This story in MIT Technology Review scares me. Instead of letting all computers within the network communicate freely, Ethane is designed so that communication privileges within the network have to be explicitly set; that way, only those activities deemed safe are permitted. “With hindsight, it’s a very obvious thing to do,” McKeown says. No matter […] » about 600 words
MetroNaps started business in 2004 with a boutique in NYC’s Empire State Building, selling 20 minute naps for $14 bucks. The company has slowly been opening franchises around the world, but MetroNaps co-founder Arshad Chowdhury says overwhelming interest from office folks who wanted to install the pods on-site as an employee perk. So the company […] » about 200 words
ProgrammableWeb pointed out an InformationWeek story that claimed 28% of Amazon’s sales in early 2005 were attributable to Amazon affiliates. And C|net claims Amazon now has 180,000 AWS developers (up from the 140,000 Amazon was claiming about a year ago).
(Note: not every Amazon affiliate/associate is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) developer, but Amazon hasn’t shared more specific numbers.)
These slides, from Amazon’s AWS developer relations team explain a lot about what AWS is.
The conversation on Code4Lib about OpenID reminded me to finish a draft I’d started at Identity Future on the topic. The short of it is that Marc Canter says that single sign-on is good, but “we need the attribute exchange to make this thing really take off.” Then all the skeptics will realize that the […] » about 200 words
The New York Times last week announced that it’s giving away TimesSelect to students and faculty that hold a .edu email address. TimesSelect, of course, is the paid access site that debuted in January 2006 to a confused and critical web. Editor and Publisher repeated the Times’ claim that they’re doing this for the good […] » about 200 words
Ryan tried to tell me about it a month ago, Jessamyn gets the idea but uses Facebook instead, DeWitt fell for it, Ross said it tipped the tuna, and now I’m finally checking Twitter out. I signed up yesterday and immediately went looking for ways to connect Twitter, Plazes, and iChat.
Tweet is an AppleScript that works with Quicksilver (a launcher) and Twitterrific (a desktop Twitter client) to make updating even easier. Matt Matteson updated it to set iChat status, and Ruben Broman added Plazes integration.
What’s it good for? Think of it like a snack-sized micro mini blog if you want. Or think of it like chatting with your 500 (or 5 million) closest friends. Or think of it as another way of extending personal presence in the electronic age, little bits of information that exist in the environment.
My ALA email newsletter arrived today with this story: Sports Illustrated decides libraries don’t need swimsuit issue Librarians on Publib and other discussion lists discovered in the first week of March that none of them had received the February 14 “swimsuit issue” of Sports Illustrated. Inquiries to publisher Time Warner eventually resulted in a statement […] » about 200 words
The Viagra and Cialis knock-offs being pushed in so much of the spam I get may be directed at things the recipients feel very personally about, but the message itself has never been personal. Well, it had never seemed personal to me, anyway, until now. Clay Shirky pointed out what I’ve started to see, and […] » about 500 words
delicious = Endoeavor’s course content integrator
OpenSearch = metasearch
Flickr = digital collections management
Above, Matthew Batchelder’s diagram showing the correct relationship of the internet, awesomeness, ninjas, pirates, dinosaurs, zombies, robots, and Gummi Bears (though, where are the superheros you might ask). Gummi Bears, awesomeness, chart, diagram, dinosaurs, matthew batchelder, ninjas, pirates, robots, the internet, zombies » about 100 words
I was supposed to go to the what I think is a Google Apps roadshow this morning, but I was also supposed to be at code4lib this weeks and be doing a dozen other things that didn’t happen. So, in lieu of that I’m reading up on the company’s first new business strategy since Adsense. […] » about 300 words
Encyclopodia – the encyclopedia on your iPod
IE7 and OpenSearch Autodiscovery
Information Management Now: Social Tagging For The Enterprise
Middlebury College is proud to have taken a stand against Wikipedia this year:
Members of the Vermont institution’s history department voted unanimously in January to adopt the statement, which bans students from citing the open-source encyclopedia in essays and examinations.
Without entirely dismissing Wikipedia — “whereas Wikipedia is extraordinarily convenient and, for some general purposes, extremely useful…” — the decision paints it with a broad brush — “as educators, we are in the business of reducing the dissemination of misinformation.” (Though a site search reveals it’s frequently cited there.)
Chandler Koglmeier’s op-ed response in the student newspaper, however, was rather pointed:
[Professor Waters’ states that] “the articles can improve over time, but there’s always an [emphasis on] change rather than something finalized.” I wasn’t aware that knowledge was a static thing. […] I think you should talk to our nation’s medical schools. They seem to have advanced beyond the world of Hippocrates and the Greek doctors in the past few years and might be teaching something that is dangerous.
