.
*Create: an Open Source Library Software ThinkTank should be set up/ -again finding funding may be tough. But achieve-able
*Create/Ecourage Graduate schools programs in Information Science to develop Masters programs or minors within those masters to focus on and capitalize on this magnificent emerging trend.
*Create/Offer scholarships for Information Science students creating projects using open source software

Site:
Open Source Library Survey

Open Source Software Advisory Group

Wilfred "Bill" Drew
drewwe@morrisville.edu
SUNY Morrisville

Marie Noonan
marie@cdlc.org
Capital District Library Council

Christopher White
whitec2@sage.edu
The Sage Colleges

3.09.2006

Is that so writely?

Official Google Blog: Writely so:
3/09/2006 10:09:00 AM
Posted by Jen Mazzon, Google Writely Team

For the last five months, I've been part of a Silicon Valley startup called Upstartle, which makes Writely, a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser. Well, as of Monday, I'm happy to say that I, and the rest of the Writely team, are now part of Google.

The other night, I was talking to my husband about how nervous I was to be starting work there. Truth be told, we've all been pretty overwhelmed for the past few weeks. What could our little team possibly do that's innovative enough? And he said, 'Hello? You already did it!' It's true -- everyone told us it was crazy to try and give people a way to access their documents from anywhere -- not to mention share documents instantly, or collaborate online within their browsers. But that's exactly what we did. And since we launched the Writely beta in August 2005, many thousands of people have registered, and all of them came through word of mouth (and blog).

To be clear, Writely is still in beta, and it's far from perfect. Upholding our great user experience means everything to us, so we're not accepting new registrations until we've moved Writely to Google's software architecture. If you're interested in giving us a try, we hope you'll get on the waitlist so we can let you know when you'll be able to try out"

How do you design for information flow?

Question:
How do you design for information flow?

Summary thoughts:
I don't know.
"Architect Selected to Design Stanford Medical School Learning and Knowledge Center." [wow]

What are 10 questions about information architecture?

Question:
What are 10 questions about information architecture?

Chekit:
"Shel Kimen is an information designer for Razorfish, Inc., New York, a strategic digital communications company. She has been online for a very long time and holds a B.A. in human environment and design with emphasis on architectural theory and planning." [1]

Why should you think about real world architecture?

Question:
Why should you think about real world architecture?

Summary thoughts:
Because questions and implications can be transferred into the electronic world. Real-world architectural blunders are a great source of information as are information architectural blunders.

Site:
"The School of Architecture building at Florida A & M University was completed and occupied in 1984. Designed by Jacksonville architect Peter Rumpel, former graduate design faculty member at the University of Florida School of Architecture, and winner of a Florida AIA design award, the building has been a fiasco. "

Whose buying this?

Question:
Whose buying this?

Source:
"IBM authors have written a number of books that will help you create easy-to-use products and services." [1]

Why not Information Architecture?

Question:
Why not Information Architecture?

Source it:
"This is an argument for the establishment of a field of study to be called information architecture (IA) in defence of an application for a professorate in the field announced by the department of informatics at Øsftold Regional College in October 1993. This paper does not pretend to cover all of the aspects that might be considered traits of the field of information architecture. It might, however, form the basis of an extended work on the subject."
[1]

Are you aware?

Question:
Are you aware?

Checkit:
"Are you aware that the practice of information architecture is riddled with powerful moral dilemmas? Do you realize that decisions about labeling and granularity can save or destroy lives? Have you been designing ethical information architectures?"

Why are you thinking this is a good idea?

Question:
Who are you thinking about?

Check this out?
The name Accoona is derived from the Swahili phrase, Hakuna Matata, which means “don’t worry be happy.” Accoona CEO Stuart Kauder says, “The company name was chosen specifically with the end user in mind. Our goal is to make our users happy by helping them find relevant results to their queries.”

Founded in February 2004, Accoona Corporation, a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence (AI) search technology, unveiled the Accoona Search Engine in the United States and China in December 2004. The company is taking the competitive search engine sector to the next level, leveraging its advanced search technologies, experienced executives, and strong relations with China – the second largest online population in the world - and soon to be the world’s largest."

Sit Down and Shut Up!

Are you, special?

"MARCH 6--In what is surely a first for the federal judiciary, a Texas bankruptcy judge has quoted from the Adam Sandler film canon in a recent opinion."
[1]

What is true?

Question:
What is true?