Intrigue, indeed. My question is how will Middlebury students be taught to evaluate their information sources after they leave college? Who will tell them what to trust then?
This sign on a computer in the Paul A. Elsner Library at Mesa Community College caught Beth‘s eye and garnered a number of comments, including one from theangelremiel that seems to mark one of the most elusive aspects of Library 2.0. they know that none of their classes require gaming Excerpting the above as a […] » about 200 words
Kansas State University‘s Digital Ethnography group — “a working group of Kansas State University students and faculty dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography” — posted this visual explanation of Web 2.0. It’s by Michael Wesh, assistant professor of cultural anthropology, and it rocks.
Text is unilinear…when written on paper.
Digital text is different.
Hypertext can link.
With form seperated from content, users did not need to know complicated code to upload content to the web.
Who will organize all of this data? We will. You will.
Digital text is not longer just linking information…Web 2.0 is linking people…people sharing, trading, and collaborating.
We’ll need to rethink a few things…
Thanks to the Google Operating System blog for bringing this to my attention.
Right there are the beginning of Esther Dyson‘s ten-year-old book, Release 2.1, she alerts us to the Web 2.0 challenge we’re we’re now beginning to understand: The challenge for us all is to build a critical mass of healthy communities on the Net and to design good basic rules for its public spaces so that […] » about 300 words
ALA Midwinter 2007, ALCTS Future of Cataloging presentation: Collaboration, Not Competition. (slides: QuickTime & PDF.) Stir my writings on The Google Economy and Arrival of the Stupendous post with frame four of the ALCTS And The Future Of Bibliographic Control: Challenges, Actions, And Values document: In the realm of advanced digital applications, we are interested […] » about 300 words
ALA Midwinter 2007, ALCTS Cataloging Norms Discussion Group presentation: Metadata and faceted searching: an implementation report based on WPopac. (slides: QuickTime & PDF.) Faceted searching such as that made possible by WPopac (look for the new name soon) improves the usability of our systems and findability of our materials, but also puts new demands on […] » about 400 words
The above circulated a while ago, but I post it today to recognize this special ALA Midwinter edition of Casual Fridays. And while I’m not suggesting libraries will or should become 21st century dance halls, Lichen’s title, “1.0 -> 2.0, the video” has some resonance here.
And on the theme of music videos that tell stories comes Miranda’s Yo Te Dire, which I like both because it’s funny and because I’m instantly attracted to foreign pop culture.
Okay, before anybody inquires if I’ve gone into boat sales or brings up the BisonBoom story again, I need to ask for your understanding. It’s not that I’ve been spending my days trying to pick out just the right shade of red for my new Corvette (really I’m not, it’s the Lotus I like), or […] » about 300 words
Watch this video a few times. It’s funny. It’s catchy. It’s kitsch. Now watch it a few times more. The ad, for a Lada VAZ 2109, appeared sometime in the 90s. It reflects the influence of MTV and other cultural imports from the West, but the details betray it’s command economy provenance. The snow appears […] » about 400 words
In pointing this out to me, Lichen noted “if this isn’t evidence that Web2.0 is an undeniable force, I don’t know what is.” “This,” of course, is Time Magazine‘s announcement of the 2006 Person of the Year. And the answer is you. Yes, you. Michael Stephens was right on top of it, pulling this quote: […] » about 300 words
I’ve been following WP2.1 development, but Aaron Brazell’s post in the development blog wrapped up a lot of questions all at once.
The short story is that 2.1 is going to bring some really good changes that will allow more flexibility and better optimization of WPopac. Of the four changes Brazell names, the last two, the addition of the post_type column and a change in usage of the post_status column, are where the money is.
I’m awaiting the final release of 2.1 before building the necessary changes into WPopac, but the benefits will be worth it.
The press release: Making Libraries Relevant in an Internet-Based Society PSU’s Casey Bisson wins Mellon Award for innovative search software for libraries PLYMOUTH, N.H. — You can’t trip over what’s not there. Every day millions of Internet users search online for information about millions of topics. And none of their search results include resources from […] » about 600 words
Perhaps it’s just because I’m in the air again today, but I’m fascinated by Aaron Koblin‘s animation of aircraft activity, illustrating the pulsing, throbbing movements of aircraft over North America. Nah, this is hot. You’ll love it too.
Also worth checking out: Koblin’s other works.