Check it:
"...Sadder still, one of the few bits of predictability is their willingness to act like jerks under certain circumstances. Saddest of all, one of those circumstances seems to be communicating via keyboard and screen. As a result, anyone adding even modest social components to an application suddenly faces a welter of issues that come with the territory."
[1]

How raise awareness in three easy steps?

Question:
How to raise awareness in three easy steps?

Site:
EFF:: "Fourth Amendment Shipping Tape
Declare your right to privacy with new EFF shipping tape, and remind prying eyes to stay out of your packages, presents, suitcases, and more."

3.07.2006

Do you want to orientate, organize, decide upon and analyze your information?

Question:
Do you want to orientate, organize, decide upon and analyze your information?
Chandler, a next-generation Personal Information Manager (PIM) integrating calendar, e-mail, contact management, task management, notes, and instant messaging: "What are the nouns, verbs and adjectives in Chandler? Items, Collections of Items, Kinds of Items, and Attributes of Items. What are they? How do they interact with each other? And how will you interact with them?"

Wolves or waifs?

Question:
What's cool?

Answer:
This is cool.

"Academic libraries are also creating a wide range of new professional assignments in such areas as systems, human resources, fundraising, publishing, instructional technology, facilities management, and other specialties that demand diverse educational backgrounds. Additionally, responsibilities formerly carried out by librarians are frequently transferred to support staff and student employees. There is also a new cohort of MLS librarians who have received their degrees through distance rather than residential programs."

Who's feeling ambiguous?

Google Search:
"Results 1 - 10 of about 557 for 'information ambiguity'. (0.50 seconds)"

Yahoo Results:
1 - 10 of about 309 for "information ambiguity" - 0.34 sec.

Who says Information Wants To Be Free?

Question:
Who says Information Wants To Be Free?

Asnwer:
Meredith does.
"If I won the lottery, I would travel all over, sharing my passion for technology in libraries with the world."

Who is Peter Suber?

Question:
Who is Peter Suber? Peter Suber: "I am a policy strategist for open access to scientific and scholarly research literature. Most of my work consists of research, writing, consulting, and advocacy. Most visibly, I am the Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge, the author of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, and the editor of the Open Access News blog."

What is information lit?

Emerald: Article Request:
"...Abstract:
Purpose –
To demonstrate existing definitional consensus on information literacy, and outline the main and unique areas of concern resulting from that consensus for libraries desiring to contribute to information literacy education.
Design/methodology/approach –
Leading attempts at defining information literacy are examined to demonstrate their lack of substantive definitional differences, and to establish parameters for the library’s participation in information literacy education.
Findings –
Examines the leading definitional contributions since the American Library Association’s 1989 seminal work on information literacy. Demonstrates the lack of substantive definitional differences between those and the ALA definition. Suggests librarians concentrate on the expectations deriving from such unanimity, and outlines those expectations.
Practical implications –
Clarity of definitions provides more stable atmosphere for practical initiatives, while controversies over definitions distract from action. By pointing out the fundamental agreements between seemingly competing definitions of information literacy, this article underscores the need for librarians to fully concentrate on ways to achieve information literacy. By specifying the library’s unique place in that process and outlining the concrete things it can do, the article also provides practical guidance for more focused activity on the part of the library in information literacy education.
Originality/value –
This article demonstrates a consistently overlooked definitional consensus on information literacy, and shows how the purported differences in definition actually represent delineations of steps and approaches that facilitate practical implementation. It also outlines the specific areas and activities that are legitimate responsibilities of the library in information literacy education, and notes areas outside..."

Are we past information literacy?

Question:
The ALA asks, "What is Information Literacy?"

Answer:
Their answer is, "Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information."

What information and for who?

Questions:
(Not mine)
Do Libraries Still Matter? A paper by seven librarians appointed by the president of the American Library Association (entitled Toward a Conceptual Foundation for a National Information Policy) said America must “reaffirm its mandate to its publicly supported libraries to seek out and deliver to all people the information they need or desire...All information must be available to all people in all formats purveyed through all communication channels and delivered at all levels of comprehension.” For good measure, the paper added: “All information means all information,” and “everyone means everyone.”

free_culture

information

How far open can you push?

Question:
How far open can you push?
Push to create OpenDocument standards: "With government records, reports and documents increasingly being created and stored in digital form, there is a software threat to electronic access to government information and archives.

The problem is that public information can be locked in proprietary software whose document formats become obsolete or cannot be read by people using software from another company.

To cope with the problem, 30 companies, trade groups, academic institutions and professional organizations are expected to announce on Friday the formation of the OpenDocument Format Alliance, which will promote the adoption of open technology standards by governments."

What is the State of Open Source Software in Higher Education?

Question:
What is the State of Open Source Software in Higher Education? Sheck, I didn't know we were that far along.

Source/site:
The State of Open Source Software
by Rob Abel, March 1, 2006

"...This report is the first of a series. It provides an overview of the use and attitudes toward open source software in higher education. Follow-up reports will provide details on best practices for implementing open source solutions..."

Who wants some bbq?

M-m-m good:
"Barbecue is an open-source, Java barcode library that provides the means to create barcodes for printing and display in Java applications. A number of barcode formats are supported and many more can be added via the flexible barcode API. Barcodes can be outputted to Graphics objects, or used as a Swing component, or written out as SVG. Please use the links on the left to find out more about Barbecue."

How do you achieve more?

Question:
How do you achieve more?

Comment that's a great idea:
"Less reading can help me apply more ideas."

How transparent are you?

Question:
How transparent are you? How easy is it for people to get help?

Site:
HKUL: Staff Directory: "Service Contact Point"

free_culture

help

Does everyone have metadata?

Question:
Does everyone have metadata?

Source:
"...I produce text-heavy pages — anathema in a point-and-click culture, I know, but those who want purty pitchers are welcome to go elsewhere....I design my pages with the most basic browsers in mind. Everything's standard HTML, and everything should be readable in Lynx, a text-only browser. (I try to keep blind and vision-impaired people in mind in every page I compose.) I want nothing to do with needless flash, animated GIFs, background music, frames that do nothing but clutter navigation, and so on."

Did you forget to put a coversheet on your TPS Report?

Question:
Did you forget to put a coversheet on your TPS Report?

Source:
JasperReports:
JasperReports is a powerful open source Java reporting tool that has the ability to deliver rich content onto the screen, to the printer or into PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML files. "

How do you capitalize?

Question:
How do you capitalize your time?

Answer:
Find people and techniques who have already faced and solved your problem. (You're not that unique.)

Source:
"New TaskBlaze Freeware Update: Precise - Outlook Compatible Tracking beta 7.5"

What's a simulacrum?

Answer:
simulacrum \sim-yuh-LAY-kruhm; -LAK-ruhm\, noun;
plural simulacra \sim-yuh-LAY-kruh; -LAK-ruh\:
1. An image; a representation.
2. An insubstantial, superficial, or vague likeness or semblance."

I do a lot of simulacrum in my bog with my images from iblee.smugmug.com

Can the web be the next office?

Question:
Can the web be the next office?

Quote:
"Wikis: If you are working on an MBA and you do not leverage Wikipedia to do your research, you should... Project CoordinationThey all have different schedules and different classes. Yet they have no trouble working together. It isn’t rocket science. They use online project management tools such as Basecamp.com or Backpack.com."

How do you know when you're awesome?

Question:
How do you know when you're awesome?

Answer:
"More importantly, it's color-coded, since >>users don't read (and >>shouldn't have to!)."

What's better late than never?

Question:
What's better late than never?

Answer:
Switching to open source software.

Quote:
"And so the government should get a good return on the small amount of money it has spent on the Open Source Academy - especially if the OSA successfully builds a business case that shows local authorities how they can save money by moving off of their proprietary software packages."

Who should look at open source software?

Question:
Who should look at open source software?

Answer:
Everyone.
'Academy' builds business case for Linux in gov't - Public Sector - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com: "Open source software is stable, secure, liked by users and can save the government money. ... An OSA spokesman said: 'The aim of the project is to promote the use of open source to the local government community.'"

What the heck is a Shibboleth Integration Project?

Question:
What the heck is a Shibboleth Integration Project?

Perhaps an answer:
"Shibboleth Overview:
The Shibboleth system provides a standards-based link between existing campus authentication systems and resource providers of all kinds. For example, when a student requests access to a protected video clip, her home organization (origin site) requests her to authenticate (if she has not done so already) and then passes on the information that she is enrolled in Biology 562 to the site housing the video. The provider (target site) uses the fact that she is enrolled in this course to determine her eligibility to access the video."

What is the Open Content Alliance?

Question:
What is the Open Content Alliance?

The Open Content Alliance (OCA) represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content. Content in the OCA archive will be accessible soon through this website and through Yahoo!

The OCA will encourage the greatest possible degree of access to and reuse of collections in the archive, while respecting the content owners and contributors. Contributors to the OCA must agree to the principles set forth in the Call for Participation."

Whta's a Nutch?

Question:
Whta's a Nutch? "Won't open source just make it easier for sites to manipulate rankings?

"...Search engines work hard to construct ranking algorithms that are immune to manipulation. Search engine optimizers still manage to reverse-engineer the ranking algorithms used by search engines, and improve the ranking of their pages. For example, many sites use link farms to manipulate search engines' link-based ranking algorithms, and search engines retaliate by improving their link-based algorithms to neutralize the effect of link farms.

With an open-source search engine, this will still happen, just out in the open. This is analagous to encryption and virus protection software. In the long term, making such algorithms open source makes them stronger, as more people can examine the source code to find flaws and suggest improvements. Thus we believe that an open source search engine has the potential to better resist manipulation of its rankings..."

GASP! Is there Open Source Search Engine?

Question:
Is there Open Source Search Engine?

Quote:
"Search is interesting again,' says Doug Cutting, a founder and core project manager at Nutch. Cutting, whose development chops were honed at Xerox (XRX) PARC, Excite and Apple (AAPL), is building Nutch (that's his toddler's all-purpose word for 'meal') with a small team of engineers based around the country. But Cutting says they hope that once Nutch is loosed on the world, tinkerers from Romania to China to Palo Alto will help build it into a robust platform, in the spirit of Linux or Apache (which has garnered more than 60 percent of the Web-server software market in just the last couple of years)."

What is your library?

Question:
What is your library?

Answer:
"MyLibrary is a collection of personal electronic services, developed by the Cornell University Library, that can be customized to reflect your own personal interests and research needs."

What do you mean there are open source search engines?

Question:
What do you mean there are open source search engines?

Answers:
Zebra:
"Start with some Danish developers curious about connecting information systems in line with open standards and skip to the last chapter, where they've become a hot little company supporting libraries across continents."

What did you call me?

Question:
What did you call me?

Quote:
"I'm not trying to eliminate the 'L' word and I don't ever see it completely going away. But that 'traditional' library image will continue to leave too many talented people earning traditionally low librarian salaries and with limited employment opportunities. Those who embrace the information umbrella will be able to go much further and do much more for the users who need their talent and commitment."

What do you mean I don't have options?

Question:
How do you push yourself to learn new things? How do you develop flow and fluency and confidence in your abilities? Learn that you have options.

Quote:
Dell Precision Workstations with Linux: "Dell PrecisionTM open-source n Series1 workstations deliver maximum workstation performance. Smart for businesses with proprietary software images or special Linux needs, these systems are available with factory installed Linux."

free_culture

linux

What are great things about the library?

Question:
What are great things about the library?

Site:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/about/greatthings.html

3.05.2006

How do you create more time in a time-crunched world?

Question:
How do you create more time in a time-crunched world?

Answer:
Do less of the wrong things. That's takes practice and it's not something your taught. Think of it as: mastery.

Thoughts:
Sometimes I wonder why I think I don't have time to develop other skills faster. Since completely submerging myself into the world of information and finally realizing this is what I've looked for, for a very long time, I parardoxically ( ;) ) have put pressure on myself to get "2.0-ed"

So I need to learn how to code, navigate, tag, manage, link, write, think, organize, develop, track, define, all things www, internet, web, and electronic related because I've been disconnected from it for a long time. Daunting I tell ya. I barely get how to write basic html and here I am trying to figure out to convince people to go Open Source whenever possible and that we can just write our own code when we need it.

Even when I was connected way back in 1996, I never did more than customize Word. Ten years later I finally begin my education. And I want to run up Mt Kilimanjaro.

And I like it.

On another note: I train in Olympic style weightlifting Monday nights; Tuesday I practice Aikido and Wednesday I sit with the Empty Field Zen Group; Thursday is Aikido again; Friday I try to swim like a dolphin but it's more like a rock; Wednesday and Friday at 1:00 pm I do Ashtanga Yoga with my friend Renee or we walk; everyday I work at becoming more peaceful; work on my blog and running it on a tiddlywiki; I'm working towards squaring things away for library school; I'm developing my writing cuz I write like poohph; learning how to use OpenOffice, Gimp, portable apps, and a plethora of other open source software; really read all those books I've listed; be involved in this "UU" thing; develop my library leadership institute; switch to voip/sip/skype/openwengo; maximize the/my use of the technology I've bought.

Alos, read Mastery, ISBN: 0452267560; Total Immersion, ISBN: 0743253434; and ChiRunning, ISBN: 074325144X -which I'm aiming to read.

3.11.2006

3.10.2006

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3.07.2006

3.05.2006

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